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| Contra vim mortis non crescit herba in hortis
The expanding universe is but a wheelbarrow
upright against a grayed wooden shack
in summer rain, oxidized, picturesque,
in the lower-left-hand corner
of an ektachrome novel you found rummaging through
a dusty box of your granfather's personal belongings.
In the foreground, he holds an eight pound turnip
up with a grin; his wifebeater, a fizzling lucky strike,
and his army beret drip August tears. "It was as
big as your head, look at this, here's your proof!"
he would always say. But no one will publish this novel,
and the sordid tales of a man's green thumb, his
love for brandy and cigarettes, his wife Evelyn and her
pitchers of sweet tea, or how he killed that German boy
in the Bois-Jacques in "snow sev'n foot deep'" will remain
unprinted, unheard. No museum will take the olive bible
or the purple hearts into its collection, as the heavy Cajun
man fries bacon and turnips for breakfast no more.
There is no herb in the garden for death,
as old some king signed. Some quiet autumn
afternoon an old man is reborn and an infant
lays on her deathbed. It'll come for all of us, eventually,
by war perhaps or just wanting to get into bed;
we're all so tired, after all. The silence lingers,
it never leaves like the sound-bringers do. And
when gone, the astronaut will only be a star,
the children merely songs. The earth,
in tall trees, perhaps will laugh
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| It would seem that writing is as rare a thing as snow in the south.
But ice storms happen and the words like craven apples hesitate to thaw.
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i'm speaking to you through hospital music
in a land foreign as cloth to your warm legs at night-
not so much
your antiquarian tastes for auroras, viking eddas
or the thornsweet ambrosia of those
blond wayfarers.
the glassblue raindrop palor
of these naked halls resonates of faraway cheap wine
comas, beds of endless joint-bend sprawl and
the ache of love,
in and of highway motels decades before i breathed my
last poem, when we loved to catch the un-newtonly
climax of midwestern industry defiant between the eye and
ascending orange god of the horizon as bold you and i
sandwiched between an itchy blanket
and the sins of twenty years.
"baby, let's wake up in another time zone."
The rain finally did it. And you, Siren of words.
Bear with me if you will, it's not so simple to be new at this for the third time.
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| I haven't written since October. And that feels like a missing part of
me, as if I will find it at some train station waiting for me in the
gray rain, cold and hungry yet still forgiving.
But I've been translating.
I love this new town, and the little mountains and the trees that do change color in the colder months. Anybody want a beer with me?
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|
nirvana?
a young god
merges onto the parish highway
unaware
and narrowly avoids
sending an old farmer
to heaven in his '51 pickup
it's early and cold
dazed from the end of the
relationship-to-end-all-relationships
and somewhat missing
the skybent smoke of cigarettes,
her,
and life,
he heads north
across state lines
the sun flares
across the frosty windshield
it's almost winter
he can feel it everywhere
walking from the parking lot
to the army recruiting station
inside the fatigues hand novels
of bureaucracy to the
civilian-clothed
unaware
the young god sits in a
metal folding chair as cold as
the changing air
a middle aged woman
sipping black coffee
from a styrofoam cup
in the corner eyes
him eyeing a poster
the call to service slogans
she is beautiful
she sits closer to him
whispers
"don't do it
you're unaware of
the situation and i've
lost a son there
here, if you already
signed up i'll buy
you a ticket to
canada, just
don't waste your
life searching
for death, please"
the young god zeroes in
her blue-gray eyes
begging, becoming moist
she wants to sleep with him
he might return
the favor if he still wasn't
thinking about the
honey-haired pacific islander
goddess back in california
unaware
the young god thinks about
his goddess
the day dying down
imagined her tracing the outline
of where he slept beside her
for a month
how they starved
how they loved
how she was with another man
before his plane even landed
how hungry from no food
or him inside her she meant
to imply that steam rises
from the streets because
the water is tired
of laying low
the young god thought
of nothing after that,
said he wanted to fight
that if you're not kicking
and screaming you're not
truly alive
he left the woman there
sitting upright and
clasping her hands
in her lap
he was blissfully unaware
as he wrote his novel
and went in the back
to sign a novella and
two more short stories
the next hour
still unaware he went
to the doctor to be
evaluated
it felt like one should be
usda regulated
to serve the country
recieving a grade d because
his spine is not
as straight as it could be
and walking back to his car
sitting with nowhere to go
three quarters
of a tank of gas left
he would stay in school
find another fish in the sea
as the sunlight gives him
goosebumps through
the car window
and thinks of buddha smiling
as the morning sun
rolls over
his eyes and mouth
the warmth of light enlightens
buddha to speak
"one should take the path
of most resistance"
the young god smiles too
and is made aware
----------------------------
To sum up the past three months.
It feels good to write again, even if the substance isn't my best or greatest. But I love this new town, I love this university, I'll be here permanently in six weeks. All that's missing is you.
p.s, if you're close to Fayetteville, AR or know someone there, hit me up or introduce me.
go with peace.
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