After Reading Ven Majeti's Poem "Affection"

This wistful, feel-good poem
reminds me in a direct way
of how the treasure
of Allison Skye-at-that-age
the open-eyed wonder, the talker, dancer
unflinching devotee of her parental
units -- the experience of her
still inside me, of how her advent
changed my life.

And, always alongside her
the calm, simple child-wisdom
of the scholar-at-two, the cuddly
hugger Arianne Michelle, who never
failed to love each and every
teacher, who joked with her friend
Molly in HS about how they'd become "slackers" -
when there could never be
anything further from the truth.
And how she thanked me
for helping her grow up
by leaving.

These both stay with me, their
stories inside me, their names
on my lips daily, until I
breathe my last.

My friend, I like how you launched me
to these thoughts, and didn't try
to do too much in your poem, unlike
some gushy ramblers.

---

October, 2003

Ice Storm

It was 1948, and Ingrid
was playing Joan and my
parents were still sleeping
in the same bed (did they ever?)
and eventually, four years later it took
because like a freakin' miracle
she shot me out into a world
of bad weather. Nobody
much noticed at Queens
Memorial where they still wore
those hats & uniforms, and my mother
complained later of how she nearly
died having a baby, and how, much later
the nurse who never finished nursing
complained that these nurses
will wear anything these days!
Yup. 3:15 a.m. in a March ice storm.
And there I am, looking up
at the one and only world I knew:
my Ma.

After Reading Brion Berkshire's "How I Became Beautiful"

Standing at the edges, the forest green
shadowing face, head bent, hands
out of sight beneath the flare
of sleeve. You know
I am here, listening. The frosty plumes
of breath, occasional reminders
of life mixing, as they go, with fog
give me away. As my silent steps
take me slowly toward
the center of your creation, I mutter
Has a bulb been invented, that,
when switched on, will emit dark?
You have set my morning skating
along the river with your word.
I'm grateful.

The Mirage Beckons

Poem published in chapbook, and in
From East To West: bicoastal verse

Long Ago and Far Away: A Rant in Four Diminishing Reverse Revisions

Exile them all!
- Plato



fourth



Crescent of shame: diaspora

of blue wanderers. On flag staffs,

they swing, nooses of ice

finally arrive from the Ninth Circle.






third


Stowed on ships, evacuated

from burning Crescent: diaspora

of blue wanderers. A remnant

lashed to flag staffs, swing from

tall buildings, necks in nooses of ice

sent up from the Ninth Circle.






second


A host of poets, artists,

musicians are stowed in Navy vessels, removed

from the burning Crescent: diaspora

of blue wanderers. State approved

editors lash themselves to flag staffs, swing out

from tall buildings, necks in nooses of ice

brought up from the Ninth Circle.






first


An unnumbered host

of poets, artists, musicians are stowed

in Navy vessels, removed

from the burning Crescent of Jazz, spirited away: diaspora

of blue wanderers.

Hear the mobs of perfect mutants jeer

Leave us clichéd fools!

Poetry does nothing!

While editors of the state

lash themselves to flag staffs and swing out

from tall buildings, necks in nooses of ice

brought up from the Ninth Circle.





original


A thousand poets line the avenue, their

corpuscular fluids river down from nails,

from sword slashes, vermillion Mississippis flood

Deltas of damning passion. Their crucifixes tower

above a taunting rabble, He didn't use language

we could understand! Her womb is barren

of images! He used the word soul!

Garish faces leer, hands poke

teacher sticks into wounds. He didn't read

books bearing the imprimateur of our holy

POET LAUREATE; who, even now, is pushed down

in the street, forced to lick dust. The Philosopher King fuels

the true church's thinkers, who turn Dialogues

into a bible, bent on banishing those whose only transgression

is the love of beauty in all its forms. An innumerable host

of poets, artists, musicians are stowed

in Navy vessels, removed

from the burning Crescent of Jazz, spirited away: diaspora

of blue wanderers.

Hear the mobs of perfect mutants jeer

Leave us clichéd fools!

Poetry does nothing!

While editors of the state

lash themselves to flag staffs and swing out

from tall buildings, necks in nooses of ice

brought up from the Ninth Circle.

Long Island, Summer of '70

Debbie lived in the next block
and I saw her once or twice
a year when vacation brought me
home. We stowed our blankets, climbed
into the Bug one Sunday, and roared off
to Fire Island. Spent our few hours
in the sun talking about friends
and school and teachers and
experiences and books: a never-to-be
repeated afternoon. Her presence
was unnerving, in spite of my being
two years older, more traveled. Maybe it was
her confident manner, her ease
at conversation, the way she lit
a cigarette, or filled
that bikini. One afternoon
in a long summer of solitude, spent
listening to vinyl records, writing poems,
reading Bradbury, Cohen, and devouring
every line of Papa's I could lay
my hands on. The idyllic laze
of summer before college, before
beginning my own
great awakening.

