Sharp Ice

Your hair was the color of pearls,
but I didn't think they were real.
I couldn't admit to the ash
of your skin, its porcelain pose
on saucers of graves.
Two long days beside your bed.
A cradle I pushed but could not rock.
My eyes were grabbing renaissance.
I knew it but I acted blind.

You warned me of death and its salt-
how oceans are garnished with thirst.
You taught me how to rope and rise
a baby grand from dining rooms
of buried ships-and still I
painted ivory keys of fingernails
neon shades of busy lies
with no respect for waning light.
A wish was stepping on my hands.

Too young to abide the wrinkling fruit,
I wasn't prepared for the rind.
"Consider a storm the polish of craft,
expect the ice to be sharp"-you said,
but I sat deaf ten miles away.
I should have been there,
when the clock of your heartbeat stopped-
darning a prayer for the size of the hole,
as lungs collapsed like old cocoons.

Yolki Blues

I am the yolki flower, the shade of an egg.
I arrive in a burst, albumen and sack,
after first treasure of rain.
I promise you things.
Your soil is deaf to my voice,
a signal of centering force.
I am Israel's daffodil, a trumpet the poets
have bellowed through dust.
You are the frost with your habits and hands
holding a gun to temples of peace.

I shimmy with sunlight and birth.
Yet, darkness is all I'm coming to know.
Why are you plodding on trails
of a tomb in the guise and the guess
of slicing an earth meant to be shared.
Insisting on fences and walls kilometers long.
Old battles and shrapnel are eating my leaves.
In other wars, no stones, no wires
were enough to contain a rampage of terror.

A pendulum swings, cracking the clock.
This flavor of hate shrivels my flesh.
Piranhas are grabbing whatever moves.
Our quibbles are ancient sheep
gnawing the throat of an innocent lamb.
It didn't work for Berlin,
where the Dipper shoveled a grave
and Pleiades became a fixture
of glory removed in bullets exchanged-
where shadows grew sharp,
sticky with blood,
in palettes of crippling swastikas.

 Thin Soap

The room was one big
kidney stone we had to pass.
After you died, we stripped the bed,
lifted the mattress like Tupperware lids,
expecting the mold,
a shudder and a quick release.
But love won't leave that easily.
We tied sad tubes so many ways,
by popping corks and guzzling,
by scrubbing spot-less counters clean,
by praying to a tone-deaf god.
But pregnant grief
drops babies on the icy tile
and some abortions
aren't approved even
by unwilling tears.
Ruination had its day-
Rome to sand and sand to sea.

We divided your china
with rattled palms,
washed red lipstick off old cups,
crated them in bubble wrap,
promptly snapped like thinning soap.
Christmas lost its fennel scent
and seeing all your ornaments
would crash the cars in all our eyes.
We gave away your penny stash
and lived inside the empty jar.
The moon, its glossy cavity,
a slice of fruitcake
tougher than a poisoned deer.
We painted your house a sterile white
to mask the Armageddon gloom-
to tell ourselves you weren't
four walls that held us up.
We sold your pink geraniums
to neighbors with their distant arms,
to someone who could water them.

Caulking Guns

I watch six robins build a nest
in towers of a giant oak-
a castle from twigs
and plain brown straw.
You did the same for us.
Bending your knuckles
in spite of the bleed.
Caulking the winter
with signs of the spring.
Some fathers wear mitts
to handle the heat and the chill.
Others walk barefoot
with wounds on their toes,
never complain of the sore.

Through all the empty nuts we've lived,
through jars of Jif that just won't
spread on coy saltines, your hands
have soothed unsootheables,
dug ditches for the tumbleweeds
like feet find stirrups on a trail.
You taught us all-old angers
are pagans in churches of now.
That roses are born to be picked.
Roads of our flaws were never
a belt you beat us with.
My fingers feel petty
typing their keys in shadows
surrounding your light.

