Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Fever

my dear
i will come by your side
when the dusk lays down
its heat upon your brow

what are you
afraid of love, the night
passes like all things
all things pass

oh, we were alchemist lead
we were in belief laid golden down upon the other side
we were laid golden, the water stood upon us shivering
oh, an instant
i will come

i will stay by your side
though our lives dissect us i will bring a cup of water
i will bathe your face all lined in sweat
i will hold the warmth of your hand

what should we be afraid of
while our fingers intersect?

Friday, August 27, 2010

quotable

is something said
in such a way as to be remembered, thus:

i don't need more
than half to understand it
to repeat it and sound
rather clever, ahem, hem

johnson beckons
he rides columbus like
santa maria, human pride
a funny tide to lift your ship

ben is in a fit
he is casting down books
he is raining dictionary leaves, thus:

can something be so true
no one would even half believe it?


Prickly Pear

like the bushes
bus boys
brushed stacks of plates on the desert brown

or like
the devil reaching up from hell
saying, let's play some
ping pong

better attempts at temptation
have been conceived than this
cross between a cucumber
pita bread and a doberman collar




Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Poems from the Road

Iowa

two hundred years ago
a golden sea now gold-tipped
corn runs in rows
and waves and follows from the tide of sun
and soil

the wind is glad here
it brushes over gentle hills
like grandma's print cotton apron settles upon its peg
of pinwheel wind turbine
culling a crop of prairie wind
it sings like cicadas
a constant familiar song

soybean leaves complement the sky
she widens down, a bell of blue
unbroken brings a smile like
farm fields' wildflower verge

Iowa is
where the earth feeds us.


Missouri

Wears trees like feathers
with fields tucked in
the sweet sun stealing color from cut hay
clouds stealing across the brow of day

we roll up another hill
then down again over Pole Cat Creek
stretching a lazy leg, the varmit

nothing is quite level, straight
nothing without a bit of overgrown
at the edges

license plates say
show me
yes, i believe you can

when we pass on Missouri
she will take us in overgrown
with green
like old farmhouses
tree-trimmed and winged

Kansas

lean
all framed by sky
the fence-posts seem ten feet tall

the sky would be a character
if Kansas were a novel

and rickety windmills
barns like an old man's face
from squinting into sun but

to live here must mean
to fall in love with blue
sudden storm
and rush of rain

Oklahoma

truck stop
called Love's

by the highway
scissor tails
and killdeer fly
like parables on a backdrop
of husky evening air

rusty white chevrolet
pulls away with JESUS
custom license plates

goodbye
God be with you.

South Texas

arroyo choked
one heavy rain the rio rises

the fruit clusters red on the prickly pear
that clusters everywhere

the century
american agave
expires in a single bloom
higher than a human head
can death be
an unexpected beauty?

look, three columns of cloud
kicked up on the horizon
scan the sunset

a pack of dogs runs loose
by sky-blue tin-roofed casas
night is beginning

i am still looking
west my eyes
tinged pink

arroyo rain-choked the rio
will be deep with God
vaya

Monday, August 23, 2010

Grandpa's 1950's DeWalt Radial Arm Saw

dusty garage and rusty
tools left lying
when his day declined to armchair sitting

i took home the saw
i remembered huge in grandpa's
thick hands

late into the night
under the blare of worklight bulb
i worked joints and oiled wheels
turned the old-fashioned key start
carbide teeth clanged and rang
purred
and how i recall the sound striking childish ears
grandpa's voice:
let me tell you,
i made a lot of things with that saw
the whir is sharp again
she rips through test wood
it'll cut any angle you can think of
any angle you can think of

grandpa, cells breaking
i healed that old beast
with spit and oil and fingers
raw
she rips through wood
we will build some things
i promise you

Saturday, August 14, 2010

cicadas

they burrowed deep
they slept against stone

they recognized
returning time

instinctual
the voice of god
cicadas in the trees

their wings
beat time
their voice
like powerlines

they dug deep
they came up singing electric

when i die
bury my down below the frostline
bury me where cicada young sleep

rain on a sunny day

the sky was of two minds
the rain all washed in light

you prism-like
wrap the clouds in rainbow bars

i love you like high music
i do not understand

i love you because i don't know what else
to call the feeling

i love you because
the sky is a momentary thing
and because
your face is open as a swung gate
because i don't know where the wind begins or ends
because the water lying dead in lakes is lifted up
because i believe the clouds are soft and
light is sweet before the night

because the condensation of the clouds spreads across
the spectrum of my sight
and i know there is more than my eye can describe

because you are open as the sky
and there is more than my eye can describe
perfect afternoon rain-bathed and new.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Owen's first poem, age 5 (as dictated to his mom)

Tornado

up
up
that mop goes
sweeping up
all the stuff in its path

Sunday, August 08, 2010

I can't make music

I can't make music like that

Thursday, August 05, 2010

love in the time of cancer

for my grandpa
love sat in the middle of
a pickup seat
on the way to California
to see the tallest trees the good Lord
saw fit to make in the USA

love floating a little farther
down a Wyoming highway
down that empty stretch of road

that empty stretch of road
grandkids college-bound
and forgetful

the thoughts of phoning
didn't put me through to Texas
love i'll really call tomorrow
love come next summer

love-fickle tumbleweed
love-hunckered cactus

love an old thing waiting out the year
and the year

love in the time of cancer
love petaled prickly pear
love agave bloom red and
love cells lost on wrong paths
with no way to go back.

The Beautiful Game

Javier on ball
with a touch
cuts clean

from India
Somalia and Senegal

men shouting
amigo!

heck, i shout too
amigo, si

Tuesday, August 03, 2010

morning comes

1
all the earth sings in you
this earth
stuffed with grace
we were young and we believed
word by word

2
the van leaves
a spot of oil on the parking
lot pavement as we drive away
in faint burn smell
gears sweat black

how we mark our track
return
by leaving road
return

by wheel's spin
sun love-stuffed
will slant around the side

let us drive all night

3
you are filled with grace and song
yes and all the earth in you
you are grown beautiful as oiled wood
you warm this room

when you were made the chisel
sang to the grain

4
you are grown beautiful
you are filled with grace and strong
as the morning is strong

grace gathering from you
like leaves from green

this earth returning to us sings

Monday, August 02, 2010

heat, existence, box fan

discogitating
the ergo
sum
rundown fan
all afternoon

blows
the tedium
around
the room


through open window the breeze of look
like god-breath puffs
your hair
stands a moment
up

how that breath
comes clipped and thickened
heat cloyed

the skin is a damp army
it marches through
shivering
air, water, mirage tar topping
stopping
thought clamped
clammy

body in dull
takes
day

so in box-fan flutter heart
blood takes like air
blows it here and there