Ink

His needle brings
the clarifying pain, spreads
the shades
of blue-black and ochre in short strokes
caressing epidermis
until she moans, faints, hours
tick by, days pass
until the cloak of many colors
is finished, he never ceases as hot pricks
crackle, and at last she is
the Illustrated Woman of her own dreams,
dressed in petals and feathers, until
only hands and navel, neck
and mouth remain exposed.

If I Were To Write A Poem . . .

If I were to write a poem about Truth, Beauty, Freedom and ____*

a poem with integrity

It would be filled with images
of healing, near the bloodgraffitiexcrementspatteredwalls
of some sand-blown ghetto, where a child
peers up from her hole in the rubble
and sees a withered woman, bent
under her hood. This child, though dazed
by hunger's necrosis, observes
pencils of light radiating
from the tattered edge of the crone's cloak,
and the waif, unafraid and instantly full
of wonder and desire, pulls on the cloak, and pulls
and pulls, and begins
to sing with the voice she might have had
if the bullets hadn't torn her larynx away . . .
and as she sings she yanks down
the once osteoporosis-bent hag's covering
and the woman straightens, grows taller
grows, up, to burst
from her abaya, healing light floods
the street, and she grows to such a height
her voice fills the whole country with a song . . .

that's the beginning of the poem I would write
if this pen contained a shred
of Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and ____ *





____________________________________

* from Moulin Rouge, lines written by
Baz Luhrmann & Craig Pearce, and spoken
by Toulouse who is cut-off, mid-sentence by the Duke.

Butterfly Garden

Monarch larvae ravage scarlet Milkweed
I let them eat
in order to see bejeweled green bags hang
from Ligustrum
and Normandy Poplar. Porter weed grow dense, long
snaking flower spikes
wave, Lantana build mounds, Allamanda green up and burst yellow.
Zinnias bow
emitting bursts of orange, red finally brown. I pop their heads, rub
seed into the breeze
over mulched soil. Vinca armies fill in the lower story,
and giant Milkweed
stand at center alongside white Fountain Grass. The fans
of Washingtonians
rattle like native dancers among the Ruby bushes. One
lone Black Magic
Elephant Ear erupts on the far side of pebbles and pavers,
saying “grow me
some shade,” as Hibiscus huddle in the vee by the door, bursting
like red-heart
suns. I imagine Autumn, as a late-Summer Spring. You
sit nearby on teak bench, unfolding
azure Lotus, a gaze
to seal fate, your lips
the nectar blooms butterflys crave.

Who Is This Codger?

after Billy Collins, on a bad day





I've considered suicide
who hasn't? Taking up an addiction,
or at least maintaining a respectable
blood alcohol level. Hate it some days
knowing I'm not wired that way. When I cast a line
for the outrageous, I hear:
ride the bike to Mongolia, bring
home a Coyote Ugly's dancer to meet
the wife, buy weapons, learn to
monitor the neighbors with hi-tech
spy toys, go huntin' with Rodg. Re-visit
that clothing optional beach era, be Rabbit
Redux, try out a techno rave. None of it
works. I'm inept, dammit. This gray
dullness is my forté, dirt and asphalt
my closest friends, I find that fees
must be paid to convince anyone
of my prowess. Where did it all go?
Who is this codger I've become?

Veering Off

Out in Rye, four miles beyond
the last subdivision, past Herefords
and tomato farms, the gravel veers
left before Rutland Road banks
on its final stretch to the lake. Highest point
in Manatee: Oak Knoll.
No Trespassing. At the Parrish General Store
feed and boots, 'lectrical sockets and tools
line shelves, but locals shake their heads. Maps
hint, amateur historians speculate
graves, and a village less than a ruin, vanished.
So many of these towns come
and go, once listed on a census, a ghostly name
flickering on the world-wide web, even as
their existence, forgotten.

Twenty-One Diaries

In an Athens store, full of incense
and Buddhas, I bought another
blank book, thick with soft paper

dotted by chips of bark, woven
in Balinese banana rope, bound by
Sumatran hands. The writing box

in the corner of my loft already at
capacity, empties outnumbering filled.
She never collected empties,

her mother confides, as she puts away
the left-over graduation pie. She wrote
in them until used up, one after another,

every year, squirreling them away in her
closet, until twenty fill a plastic tub.
They remain in Georgia, under a bed.

