Cracked

2007

Encounter With The Tar
When I fell from grace
it was the era of floating
like a spill on ice.
Prone in air, this is
how mind stays blank,
unspotted by intellect--
a space where nothing enters,
not a care, nor past, nor future.
And then the pain--
a type of Babylon.

This was a different
waiting, where eyes,
unfocused, could not see
beyond the sheath lying on the tar.
Where an alliance with the earth
was tethered and, like an
out-of-body break, the fuzz
of physicality bore sway.
A slick, a dirty patch of oil
and a fall to terra firma.

Morass
The spider spins
a gossamer web.
For all we learn
of weaving we’re
caught in labyrinths
we did not contemplate.

Flies, enigmas.
Escapades, bewilderment.
Environment
of complexities.
The net of words
that grip us.

The tulle of sneers,
the meshwork to
ensnare each other,
making patterns
in a marriage
that cannot break.

When the grave
preponderates,
the web unravels,
a frayed material
once gently looped
splits like cobwebs violated.

Alcohol Eye
Walk to the riverbank
for a calm learned
by rote-- repeated
like a river’s fluency.
Place a hand in that
cool water, like a child
who has lived before
on this very steepness.
Once there was a man
whose eye was lost to
alcohol. If he had placed
his hand in this lovely
buoyancy, it could have
lifted and carried him,
as obliviously as a river.

Up And Down
She stood alone, mid-wood,
leaves afoot, gray sky encompassing
a strange universe-- Jupiter distant
as truth. Here, all was uncreated--
the city so far, but not as far as stars.
She looked down and heaviness
abounded. It drew her in, sucked
her breath from her proud breast,
replacing ecstasy with gravity.
She gazed back at the sky, a great
firmament, framed by an opening
of branches. It was a road deep
into an iridescent sky. She looked
down and felt the recondite rocks
everywhere, looked up and touched
the lightness that she yearned for.

Man In The Back Of The Room
Today is the blow when
lingering months of conflict
climax. I am glued to guessing
what role to play. You, spewing,
“Pay attention, now!”
Neither an answer nor
a question. Just the terminus
of loneliness, and in my lap
the challenge. Tomorrow,
perhaps, the fall. I will be
absorbed in some puffy task,
head down, hand cupped
round my pen. You will
pass by, unseen, moving
into corners, a phantom on
the periphery of a blank white
page. You assume a lesser role,
inferior to my latent verse.
It is a bloodless command.

Cracked
When we met, peace,
curbed in yellow sunlight,
danced surreal in its own space.

A blackened sky threatened
the day before. Now, doors
cracked open.

Hospital Visit
No peonies in a green glass vase
faceted with light. You are agitated
by the white tag on a velvet pillow.
You slouch, beautifully, lying
in wait for a good man’s cheek,
in from a frigid, white winter--
a journey to the white room,
to a white bed, where, pale
as you are, you sip iced tea.
Citrus in a white cup, strains
of musak-- the last thing you
would want. Your life, reported
on a phosphorescent screen
tells the cosmos all your
mileposts, all your misfortunes.
I cut the white tag off.

November Twister
We have a mad notion that
wreckage gets a second chance.

A child skips stones across
contaminated water.

Displaced people clump
on hilly grass. Eyes wide. Cameras click.

Someone chops onion, stuffs a bird
with bread crumbs, basting with clear juice.

Someone has baked peach pie.
A crowd gathers on a variety of chairs.

Now, snap a photo of a table filled with food.
Goodwill for a family. An offering to the wind.

Cradlesong
We croon while time inculcates.
“War is all about will, not killing,”
a general states. Pearls and grace,
pearls and lace, postcards
from the war. Why waste time?
It is grave, grim, dire and afflictive.
Sad, time passes, plodding like an oxen
kicking dirt aside. Carnage, injury and death.
Better to sing peace like a lullaby.

A Wretched Reversal
A woman hangs
up from a telephone
and warm autumn’s walk
and magazine
and coffee shop
and dentist.
Monday exits.

Day spins
with purpose.
There is ample
time to fall, yet
no one lands.
Rivers exit their journey.
Not one stops.

An exit is not
an end, and certainly
not the beginning.
Magazines will be
delivered and a cold
walk replace the warm.
Exits no longer alarm.

