Lorca

Solo luciérnagas
soplan en la noche Cordobesa.

Dejadme aquí muerto!

El sabor de naranjas
en los dientes
y de tierra en la lengua.

Dejadme aqui muerto!

Y el suspiro de las aguas
mimando mis
cabellos

Ay! Ya os es dicho que me dejen aqui muerto!

The Lighthouse

Behold the strength of the lighthouse —
a savior of men, of their industries, of foreign wares,
perched on cliffs that long have stood the swell.
The insecurities of night have never touched it —
a guiding light, an angel to the water-blind,
the lighthouse stands — the sailor’s hope,
beckoning the tide-wearied home.

But imagine —
over countless days (how many?) the workers toiled
to secure at first the beacon’s monstrous base.
Bones, marrow, human waste all sprinkled
in the chaos of those endless days.
No guiding lights had they;
the sun, the moon, the stars, the elements —
to these the workers clung and prayed.
In the distance, darkness and the rattling of the sea foam —
by their side, not even the comfort of fire and home.

So did the lighthouse come to be,
standing sternly now over the seas —
in darkness finding its own light,
now stands in darkness to give others peace.

Complaint, against a dull day

I’ve had happier days than these.
Seen better sunsets, better seas —
tasted better wine in better places,
have grown accustomed to more pleasant faces.

And bad days? I’ve known worst —
have cried into the earth, and cursed.
Walked endless deserts, endless miles
to see Misery come my way — and smile.

So who are you, TODAY, to try to change my life?
What do you think you bring, what joy, what strife?
No, you come to neither hurt or please —
I’ve had much greater days than these.

On all sides

He wasn’t a hermit, like the Ancient Fathers,
to be written of and admired,
not building houses of redemption under mossy caves
or crawling naked for salvation through the desert sand.
Like them, though, he could attest
to a moment of great importance,
when the heavens blasted on him all their loves
to reveal the smiling countenance of the Great Name —
but only once.

Since then, the revelations had grown less.
Afterward, the business of the moment was carried on as always,
with the same asked-for smile and occasional frown.
His glasses bore the steamy burden of rainy days
while his legs continued to display the glories of athletic scars.
It would have been impossible, they say,
to have known the tremendous weight
he carried inside.
Even those made close to him
by an unwavering connection of genetic strands
could not identify his agony —

how, after the most astonishing ecstasy
of his meek-lived life,
he was clawed at and desired
by desert demons on all sides.

Twenty

After thirty years with the company, they told me attrition and these hard times had forced them to make tragic but necessary cuts.

I was the only one from my department they fired.

For the next two weeks I lived on nothing but a diet of alcohol and grief.

But a different hunger brought me here. No one talked to me in the bars, where the bright lights make it obvious I reek of cowardice and discontent.

Here, the others are too busy staring at the women on the stage. I ignore the others as well. I wait until the girls walk by and then I look at my face, reflected on the grease that pools around their breasts. Some of them talk back; others just run their fingers down the swellings of my spine.

I ask the prettiest one how much for ten minutes in the curtained room. Her dark hair flows in ribbons from the edges of a tilted trucker’s hat. Her body radiates softness.

She tells me it’s forty-five.

I reply that last night it was twenty.

She winks, unsympathetic, and tells me tonight is a special night. I only have twenty left.

I don’t watch her leave. I tell myself that tomorrow I’ll buy food and eat a real meal.

But should I have pasta, or celery, or carrot cake? Or pickled strawberries and pumpernickel jam?

I buy two more shots to help me decide.

Arse Poetica

"I don't know about poetry,"
dad would mumble when
books of verses stumbled
somehow into his house.

As awkward as an adolescent
he'd amble by and catch me
reading, at night, while dangling
from living room couch ledges.

"Sentimental trash," he'd say,
or, "Mostly for fairies and pansies."
He'd wince and, unasked for,
gift me with disapproving glances.

"Be careful," he began.
"You read too much of that
and turn out queer." And as he left
I know he meant to ask:

"Are you going to stop reading?
Are you going to turn queer?"

And I didn't.
And I did.
And I keep it secret that verses
now stumble out of me.

Nervous Merv

Merv sat fervently on the couch

and plopped a lot of pills into his mouth.

Life stayed the same within but changed without. 

His wife popped rapidly in and out

while ghosts of roaches fat and stout

flashed across the kitchen grout.

The slanting glinty dusty gout

that told the sun's descending route

blew through the hues of rainbow trout.

Cried the wife, 'Get up, get up, you lazy lout!

or I'll call Dr. Oosterhaut.'

But Merv could not discern her twittered shout

as she tried and tried to flex her clout.

Merv thought, 'What's this speeding up about?

The world's escaping me, no doubt.

It's raining all around my drought.

Over and over.' Over-and-out.

The greatest love of all

Calm down, you tell yourself, take it easy. You're doin' fine. Just relax and go to sleep. If nothing else, you'll always have me, your self. Really? Well what are you doing tonight? Tonight I'm busy. Tonight I've got to rest up, I have a big day tomorrow. I do too, but I'd rather sleep with you, baby. Look, I've got to go. Why? I'll talk to you later. When?

motion sustained

the park's covered in fallen blankness

and winter trees radiate

like struck mirrors

unannounced, the picture begins to move

an airliner eases in
you can see its windows, and 

out of desire you project yourself through one of them

between an Indian woman speaking quietly to her baby

and her mustachioed husband, who reads on his BlackBerry

how divine to live at the end of one's gaze

as though it were the tip of an antenna

down here, the body stands for the past

which, rest its soul and all, is fetid and festering

after a short while, right, you sicken of anything

and so you go for walks

or you pace, give chase

to yourself

i'm not much for travel someone says

and you see me i'm dumbfounded

i say that's what separates us from the trees

and i return to my poem

trees are incapable of loving

because they don't feel this pain at their own presence

er their leaves are alive, maybe those do

but it's they who shake as though harnessed