Poemunity — your poem community

1    As an archaeologist unearths a mask with opercular teeth and abalone eyes, someone throws a broken fan and extension cords into a dumpster. A point of coincidence exists in the mind resembling the tension between a denotation and its stretch of definition: aurora: a luminous phenomenon consisting of streamers or arches of light appearing in the upper atmosphere of a planet’s polar regions, caused by the emission of light from atoms excited by electrons accelerated along the planet’s magnetic field lines. The mind’s magnetic field lines. When the red shimmering in the huge dome of sky stops, a violet flare is already arcing up and across, while a man foraging a dumpster in Cleveland finds some celery and charred fat. Hunger, angst: the blue shimmer of emotion, water speeding through a canyon; to see only to know: to wake finding a lug nut, ticket stub, string, personal card, ink smear, $2.76. 2    A Kwiakiutl wooden dish with a double-headed wolf is missing from a museum collection. And as the director checks to see if it was deaccessioned, a man sitting on a stool under bright lights shouts: a pachinko ball dropped vertiginously but struck a chiming ring and ricocheted to the left. We had no sense that a peony was opening, that a thousand white buds of a Kyoto camellia had opened at dusk and had closed at dawn. When the man steps out of the pachinko parlor, he will find himself vertiginously dropping in starless space. When he discovers that his daughter was cooking over smoking oil and shrieked in a fatal asthma attack, he will walk the bright streets in an implosion of grief, his mind will become an imploding star, he will know he is searching among bright gold threads for a black pattern in the weave. 3    Set a string loop into a figure of two diamonds, four diamonds, one diamond: as a woman tightens her hand into a fist and rubs it in a circular motion over her heart, a bewildered man considering the semantics of set decides no through-line exists: to sink the head of a nail below the surface, to fix as a distinguishing imprint, sign, or appearance, to incite, put on a fine edge by grinding, to adjust, adorn, put in motion, make unyielding, to bend slightly the tooth points of a saw alternately in opposite directions. As the woman using her index finger makes spiral after spiral from her aorta up over her head, see the possibilities for transcendence: you have to die and die in your mind before you can begin to see the empty spaces the configuration of string defines. 4    A restorer examines the pieces of a tin chandelier, and notices the breaks in the arms are along old solder lines, and that cheap epoxy was used. He will have to scrape off the epoxy, scrub some flux, heat up the chandelier and use a proper solder. A pair of rough-legged hawks are circling over a pasture; one hawk cuts off the rabbit’s path of retreat while the other swoops with sharp angle and curve of wings. Cirrus, cirrostratus, cirrocumulus, altostratus, altocumulus, stratocumulus, nimbostratus, cumlus, cumulonimbus, stratus: is there no end? Memories stored in the body begin to glow. A woman seals basil in brown bags and hangs them from the ceiling. A dead sturgeon washes to shore. The sun is at the horizon, but another sun is rippling in water. It’s not that the angle of reflection equals the angle of incidence, but there’s exultation, pleasure, distress, death, love. 5    The world resembles a cuttlefish changing colors and shimmering. An apprentice archer has stretched the bowstring properly, but does not know he will miss the target because he is not aiming in the hips. He will learn to hit the target without aiming when he has died in his mind. I am not scared of death, though I am appalled at how obsession with security yields a pin-pushing, pencil-shaving existence. You can descend to the swimming level of sharks, be a giant kelp growing from the ocean bottom up to the surface light, but the critical moment is to die feeling the infinite stillness of the passions, to revel in the touch of hips, hair, lips, hands, feel the collapse of space in December light. When I know I am no longer trying to know the spectral lines of the earth, I can point to a cuttlefish and say, “Here it is sepia,” already it is deep-brown, and exult, “Here it is deep-brown,” already it is white. 6    Red koi swim toward us, and black carp are rising out of the depths of the pond, but our sustenance is a laugh, a grief, a walk at night in the snow, seeing the pure gold of a flickering candle - a moment at dusk when we see that deer have been staring at us, we did not see them edge out of the brush, a moment when someone turns on a light and turns a window into a mirror, a moment when a child asks, “When will it be tomorrow?” To say “A bell cannot be red and violet at the same place and time because of the logical structure of color” is true but is a dot that must enlarge into a zero: a void,enso, red shimmer, breath, endless beginning, pure body, pure mind.

