The misted moon as variety of black and white TV—
backdrop, desk and headshot
of nightly news in the 60s –
stern, nervy, full of filament
unfed, unfulfilled
it speaks, never clearly, across light years
inkling of a vaster meaning
than petty characters preening
it pleads our plight
conveys only questions:
Is it real snow? Is un-
certainty only certain?
(It’s hard to hear
when someone in the back room
is popping bubbles)
So many forebodings in the dark, so much dark.
The dark of the cinema spared by fire and bombs
of a World War – my mom, that little redhead,
her Jersey drugstore, Fords, Astaire?
Now I understand the world so various –
still question the art (a)part, as the world turns
like dice, still inscrutable –
I’m wearing a darker shade of lipstick
deep red, black rose, my double and I taking pleasure
in the mirror we sing – à la Brecht — about the dark times.
Questions sift to a close. The cat left a gift
of a dead rabbit on the doorstep. The wind whips.
I drift into sleep.
Stark, a shock, magenta tree intensity matched,
Briefly, against a sky darkening periwinkle
Swirled with black, call it dream this carriage
Of color held in its passage, these leaves red
When day-dressed, now in evening glamour,
Black-rose, killer berry, two energies
Paired married two shades of somber beauty
Brief, eclipsed, as this one’s marriage, that one’s
Country, sometimes handed on a silver platter
To a bully, sometimes just the music of the spheres
That sitting in the sun
hasn’t changed when
everything has changed
though houses stand streetwise
like gaps in a young girl’s teeth
water will seep slowly
under your fingernails
drip by insidious drip
someone’s nails turn black
black velvet paintings once plunged
you into raving pleasure zones
will you ever get back
“Continue to speak this dialect, now that the house is burning”
Giorgio Agamben on poetry, When the House Burns Down.
What luxury, this rage!
It keeps me hot and vital as any
heart medication. First the human project,
then the sputtered failure of words.
Bereft; the minutes and hours
of flame give way. My desire fades,
no rays of sun light the heartbreak.
Quiet, so. Quiet, and still.
The stone. Ever stone. In the tart November sun.
Stone. Put my ear to. One in my pocket, shift
to the other. In my cheek. In the other.
On the grave, instead of flowers. What eeks
from layer to layer. The whole story
written. Cradled by the unsaid.
The sun did rise again, no buts.
Well, a great many things have been said
in the cauldron of hours. We have not been
shaken out of the cage of the bingo spinner.
Ginkgo leaves approximate the sun’s brightness;
are brightness themselves; no cancelling their it-ness.
Today was another hard day. And tomorrow
will be harder. Well, we will eat thick soups
with large spoons. Hazard a guess which
swooping shadows are birds, which one leaves.
I once pressed gingkos between pages for the future,
the other day I saw a girl with a gingko necklace.
They don’t call French villagers malin – wily – for nothing. We were inching forward in line at the only boulangerie in town, admiring the baguettes leaning like bayonets against the metal rack. Should we try the pain de compagne, or a slim flute? A little village lady, in a flowered house dress, with crinkly apple cheeks, heard our English — the cat was out of the bag! — and began chattering.
What were we doing in this picturesque but mini village, how long would we stay? Baguette, s’il vous plait, I said, then answered her, and as we left the closet sized space, she followed me out, now speaking French and launching into a long story of her dear friend who studied with her at university and lives in Vermont. Under the extravagant shade of the platanes, passing regulars drinking early on a bar terrace, we talked about my years in France. We walked down to the fruit store where a vendor was arranging pyramids of peaches. My now best friend advised me on tomatoes, and white nectarines, plums.
Standing near a fountain, still chattering, I finally smiled and said I had to leave. She grasped both of my hands and held them in her smooth, peach-like palms. “I’m praying for your country on November 5th.”
Dear Hip, you who made me, snug socket,
master of the pivot, pea in a pod, bat hanging in its bone cave.
Through sinuous turns you made me sinuous, hip.
Cross-legged child to woman with legs.
Dancer taking on hip hop kids, having clacked
Round moguls of ski slopes. The turn.
What would be crux. Lap maker, taker. Open
open to flights of love, supple translucence,
tasty weightless all supple flesh. Open-legged
to deep creation, crowning heads of my babies.
Wandering poet, shooting from the hip.
Bones with their gelatinous lip get chewed out.
I said, surgeon, let me still shoot from the hip!
And welcome the newcomer, welcome.
The breath scent of mother fig
under the chuppah of life
time got sucked up into a late-summer straw
fully enjoyed, fortunately, but fast fast fast
leaving us reeling – never ready, breathless
standing under canopies of scarlet leaves,
in wind faster than the mind, among unheard cries,
before doors of the open ark
leaning face to face with All That Is
Take a cross-section of any of my parts – skin,
tongue, toe — and study cells under the microscope –
It is IT, always my center, though it is
always changing. A center comes into view
when feted by friends, flutes, champagne:
a hot, smart feeling of being where I am,
having managed forks and multiple roads,
having gladly passed through angsting!
In the winey glow and afterglow,
nothing was scrawled on a napkin,
my new/old self could hold that wisdom.
Seepage between days (even two!) is keen.
If a 5am half-dream hadn’t tossed up
that cross-segment image, I might not have
remembered to fete both that
and the querying being, no matter what
time or place, always the center.
