29 December 2008

Still Life 1,2, 4-6

Still Life #1

Negation: The light smashing
through dual panes beside
the three of us
long drags of colored paint
in low voices, a cousin’s politics
and in contrast, plucking syncopation
of a piano black.



Still Life #2

Alive in the air
a palm, too many fingers
the cold center hidden in the grey bricks
row after row 
used cars and how easily the extremities 
appear choreographed

Collaborators at the cliff’s image
you wait, he arrives, you come inside
he talks, you return to the street.



Still Life #4

Privilege denies your walking 
any sort of danger: The long-necked,
coddled retard, and her coddling progenitor 
nearly dead with age and dye hesitating 
to cross into the trafficless thoroughfare

You park in the fire lane, four feet from the door
admonishing your safety, obvious
you are not a retread gumming your parents mistakes
riding your fearlessness. 



Still Life #5

This is a place of commerce and your voice
does not fit amongst the vacuumed rugs,
the soft tailored chairs. Could be cancer
but Plotted Justice whispers, “Look for sand.”



Still Life #6 

The things you look & stuff you eat
twirling the cup, you’ve given up 
straightening your posture.

You have never seen this as a metaphor
although you understand it’s basic conceit 
eating Mexican peanuts from a Ziploc 
hidden in your purse.

11 December 2008

"I'll call you around noon"

I'll call you around noon
and then what will we do?

Spendthrifts splayed under
the winding red moon—in our teens
we found only satisfying 
escapes—now we cast 
cement past our vanishing,
something will catch

For lack of trying. Our family
reborn in new questions asked
and the passed times suggest
their memories hurdle the horizon

Land in the palms of those lucky enough 
to beg with upturned hands.

09 December 2008

i stopped believing what i saw / & instead what i knew / & worse still all of what i thought.

w h e r e   d i d   i   b u r y 
t h e   q u e s t i o n s   w h y 
d i d   i   b u r y   t h e   q u e - 
s t  i o n s       d i r t   o r 
t r e e   w h i c h   b r o k e 
m y   s p a d e   a n d   w a s 
i t   s h a t t e r e d   b y   a n g e r 
o r   r e v e r s e d   b y   l o v e 
a n d   o h   h o w   d i r t   c h 
a n g e s   j u s t   t o   p l e a s e 

accompanying the back of a painting

all these repeating angles
train hand repeater on the cliff
's edge brittle hold now crumble
master there helicopter from; the beautiful view
no matter the danger falling is
walking is loving is blinding is
building is hearing and repeating.

vietnam

Precise packets of uneven
pages lead me to believe
something hand-woven and true
has been reborn, where there was 
only self-pleasure and doubt
about the craftsmanship; But look
there is that same backward glance appeased
in some daft artisan's assertion

He wins, his witty embellishment
a thoughtful deception; This heart's december 
spread out, even little smudges
dot the surface of best laid pains.

07 December 2008

e.o. wilson

So many poets in one round poem,
& Fake accents & Finger-channeling