My moleskin begins on Turtle Cove Lane,
during months spent closing the New York
house, its well-fed end in sight.

Today's the Day

Before

Steve calls last night after arrival
from Hawaii, Uncle Sam gives him a weekend
in Florida. We're off to collect
the world traveller
in Tampa, take that bastard Interstate-4 up
to the Garden City. Later in the evening, Boo
will step up and receive
her sister's diploma during graduation
at the school named for an orange. They say
the first recipient of the memorial scholarship
will be announced after the slide show.
I hate this shit.



After

How it really was: bumper to bumper
for three hours. Classmates cheer
her memory, a crowd of her beautiful friends
embrace us. Victor speaks of the smile, the energy
the enthusiasm. The sister declines, so
the father takes the long walk (what did I do
to deserve a standing ovation?). Sometimes
your children humble you with their love. Angela
leads us to the Olympia for some of the best food
on the planet, the dancers stand tradition
on its head, we raise a toast
to the LoveLife Girl. Finally found Patrick
in a parlor on Colonial, so aunt and uncle can become
the newest members of the order
of the hidden tattoo. Back home
in the country by 3 a.m.
What's to hate?

To Ven ~ en route to India

I'm Not Your Goddamn Brother
shouts the inscription on one Harley --
laughter -- catching in my throat.

It's rare to be called brother
with most of us jaded, aloof. Once
it was easy, illusions tossing us leafy

green, together. Later, the dashed
ideal, the collapse of rusty armor
reunited us around our losses

like survivors of shipwreck. Today
solitude
is my only brother.

Halloween Masquerade

In our charnel house of horrors, we
afix our masks and strike
from shadow bags full
of hostile aggression, break
mirrors, slink howling
into the night. And this, facile
practice. WW III
even now begun; we are
oblivious. Imagination morphs
the scene: everyone scrambles
into the street at noon, abandoning
jobs, school, important things
that must be done, clothing dusted
with Afghan sand and Pakistani rubble
cut on the shards of a lost
Sumerian trove, we dash
into the street like Forrest
like the mad and unmedicated,
sprint as if the hornets of Hamburg
give chase, as if the firewardens
of Dresden reach to pile us
with the other bodies. Or, in Kassel,
city without a face, home
of Brothers Grimm where 10,000
were gassed in their basements
as four-hundred and forty-four
Allied bombers turn the tide.
10.22.43.
Fifty-Million civilians and military
died in the last world war, I've lost
count since. Apparently,
we believe our methods of controlling
the sociopaths, and the children
with guns who obey them,
is working. Run Forrest,
Run!

Spring of Springs

Saturday, three hours
of sinking steps in soft, clod-strewn soil
behind green tiller, at times
imagining a sled
of Malamutes, I the lone musher. No drift
to fantasy allowed -- signs
augur in the loam, a piquant tang clamors
on the wind, verses write themselves
in the trees. I come to you
with what the earth intones.

Spring is imminent.

Whether, for you, it arrives in a month
or six, spring is
on the move, anticipate its arrival.
For we will say of this spring
in years to come: it was
the finest spring of our lives.

We will speak of it in the kitchens,
and in the pubs, whisper its memory
in kirkyards and on the greens,
we will bear witness to the spring of springs.

It is said, that when a people
have lost their vision, when a land
no longer has a future, when a nation
offers up their royals of peace to be hung
in the square, when the past
is all that remains, then
it is enough, and will suffice.

When children ask
remember to tell them the stories, tell them
what was lost, take them to a place
beyond the melted asphalt and steel
where they might listen
for any word from the earth.

Ride Far Enough

said the motorcycle shaman, long
enough to learn
what the road will teach you. Speed
is easy, the measured pace:
skill.

Posthumous Pardon

Churlish, and tickles ironic-bone
even to say the words together, aloud. A lot of good
it does Lena Baker, fried in '45,
a first in Jawja. So here we are,
and the state decides
to believe her 60 years
late. But hey, how could a
black woman
have had a chance with those peers?

On Listening Again To Marvin's 13th #1

. . .when blue tear drops are falling . . .*





Love loves
the healing

of its own
dis-ease-ment

the dew shot
being reason

enough for
doing anything

worth beat.
Well, yeah

momentarily
off in sax-

o-phone
reverie . . .

re-hearing
the mellowness,

the stirring

voice

that voice,
and there

in that space
of sound

always
the slices

of wonder, you
remind me

to seek, soul
saint, mysterè

of the cave
of secrets.

I desire to go
there, as I may.



