Ladders to God

A longing
to be enmeshed, to regress

to that primitive entanglement

with the supernatural 

that is the mark of my civilization


A prisoner of the desire

that cut and moved stones

to build ladders to God 
that stirred music

out of an absurd flutter of silk

that called down heaven

in the cutting of glass, the windows of great cathedrals 


I go back further. My thirst

is for the smoke of a burning sage branch

my skin, a child

begs for the slap of other skin

the reek of other bodies close to mine in the dark

the gutted air of an autumn solstice 
the spell of solitude

under pagan moons

before we conquered, be-flagged them


I ache to erase

that dear-bought science 

that pushed belief out to the realm of 
physics and astrophysics

down to particles and sub particles 

where my breadth of vision fails 

and wonder ceases. 


Like a plague I long to undo

all that has been done

to strip us down

to wash us clean

To see if there would still be

at long end

this thing called existence 

if we could wake for the first time again,

be new

exhale

sweat and wonder seeping through tree-arms

that expose us to all the caprices

we've cauterized


I lay in the river once

we swam up through ages together

could have been any age

I, any creature

anonymity as salvation

I lifted my legs, felt water

between thighs

mascara across my face

god knows what poison was in the river

or in me


I squeezed out from my every cell 
that ancient hunger

that breeds within 

endlessly

the river took it, understood it
and we were content together 
the river and I. 

Not meant for shelter

We’ve built a dwelling

where it is easy to forget

the days when we laid our

bodies close, skin on skin

in the sharp fumes of a miraculous fire

The nights when we put up our faces

to see new worlds, new gods

Our mouths bent upward—a smile

for we were specks, warm and familiar

in a wide ocean of meaning

Somewhere that memory festers

buried down in our cells

pinching our nerves

bloating our intestines

The remembrance of feet and hands

stamping, slapping, drubbing—the first music

We have staked claims now

built things:

Walls not meant for shelter

Buildings to quiet that raucous, reckless jubilee

that oozes across our sky each night

What need for fire

in the holy blue hum of the great screens?

It is easy to forget

those invisible cells, that invisible wound

the part of the story that divides us

the part when we learned to build walls

This is our patch—don’t forget

with our shred of dyed silk

dangling in a watery, futile wind

Go back, go back, fellow body

take your warm skin to another fire

the light here is precious

in the shadow of our walls

where we cram in the rare slivers

and feed on the righteous freedom
of forgetfulness.

how to amaze

How to amaze

and be amazed.

The amazing king!-president!-primeminister!

interchangeable, incongruous but oh indeed

we have stood amazed.

Amaze us now you crowds!-gangs!-proles!

your poverty is the mother of a city’s

invention and Rome’s science is hapless,

confounded.

How to carry a single color

a single word

then turn these things

into death?

How to spin something from air

--a formula so perfect

we all are compelled to gnash teeth

for private families of fear?

We don’t know; must call it 

magic

And for this, much 

will burn at the stake.  

what I built

I sat for a long time
waiting for help in the wreckage
I called out for mothers, fathers, friends
last I called to god

there was no such thing

I sat for a long time
pinned blame where it stuck
I exiled the old worn self
couldn’t stand the sight of a mirror

alone I rebuilt
I took tin and wood
stole nails and glue where it was plentiful
I rebuilt

I was ignorant and untrained
had no knowledge of plans
or architecture
I rebuilt

then there was a self

I sat for a long time
doubting what I had built
I am no builder
why is this thing so strong?

why does it betray me by standing
when it was built as a tent, a covering for the night? 
this is no palace
after all, is there a thing here worth keeping?

But I can’t make it break. 

ten-year storm

A terrific storm came through

a ten-year storm, the farmers said

they were busy putting the cattle away

the new calves had got loose and were bleating behind the tool shed.

People don’t go out in pickup trucks

in the middle of a ten-year storm

to see the moment the lightning decides, a gathered slingshot

to pinpoint our thousand memories, to erase such dear baggage.

Willy calls Rooster and they hook up the truck

drag the propane tank away in time

the fire crews come and park

and it’s too late for the house so they all watch it burn.

Then the insurance people come

look at the pile of corrugated tin

Wilbur used to sit there every morning eating cheerios and 

needlepointing verses on fabric; he’d frame them as gifts.

Grandpa’s crib still in the attic 

the drywall had split and the cement had split

and the house was in pretty bad repair; just a house

but its gone now, and the land sits wet and undressed.

There are my memories tumbling about 

into the pasture and the ice-skating pond 

past the place where my sister got engaged

No walls left to hold them in. At least they saved the barn. 

