a window in my chest

a window in my chest
opens, people below are
reading and thinking--
occasionally talking
with one another--

on green benches
scattered across
a sunlit plaza

like fresh sentences
on first pages
of a novel where
something crucial
occurs when least
expected.

A young girl
scampers giggling
into a fountain
as two old men,
canes at their side,

cups of coffee in hand,
together nod
toward the child's
delight.

Suddenly a breeze
dances across my face,
turns this page

you arrive,
smiling.

That Day

One day I will
kiss your waiting
lips.

One day we shall
kiss, our happy

lips in a timeless
moment might
dance and mingle

in gold light. Yes
we will meet
and dance,

cavort and kiss,
sigh and dangle

near an edge
of wild
smiling

where we wile
and laze

the moonlit
night away.

Still, Life

He veers bent over
like a has-been Southern mayor
or a crippled parsnip

and toddles into Wal-Mart
"for just a couple things"

on a gray Monday afternoon
past the dented cars
and homeless shopping carts

left for dead on the outskirts
of the mall.

Air sticky as flour
and desolate as bruised
peaches leaking
juices onto his hands

from tenements stacked
next to purple plums
hard as stone,

this still life reflects
back at the old man
making his way

through the onions
and rhubarb
and chard.

Outside, behind the steering
wheel of my parked car,
I wait for dad and write

down these lines
before our wordless
drive home.

At Rocky Point--2

Broken stones clog
his throat-song.

Gravel-paved voices
scrape the sky
raw.

Shards of story
stream a fluent
babbling,

as icy waters
erode
and cleanse

the canyoned
past....

One ripped pebble
    at a time
plays a new song

where waters
shining

scatter silver.

Can you hear
music birthing
notes of moss,


caressed inside

walls and wombs
of ancient rock?

From puzzle pieces

his life grows green

fields bursting easy,

a composition groaning
forth ever homewards, 

linked forever to gracious
gusts of earth-bound
breezes.

At Rocky Point

Broken stones clog
his throat-song.

Gravel-paved voices
scrape the sky
raw.

Shards of story
stream a fluent
babbling,

as icy waters
erode
   and cleanse
the canyoned
past....

One ripped pebble
    at a time
plays a new song

where waters shining
scatter silver.

Can you hear
music birthing,

bursting    groaning
    homewards 

from this earth-bound wind?

Last Night

Splashing chardonnay across the altar
of your body, songs
of Saharan wind and azure sea
pierce our lips, our chosen
chalice.

Let us swim out underneath
black-sky of night
onto a stream of plums
where a golden sea weaves 
wombs ripe with geese.

the day beautiful and blue

The day beautiful and blue like an egg of gladness,

like a small persistent sparrow, like a stream of plums

you glide onto from your dream of honey glazing

the brown coffee table, four legs entwined in goo

and tedious homework you somehow love, telling time
and her minions of the diminutive detail to lumber along
at once, you'd rather be absorbed in this disappearing garden,
the fountain your brother bore on his back after those months in solitary,
the voices screaming taunts even his deafness heard.

this day beautiful and blue
an egg of gladness
a small persistent sparrow

                         IMAGINAL LIGHT                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

 

‘Light takes the tree but who can tell us how?”—Theodore Roethke

 

When imaginal light FLOODS the mind receptive

 

becomes a Bosporus where a freighter plows

eastwards steaming like an insomniac’s tortured

evening and a robust swimmer blue-skinned pounds

 

her warrior’s arms through cold clear waters swirling

towards her lover waiting on the Asian shore

perched upon a Vespa sputtering contentment----

 

AND, and only AND----when the humble breathing body staggers

sprints with its moles, fatigue, scars and scabs

 

what occurs takes our babbled breath away

EARTHQUAKES  us to another kind of earth

where caterpillar oozes into a lone imaginal cell,

old testament for the good news’ butterfly….

 

then we’re plunged

3,000 feet beneath this ground

                 

                BOISTEROUS and BEWILDERED

 

all the way from last century's insane wars those years

of bloodshed bombed out Dresden Guernica Nagasaki,

Dachau's cattle cars of clustered skeletons, China’s

perfumed slavery days king opium on his dirty throne

 

from the cloistered monks of Benedict to the MASTERS

OF THE GOLDEN WAY and far far beyond….

 

ahh, when imaginal light FLOODS the mind receptive

                                   RIGA                                                                                          

 

I walk a narrow ledge far above the ancient city’s teeming,

it’s swerving cobblestones, a Pushkin statue shines

in this park reminding of old Paris.

