Agni
Her Eyes
There is a green pasture in Italy
littered with Vestal columns
-broken and profane
they point back to a community
that no longer remains.
That greenness surrounds obsidian
with its verdant Sylvan bloom
with more authority than kings or even Gods.
The center of this garden recalls a deeper doom:
A rock from which flight is impossible
The child of Tarpeia’s womb.
And when she blinks poetry is silenced.
Her Skin
There is Dresden porcelain in her skin
forged from Augustus’ private stock
of the cleanest white and softest soft.
Her heart beats shyly within -
I trace the master sculpture with an eye
if not a hand. A brief passing by
to sooth the conquering demand.
When we touch, she averts her eyes.
Her Lips
She never blows bubbles but
She chews cinnamon gum
So her words come with the distinct taste
of sacrifice from Volcanal.
It is a brief reminder that she is ancient
and naked somewhere under there.
Sometimes she sings to the delight of the world
and her heart pours from her mouth
with the molten golden words.
She doesn’t smoke because it gives you wrinkles.
Her Hands
Her hands have the curious habit
of touching everything -
They are constant vigilant explorers
searching for any light
to break the thick dense fog
of unimaginative reality
that clouds her sight.
They are so cold even in summer
that I can only imagine they search
for some towering lighthouse
to steal some warmth.
Ten tiny promethean digits
that can tickle ivory or children.
She plays with her gold ring when she’s nervous.
Her
And could you imagine that
Heraclitean furnace at her core.
The way she worries that it
burns out of control.
She is anxious often but never sad
like energy itself
and to look at her you would never
understand how she couldn’t adore
the way she laughs uncontrollably,
sighs absent-mindedly or
snores only when she sleeps alone
and presses her pillow so tightly to her face.
She prefers the company of humans.
The Speaking Space
We
Talk over dinner
over and over
like the river
or an ocean sound.
shhhhhh.
We
Missed out,
Nobody is around
under, under
the skin
We begin
to speak in spaces
sounding places
silent faces
beside and besides
ourselves.
Silence
is a collection
stolen. We find ways
to steal each other’s time
in the speaking space
within me, within
you.
Eating
only to be empty.
Something is lost
between us. Between us
Age clings like frost.
On and on
goes infinity.
Time
the agent of change
puts me above you
and now the spaces
without you
can’t speak.
They can’t speak
without you.
A Piece of My Mind
I
sit refusing
sand particles become me
they sit refusing
shape.
Ages ago
water broke us down
from the whole
words, waters,
baptism
the once united
now claim their
nothing individual
dry, dry, dried by the sun
They are one.
I
sit wet
from rain
we are now mud
together
what is left of the rock
is the key
and I am the lock
shhhh says the
falling rain
just be.
Aristotle’s Romantics
Shattered porcelain
like unburied artifacts
look like clouds on a hardwood sky.
She broke it, she is broken.
Standing by the dishwasher
her fingers between teeth
to prevent tears.
The curls of her black hair
bounce in the rhythm of her tapping foot.
A treatise could be written about her stance,
a theory constructed out of her clothes,
she feels the tension she has on her self.
Somewhere beneath strained breathing
she is porcelain ready to break.
The setting sun behind her
represents change, renewal, and hope.
Flooding through the kitchen window
it casts her into a shadow on the floor.
It isn’t until I draw close that I feel her heat,
see the blood on her olive skin,
until I discover the cause.
My fingers on her chin give a new trajectory -
her eyes no longer on the floor.
She laughs while waving a dish towel in surrender.
That little porcelain plate was more than it appeared to me.
It was children yet unborn, it was bills yet unpaid,
it was first love, it was heart break,
it was the collected poems of our life together,
it was life unburied.
Watching Woman
She made short pauses in speech,
of the short this was the shortest
because she was in great haste to stop.
Her eyes widened to catch words from the air
felt fragmentations were in reach -
that is what called her to stop, and wait.
Shrapnel remaining from some big bang
tiny seconds ticked and removed from clocks
separation around her, and therein a history.
This moment, still defined as an instant
had refocused those sky light eyes
into beacons at sea, or trees in a garden.
More like trees in a garden actually,
tall twins reaching above the rest and whose
fruit would fall like blessings and curses on the land.
While one eye saw life and goodness all around
the other cupped its tender wisdom and through it
saw the naked truth – barren reality devoid of fragmented seconds.
The shortest silence was a complicated one.
Perhaps why she filled it so fast, with last second pleasantries.
But she and I both knew of time’s brief embrace with her.
Clarity aggressively inserted itself into her perceptions
revealing the destructive nature of creation – the circle
around her pupil – the circle around her eye.
But such circles were horrifying, and assaulted her sense of romance
it was the dance of endless endings. Her shoulders dipped from the weight
- her eyes squinted against the harsh light of beacons too bright.
Her hands tensed and gathered the white fabric of her clothes.
The climax of the instant was at hand and within the folds of delicate silk
a tremendous strain – a tempering – a steel heart.
She blinked and straightened her clothes thinking I hadn’t noticed a thing.
She pushed away a strand of hair from those glorious but tortured eyes.
“You looked lost for a second.” I said.
“I was just thinking of you.” She replied.
Every Year…
We never intend our voice to be a mirror
after a year. Writing is a release -
that means don’t come back.
