Around You

You've got a lot of books,
you keep them near the kitchen,
where you make lively things.
To roll them into one would result in
Thai Nun Vegetarian Language.

Your voice is lightly seasoned,
serves me moist words
from where willows are born.
I like being around you,
tracing your titles over tea.

Sails

Oh, I was just breathing again.
I've been hoping it was different,
or to make it different, or
to be closer to it.
That is why I have been alone,
that is why I have been lost,
that is why I have been drifting.
I am this body.
I am this breath.
I pour my wanting back into the sea.

Change

If I were leaving the world,
I would lay rosemary at your feet.
I would bring my sons copper pennies,
and overfeed my cat again.
When I had gone,
I would be the sun on winter branches,
our little yellow house
that drinks in the wind,
and an owl under the moon.
Were I to return,
I would find you,
draw you close again,
to walk in threadbare dawn.

Prayer

Whisper another incantation
like sweet resinous smoke
swung from a brass censer
somewhere in a dark cathedral.

Say: Stone and star come closer,
rub upon this flesh and eye,
we were born from and will return to you,
but for this sweet bye and bye.

Turbulence

At thirty-thousand feet
I should be frozen and choking,
but I am only wobbling.
If a wing falls off,
I’ll hold you and tumble,
flip under you on a haystack.
There’s some true story like that.

I wonder if I fly with two ifs
when I’d be fine with the wings
I already have.

Walk

One last walk through the Gothic quarter,
yellow sodium lamps warm the February alleys,
We will remain here for you they say.
Deep dark turns end each little street.
Curiosity wakes energy around one more corner.
Out of sight, energy has a late dinner with time.

I say goodbye to my son, who will stay here.
He is my long, narrow, winding way,
and I do not know where he will end.
I praise the blood, sewage, cabbage rinds,
boot heels, wooden carts and pigeons
that have burnished the cobblestones
that let mystery wander and grow.

The Anne Frank House

23 February 1944-

The two of us looked out at the blue sky, the bare chestnut tree glistening with dew, the seagulls and other birds glinting with silver as they swooped through the air, and we were so moved and entranced that we couldn’t speak.

That tree died two years ago,
but we saw it in Anne's pen,
at her window, under a blue sky.

Is it worth the cost to find such beauty?
God, tell us it need not be.
Let the sun break through the clouds,
let out tears fall on history's broken heart,
bring us bread to break with others.

Canals

Amsterdam was made in spite of the sea,
by a bicycle God who needed a place to ride.
He dug a canal,
rode up on the sand
where Neptune could not catch him.
The sea cannot leave the sea
except in clouds, and so Neptune
makes it rain there every day.
He is supplicated by the sound of bells,
and the toppling of those who do not worship.

Crepes

Our server was Amira, from Russia,
she quietly brought me a delicious square wheat crepe,
with bacon and a big egg tucked inside.
She was wistful, then buoyant in conversation,
we were tired, hungry, then interested,
we came together around her desire
to come to America.
Don't go to Los Angeles, we said in stereo,
but we listed good places, Monterey, redwoods,
San Francisco.
It was a short list.
Hopefully, when she goes,
she will not miss stardom and become
eaten by bears, taken out by a pine cone
(oh yes a redwood cone will do it),
or run down by a cable car.

For dessert, sugar and butter crepes,
even better, and we ordered another
as soon as we'd finished the first.
I want to see Miami, said Amira.
We forgot to ask why, and she got busy.
She was sweet, strong, young and curious.
We were curious, tired, and older.
She gave us her sweet crepes.

Paris II

Heroin dragged her around the city
because she had surrendered.
Rags wore her because
they had been surrendered by others.
Braids pulled her hair together,
her arms and a little red blanket
surrounded a kitten.
The kitten was like her,
afraid of being alone,
afraid of knowing it would be.
She mumbled for offerings,
and I could understand her language.
It was her complaint to Morpheus,
that he would never stay,
that his embraces grew shorter,
and it was a question for all of us on the subway,
Do you not know of hunger?