_______________________________
* M. Gaye, D. Ritz & O. Brown, 1982.

Olbers' Paradox

Diligent students find eight
out of ten texts still answer

Heinrich's Newtonian
challenge, incorrectly -- Why,

he asked, is the night sky black?
Before he died, Poe penned

an answer in Eureka: when you
gaze skyward into the heavens

expecting uniform luminosity
and instead, great voids appear

between stars, it's because you stare
into the immense distance

of a yet-to-be-illuminated past.




________________________________________
Doug Knowlton, 2007


with thanks to Michio Kaku for his wonderful story in Parallel Worlds.

Nelumbo nucifera

I am a drab Fritillary, proboscis
lanky, leg pouches
distended with sun nectar.

You are the alabaster blossom
unfurled, patient
in your thousand mirrors

of dew. Awkward in my
greedy dive, missing stamen
tumbling, belly up

wings swamped, stuck
backward to mucilage
petalwise.

No Poet

. . . To it all lines or lesser gauds belong.



There is no one great poet
anymore, none
of stature above all
the rest -- wasn't it always an illusion
anyhow, that such a figure
ever existed? Only
this new consciousness
remains, of how we write
linked in communitas, the one poem
while the eerie sound
of Whitman's great wheel grinds
in the background.

---

- epigraph from Juan at the Winter Solstice, by Robert Graves.

Neil and the Multiverse

It was the summer of '69. Transfixed
by those black and white images on the tube
at a Nurse's dorm in Stoneham, never suspecting
foul play or media artifice, we knew
it wasn't SciFi. Hairs rose
on our necks as we viewed boot prints, heard
the scratchy voice, One small step . . . and turned
to look back over Neil's shoulder at our tiny
selves, all one on the blue sphere. Since 2003*, we stand
outside space and time, agog with a vision
of fluid universe amoebas, where
both Genesis and Nirvana co-exist. Like John said,
no religion. And yet, we fiercely clutch
our attachments to certainty, cultivate devotion
to light, and persist in a tradition of keeping secrets
from the children. Or else, we would
spread the word, and turn
all the spired black holes into museums.

---

* ". . . in February 2003 . . . The WMAP (Wilkinson microwave anisotropy probe), named after pioneering cosmologist David Wilkinson and launched in 2001, has given scientists, with unprecedented precision, a detailed picture of the early universe when it was a mere 380,000 years old. The colossal energy left over from the original fireball that gave birth to stars and galaxies has been circulating around our universe for billions of years. Today, it has finally been captured on film in exquisite detail by the WMAP satellite, yielding a map never seen before, a photo of the sky showing with breathtaking detail the microwave radiation crated by the big bang itself, . . . Never again will astronomers look at the sky in the same way again.
. . . . the WMAP data reveals that the universe was born in a fiery explosion that took place 13.7 billion years ago." -- from Parallel Worlds, by Michio Kaku.

Jay Dead Blues

previously published in Spit Toon


on the shoulder of the road, a bird
called idealism,
or spirit,
or naiveté, oh precious naiveté
sings me, sings me
back my youth. You,
jaded? Hard to believe, you
who never followed the road
but loved those of us
who had, lived in
our stories, smiling million dollar smiles
at our lame jokes
laughing like one of the boys
even when punch lines
failed. I remember Richard
walkin' up to people on the green bowl of a campus
quoting oddly outrageous things in a stuffy accent, things
like Static being in the predicate form
is motion passed over into repose, or telling
Pecos Bill stories and imitating Elmer Fudd
before anyone had even heard of Robin Williams, spinning
off some Heideggerian one-liner while two
slightly tilted, decidedly un-theo-logical students
butchered some Dead song,
and then, he'd remind me
don't let it bring you down, man
it's only castles burning
all the while your bright shade by my side.
He called unexpectedly one night, eight years later
while I was in the throes of that final
Tennessee waltz, called
from some undisclosed location
and asked me to give him a reference and forget
all his Owsley tales, and stories about the Sonoran Desert
so he could join
some improbable fantasy organization
he called the NSA. Never heard from him
again. A rusty needle scratches along a groove
as The Last Time I Saw Richard plays, and though
our man wasn't in Detroit in '68, like Joni's,
it was like he was
in that song. And you, you've got
a few to write, too, if only
you weren't so good at out running the blues. Let 'em
come 'round once in awhile, dammit, let 'em howl, find
a dark café down in the delta, feel something
and blow the dust
off that piano.

Growing Old Fashioned Love Song

Doorways wax rare
windows shuttered,
coffee decaffineated
toast seldom buttered.

Blood thick, sluggish
strictures multiply
hearts weighed by gravity
limbs tangled, awry.

Please be discreet
I'm only mortal,
anneal the walls
Love is not a portal.

Giacomo's Marinara

We are the stars reaching out to contemplate ourselves.
- Carl Sagan


This isn't about poetry.