So This Is How Agape Reads

Eyes wide open for the Fall-
it's a season as well as a fact.
We can't exchange
these tired carrots of our bones
for brand new pencils in a box.
Consider this a thank you note:
I'm grateful you refuse to skip
the parts of life that tell
our eyes a bomb was here.
All our ankles, all our knees are arguing
with Waterloos of daily chores.
I think of times when touching toes
were take-for-granted music bars.

Five days after surgery,
I roll your socks in condoms
over wet erections of your will.
Vacuum while you shower and dress,
squint in case I'm missing dirt.
Bending down to pick up soiled underwear
could snap the fragile paperclip.
Standing is a stale cracker under weight.
Cheese we were becomes a scar.
We talk apart the wars that won-
go home to rest a thicker shield
as bullets build behind our backs.

These front-row seats of death we own
would make us pale applesauce if not for
specks of cinnamon, of being there
as hours grow bruised, become the worm.
As years play tricks, as menus fade
where sweaty glasses parked their rings,
I ponder how lonely the path would be
without your footprints next to mine.
From bookends sliding down a shelf,
we learn to meter what remains
on pages with their binding loose.
So this is how agape reads-
the seed that makes the jam the jam.

Sizes of Sadness

At Zeinhom Morgue in ancient Cairo
bodies alive are puking on luck,
sifting through litter for glowing remains.
Forced by fear to lift white sheets,
stare at Hell on withered earth,
then put death back like cupboards
lined with cans of soup.
Relatives reach for golden teeth,
familiar scars, omnipotent symbols
of heartbeats once-perhaps
they can prove a person was here
before the ravaging flame.
The goal is to garner a paltry sum,
toss coins at starving infancy
weeping on the tortured road-
so they can avoid the slots of their tombs
for only a moment of sand.
The goal is to find a respectable spot
to place the despicable ash.

At home, a half a globe away,
my neighbors gripe about the wind
blowing a pile of leaves
into a garden they recently groomed.
I race to meet the mailman's truck,
sort through stacks of trivia,
slice my finger on an ad, and
thank the world I have my hands.
I take my tongue, use its juice,
lick a spot of grenadine blood;
I watch as the river resumes.
At Zeinhom Morgue in ancient Cairo,
Osama El-Baz stands tall and short,
a leader assigned to the swirling crowd
so dense with unspeakable grief
it stitches a carpet of horror.
As mourners wail, he promises change
three months too late for absolutes-
corpses tossed like handkerchiefs
in canyons of a common grave.

 Needle Tracks

At barely two, she watches
from a tilted highchair minus a leg.
Elbows parked like angry bricks
in a plastic bowl of crusty
macaroni and cheese.
This is a scene of demise
and despise her ruby tongue
will learn like books.
Her mother clears her sweet syringe,
ignores the leak tapping a bucket
glued to the grime on the floor.
She slides its point into her wrist-
goes puppet flat. A pond
she chose or it chose her.
Relief in bloom without the flower.

The shammes orb she might have been
for other candles in the church
remains unlit-a match is wet
with all that's weak.
A little girl will fly to school
on wings of excuses and lies.
"My mommy is busy at home."
She'll walk with heavy limbs and blood
down side streets to the grass-less yard.
Climb the stairs like mountains
jutting through storm.
Needle tracks will lead to sirens,
corpses stacked in poker chips.
Heroin hill-all victims
and vases lacking the bud-
all hunger and no heroines.

Body Wax

I ignored the bottles that rolled
from back seat floors
up to the front under my legs.
They tapped at my ankles and talked
like woodpeckers drill at petrified trees.
Of course I ignored their necks
too narrow to slip a penny in.
The music we played had static and dust.
Our windows were blurred by our storms.
If we kept at this pace, swigging
the ether to numb and to strangle
gray thugs of our clouds,
our livers would be
the tongues of old shoes.
I would forget I could walk.

A quick goodbye, a suitcase stuffed.
A slamming door that cuts dry cheese.
Bygone kiss-bikini waxing pull and strip.
Rip and recall the pain of a touch.
My swatches of skin have
landscapes of rashes and burns.
Cold turkey was best
for the beast we became.
My thighs were finally mine again
to open like gifts for reciprocal hands.

