On cold winter mornings in Santiago, I wanted a typewriter — I looked at the machines in the repairman's window each day as I walked to work — There was winter prose, trapped in the keys, waiting liberation — I always passed by, never entering once — All that English still languishes cold in Chilean solitary.
Waiting is gray and cold even in summer — Jorge waits in line two hours a day — And Norman says when he's in line he's doing something wrong — Queue shortening, fruit ripening, tank filling, baby entering world, life ending, most tedious of all — Always in the future, unfulfilled anxiety.
Friends, lovers and enemies are the line — Alive, feeding itself each other's memories fusion of parallel parts, forming and reforming during lifetimes — I intersect an instant and live a series of isolations in a queue alone forever and quickly forgotten.
Two old cats live with me, as healthy as two year olds, each patiently hating the other and loving me these many years — Universal constants, I should have named them Hubble and Heisenberg.
Rolls, babysitter, medicine, coffee, you're on my mind — Try to work, talk, talk, talk, you're still there — Checks, flowers, books, (once, you wrote to me) Cook, dishes, pack, eat (your eyes across the table) Tired, exhausted, lonely, sleep — bed.
A spruce of some sort, dense with painful needles — Somewhat taller than the six year old who had taken a sudden interest in something other than a Star Pine bent double with its weight again in ornaments — After twenty years, that scent of indoor conifer was ecstatic.
Today, I talked and talked about bacteria and other little things — I talked and talked and talked while snow fell outside, silently, gently, adding onto itself, blurring my morning tracks, burying my car, erasing colors, blacks and grays — I left my white board covered with red circles, blue arrows and black words, And entered my white world, soft white mounds on flat white planes, white sky, white air — Speechless and lost.
Sun layered gold through green onto black snow Christmas morning — Gwyneth, dog supreme, loped silent snow paws through light and dark of forest dawn — Saw bear lumbering to winter sleep, bobcat, spruce bough settled, with curious gaze — Gave chase at imagined nothings floating in air ice great dog noises snow-muffled making silence silenter — Finally circles into white nest, smiling at bear protector, who dreams of crazy cat, who laughs at dog below — Three creatures sensing a brief perfection — right place, right time.
Now, I have this solitude returned, once so prized, a moat childhood's monsters could not cross — Even you are now repulsed and flee.
"Crystal White Detergent" -- that's mine. 'That's nice', he blew, no words. You knew just what he said, with that two-note thing, biting hard, filling cheeks, screaming tearful logic, love, much chaos: 'Pale wrist submerged'. 'Beat that', he blew, and I, with uncharacteristic hesitation, I ...groped, my halleluahs submerged in reverent suds in detergent discovered on a mental counter. One last challenge, he blew again: 'I cannot do this, cannot cannot Kana...' ...who tail-waggled in, knowing her wordless name, tootled in puddly notes lazing low around his feet. She lapped up sounds and loosed me, forgotten -- I was no man again, and he won, no words against my slippery syllables. -- Eric Kofoid & Kelly Sullivan
Oblique sun, end of day — Sand on sidewalk casts perfect needles at my feet.
"You must have someone from then — a trusted aunt or uncle? a family friend? Who might remember more clearly, more objectively what happened?" No one, not one from then that I can trust, who knew me, who won't tell.
You decided not to dance, Instead, toured this salty valley Added your tears to our great lake — Missed us while not wanting us — Thought I missed the point, And didn't know I was in the car with you.
Last week's flowers wilted, petals fell, water fouled, thrown away with scraps of food — "One bud" and she added a fern leaf, crinkly wrapper, red bow and smile — Warmly taken, coldly received, Rose lies ignored on sunny table, expanding, spreading, trying to be seen.
Purple paper comes in scores of shades — An inifinity of purples is no surprise — But paper? ...who needs twenty five kinds of fuchsia folios? I just need plain purple and can't find it!
Black-capped bandits in from Oregon, Scattering last year's leaves, Scaring the cat (white as snow lying about him), Jumping, pausing, darting — chaos makers — "Look, Aelric!", then gone, daddy's a liar — What's in that mass of cherry limbs that draws you back each year?
First day, last month — White snow, black shadows — Something moves, sun freezes my hand.
-- with apologies to Bryan Singer The worst is remembered longest, this cumulative burden overwhelms in time — Such as, my morning angers, swirling out of evaporating nightmares, diaphanous, beloved — These fifteen minute irritations parade twenty four hours through your brain Like typing "Guatemala".
He looked like a stiff wind might blow him away, White hair on bent white body, Wrapped in flannel and painful age — "See that man, Daddy?" — Who is he? "Max, Daddy! That's Max" — What does he do? "I don't know — He belongs to the school" — Suddenly, I fear the bricks might crumble if Max does not return.
Troll phoned after twenty five years and asked about the hat — I happened to be staring right at it, recently discovered in my child's closet — A nameless Mexican beaurocrat was moved by a tale of the hat as gift of a dying lover and lost on a train — He took pity — in two weeks a beaten package arrived, hat intact — A Mayan heart believed and a lover was realized — My friend, sensing some universal urgency, knew it was time to resurect this dead young woman, never born — Her love undending, shielded me from sun and rain.