But I would not answer.
I would not exchange my place for hers.
I would not go close to being abandoned,
hanging on so well, as I do, to these rags, these coins,
these little soldiers.

Paris

Paris was arches, and echoes of marches,
Sisyphean feet down streets that won't meet,
the found-a-ring scam and ham on the Champs,
a thousand loves locked on a bridge on the Seine,
disquiet on streets and despair on the train,
a dessert made of plaster, another divine,
a closed Lourve on Tuesday, so there was no line.

At Carnaval

You and children are drawn together,
giving out smiles like confetti.
You ask a man to let a little girl closer,
what business of yours is that,
here, halfway across the world?
But then angels and children
are not meant to be still.

Alhambra II

Red are the walls at sunset,
yellow is the middle of the day.

Quiet is the sum of centuries,
whispers thin as dry night air
are all that is left of the kingdom.
Arches vanish into arches,
keyholes swallow keys,
the name of god here never ends,
stranding poets and thieves.

Light and shade were wed here,
true for a thousand years,
practicing stillness and grace.
In not moving they are one,
sharing curve and place,
and the name, that aching name,
loaned for souls to chisel,
by the iron in the sun.

The Alhambra

Listen, do you hear,
an exhalation,
the sigh of accumulation,
the endurance of effort,
the moving of stone,
and the death of the Prince?

I will build you a palace,
blue, red and gold
with mirrors of water
to see heaven, to dream,
to see through dream.
I will carve for many years
to reveal the name that
is already there.
I will carve out every fear,
we will walk through
each portico laughing
in the blue night air.

Travel

You dreamed of ghosts
throwing suitcases.
For me, I was trying
to get the cat in the car.
Even in sleep,
travel is complicated.

On the Menu

Tonight, "Distraction Special."
Just think, you would want it, Distracion Escalavida,
cooked to distraction, and topped with distraction.
After dessert, to the cinema,
where a hundred thousand frames
roll you up into a story
and even take your breath.
Your life is in the hero, or in the villain,
his body bitter and tropic.

On the menu, the mind does not disguise its intent.
But it does disguise, too, deep inside, a hunger of habit,
which will not recognize itself,
ever reborn, of guilt, sadness, anger, wanting,
all of it too bound to say that it is unnecessary,
instead that it will lead you out.

The field of this and of that is tilled
with the plowshare of desire,
and the eel of energy, the worst, appears.
At last the eel of rest coils about you,
to begin the hunger again.

Gaudi

You might say Gaudi believed and did not dream,
but I have walked among his dreams.
As I was walking, I was jealous
of the strength of his conviction
that allowed itself to lean here and there,
to tumble upwards into the sky,
to punctuate with his own little cross
The great world he made
in his own little life.

Zaras

Here in this other place
the squares have curves,
but since it is a dream, we fit in.
Here the moon kisses the sea,
and we sail in a little boat down streets.
A statue of an angel bends down to bless you
and you are not surprised.
We gather dates and cheese
amid the ghosts of trees and goats,
in Zaras we see what no one else sees,
you, me, and the dream of two coats.

On the Plane

I question my right
to be so high,
to see the secret shapes
God intended
proceeding in their majesty
of living rock, into rock.
A lizard, his legs end in deep arroyos,
his back in the clouds,
he holds the sunrise for centuries,
he changes color
he is alive,
his sacrifice is to be still.

Frantic

Will I remember you
if I am torn from the papers
I have made in my mind
of bills, dates, inventories,
and the many pages of feeling,
written in language I've never
taken the time to understand?
What a fool I am,
it is the opposite,
you are the one thing
my heart
need not list.

Antsy

You can call me a waterfall,
or a rocket, or a shooting star,
or an eagle, an arrow, or a runner,
but I'd rather be kinetic.

That's when I feel it,
coiled inside, sapphire,
slightly gyroscopic, hot,
trembling like late March.

I see you with burnished eyes,
take you with trembling hands,
lift you up, count you down.
You want me this way.

