007 Challenge

[AmericanTrash]

this land within me

this land lies within me
heart beating to grouse drumming
lungs deep breathing cold north wind
throat quenched by upwelling spring
stomach full with harvest bounty
back warmed by cedar fire
eyes alight to night sky wonder
spirit filled with thoughts of you.

This is a joyous pulse in the ear.

 

[AmericanTrash]

Tiny Lights

High on the side of a Virginia mountain
pinholes in the sky measure time in beams
passing through sky, through night
through tiny me, smaller than the sigh
branching trees--briefer than light's commute
from Andromeda.

Merely a beetle, shiny black
crawling the length of a branch,
counting as I go the only measure any
beetle could know. Time travels nonetheless
far, long, high, low
out. Out. Everything must grow
apart. Everything must go.

 

[JCSTREET]

or one could aspire to a looser life

was a play on words, mate - not a 'loser' comment

 

[AmericanTrash]

far

the first paved step
cools the raw
sand bitten
journey
across deserts
across seas
across party lines
across streets against the light
across disciplines
skin worn thin as breath

until just now poor and shoeless
now just shoeless

 

[AmericanTrash]

closer

sister we say now after all those chop chop
years of fighting and rescuing and laughing
fighting some more

sister my sister is the one to tell me
pantylines or bad hair cut or shake her finger
at a worthless man flirting

come storm come drought come thin soup
sister my sister we will be ever laughing
sighing shaking heads or hips

ever and ever belonging
me to you you to me
and sucking teeth

 

[AmericanTrash]

warmer

eight blocks away nearly eight
o'clock which brings to mind
how barely navigable
my tongue

gh can be ff in cough or
g in ghost or its metaphor
high night

eight mighty knights
fight sightless
senseless blight

now it is 7:58
quick step from the bus
must must must move my card

out to in number forty eight
slim bin slip into here
sharp as a clap

twelve minutes before the bell
and up three flights

 

[JCSTREET]

the first paved step
cools the raw
sand bitten
journey
across deserts
across seas
across party lines
across streets against the light
across disciplines
skin worn thin as breath

until just now poor and shoeless
now just shoeless

i wanna see you on the MTV

 

[Tzara]

1

Make Your Own Rothko
Image: Grumbacher Alizarin Crimson

Imagine a smoky block of charcoal
floating in this square

so like the coal-fired smogs of London,

relieved or cut or scarred by a thin rip
of titanium white
dragged through its center.

Then add these footnotes:
three watery thumbprints of ochre wiped
parallel to the painting's edge.
The artist's cadenza,

or signature, or
perhaps his plea to be released from his
imagery. But this is your Rothko,

and the paint is on your thumbs,
and, anyway, he died fifty years ago.

 

[Tzara]

2

The Swimming Pool Where Roethke Died

There is now a small garden there. Some few stones
partly covered with moss,
placed carefully

as if they were imaginary islands, distributed
in a gravel sea.

In the Zen tradition, the gravel is raked
to represent waves
or the ocean's slow, relentless tide,
lapping against the rock "islands"

or perhaps trying to elaborate
something even more about eternity. I think
it is simply a garden

that was once a pool where a great poet died.

I wonder who cleans up the fir needles
that settle every day on the garden, on the grave.

 

[Tzara]

3

Café de Flore

Her legs are fine, and so her walk
Affects me like electroshock.
Her limbs are lithe and occupy
My thoughts, libido, and my eye.
Empirical, might say John Locke.

Her stride is like a fugue by Bach,
And post hoc, ergo propter hoc,
I've found a god I deify—
........Her legs are fine.

But I am old, and though I gawk,
I'm not so base to want to stalk
Her down the street to glimpse her thigh.
(I hope I'm not that kind of guy.)
So let me toast with fine Medoc,
........Her legs so fine.