Things Insubstantial
Five o’clock’s
gold light burnishes
the slate-hued hemlocks.
Winter chills me,
despite my Christmas sweater
and green, fleece slacks.

I am seized by the fire
and an old flame not my comfort.
In review, weak and
flushed
eyes misted
mouth’s corner slipped downward
it is six years past
when his bearded visage laughed
chafing my delicate virtue.

Whisperers
Mother, daughter,
you whisper well,
telling secrets,
counting lies,
dwelling beneath
shadowy eyes,
afloat in solace.

Heads together
you smile wide
while speaking closed
in undertones,
not spreading words
for general hearing --
I yearn to listen.

More than ever
helpful turns,
spare talk, umbrage,
heady and fruitful,
and every thought
grows full and flowers
with worthy dialogue.

The Soil
Cinnamon, sage
the scent of darkness
a cabin adrift in
yellow wheat
and nut-brown barley
oats and honey bees
quail whistling.

White steam spit
from an iron grate
cobblestones and tar
trains packed with people
crowds amassed on corners
trash piled on curbs
dull daylight

The city beckons
grasslands vanish.

Calming
A fast walk,
mad lungs spitting air.
Then rest, leaning
on an oak façade
of a vacant shop.
Sunday for some
is church, then
washday. Others,
stay-in-bed,
read-the-paper day.
Where are the sane?
I walk it off, then
Van Gogh ignites
my basement gallery.
Asperity melts into
a single brushstroke.

The Prize
Your august message cast
upon a page, your letters
invitations to proceed.
And out I split.
I had priorities and needs
and gladness for beauty
in itself, and word’s liberation
for invention’s sake.

Your foolish invocations
are desperate, caviling pleas
that oblige a more acceptable
demeanor. Push and you’ll
be thrust aside
by a will twice as fat,
three times as forceful,
four times as fast.

New Year’s Eve
I select silence on this eve
as opposed to gaiety and mobs.
I’ll surrender full-bodied,
quiet on the precipice
of new beginnings.
Where have I been before?
Untiring of possibilities,
I’ll wear my pajamas till noon.
Old age culls downright joy.
I’m facing head-on, promises
squeezed into a small room
where I can will them silent.

The January Book
Frozen air seeps
through a vertical jamb
that hovers over book jackets
like dry ice evaporating.
A scarf around her neck,
incongruous inside the den.
An unfamiliar shiver,
circulation cut
by a sudden, cold snap.
Her body tenses, bracing
in a wintry chill.
She eats hot soup.
Her fingers thaw and,
grateful, lengthen,
grasping a romance
novel, and she reads.

The River
The spoiler is the river
and the mercy is the river
purified. The river runs,
a silvery glint upon its
back, in flux, mud,
driftwood, scum floating
on the surface. The river
is a force that runs its course,
thrashing shores with wet spray,
flooding, downing foliage
with sand and scattered refuse
from river’s banks, coating
everything with a slimy film.
But, sometimes the river
heads nowhere, drifting,
drowning in its own silt.

For Matthew
You did not sleep on Sunday
when rest was wont.
Papers lay untidy on the bed,
eyes unfocused, bent
over the written news,
hands begrimed
from black-inked print.
You reprimanded keepers
for a lack of sympathy
and grumbled through the day.
Being a conditional patient
led you on a random journey--
flesh and fury, hand in hand
vying for a vestigial domicile.

Obama In New Hampshire
You, extending words
and arms, a TV politician.
The screen shifts
to the crowd,
the faithful applauding
while others slink off,
their party split--
intellect or passion.
And you jawing
toward heaven--
sweat and fables,
thunder-spun, drugged
with adrenalin. Your
followers cross
to glory staring
into your eyes.
Caught between
the promise and the fate,
they wait to march
beyond even your
earth-bound dreams.

Tea Time
It’s an irregular day,
my head in hiding,
heart sensing obligations.
Yet, love arrived this morning,
approving as an azure bloom.
Trash fritters on the windy
street as I languish in this shop
with amaretto tea. Just
a quiet customer
in a boisterous world
where, for a moment
I can surrender my
inconsistencies.

