WHEN HEIDI DANCES

 

When you dance

dear Heidi,

the space you fill

 

glows with sparkling

effervescence.

 

A silence of sweet music

embraces your muscles

your swerving hips,

 

your soft hair shines like the fragrance of prayer,

as we reverent dervishes, your admiring servants,

gratefully listen.

 

Scintillas of spindrift grace this room

 

refresh all who witness

your awakened

earth-quaking beauty.

 

Yourself rambunctious,

yet fine as lace,

 

a strong form and eager face

so flowingly sumptuous!

 

An ocean wave born in love and truth,

you roll across unmapped seas

a calming breeze of coolness,

 

you turn you glisten with a schoolgirl’s

frisky ease, yes--your unmild beguiling

enchants and pleases!

 

Mischievous marvelous in your glee,

this freedom you make today makes

our day wholly.

 

A galaxy of spinning light, my carefree woman wildly

delighting us all, a beaded altar of precious colors--

 

Oh, how we relish your womanly loving motion.

Thank you for such moments of bliss, this joy-filled

rhythmic shaking.

 

We hear your whispers continue, see in this dance

of stillness your skin’s pure happiness,

 

our soulful sustenance.

ICEBERG

You loom ahead, massive, a nameless monster through
dawn’s thickened mist. Slick and virginal you
                       
                       rise and rise and rise,


our frightened eyes cannot take you in, cannot surmise
your meanings, your reasons for emerging, completely.


Like an elephant tusk, you pierce the water line, surprise the universe.
Horizon’s gleaming zinc sliced in two by this serrated white knife tip.


You’re an angel of searing kindness clad in ivoried robe,
open arms beckon us homewards between
blue air and the brace of ocean’s chill.


Perhaps you’ve come to awaken us from visions dulled,
our paltry fears on this ship of hoary fools.  All our studied numbing,
how we cannot feel, nor become, nor love.


Our frozenness, our grayish dirges.


Through chattering teeth I shout: are you lonely here
in this wild immensity, this frigid sea of salt? 
Have you wandered far from your ice-bound herd,
do you need our help to find your meandering
scattered mates, to unfreeze your cratered hope,


to release an icy bitterness silently encased,
towards those like us who fear and hate 
your sudden god-like presence?


Iceberg luminous, Christ-like beyond all words,
ominous as a serial killer in our fog-bound dreams.


I shout out loud as we face your awe-full whiteness---another poem,
much braver than this, must venture out past well-worn habits
that cloak and twist our sensing, towards what lies beneath your exposed throat


(that roars louder than a hunter’s lust down where your guts abide)


yes, to relinquish our ship-bound illusions of safety, an all- too-human error,
dive way beyond our terror to taste your animal depths
and truly begin to glean what’s unknown in these still waters,
as you, scintilla of the sea, 
                                               
                                      rise and rise and rise,


so soon one day before melted, wasted away from hubris our awful global greed,
you may be felt from head to toe, you--our friend and foe-- finally being seen.

ICEBERG

You loom ahead, massive, a nameless monster
through dawn’s thickened mist. Slick and pure you
                       
                    rise and rise and rise,


our frightened eyes cannot take you in, cannot surmise
your meanings, your reasons for being, completely.


Like an elephant tusk, you pierce the water line, surprise the universe.
This serrated white knife tip slices horizon’s gleaming zinc in two.


You’re an angel of searing kindness clad in ivoried robe,
open arms beckon us homewards somewhere between
blue air and the brace of water’s chill.


Perhaps you’ve come to help us cope with our dulled vision,
our paltry fears on this ship of hoary fools.  All that
in our studied numbing we cannot feel, nor simply
become, nor love.


Through chattering teeth I shout: are you lonely here
in this wild immensity, this frigid sea of salt? 
Have you wandered far from your ice-bound herd,
do you need us to help you find your meandering
scattered mates, to help unfreeze your hope?


To release this icy bitterness silently encased,
towards those like us who fear and hate your
sudden god-like presence?


Iceberg, you are ominous beyond
all words.


In light of our well-worn habits,
these that cloak and twist our sensing,
as we face your awe-full whiteness,
I now declare---


towards what lies beneath under your open throat
(that roars louder than a hunter’s lust down where your guts abide)


another poem, much braver than this,
must venture out, dive way beyond our terror to taste your animal depths, 
yes, to relinquish our ship-bound illusions of safety,


an all- too-human error, and truly begin to glean what’s unknown
yet not lost in these still waters, as you, scintilla of the sea, 
                                               
                                rise and rise and rise,


so soon one day before you melt and waste away from our greed  our hubris,
you may be felt be seen.