 

[Tzara]

4

The Rapids
She undressed
looking into my eyes
like someone about to go swimming at dawn alone
—Franz Wright

I have always hated open water, the need to swim

through the suck of tidal undertow,
the drag of river current,
the struggle to keep my mouth

open to breathable air.
But, you know, your unclothed body
makes me want to hold my breath,
underwater,

because your nakedness flashes and shines
like a salmon finning
upstream

desperate to avoid the slash of my bear's claws
that hunger for your flesh.

I do not want to eat you. But consume?
Oh my God. Yes.

 

[Tzara]

5

Think of It as a Gift

This forum is my journal,
my wall to tag

in an inelegant script
that has nothing to do with turf.
Yet I still
want to leave messages
to those others

who cruise this alley,
reading the spray paint on the walls—

little messages like "Bertram loves Lois," or
"Call Terry 506-555-1212 for a good time." I ask
anyone reading this to please

leave a coin of a poem
as alms on the windowsill of this forum.

 

[Tzara]

6

After Reading a Poem Sent to Me by a Younger Poet,
I Drink a Glass of White Wine

It was like getting a love letter from a tree
—Franz Wright

Green, of course. The color of life,

so much more lively than the black and gray
of my landscape

both the physical and
the other.
The lines of her poem seem sturdy, rooted
in a world as real as rainstorms and leafrot,
coffeehouse conversations

and broken marriages. I wish
she had sent me her poem written on paper,

because I want to grasp it in my failing fingertips.

Instead, I drink some wine,
crisp and overcold, and think about how trees endure.
A bristlecone pine, high in the mountains,
twisted by winds,

perhaps the oldest thing on Earth.
This poem, however dear to me, won't live even that long.

 

[AmericanTrash]

Attics

grey as all the grey worn
down skin worn
silk bare worn
tears into dirt worn

dust worn

that particular grey
paints the cabinet
one nears with the high hairs
back of neck commensurate

with the fear of wasps
and their mansions

but after all it is just post
modern post office
chique library reference cabinet

perfect treasure it whispers
as if underwater

 

[AmericanTrash]

This Bottle

whoever drank from this
vessel banged by sand
attempting embrace with

self transfigured

that drinker has long ago
gone native

among the papaya and clean
waters still found on the island

whoever drank from this vessel
left a photo of metal and rust
curled inside as one might
curl tongue to whistle

here here I am
where where are you

 

[AmericanTrash]

Boulder

heels just under hips toes curled
rock budges
all the way to Boulder

spiral staircased on your silver
to the small of your back
to the small of your smile

to the small pouch
coined in my palm

the exhale contrails
cross skies of every weather
falling in crystals

yes eyes yes lips yes ears yes
I'm coming to you

sooner closer soon

 

[Tzara]

7

Ruined Spirit

Of course it is the sword,
its edge keen for blood

that makes her image frightful.
Otherwise, the white kimono
might seem to signal peace,

though her wrists seem burned
by ropes,
and her feet

are simply missing in the painting.
Perhaps her lord abandoned her

or she lost a child
her lover did not want.
At least a ghost cannot strike down the living—

or so people say.

 

[AmericanTrash]

Secret of the Tin Man

luxuriously oil all the stopped
bends frozen mid-fall
underwater

remembering he didn't
wash up but climbed
ashore against rust

Dorothy pays persistence
with lubricant as girls do
court hard luck

robots brainwashed by
pharmaceutical commercials
depicting the normal heart

when all along the tin man
was never empty

not of heart nor heat nor hope

but was full all along of shelter
ready for the day he might
open his chest for Dorothy
to climb inside.

 

[AmericanTrash]

Scarecrow

Scarecrow is a middle manager at Wal-Mart
any Fox News meme creator or hand with a rock
put there by the biggest bully on the block

ever struggling to straighten his spine against
a shrug which tries to front as menace
leaking straw from sackcloth


someone sewed
together into limbs stuffing
clothes maybe blessed as one might wish

for any doppelganger
sent to protect the corn for those who
hunger and devour

every grain and every seed
without regard for the crucified
button eyed grass man

still as sleep on a hummed night
dangling out of touch
out of reach of common ground

Scarecrow writes a new resume
on stalks of straw

 

[AmericanTrash]

Jill

Jill was Jack's twin sister only ever mentioned
in the hill incident.

