Poemunity — your poem community

Defend me. I am not capable. The river sweeps by three minutes at once cleansing me of guilt. But the bear crashes through it and breaches my innocence. He rages and frightens my innocence. The psychologist says, "You are the bear. You are the river. You are the green car crossing the bridge. Defend yourself." But the green car is in a forest I have failed to speak to. The green car was never intended to drive in that forest, not cross a bridge that must not exist in a real dream. Further, the real dream defends itself.

Your name is Diana Toy. And all you may have for breakfast is rice gruel. You can't spit it back into the cauldron for it would be unfilial. You can't ask for yam gruel for there is none. You can't hide it in the corner for it would surely be found, and then you would be served cold, stale rice gruel. This is the philosophy of your tong: you, the child, must learn to understand the universe through the port-of-entry, your mouth, to discern bitter from sweet, pungent from bland. You were told that the infant Buddha once devoured earth and spewed forth the wisdom of the ages. Meat or gruel, wine or ghee, even if it's gruel, even if it's nothing, that gruel, that nothingness will shine into the oil of your mother's scrap-iron wok, into the glare of your father's cleaver, and dance in your porcelain bowl. Remember, what they deny you won't hurt you. What they spare you, you must make shine, so shine, shine . . .

All day we packed boxes. We read birth and death certificates. The yellowed telegrams that announced our births, the cards of congratulations and condolences, the deeds and debts, love letters, valentines with a heart ripped out, the obituaries. We opened the divorce decree, a terrible document of division and subtraction. We leafed through scrapbooks: corsages, matchbooks, programs to the ballet, racetrack, theatre—joy and frivolity parceled in one volume— painstakingly arranged, preserved and pasted with crusted glue. We sat in the room in which the beloved had departed. We remembered her yellow hair and her mind free of paradox. We sat together side by side on the empty floor and did not speak. There were no words between us other than the essence of the words from the correspondences, our inheritance—plain speak, bereft of poetry.

Tell me the way to the wedding Tell me the way to the war, Tell me the needle you’re threading I won’t raise my voice anymore. And tell me what axe you are grinding Where the boy on the bivouac believes, What reel you are unwinding For the girl in her bed who grieves. While behind a derrick’s girder He watches the sinking sun, He asks what he’ll do for murder And what he will do for fun. Will you read him the ways of war His Miranda rights in sin, Will you tell him what to ignore When he studies your discipline? He dozes off—but he shakes In a dream that he is the one Death finds abed and wakes Just as the night is done. Tell me what boats go ashore Riding the oil-dimmed tide, Red streamers and black in store For the boy with a pain in his side. And tell me where they are heading Tonight; now tell me the score. Tell me the way to their wedding I won’t raise my own voice anymore.

There are two memories of tides: one for the deep blackness that split away from the mother sea and one for sea that found itself in the daybreaks of rivers. Yet it was all one sea tracked by comets and the Elegant Tern, seals in speckled pod-shaped skins, and whales, opening their small eyes when the hands of people drew fish out of the salt. Geologists tell us that the sea split millions of years ago before the Yoemem, Yoremem, Kunkaak, O-Otam curled their tongues around the names of themselves and raised the conch shell to their lips, so that the sound of nature became human, too: kalifornia vaawe Then the sea was measured and divided into leagues. The Spanish ships called it dangerous because the sea tore in two ways, tide and rivers, so they contained it in maps written on dead animal skins with ink made from dried octopus blood Mar de la Kalifornia Golfo de California

The hardness of her heart and truth of mine When the all-seeing eyes of heaven did see,

In Homer, the gods take the place of consciousness. For me, it is birds. Gray gulls seen from above, a tan and white pigeon bringing amoral intelligence to the balcony wall. Geoff says they are really getting tough on birds in Brighton. Bringing in a bylaw. I remember his balcony it’s really just the roof of the room downstairs but when you climb out the window you get a view of the sea and the ferris wheel which I believe is gone, or going it was an eyesore all the locals said though I — of course — thought it was wonderful and the burned-down pier out in the water.

in this moment of orangutans, wolves, and scavengers, of high heat redesigning the north & south poles and the wanderings of new tribes in limousines, with the confirmations of liars, thieves, and get-over artists, in the wilderness of pennsylvania avenue, standing rock, misspelled executive orders on yellow paper with crooked signatures. where are the kind language makers among us? at a time of extreme climate damage, deciphering fake news, alternative truths, and me-ism you saw the twenty-first century and left us not on your own accord or permission. you have fought and fought most of the twentieth century creating an army of poets who learned and loved language and stories of complicated rivers, seas, and oceans. where is the kind green nourishment of kale and wheatgrass? you thought, wrote, and lived poetry, knew that terror is also language based on denial, first-ism, and rich cowards. you were honey and yes to us, never ran from Black as in bones, Africa, blood and questioning yesterdays and tomorrows. we never saw you dance but you had rhythm, you were a warrior before the war, creating earth language, uncommon signs and melodies, and did not sing the songs of career slaves. keenly aware of tubman, douglass, wells-barnett, du bois, and the oversized consciousness and commitment of never-quit people religiously taking note of the bloodlust enemies of kindness we hear your last words: america if you see me as your enemy you have no friends.