Dream II

I dreamed I was in a small room,
in a long house, somewhere above the treeline.
There, I was bade drink, by a wan caretaker,
from dusty amber bottles,
the essence of what moves inside
our bound and meager bodies.

Anger I tasted, and it was bitter.
I was strong, I could move about,
but could find no enemy.
Happiness was thin and fleeting,
and blithe about my soul.
Peace met my tongue and flowed deep,
to bring together many waters,
set my voices to council,
walk me out in sun and shower,
let my nature dry, then moisten to its need.
I worked to open Victory,
from its reluctant lid,
and was satisfied until I found
that nearby Meaning was unfilled.
Thereupon I tasted a hundred more,
each a drop that filled a sea
with the fish and foam of being.

One more, Sadness, of which I drank the deepest,
for the spirit's firm and gracious bidding,
and there I was cut loose from my moorings,
broken and not filled.
With tears more right than any verse
I drank, collapsing at her feet,
shivering and at last home,
bowed and naked before the Nurse.

Lunch

I am following another conversation
in the lunch room.
I am waiting for the punchline
of their boisterous train
to arrive at their station.
"The Navy Seals are in a movie,"
"So is it real?"
"Yes, they are real Seals, but they are acting."
The train whizzes by.
I swallow a big bite of inanity,
of which I am suddenly and uncomfortably full.

Ticket

I dreamed I was on the Orient Express,
which never stopped to ask why it must roll.
From my seat, I painted the sky indigo,
full of silver comets, silver birches with ghost owls,
hillsides dressed in moonlit gowns of white,
swirls of wind rippling fields of wheat.

A thousand desires rose like smoke from
the villages we slipped by.
I make up so many things from my window,
fool that I am to dream in a plain bed.
I rise in the night, and return to find
that fancy has taken my seat.

Dusk

I have not been here before.
The low river is blue as the sky,
an acre of pebbles rises from the middle,
pale and sweet.
Behind me, a full moon
splits an eastern dusk to ash,
rich brown sharp trees open
to lingering green orange west.

I am murdered in
the earth's revolution,
spreading out in sleep,
rising anew like the first star.

The Sun

I have lived a magical life.
The way the hot sun reflected
off concrete at Woolworth's
in 1967, me in a hot Dart,
waiting to go in for candy, or
'just one thing' my folks always let me have.

I think it was the sun I was
in love with then. It was an
orchestra leader, a deep steam
section bellowed up through
the trills of many reflections
on new chrome and glass,
warmer cream vinyl, maple trees and grass.
My parents were going places
or staying in, making little
movements to keep things in tune.
And there was always the grass,
popping out of cracks in the sidewalk.
The sun called them out, kissed them.
It did not matter, the suburb's crescendo.
Every blade was at home then.

Morning

I wake before dawn,
wonder how kitty passes the time
when she is tired of sleeping.

I could be starting an exercise regimen,
strengthening my chest, legs and arms,
filling myself more regularly with endorphins,
that bring reverie of mermaids, and stars.
I could be concentrating on the cushion,
letting restlessness be, watch it separate
from the still point.
The pillows are all wrong, that's it.
Or it could be midnight cereal.
Or some unseen stress or obligation.
Or Mars is rudely crossing Venus.

Kitty, I think, fills empty spaces
without working so hard,
without such extremes of influence.

Occupied

Everything is uncertain,
except for the Law.
I considered the sign
on our bathroom at work.
I believe it may not be true,
after all, it is not foolproof,
and it may not have been readjusted.
If we obey, our bladders will explode.
Before then, we must take up arms.

The Law is in the nature of the body,
to grow and die,
to fill and empty,
to carry a while.

Untitled

To know, you must wait like acorns do
in the broken leaves and frozen earth.
They do not sleep, but wait.
They do not dream, but wait.
Sleep is reckless,
dream is an hallucination,
a conjuring of nothing.
You must grow from the gravity
of distant stars, from silent rivers,
down in the dark deep
under an aching moon.