The afternoon slows down, the town in steady rain. That one with the trendy chicken-plucked look— hair a tufted circle on top, the rest shaved all around— I can't really care about. Of course I hope he grows up without totalling himself and his car, but he's the clown in this act. He seems even to know his place as unworthy twerpy follower of the one no one would look away from for long, whose James Dean stance, hands deep in pockets of a rattily natty maroon corduroy blazer, shoves his shoulders nearly to his ears. Beneath the blazer, long sulked-in jeans, oversized black boots. He lifts one to kick a milkshake someone couldn't finish standing on the sidewalk, and it lands on its side, explodes and rolls a vanilla graffito, expletive unfurling. Expressionless himself. The other boy smirks before the rain douses and sweeps it stupidly into the gutter. Even if I were not invisible through this darkish window, they would know how to erase me. Well, he would. I would enjoy that, just to see how he would do it, what sort of panache he'd pack in his shrug. Raining harder, and the tuft-headed one shifts unhappily under the Revco awning, pivoting his whole body now and then to see what the one I'm half in love with's doing, fifteen, maybe sixteen: he's twitching in sublime irritation, lighting up again, hard to do with both hands in your pockets but he pretty much manages no problem, and now comes the move that gets me. He strides out from under the awning, a spotted Lucky sticking straight from his lip, walks two buildings down and turns at the corner so his back's to Main Street and me, stands, his twitch becalmed at last, stands without heeding his friend's pleading jeering calls, you idiot , you idiot , you idiot , stands hunched, not looking up or down, and I can tell this is his moment, this is where he'll break off, he's going to unload everyone, he doesn't blink as he hawks up their nothingness and spits, feeling himself filling with what's left: he takes possession of his spirited bad luck for good and mounts and rides it without moving a muscle, stands letting the rain collect behind his collar and drench his gloriously inappropriately maroon corduroy and his hair that looks not combable by anyone alive, wild and bunched even when the rain has patted keeps patting at it harder and harder like an obsolete humiliated hand that wants to feed and fend for and in general do for him, and he has turned his back at last on the clown, and on Main Street full of clowns you can both see and not see, who wouldn't dare try to keep an eye on him or try to follow him from now on.

It's really something from the past— when you and I split up without any regrets— just one thing that I don't quite understand . . . When we were saying our farewells and our house was up for sale the empty pots and pans strewn across the courtyard— perhaps they were gazing into our eyes and others that were upside down— perhaps they were hiding their faces from us. A faded vine over the door, perhaps it was confiding something to us —or grumbling to the faucet. Things such as these never cross my mind; just one thing comes to mind again and again— how a street dog— catching the scent wandered into a bare room and the door slammed shut behind him. After three days— when the house changed hands we swapped keys for hard cash delivered every one of the locks to the new owner showed him one room after the other— we found that dog's carcass in the middle of a room . . . Not once had I heard him bark —I had smelled only his foul odor and even now, all of a sudden, I smell that odor— it gets to me from so many things . . .

