A misread,
that happiness
comes indecently—
but there’s certainly
no modesty
as this seedling
unfurls
for how many years
was it less
than a thought
a dream
of life
impossibly both
blueprint
and raw
material
in a desiccated
husk a hull
a fleck
of the plant
that it once was
and will be
again
preposterously
and joyfully
the promise
is kept
this the little
green antidote
for a heart
that is wanting–
Wednesday the tired
wrung-out day
the lightest
of rains falling
and sometime
last night
the kid ended
up coding
went back
to the Unit
and this morning
my head aches
my dispo
brittle in so
many ways
of course
there’s no
such thing as silence
on this floor
it is a living place
it groans
with life
and at its leaving
rattles
like the IV pole
of a patient
making his rounds
all morning long
none of us
could tell you
where he is
going
For Lent
she said the Copts
go vegan
and what do I do?
As if I’d give anything up
that needed giving up
I might opt to do
rather than eschew
might give up
giving up
might sharpen
these long teeth
might really sink
them into
something
might hold on
for once
might become
resolute
with all
the tenacity
of a bad bad habit
Could it mean something
that today
everyone was singing?
the kid the chef the drunk
man on the corner
hands raised waiting
to be raptured for an hour
The chef had the words
but not the tune
arriving at work
just as I was leaving
the drunk had the voice
but distance muffled
his meaning
the kid went
I need you
I need you
more than anyone
darling before rote
memory gave out
and red-faced
he caught me listening
but if anything
these days I am
the longest hallway
the openest window
the painfullest silence
so build me up
build me up
Buttercup
don’t break
my heart
In the holly, a steller’s jay,
angles hiding angles–
black-beaked, black
-crested, less bird
than polygon,
the very shape
of caution–
its sleek
blue bravura
hidden in the shadows
of one hundred
glossy leaves,
I saw momentarily
the bird itself,
not the brash emblem
it presents and loudly
projects from blatant
chimney perches–
It was unguarded
I saw a touch of matte
on a bird that is
all glint
and grit and out
and open,
always, except
having found this
hardwood bower,
each leaf scalloping
into toothsome spines,
and deeming it tough
and tall and deep
enough,
it softened,
until I opened
the window
while washing up
and met its very eye
and watched the flinch
the stutter
-step the flight,
fragile,
for all its sure
acrobatics–
sure distractions,
as a feathered arc
is not the bird
that makes it–
seeing this jay,
I now see
the distinction
I don’t want to be a landscape
she wrote
but instead of a plea
it came out as trees
and Midas smirked.
Writing as a landscape,
a warning–
don’t mistake placidity
for peace.
It could be that
the stillness of the trees
is self-imposed,
the dormant volcano,
disciplined;
though tired
of being a backdrop,
too tired
to do much else
but stay,
glacial,
to wrinkle the horizon
with creases
the same non-hue
as a day-moon,
elusive,
barely showing up
in photos.
You get the sweeter
guava
I get the crisper
night
This is what I hear
when I talk to you now:
the blurble
of nearby fountains
and incessant motorbikes.
You said you felt
old and I said
so-and-so got married
and so all we really
spoke about
were different
types of distance
and the connection
kept failing
as if to drive
a point home–
it must be so nice
to get away from it
The rain coming down
to soften our edges
to dampen as to muffle
not as to douse
Such mildness today
we thought we’d have
a standoff
but all we got
was tired
understanding
the kindness
that evolves when
nothing else
is left
It’s been a long
week everything
is weary us the sky
gone pewter
the slickening roads
and bridges that pull
towards home
and there’s never
a lack of water
here a glut of lakes
and harbors
and the sky
that gives it up
and takes it back
but only to
give more
Pour it out
a perfect phrase
there’s no way
of getting some things
back
and every night
at every second
mere feet
from disaster
cars course
along the freeway
Beyond the exit
a soccer match
is being written out
under the spill
of floodlights
by leg and sinew
and there’s many ways
the game could go
but in the end it can
only go one of them
so much determined
by these white
painted lines
like how a car stays
in its lane or
doesn’t–
OPTIONAL POETRY 