This is about Giacomo's marinara,
and how he brought the zest
of Italian Bronx to Sarasota.

This is about the vision
you may have as a Pilgrim
at Tinker Creek, or as one
led through hell by Virgil.

This is how we listen
for a child's first words,
or last . . .

as our fingers play stars.

And this is how we breathe in
the eros of high meadow
lavender.

This is the loop between artist
and audience; how both shape
a thing created. And

this could be about how we go down
newly uncovered holes, down
into guano-dank pits
to haul up a self. How
figures are made
to rise
from the ground.

Freezing Time; Preserving Angels

Poems are
good at that, yes
and we are
time-
stoppers, breath-
protractors, clock-
breakers, past-
presenters, action-
slow mo ers, we can give
chattycellphoners
an adrenalin rush
of speech-
less-
ness, turn heads
toward
the smallest bird, and
make entropy
pleasurable, slowness studies
the new gifted program
in the schools.

ex hor tation (nobody's bitch)

alt: Whore ta tory



Disclose, divulge
be the redactor, the explicator
of your own text, revisionista
of the real real. Confess
eggs zee stahnce, be the homo-
logon of your anti-, sleuth
of singularity. Hip Da da-ist of hop.
No bland gruel
in your bowl, poet, no!
You be the hero
of the heuristic, Hermes
of the meta-rational
your labyrinth of word lore gores
the behemoth:
industry. Beware, nonetheless,
the disease down in the pit
named angst. Narcissisma waits
to devour your ink.

All the Poetry I can Muster

is woven in a garden of lights, through
the arbor, to the right

a year of darkness
gives way to fog, and day

breaking gold.

precatio de paganus*

You're not there
you're in here, and
in the soil that stains
these hands. You're only
the ground
of all being as long as
this thin crust
doesn't turn to sand. Deep
beneath the deserts
pipes tap black resevoirs
in the petra where first palms
and microorganisms
decaying fell. I tell you nothing
you don't all ready know. Your minions
on both sides of the earth
fight to capture
the hydrophobic rewards. Feeble rituals
of watering hose
and spade, all I have
to call on that which is greater
to awaken a few.

---

*precatio de paganus - prayer of a pagan. In its oldest sense, pagan meant farmer, rustic, outlander, servant of the earth.

aMused Confessional

Asclepia draw her

from travels abroad

she dances on wind

and comforts me

with beauty, there is

no saving needed

in her world of meta

morphic cycles, nothing

but respite and nectar

and hosts to hang

her creations on

while I watch

and breathe.

What I Miss is the Rage

You missed the revolution
and learned How to Spot
a Dangerous Man. Writing

glib, clichéd, wrapped
in the silk skirts of a world
before the war to end all wars.

Your friends, valiant
in their mastery of sexual
liberation, even as many

write with no ear for their true
mothers, miss hearing their sisters
who dove into the wreck,

the mothers and sisters
who wrote and lived the story
of the great suffering gone before.

Life Is

what happens as I write
about something else

the hibiscus peak
on this 24th of January, promises
of an increase in floribundance

we swim in eighty degree
sun-spangled blue, breathe
air scented with Star Jasmine

I want more than I need

You, reader, will not like it
when I say
poets of distraction

our cheery collusion spun
to obfuscate
the isness of being

I've Been Drinking, Yessiree

It's true. I admit it.
This is all about coming clean.
It's time to tally the flood of liquid
that's passed by my epiglottis. It's time.
And the count for yesterday is:
seven half-pints of Zephyr Hills, one
half-gallon of V-8 Tropical, one o.j.
two coffees, a coke, one Rolling Rock
one Yuengling, half a large Gatorade
two Edy's popsicles . . . after all
it's Florida. Hydrate
or die. I'll analyze the contents of my pipe
at another time.

In The Green Circle - 7/3/07

beneath the poe tree
a cloud of wings lift

me and I rise and converge
with all the poems

ever written, and my
heavy limbs fall away

as I hear your voices
your lyric cadence

frog throats and cricket
legs and the swale

full of water this night
before Independence.

In The Blue Garden

a found poem from The Great Gatsby




Five crates of oranges and lemons
a corps of caterers, and full orchestra.
The last swimmers emerge; in the garden
casual innuendo, enthusiastic meetings, the dalliance
of wanderers, confident girls. Men
dressed up in white flannels
ill at ease among swirls and eddies of people.
There was dancing. Out
in the Sound . . . a triangle of silver scales
the scene had changed before my eyes.
It was one of those rare smiles with a quality
of eternal reassurance, suddenly
above the echolalia of the garden, a voice.
Every one suspects himself guilty of at least one
of the cardinal virtues.

