Brief letter to a faraway friend

Exceptional drama
the thirty petals
of the white daisy
the yellow of the
center

these little islands
that invoke
your light
the consummation
of your distance

Actual or
imagined
the message is
always felt,
your memory meets
the standards
of the morning.

One Age

There is only one age-
the duration of a note from
a string

and then another plucked,
how different it felt
back then

to have an empty stage
waiting in front, a willing
page

let me tell you
from the vantage
of midlife vista

there is only one age-
young:
ever open

to be ready
like a finger
on a fiddle

to feel every word
and blossom
ever into pain

to be whole again
and again.

Boundless

The interstates
and service roads
have the same
reasons for stretching

extending
their legs in sleep,
restlessly
covering America

above
the mellow ochre moon
speaks soft
strings of sky sentences

below the joyful
tubers find
their skinny knees
kissing

dripping
honeycomb heart
finds my tongue,
needing sugar

my star witness-
how do I protect you
from time’s
indecent licking?

Draw a circle
with your tongue
and name it ours-
heard the foals around it

the periphery
is your freckled skin,
the center pull
your kindness.

Self

I looked for myself
in the recesses
of my own irises

in the violet
petals of a hyacinth

in the eyes of others

and in the last convulsions
of a rainbow trout-

It wasn’t wondering
what it was,
but simply thrashing to live.

What a strange thing
to find myself
in all these things
and also
only in a thought.

Mine and yours

Your stately victorian,
my cabin, Lincoln-like and dusty.

Your bungalow in Mallorca,
my third floor walkup in Astoria.

Your candy colored key ring,
my vestibule in disarray.

Your slush covered
and insistent Golden doodle,
my panting, white toothed akita.

Your heated bathroom floor,
slate colored
suburban comfort,
grapefruit face wash,
and matching bathrobes,
my Norway maple branch
scratching the cold window.

Your therapist, green eyed
and prim post doctorate,
my shaman, reincarnation
of a leatherback turtle.

Your children, one, two, and
three, like caltrops, waiting
for you to stumble on them,
my houseplants, wanting for water.

Your subdivision, my forest.
Your lemon ginger tea,
my madeleine memories.

Your fantasies of bondage,
my lovers long forgotten.
What neighborhood,
what country home
could we inhabit-
where do we look for rentals?

I only see the moment
between the goodbye hug
and the open road.
That’s the only place
that any one can live in.

Between

The world begins a clearfield rose
an oyster shell, a white abode
a dazzling empty plane of thought
Explodes Explodes Explodes Explodes!

Then here we are
Just you and me
And her and I
And she and we
And primrose pink and cobalt blue
And robin’s eggs and breaking cliffs
And maple trees and all that is

And also all the pain we feel
the horror show that makes love real
the threads we slowly pull apart
the yawning chasm in our hearts

Then one by one we feel the web
vibrating underneath our feet
the dew drops sparkle in our eyes
like lazy spider lullabies

And back to white we travel on
through spinning space and dying suns
until we know what we’ll forget
that one is all and all is one.

Wish (because it might not happen)

If only things were more simple
but wishes are drifting
ripped missives
sleeves of thin paper

I dreamt I was better at waking
dreams are empty rooms
outside, a couple stood in line
filling applications
waiting on love's labor

I wish you weren't taken
but wishes are spaces before lines
traces and tea stains
and lost time

here we are again
toasting this
hopeful fermentation
the bubbles forming
the top opening
and always
I say the wrong thing
to anyone who cares

because they remind me
of me of the if?
and if and if and if and if
and whatever we're in-
it's akin to milk in the morning
all in the delivery
and not in the hoping.

Pecho a tierra

Ciudad de Mexico, un corazón roto,
aqueducto sin tope
brotando flores y efluente,
girando como un molinillo
pegado al lado de una mezcladora
de cemento.
Cuantas caras, de carne, raíz, y pintura,
las calles están
embarazadas con tanto meneo
de piernas y lenguas
Aquí lo extranjero se pierde entre
la obscena variedad de un valle
descuartizado y derramando colores
Hasta los perros
tienen pinta de existir entre mundos,
hay uno de cada uno
confiados y simpáticos,
se revuelcan en su polvo
como pulpos en su tinta.