Mandragora

A growth. A cancerous cell, a hallucinogen.
Twittle me pink and fill me with folly,
oh little-loved, lustering fiend.
The sailing ships went, sent the words in pursuit
but grow on you did, filamentous root,
grow on and on into blood and the marrow.
I shrieked if I saw, if I smelt, if I sucked
you crusted in languor, and split me asunder.
A twitch on the wind. A pollen-head bursting.
So smother me silent, unravel my protons,
oh deleriant, violet angel.
The aeroplanes pitched, ditched the cabbies to boot
but grow on you did, filamentous root,
grow on and on into blood and the marrow.

reader

Take yourself away
cling on to the letter "E" where it starts
the white spread of page, the crumb, the stain
the pressed flower
leap to the next blot of ink, tumble down the
scratches and stories, don't read-- just climb.
You are escaping an eye, a mind
wholly enmeshed in these letters, one
whose breath catches to see what new pages
might bring. Run, then, tiny spirit,
through books and books, to the end of
the story. There and only there will you
vanish --pop!-- into the safe oblivion
of the dust jacket.

carpet to wall

Lines, white on white
a worn washed quilt,
all white and empty

Here is the land of my battle
the stains that could be blood
I have fought the air.

Lines, skin on skin
Once I fought myself
then the suit of armor came

Two ants crawling, lost
through the crack on the wall
and I am bludgeoning no one.

Lines, carpet to wall
this silent land, this silent war
the salt crusting the skin

Drove the sword in, only
the suit of armor had grown a body
flesh and blood

Lines, white blood leaking,
pooling; a man after all,
but without courage.

white noise

I asked a man I know about the train track
of belief-- asked him because,
through white noise and copper wires,
I read wisdom he gained rather unhappily.
Asked him what to do when believing stops,
a train with no more track, rusted out,
obsolete.
And the folly was in my question, sent out to
one dear stranger, that pitted place inside grasping
grasping, grasping
beyond voids, valleys, souls, bodies,
when will those fingers be still, filled?
The man said (and I thought of him looking
past a desk into a yard and beyond that, the sea)
said, it's shit.
But you have to sit with the emptiness
and let it speak. So here I sit,
where he once sat, this well-worn place.
And the emptiness keeps making noise
like a stomach growling. 

the last moon

Clittering clushing jaws
and the beastly maws
suck a pipe of tobacco
out of blistering doors

Magiclous mournish decay
(what a very fine day!)
and a yo-ho-dee-do
for one unfulfilled road

Tattlebone in pheromones
drop of parasitic kerosene
--for the smoke off the river
--to the stink off the hide

Loverly lidless ladies
on their amble through hades
found a dried up macaroon,
shot down the last-ever moon

winterously

winterously
look at me
what can you see?
my shivering, frolicking
swarm of a song

pretty one,
my winter sun
my darling gun
blue, mute, and wild
white winterous child

winter storm
sweet first-born
hellish groan
and parting sigh--
interminable goodbye.

let me pretend

you-- you there!
if you have a soul
that is heavier than mine
if your arms happen to be
stronger than my tattered cloak
if your heart
is thicker to ward off stray arrows
or merrier to soak in more wine
come close to me
and be my shelter
come close to me
let me lean against you
and soak in your greatness
let me pretend for a moment
you are the god i've lost

on being erased

human existence, I'm told
is a fleeting, finite phenomenon
if you stretched your arms out wide
you could erase our whole history
by filing your middle finger nail
you could erase us
with a flick of your emery board

I have been erased
with words and gestures
on the streets of that old Nile city
I have been curled into my skin
my hair my eyes my body
the atoms and molecules that determined
I should be born white, and woman
the history that somehow placed me
across an ocean of privilege

and these fateful decisions offend
this city... they have their revenge every day
whether they say 'let's fuck' or call me beautiful
whether they grab at my thigh
or cheerfully apply the tax levied
at the color of my skin
we are no more real to each other
than those ages of human history that came before us

I in my sinful paleness and un-hidable difference
They in their power, roving in packs of impunity
We blot each other out under a too-harsh sun
they cover me with acid, venom that takes
the weight and worth out of my being
and I dismiss their humanity with my spit
Across an ocean I might be the powerful one, but here
they can erase me
with a glance of their eyes.

dark matter

We only know blue for the sky
no other skies have scampered across this
windy unreachable expanse in our lungs
and over our heads.
The scientists have determined there must be
such things as dark matter, dark energy
invisible, unknowable bulk
that keeps the universe from crumpling
like an old shopping receipt
and slurping life's potential away
into skies that are no longer blue--
but they cannot find it.
Well, you can tell them I found it
I know where it lurks
all the dark matter has gathered in
corners of an old Nile city.
On the streets are acres of choking dust
in the alleys, shreds of plastic, fluttering
behind every creaking tin bus, a spew of
such dark matter, it erases the air
and the dark energy, I found that too
mountains of it
in the leer of young men with no future
or the aggressive salespitch of a child
selling tissues.

festering

anger
pure, righteous, cleansing
creates distance between
right/wrong/good/evil
(such useful things, dichotomies)
sorrow
putrid, passive, helpless
carves me out, all my
swarming innards
sorrow and anger together scrape out
the mallow
I dry in the sun, a husk, partly relieved
a child who has wretched out the poison.
oh humanity, I sometimes say
why destroy, maim, torture, ruin
piss on the seeds of creation
stamp out your own potential?
But there is no why, no because,
no humanity
just husks in the sun
some are we
some are them
and we could never become like them.
we, we are pure
and festering in holy anger.