Fulumain Olwyn

Life is a rolling wheel
puffs of feathery wet,
a vulva of distraction
helixed in its satin

cocoon. Life smells
like Lakeview Jasmine
and moist folds. Where
does it end?

Nowhere. And though we
fibrillate our phalluses
to their climactic victory
and final atten-hut

juicing the hydraulics
with tadalafil and sildenafil
life is a whelk, and its spiral
galaxy portends a future

where our half of the species
is obsolete.

1984

While the girls, three and seven
watch old movie magic on the 19inch

inside the house of windows, I hack
vines with dull machete, unperturbed

by a sleepy copperhead rolling out
of thick undergrowth, the rusty

tower of my testy phantasms
rising above the house. Fifteen miles

up the road just beyond the AT trailhead
a young mountain lion rifles the packs

of four adolescent humans, relieved
to be nearing Georgia, they toss

their boots and clothes, and splash
into a waterfall pool; black crystal.

Spell Breaker

with thanks to Daniel Dennett





It was the same every night, flung
from a deep, untroubled sea of mer breasts out of the bed
in a hot flash fever, sweat slung into shoes
he races from the house as shells explode and shrapnel
shaves his head. High speed chases sans cinemagraphic angles
careen by, road rage ruffians turn their autos into rhinos, and formic shadows
of at least three sexes, leer from doorways, their organs
protrude laciviously to lure this trichotomized ant
of a man as he runs
until flames coruscate from his mouth
lungs afire. He would be a dragon if it weren't for that
intruder in his brain. Buildings sway and crash, sirens
scream his name, helicopters like weed whackers
thirsty for blood, circle with American Idol Spotlights. He must
go higher. Up the swaying stalks of salvation.
With no intervening screen crime scene investigators
are torn apart and eaten before his eyes
by packs of roving cannibals high on bacteria.
He can think of at least two reasons he shouldn't survive: he is to blame
and there is no antidote.
In his class, during the bright flourescent waking hours
they tell him "This is what you must expect at this stage.
Violence, easy sex in the alleys
(to be avoided of course), black and white choices, fear
and always the climbing. The next level
will be much different. You will advance quickly
if you do not suspend play. With any luck the great milk makers
will send you on to the feast." Every night the same menu
of madness, every night the lurid sounds, the heart-stopping
frenzy, the predictable slaughter, every night
except this night. Tonight, as he slows he recognizes a friend
on the road, back broken, multiple wounds, blood
gurgles in his throat. As he holds him he leans in
to listen to one last anomalous word. "Lan . . ."
"What?"
"Lance . . ."
"I can't understand you, say it again!"
"Lan (ehhhfffkk) cet."
"Lancet?"
The dying one nods, eyes rolling
and lifts his head one last time to intone a clue
into the man's ear:
"Lancet fluke."
Just then, the man expires, an alley door opens, and light
floods in from the happy happy life level.
"Am I waking or advancing? It doesn't matter
up is good."

Hang On

They'll be comin'
into our sacred grove, barging
banging, china

everywhere. Tables tipped
sculptured minimals shattered
into atoms, black boots

on necks, curved blades
taunting sedentary flesh.
It won't matter then

whether you loved Pound, or
thought he was a fascist
schizophrenic

whether you thrilled
when Allen sang
angelheaded hipsters burning

for the ancient heavenly connection
to the starry dynamo or
vomited a projectile fag!

You won't need to remove
your headphones, you'll feel
a sea of stallion hooves

thrumming up
through the floorboards.

Coyote on the Temple's Threshold

In front of the temple, Coyote
stands on two legs, regales the throng
with secret phrases from the smoky mysteries
beyond the veil, then sings
a nursery rhyme. As he ambles
up marble steps, sparks shoot from his paws.
Upon reaching the navel's pore
he announces, "I am neither outside
nor inside, see how they are one and the same."
He signals the listeners to join him as he rips
away the ornate curtain. Through an incense haze
acolytes with bloody rectums scurry, powerless
to cover their shame. In the next room, Vesta
kneels, face to Jupiter's groin. Before the altar
stewards of the temenos¹ light Luckys, and grin
like mischievous monkeys who've just
palmed a gold piece. Theotokos²
pulls a train, spread-eagled for her long line
of adherents. Even Maia
is there to scold Coyote
with, "you're just a figment
of the almighty's imagination."
The Trickster does not reply. Liminal
on the verge; between worlds. Meanwhile, a cold rage
grips the gathered, terminal illusions
drop away, they rush as one
to an apocalyptic eucharist
tearing their wizards limb from limb.