Sin conocer la jungla, las lianas
se trepan entre costillas de hierro,
y sin conocer Sevilla,
un pulso andaluz surge de los cantares
en las esquinas, y en las carcajadas de
agua que brotan de fuentes ya medio
abatidas.

Una camioneta pasa como
un fantasma enloquecido,
gritando con voz de altoparlante
“Se compran colchones
tambores, refrigeradores, estufas, lavadoras,
o alguna otra cosa vieja que quiera vender.”
Aqui se trafican hasta los hígados
de los mas venerados santos
en un tianguis o un relicario, no importa,
como el magistrado, no hay halo
que no tenga precio.
El oro que se ha buscado siempre
se revela diente por diente-
es un par de mariposas
amarillas que juegan entre las buganvillas
del parque Mexico.

Sin acordarse de Tonantzin
los nuevos dioses vomitan lava,
gasolina y aloe sobre tierras que no se rinden-
que desgarradas dan nacer a mil esperanzas.
Sin conocer a Olympo
el volcan duerme, ignorante
de su grandeza.
Y tu, gabacho visitante,
cuidado que no te ahogue la brumosa
historia de besos y cortadas.
Entre estos montes desequilibrantes
se tiene que destilar el tiempo
y buscar refugios-
un cafecito en la mañana
o un mirlo en una palma.

Ciudad de paredes y de
vistas desconfiadas, sinfonia
sorda de tono, y estallido de jacarandas
En enfrentar a este pueblo, carente de dirección,
pero vivo como un alambre cercenado,
hasta un ateo como yo tiene que imitar
al coplero jarocho que pasa
suplicando por la calle-
porque deje mi alma en tu rebozo,
Mamá por dios
ay Mamá por Dios.

Slow fade

You left me a painting
of tulips on a windowsill
straight backed
and kerrygold yellow.
Between their stems,
and the slanting sun
on the cream colored wall,
I’ve begun to lose
the outline of your breathing.

At times when you waltzed
through my kitchen,
a half sashay from the limits of living,
or a do-si-do
through the withering day,
I felt a hint of spring
in the prairies of dreaming.
a vibration on the track,
a breeze on the circuit
of a naked back,
the impatient peeking
of seedlings.

You left traces of your name
on everything
I thought I owned,
slim fingers printed
reminders on the margins
of evening.
But now you’re slipping-
how do i keep
this ferris wheel from tipping?

Poems about the sun

The sun is in my spine,
It travels like the Q train from Coney to 96th.
A flare of potential travels from my heel bones
to the platform of my sentences.
I’m sprinting through the freezing rain,
hurrying to catch its nomadic affection.

Cadmium daffodils in a sidewalk planter
on an April night.
A few rattling cars pass by the neat rows.
The lanky flowers look like orphaned children of the sun.
They lean towards each other,
all of them wanting to touch something.
The day’s exhaust settles on soft bells.

I don’t believe in the green flash,
but I do believe in the sigh of the tea kettle
before it starts wailing.
Every time I hear it
my mind goes to that distant place,
where the sun settles into the sea.
The water there is hot enough
to cauterize your absence.

Hot pink pixel

Marie Celeste was born in Mimizan.
Her father has three lovers.
The first one is a nurse, and her name is Sylvie.
She sneezes when she looks at the sun.
The second one likes pistachio ice cream,
but doesn’t like sharing.
The third one embraces Marie tightly,
as if she were meeting her daughter
for the very first time.
Marie has always felt forgotten,
like a little river pebble
at the bottom of a bucket,
but the corners of her upper lip curve up,
like water meeting glass.
Her smile wants to fly from her-
It trembles with energy,
like a hot pink pixel on a screen,
or a hummingbird in a dusty attic.

Pieces of the sun

These are clearly
fragile moments,
transparent instances
that break like a windshield
in a head on collision.
They lie scattered, glinting
and hot on the tarmac.

