Heat



Sillimanite



Rock

Hurled against rock

A mass thick and unyielding

Pressing crushing crunching

Now the furnace ignites

Burning away loose debris

Melting sweltering smelting

Across time

I stand atop a granite ledge

Look downward into the gorge

Where Sequoias reach for Heaven

Someplace far above my tiny body

I remember your touch

Cautious amazed gentle craving

I remember your eyes

Cool and powerful

Enough to stop time

Waves of heat rise upwards

From the freeways

Far far below

Where travelers imagine

Pools of sparkling liquid ecstasy

But haven’t the time to stop

In future distant

This precipice

bearing my weight

Shall be grains of sand

Beneath some sweltering sea

Where strange fishlike beings

Are lured by your hook

Nearby I drink

of the sweet water

That we carried with us

To your secret place

I wait for you

To set the fire

And cook our supper.

A Madwoman at Her Window

Dancing

past my window

suggests an attempt

to convey an idea

though there is none

other than what is.

These leaves, then,

blown by a force

mightier and lacking in mercy at their plight.

No cruelty intended -

their pointless struggle against demise

happens without meaning.

To grow from a promise

a bud begins to blossom,

flesh ripens and matures

this life bursts forth, a celebration

where joy is not considered

but only a process

of living and dying

and inevitable decay

into immeasurable

nothingness.

Why then do I understand

the language of these things?

The yellow rose, its petals striped

with fiery red and gold;

the blast of a frigid shower

from angry clouds

hurled upon my head.

Surely I must be mad

to find comfort and wisdom

in things so lacking intent.

Leave me in the rain, then,

as the downpour strips the flower

of its last few petals.

Tomorrow the sun will rise

and people will forget

all about the madwoman

as easily as they forget

that once they were not here

and soon they won’t be here

and in between they grew and danced

and struggled against the blows,

certain that it mattered.

Sea of Tranquility

One body

Floating

In a sea

Flowing currents

Carry me

To loving arms

that have waited

since time began.

In your embrace

At last

I find peace

Certain that this love

Ever constant

Ever deepening

Delivers me

to the sea

of tranquility.

Bab-el-Mandeb

Set sail again
We hearty alchemists
Who transmutate
Riches of imagination
Into gold-laden pockets

We crave the open
The cry of the gulls
The taste of salt air
Free of the shackles
Of lovers and wives

Across the ocean
We approach the Red Sea
Head into the strait
Where jeweled Africa awaits
With beguiling splendors

Legends be damned
We sailors fear not
Our blood is more real
Than the Seven Brothers
And the ghosts lying beneath

With spyglass to eye
Our stalwart captain
Seeks Urania’s aid
But an unseasonal storm
Shrouds our fair guide

And before we are aware
We forlorn shipmates
In this tiny vessel
Have fatedly approached
The Gate of Tears.

The Sage

The Hermit by John Singer Sargent (1908)

Rumors in town

about the hermit

A sage who sought solace

deep within the whispering woods.

Hungry, I sought you out

To hear your wise words

And in reply you gave me

Nothing.

For three long days

I sat at your stoop

Watching you come

Watching you go

fetch water, meditate,

feed your orange cat.

For a moment I suspected

your act of clipping your nails

Was a shrouded message

of inevitability.

Your silence

I could not

even characterize

as indifferent,

for that would be

something.

Amidst the chilled rain

of the third night,

when even the crickets

refused to sing,

I left in despair.

I held a stone,

black on one side,

white on the other,

all I got from you

was a sneeze.

So I climbed the

mountain to the pinnacle

where I tossed the rock

from the highest peak.

I hope it lands on your head.

Nothing But the Blue

And I become nothing but the blue

backdrop against which the unbound hawk soars

How you unshackle me in brief moments

Disappearing only to reappear

As that which God intended. A sinner

who lies in passions arms, a kiss, a smile,

And I melt yet again into someone

more earthly than the consummate ground

Secretly sewn with the sweat of our flesh

Ripe with desire to return once more

I’ll dance with you like a spry faery maid

Our laughter stopping the movement of time

Then taking your hand, like magic we go

Footfall on dried brush; the sweet scent of sage,

In our silent place I cry out in delight.

Last Flight

It was night
In early November
You sat in a white plastic seat
Waiting at the gate
You had dropped your coin purse in my truck
That is why I had come back
After dropping you outside the terminal
Simply to return a few dollars in change.
Sure, it could have waited
But I was compelled that night
To go to all the effort
Of getting it to you
Before you flew off
Within a week you had died
The last night I saw you alive
Fitting it was at the airport
How you always loved to travel

France and Italy,

Hawaii and New England,
Yet they found you
Peacefully in your chair at home
An empty cocktail glass at your side
Such an uneventful way
for a woman who kicked buzz bombs
off rooftops in London
To start her latest voyage.