 

A canal below gleams near paths that curve through birches.

Couples stroll among fragrant flowers, lovers eased

by Springtime’s burst of beauty, grateful for this warming.

 

Earlier I wandered Daugava’s edge alone in Riga’s chilly air.

A woman and her white-haired man sat still on morning’s

grassy banks, fishing poles in ruddy hands were steady,

translucent lines thrust far out.

 

They hoped to land enough fish to grill at dusk

with new potatoes and beetroot, swilled down

with vodka fire. With bellies fat and glad

he’d pinch her cheek, whisper spasiba

for their pleasing supper.

 

Now as evening’s northern light slants gold

as melted butter, as lush as vespers sung

by god-soaked monks in this Baltic state

far from home’s palm-treed ocean,

 

you and I avoid each other’s eyes while time flows fast

into the Gulf of Riga for perhaps, one last embalming.

 

At end of day in late May, mute we wait like an old couple fishing

where weeds caress the vast Daugava’s bleeding. We wait and wait

for what’s unnamed and barely breathing, for something eluding

 

us now that may resurface or not, that might never be caught--

a whirlpool swirls eight feet downstream and I am under/

water, seething.

 

 

** ‘spasiba’ -- ‘thank you’ in Russian

                    Reverent                                                                                                 

 

white butterflies float and scatter in bits

of flying glass, tiny linen handkerchiefs

that shudder in the wind. a woman’s

 

chapped trembling lips flutter and spin

cocoons of song, iridescent in flight above

the canyon’s path.  licorice perfumes

 

the coming dusk when low she bows

forehead kissing caterpillar, shale, sage

and bramble toward the ridge beyond

 

where an ageless queen of hearts sails

in gauzy radiance turning

pages of night sky.

     The Dance                                                                               

 Oh tangled death,

I have come to see

on these steamy

 

sidewalks past

the midstream

of my life,

 

we were always,

                always dancing

                             in your spiny arms.

 

Those tangoed nights

       of trance

                flirting with

                             illusion’s flimsy

                                                daughter,

 

smoke-grime on her

tavern window

 

did not curb

                     your

                            stepping.

 

                  Yes, we are dancing

                               even now

                                    through stained-glass

                                                        dappled darkness

 

                                                                      as your rhythm ripples down

                                                          like Autumn’s apples

                                        in our supple mouths.

This Breath

I am thankful for this breath….

and this breath….

and this breath….

The easy rise and fall

of my curved belly

 

this morning

 

on this brown couch

cup of coffee close by

 

This rise and fall

 

rise and fall

 

happening  quietly

 

persistent as a clock

 

as Autumn’s subtle

shift in light and

weather.

             The Voyage                                                                                         

 

I am

         meat

                   for my journey.                                                    

 

This canoe made of birch and ancestors’ bones,

 

is laden with fleece, apples and rye bread, stuffed

cabbage and coffee, a map of charred margins, a rusted

 

nail ripped from Jozo’s Bosnian home, a ring of blue

lapis my other grandfather, and a photo of lovers—

they’re smiling--on a great canyon’s edge.

 

Voices shine friendly through rain-fall and fog across these big waters,

 

                these here in stillness      those already gone,

 

while grenades of stars volcano such love through somnolent skies.

 

We’ll glide in silence over depths painted with eloping and cancer,

      maples and moonshine, soup pots and opera, pie ala’mode.

                                        

Through silver waters      black mud         this voyage continues its flowing,

 

                     woven and nourished by dark bread and story

                      of  Jozo and Ana,  Ruth Raymond and Norma

                                      

                                    to whom I am bowing:

 

                                 I am meat for my journey

I am meat for my journey.                                               

This canoe made of birch

and ancestors’ bones,

is laden with mystery

and fleece, apples

and rye bread,

friends’ voices shining

(these here those gone),

stuffed with supplies

for northern nights

when grenades of stars

blast their loud love

in skies toward forever,

as we glide in silence

one flashing moment

on a cerulean lake

deep with sorrow unsaid

and gladness serene,

breath of our fathers and mothers,

through clear waters thick mud
meanders this voyage.

             SOLSTICE 

 

The hawk circles high overhead.

 

Again and again she glides and

floats in the open sky above me

like the soul of a friend or a new/

found poem.

 

I call out to her raucously tumbling

stumbling down from the mountain

peak on this day of the Winter Solstice

when darkness overcomes light.

 

I’m exhilarated half-crazed, wild

with grief and hope and this unplanned

embodied bravery, this wholehearted

descent towards bottom.

