They were always wrapped in conversation.
Speaking different languages
they delighted in the exchange itself.
It charged the air around them
trembling the kites
they flew into each other’s gardens.
There
is no safe harbor;
my
soul, at night, is a video game
of flesh and blood
where
I must run run run
then
turn and blast you into dots
(click-click the trigger
I miss, I lose)
lest
you inflict your kill
upon me
A surprisingly lovely flowering weed
with thistle spikes
and white cottony little tufts
branching out like Van Gogh’s almond blossoms
by the highway.
I’m in the car
crying.
Why so many tears?
No answer.
Let’s just call it
Grief and Loss.
(Dukkha. Samudaya.)
Some new exotic recipe
of grief and loss.
Mysterious wound
disturbed;
groundlessness, motherlessness.
Once—six years ago?—in a car, alone
I looked out at a beautiful, beautiful summer day
—one of those gorgeous neighborhoods
with lovingly tended greenery and
flowers exuberantly displayed—
and felt the terror
—the sheer terror—
of no reason, and no means, to live.
Paralyzed by the panic
of exclusion from such beauty.
Not today:
I have reasons to live
(and am not alone
even in this car, as I cry).
But still I will be penetrated, sometimes,
by grief and loss.
Humanity is a weed
flowering in the dirt
by the side of the road.
Life is a beautiful, beautiful day
we ache to live.
Dukkha
(Sanskrit): Loss, affliction, any unpleasant experience of deficit.
Samudaya: Grief; any negative emotion that arises when we experience affliction.
(As per Buddhist author David Brazier.)
“It’s
the most surreal thing:
At
night, when it gets dark,
everyone
has these places where they go
and
they close their doors—
and
you’re sitting there on the sidewalk,”
she
said.
And
now I wonder—
what
is it like
weeks
like these
when
it rains
and rains?
Shifting
vision
—unsettling
experiment—
to
the ever-shifting periphery
—swaying
leaves and shifting saffron light—
of
a tree lined street.
Eddies
of movement with
each
step.
Turning
off the striving voice
of
the rumination machine
in
this white morning room
to
feel a hand
a
foot
against
the sheets;
the
present moment
—is
scary
because
that’s where
our mortality is.
after
Dorothy Parker
Burned in the yellow sun
—this merciless dirt road—
my eyes are black
For I loved the world
but you didn’t love me back
Your
heart is like the world
Very rough and very big.
Like a carnival
There are simple sweets everywhere
And cheerful music.
Like a mountain
There is gold
For those who are willing.
(I
have known your anger
Like
an avalanche of hard stones
And
your devotion
Like
glittering wet nuggets
In
my palm.)
A fallen star
Is in your smile
And rogue's gold.
Rustic dinner you serve
In the rustic palace of your heart.
Wild inventor,
Tio Chiflado,
Patrón,
Rough and ready.
Loved by many
For loving many.
A shooting star
Is there in your smile
And rogue's gold.
Your heart as red as a hearth.
*Brujo
de Almas y del Corazon: Sorcerer/healer of souls and of the heart.
Brujo:
A rough desert shaman and sorcerer.
Extraño:
weird, strange.
Tio
chiflado (Mex. Slang): a zany guy
I
must be
bereft
of enlightenment
ego
ridden
I
don’t want to dissolve
into
the universe
I
want life
after
life after life
as
this self
ever
more fully
after
Ray Gonzalez
If the beginning is the matrix of stars that speaks for the sea, then we must face each new occurrence. The festival called “Certainty” was a great success. We strolled home as if twirling primal parasols, beside a gushing geyser which gave our minds great rest. Many suggested the hypothesis that photographs never develop, and we gazed at them until we understood that The Possible answers all queries, and we praised the brow that relinquishes its opinions. Only the zigzag flight of the sparrows carved the branch, providing implements of restoration.
When your heart has lost faith
in
the urging desires of men
and
you know you don’t have
what
it takes
to
satisfy a woman
what
is there to do
but
forget desire
In this part of the world
there’s no fall season
instead in September
late summer days
alternate
with early winter days, the sky
turns grayish white
the air
feels crisp and moist
with a certain scent—thrilling and rare—
like wet leaves and chopped wood
the air, the scent, always reminds me
—I don’t know why—
of falling in love.
If
it comes up
I
could say:
"I'm
the only person I know
who
fits the Otto Rank theory
of
the artist's aversion
to
genetic reproduction,
that
it's an affront to the artist's most
deeply
held ambition or
strategy..."
To
build a fleet of ships
some
great and mighty
a battalion
sails
blazing in the sun
“…to
jump out of, rather than reproduce, the corporeal…”
others
small
like
the ships inside of bottles
or
just big enough
to
hold in your hands
and
place with care
upon
the water.
(Sartre
envisioned himself
becoming
a book:
pages,
hard cover, stiff,
solid
spine.)
“…most
deeply held ambition…”
To
build, perhaps, an android body.
In
1976 I was eight, reading "The Avengers"
—the
comic book, not the TV show—
and
Janet Pym was kidnapped,
her
essence poured
into
a silvery android body.
Mrs.
Pym survived but so did
the
new being in the adamantium body;
strangely
girlish, a metallic ingénue,
she
had a tremendous
(fragile)
sweetness, like a
new
thing
but
forlorn
White
sail
a
vessel
silvery
virgin
flesh unreal
a
stylized distillation
of
pure personality.
