untitled 4-23-11

The tangerine tree trembles, its white blossoms

Shake with uncertain shyness, young women 

Frightened that they bloomed too soon. 

When I arrived here, I thought,

I am concentrating on all the wrong things.

Meant to be writing a piece of analysis dry as dust.

And instead-- 

The meat of olives.

Pungent as a memory that only the body can recall.

Cumquat juice slipping down swollen fingers.

How, there is no other word for alone.

Not really.

A rippling purple iris caught in the lens of the sun.

Exhausted straw hats, terra cotta water jugs.

A fish made of bronze in a chalky fountain.

A painted quail. 

Soft cats roll their clean fur in the baked dirt. 

The photo of Joanna at the beach. 

And tonight,  the 

‘Best Dessert This Side of the Mississipi’ 

After crawfish, red potatoes, a filet. 

The blankets here are really shawls 

To wear around your shoulders.

I have danced beneath my kaftan.

Listened to a song about smoke and ashes.

Collected more Durrell volumes.

Seen my father’s eyes

As Louis sang “What a Wonderful World”

And every time he did,

We raised our glasses.

mexican blanket 4.16.11

once buried beneath 
sand six feet deep 


(now uncovered within)
resides an unruly beast


eyes as sharp as hunting knives
and bared snaggle-teeth


i fantasize of nights 
jarring hot and black


imagine incisors 
lacerating lazy hands


and the quick blade of fact
tested my bloody lip


it did not find me wanting
lashes lowered and words slipped


from the mouth of the creature
that never whispered its existence 


until new and clear-eyed 'neath
my mexican blanket she stirred

justine

have been reading 'justine', the first of the alexandria quartet by lawrence durrell. it is a Great book. the imagery and stream of consciousness style reminds me of michael ondaatje's 'the english patient', my favorite novel. this box set is the same one my dad has. inarguably the most pleasing in design.




"'It will puzzle you when I tell you that I thought Justine great, in a sort of way. There are forms of greatness, you know, which when not applied in art or religion make havoc of ordinary life. Her gift was misapplied in being directed towards love. Certainly she was bad in many ways, but they were all small ways. Nor can I say she harmed nobody. But those she harmed most she made fruitful. She expelled people from their old selves. It was bound to hurt, and many mistook the nature she inflicted. Not I.' And smiling his well-known smile, in which sweetness was mixed with an inexpressible bitterness, he repeated softly under his breath the words: 'Not I.'"

Might Be Pure

Bleeding fingers picking limes
from the pliant green boughs of the tree

We have spent so many hours filling the
divide, ocean-wide, with words

Rain tumbled into the fountain, I said
I would dip my feet in it so your dreams

Might be pure, and I merely slept
but it was as if it were

And there is something -- something
which I cradle like grapes in my hand

Something which I carry
like a child on my back

Indefatigable baby boy,
in lieu of leisure, faced with facts

And all of the pleasure which rendered me
static and slack

Is part now of the soundless
choreography of the past

Nothing evades me
my truth simply does not contain that

Simplicity. My body contemplates,
bleeding fingers offer palms and ask

If we have faith
in faith this time or ever

in fact

I wonder if it will always be such a struggle for me,
to understand the nature of love

Its pear-shaped progression, starting gentle and slim
and confounding us when we see

That it has swollen as we slept into a globe
more whole than we perceive, a world of its own

That though inept,
we cannot truly call ourselves alone

Accepting a mantle of freedom which is not ours in fact
Every Movement of our hand touches someone

EXHAUSTED POEME

My senses attempt to coexist
they throw themselves impassioned into the melee
at once the ceramic lamp the book unfolded like a tulip
the sweet cold drink of juice in its glass (she says
the sugar will help) and

Your piano song but before that the recorded
scuff of the bench being pulled beneath you
you sit at the piano and play  the song with its
one beautiful false note at the end which makes me
laugh as I cry

I told you that I might dissolve
into a heap of salt and meant truly that
the fabric of me that incorporeal stuff of me
is exhausted darling and I do contemplate
a piece of peace

A heap of salt an old grey silk
shirt will be left rainwet and flapping
feebling in the March-wind respectively
we could simply lay as I now lay and be
in the same room

And the burden of what I must tell them
makes other things seem easy
(to tell my old lover that I will no longer
be his lover that my touch is gone
as leaves in a breeze)

The burden of what I now know
lends a marked clarity to the scene and its absurdities
what vehement gestures my hands have made
over bodies threaded with
loveless veins

Now exhausted I struggled for strength
against a named nemesis
the heap of salt will be borne aloft
like the notes of your piano by the March-wind
we could simply lay as I now lay





thanks for listening guys

March 15th, 2011

"She's got everything she needs. She's an artist. She don't look back."


The new sheets are on my bed, they were
gifts of love and so are blessed and so
they fortify me as I sleep

I listen to his piano song and I
weep but not because I achy yearn
simply because I see

Who I have been these last
years who lived within
my body

I know now that I am
as they say
reborn

Something residing inside me
has seen this day
before

Something inside me knew
that this would
be

Not because it is easy
but because it is
who I've become