 

Yet the silent beauty of this solitary winged

creature, regal and pure in late afternoon’s

spacious coolness, the diffuse oranges and

yellows of the setting sun, these many angled

 

hunks of granite rock I clamber easily on

over around and down this steep enfolding

slope, and yes, these bright newborn

surprises, Winter’s paradox—tender green

blades of grass—are held within a soft haze

 

of marine air, a diaphanous invitation

from beyond, oozing in slowly from

the distant coast. I kneel here on muddy

ground and pray ‘yes’ and ‘thanks’

 

for this day and all who inhabit its shine

and shadow as I fall further and quietly,

now nearly breathless in my own animal

earthen circling, homewards toward a cup

 

of coffee and comforting warmth, as she the sudden

visitor, ethereal and so real, Winter’s auburn herald,

disappears northwards into a final immensity.

The Beautiful Mundane

HIT MAN

                                                             
Floyd's grin outshone
his orange umbrella and two-tone
saddle shoes, the job was rewarding
these days and the hours even


better, strolling, no strutting, along
Fifth Avenue on this breezy, drizzly
Fall Saturday he was Hillary triumphal
on top of infinite Everest,


Berra crouched low chuckling to himself
behind Yankee Stadium’s home plate,
Captain Cook standing tall
on the sensual white beaches
of Tahiti,


and he knew in his hidden Beretta
and swollen silver money belt
that life for all its vexations
and occasional honest cop
was good, hell, real good, all the way
down to the bone.


Turning onto Twenty-Fourth
and into the small quiet shop
just off the corner, he shot the jeweler
with the gambling habit once
through the throat, carefully wiped


fingerprints with a clean handkerchief,
stepped out to the happy sidewalk
and an Autumn afternoon refreshed
by a good day’s work towards uptown


where he treated his freckled daughter
to a strawberry shake and plate heaped
with crisp fries at her favorite malt shop
after the double feature.

                                                   Rumination                                                                       

Six or seven kids circle and slice the manicured yard incessantly on red

and silver trikes buzz-bombing each other, occasionally crashing into adults

perimetered like prison guards ensconced in bullet-proof watchtowers,

either too numb, distracted or just brave enough to sit more or less

non-plussed sipping mai-tais and martinis with lips pursed, making talk so small

the manic tykes look tall as they murder this once-perfect lawn. Mosquitos

in squat human bodies flit and bite and irritate, tear at exposed flesh,

circulate in standing water of stagnant disappointments.

 

The brain sometimes is a gang of feral children uncaged, driving unlicensed

vehicles with paltry brakes, a tropical rainstorm of pelting thoughts pounding

the skull’s slick inside like a cord of coconuts, a maniacal film noir marathon

in a tawdry theater with torn seats and a sagging screen, a cauldron of insomniac

brats and frenetic bugs blasted on methamphetamine and jars of clover honey.

Clumsy strangers dressed in recurring anxieties and inert regrets dance in an empty

lot stumbling over crushed beer cans and Chinese food take-out containers.

 

And yet, all that’s really needed for relief from such onslaughts, for some equanimity, is one

blue pause, a pond somewhere in a remembered meadow for this crevassed bundle of cauliflower

tissue, for these wayward youth to float in, and afterwards a languid back-stroke in mid-day

sunshine—cerebellum pacing itself leads the way for hippocampus and neocortex as they feel the water

quiet their ragged voices, calm their anguished axons and disturbed dendrites, later after the swim

all the lobes might gather on a warm shore to loaf and savor the tricyclers’ surprise, a lullaby sung

by a chorus of hell’s little angels,  thank the gods—they’re finally tired—in the rising moonlight.

'BRIDGE'

'PENETRATION' acrylic on canvas 60"x48"

Copy of 'Seated Nude From Behind' (Gerhard Richter)---pencil, pen, ink

                       RIGA, LATVIA  (more revision)

 

I walk a narrow ledge far above the ancient city’s

teeming, it’s endless swerving cobblestones, it’s

Pushkin statue shining regal in the ribboned park.

 

(Poets loved and honored here).  A canal below

gleams blue near paths that curve through tall birch

trees where couples stroll among gifts of tiny fragrant

flowers, meandering lovers teased by Springtime’s

burst, this bloodless birth of beauty.

 

I a solo vagrant wander along the wild Daugava’s edge

in Riga’s chilly air. A stolid woman and her white-haired

man sit still so quiet on morning’s dewy grassy banks,

 

two fishing poles in thickened ruddy hands, long lines

thrust far out into the broad rolling river.  They wish

to land three or four glistening fish to later eat at dusk

 

with potatoes and beetroot boiled, washed down with

shots of vodka fire, then with bellies fat with gladness,

he’ll whisper lusty thanks to her, and mean it, for their

pleasing supper.