I’m grateful you dropped your change.

The Long Distance Run

Sossusvlei, Namibia, photo by Karl Debus (2010)

But it is akin to a desert mirage, she said,
Nonattainable and nonexistent,
and only those deluded by their senses
betrayed by body weak from lack of sustenance,
strive to reach such am imaginary place.

You can feel the sand between toes
born into pores by wind
Stuck between teeth
The dunes are beautiful in the calm
as if Zen Monks with their rakes
recently passed by, and why not? she asked
Given the journeys made by such men
And who invented the camel, anyway?

I'd be happy with a Land Rover, and a map,
and a cooler filled with Arrowhead,
and frozen Milky Ways, which makes her laugh,
because in truth the stars are frozen things
burning frozen things, and she likes a good paradox
just as she likes nonsense and pinot noir.

I haven't been anywhere.
You can list names, and landmarks like
Joanie on the Pony or Michigan at Jackson,
but that all depends upon space time
Not to mention plate techtonics and whether
they ever cancel the damned real housewives
No I did not pass go and collect two hundred dollars
And no one has pinned an Olympic Medal on me
Everyone is on youtube it's worse than asexual reproduction
which naturally makes her laugh
as anything to do with sex does, and what doesn't?

I count two accomplishments
And each of them came directly from the act of sex.
Can God be found amidst the cunt and the cock?
I have proven it to be the only sustainable truth
But she is no longer interested
Instead she texts a girlfriend
While I fret about the inverse square law
What time the sun sets and what kind of a Universe
requires so many dung beetles.


09/27/2010

Another Day in the Hospital

Plans made

Wait in some space

To be transformed into action.

But not today.

Unanticipated injury

comes from an unexpected source.

She hardly realizes it happened;

Moving as if everything

is exactly the same

as before.

She is sure there were no sirens.

No one else sees it.

And yet it hurts.

Unfiled papers.

Unwritten pages.

Dust collects.

Cupboards remain bare.

No team of medical staff.

No smell of disinfectant.

No crisp white sheets,

or needle shoved into her hand.

Another day in the hospital.

She waits for her soul to heal itself

So she can come out and play again.

Reflections on a Tour of L.A. County Jail

Row upon row of blue metal bunk beds,

And sorry looking padding

Too skinny to be called mattresses.

There are three men doing something to all the beds,

Searching for weapons or drug paraphernalia

No doubt.

“See," says Phil,

“How they have a glassed room,

For the guards to look out from?

It really creates that

‘Us versus Them’  mentality."

I guess the tour’s moving on;

We’re being ushered out

The other cell door,

To the rooftop,

Just as they’re all

Herded back inside.

I couldn’t have gone first!

I’m glad I’m in the back.

How could they have planned so badly?

We have to walk right past them!

So many young men;

So many black faces;

Don’t let them catch my eye.

There aren’t any catcalls,

Like I expected;

Just a "Shirley Temple" remark about my hair;

And a voice,

That speaks to all of us;

A voice that was heard by me:

“Don’t be afraid to look."

Once, in Crete

Head of a woman from the Palace of Minos, Knossos, Late Minoan I, 1500 BC

Pottery Shards

Scattered in the dirt

Only time separates me

From the Minoan Woman

Dropping it upon hearing

Of the death of her lover

At the hands of the

Iniquitous Sea Peoples

Pick up a piece

Cut; My thumb bleeds

Like her heart

Sponges and Tongues

Solitude, by Gothinha

Deep blue rhythms

teeming rich aquatic life,

long hair dancing,

long legs kicking,

he grabs and pulls her under.

Still dripping wet, she lay

upon hot sand, coarse

against soft nakedness

imagining herself a sponge.

The hot afternoon sun

teased sweat from pores

so moist, her heat

rising with her desire

for only him.

Poseidon rising from the waves

The salt still on his lips.

She caught his eyes

and held them with a smile.

He lingered on her loveliness

holding back his thirst

existing only to taste

every inch of glistening flesh.

Shameless, shed spread her legs.

Craving the same, he knelt

between her thighs.

His artful tongue

sampled her female flavor,

and satisfied with her soft sighs

he teased and pleased her more

caressing as he consumed

arousing as he fulfilled

bringing her close to ecstasy

time and time again

Until at long last

She crashed

against the break

A thunderous cry

And a shudder.

