Fireflies follow in my wake.
Their on-off on-off grace
is only missing the heat
to make them into suns.
For that, for me, they’ll chase.
I’ll run
until someone
forgives me.
Posts Tagged ‘romance’
[fireflies follow]
June 29th, 2010
Uncovered
June 27th, 2010Uncovered
His keffiyeh’s a water clock
counting time with slips of hair
that crowd and crouch among themselves
even as they tumble through air.
Colored crudely in that darkness,
it silvers in the locker room.
This ordinary ceremony
of grooming that my eyes make new.
[missing stanza]
He wraps it up in doubled loops.
Infinitied. Haloed. Imbued.
Without Daedalus
June 5th, 2010“a splash quite unnoticed”
– Robert Creeley, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
I glide through the velvet sky on Icarus wings,
never to touch the sun, to err once more,
but feel the brush of regaling winds
that push me forward and nothing more.
I leave an island of cold labyrinths behind me.
It has been wrought to ruins by some skyborn hand.
It is useless to try to return it to its glory
for rivers are rivers and land is land.
My only guide is the morning haze
to mark how much further up or further down
I need to be between the kiss of waves
and the rosy fingertips of the dawn.
If only a bird can know the world from overhead
then I must be this unfettered creature
for men were not made to tread the clouds;
they were only meant to dream and to desire.
My Elesion home lies faraway
beyond the bow and bear of stars.
I’ll disappear somewhere along the way
like a stone tossed and lost under Aegean water.
September 1, 2003
necessary
May 17th, 2010Make yourself necessary to somebody.
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nackt
May 10th, 2010Nackt
The sidewalk’s shattered soda bottle:
now puzzled glass, once interlocked,
even further once, the give
that pharaohs built on top with sphinx
and pyramid. The crystalline
reinvents some myth of light.
And half a mouse with Wednesday’s garbage.
The flies fly figure 8′s above it.
Headless and thoughtless, it has the ocean
among the bristling fur and skin.
Once named because it looked like muscle,
the cup now holds and holds and holds.
The geology of a chicken bone:
strata of bite marks from boy then dog
then the feet of too many roaches
who whisper together as if for love
all layered on top of each other.
Alone is nothing. A banana peel
cures into a nautilus
colored Sun and Earth and all between.
The night I learned I was invincible
Mom and Dad were fragile in their bed.
Who knew these small and beautiful things?
Sonic Radar
April 1st, 2010Sonic Radar
But these pages won’t be my savior.
Better to lean back on elbows in grass,
half crushed by weight, the way
they record our shapes like sand,
and talk, to each other, to our toes, to the darkness,
the sounds of our voices carrying off
to the stars and wanderers who’ll send them back,
some day, unchanged by age, as great as song,
to ears we will have never known.
Advice for Haitian Boys
February 22nd, 2010Advice for Haitian Boys
“Something like 40 to 50 percent of the population at Port-au-Prince is kids.”
Go chase the skirts of women down;
tell each she is the crown you have to have
to raise whole kingdoms up from barren ground
but while she sleeps, search out tomorrow’s love.
When your best friend and blood sworn brother dies
throw flowers and a prayer upon his head
then turn around and drink until you’re blind.
There’s no excuse to outsurvive the dead.
And when you lose a city or much vaster,
dance wildly in the absent space it left.
Trust me it only looks like a disaster;
it meant to carry you from this life to the next.
The moon shows 9 faces and then repeats.
Why waste our time with what we saw last week?
nobody
January 3rd, 2010“In the United States there is more space where nobody is than where anybody is. This is what makes America what it is.”
–Gertrude Stein
Askr y Embla
November 22nd, 2009(very small textual revisions)
Askr y Embla
Eres hermosa como un árbol de las Secoyas.
Sé esto debido al ámbar en tus ojos
y la altura con destino al cielo que hace
imposible para no hacerme caída en amar contigo.
Incluso tu nombre significa que tenías que ser
una planta floreciente,
la adivina de me amas y no me amas.