Fake News. Jill didn't go tumbling after. Jill
intentionally slid down stain wet grass which
cost her a beating for skid. Still she checked
Jack for concussion, walked him back and lived

just behind the throats that clutched on Jack.
She was nimble and quick but dickless
and thus auctioned to marry quickly. Jill, our
heroine might have rashly

fled across a dozen other stories. Dude, Jill
could run. Village to village. Kingdom to King
dom. She ran so fast that many never counted
all the dragons she outwitted all the knights

befriended. Jill ran faster than legend. Faster
than breath. Jill lives on in every thirsty girl
immune to panic even while susceptible
still to gravity and hills.

 

[AmericanTrash]

Make Your Own Rothko
Image: Grumbacher Alizarin Crimson

Imagine a smoky block of charcoal
floating in this square

so like the coal-fired smogs of London,

relieved or cut or scarred by a thin rip
of titanium white
dragged through its center.

Then add these footnotes:
three watery thumbprints of ochre wiped
parallel to the painting's edge.
The artist's cadenza,

or signature, or
perhaps his plea to be released from his
imagery. But this is your Rothko,

and the paint is on your thumbs,
and, anyway, he died fifty years ago.

I really love this. There are some pretty bones here, Tzara.

 

[AmericanTrash]

Maybe it's just the salt

Splashing off of a catamaran
maybe 30 yards from shore
anchor lands and all transform
into ugly duckling flipper walking
newbs. We paid for this!

So we do as told, dive from the boat
into sea as blue as it is green. Twice
I am corralled for going too far out

where the corals are bleached. Where
Sea Urchins blot the bones like scabs.

Jeison throws breadcrumbs into the water
with the hand that doesn't hold the
camera and snaps the (potential) customer
mobbed by fish. This is what Americans
do. We paid for this. We paid for this.

 

[AmericanTrash]

Only a fuckless dick

These days psychopathy can be
with meh level of reliability
tested via skinprick.

One wonders who but the desperate
sit still for the sake of science
to endure the fuckless dick.

Again meh. A prick is a
prick is a prick.

At least it's for science.

 

[AmericanTrash]

Ruined Spirit

Of course it is the sword,
its edge keen for blood

that makes her image frightful.
Otherwise, the white kimono
might seem to signal peace,

though her wrists seem burned
by ropes,
and her feet

are simply missing in the painting.
Perhaps her lord abandoned her

or she lost a child
her lover did not want.
At least a ghost cannot strike down the living—

or so people say.

This is interesting in the terms of its quest for causality. Reminds me of the Lilith myths.

 

[AmericanTrash]

For Sarah

When I was 19 and scared quiet
when I was 19 and scared senseless
when I was 19 and pregnant

paying my own tuition, Sarah
who owned a farm, Sarah
who ran that farm, Sarah
who fostered and adopted
infants born addicted, Sarah
picked me up
in a small truck
for work cleaning the Wichita
mansions of Pizza Hut and Koch
rich. Sarah didn't laugh

when I got shot in the face
by my first bidet. Sarah
lent me words and bravery
when I broke a lamp under the ladder
climbed to vacuum fabric walls. After
all, she had, just that morning, plucked
grit from the eye of a calf. Every
morning she claimed the day as ours,
claimed me as her own, we scourers,
we sweepers of early
morning hours before class.

Sarah of Kansas swept me in
her truck, swept me in
busy until busy was enough

mantra against panic. Semesters,
trimesters, straight A's and completed.

Sarah of the cloth, the truck. the farm,
the faith that challenge is just another
chime commanding one to rise.