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

bright. luminous.

bright                                                    luminous

 The universe is made of distance and of dust

                                                                                Anna Leahy

Maybe dreaming requires sleeping that sleeps

long—long enough to be called

sleep, and if it’s being

called won't it wake up depending

on the distance between

the caller and the called

like the distance between the meaning

of brightness and luminous

one observed from how far

and what lens and the other

perceived like a dream all dreams

not being equal that may rely on day

upon day of making and putting up

like in jars observations but need,

to be considered luminous, some-

thing that can receive sound-

waves and for the moment it takes

to translate it into pulses, the pause

before it begins to throb and then extend
beyond its reach.

Laundry Basket, In Winter

Laundry Basket, In Winter

Our horizon is never quite at our elbows.

                                                                                Solitude

                                                                                Henry David Thoreau

Consider the prospect of stepping down

from a tall, no taller, place without a railing,

beneath those pristine whites: I'd guess sheets, kites,

and there’s lightning, there’s prospects

rising up, or if not, oaks, or if not

pines, or if not, a child on the edge

of the angle pointing just so to the top

of where you are, or touching it even, where

skies like mothers, rely on prospects

of degrees being just so to create rain

and if rain then some thunder and if some

thunder than all her living life given to the wind

as kicks into that rain that came up with enough

mud to offer.  And all that’s white

above it will stay white above it, and herds

of children’s heads will spin when

they hit the pelvis bearing the basket, the hip

that swishes into and away, needing to lean

a freedom, one free weight on the solid spot

that all her life she’s had to stop and catch

her breath on, the prospect of an angle being just

slightly off and from that great height, step

and fall without falling.

mosses: volatize? stabilize?

Mosses: Volatize? Stabilize?

(There is another world

but it is inside this one.)

tranquility—vast, unencumbered,

terrifying, and primal.  That

naked river…

                                                Forrest Gander

                                                Madonna Del Parto

                                                               

It’s come down

to a question

of when: when do

                                                                when should

                                                                or even

                                                                do

or if

I

should

The moss

that’s gathered

into her own

like a com-

munity on

the stone

or stones—

the poet

the other

day said

lichen

doesn’t die

and his

wife who was

a famous

poet died

she did

she died

in her sleep

suddenly

and without

notice. 

But she’s not

lichen—

maybe

in some way

his thinking

is kind

of like

prayings

that are

lichen

and he

passes them

on to us

to nudge

our way

into

elbow

knee

to settle

into

the settled

cervices

and grow

our own

deeps

grow our

own sighs

grow

our own

children to

release and maybe

let what

brought us

here

become

our feet

folded

beneath us

the way

praying

beings do

or deer

or any

ruminant

who bend to

one knee then

the other

until all

four legs

are

folded under

their warm

torso

and if

a child

or a small

surface

bug

nudged

the nipple

there’d be

calm enough

to go around

for the long

settled

for the just

settled—

for the rooted

ones and

the rutted ones

and the ones

whose hollow

hairs

are filled

with what sun

is offered

and keeps

it for when

inevitably

the night

comes on.