Someday, Aelric will push A against E, tuning identity with historical precedence — The good king's ancient stone pressing down his bones has his letters that way — The story and sanctifying sound of "ligature" will spare him and his name — Who argues with dead royalty and a long word?
Jeff can't tell me why he looked through me for three months, seeing only fog in thin air, Fears my future, says he'll fly me out, or I'll force him back to Salt Lake City, Teeters on the edge of brilliant insanity, Sees light in the Will-o-the-Wisp creeping along the runway.
Big guy, papers and coffee, notebook, scribbles — Little guy, cookie crumbs, chocolate, curled up under coat — A week's wait, it's good and no need to talk about it.
I extend phone line across bench Talking science to a liar — Outside calm, inside chaos — A flask, empty, falls; sudden sound, discordant bells — No anger, just broken glass sparkling on floor.
Cat on legs while writing — minor distraction, major warmth — Purring massage thrown in for free.
I prayed to Gita cat a simple request — Speak into her ear as she sleeps, Work a small miracle, just this — Gita said, "Yes, of course" — The required rituals, stroking, rubbing, tickling, warming, I did them all — "Patience", she purred, "Just wait" — I did, and learned again, they lie, these cats, When they say they're God.
Glass over pastry; scratches, hundreds, intersecting like frost -- Pies and goodies in soft focus, visual effect provided by Anxious hands dragging hot cups for years towards craving bodies.
Tonight, my boy bathes for the first time alone — "Daddy, get out, but you can leave the door open…" Don't worry, I'm here — "Daddy?" Still here, Honey — "I love you… I'm done…" I'm not leaving, you're safe — "I'll dry myself, but let me see you first…" I'll be here a long time, until I'm imperfect again.
Today, you try to fool me — standing shakily, hobbling toward me with a smile, Cataract eyes saying, "Much better now, really — younger feeling, like old times." You scream in pain as I touch your side. In we go, pills from my pocket into your mouth — You drink deeply and for once I let you eat anything you want — You lie next to me pain replaced by tired euphoria — Two hours of childhood dreams and you never knew when the needle touched your vein.
It was always simple — tip forward, feet rise from floor — A sensation between tickled stomach and blushed face and levitate — The trick was finding that feeling and letting it spread from chest to temples — Once aloft, direction was effortless, speed erratic, and a view green and expansive — My dream child flew alone, warm, safe, fearless — I remember this well, with envy.
New dog, eight weeks into world, three days from mom — Cocks head in question, consults cat, prefers my child — Knows self with so little doubt.
Snow, gone warm Pacific front — rained all day, Seattle clouds in Utah. "Cold", she says — "But, we walked without our coats", I say — "Yes, but it's wet and gray, definitely not warm, cold enought, and I feel the way I ought to feel — The way I would feel if it were thirty degrees colder."
Good friend,
old black beast,
lying in snow,
rises with pain —
Tail waves "Hello!"
and continues:
"You're here at last —
You'll never guess the battles —
first, birds, then
squirrels, then
kids walking by —
Repelled them all —
It was work, let me tell you
but things are safe now
for you and her
and the kid
and the cat."
"Another day" thinks God,
"You get another day —
Just keep talking, friend."
For the privilege
of sitting now and
sleeping later,
I drink this cup
of bitter stuff,
foul from neglect --
Medicine not for
mind or body,
But known to cure
a social disease.
I notice her eyes,
glistening, fixed,
Her smile, surrendering,
Her joy in listening --
I hear him say
"…spiritual growth…"
in his white cable knit sweater,
advertising on front --
"…Christ…"
in his pressed French dungarees --
"…impact on our relationship…"
in handsewn English boots --
I see tears in her eyes,
and he goes in
for the kill.
A good poem and
a dollar twenty three
will get you
A tall French roast and
a sleepless night.
"Another chance" thinks one —
"A forgiving nature" thinks two,
and then forgiveness
becomes last chance —
It's probability and numbers —
Love, an equation.
Small pulsing complication —
I cannot see you,
But spend my life
peering into
your insides.
Cat claws my patient work —
I hiss —
But she works also,
has her own shapes
frozen within
my unfeline forms.
Rush to bookstore concert —
Arrive on time,
musicians forgot —
Two hours' reading,
perfect performance.
My child moves paint
about his palette
with deliberation —
The same intent that guides
his brush on
color-dripping canvas.
Someday, I'll let the palette dry
and hang it on the wall.
On a salty island
of antelopes
We stumbled on
a perfect bison,
chewing cud —
While the child,
whose memory could
capture this forever,
Sleeps soundly on the back seat.
Cloud mountain —
sometimes red like fire,
sometimes Arctic white —
Is alway enveloped
in deep blues and cotton.
"You won't get hurt there",
I am assured by
its inventor and discoverer —
It's like home on top,
and heaven washes your soul.
White thatched brown bodies rolling down antelope sands — Tumbling, scrambling, sticky hands linked in unaware love — Saluted by a solemn line of pelicans, gliding approval of these shrieks of joy.
Bluster & Absurdity 