______________________________________________________

¹ Greek Temenos (from the Greek verb "to cut") (plural = temene) is a piece of land cut off and assigned as an official domain, especially to kings and chiefs, or a piece of land marked off from common uses and dedicated to a god, a sanctuary, holy grove or holy precinct: The Pythian race-course is called a temenos, in the sacred valley of the Nile, the Acropolis is the (temple of Pallas). For example, Olympia is the temenos of Zeus. There were many temene of Apollo, as he was the patron god of settlers. In religious discourse in English, Temenos has also come to refer to a territory, plane, receptacle or field of deity or divinity.

² Theotokos (Greek: translit. Theotókos) is a title of Mary, the mother of Jesus used especially in the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Eastern Catholic Churches. Its literal English translations include God-bearer and the one who gives birth to God; less literal translations include Mother of God.

Recollection

On one of those early trips to the Atlantic side, grinning
into a startling green-blue surf, pinching
asking is this real, did I finally make it

back to the sea? All those years
inland. Eyes squint, widen, cocking head
to notice surfers pointing south to a wave

only fifteen feet from their boards. Gesticulating
until a small crowd of us clump on the sand
pointing, mouths agape as

an impossible pair of triangular, curving gray leatherish fans
like horizontal kites, bend into the wind. They heave
an equally improbable flying gill-breather above foam

tips touching wave in concert across a twelve-foot span:
Manta. Announcing himself
as if he were our ancient divergent family connection

with the deep
ignoring those of us who chose to grow legs.
A sea-brother who opted for wings.

One year ago, two blunders back-to-back: wrote
"Medea Prepares for the Death of Her Children"
then a second, called "Watering" - and

when moderately pleased with their progress
clicked on "Add Post" with inexplicable absent-mindedness
forgetting to include titles, the second

only a week after the first. Clicking
back to an empty text box twice seemed
tragic or cautionary. I did take it as a sign

that a workshop in Miami could be
a good idea. What I didn't know then
was how the archaic chimera, sublime in its flight

would rise again, as if going to the beach for Cathy's
writing seminar would not be enough, that a divination
of primeval word-fire must be conjured

that a third place must be found, that a paladin's
grandiose flight, serene upon Rocinante,
rather than the groove

of earth-bound martyrdom,
could only suffice.

Mages and Minions

Along the drive to the store
there is a church at a central stoplight in Ellenton
which always seems to play a hymn on its carillion
while I wait for the change
from red to green. The bold announcement sign
displays six words of comfort before the vestry.
My etymology voice asks
Whence this word majority? How does it come to be here
fresh from the mouths of politicos, reframed
to celebrate inner peace? And so the logos meditation goes
my mind a butterfly flashing
gaily from milkweed to porterweed, happy not to have the tall, blue
volumes in the office at hand -
the breakdown begins
in mind's eye: first, witness a marching band
majors and majorettes, smartly signaling
musicians, next an officer in uniform
and my involuntary chuckle as I remember
Sgt. Major Minor at Fort Knox. And then I'm swept away
to some dustbin, mystical Persian country
where on a high platform Mages
gaze down upon their minions. Ah,
what sweet comfort, indeed,
to know God and one are a majority.

For Theo

Bouyeri says he doesn't feel
your mother's pain. If I were released he says,
I would do exactly the same thing. What moved me
to do what I did was purely my faith. This is
exactly what we were taught, wasn't it, to always
place faith and belief above feeling? Ayaan
Hirsi Ali's Submission story of mutilation
your last will and testament.

Pleasure Passing

At sunrise
passion's dew glistens
magnolia pearls

Cappuccino

A year has passed since she mixed
paints, and set a canvas frame
in the kitchen of the house
on Holly Hills Drive. Images in her mind

flickered; school no longer bound urges
to color. Sunlight shone on back porch
geraniums as she paused to snap a photo
of her grandmother, snoozing in a deck chair

beyond the door. The original hangs
next to the refrigerator; a duplicate
canvas, matted and framed, displayed
in a Florida bookstore. Merciless

calendars scatter months like pens, dropped
from the hands of arthritic scribes, no longer
certain in their vocation. I buy Drawing
for Dummies, and consider moving

to a parallel universe. Hurricanes busy us
with indoor lethargy, but when roads dry
she'll ride black rocket, arms around me
sissy bar or not, her voice the wind.

negative capability

Thursday night, Peng
wrote a poem for me
in writers group. Our seventy-eight-year-old
survivor of the Cultural Revolution
compares me to his favorite 9th century
Chinese poet. What can one say, beyond a bow? Just then
I thought of how some women
send me
plummetting back toward long island
regressing to a seventh-grade boy, unaware
of this now me as he picks up half-smoked cigarettes
flicked from cars along Park Avenue. Suddenly
we're trees in the garden
and there's no reaching out to touch
across our static universe, still, in rare concert
roots tangle.