I nailed our wine rack to the wall-
a better man would hang his hat
on bamboo spokes, sweep
tart hailstones off the porch.
Use softer palms to salve old scars,
leave clippings of his mustache hair
like fresh cut grass in bathroom sinks.
I knew deep down that kangaroos of loneliness
could hop the canyons of this grief.
The rest of your shirts dangled in ghosts-
and I would take guns of myself
to empty husks of their sleeves.

Questions
without answers
lodge themselves in my throat.
I choke down the replies. I can't
ask why.

My voice
whispers soft apologies, pleas
you'll never hear. I fold
the words into
a prayer.

No peace
finds me in sleep.
I search for respite, taste
the ashes of bitter dreams, shed
old tears.

I hold
too tightly; your hand squirms in mine.
You dance away, laughing
and leave me with
this pain.

Yiskor

I burn
with shame, avert
my eyes, forced to witness
the triumph of brutality-
this hell.

Hatred
begets hatred
and blood sheds blood-rust red.
Palestinian and Jew, joined
at last.

Who mourns
this death with me?
Will you recite Kaddish?
Cover mirrors? Rend your garments
in grief?

Tell me
again how peace
will flower, fertilized
with the bodies of all those dead.
Tell me.

Africa

Baked
earth
eager
for spring rain
licks its cracked lips, stares
unblinking into the sun's eyes.
She does not discriminate, grants her favors freely;
scorches fields, burns the stream beds dry.
We swallow dust, share
our land's pain.
Neither
thirst
slaked.

State Street Theater

His car
pulls to the curb;
"Goodbye," she says, back squared,
shuts the door and jaytrots across
the street.

driver's side door slams;
he stands, coatless in the cold,
screaming vapor threats

I'd stay
for more of this melodrama,
but they have already
given away
the end.

                        Low
                    sun
                finds a
            tar paper
        shack, by the train track,
    slumped one day deeper in debris.
As day fades, slowly umber shadows swing and taper.

At last, the day star sends a shaft of light from bright decline,
through the shack's encrusted windows, in rainbow-tinted shine.
The sills are filled with bottle glass, crowded against the panes,
placed there by the resident—discards from passing trains.
No rose-windowed cathedral boasts colors half as fine.

      Passengers, in passing, pity his decrepit home.
                  They can't see the place's glory,
                                nor his vital spark,
                                  nor how he
                              beats back
                                  the
                              dark.

                              Necropolis

                        Do
                    you
                doubt me,
            my dear friend,
        when I say there is
    to be found a darkling hamlet
underground behind the cataract at river's end?

Come with me. Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets
and alleyways, down the cobbled maze to where road's-end meets
the river's edge in grey mist and the paving ends in sedge.
There, where combers boom beyond the spray-damp rocky ledge,
the mighty river, its journey to the sea, completes.

      Under our sunlit city on the broad river's shores,
                            another lurks in darkness. It
                                lies hidden where the
                                  torrent roars
                                        into
                                  the
                              sea.

                        As
                    we
                clamber
            down cliffside
        in dusk's low amber
    light, the shadow of the western
headland falls full upon the entrance - our faithful guide.

Behind the curtain of the waterfall, the path's well-worn.
The cavern, vast and dim, is full of people, so forlorn,
their eyes are dimmer still. Too poor even for city slums,
they live in grimy grottos; sustain themselves on crumbs.
Hidden from the fortunate, no one can hear them mourn.

Sky Piper

The
blown
sky glows
turquoise and
arches high in flight.

All around me, wind
sings as it passes,
flapping flags,
tossing trees.

I'm drawn to follow
anywhere
away
from
here.

Sunset Concert

Long
chill
shadows
climb the wall
as the sun sinks to
rise in foreign lands far beyond
the jungle's edge, beyond the eagle's ken, past caring.
From an overhanging palm frond,
its tones ringing true,
comes the call:
gecko's
shrill
song.