“…jump
out of the corporeal…”
The
subject
"I"
to
speak
(forever!)
dwell
forever in the present tense
but
never again
to
taste
or feel
never
again to be
caressed
or see
a
green sunny day
or hear
the
sound of the World.
(Nature
tricks us either way.)
An
android girl
all
that remains
her sails waving.
Delicate people
So unlike where I come from
A sea of mirrors
I will lie among the litter of bodies in your bed
upon the rocks, beside the waves
when you come in
from sunning by the sea—
I will seize your woman’s body
make you twist
through all your changes
you old man of the sea
‘til all you tricks run out
then you will tell me your secret
answer my asking
hold me
squeeze me while I thrash and twist
make me thrash and scream
Fire
Water
Flower
Fish
‘til I tell you a secret
I don’t even know
put an end to my ceaseless
thrashing change
make me real
in the cave
(for C.M.S.)
At the end of the tale
when Beauty lets go
of her dreams of The Prince
and gives her heart
to The Beast
(he will die without her)
it isn’t just that she’s learned
that beauty is more than skin deep.
It’s that she’s ready
to exchange the pure, evanescent love
of the young swain
for the armed and dangerous desire
of a grown man.
The Beast may be
a prince at heart
but his physical transformation
(saved by her kiss)
is mere censorship,
to protect the reader
and little children
from the
wedding-night
image.
From behind you look
like a skinny college girl
with a flare for suede pumps and fancy dress.
Then one sees the blowsy white hair
and the tragic
wan
wizened
girlish face.
Your two-dollar finery.
Two years ago you stopped eating,
spent your days motionless, battling those
you imagined to be my enemies
in (and with) your mind.
You said phenothiazines
are made of TNT and make
your bones turn black.
You said that changes are taking place
among the planets and the stars,
that one day the sun did not rise at all.
You lost eighty pounds in three months.
‘Til a piercing in your gut
moved you to call the ambulance—
in the nick of time.
You have changed
your voice
your shape
so many times;
acquired
and inflicted
near-death scars—
1989, your knife in a man’s side,
our longtime acquaintance,
his blood in your clothes;
1999, a stranger’s knife
your throat
punctured and slashed
—I could never have imagined.
It’s hard for me to say
I love you
When I do
now
sometimes
it’s the white hair
and the tragic
girlish face.
Then I put aside
my exasperated misery,
Don’t worry, sweetie,
everything will be fine;
I’ll help you!
It’s hard for me to say
I love you
(what I know you need
to hear)
or remember
I was your daughter
once.
The marrow bees
feed hotly on the flowers that her eyes
—of pond water and sky—
drape him in
She swims up from those
perfumed pools
to drink that nectar
and taste that flower-meat
And the blood bees
fill her lips with honey.
She wears the emblem of the White Rose
Invisible
On her skin
Beneath rough layers of knit
And worsted wool.
He meditates daily in a special room
Heady with incense.
Rhena sharpens his pencils and buys him special tea
Brews the pot each day at noon
Rhena wears silk and linen
And worries about her sister
In her layers of rough wool
Her outspoken remarks
Over dinner about The Reich
And the “Fuehrer.”
He shakes his head softly
At the mention of his sister-in-law.
He is sitting beneath a mandala
The wheel of eternity.
His fourth book, “Hindu Philosophy
And Destiny” is almost complete.
(Rhena collaborates without
Ever thinking to claim
Any credit.)
On store fronts
Stars of yellow paint appear.
One night, shattered glass;
Sidewalks filled with broken windows.
A sea of shards Rhena faces,
—Men sweeping
A new world—
Must crush beneath her low-heeled shoes
In the morning
On her way to buy tea and kuchin.
Rhena’s sister is nowhere
To be found.
He is polishing his prose
Tells Rhena aphorisms
About predator and prey
Rueful, serene.
Rhena can barely hold the pencils,
Or remember to pour the boiling water
From the screeching kettle,
And cannot sleep,
Thinks, “What to do?
What can I do?”
Kuchin (pron. Koohen): a common cake served with tea in Germany.
i.
I saw her walking with her man
By his side she feels weak
by his side she’ll be immortal
in his arms her heart beats fire
in his arms she fears she’ll burn
She’s loved other boys
sweet and mild.
Now this man, married, drugged-out,
wild.
She wants to stand for God and good;
fate put her beside a man in black.
ii.
I used to say my tastes ran from the boyish to the bisexual.
I used to have such scruples
left wing piety
Now I love you, marauding Minotaur, with my whole heart.
I don’t even bother to bring my purse—
though I imagine I’ve paid my dues
in poverty and pain
in fear and grief—
never again have feared to order French fries
or a salad
lest I fail to make the tip.
The ATM machine never repossesses my card.
Sometimes I get to wear your fame
such as it is
like an adornment—
in Zurich, Paris, Kyoto, Madrid,
next year Istanbul,
Groenenbach, St. Petersberg—
wonder how it might bleed into mine.
I was attracted to the story
the famous weds the destined to be
like a Calvinist looks for signs
to be among the elect…
People look at us
and imagine I’m a soul-whore
or some kind of father fucker
twisted child.
iii.
Is that how it would feel
a good Christian woman
beside the bad man of Kingsland?
I saw her walking with her love;
He, cocky, striding forward
she, looking over her shoulder.
I saw the lovers
alone
in an unseen doorway
backstage
the back of his fingers brushing her chin
their breaths mingling
lost
blind.