Election
This January, bleaker than any
politico prosecuted in the court
who did not serve our winsome
standards, but stood on a soapbox,
spinning his fantastic
speeches, mellow, vacant.

January, immaculate with hope
without substance, skimming
the spectrum of the public,
picking up votes, plunging
upward like a child’s eye
following a loosed balloon.
January, thus far a contest
between atmospheres.

Memoir
Leaves stretch skyward,
chartreuse against an azure
sun, a scent of early spring.
She is tucked snugly in a fleece
mantle, girl-child dozing. It is
a long time remembering.

In the grove, a Navajo blanket
cloaks the ground, and she rests,
half-naked, in the brush where
she walked through twigs redolent
with forest wetness.

White billows peep through innocent
cedars-- sky painted with back-sheared
clouds on a brisk March. A wood
matron whistles to squirrels,
scattering on the brier path.

Snapshot
From room to room
framed photo
to fridge photo
cursory glances
eruption of smiles
a ransacked past
grimacing pictures
the young, the elderly
encased, immobile
a yesterday event
people bubbling
“cheese”
babies teetering
bloodless grandparents
encased in glass
foisted, matted.

Odyssey
A claim, cry, birthright
language values work
a country’s unuttered law--
English the tongue of all
and justice in the courts
a quest, journey falling
short, played out in public forums
in the news, on airwaves.
Mexicali’s avocado
has crossed the border!
It ripens in the kitchen
of Villa Rica, deep South suburb.
Latino faces dot the lawn.
No need to talk Espanol,
to eat the fruit, no demand to smile
good morning to grassy laborers.
Sublime odyssey to a foreign soil.

Forgiveness
This is it, the hour of repercussions
from ten years slime
dripping off pernicious laughter,
your stabbing words,
my heart withered by your negativity,
hostility, ire.
We could have been a power
unshackled from animosity
purified of daily sin
winners, partners
eroding trash from a heap within.
Continued from the ancients
your impotence incessant
was passed along, progeny
gifted with a wicked recompense.
This bitter phase will end
today with pardon.

A Wilderness
You are in my simple song.
Traipsing through the freeze
Spring hatches like red robins’ egg
and I am undaunted by your silence.
It is a grace, this hush,
obsolete to this morning’s hunting,
yet, you are in my simple song.
Who needs to hawk a Winter’s tune?
Helpless and singing, I trudge on,
lamenting how the wind bites
my skin, while humming to you
warms me from within.

For Jim Morrison
Once I heard a song,
heeded in the night,
a door to a future fire,
wedding plans.
A lark might serenade
the woods, swallows
singing wondrously;
a dove’s inheritance,
a sparrow’s season.
Now, a faint tune
like long ago,
years held apart,
notes in the heart, left
indelible and certain
like the thrush’s call
a finch’s song
and a hummingbird’s flutter,
that youth has no notion
of order. And the flame
burns somewhere
deep and still.

Transition
He was your father-figure,
regal, anonymous,
a complicated man, a form with
your sweet name but a distant history.
And he died in the arms of transients
who prayed for his soul.
All around the bed, cousins wept.
It took a toll
but soothed a childhood friend caught
by feelings of the inevitable end.
It was a joy that spread winged perceptions
over the vast blue firmament like snow’s demise.
Death, your curtain is properly excised.

Monday Night Bingo
Quarry trucks thundered,
setting out home
in the dusk-night.
We, inside, are sheltered
but for the rumblings
of yawping jaws
serenading blank orbs
on white-haired players.
Weepie-eyed women
and a handful of exiled men
share their surgeries
and cell-phone photos
of progeny, kin whose
presence score a face
with pride and melancholy.
And now the game--
defeated parties vowing
restoration, the few victorious
collecting their spoils.
Then, our cars speed over
bluestones, dissolving into
the knotty mid-night.

Call Of Madness
The large man with dolphin wife
whose wet voice seeps through
a cell phone, brings us into
his bedroom, violating all
civility. He rejoinders
on the tweed, lobby sofa,
kicking up a heel to rest
on a false, mahogany buffet.
There is an odor-- a pheromone
they say-- perfume’s antithesis
to a nose that wanders into
other people’s lives.
Heedless, he exists in space-
time meeting out the details
of his private play.

