landscape

mountain that is not
there, moon testifies
to air, water

gathers all blues
in one stroke
from pale to ocean


copyright

if you had wings

Masses of marigolds and celosia
in separate pots on a concrete base
arranged so you’d see a flag
if you had wings wither

after two weeks of heat and sun. After
the fact, a cadre of workers assembles
to deconstruct the whole,

dumps one plant after another
head first into a plastic bag,
leaves pots upended in a pile,

carts it all away in the end, so
if you had wings you’d see nothing.

copyright


The long silence since my last post, by the way, is a sort of poem from China, where blogger is blocked. I normally set up an alternative when I go to teach there, but I thought the silence might be a better alternative this time.

In any case, I'm back in the States for two weeks for readings in Oklahoma and Texas, so I will post a few times in that interval and will return to more regular posts when I'm back in January...

Hiroshima, 0800

to say the insignificance of it

haunts me
year after year
does not suffice

it drills through years until
what pools in one
bleeds through

all, stains the whole
surface out of sequence

like the shadow of a man running
like the trace of a woman knowing

no place was
in the beginning, is
now, and ever shall be

safe for her children
like the ghost of some god
fretting over cattle in Nineveh, all knowing

now how
many human hands
made what happens next

how someone had to think it possible

tag: poetry, hiroshima


copyright

another chicago river

conversation over the drone of engines
tuned to a river moving twice as fast
as the one ambling among tourists out
late for mid-week night music, a woman’s
voice: he beat the shit out of him, laughter,
something unintelligible, brass
every time the el rounds the corner
at Lake and Wabash, some guy on a cellphone
dealing: Smiley, if I’ve got it, you’ve
got it, an address

                              things are changing hands,
but the rhythm section on the corner is still
one coin in the cup a man who stands
in this other river is shaking

breakfast, near north

Smooth jazz
red, white, and rose
California wine promises

under plexiglass
on every table
announce conversations

with a maître fromager
on retainer
for people who love cheese.

Three words drift over
from the next table over
and over again: Jerry Lee

Lewis. Somebody
sings somebody
loves me. Maybe

it’s you. Somebody
on a cellphone
says Stevie! and I

almost turn. Now
the conversation is
something about

a popular place
for second homes.
From the kitchen,

a woman’s voice: Que?

copyright

something could fall

sun rises everywhere at once
straight up out of the earth with the hum
of fans moving air the lake would move
for nothing on a day of broken
clouds, floor lights that illuminate
the way out in red – something is
rising on every corner

a construction worker,
hard hat in hand,
stops in the street
with morning coffee
to contemplate something
Frank Lloyd Wright designed
before he gets down to work on
something else

roofers shout over hammering, one
says I have pictures to prove it
and man, was she pissed
but there is no architect on hand
with a plan to connect these pieces, so
they drift down into the hum and the words
and the hammering and the trucks
and a dog barks

clouds gathering make you think
something could fall before the day’s out

copyright

under the city

Two orioles perch
in an interval between
trucks, joggers

chatter by
in pairs. Orioles
fly, Columbine

blossoms, turn
the world to flutter
down

to the tops of trees
where a woodpecker
keeps time

out of sight
under the city,
rising.

tag: poetry, morning


copyright