i. the old marrieds But why the moon rose so cruelly, neither of them would say. Though a listless jazz buzzed obediently beneath their day, and he had seen the hand-in-hands dotting the dim streets. And she had heard the morning skillet scorch its Mississippi sweets, its globs of fat. Now, time to be closer — here, on the verge of May. But why the moon drooped so cruelly, neither ventured to say. ii. kitchenette building We are soft-caged behind streaked windows, our someday plans grayed and siphoned flat. “Faith” is simply a church sound, not strong like “factory,” “scrubbing the chitlins,” or “keeping that man.” But could faith be a blatant gold blasting through dinner’s fatty fumes, its perfumed lure tangling with the smell of twice-fried potatoes and twist-tied bags of reeking rubbish lining the dark hall? Fluttering beneath florescent sputter, could faith warm our rooms, even the walls scrubbed raw with Baptist chill? If we let faith in, had the mind to carve it a space, keep it Sunday clean, anticipate its slow glories, beg it to begin? We can’t spare the time faith needs. We don’t have that minute. Since silly wants like hot water require we be practical now, we wait and wait on the bathroom, hope the warm stays in it. iii. the mother Murders will not let you forget. You remember the children you had — suddenly quarry, target — the daughters with gunfire smoldering circles in their napped hair, the absent sons whose screams still ride the air. You knew the ways of bullets, prayed your child run, outrun, beat them in their race toward the heart of your baby, your sweet. You imagine another child cocking the hammer with his thumb, or blazing the blade forward, harkening the dark that will overcome you. Never again will you look at a bright, upturned face and sigh, returning again and again to drown your baby in the mama-eye. I hear on Kilbourn, on Christiana, the not-there of my children. I have pushed them flail and wriggle from my tired body, eased my babies into a world of growl and gun. The breath-suck, I wailed and prayed, my loves, as rougher mothers seized you. Now I am newly barren, drained of mother luck, and you are suddenly far beyond my futile reach. If I let these frantic streets deny the tender in your names, if I relinquished you to this city and its unrelenting games, your end is all I own. If I dared let others govern your deaths, if I wasn’t there to mourn your final blurring breaths, believe that my loss of you to this was not deliberate. Though I have no right to whine, whine that none of the blame was mine, since, in every world I’m rooted in, you are dead. Or rather, or instead, you are so much a hollow of the children I made. But now you are scar on the pavement. I am afraid — is that the you there is now, how the story of you will be said? You were born — a gunshot, a swift blade — then you died. It’s too much this way — even the child who killed you cried. Believe. I loved you all. Be. Leave me the sounds of still-thudding hearts. I grieve you All. iv. a song in the back yard I’ve wallowed in the back yard all my life. I want to slide ’round front Where it’s gold-splashed and guarded and spined fragrance grows. A girl gets a craving for rose. I want to go in the front yard now and far away from these nappy weeds — this alley too. I wanna see where the well-off children play. I want some proper fun today. They do some miracle things. They have that secret kinda fun. My daddy says They’re uppity, but I think it’s fine how they’re tucked in their beds by a quarter to nine. My mama, with her country ways, try as she may, will never turn me into a weeds and wildflowers woman, that’s a fact. I only stay up late on account of all her party folk flooding our back gate. But that’s OK. I think front yard folk are perfect. Really, I do. And I’m gonna be a righteous woman, too. And wear a soft cardigan, cashmere trimmed in lace. And stroll ’round all of Lawndale with this righteous on my face.

Methought a sweet sound from the street uprose,— And as I pause, and strive again to hear, ‘St Patrick’s Day’ draws softly to its close, And ‘Jordan’s’ waves flow sweetly to my ear, What though from humble source the chorus floats? Music is music, and I listen still; I have ‘an ear’, — ay,two! — Even jews-harp notes Pass current with me, hear them where I will, A slight Italian boy, with jetty hair Shading dark eyes, grinds out the melody, Pulverized music! — In his garb and air I read of sunnier lands beyond the sea, And, dreaming, wander to a fairer clime, Recalled, too suddenly, by — ‘If you please, a dime!’

One died, and the soul was wrenched out Of the other in life, who, walking the streets Wrapped in an identity like a coat, sees on and on The same corners, volumetrics, shadows Under trees. Farther than anyone was ever Called, through increasingly suburban airs And ways, with autumn falling over everything: The plush leaves the chattels in barrels Of an obscure family being evicted Into the way it was, and is. The other beached Glimpses of what the other was up to: Revelations at last. So they grew to hate and forget each other. So I cradle this average violin that knows Only forgotten showtunes, but argues The possibility of free declamation anchored To a dull refrain, the year turning over on itself In November, with the spaces among the days More literal, the meat more visible on the bone. Our question of a place of origin hangs Like smoke: how we picnicked in pine forests, In coves with the water always seeping up, and left Our trash, sperm and excrement everywhere, smeared On the landscape, to make of us what we could.

Tell me how you die and I will tell you who you are. Octavio Paz I stand in line. The woman ahead of me, blowzy-haired and angry, is told that grace is the act of restraint and road-kill is not a sport. She can choose to wait or test the judgment at another entrance. I know that morality, penance, a kind heart don't matter, nor the faith I embraced or didn't, the people I saved. I know the key is where I land on the scale of commitment. Earnhardt, Sr., died for the game, and got in. Many ancient Egyptians buried juggling balls with them, as though endless practice and craft were their gifts to the next world. They entered. I ask if I can peek in, maybe stand on the edge and look into the vast canyon of pits, arenas, fields, fairways, pools, rings, tables, tracks, courts, beaches, forests, mountains where war is forbidden. Here is what I bring for review: a nasty fastball, a runner-up ring, individual initiative, a contrary attitude, the heart of a poet. I bring a willingness to run like an outlaw, honor the Greeks and Makahiki, invent new games, practice past dusk, play on the second squad, and keep score until I can get in the game with eternity left on the clock. I hope it is enough.