Shy Muse

Words
chase
across
the blank page.
Pinning them down with
my pen doesn't work. Somehow they
manage to change when they are pinned. They just won't be penned.
So, I scribble pensively - scrawl
lines that fail to fly -
while I wait
for the
shy
muse.

Betrayed

A
slow
descent,
close along
ancient camel tracks.
Silent throng,
all bent
low,
may
stray
no
more. Sent
by the long
route through these mountains,
they suffer on the rocky roads.
These broken people bear looted treasure on their backs,
bowed beneath cruel crushing loads.
They weep salt fountains.
The still strong
lament.
Oh,
prey!
They
know
who went
badly wrong-
whose appetites wax-
who belong.
Dissent?
No
way.

Atop the Pile

Through a chink you see clear sky with a skin of dust
that rises from the ruins, a crushed concrete maze.
The rubble of the past pulls underfoot, as it must:

your family's down there buried, unjust among the just
where they stood at the pitched moment of their days
before the sky, so clear, was skinned with dust,

and everything we built on, what we'd come to trust,
collapsed in a shudder, the earth twitched sideways,
the rubble of the past pulled underfoot, as it must

if there's scientific reason for walls to combust
around a plain man's future like his bygone-days.
A clear sky goes black with a burned skin of dust

that settles on anything still standing as a thrust
of earth shifts crevices that might have shown ways
through rubble to a child's hand or foot. You must

climb atop the terrible pile-this new wanderlust
to cut a way through your crushed own life, a daze
of rubbled past that pulls underfoot, as it must,
under a sky that clears above its skin of dust.

Recalling That Summer

You always begin with a blunder,
that first skirmish of a mistaken war.
In a small shop off the alley
where they played jazz like poppies,
you were nothing but an open window.
A hero casts a shadow wherever he goes,
no wonder he claims he's forgotten.
Is there no way to save the view
over a river without start or end?
It's all over when the chorus dies.

Where they played jazz like poppies,
a hero casts a shadow wherever he goes.
You always begin with a blunder.
No wonder he claims he's forgotten
that first skirmish of a mistaken war.
You were nothing but an open window
in a small shop off the alley,
over a river without start or end.
It's all over when the chorus dies.
There's no way to save the view.

Rituals

Home brew begins the ritual of morning,
a brief relationship I walk back and forth;
the strikes and waves one makes while the sun
in the east takes its dawn and weaves fabric
fancy or simply into tedious statement. Less
than political or heroic, it's standard; even
so, the first cup of coffee is the thing,
but even before coffee, first in the morning
I carry the flag out to its standard. This
isn't a political statement, much less fancy.
The east wind weaves a fabric out of dawn,
waves it against the sun with whom I strike
a brief relationship before I walk back
to the house to begin my day, home brewed.

Mates

Through a thousand schoolbook days
you loved the lightning tongues of praise:
of Hopkins, Rilke, Baudelaire-
their hectic crackle-rhythm on the air.
You've even run your fingers down
the furrows of a cosmic frown,
which burning brains make bright
under an all-consuming light.

You've caught a match-struck line
to strike a strangely-strung design,
words that never quench, but feed
the heart's pale metaphoric need.
But while the bards sing ever bolder,
You're marrying a pin-stripe shoulder.

The Bleikeller, Bremen

The mummied tiler lies still where he lay,
under the spired roof from which he fell,
miraculous proof of death with minimal decay.

In 1450 when he smashed his mortal clay
on the market square, they bore him to this cell.
The mummied tiler lies still where he lay.

His lidless eyes are open to the meager ray
a candle issues over his diminished shell,
miraculous proof of death with minimal decay.

But if he watches, in the vaulted stony day
under Sankt Petri, visions of heaven or hell,
the mummied tiler lies still where he lay.

Composed forever under hands that pray,
he lies expressionless as a broken bell,
miraculous proof of death with minimal decay.

The Lord preserves here in an unearthly way,
as the priests of the Sankt-Petri-Dom tell:
the mummied tiler lies still where he lay,
miraculous proof of death with minimal decay.

