Fifteen

1975: Lyme Connecticut- Something Is Wrong Here

Arthritic oaks in the suburbs of Connecticut
-like walking on marbles, that fall in the forest-
and the deer have come.

We watch them from behind the windows of the family hatchback.
On the neighbor's lawn, they sway like statues on the verge of something.
Glassed over brown eyes, and father buries the body behind the woodpile.

The newspapers tell us that we are both in the glorious endtimes
and that we are divorced from all animate things.
That we know. Mother's on her second marriage. We don't talk about it.

We are caught in surges of Saudi oil,
gobalization sings cheerful company anthems,
our president seems nice, and we're out of Vietnam.

But, still.
Last night, a deer stood on the double yellow lines of Park Street.
Florescent streetlights watched impartially as her legs buckled
and finally collasped;
lay in the road, gasping.

Fourteen, for truth

Cascades of Acorns and The Woods in Zaire

What I need you to know is that all things are connected.
It's all umbilical cords and atoms that sing ambiguous pronoun love songs
across transatlantic cable lines.

(sometimes, when I think about meeting the Designer of all this breakdown
I think about asking Him if He underestimated Disease, and Desire)

Because I believe in the glorious Maker&Breaker because the watch cogs are strewn
across field hospitals in Tanzania and Palestine.
I believe in revenge as a way of life
because The Shape Of All Things and The Ambiguity Around The Edges,
He saw that.

He saw us as we ate the roast thigh of the endangered golden tamarin
saw us shit in the water
saw the virgin baobab fall
(and it is always us, isn't it? anything you do, i do my dear/
and whatever is done only by me is your doing my darling)

And we are all feeling the whiplash snapback from the slow motion car crash
- filmed in California, index case in Kuala Lampur, and the death toll mounts in Berlin,
tonight at ten-

It used to be rickets,
bones bowed, and baby was too blissed out on opium to cry,
and we're all gonna die young, I promise, so who cares?
If some of us do it with insulin and some of us do it with girls&boys our mothers wouldn't like

And I need you to listen, alright?
The only thing left that really scares me is Ebola and that scares me.
Compassion fatigue doesn't have a CDC approved treatment, not yet, not ever.

We need to get out of here before the viruses have us by the throats,
but there's no place left to go.

Twist your hand in mine, take the vaccine.
We're gonna make it out alive, promise.

Thirteen, what luck to have made it this far

Sooooo, guys. This is my like, show -offy poem for poets. This is about the Arawak people (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arawak) that Colombus encountered when he first landed. It's written from their perspective, because so little of their culture has survived due to their lack of a written language. It uses the Fibonnacci sequence, (0, 1,1,2,3,5,8 and so on) and every line that's a Fibonnacci number is a lie.

We Are Happy to Have You Here

There is plenty of of gold, bleeding from the mountain like gods' blood. Yes. We will fill the hawk's bell for you and we can do it until the stars unspiral.

(we find your ships impressive.
even now we are speaking of your swords in hushed tones, in caves.)

You were right, senor. We will make fine servants for your queen,
dressed in emeralds and moors-cloth. That is
if we don't sweat to death, bleed out in ways the court doesn't talk about.

The land here is good. You do not like the way we throw the seeds on the earth
trustinng that the arc of the universe bends towards justice and life.
Our games are complex. You will not bother to write down the rules.

When the dogs come, we will not run. Even as they eat
our children, we will lift our face to you, still trusting
your book, your greatness.

We did not go naked to offend you. The air is so warm
and the warmth hums around our bodies. We wish you would join us.

Your god sounds frightening. We will trust in the spirits
who speak to us without incense. Our spirits sound
like our dead sisters, yours sound like smallpox.

We do not regret welcoming you. It was a good decision.
We continue to prosper.

12, and so many to go

The Conversation Redirects Itself

Let’s not talk of love or chains or things we can’t untie.

Let’s talk instead about the world as a place to fall asleep

and link pinkies and promise to do nothing to disturb the sleep

of a woman about to give birth.

And talk sideways, about the diorama in the Museum of Natural Science

of a boy who died of pulmonary tuberculosis two thousand years ago

and how they discovered him with the bison hide still tucked around

his wasted body.

(let’s not talk about who tucked it, and if his mother was inconsolable)

Why don’t we talk about Norma Jean, and shooting stars

and how you can tell some things are going to crash and burn,

you just don’t know how.

We used to talk about dugongs and Falkland foxes and passenger pigeons,

we don’t anymore.

Instead, we talk about the Violent Femme and

take ten for everything, everything, everything

and the hitch of hope in your chest that feels like kickdrum and bass,

in the best way.

Let’s talk about those uncivil and unstable creatures

who are permanently banned from the zoo,

the bad influence girls who need their warmth a little less metaphorical

(duvets and hot water bottles, even in California).

The conversation redirects itself.

The things we don’t discuss are as powerful as the things we do,

There is so little left to be afraid of.

The city’s asleep and the world is ours. Come, see and be conquered.

Week 11

How My Mothers Talk To Me

I'm not terribly pleased with this, but I'm trying.

1.

Dear Niece,

Please stay in college

so you don’t have to get as exciting a job as mine.

Today a DLOM, a dear little old man, for those of you not in the know,

called my desk and wanted me to read off the baseball listings from the newspaper.

And he’s not even a subscriber.

2.

Colleen. Please get off the table.

You and I both know the administration does not hold with that.

Yes. You really can write.

Yes. I believe in you.

No. That should not go in your mouth.

Yes. If you were orphaned in a tragic car wreck,

I would adopt you.

(you could milk my goats and write me poems)

3.

I Just Want You TO Know That I LOVE YOU REGARDLESS OF WHAT YOU DO

and JESUS LOVES you TOO.

Pray for the Second Coming OF CHRIST And Another Republican President.

I’ll send you some cookies I baked next week.

4.

Please shower more. And brush your hair more than once a week.

Are you taking the Vitamin D?

Be sure to send in the promissory note, it’s very important.

Are you sleeping enough?

Martha’s been watching me a lot.

Your furry Dad is off in the mountains somewhere.

Your sister’s off with the boyfriend.

I miss you.

Missed my first week

DAMN. I'll post two to make up for it, I promise. I was too bust having shenangins in San Francisco to retype the poem I wrote.

Nine

Ugh. Midterms. I should be doing them instead of posting this.


Cash Out and Get Out

Because sometimes I can hear the creek, but mostly I hear the freeway
Because my small and private pleasure are being marketed to focus groups
(and they aren’t testing well)-

I am cancelling the electricity, I am letting the dog run feral.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but I’m not saving you.
You know this, the poet rescues nothing

All poets feed on forests. We grow bloated
on the exact light of midmorning, the sensation of preemptive grief,
love’s tangled footpaths through the heart.

If you want much of anything, cut the oaks down,
cut your mother and St. Sebastian and the house down.
Mulch it into the pen and paper that will give you permission to say this:

i’ve always felt like that treasured childhood memory
could’ve used a little extra poignancy, a touch
of extra melancholy. let me add some.

Verse eat, verse lies.
For every Grecian vase, a grandmother,
for every Howl, a child