PORTLAND BOY

 

 

Two small feet in scuffed tennis shoes descend

into the damp basement of a 2 story

colonial house immersed in a turgid roiling sea

of infinitely black weather. The boy drops

 

step-by-step onto sturdy wooden planks,

one beneath the other, until the cement

 

floor rises to meet him

where he stands alone.

 

Strange vague feelings in his smooth belly

begin to be deeply felt, quite soothing,

 

quietly.       It’s so quiet here.

 

Somehow                                    only

when by himself

 

does this misted rain fall unpredictably,

subtly onto his receptive lap, gently

 

entering the short ruddy virginal body to fill

an emptiness he had not named before.

 

How does he know to welcome this astonishing

surprise, like those flying seahorses in the dream

falling friendly, speechless and soundless

from a sky so faraway?

 

becoming aware of fruition truly, like the exact

uncertain moment

 

(wild stallion and chestnut mare

together asleep under a sprawling

mesquite in full flame….)

 

conception….

 

peaceful and unruly--

 

mysteriously happens,,

Portland Boy

 

 

 

In the damp basement strange

vague feelings in his belly

deeply felt

 

(especially comforting)

 

somehow                    only

when alone

 

would they fall

into his receptive lap.

 

misted rain fills him up

 

descends friendly from

a sky so faraway

 

like the exact uncertain

moment

 

conception….

 

mysteriously happens,,

ODE TO SATURDAY’S GRAPEFRUIT                                                       

Your happy tongue a fat
planet eternally orbiting
the yellow-orange sun

of sweet luscious fruit. In love

with its juicy plump flesh

 

and how its ode-orous radiance

enters eager mouth’s cool cave

 

where you speak a lusty grinning

silence, a born-again tongue
your first language,

 

loose and fresh, new

as a white dwarf star.

Breakfast astronaut, strip off your space-suit

burst into pleasure,

free-float naked in your capsule

of citrus where gravity’s absence

 

titillates these taste buds,

lightens all flesh and linguistic

pretensions as it hijacks 

your rocket ship towards

 

an untraveled atmosphere,

seduces quite tasty

like hot hasty sex in the shower

at home far down on earth.

 

Now, you’re a high wire tightrope walker

in thin air married to pulp quite piquant,

a kitchen chair your net underneath:

your face fiercely amorous, eyes

 

sparkle with inhibitions unraveling,

as flying soars further, juices

flow greedily across your chin

like a crowd of kids’ fingers

 

cotton candy sticky, their laughter

goofy and loud

at a clown’s artful hijinks.

 

This long hunger for new worlds to traverse

fulfilled by what flows in-between
taste buds and citrus and

by these small oval seeds that

 

harbor chlorophyll--growing neurons

to flower your blooming bright brain, flourish  

galaxies of mushrooming desires.

Oh astronaut! Oh tightrope walker!

Let yourself languish and linger,
be astonished inside grapefruit's
pink succulence, this stellar ripening

this thin steel wire clear liquid gleaming

 

that’s nourished and grabbed you

star-struck for good.

taste its foreign fecundity,

savor its puckering liminality,

explore its other-world corporeality,

hear its tingling full-flavored poetry.

 

Yes my dear breakfast devotees

You wild devourers

of fresh tangy  

grapefruit

 

simmer and sizzle

sing if inspired

 

in this obscene solar system

under the big mesh canvas tent

 

inside your private Sputnik

of requited cravings

 

beguiled, beguiling

 

crooning and raving,

 

a true lunatic’s mooning,

 

all Saturday long!

                             OCEAN

 

The ocean shimmers out beyond the orange buoys.

 

Daylight bends back towards tomorrow.

 

Maybe rain will fall again one day in this town

of shopping malls and desiccated desert ground.

 

And then you may return with a bracelet of green

jade on your right wrist and a basket woven of small

surprises, salty wet on your smooth tanned back.

 

A robust quiet ripening,  

your favorite calling card.

 

Then the ocean’s play with light and wave

might make sense once more.

 

Then hope shall erupt and rise from the nestled shore

like the slender dancer drunk and lusty wild in her

graced ascension at your first gypsy wedding.

 

And then, and only then, the New Orleans funeral marchers

shall swagger single file down Bourbon Street on a shining day

 

soaked all golden like dervish saints, their music spilling over,

entrancing us with such sweetness and god-damn, rag-tag

swelter.