Ghosts of the Front Porch

In the breeze, afternoon rocking chair creaks
dangling calico clouds swaying beyond,
the wind whispers her name. She turns to seek
voices long buried, warm memories donned
against the coldness of a summer gone
as life approaches winter, fading heart
beating to other realms, facing a dawn
of oblivion, ready to depart.
She hears jarring sounds of the passing cars
but sees Mama in the breeze, chair swinging
softly, apple butter scents from afar,
quilt work in her lap, silently singing.
Yearning, she reaches for the lullaby.
The front porch fades and the traffic noise dies.

The Birth

working graveyard
laboring & delivering a stillborn bundle
greeted by a mother's newborn cries
after the doctor's announcement

not "it's a girl", "it's a boy" but
"it's dead"

navigating the paperwork jungle, recording
a soul's missed moment on earth
dreading the trip to the basement
dictated by hospital policy

not a nameless tech, delivery person but
the duty nurse

removing him from the warm womb
wrapping him in the cold sheets
escorting him to the basement morgue
leaving him surrounded

not by parents,new brothers and sisters but
a family of corpses

silently welcoming him as their own.

Aftershocks

crisis complete
the main shock
the earthquake
the divorce
finished

tremors echo
cascading
rippling lives
extending
family hurt

small jolts follow
our children
our parents
our friends

shaken

Much is Taken, Much Abides

Long before the house, the oak
had grown beyond convenience.
So it stands a century beyond its youth,

and in summer catches light
and in fall seeds the ground
and in winter shuns the gale
and in spring turns the flood.

On a day, like this, in August
the stream is gone.
I search to find the point
at which the spring waters
curve to pass the trunk they will not move.

Silt and matted leaf remains
to mark the course, except unmown
grass has grown beyond my ankles

to ripple in a breeze too faint
to dry my skin, drought brown,
tips braiding and unbraiding,
wave and current

close my eyes
rest my strength against the oak
and feel the water brush
past my ankles cleansing
my feet of earth and heaven.

Around The Table

around the table
shuffling feet and cards
hacking coughs and muttering
over camels and pall malls
the unfiltered kind
they were the remains
of the men, of men
talking about the good old days
that never were
day after day, always the same
my father sat among them
telling his joke
he only told one joke
it would run
as far as he could take it
and then some...
at times he'd say just one word
everyone would laugh
knowing what comes after
one by one their hands folded
and dad's eyes kept fading
turning lighter shades of grey
the sparks of friendships
mostly ashen, now...
around the table
children ran in and out
among the legs of table, aunts
and uncles, cousins
daughters and son
buffet dishes warming
on the side, under lids
filling empty spaces
conversation failed to start
mother asked me if I thought
he really loved her
I replied with sinking heart
yes, of course he did

Dogwood Arches

delicate dogwood arches
asymmetrical lines-angles
of May's leaves and blossoms,
blush pink and pure white
spring - from winter
falling softly
yet cool in a slow sunset
eyes nesting in first indigo trace
contemplating twilight's
ephemeral beauty
and grace

Irises & Sunflowers

like strange ghostly remains
of parched, crisp august sunflowers
our 'tourist season' winterized-
we were little more than strangers
the only strength remaining came from my roots
like irises that beat harsh winter down
the Dempsey punch of strong leaves and tubers

you meshed and netted roots of yourself
around my weaknesses
draining veins, stems, leaves and soul
building a bonfire of crimson lies
that swirled, entangled and wrapped
around and about-like so many wild weeds
that always suffocate flowers and buds.

Come, September

down the narrow path
between branches
hanging low
a parting of willow feathers
filters, highlights
brush strokes of nature
and caresses edges of warm thoughts
i watch still water unfold
gently overlapping
forgetting sentences
and names of water colors
that contrast twilight's luminous sky
summer's remaining fruits saved-
preserved in queen anne's lace
come, september.

Whom Do You See In Me?

Who, from your past, am I supposed to be?
What cheat or lie, what unexpected blow?
You love somebody who you think is me,

seen as the image of another She,
a love who hurt you badly, long ago.
Who, from your past, am I supposed to be?