Puedo ser que parezca un hombre
escritura a través de su crisis de desear
pero soy realmente un niño que juega con
un cuchillo de bolsillo, un par de iniciales,
y un tiro a través de corazón.
Eres esa especie rara que crece la más fuerte
en la incandescencia de un incendio forestal
pero de faltar ese calor, puedo ahora contar
las venas que se ramifican a través de tu palidez.
Dríada, no has encontrado a mis manos,
los creadores de palabras, el calor de sus tenencia,
ni mis brazos que no quieren mas que
abrazar árboles. Secoya –
una palabra prestada del Iroquois,
amos de ocultar su charla en los vientos.
Utilizo este código romantic así que
conseguirías el significado antes de que consigas el mensaje:
me encantas. Creo que eres fuera de mi liga.
Creo que eres el más hermosa cuando
estas quieta y plantada.
Tus oídos miran a escondidas, hacian fuera como las hojas;
habrías sido el sueño mojado de Robert Frost
y ahora divago pero dicen
que es la primera sintoma de la ceguera del árbol.
Utilizo una lengua que no sabes
de modo que comenzaras quizá a entender
cómo me pregunto en la Aurora Arborealis,
los que parecen que siempre te seguir.
Es extraño porque
sé la lluvia,
sé cuándo baja,
cuándo permanence en las nubes
esperando el sol hacer las visitas
así que podría dar una serenata a los amantes
con sus tambores de timpani.
Sé también los rayos del sol,
el beso derecho atado
de sus puños desenredados.
Sé la tierra, su regalo de los reyes magos,
su asombro que acuna, la generosidad
con la cual comparte su sangre manchada.
Apenas no puedo imaginar cómo
agregas para arriba tanto más
que la suma sencilla de esta música,
misericordia, y martirio.
Everything Illuminated
May 7th, 2009I’ve only heard the story once.
It came straight from the source
but was parceled out through shot glasses.
Mom and Dad were high school sweethearts.
Back then and over there, their high school
segregated genders, which meant
it was harder to pass notes during math class,
harder to schedule study dates that were
glorified excuses for accidental contact.
It also meant their love was more destined.
They grew up in the same building.
His family, being only slightly richer,
lived on the ground floor
while hers took the 3rd.
They had a better view
but were less likely to survive in a fire.
Even though it wasn’t color,
he still had a television
and she, the daughter of war survivors,
feigned envy and walked down
the 2 flights every night
to pretend to watch movies.
She was really watching him.
They came from Hong Kong,
the largest town in China,
and took separate flights
halfway around the Earth’s circumference
only to both land in Chinatown
and move into apartments
just blocks from each other.
In the shuffle, she found another suitor
and to hear Dad tell it,
40 years later and swayed by hard liquor,
he was fat and mean
and ugly.
She went to his uncle’s store
every afternoon and talked Dad’s ear off
while he wiped down tables.
She’d whimper like a coyote
caught in a bear trap
but was careful to cover her face.
She could fake the sounds but not the tears;
Dad always makes Mom’s eyes shine.
She technically didn’t propose.
All she’d do was stand real close
and suppose her only escape
was if she were already married
to someone funny, caring, and strong.
At this point, she’d cross her arms,
study the corners of her eyes,
sigh, and count the seconds
it took Dad to take the hint
by tapping her finger on her Chin.
Notice, she never said she wanted someone intelligent,
just someone smart enough to be good to her.
If God and goodness reside
in the laughter of children
then Dad’s been good to Mom
exactly 4 times in his life:
a daughter twice
and a pair of sons who hold
brightness in their hearts and in their minds.
If Love were a light
then my parents’ marriage would be its house
and it would guide all the wayward ships
back home at night.
Watching Dad passed out
and listening to him snore
while Mom stands in the doorway
shaking her head,
I realized I could never outshine their love;
a matchstick can’t go toe to toe
with a bonfire. But I know
if I could just be a mirror
to their 40 year old lime light
then I wouldn’t have to worry
cause I’d be doing pretty alright.