1 The white butterfly in the park is being read by many. I love that cabbage-moth as if it were a fluttering corner of truth itself! At dawn the running crowds set our quiet planet in motion. Then the park fills with people. To each one, eight faces polished like jade, for all situations, to avoid making mistakes. To each one, there's also the invisible face reflecting "something you don't talk about." Something that appears in tired moments and is as rank as a gulp of viper schnapps                with its long scaly aftertaste. The carp in the pond move continuously, swimming while they sleep, setting an   example for the faithful: always in motion. 2 It's midday. Laundry flutters in the gray sea-wind high over the cyclists who arrive in dense schools. Notice the labrinths on each side! I'm surrounded by written characters that I can't interpret, I'm illiterate through and            through. But I've paid what I owe and have receipts for everything. I've accumulated so many illegible receipts. I'm an old tree with withered leaves that hang on and can't fall to the ground. And a gust from the sea gets all these receipts rustling. 3 At dawn the trampling hordes set our quiet planet in motion. We're all aboard the street, and it's as crammed as the deck of  a ferry. Where are we headed? Are there enough teacups? We should consider ourselves lucky to have made it aboard this street! It's a thousand years before the birth of claustrophobia. Hovering behind each of us who walks here is a cross that wants to catch up with us, pass us, unite with us. Something that wants to sneak up on us from behind, put its hands over our eyes and whisper "Guess who!" We look almost happy out in the sun, while we bleed to death from wounds we don't know about.

... a separation from the world, a penetration to some source of power and a life-enhancing return ... Van Gennep: Rites de Passage Moth-force a small town always has, Given the night. What field-forms can be, Outlying the small civic light-decisions over A man walking near home? Men are not where he is Exactly now, but they are around him    around him like the strength Of fields.    The solar system floats on Above him in town-moths. Tell me, train-sound, With all your long-lost grief, what I can give. Dear Lord of all the fields what am I going to do? Street-lights, blue-force and frail As the homes of men, tell me how to do it    how To withdraw    how to penetrate and find the source Of the power you always had light as a moth, and rising With the level and moonlit expansion Of the fields around, and the sleep of hoping men. You?    I?    What difference is there?    We can all be saved By a secret blooming. Now as I walk The night    and you walk with me    we know simplicity Is close to the source that sleeping men Search for in their home-deep beds. We know that the sun is away    we know that the sun can be conquered By moths, in blue home-town air. The stars splinter, pointed and wild. The dead lie under The pastures.    They look on and help.    Tell me, freight-train, When there is no one else To hear. Tell me in a voice the sea Would have, if it had not a better one: as it lifts, Hundreds of miles away, its fumbling, deep-structured roar Like the profound, unstoppable craving Of nations for their wish. Hunger, time and the moon: The moon lying on the brain as on the excited sea    as on The strength of fields. Lord, let me shake With purpose.    Wild hope can always spring From tended strength.    Everything is in that. That and nothing but kindness.    More kindness, dear Lord Of the renewing green.    That is where it all has to start: With the simplest things. More kindness will do nothing less Than save every sleeping one And night-walking one Of us. My life belongs to the world. I will do what I can.

It’d been a long winter, rags of snow hanging on; then, at the end of April, an icy nor’easter, powerful as a hurricane. But now I’ve landed on the coast of Maine, visiting a friend who lives two blocks from the ocean, and I can’t believe my luck, out this mild morning, race-walking along the strand. Every dog within fifty miles is off-leash, running for the sheer dopey joy of it. No one’s in the water, but walkers and shellers leave their tracks on the hardpack. The flat sand shines as if varnished in a painting. Underfoot, strewn, are broken bits and pieces, deep indigo mussels, whorls of whelk, chips of purple and white wampum, hinges of quahog, fragments of sand dollars. Nothing whole, everything broken, washed up here, stranded. The light pours down, a rinse of lemon on a cold plate. All of us, broken, some way or other. All of us dazzling in the brilliant slanting light.