Of Sweaters and Socks

A quantum of information
Rolled out as if the cat attacked
a ball of yarn
and dragged it across the floor
from living room through hallway
and into my kitchen
A single line I follow
Through time and space
Each step moves me forward
Though sometimes the yarn
Loops back and crosses over itself.
The same thing
Whether ball or line
Yet somehow totally different.
The sweater may be created
One stitch at a time
Or should it become a pair of socks
Or a cozy blanket for winter?

Sometimes you don’t understand me
Sometimes I blame myself
For failing to unwind the string
And presenting it as something else
That you can comprehend
Sometimes I blame you
For seeing a sweater when I present socks.
Most of the time I lament
Having to unwind at all
A ball of yarn is so complete
So perfect in itself
But in this world
In which I exist
We cannot do without
Sweaters and socks.

I Used to Believe in the Green of Things

The Garden of Eden by Thomas Cole (1828)

I use to believe in the green of things

That there was a hidden place inside

You allowed only me to enter

I used to pretend we’d discovered

Secret lairs unknown but by us

Sacrosanct even in whispers

I used to imagine our wanderings

Were unknown to all but ourselves

Discovering love for the first time

My mountain has been infested

By daisies you scattered there

I can no longer ramble with you

Like tides like moons we travel on

Only fools scorn the forces of change

Shed tears for the end of perfection

When I’m feeble and crippled perhaps

My heart will grow warm with the thought

That once I was the Eve of you

But that was before
When I believed in green

Before the Garden walls fell

And For That . . .

Majdanek Extermination Camp, Lublin, Poland
Photo by Noreen Brand (c) 2005

I am the quiet one.

Obedient.

Young enough.

But not so young

as to attract the cruelest ones.

Once pretty, but not too much so

as to be singled out.

Not muscular,

like the men

like how they were

once.

So many men,

gone.

I am a whisper

that goes unnoticed

in a graveyard of ghosts.

Daily I am led

to this gray place

where death’s scent

lingers forever.

Methodically

Handed my bucket,

and my rag,

I set to work

sanitizing sin.

Soon the dementia sets in.

My bony hands scrub

every corner

every pipe

every flesh infested tile.

If they did not take me away

I would never leave.

For this is all that I have become.

Manically, methodically, meaninglessly.

Except for that singular moment

come late afternoon

shortly before the sun sinks

even further away

than the day before,

and the day before that.

A trickle of light,

And time belongs

to me again.

A sliver slips inside

through a small crack in the slats

where the pipes don’t quite meet

the ceiling exactly right.

Warm and golden,

it pauses here.

And for that,

I endure.

Then I Give Myself to Love

Gustav Klimt, The Kiss (1907-1908)

Then I give myself to love;

To bold imaginings,

Of perfect pleasures yet untold,

Of energies unleashed.

Then I give myself to love;

First sweet moist kisses,

Hands caressing, teasing, wanting,

And bodies – soft and hard.

Then I give myself to love;

To lips on breasts,

And tongues exploring

Hot, secret places,

And finding,

Flesh on flesh.

Bottomless Well

The Rosetta Stone

A fishing pole
The line
connecting point "A" to point "B"
A boy broke the code
and I touched the Rosetta
Late one afternoon
In the British Museum
I extend into the depth
I search for phantoms
I hunt nightmares
With an unloaded gun
I am at the mercy
Of the Righteous
Who talk to God
over a beer and peanut brittle
They care not a wit
For the singular plurality
That comes with True Love
Is it all Theater of the Absurd?
The sum was once greater
Than our parts
But breasts, pussy and a full mouth,
Rearranged, courtesy of Picasso,
Trumped solving for Pi
At least this go around
And the kaleidoscope
Now makes me nauseous
Longing for loam and worms
and last autumn's decay.

Falling remains constant
It is the only truth
To be unraveled
In the shadowlands
And I feel a cold breeze
In this Verne-ian space
Unknown to cartographer
And Zen monk alike
My begging bowl lays empty
All I possess now
Is the memory
Of the pleasure felt
Of the pain endured
These are real
And I claim them
I will testify
Bring out your Bible
I show you the passage
In Joshua, it is always
Those shards of pottery
Even the Cursed
Arrive in Hell
Eventually . . .

I learned a secret
I no longer fear
So simple
Only faith
Is needed
Just the belief
Or perhaps,
it was something else,
Perhaps I already knew
the answer to the question
Perhaps I cheated.
I tested it once
In a dream
as I fell fell fell
At long last discovering
Myself safely
At the bottom
Looking upwards
At the open window
Far above.


The trick, you see,
Is knowing deep down
it's not real. 

Time Capsule

Buried in Skull Valley
surrounded by low level nuclear waste
near the Dugway proving ground where my father was sent by the military
to engage in symposiums designed to facilitate
preparation and medical response for nuclear holocaust
Not far from what today is a chemical weapons stockpile
My capsule waits to be discovered.

Who will care what lies inside?
No one even remotely related to me or with a sincere interest in who I am today.
A vial, a vessel, a capsule of evidence, of something that has passed
To be retrieved by persons unknown
Archaeologist? Treasure hunter? Forager? or Thief?

My life has been about the journey, not about the prize.
So I hide my capsule in this place fraught with danger
designed to intrigue and entice the seeker
by the difficulty that removing it will entail
But before so hiding, I place inside the sleeping box . . .
nothing.

Someday I will visit India
sit beneath the Bodhi tree
and smile quietly.

Dreams

Pablo Picasso, The Dream (1932)

As they lowered my coffin
Someone coughed, not from grief,
But from dust kicked up in the wind.
I am not responsible.
This is not my dream.

I rode the elevator down
Deep into the earth where
They hid the missiles
And experimented with death.
Freely I walked naked
Into the room with the green walls
Because this was my dream
And naked I have power
To change everything.

I rise higher
Sometimes above treetops
At night and with the breeze
I flow and watch the earth below
I never want to descend
Because this is my dream.

Someday I will be placed
Into a chamber of fire
And reduced to ash
Later to be scattered
In desert or sea
This is my dream
When the dreams end.