There are always more ways to see,
and always more eyes to see them,
but in the compound fracture
of blue sky and white cloud,
nothing is ever revealed
but the enormity of my own
ignorance.
I learned this
when I tried to pick up
the broken pieces of the sun.

Untitled

Fuzzing
hopping
nervous
tooth expert
I had a small white rabbit
and named it Amichai

StrangePupils
bony knees
stringy meat
spared the knife
I had a pair of billy goats
and named them Pearl and Patience

Egg smooth
and hard gray
the shape of a
bucks testicle
I had a river stone
and named it Vengeance

A jungle drowned
in endless stars,
nothing to quell
except the fire of every galaxy
I had a burning palm frond
and named it Patrimony

Metal taste
an ear call
tinkering, tingling
hunger pains and haste
I had a golden bell
and named it Clarity

Palpitating Clouds
and sodden
rows of soybeans
reaching skyward
I can’t put a finger on this
ocean of longing, and so
I do not name it.

Birds (final flight)

This week
all my friends
posted pictures
of dead birds.

What a strange thing
to do in springtime.
I wonder how far
they traveled
just to fall
into a photograph.

The robin
and the catbird
and the sharp shinned hawk
(aren't going anywhere)
but tender and tense,
they look prepared
to fly again, not here
but somewhere
they can really spread
their wings.

Nede

The body of a man
miles from the fornicating sea,
scraping against chaste
rocks, but making no sparks

the gorgeous limbs of
possible flesh, and breasts,
a woman in the lava hills
grinding on dry rhyolite

soft as apricots, and tender,
these unconsummated forms,
leagues from the horny ocean
shifting with the sultry wind
like distant pillars
of unused salt.

Uki

Inwards
she nibbles
fidgets
clipping scissors
trimming
winter fistfuls
fleeting pleasures
never straight
this thinner vision
facing
scripture
scarce believing,
limits splintering
her sinful
innards breathing mist
twin fingers
spinning tendons
in with tinsel
algonquin birch twig temples
sinking ribs and sinew
into C shaped symbols.

A bzzz
a little zzzzzzzzt,
whiskers from a nightjar,
a nip of intuition
wincing frost
on wind lips tinted,
the glinting tips of tundra
mink skin,
her crackling transistor.
Inuit predictor,
fictive primness
ticklish
in situ
barely moving
flinty prisms
quickly licking
thin ellipses.

Vacancy

Wake
I said
and she understood me
implicitly
with her eyelids
her breathing
and there was a hum
and a pulling of horsehair across
nickel and all of it was
as coal, or oil
or maybe even darker

and she awoke,
but only in that distant place
under time's slow current
and I braced against the weight of it
taking me.

yes I went to her
through the density of constellations
and briar and dripping curtains,
soaked like a fresh wound.

But when I imagined
that I reached that place
that clearing
and I smelled chysanthemums
no longer submerged in ink
and I saw little pieces of light
and felt that I could kiss
the back of her neck,
which is always sloping
away from me

I found echoes
and bedchambers forgotten
with neatly made beds
pressed linens
and empty crystal vases.
She left her happiness
unattended by her smile
vacant as the inside of a violin
bereft as a clothesline
in need of clean cotton.

Hung-over romance

No additional text
was required but
leftover cytokines
and cider
were sought after
and desired
by the attendees
at the tail end of the soiree
and hey, she said
did you see that guy
who looked like Leonard Cohen
I’d like to kiss him
screw him maybe tomorrow
in my kitchen
and they both laughed
maybe it was just the apples
in their fermented state
that made her talk that way
at parties.

And the next day
which they intentionally
left blank,
a gray slate
for the rewriting
watching waxwings
on the branches
their legs a bit like
jelly and that little black
cloud hanging above
the amygdala
they walked by the Charles river
and screwed no one in the kitchen
but watched the last of the Mohicans
and when the blonder sister
let herself drop off that cliff
tumbling like a maple helicopter
he said sometimes when I’m with you
I feel like letting go and

falling

just like that.