My somber shoes lit flint blue sparks
walking over the best parts of your grave
Tell me, did they bring you here in a human bearing vehicle?
If so you could have saved some money
The supermarket
across the street is open late
I think I’ll go over
and get champagne and a single rose
for my next corporate values trainer
The waitress at the restaurant in Kapaa dressed non-threateningly in black pants and shirt. Her sleek, long black hair pulled back in a ponytail. Our eyes meet for a second and I hold my gaze for a split second longer than decorum allows. I see she is not another expat but a true daughter of the islands with the fierce beauty and wild gaze of a gazelle, her onyx eyes dark and lovely. She loses her careful mask for a moment, returning my look with unguarded island beauty.
I hear the paddles begin beating in angry rhythm on the sides of the war canoes. I have transgressed. I looked the chiefs daughter squarely in the eye, breaking taboo law. I am now subject to its harsh justice.
I am in the surf swimming for my life.
I have one small chance–if I can reach the outer reef alive ahead of the canoes full of warriors, my life will be spared. Spears shatter the water around me. Every gulp of air comes with the shouts of the blood lust closing in behind. My muscles are tearing themselves with the effort. Canoe paddles rhythmically vivisect the distance.
Shrill cries from shore. Mind split in two watching itself with odd detachment.
Vision narrows to a blue tunnel…can’t feel my legs…ears buzzing..floating…above the canoes…high over the reef…
Two Bass ales arrive at our table. “Your steaks will be up shortly,” says our waiter. A family with small children sits down next to us. The chiefs daughter picks up a stack of dirty dishes three tables away and walks back towards the kitchen. Someone brings a battery powered candle to our table. And I wonder if lived or died out there where that lone paddle surfer in the red board shorts is just now clearing the breakwater.
Are we done shouting at each other?
Calling each other names?
Good, because I like the way you wear clothes
I like your smile— the same now as when you picked berries at twelve,
Waterskied at twenty,
Celebrated ground hogs day at thirty,
Leaving muddy toys on the back porch doormat for the kids.
Can you stop being such a princess?
No, on second thought.
Don’t.
Standing on our Kauai hotel balcony
At night
I see lights in the sea
Hey, Babe what are those
Unearthly lights like dolphins on fire
We finally realize they are people
Offshore swimming together
Wearing headlamps
Why are they doing that
Like they had nothing better to do
This morning clumps of people
Standing on the beach
Looking out to sea
Immobile, transfixed, reverent
Hey Babe, what the hell are they doing
Tai chi?
No one’s moving…
Then I see the whales offshore
Breaching–one after the other
Slowly like the children of giants
Playing hop scotch
Like they had nothing better to do
Oh
Last night and now
Oh
I get it
Dummy
The palm grass asks to be anointed
And lowly stalk becomes a bower
A sleepy sea minds not it’s mounts
Lifting armies to deliver
The requiem smithed from simple tunes
Rolls crescendos ever higher
A broken heart unseen in grieving
Hears heaven’s song in neighbor’s chatter
rain smears the windshield
running claymation athletes
leaves and dogs float by
Getting fired is
a car accident a mile from town
a funeral on a Tuesday
a child born under a bad sign
the river jumped the bank
took out a row of trees and
the houses now crazy tilted
and silted in
and the L and N don’t stop here anymore
it’s a note stuck to a box of cheap donuts
delivered to your doorstep
on a Sunday morning
saying even though we just
took you off at the knees
we know you’ll land
on your feet
In the synclines of power
deep beneath the arterial flows
channeling the earths treasure
from one hot electric pool to another
lie small seams of change
clinging to the pants pockets
of the substitute teacher
the night nurse
and the landscaper
far from the lavish lucred lakes
formed from the
runoff of wars
the small seams are stirring
gathering, listening
to a great ocean in the distance
big power cannot allow this
so into the taverns
the campuses
the bus yards
the convenience stores
it pumps the pressurized indolent
soothing fluid of lies
but the lubricant cannot reach
into the deepest crevices
where the tenured outrage
of the grandsons and granddaughters
of Sacco and Vanzetti
of Joe Hill
and Woody Guthrie
is finding its own path to
the surface again
without the lubricant
of lies
We slept on black rubber body bags
in the mountain hut
high on the north side
of Mount St. Helens
under the diamond hard sky
the bags squeaked all night
when we rolled over
and the mountain waited
for us to climb
its scabrous slopes
into the brilliant orange white morning
a few years later
that side of the mountain
erupted and slid
into the lake below
at least nobody had to sleep
on those body bags
again
Around my block
crows berate,
busses bray
lawn mowers growl
neighbors kvetch
bumble bees perambulate
incognizants plod along in a line
sunk beneath dreaming.
My banjo helps to seine the day’s
news from between the noises
a hardened heart
a wandering wife
a sunken fishing boat
a new car
a lost job.
Slowly it starts to ring
first plinking along in sorrow’s key
then brightly tin-hammered
then ringing like sunshine on cotton fields
ringing like John Henry
banging away at the pit face
of that coal mine
where by God no steam drill
can stop him can beat him
baby it rings like silver
all the way to Canaan
glory hallelujah damn.
I stand facing
the conquered armies of Carthage
the rotting nobility of Rome
the seesaw twinkling of cities
blooming and dying
all along the fertile crescent
slave ships rising slowly at anchor
amphorae of wine and olive oil
piled on sun bright docks
awaiting passage
beggar children asking for coins
feral packs of dogs
defending their territories
kings and drunkards
fat whores with crooked teeth
and all the fishes of the sea
undulating in their fishy homes
beneath the mirrored stars
sprinkling the sea
with the breath of Gods.
And that is only the first three shelves.
fraying seam of geese
holding the sky together
time and I stand still
Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.
I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.
White gloved soldiers
Escorting the remains of fellow warriors
On the long flight home from Afghanistan,
Follow strict and
Seamless protocol:
Eyes straight ahead,
Voices low,
The rough places made smooth now.
Spotless flags pulled taut over
Shiny steel coffins
Buffed so that no reflection escapes,
Except the one
That reminds us:
Remember to forget.
Everything.
A box full
of broken toys
today
looks like circuits
and dead screens
and cables,
not well-worn and
deeply loved objects
with inner life.
a prodigal son
home for his eighteenth birthday
serenades his dad.
A poem by Trumbull Stickney, American poet (1874 – 1904)
One hundred poems
one sings loudest, soaring
high–like a child in church
I had a sister lovely in my sight:
Her hair was dark; her eyes were very sombre;
We sang together in the woods at night.
It’s lonely in the country I remember.
–Trumbull Stickney
(1874-1904)
Posted in poetry
quiet library
writing for hours and hours
musical silence