Migration

Desert Night, by Abdusalam A AlTuwijri (2004)

There is only desert

to my left and my right

Like links in a chain

bound together we trudge

I know few of their names

I know all of their pains

My shoes wear so thin

But the sweet cool evening

tastes like a lover’s kiss

and the first stars twinkle

in their blue distant sea

I am reminded of childhood

of father’s nets in the sea

and laughing in the foam

at my brothers struggle

to claim all the fish

Then after the sundown

the feast we would share

A shame that my belly

can’t share in my memories

My child is small

she will have no memory

of the blessed waters

I look at her face

staring up at the trees

that have managed to thrive

in this desolate place

And now the full moon

has risen and shines

in her two innocent eyes

I look straight ahead

and take one more step.

El Morro

I climbed the rock of El Morro

To find the ruins of the Anasazi.

To see a place where children once laughed,

Where men once bragged,

And women once weeped.

There, on the rockface

Below on the walls,

Were scratched the names

Of hundreds of men.

Spanish explorers who swam in the pool,

Railroad employees, who once sought a route,

And a team of soldiers atop desert camels.

Today we came in wonder

To the cuesta of water and shade;

Tourists with camera and guidebook;

Rich in imagination,

But poor in hardship and toil.

We can hardly begin to appreciate

The value of this rock;

Beyond a pretty snapshot

To be put in a photograph book.

I climbed the rock of El Morro

And listened to the thunder,

And watched the gray sky darken,

As the drops began to fall.

Sin

The Garden of Eden, by Carol L. Douglas (2001)

The child wanders the garden path
heart wide open she follows the path
Attracted by the pretty colors
drawn towards the seductive scents
Off the path a little ways
Meander just a little way
there has never before now
been such a fiery orange-purple seen
chase the butterfly
then follow the song
of the trickling stream
trip across mossy stones
slippery trickery
foot falls in
she splashes about
forgetting herself
Deep in the garden
The garden of delight
she takes her fill
and is consumed
Forgetting not only
That there was a path
but that she has hopelessly strayed.



Eve hangs photographs of her bastard children
See my pretty little darlings
See what comes from my body my body
It echoes in mirrors reflecting back
Upon themselves herself infinity
She colors her hair to match the sun
She paints her lips to match her cunt
She is hard and vulgar to hide the pain
Man always blames the woman
Even the small woman child
She’s given up the fruits of sex
Adam was never much good at it anyway
Eve putters about her garden wondering
why she can’t hold onto a man
Except for this one God bound her to
Bride in white bleed in color
Watch it on the ten o clock news
The sheer white curtains of another woman’s dreams
The antithesis of an incomplete thesis
Everything before her shrouded in darkness
As her summer passes uneventfully
Even her ability to forgive is a lie
She wants what she wants but can’t speak it aloud
Except in coded messages that are not received
She judges and despises what she envies most
While feeding what’s left she snaps at strangers
Insults poor simpletons and notches her belt
Gaze in the glass for the hundredth time
Eve knows she is a goddess and not a woman
Even as she spills the last droplets
of compassion that she once possessed
Eve likes the bottle it makes her brave
And drowns the pain she is invincible
until tomorrow when she discovers
she went to far and has to make
another false apology the pain still hurts
Eve waits by the box for her future to come
Not knowing it has already past.


A prescription for poison
Death in a bottle
Serve it up cold
with the pita and hummus
What is the point of killing oneself,
What is wrong with women, she thinks.
He is so much more worthy
Of this cold moment of certain
condemnation in an appetizer.
She always was the perfect hostess
Everybody said so serve it up
on the old silver tray
No you just sit there
I’ll pour you a drink
Let’s have a pleasant evening
for once.

Desafinado

her desk smothered by papers
bed sheets crumpled
no milk
the dog waits

elsewhere
people grieve
conspire rape rant
drown in drink

But for a firefly
to spark her hands
fly freely
chasing unbound ideas

the walls should be burnt orange
the music should be Getz
the wine should be gone
and the body in sweat

whatever happened to tomorrow?

Some Jack Junk

Rhythm of the words

The beat goes on

One, two, three

Do I hear a waltz?

Dance the dance

And keep the time;

To Kerouac

I dedicate this rhyme.

Bang on the bongos

Put on the shades,

The sun is hot

But the cat is cool.

The beat goes on

But in a brand new way;

All generations

Got somethin’ to say.

So just tune in

To the temporal tempo

The rhythm of the words,

The rhythm of the world.

That’s all, Jack!

Fade to black . . . .

Andrew Peter

I went for a walk the other day

And Andrew Peter was there;

I watched the egrets along the quay

And Andrew Peter was there.

For breakfast I ate some buttered toast

And Andrew Peter was there;

While cooking dinner I burned the roast

Still Andrew Peter was there.

Upon my horse I forded a stream

And Andrew Peter was there;

Later that night I had a strange dream

Yes, Andrew Peter was there.

You’d think a boy like Andrew Peter

Would have better things to do;

Than follow his mother everywhere

But Andrew Peter was there.

