After Reading of Kenya

Come and see the blood in the streets...
-Pablo Neruda
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Come and see the children
with their bloated bellies,
with their grasping hands,
pleading eyes.
Do not romanticize
this, please do not.

I speak of this because
...through the streets ran
the blood of the children
ran simply, like children's blood.
I speak of this because
I would like
to keep the blood of the world
in its body;
I wish to retain the notes
of its song.
I cannot watch a father
hardly strong enough
to stand struggle
to dig his child’s grave.
I cannot watch
the mother's silent, resolute sorrow
as she sways in anguish.

These tears, this hunger,
the blood of the children...
this should not be.

This air was yours

A class assignment...go to a cemetery. Be inspired.
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Baby, 1892.
Did he taste
life, air, light?
Did he inject
a squalling voice
between a mother's
relieved groans,
did he taste
her, did he grasp
a finger?

Baby, did you
enter with eyes
sealed?

Billy Collins

The following three posts were written in response to a section of Billy Collins' poem "The Great Walter Pater:"

To be one of the large, orange carp
that live under the surface of that pond,
swimming back and forth all summer long
in the watery glitter of sinking coins,...

Invasion

And also to be the water,
this would provide balance,
quiet, a solace in that spectacularly,
lavishly sun-splashed liquid--
invaded only by small children's
poking fingers, raindrops,
and yes, sinking coins.

Pond, Late Summer

those orange scales gliding
a ponderous, heavy weight
peace, lack of knowledge?

Breathe

How much of that matters, they murmur,
orange/white scales creasing surface ripples.
How much of that, but mostly,
how much more of this--
this coolness of water,
this movement causing
so many more,
and mostly
you standing there,
your face distorted
by the lack of a world.

gasp

chopped world
look at my hands, oh life, yours taken
in such a brutal manner
you laughing
funeral dirge
funeral dirge
that was not for you

you knew sorrow
but the wind
feathers fast horses
these are yours

wasting withered
bloated at times
i cannot remember you like this
you were life you were laughing

i was one of the last
your story your gift
should not have ended
in such cruel starvation

i stare long enough
the world resumes a similar rhythm
but still, staccato slurs
between seconds hours

the dash between your dates
is not long enough

Symbolism Cramps

dahling, really. control yourself.

birds, milky skin, furry kittens
and white alabaster foreheads.
pink roses, tea kettles,
wide blinking eyes and petticoats.
i can see your ankle
(so shocking), wait a couple
years, now whips, chains,
and blindfolds
(your lips purse, forehead creases, I know),
bedroom eyes (still),
red skirts and red shoes,
red shawls occasionally,
high heels, manly suit,
take the stairs, break the glass--
an elevator filled with men.
clocks, white chrysanthemums?
black and dark,
winter, dirt, and stone,
cloaks and scythes,
keys without locks.

this is just the spring blossoming, dear.

Wail

heard an ambulance
short, quick seizing of panic
you? it couldn't be.

August Mondays

They speak of wars and movies
as their hands wrinkle in the pool.
Their age spots crease and the sun
gives them wrinkles on their wrinkles.
Still, Audrey Hepburn and Charlie Chaplin,
symphonies and Legion dances,
jitterbug and milkshakes and back
in the day, my hair was just like yours.
I curled my hair, she said,
and my oh my those boys,
they came running.

On Poetry

This, she said, this the essence
of life, the very core, the grasping,
the soul of the process
of our beings.

You look at this (gestures wildly)
and this (squats and peers)
look at this leaf.

Take these things, she shouts now,
make them your song,
your aura, the positive
energy surrounding you!

Oh no, oh no, don't you look
at me like that and snicker.
That's just the emotion behind the thing.

You in the grey shirt--apathy?
You live your life like that?
Pah. Grab your life, she said,
and add as much color as you can.

On Callings

Send me, O Lord, send me!
The battle cry of a thousand--
send me through sunshine days,
through tempest tossed and ocean waves.

While these men cry a plaintive wail,
(and that does have its place),
other men go and billow sail,
blistered feet blazing trail.

On People

After reading The Odyssey.

Fire with light and heat--boil
and eyes with glowing shine,
oh twisting hands and clouds that roil
talk of days, speak of time.

Pounding feet of rhythmic dance
and songs a tongue caress;
words and notes by grunts of chance--
not knowledge nor a battered chest.

Now speak of these--of battles tell,
of horse and spear, of ship and shore,
the hunt of meat and shell--
watch the swift bird's flight, and hear the lion roar.

They may fight: men rebel,
war-torn muscles tire of toil.
The fight, blood, and gore soon lure
a man strapped to a harvesting tine.

Towards the sun, rising face
and labor hard--quiet rants.
A furrowed field, that sweating race--
a war, a battle, evolving test.

Tremble

A life: short
and blunt. Transient
in its sharp quickness.
Cold edge (final, resolute)
presses the skull,
blood flows where it has no place.

Nervous sniffing girls--
noses vibrant red and eyes
darting to some safe spot.
The boys stand (stoic,
masculine) with trembling hands.

I am a cloud--I float singularly.
They leave; an exodus
of cars. I place my feet
in the pool and I watch the bubbles.
I feel the breeze, the concrete,
the smooth white wall.
I touch a crabapple--
it is the softest thing in the world.

Catalyst

One.
I will light you on fire
with these words, you say.
Your tongue will tingle
and your breath will smell of smoke.

In that literary heat—
in the glow of the words,
in the midst of searing sentences
and crackling cadences,
you peer through eyes hooded
with pain—clouded
with foggy delirium and ecstatic bliss.
You moan through clenched teeth:
what do you say?
What do you scream
as words separate truth from your body
and the smoke from their fire
makes you weep?

Two.
You say, I will jump.
And I say, yes.
I will jump from yours,
and begin my own.