Results for category "2010"

The core

                1.

Reopened wounds
   in an atmosphere of haste
sorrows burn

Your sparks burn,
   sear with despair
with pain

Extra sensitive–
   creaky machines, random noises, flutterings
like melodies for you to hear

Like the melodies
   Schubert heard in such abundance
before he died

A life viewed from inside
   seems a series of defeats—
hard times

To the scrape of forks on metal plates
   to the sparks in his heart at night
Inexhaustible melody

                2.

Happiness gone
   it’s a band-aid over hurt
this particular joy

No struggling man must,
   legally, dive into the pool
and save a drowning child

There are no hidden messages
   In prison they don’t expect him
to speak, think, or grasp

No drowning child must,
   legally, jump out of the pool
to save a struggling man

Simplicity obscures things
   Fascists are simple
Preconceived patterns chafe

What’s in plain view so hard to grasp
   Keep your word
remember your promises

                   3.

I feed the wolf because
   the wolf is me
No hidden messages, no

We’re not swans, you know
   wired to bond for life
We don’t love like that

Our souls entwined for a time
   now my enemy,
she was always my enemy

I look for the hidden
   the chimera
the lost

Her life hard, brutish, cruel
   Today I’m her lifeline
Tomorrow, nothing

Photographs would freeze time
   If you start making love to doorknobs,
you’re too old and it’s time to die

-June 13, 2010-

The Hard Husk

               1.

Cockroaches and beetles
   have it right
the hard husk works best outside

Caught now between anxiety and yearning

Mom was kind of tone deaf
Grandma was a professional musician
“No, B-flat, B-flat!”
This from downstairs—“How could she know?”
mom thought,  “she must be a witch.”

What price brilliance?

Her two tattoos include
   potent fertility emblems

The hard husk for us
   is inside

               2.

He no longer cares about her frowns

As grandpa said,
   “What do you want from the kid?”

To truly see it
   we must step outside this world

Large, sad, dumb, and dirty
   world

To truly see it

It’s impossible,
   we can’t even pretend to step outside of 
      of this world

You don’t know what I run from

               3. 

Who speaks for the silenced, the lost, the dead?

Mental refinement
   needn’t lead to good acts

Favor makes me bend
   Fear stiffens me

What if I had drowned that day
   in the ferocious murky ocean, 12 years old,
before dad died
before mom died?

Large changes shake and pull us down
   grief makes me cringe

Having you beside me
   is no substitute for love

-May 4, 2010-

Strident Visions

            1.

This is no world for the sensitive
   we breathe her black dust each day

The salty king among angry barbarians

I feel the locus of her pain

            2.

Ravenous, satiated for awhile
   never content

All this way for this

The woman with the long black hair
   and perfect body scowls

Maggots and carrion beetles
   gnaw at their brains

She scowls a lot

            3.

Bulbous white flowers on my favorite apple tree
   Early spring…

White petals gently lead
   Half moon tonight

What was supposed to be happy wasn’t

            4.

I wonder at her grievance

Little summer apples soon

I wake in the night
   The clock reads: 3:33

All this way for this—
   ridiculous

            5.

Strident visions focus, fade

The anxiety spread for generations
   Natural, unnatural wounds

Salty kings nod among the barbarians
Dissolute frenzies...

Satiated, but never content

-April 14, 2010-

In this idyllic scene…

In this idyllic scene
   sits the family in the sitting room
peeling tangerines

A man sings
   in his cell alone
a chunk of the world hears him
   its emptiness, limitless, sweet

If he was the lieutenant leading me
   I’d shoot him in the back
One more demon for me to feed

The violence between us, dear lady,
   was never physical—
it was sexual and wordy

These ghosts are no match for me

Bad blood on the mountain
   moonlit, dangerous

Because we think and smell alike
   we’re brothers

Balloon celebrations...
   An Xmas store open all year
Everyday the holiday, everyday

We don’t do this for the memories

The pleasure we gave each other
   sweaty, intense
      didn’t suffice
The pain exchanged was too irregular
   too unmeasured

Phantoms watched us play

If I were a gangster, you’d be dead

-March 2, 2010-

Are you…

Are you naturally gorgeous
   or have intractable troubles
   made you so?
Troubles don’t normally do that,
   I know

betrayal, sweat, bitterness, revenge

   I walk a colder road

Long before now
   everyone sang

Troubles don’t...

   I never did harm you

The tunes you’re given
    determine your voice

  Never more popular than now

What people do is their law,

   alone, but content

not what they say

Arthritis of the hands
   his fingers don’t play
   his voice electric, still true

-January 17, 2010-