reading e. e.

reading e. e.

if sometimes in its box of

sky lavender and cornerless, the

moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy

                                                               

                                                e. e.

                                                cummings

when it’s all in boxes and you’re as slim

as e. e.

cummings and his

hundred.  On the cover Marianne

                Moor admires: “E. E. Cummings

                is a

                concentrate

                of titanic

                experience.”         The desk is under her own protection

a sheath

of dust and I’m coming round

to Brownsville in the memoir

I’m reading about Boy Kings

getting through Texas

and Mexico and

Brownsville

where my cousin Dennis was

beaten to death some eight or so 

years

ago. Dope

they said it like it was

his cause and fault.  He was gentle.  Nice

to my mother.  She loved him.  Every

one

did.  Cummings did.  Or would

‘ve if I can

say it like he would

‘ve.  : randomly flipping

through this one book I left

out for no good reason but

I’m glad:

                                what if a much of a which is a wind

                                gives the truth to summer’s lie

the first lines of 75.  Winter. 

No lie.  Her wind: still

no lie.  How about the second

stanza:                  What if a keen of a lean wind flays          

                !!!

                                !

His what if is re-

                solved is 

                ‘nt it? : all nothing’s only our hugest home,

                                the most who die;the more we live

Dennis face

down in a brown river

his credit

card still

in his coat

or jeansfront some pocket

but I don’t know which

I couldn't

ask…

consider

consider:

It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us.

                                                Norman Maclean

                                                A River Runs Through It

if it’s this: jack trout won’t to be shamed

by someone who isn’t fly, they know, some-

how, the bait, the line, the way the light

of the silk of it is astride the bright

rise of sky summoned up from the river

bottom that no one will be to blame if

the contest is decided, is tied, is

riding the current, the hip of the fisher,

each on their respective way over stones,

on and on nonstop on and on toward home

Assuming God

beauty            . how

often have religions taken

thee on their scraggy knees

squeezing...

                           e. e. cummings

Assuming God

had a sense

of smell what smell

was her first

smell? And assuming

God had a sense

of taste what taste

was her first

taste?  And

assuming God

had a sense

of touch what was

the first touch

to be touched?

And Listen—assume

God has heard

it all

and the last of it

was suffering?

And See—assume

God saw

it all

and the last of it

was watching

God, the great

sky eye-

ball unlidded,

lidded,

unlidded, lidded

lidding, lidding

like fogs flowing

over coves

over faces over floating

boots

of minor moons

reflecting

and all 

the unavailable

stars invisible

to the stark

carnal bodies

come to light

for Diane...

for Diane…

They look out sideways from under their brows which are

their only shelter.

                                                Rain

                                                Ted Hughes

You’d come back for two months

though at the time it was just a day

or two to get on your feet, try

on the clothes of sobriety, the loose

or too tight coat depending

on the weather.  You’d spent

your whole life out

into it, clouds making every day

shapes for you, every day a something
to live

in.  And like every farmer

or vet or straight up savior, you did

well enough in the sun and mud

and drove the fence posts

of your boundary lines in regardless

of the sky water or sky dry

or whatever kind of sky fall-

out.  Best maybe I’d say

and the others would too, you were

at your best at rescue, the long

haul across the water to some pitched

belly-keel.  They’d fallen under, fallen

through, poor bastards, and wasn’t

your boat and crew really meant for God-

given wings at every single

success?  Why is it, tell me (though

you can’t now can you) because you know

better now seeing

you loosed of your own flesh and self

when you are the one under

the roll-over, the squall, and ever

trawling wind beating you down

to the deck and the boom let go, why,

when that wind is lost of all her traces snaking

above your skull, why is it the radio’s

out and the men

are on break or more likely to true, you

glued your mouth top to bottom

mum and slipped and stood and took it

man to man with yourself

and your shadows?  Those lovers

and sons, that mother, who would

find you flattened on your rock

bottom and empty

on the aft deck and not a breath

of wind left

in you but the vessel, still

sound?  Typical of you, right?  You brought it

at last to shore, not taking on

a drop of water, almost as new

as when it was lifted by the first tide

except, and no one could see this but

from below, the one

unrepairable hurt, struck

years ago by the looks, and stuffed

(how was it you kept

                afloat?) with all the cast-offs

of your living:  baby’s first

tooth, a gnawed dog

bone, a diploma, a wedding

ring, a commendation, your father's death
certificate, a photo or two.  And mostly, though gone