 

But now as evening’s northern light slants gold as melted

butter, as lush as vespers sung by god-soaked monks in

this Baltic state far so far from home’s Pacific palm-treed

 

ocean, you and I avoid each other’s eyes while time flows

fast deep and final into the Gulf of Riga for perhaps one

last embalming.

 

At this end of day in late May, mute we wait like a couple fishing--

where fresh grass caresses the vast Daugava seething—we wait

and wait for what’s unnamed unseen but breathing, for something

 

elusive and good that may persist or not, that might never be caught,

nor even understood.

               RIGA, LATVIA  ( early revision)

 

I walk a narrow ledge far above the ancient city’s

teeming, it’s endless swerving cobblestones, it’s

Pushkin statue shining regal in the ribboned park.

 

(Poets loved and honored here).  A canal below

gleams blue near paths that curve through tall birch

trees where couples stroll among gifts of tiny fragrant

flowers, meandering lovers teased by Springtime’s

burst, it’s bloodless birth of beauty.

 

I a solo vagrant wander along the wild Daugava’s edge

in Riga’s chilly air. A stolid woman and her white-haired

man sit still so quiet on morning’s dewy grassy banks,

 

two fishing poles in thickened ruddy hands, long lines

thrust far out into the broad and rolling river.  They wish

to land three or four glistening fish to later eat at dusk

 

with potatoes and beetroot boiled, washed down with

shots of vodka fire, then with bellies fat with gladness,

he’ll whisper a lusty thanks to her, and mean it, for their

pleasing supper.

 

But now as evening’s northern light slants gold as melted

butter, as lush as monastery vespers in this Baltic state far

so far from home’s palm-treed ocean, you and I avoid

 

each other’s eyes while time flows fast and deep and

final out into the Gulf of Riga for perhaps one last

embalming.

 

On this day in late May, mute we wait like the couple fishing--

where grasses caress the vast Daugava-- for what’s unseen

unnamed but breathing, for something elusive that may persist

or not, yet might never be caught, nor even understood.

                       RIGA, LATVIA

 

I walk a narrow ledge far above the ancient city’s

teeming, it’s endless swerving cobblestones, it’s

Pushkin statue shining regal in the ribboned park.

 

(Poets loved and honored here).  A canal below

gleams blue near paths that curve through tall birch

trees, where smiling people stroll and gather.

 

I wander along the wild Daugava’s edge in Riga’s

chilly air. A stolid woman and her white-haired man

sit still so quiet on morning’s dewy grassy banks,

 

two fishing poles in thickened ruddy hands, long lines

thrust far out into the broad and rolling river.  They wish

to land three or four glistening fish to later eat at dusk

 

with potatoes and beetroot boiled, washed down with

shots of vodka fire, then with bellies fat with gladness,

he’ll whisper thanks to her, and mean it, for their pleasing

supper.

 

But now as evening’s northern light slants gold as melted

butter, as lush as monastery vespers in this Baltic state far

so far from home, you and I avoid each other’s eyes while

time flows fast and deep and final out to the Gulf of Riga.

 

On this day in late mute May we wait on the vast Daugava

for what’s unseen unnamed but breathing, for something

that might last, or not, yet we may never catch, nor ever

understand.

 

'No More Perfunctory Kisses' 36"x36" mixed media on canvas

               Small Day On A Path

 

Underfoot, one eggshell unseen snaps in thin shreds.

Quick crunch of bird embryo muted by mud, dream

membrane on its last spindly legs.

 

Smooth boot sole slick viscous stuff caking

path of burnt sienna dirt. Strange path of

leafy insistence pulls you on.

 

You sit queasy on cold boulders, think towards

next steps, breathing Douglas Fir fully –cleanly

into your soft belly, you tie leather laces tight,

scrape bark with your strong hand just to touch

 

these trees and wonder where is the waterfall

father often told splashing our bedtime stories?

Soon you hope to smell ferns sprouting filaments

of green from wet stone like lover’s wine drenched

lips. You quietly roam, clamber easy.

 

Volcanic rocks make a towering cliff ahead, your muscled

fingers excitedly find cracks in black basalt to scramble

high into sky’s fire as your mind bleeds pleasing streams

 

of contentment. The day beautiful and blue like an egg

of gladness, like a small persistent sparrow.