I am a bold Coachman, and drive a good hack, With a coat of five capes that quite covers my back; And my wife keeps a sausage-shop, not many miles From the narrowest alley in all Broad St Giles. Though poor, we are honest and very content, We pay as we go for meat, drink, and for rent; To work all the week I am able and willing, I never get drunk, and I waste not a shilling. And while at a tavern my gentleman tarries, The coachman grows richer than he whom he carries; And I’d rather (said I), since it saves me from sin, Be the driver without, than the toper within. Yet though dram-shops I hate, and the dram-drinking friend, I’m not quite so good but I wish I may mend; I repent of my sins, since we all are depraved, For a coachman, I hold, has a soul to be saved. When a riotous multitude fills up a street, And the greater part know not, boys, wherefore they meet; If I see there is mischief, I never go there, Let others get tipsy so I get my fare. Now to church, if I take some good lady to pray, It grieves me full sore to be kept quite away; So I step within side, though the sermon’s begun, For a slice of the service is better than none. Then my glasses are whole, and my coach is so neat, I am always the first to be called in the street; And I’m known by the name (’tis a name rather rare) Of the coachman that never asks more than his fare. Though my beasts should be dull, yet I don’t use them ill; Though they stumble I swear not, nor cut them up hill; For I firmly believe there’s no charm in an oath That can make a nag trot, when to walk he is loath. And though I’m a coachman, I’ll freely confess, I beg of my Maker my labours to bless; I praise Him each morning, and pray every night, And ’tis this makes my heart feel so cheerful and light. When I drive to a funeral I care not for drink; That is not the moment to guzzle, but think; And I wish I could add both of coachman and master, That both of us strove to amend a bit faster.

Always the script, the dramatic comma, the pointed ellipsis, half turn, beat, the exit itself as punctuation. Let’s say the back wall of the house fell away: first cracks down the plaster, then it crumbles to reveal seventy-five rows of spectators. That’s the explanation: they’ve been there all along; I mulled blocking on a blind impulse, but it turns out a correct one. Maybe someone is making love to me (in the 19th century sense): do I throw off his hand, exit with pithy wit? Or simply submit to it: the sappy moment which will, I know, have to be resisted in some later scene. Had I been there, had it been me, I would have said— and the audience would have been moved to applaud. Astounding improvisation! I’d have walked right up to the lawyer, the bank manager, and I’d have said— or, if it was me, it would never have gotten that far; I’d have turned to her and said— So I am contemplating in its shade an apple tree. Haven’t I often done that? So why not me? Late August, the leaves like arrowheads, dark green, waxy, punctuated by apples—constellations of apples. There I see The Hunter, bow pulled back, the apples of his quiver fixed with perfect aim: William Tell, daughter across the tree, of apples herself, poised with a perfect fruit above her head: wet tension of its surface, red skin that kisses the sun. And this perfect tree. This perfect tree in which every stamen was touched by pollen, in which every flower thickened to fruit: tree that knows by its own example perfection. In each cluster, five apples bunch as tight as chambers of a human heart. Had I been there, had it been me—and the slither up the trunk brought my attention low, the rippling body sliding along the trunk, I who have been so good all these years at resisting, and giving in, and resisting— I’d have heard the melodious hiss, seen the glinting tongue, its fork invading the region of my heart, the archer in that perfect canopy aiming right at me, I who have given in to desire when the stakes were much lower, could I resist those movements, how fully the serpent’s hiss gives itself over to simile: I am like, I am like, I am like. . . . Seen it before, mister. I’d have sighed in an aside, glanced up at the sky, deadpanned the audience, and said— Or had my lover brought the apple. For years I have told them not to burn money on me. But to bring only this, to hold it out with a silent smile as they enter the house, down center on the stage of the palm. No better way to say I love you. So why not me? Early October, the outsize hunger after running, and my lover brings it over. I recognize on his breath the scent of the serpent, and the apple, the one forbidden thing. Deep voice, dark eyes, silent smile and perfect apple; only midday draped across his body, tight, alert, alive to the moment of sin. And reaching out to take it in my hand. Who better than me? Let the tension linger, let the audience pulse with anticipation. We touch over the forbidden fruit. The stage lights dim, and I look at him, and I look at him, and raise my eyebrows, and say— But even so, wouldn’t I end up here again, always here? Angels crossing swords behind me, shame clothing me, conflating all my losses—the loss of God, the loss of apples, how they expand inside to fill up hunger. Maybe there are no words here, just the sky blackening with anger. Maybe words wouldn’t be useful here anyway. Consider a scrim: the night sky blotted of constellations; nothing but gray swirls of wrath. And project against it a man’s silhouette: head bent, empty- handed, the memory of apples imprinted on his wordless tongue, and around his neck, loss—like a cowbell—announcing his presence to the fallen world.