to ground glass and powder, so I’ll only say

on hearsay: fifth after fifth, your mortar,

ground down till it’s finally fine

and dry, and when the bung’s

pulled, light as pixie, it makes

everyone standing beneath it

sneeze, squeeze their eyes

tight against the glitter

and gleam, inevitably blinking in

some that will never now be shut out,

the eye a shape-made and cultivated oyster now

and the lid it, the shell and the grit,
the grit, just this instant settling in
with the salt, the mucous, finding harbour
under the tongue.

Look: into Water

Look:

into 

Water

I had to become the moving water I already am,

falling back into the human…

Our old cat doesn’t care.  He laps the water where my face used to be.    

                                                                                                            Jim Harrison

                                                                                                             Calendars

To see

yourself

bend over water.

Salt

or not

calm or not

head over heels

or not

a rock

or not

and weeds

or not

wait

or don’t

wait, stir

or don’t

with your toe

with your thumb

it will settle

while you stand

or it won’t

before

you walk off –

and the softer

the sand

the more water.

Now bend

over that.  See,

if it’s a clear day,

your face in

your heavy

foot fall

of your own

heel. 

It’s a grey day

or it isn’t.  It’s

raining

or it isn’t.  There’s

moon

or there’s no moon.

There are crows

or there are not

crows

there are always

crows.

They greet you

or they don’t. 

They fly

off or they stay.

Walk on.  Where,

my dear one,

after having stood

so long

over the water,

is your face

now?  Because it was.

And then

it was not.

After “Cain” by Jericho Brown

After “Cain” by Jericho Brown

 Little
Brothers torture most
Of God’s creatures. Small
Men watch them bleed.

**

what would cain have done

if he had been able, no

abel? all along I’ve thought

(been taught) that cain was

wrong.  but what if abel was?

what if cain,

vegetarian,

(he was

conceived in the garden

he was seed released

before the

fall

what if all the creatures talked

to eve’s belly

(adam’s off some-

where

with the sheep)

and made him

believe blood needs

to be kept

and roots are

designed

to be pulled

to be shaken

like hands

look at them

they need

your tongue

like any

lover

needs

your

ton-

gue.

and so: bread.

and so: Meat. 

being equal, cain

watched the scene again

and again,

the ritual flint,

the taut

throat, the blood

stream—and his ears

rang from all that

garden talk.

and all he had was a rock…

and we all know

the rest:

abel was the best

we’re taught that (it doesn’t

have to be true

i will tell you that

for nothing

i’m just

tidying

up

a sloppy record

or if not sloppy

than suggesting

maybe cain believed he

was being a father

coming in to see

his daughter

tortured

and he was

slaying

the

torturer. 

it’s worth

considering

isn’t it?

the virgins—all the virgins—

the best

unblemished up

in smoke.  it’s not

enough, cain’s early grace,

those first roots

pulled.

they begin

to rot

as soon as day

breaks against their skin.

but lamb?

milk still

in her mouth?

and a hungry god?

and a willing very willing

second son of the first

man? tell me, how much blood?

because I’m telling  you

it built the world.

it built the sea,

and it is salt

because

of

it.

Spine

Spine

…I

hide behind mixed

instrumentalities

as behind a square

of crocodile scute…

                                Forrest Gander

                                Epitaph

                                                (scute—or scutum: Latin scutum, plural: scuta

                                                                “shield” is a bony external plate or

                                                                scale overlaid with horn as on

                                                                the shell of a turtle, the skin of

                                                                crocodilians, and the feet of birds)

It’s a trick of the light I know it

is but the dent in the page

is the right eyelid of the Buddha

and if I turn the book some to

the left there’s a slight line as

will serve a nose.  Yet no lips.

