Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Poem of Beginnings

This is the first line of this poem
It had greater intension than this line
but really never lives up to it
Very few live up to their intentions
And this poem is already drying up
That is why this poem is going to begin again
here and be written on fine Chinese paper
to enhance its imagery of someone
who has found it crinkled and stuffed
into a hole in the attic. But that is not
better than the imagination of someone
who wonders about how it got there
being written by a robed monk
and stuffed into the shirt sleeve of his lover
as he was sailing to America
fleeing a revolution in the red hot night sky
and sailing across the expanse of a dark green ocean
This is where the poem is lost
and then hidden for no one ever to see
in a hole of a dry hot attic
until someone like you finds it
and begins to read and
seeing the stars in a clear blue night
thinks that this is a good place to start.

Jobless

She said, "We have no home."
So I said, "Let's go."
And we left to go our separate ways.
Things were getting darker
because night was coming on
or lingering in its darkness
started to come out in the open.
I was getting tired
because it was getting late,
because I had walked most of the way
and still had no home.
As I passed, the prairie was mispelled
like lagoonal or lacunal.
I crossed half the country and
stopped in a town
that looked similarly like my home town
only that it was twenty years later
and there were hints of revitalization projects
scattered willy-nilly throughout
I was already sort of feeling settled
so I settled down
in a home that looked similarly like my own
only it was lighter and had a new roof.
I spent my days reading the paper and going online
Watched my mother die
When I finally got an interview
for a job I prepared all night but still
did not know what to expect
I decided I would act like Ghandi
but the job was for people who
hit the ground running
and the world didn't need another
leader, you know, we
all want to be leaders.
So, I wondered why I believed
in Ghandi, so, I bought a gun.
And bought another
because the first one I didn't
want to use.
There were a few televisions
like in the old days
in the window
of a electronic shop.
There were several
people clearing their throats
so I walked in.
A lot of things were happening
If only I had some money
I could be happening
right along side of them
but I sort of felt good
even though I wasn't being
included. I took out my gun
the one that I wasn't going to use
and raised it in the air
like in the old days
or in my remembrance
of the old days on TV
where the cowboys
in their exuberance
would raise up their guns
and shoot up the place
all in good fun.
Today they consider this a crime.
But I was thinking of Ghandi
and how he didn't mean that
much to me anymore.
I was thinking that they
were going to call me.
To tell me that I had gotten the job.
That we were going our separate ways
our separate ways
leading us home.


Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Stop When We Do

Here vapor
may your faded
dungarees
suffer
as I have done
in my amputations
roll up the absent
pantaloon
and feel
for the sun-cloud
river basin
in the dark morning
ghost color.
Knowing now
how mud clothed
and fleeting the rain
the snow and clear days
have turned the discs
of the apple
fall into the light
like the first
conscious streak
of Chinese yellow.
Through which
I have made
my many visitations.


All Life is like this Afteroon

All life is like this afternoon on your young sandy face the weight of the stars the body tasting like snow a slipcover of communic...