The Wheel

Wheel of Life, photograph by Claire Yaffa (c) 2010

Today is the third anniversary
Of the day in Central Park
When I dropped my watch
And shadows
silhouetted upon sidewalks
spoke in a language
heard ten thousand years ago
When you rowed upon the river
Upstream upstream
Your muscles tire
Long before
Or the way
cigarette smoke
twirls ever upwards
like that bitter night
on the wet streets of Paris
You gave that beggar
your last centimes
I don’t go there anymore
There seemed no point
Once time escaped
The broken wheel
My cart is filled
with belongings
That are not mine.

Futurism

Brooklyn Bridge, by Joseph Stella (1917)

It's over now
The expectation
of things far greater
God's mysteries unraveled

with concrete pours
and piston grease
Life made easier

at ninety degree intervals

Revel at the glories past
That once were ideals imagined
Incapable of traveling from mind
Now ignored at the corner of

commonplace and main

His future
Is your past

And yet you build
tinker toys exploding atoms
steel girders erecting cures
for the common cold
While men torture in secret

Babies are thrown in dumpsters

And women mutilated for their sex

There is always the pain

There is pain always

I shall return
called to the sea

From whence I came

There is always that joy
of scent mingled with salt

upon my tongue

as the sea crashes

reverberate within my mind

beat within my heart
singularity with every wave

slammed against the shore

This has been

before he was born
and will after you die.

05/02/2009

The Fall of the House of Escher

MC Escher, Relativity (1953)

I know what it's like
to climb up the steps
yet still find myself
at the beginning
two years later.
The journey was
something, yes.
Memorable, an adventure,
sometimes audacious, sometimes
a warm breeze in your eyes
or cool river's kiss.
And yet I ended up no place,
Or rather, discovered no growth,
No permanent connection or change,
As if it were a dream
an illusion
and I a ghost
who made no difference
and left untouched.
I look into a mirror
and count more gray hairs
and a few new lines
besides my blue eyes
Sometimes I see fish
othertimes I see birds
Which is the truth
and which is the lie?
They are all just lines
I've heard a lot of those
Like thread on spools
in the old sewing kit
Now tangled so
I can no longer discern
where red begins
and green goes
Does black ever have an end?
There is no beginning
big bang is a myth
No end, no second coming,
or judgment day.
And this Now
This forevermore
I am in
leads me forward back
to the start.
Yet no one is there
to hand me my two hundred dollars.
Is everything the same
and only I changed?
Or am I the single constant
in a world of reversed poles?
I have climbed the steps
I have reached the pinnacle
Only to discover
what was up was down.

February 26th

I am kissed

A burst of yellow flowers on Easter

On a quiet street at night

In my memory cool and grey

I’m going to be sorry if I don’t do this

So afraid you will lose the slip

Of paper with my phone number

Torn jeans and a ratty green sweater

This is not the wardrobe of attraction

A young dog looks out at me from your truck

This winter dead of old age

We plan our trip north

To graveyard beach

Where canine ashes go

Even as winged men leap into the wind

From dunes so we can remember

Younger days of frolicking

Like that time I collected sand dollars

That is my peninsula

I claimed it the first day I discovered it

Driving the 68 past the exotic cars

My pier where I found a newspaper

Streets where I hunted for a new home

Only five months later in that bookstore

A paperback copy of Cannery Row

I would look at your hands

You would say something nothing talk

And Kalisa would not let us dine with her

Photographs before tourists replaced fishermen

When this town belonged to your childhood

I’m going to be sorry if I don’t do this

That day one year later on the pier you shoved my hand

Proudly in front of the man selling shrimp

Cocktails and the rain was joy

And we claimed it for ourselves

Remember the Chinaman from the story?

I remember lobster bisque and O’Kanes

My mind is filled up with memories

Of those brief months before like a bud

waiting for what it doesn’t understand

You did, on that night, you did

And neither of us has ever been sorry.

Kerplop!

Kerplop!

Did you hear that?

Kerplop - - another drop,

Fell upon the walk: Be Bop Splat!

Wet slop.

Metamorphous: Reptile

Desert Iguana, photo by Alan Marshall (c) 2007

The sun creeps far too slowly

across the boscish flats

dotted with remnants of

ancient volcanic endeavors

No growth no breath

Even the wind hesitates

Far beyond lay the hills

Eroded through eons

of forced neglect

Carved out caves

Supply shelters

For shadowy creatures

Spotted and dry

Watchful and alert

Twelve hours hence

The moon will rise

The heat escape

Terra’s greedy grasp

And shadowy creatures

will scurry among

the cool night rocks

Grateful for the darkness

Thirsty for sustenance

Unaware of love

Cold blooded creatures

Living only for themselves

They know what it is

to be scorched

And dare not

Repeat

the experience.