The paper is thick enough to

uphold the hosts of honesties

dancing there, then an explosion

at the pin factory and we’re all

going down with the invisible

thousands: milkweed mistaken

for angels, husks come undone

like corset strings, as if breathing

in a cage is finally too much

to take.  Once one stay breaks

the rest follow as steadily

as water.  You choose the edge.

But do the choosing as calmly as oil,

as calmly as sun turning to fool

us it is the one doing the rising

and falling, the coming up

and the going down, a quiet

Gautama before he’s the Buddha,

climbing the wall to go out 

shedding every layer of shale,

every stratified life, backbone

stacked against numinous squares

and weighty devils, tipping

every lever, every scail of scute.

Cover Art: Jericho Brown’s The New Testament On Choosing Who Will Be Front Page News

Cover Art: Jericho Brown’s The New Testament

On Choosing Who Will Be Front Page News

These are my friends
See how they glisten
See this one shine
How he smiles
In the light
My friend!
My faithful friend!

                                Stephen Sondheim

Let’s cover it yes and some will say

ok with what and still others will say

what would you do how far

would you go (go and do

                they’d say that and they’d add go

                even though it wasn’t going

anywhere) a thing

like that a man two men one

sitting one standing one with a straight

razor one with a throat exposed for

a shave and it starts out meek

not struggling like any fragility really

and then just released down into

the nest a shell of a thing a blob

of a thing that has simply

from our perspective

nothing of the God

nothing of the image

nothing but sack and albumen

and its complete and utter vulnerability

that’s it that’s what its got

and there’s some as would lie

down and heat and heat and heat

until the egg is a being and then

there’s some that would eat

and eat and eat until that being

is free from being

a being.  There’s always the place

you come to that remains gated

and there’s no gong on together

unless there’s the moment of one hand

going out to the other hand and it’s open

and it says let’s go let’s go

together and the gate waits to be

pushed or pulled depending on

the direction maybe and you reader you have

to decide for yourself who you are

(and you’ll be both I assure you)

at the moment: the goer or the comer

and it’s not for life it’s just this one

time, and the hand that’s been taken

out of it’s pocket for you is still

in the middle of the air and what pray

are you going to decide? Did

the models who sat for Leon

Bonnat’s Le Barbier negre a Suez

get to choose who would sit

and who would wield  

the razor?  Maybe

the first thing you’re supposed to

see is the vulnerability of the throat

and then the half-closed eyes of the man

taking the shave, it’s his whole body

we see, he’s sitting on the floor

his knees make the bowl of a boat

from bow to stern and the barber

is his sail and he is faceless

and his left hand is drawing

the taught cheek

skin taut along the edge

of the eye the tip of the ear the temple

he covers all those weak spots with

the ease of vulnerability taken

charge of but doesn’t keep

watch on.  It’s almost as though

the other objects in the room—a lamp, brass

maybe on the wall and a tallish

woven basket for towels and a smoky

brazier and a matt aside from

the men it’s the matt I see and maybe

at the appointed times it’s got to be

knees and lips and forehead—

are there to make you less

(less shy) or more (more brave)

because the men are beautiful they are

doing the job of taking and of getting

of coming in rough and then

having it all cut away with a

straight razor—its loving—it’s the most

intimate kind

of loving because just there just

in the light is that jugular and one move-

ment away and a less confident

barber would slip

—but see—and I ask

is the expression in the face the one being

shaved is that was is

unplumbable or is it

trust or could be drugged but no

he’d be flat on the matt here he holds

his feet and adjusts the sail

of his knees

and each…well maybe this is where

the story has it’s pause

its inlet anchor takes

its leave before going back

out into the sun

clean

but don’t forget the hand it’s there

in the air still

it’s asking will you

take it before it goes back into the holster

of its pocket still loaded or will you

tilt your head to one side

when the bird begins

to sing the one that was an egg

or made an egg

moments or months or years ago