The Lair
Godforsaken couch, gray light
on glum linoleum-- mood enfranchised,
hope amused. Where are the people
in this dark, unpeopled coffee house?
One wallows in dimness, fearing
to awaken, to fancy the emptiness.
I can hear like a babbling brook,
no ocean of growlings, no bell
pealing in the distance. Ah, but
the deep, resonant baritone vibrations of men,
a wandering kind, who cross the threshold
and complain. Yet behind the task
of these gray-haired men lies another
game. They leave, java in hand.
And back to the hush, a room
deadened, sound muzzled by a lack
of flesh. Seat, you remain the shade,
the shadow in a day clouded over.
At last, a child enters with brown tresses,
school lessons, and rests, making
this grave little sofa her dull nest.

Usury
Where are the roses as their fragrance wafts
over the pleasant earth? When we’re
oppressed, the years carve small lines
at the corner of our mouth. Expect
nothing from the world’s princes.
Rather, just paste your lips shut.

What Do You Keep?
Things passed:
prickly red hedges
semi-circling a grand
viridian fir; an opalescent
rainbow on a rutted
gray sideboard;
a lunatic lady
laughing on a curb.
Things remembered:
the smell of new leather;
an inappropriate itch;
a crooked floor
and lying.
Things that cleaved:
that lonesome figure
sitting in the dirt;
the babble of a Valentine;
the hush when maturity
overwhelms childhood.
A neighbor’s suicide
that scarred her dreams.

Waiting
Late in afternoon is thwarted with impediments.
The belly hesitates, the breath clenches,
feet pace, waiting for a call.
And then it comes-- that summoning
that musters up a story.
Will the plight continue?
Will the night be ominous?
Or blossoming like a morning glory,
will the table be cleared of dirty dishes
and satin bed sheets cleansed of stains?

Once When
Once a lie unfolds, trust fails
but there is liberty in stillness
after we shout through rooftops.
Once truth approves, doubt dies
but beware of the blood, and the cold,
dank basement looming wide.
When a house is left empty it
can renew with a teeming energy
but only after the lies die.

Delivery
She’s caught in an embrace,
duty-bound as the man who
delivers a package. She looks
to escape, like the contents
of a brown cardboard box,
its innards fraught with
tiny miracles. Underneath
Styrofoam bubbles lie plastic
vessels waiting to be filled.
She rests in a corner, empty,
as transparent as these cups.
She ordered them and had
them shipped. She will fill,
hold them for herself. He
will remain unaware his
grip on her has loosened.

The Wreck
People come and go
on this frail bridge, are
bearable, and die,
like clouds we feed
with our hearty gaze
after moon’s demise.
Sunrise is a wondering
industry of what comes
next-- like the bend
in a mountain whose
crux we seek, whose
ride is an adventure.

We don’t discern
how bridges burn,
how soon clouds
could be our education.
They open to us, reach
their end quickly, as if
we didn’t expect the rain.
And so, you waited,
pain applauded. Awake
to the cleansing, we
celebrate our innocence,
transcending.

Blessed
The lonely are blessed.
No captivating madness
lingering over the heart.
What part does love play,
minute by minute wasting
our time, embarrassing us?
This language of men
burrows through our body.
The trick is not to listen
avoiding pain like ice
in winter, or eyes
slit after arguing.
Loneliness, not love,
is the flight of doves.

Breach
The glories
of a hand
upon a page--
curious hand
upon red lips.
A sob, a battle
cry, legion skips
to nowhere.
Why not leap
over obstacles--
yours, mine--
build goodwill,
shine like gold.

The prayer of arms
round a waist
shouldering
a weeping mouth,
clasping a fragile
heart colored
by a constant
need to write.
Legs entwined,
making time
agreeable, sweet.

2008

Artie’s Friend
At sixteen it was fair,
my cheek infused upon his chest

lost in dance and mass,
the gist of it of flowering.

All these rushing years still wield
His disimpassioned touch and firm, calm rub.

No name, no face, but heaven
dulcet on a deathless day,

an omen of good judgment
tied to this lifelong game.

How lovely of a puberty
how long it carries on

that fractured fragment
sheer, lean, unscrupulous.