Sun and Fog

Sun draws the soaking, drenching fog,
shooting it with light at the bottom, while
the top is the obscure white of clouds, as if
the earth’s spirit is gone and only the body,
still warm and glowing, remains.

Truckstop Waitress

Honey, darling, sugar, baby, anything but Lacey, though
my name's right here where any Tomfool Dick
or Harry could read it if he cared to, 'stead of leering
greasily like a coyote, licking buffalo sauce off his fingers
like there’s a napkin shortage in Kentucky.

Winking, squeezing, grabbing, sticking out their hands
on the sly like its an accident when I walk by: some day
I’ll sling a handful of nickels at ‘em and scream,
“Keep your filthy grubs offa me or I’ll run you over, Charlie,
Mack, Ed, Billy honey, darling, sugar, baby”.

Winter City

The old man is talking to his cat again
in the next apartment I can hear him, the walls
are so thin, just layers of onion.

Today is grease splatter and grey sky
more soap in the dishwater and I
wish it were hotter, I feel that dirty.

Its the dog crap on the sidewalk
and cigarette smoke and people
who won't talk when you go by

or look in your eyes and sometimes
you want that. Sometimes I want to be
touched so badly I cry.

I'd like to take off in a Volkswagen van
camp by the ocean, sleep on the sand
feel the sun, my muscles firm as I run looking
like an ad on TV where the blues are more blue
and green is more green than you've ever seen.

But the girl in the ad doesn't need kerosene
for cooking or get tired of eating hot dogs
and beans because she only has enough money

to camp for a week without working and
the ad doesn't have to tell me I'd be as alone by the sea
as I am in the filthy grimy city.

Seven Stanzas

I like the way shoes wait for the impression
of a foot and their next destination.

I like the way ivy greets sunlight: always with eager
arms, even if the sun is not having a good day.

I like the way flames kiss a breeze fluidly, agreeably,
acquiescent. They never say "no".

I like the way a leather chair agrees with a body
on where it should and should not give.

I like the way the earth balances a house
on her head without letting it fall.

I like the way ribs cradle a heart jealously
from the world’s sharp elbows.

I like the way words meet a page honestly,
black on white without a trace of grey.

Seven Hallelujahs

Heaven's a blue so clear its ringing
ice bells, chimes in branches clinging.

We've come for diamonds in drifts a' winking
and a glimpse of the moon, low it's sinking

o'er the eve of the world's last turning, or
perhaps it's first and brightest morning.

We are hailed by seven spirits singing
hallelujahs, or the final warning.

The Green Beyond

In memory of someone who loved this place-
an inscription on a greening stone marks
the trail we took to see the catfish dance-
slowing then starting, shivering in unison,
intent on the surrounding cloud of eggs
they didn’t notice when we slipped our hands in
and felt their fins.

Winter found the faces of summer cottages
forlorn, boarded windows staring like empty sockets
across the ice-bound lake. We skidded long trails,
looked for cracks and any sign of our fish,
frozen mid-shimmer in the greenish glaze.

Next year someone we loved was captive
beneath a stone. We lay on the green grave
feeling down, through the ground when
a lucent flutter above us showed
our fish had broken free. Released
mid air they danced once more.

Navy

Rain drowned the windowpanes
as we lay- me half asleep, you
dreaming of being deployed.
I brushed the would-be curls
of your military hair, forehead
cool with logical thoughts,
submarine facts and radar,
my fingers a continuous convoy
of rippling waves on the sea
that takes you away from me.

Keeping Time

I loved you. Oh, how I loved
you through winter's ice
and August's moons, in
springtime’s greenest glow
with thawed crystal drops
on willow trees and rainbow
fish below.

In the dusk of gloom
and deepest night, the sighing
breaking dawn; I love you,
oh, how I love you still
as time trudges on.

Irish Ex

He’s one of the Flaherty, Braugh
O’ Dea, O’ Dell, bumper-sticker bearing
T-shirt wearing imported from Ireland
assembled in America proud-to-be
Celtic tattooed crowd.

He’s crazy about The Quiet Man with its
sod roof cottages and he’s crazy about Fiona:
chestnut curled, ivy-eyed Fiona with a
Green Isle sized rock on her finger.

As we hail them to their honeymoon
I say, “Be sure to kiss the Blarney Stone!”,
knowing at night Irish kids
piss on the Blarney Stone.

