10,000
years from now no lungs will fill
with
this difficulty. We will have learned,
by
then what things we can and cannot burn.
And
then, as now, to burn will mean to kill.
Not
that I don't understand why the smoke
soothes
a guilty lung. Mama had to hear
brothers
and sister upstairs, when the fear
of
fathering hands stopped being fear, and took
form.
She breathed out loud to help her pretend.
Age
12: the next day she rolled and lit
and
repented, pulled its punition, breathed in. After
each
night’s loud breath, there followed her revenge
on
this self-defense. In 10,000 years,
will
they punish only real offenders?
The surface layer of pavement, in spite
of efforts to hold it together, cracks
and all, has begun to fracture. For weight
of tire and traveler does not stack
as neatly as thought, by calculators'
designed predictions, to do; in advance,
guard rails were made, and relief corridors
to massage stressed shoulders. But the chance
to defy what's reckoned is never lost
on the asphalt, unlike us, who tire
so quickly in the weighing what most
agree is impossible of measure,
which of these miles, cracked and coming fast,
will pave my future in this highway's past?
I become as though I never was
a fault within them, which cannot reform
except by mending the frayed seam, cause
of the wound unstitched, into a whole. This harm
was not my choice, nor did I choose to tear
all that was torn by me. Here I am nothing
I was not made to be. And no repair
can heal the break in everything
I am, since I am the break itself.
Of this they are ignorant, but not you:
you were the harbinger of something else,
something I was unsure of, in that I
who was rent by all, found in rending you,
myself--fresh-hemmed, with cords that can't untie.
a fault within them, which cannot reform
except by mending the frayed seam, cause
of the wound unstitched, into a whole. This harm
was not my choice, nor did I choose to tear
all that was torn by me. Here I am nothing
I was not made to be. And no repair
can heal the break in everything
I am, since I am the break itself.
Of this they are ignorant, but not you:
you were the harbinger of something else,
something I was unsure of, in that I
who was rent by all, found in rending you,
myself--fresh-hemmed, with cords that can't untie.
The office he sat inside became all
there was to him, and when he died, they saw
and opened his heart. On a ventricle,
as on a floor, a tiny desk in view,
and a chair that would roll up to and away
from, at the beat, a phone just now finished ringing.
A picture, nearly microscopic, lay
upside down like its larger brother, wrong-
oriented, and heads were scratched, and eyes
were squinted, and notes were scribbled on pads.
An idea was painstakingly theorized,
studies done, grants applied for, and granted,
and calls made, awards won, and hung on walls
by men in offices becoming all.
The Instrument Responds...
And who knows how I play, how I hold you
to be mysterious as music is,
brief as a summer afternoon, and blue
as Miles Davis was never, how I
am held by you, whose curled melodies sway
in me with new words. If I bend and lie
in that posture, tendering for a curve
this back upright and hollow, who will say
what heaven or hell would have been—or if
any orthodoxy could sustain that beat
of yours, could any bible give of verse
the way you give of your ambitious sweet
improvisation, and breathe into me the riff
of what you hold and only we rehearse?
And who knows how I play, how I hold you
to be mysterious as music is,
brief as a summer afternoon, and blue
as Miles Davis was never, how I
am held by you, whose curled melodies sway
in me with new words. If I bend and lie
in that posture, tendering for a curve
this back upright and hollow, who will say
what heaven or hell would have been—or if
any orthodoxy could sustain that beat
of yours, could any bible give of verse
the way you give of your ambitious sweet
improvisation, and breathe into me the riff
of what you hold and only we rehearse?
Call the emperor of ice cream, your love
intoned, but you tongued at the infinite
apostrophe of height, your genitive
O's not birthing for all that sound. And that
rhythm of his play, all its comedy
concealed, the laughter eluding the frame
you held your subjects into by force--Be
serious!--you were a child, and no rhyme
could bear the sulking syllable you
bent with the weight of white buildings, with all
the humor of him, loosing that through
which you sought high water. Who saw you fall,
or heard the long vowel in the words that veiled
the reasons why his laughter made you wail?
intoned, but you tongued at the infinite
apostrophe of height, your genitive
O's not birthing for all that sound. And that
rhythm of his play, all its comedy
concealed, the laughter eluding the frame
you held your subjects into by force--Be
serious!--you were a child, and no rhyme
could bear the sulking syllable you
bent with the weight of white buildings, with all
the humor of him, loosing that through
which you sought high water. Who saw you fall,
or heard the long vowel in the words that veiled
the reasons why his laughter made you wail?
I have tasted you in an orange peel
-ed too quickly as if under some duress
to lend its so early sweetness for a meal,
have seen the rise of you figured in the breast
of your city, stretched skyward as a nude
with a sense of itself, shorn of the dress
steel and simile cloth it in. But you
have never tasted more than the close of me,
free of prying only to your solitude.
Nor have I risen and fallen like trees
to break the horizon on latitudes
that shadow across your morning body.
Yet free,
of these metaphors, you are still as veiled
as, if you weren't, all figures were sure to fail.
-ed too quickly as if under some duress
to lend its so early sweetness for a meal,
have seen the rise of you figured in the breast
of your city, stretched skyward as a nude
with a sense of itself, shorn of the dress
steel and simile cloth it in. But you
have never tasted more than the close of me,
free of prying only to your solitude.
Nor have I risen and fallen like trees
to break the horizon on latitudes
that shadow across your morning body.
Yet free,
of these metaphors, you are still as veiled
as, if you weren't, all figures were sure to fail.
*for
Mom and Wally
Clipped
from under the feet it did not merit,
the earth ceded its grip on all that was
Chino. His was the tail whose wag would dare it
to become part of this motion's cause. Because
a dog's a dog, one cannot be sure of earth
as more than another fetched thing, one more
spinning disc of which we only know its worth
when it lies caught, slobber-drenched, on the floor.
I dig it, Chino. I feel the difference
made when you counted for joy the spinning
that threatens to fling us free of itself. Once
I flung over you earth, shoveled and spinning,
no tail upturning its settle. I dig it,
Chino, but now it, not you, grips tight at my feet.
the earth ceded its grip on all that was
Chino. His was the tail whose wag would dare it
to become part of this motion's cause. Because
a dog's a dog, one cannot be sure of earth
as more than another fetched thing, one more
spinning disc of which we only know its worth
when it lies caught, slobber-drenched, on the floor.
I dig it, Chino. I feel the difference
made when you counted for joy the spinning
that threatens to fling us free of itself. Once
I flung over you earth, shoveled and spinning,
no tail upturning its settle. I dig it,
Chino, but now it, not you, grips tight at my feet.
No comments:
Post a Comment