memento.

Memento

The sword--
hangs,
by the table, over the mantle,
was given to him,
--surrendered--
not stolen, perhaps, as others.
The case is slick
with dusty oil
from years of dinner
based on a bacon substrate.
My mother bumped it, maybe
when she was cleaning out the apartment
while they were in the hospital.
--is sheathed--
--holds its edge.

Written at Swork...

... for lack of a better title. (I couldn't find one that didn't sound prententious and tired. One or the other-- that's fine-- but not both.)

---

A fleet
shimmer,
where was it?--
the sharp line
on the peaks,
in the dry fronds
dropping over
cracked asphalt?
the dust and flowers, roasted
in the air, and warm
pavement
against my palms?
--deeper?
The muscles
pulled straight
across my shoulders,
my legs-- brown and,
steady on the road
that skirts the canyon,
the slip, crunch-- gravel?
All these--
none of them.
Beside the fountain--
sheeting in the lamplight,
on rumpled sheets--
crickets and sprinklers,
and in the sunlight, frozen--
pebble in the shoe,
-- in all these places,
what I had lost?--
it came home in me.

Dashanzi/Alexandria

Dashanzi is an artist's colony in Beijing, where they make contemporary art worth noticing.

---

Dashanzi/Alexandria

Two factories, once built missiles--
the one on the water,
bay licking the pylons--
the one between beltways
weeds still in a windy city.

The artists came, subdivided
hung things from exposed beams
framed them under vaulted ceilings,
covered the cement with color,
and smashed the walls to windows

I went with my mother
to shop-- we bought pottery
and with my father--
we bought my mother the portrait
of a small, shaggy dog--
done in woodcut--
under a table like in Paris.

I went in a group
to see-- under supervision--
walls covered and screaming,
and the man asked,
"What do you think of Mao?"
and we could not tell him,
like he wanted,
that it went beyond 30%,
-- we didn't know.

I saw there--
two fish, in a tube
face-to-face, in a clear sky
and thought it made a good torch
for shadowing smooth expressions
and peering into high windows--
glowing embers, I went home
and found, I was covered
inside, and screaming.

Alone, now--
I say, it went beyond 30%
went beyond percent at all,
outpaced Mao,
the beams, the ceilings
could not be reclaimed
held under paint and light--
came here with the tides,
and followed me beyond them,
to the dry hills and flood-plains.

The man we trapped
slammed against our darkness--
he holds me, still--
made of me a room.

A Rose.

A Rose

Against the brisk, sharp-toothed tangles
Knobbed but elegant, straining gracefully
upward-- the fat and languid petals
unrolling, each arching base
and trailing fringe--
obscenity,
the dark, scented center--
depravity and
the rich tea,
distilled soil and rain
that curled up in my nostrils, resting--
wooed me for the world--
beyond all blasphemy.

--my, knobbed and elegant,
strong, tapered fingers-- between them
thick yellow muck, only a little
more when I clench, rubbing--
I spread them and a crumpled thing falls.

In its pulpy creases, the delicate folds
and fringes-- are one
and liquid, curled on the sidewalk
-- there is no hatred.

Hey!...

well... now.

Have a look at this! A damn good online literary mag... www.archipelago.org...

... and this post especially... http://www.archipelago.org/vol10-34/chernyi.htm .

Translations of a turn of the (last) century Russian poet-- Sasha Chernyi, by Kevin Kinsella.

... I love Russian poetry. It's gritty and bitter and hilarious and grand. Which, I've heard from people who think they know, is a bit how Russians are anyway. Well... my great-grandfather was Russian-- he was a contractor who built skyscrapers after the First World War-- and he used get up early so that he could ride to the top of whatever project he was working on and dance folk-dances on the exposed beams, hundreds of feet over the city.

... so, yeah, maybe they're right. But don't take my word for it, and head on over to see for yourself. As a sidenote-- right now I'm reading a collection of poems by Soviet dissident poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko about the metaphysical implications informing the construction of an exceptionally large hydroelectric power station in Siberia.

... it's really, actually pretty good.

Fledged.

Ha. Finally thought of something new... thank God.

---

Fledged

Eyes cast down
running harsh on the gravel
pacing weary the sidewalk
gaze crawling just ahead of the feet
over broken pavement, into the roots
climbing the bark's sharp chasms
to lie, heaving, over the branches
then--
reaches beyond the last handhold, up.
Pulls itself up on itself, reaches
sees in the clouds a handle
gathers itself, reaches
and jumps-- hands out, grasping
arms out reaching, treading sunlight
falling,
on the asphalt,
unclimbing,
cast down onto the sky.

poetry.

ah... I just found this in one dusty corner of my hard drive...

---

Not the way
just one way
of saying what cannot be said
what swallows the words and leaps between them
chasing a moth over quicksand
starlight through clouds and sheeting water
myself beyond the glint in your pupils
and in the lee of the seconds