The Viewing

Here is the church
where I will look
on the leaden cheeks,
plastic lips and powdered
eyes masquerading as yours
beneath layers of paint.

Here is the church
here is the steeple
where row upon row
of eyes will watch me watch
you, lying as if asleep
almost.

Here is the church
here is the steeple
open the doors
see all the people.

Heathcliff and Me

Give me the sweet golden light that lately
flooded this room. Light invisible but palpable,
light I felt with all my senses. Give me the heavenly
hand whose touch was seen, tasted and heard
washing over me. Has any Heathcliff, longing
for his Cathy, imploring her ghost to haunt him,
seen her one last time? Tell me he has seen her,
for a black chasm yawns before me, seperating
her world from mine, where no phone line
reaches, where no letter will be replied.

The silence of that chasm answers me,
filling my brain, rounding upon itself in wave
after wave, until the fury explodes in a scream,
in fingers gripping the bed frame, in fists
that pound and pound in vain. O Death,
where is thy sting? O psalmist, speak not
to me, for the sting is deep in every part of me
and every second spawns a hundred new
hellish cells to form my fiery bones.

The Seeker

Beyond the crusted lips of the mouth
of the sea, I entered a vast cave
and the sun disappeared.

Searching for your ship with only
the light of my eyes, black abandoned
hulls and broken masts towered above
like mountains of bones.

Moss drawn shadows on the sea eaten
walls like ancient symbols led me
further on. Faint luminescence beneath
the oily surface tempted my unsteady step
toward a sure destination.

When I called, your name shuddered
ahead then was gone, gliding to an elusive
land like the ship you sailed away on.

The Moth

The moth loved the moon from afar-
worshipping its image, turning at the
edges to flit again across its surface, she
caressed it all night over, like a ferryboat
crossing from shore to shore.

Moonlight slid over the river
like pearls spilled on a glass floor.
Awash with glory, the moth bathed
in streams of radiance and lapped silver
motes that rang inside her like bells.

Her love faded with dawn- slowly
at first, then suddenly it was gone.
Forgetting to find shade among flowers
and drink their dew, the moth withered
to a dusting of silver powder while
awaiting the return of the moon.

Okeechobee

If I had it in me I’d yell “Mop that up!” and pitch
a fistful of Circle K napkins at your head, instead of sitting
here, thinkin’ that I myself will hafta clean up the mud
prints your filthy, pointy-toed boots made on my dash.

If I had it in me, the next time you raised your
fist at me, I’d whip that big ugly buckle off your
belt and mash it into your thick skin so hard that
you’d be marked for life like Cain: initials blazing
on your forehead, everyone’d know just who you are.

If I had it in me I wouldn’t be driving your tobacco-stained,
skinny self all over Okeechobee ‘cause you lost your license-
I’d be riding my four wheeler over four hundred acres
of my own cattle ranch. You don’t think I could do it, but I could.

If I had it in me, or even knew what “it”
was, I’d pull this truck over faster than you could
slur “Three fingers a’ Jack Daniels”, and leave you
high but not-so-dry, to sleep it off in Del’s orange
grove or stumble into the alligator cove, I don’t care,
so long as you never come home.

Autumn Passing

This mist is a mourning veil
draped over the world
but the gleeful leaves
cannot be dimmed or quieted,
blazoning with gladness they
form your funeral arch.

A jet trail in the indigo sky
heralds your path of ascension
and the falling leaves remind us:
only a frail stem holds us
above the earth

American Teacher in Jenin

Notebooks, textbooks, letters-

I look around, taking stock of what I own.
Half a rented, packed-mud wall, an orange
given to me one hungry week ago by Amal.
A view of the gold dome and flapping clothes
out my window, a few tourist wares and new fears,
like bomb scares, and watching every passenger
on every bus. A few other things I own are packed
in a bag by the door: pieces of Turkish delight and a ticket home.

Pictures of my future-martyred students and a ticket home.

Earth looks unto her treasure

Earth looks unto her treasure, there beholds
What remains of a life so cherished;
Cradled below, in soil’s warmth she enfolds
That temple which is newly perished.
But a grave unearthed there’s need of never
For the fair soul which in a body dwelt
Neither tomb nor eulogy endeavor;
The greatly loved spirit not seen is felt.
So rise, Beloved, ne’er to remember
Joy that’s now paled once counted as pleasure;
Time consumes all, leaving only embers
For the living to sift, sort and measure.
Friendship thus ended, dark not with death cloud:
Love never is subject to graven shroud.