To cry the tear of a reader
to pose a question – to describe a lack.
The cocoon sealed green opens
and the history of those people
is a stream reflecting light.
Water isn’t without connotation
words are not without denotation -
and thus an elderly man can come across
the stream he crossed in youth
sockless and happy -
and feel nothing but sorrow at
the sameness of it all.
In time he will build a bridge
to never look upon the waters again.
The bridge will bear his name
the name on the lips of those who pass
with their children in hand.
Small girls laugh at the wind carrying seeds
as mothers sneeze loudly.
The young boys pull with all their might
against the weight of their fathers
toward the edge of the path.
For one second they want to see the river
as it passes through the trees,
under the bridge,
and on into the horizon.
Victory
Ours are the only lights in downtown Worcester
Electricity is a fragile touch at 40 miles an hour.
These are the nights of youth for young inventers
With drinks and smiles, like us, and the three ladies at the bar.
Simplicity is the power to resist holding tongues,
to ignore ethical necessity, to allow change to rout
the phalanx of lightless office buildings. We’re the ones
made of stories, eyes of hallow grounds, we’re figuring out
distance means being flightless in our feelings and honesty
means being selective with our sounds
Our night was filled with worlds of swirling smoke,
poetry if not honesty, and memories that fade like city lights.
Ash falls on our outfits, burning from our cigars as we spoke
about health nuts who would never live thru these Worcester nights
with any sanity or soul. We talk about where we’d rather be;
Israel, Germany, Florence (with a lady sleeping next to me) -
But mostly we talk about going back in time and just doing this more often.
Outside, a different building, a different person, a different whole watches
through eyes without curtains too dark to see.They count off
ten orange cones marking a different route home. In their subconscious
they’ll recall 3 men exiting a bar who entered as boys at a birthday party.
Their shared victory would be timeless as they drove back in the dark.
Stockholm Syndrom
Inspiration is back
to steal and reveal
I hope my hands don’t fail my eyes
or the heart they inform
because the brain they conceal
Doesn’t trust our conclusions.
It can’t know what they know.
First Impressions are back.
familiar things are new
as if more real than real
words made material
A girl’s hair, the wind, a moving car,
A symbol, a sign, a detour
they’re being metaphorical.
Imagination is back
like lemonade on a summer day
quenching but conditional
sweet before sour.
Its always eventually sour
like a last kiss
(that’s the one they never talk about).
Impersonations are back
trade one face for another
because nothing is really new.
Besides which it’s easy,
and unavoidable.
Was I supposed to believe
I’m the only one she talks to?
Temptation is back
to call me a king or prophet
to offer me alchemy for ink
gold for words
greatness for loneliness
exile to paradise.
The devil has inspiration too.
Inspiration is back
the called lover in chains
welcomes the captivity
for a change of pace
there is a tenderness in her embrace
despite its inescapability.
Love devouring. Love devoured.
Nitty Gritty
I
I have never felt a baby kick
I know only my mother tongue
I have never lost a loved one to tuberculosis
nor a nation to exile
nor my life to myself.
I have lost faith to philosophy
only to arrive at a new faith.
My generation has never been tyrannized
or oppressed – despite my contemporaries’ belief.
I don’t understand how a tree or stream
Is more eternal or beautiful than a woman’s body
though I know very well that a woman’s eye
loves a flower because she can see herself in it.
I lie to get honesty. I am silent because I wish
to echo. I think speech is a symbol, humans are images,
and humanity is a metaphor. I think people are foolish to fear
what they do not know – but I fear death.
II
I like the smell and feel of dirt,
old newspapers and books, basements and babies.
I read Plato like the Bible
and the Bible like a dialogue.
I talk to myself in mirrors.
Sometimes I lie. Usually I just make sounds
I don’t let anybody else hear.
I love women but don’t understand them.
Though I think if I did, I wouldn’t love them.
Why such graceful ghosts would ever attach themselves
to this nitty gritty world is beyond philosophy.
Why these pure patrons would bestow on envious nature
such honors when waterfalls and whistling winds
cross within them more perfectly is beyond this world.
III
I have written. Now I am empty.
Having removed myself and others.
Again to the trough of reality
with my sister and brothers -
A waterfall of shifting mirrors.
Fullness calls, emptiness cries.
I claw the nitty gritty to be near her -
I wield fables and lies.
She doesn’t mind my voodoo
she likes to smell and feel
babies and basements too -
She wields satin and steel.
I write, she cuts paper to the floor
creators and creations never more.
A Fish Would Not Feel Wet
No footprints, no roads, and no straight lines.
A clear glass world – no windows no doors.
What metaphor could reach a goldfish
what story about travel could pull his soul.
Does he feel the devil in his watery world
as he plays their passions like a lute
or do they just swim in circles knowing
neither whim nor will?
Does tragedy reach a goldfish
does time stand still. Does he know
the plight of his people abroad?
Does he feel the confines of the bowl?
I watch and nod. Wondering
what makes a goldfish whole.
There is flight underwater
unimaginable, indefinable, caged flight
and in that fantastic, freeing movement
there is something small, a floor to put
your castle on, an entrance and an exit,
a golden scale bikini, a miscellaneous shimmer,
a God.