Love should count up to 2, and never 3.
Such simple mathematics do I know.
You love somebody who you think is me.

A lot of barking here up the wrong tree
and I no marvel to you, just so-so.
Who, from your past, am I supposed to be?

The me I know I am you do not see.
In understanding this I am too slow.
You love somebody who you think is me,

but on this point I rather disagree,
and my bewilderment will only grow.
Who, from your past, am I supposed to be?
You love somebody who you think is me.

On Love of God
(After a lecture on Rumi.)

Much has been written on love,
fusing human and divine,
from the Song of Songs and onwards,
leaving a pagan reader much wonder.
How did the great Teresa start her love?
And Rumi, man of Konya, for whom does the reed complain,
your flute of divine longing?

Some words of the mystics are the essence of sweetness
(like Turkish delight),
others describe the night unending,
Love's sun eclipsed.
But how did the love rise?
And did the beloved love?
Or only the loving mind?
And what was so highly loved? Was it

the absent beloved?
(human or God)
The beloved absence
(neither human nor God)
The absence of love?
The love of absence?
(completely divested, finding complete freedom,
Christ a redeemer when emptied of all his godhead)

The poet using the perfect description
without understanding one word of it?

A splendid lecture on Rumi, "the Koran in pahlavi,"
but I remain in the dark.
Even simple agape beats me
(and the love of everyday song hits
is the mind's masturbation).

But some lovers climbed the rainbow
of God
before they fell

in the abyss of His light

Flower-Watching Prayer

Amber-preserve in memory this hour
which happily transforms a simple scene,
my observation of a single flower,

into an adoration of the power
revealed by life although itself unseen!
Amber-preserve in memory this hour

turning somebody tired, bored and sour
into an inner harmony serene,
my observation of a single flower

a prayer now like a refreshing shower
to thirsty soil of dry and haughty mien.
Amber-preserve in memory this hour

of self-forgotten silence like a bower,
a fragrant absence from the mental screen,
my observation of a single flower,

a miracle the ordinary dower
of photosynthesis, chlorophyll green.
Amber-preserve in memory this hour,
my observation of a single flower!

Divine Predicament

What a disastrous fate
to be God,
all the misery of your creation
being laid at your door.

Whatever you do
made a proof against your existence
-acting, not acting-
and when you finally get things done
-famine, floods or epidemics
an expression of Something-
your will is emphatically denied
by your professional believers.
They cut the claws of the lion of the constellations
telling us he is a dear pussy-cat.
They may be the first mice to go-

And if we believe (see the letter to the Hebrews)
that you re a devouring fire, o God,
could you ever smell a snowdrop then?
O cosmic love which is a furnace,
our comfort only dross,
why cannot we leave off talking about you?
What can a pebble do about the sea?

Or do you need us, really, truly so badly
that even our blasphemies are less cruel
than indifference?
Would you be crucified rather than forgotten?

No, God, you would be better off without us.
So would your angels and your Wisdom-
believe me. But you will not.
You always knew better-

On Purple Poetry

Hunger for purple verse is not for fun,
you who profess Irony as your creed,
but sudden joy, abundant like the sun

asking no questions and excluding none,
not peacock feathers of an extinct breed.
Hunger for purple verse is not for fun,

is grief not camouflaged by any pun,
cascades of tears and hearts that dare to bleed
-and sudden joy, abundant like the sun

or silver-magic-moon when day is done
in thistle-fields where donkey-like we feed.
Hunger for purple verse is not for fun.

Beauty achieved by art is life to one
beset by a recurring chocolate-need!
A sudden joy abundant like the sun

will help the hidden flower-self to run,
itself renewing, into vital seed.
Hunger for purple verse is not for fun
but sudden joy, abundant like the sun.

Illinois in May

Fog
Smog
Raindrops
Sodden crops
Rising rivers rush
Over levees and spread to crush
All that lies in their roiling and boiling muddy path
Washing bloated carcasses in a torrent of wrath
Stinking on its way to Cairo
Nothing left to grow
Get out mops
Cough drops
Quag
Bog

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