La Vita Nuova

The crisis has arrived.
A hurricane as real as Charley is blowing down the door.
You will now become someone entirely new, nearly
unrecognizable to friends. You will reinvent yourself, shed
lizard skin, take a hero's path, accept
the artist you are, worry less and discover
the ageless concerns.
It may last a year, a decade
even a lifetime. No one can predict. Yet,
if you choose courage, dive deep, and greet
shadow as an old friend you may embrace
being. It will be as if you were viewing Earth
from the moon, pointing and saying: that,
that is my home.

A Poem for Peng

Your smile is an aura
of welcoming, it announces a person
of peace. You speak freely about your life
your work, and yet
it's easy to wonder what the years were like before
you left home. Your poems are pools
of knowing, refreshing oases
of wisdom. You say the word love
and a strange resonance rises
within me. You practice ancient arts
to relieve suffering, and teach Western students
about the thousands of years of folklore
and philosophy grown in your homeland. No one else
in memory resembles you. How did you arrive
at this serene way-station of being, even as
your world is divided? My gift to you
is permission to miss the bus, and as you leave
on your journey, I carry your face
in my mind's eye, the sound of your voice
in my inner ear.

From 27.47N -82.59W

Such refreshment, upon this early rising
and magnificently torn worth the peek
eyes peeled back with toothpicks. I liked

your shadow only and was reminded
even adverbs have meaning and music. It's good
to read yours again, and I imagine you

coffee mug in hand, always in pajamas, the roar
of water on rock in the distance, a Jessica Fletcher
of poe tree puzzles, mathematically divining

sense and sensibility, but my reverie is dashed
and I'm wrestling with how easterners (with whom
I count myself) and those we're-it westerners co-opt

the planet, eyes up and askance, not quite believing
something deeper, something more primeval might recline
in the how-low-can-you-go latitudes, where doldrums

mean writing hot, like steam off a pot of paella
like sizzling flesh on a pan of sand.

Out on the Horizon

- in honor of Ha Jin's new novel



There is a story out on the horizon.

It is about those who left all they knew
for freedom. It is about poetry

not the illusion we foolishly believe
but how a struggle with existence

wrestling the shadow angel
in the slime pit of one's self

slowly grows a voice of integrity
valued by listeners.

A Quieter Puissance Rises

The great storm passed
as it went dying, a churn of heat
with shreds of gust that blew us
behind plywood for awhile: frail gasp
before the rout. A beleagured army
of raving horsemen, fouled by a lunatic
of the skies. And in the west
just above rooftops, a line
of blue, and air rising like a sign
of chance unlooked for, an unforeseen good
striding on leather, whispers
of Mithril approach, long bows
beneath capes, and treelore
with roots in the one wood.

Tsunami

The week before Allison's death
havoc in the wake; and today
on that same side of the world waves
crash again, Bhutto's death
a tsunami, and I'm left
with two words, "What's Next?"
The bodies of my thoughts all ready float
to the surface and I'm reminded
of how we're not immune
and how radical is perverted
by a lust for death and the delusion of approval
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.*


________________________________________

* Hamlet (3.1.91)

Four Dates: A Riddle

In 1543 Nick rocks the house
with Revolutions but the Prohibitorum
isn't lifted until 1757. Hey, just a mere
two-hundred and fourteen years, and they say progress
is speeding up, right? But who's gonna believe that shit?
So, conservatively speaking
I'm guessing Charlie D. won't catch on
permanent like until after some sort of bi-
lateral fundamentalist ban on clear thought
lifts, in 2073. Until then, plan on being
Azazel, and coppin' some
survival training. After all, evidence isn't real, right? It is
all made up, and nobody's gonna believe
until the sky speaks.

Unsmokeable Roaches

Sealed up tight in an old Chock Full
o' Nuts can, I hear them in there

skittering about, whispering open
the lid, let us out, or is it mice?

A whoosh of pungent air escapes as
plastic seal gives way, thirty-five years

of solitude broken. Their dry bones dusty
with age, not even worth stuffing

in a long shanked Churchwarden.
Even so, there's fresh soil turned

who knows what may rise
resurrected from impotent seeds.

Silver Turns Blue in Moonlight

the dead guitarist his
machine gun gold at dawn

eyes silver spin
frosted money illusory as a rose

your throaty sobs
turn you to a lover in

the alcove, slumping, the one whose
name is never the same, pocket

of mercurial shame, lamb
in the thicket.