Earl Grey Morning
Even the name of it soothes.
the violet soft of it,
purled, curling stir of it,
rising through cold
like a promise.
From dark there is dawn --
first fog, then a song.
And even the sense of it soothes.
The cupped balmy breath of it,
pressed against palm of it,
steeping the dark
like an oath.
From warmth will come glow –
soft first and soft-slow.
Easy, the taste of it soothes.
The deep woodsy heft of it,
rich malted zest of it,
breaking the black
like a vow.
From dark will come light,
cool bergamot bright.
So, for now, just feel
for the sunrise,
the wayfinding blessings
are always unwinding and
binding themselves
like a pact.
Find fragrance in the dark.
Seize promise.
Feel the spark.
Fast and furious
Apollo’s gold Bugatti
banks chlorine blue sky
asphalt, a stovetop,
boils order to turbulence,
air rifts in ribbons
lawns, deep-fryer crisp,
once locust feast, now famine,
amber waste of grain
poolside barbecues
swim-suited shish ka barbies
rotate in the heat
collarbones glisten
sweat stipples bellies, arms, breasts
salt crusted temples
silk Bernini saints
cut from farinaceous clouds
clot in curdled air
sunsets melt so fast
ice cream too, fireflies blink and
summer’s gone away
The aspens at the cross-roads talk together
with their dark wet gold out,
bartering with the wind
over the pond’s reflective mirror — bruised
azure acrylic, butterscotch glass, anyone’s flesh-tone, chrome.
Listen You.
Who disappeared into those shadows?
Joined at the spine with death and life?
Unravelling like smooth threads?
Listen to the rhythmic thumping inside water,
like black birds pushing against the glass
to know the reasons why and the answers to and the
words frothing out merciless and angry:
You can’t abandon your history
and it won’t abandon you.
Down over the rocks, an explosion, a discovery
of the torched & reckless hour
in this carved gold of shifting faces:
tree limbs, tiny veins of burnt leaves and a scorched coil of greasy hemp,
scattered traces of tar, restless arrays of feathers, and the lingering smell
of gasoline,
thick glass blood cells, a throat slit pouring silk
whirled in the ochre light —
the light of truth.
His head is a rose being burned alive.
How the soul feels like a dried sheaf,
like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song
where it falls
and the small wings
unfold from the fabric of night,
bound up at length for harvesting,
darkness after it, dark riddled through it.
Manna does not fall.
Saviors do not save.
The earth drinks men and their loves
like wine.
Souls which are planted . . . continue growing . . . until generations
will tell tales of having met someone who knew.
The trees stiffen into place like burnt nerves,
and all that was hidden burning on the oil-stained earth —
it’s breaking apart, it’s turning over, it’s pushing up.
Listen You, if no one else,
Can you feel the ground rumble under your feet?
Back through the brindled understory
etched in wood…
You can’t abandon your history
and it won’t abandon you.
SOURCES: The Brindled Understory Cento is comprised entirely of lines borrowed from the following poets (in order of appearance): Edward Thomas; Roger Reeves; Lynda Hull; Jill McDonough; Tino Villanueva; Adrienne Rich; Sonia Sanchez; Anne Sexton; Brian-Komei-Dempster; Lucille Clifton; Margaret Walker; David Bottoms; Jake Adam York; Mary Oliver; Lynda Hull; Sonia Sanchez; Richard Wright; Robin Glow; Jane Kenyon; Nikki Giovanni; Roger Reeves; Dante Gabriel Rossetti; Mary Oliver; Jake Adam York; Dante Gabriel Rossetti; Daisy Fried; Lenelle Moise; Yehuda Amichai; Nikki Giovanni; Sylvia Plath; Philip Levine; Anne Waldman; Tino Villanueva; Anne Waldman; Donovan Kuhio Colleps; Laura Da’; Jake Adam York
Just yesterday morning, rain clouds filled the sky in gray velvet folds draped heavy over the newly hatched woods, leaves shivering, sagging from the weight, the wait. The dogwood blossoms — bright as match flares – trembled, knowing soon they’d be doused, tender petals downed and drowned. The cardinal couple, wings flame-stitching the shadows as they lit from sod bank to branch and back again, banked on a breakfast cut short and shared their worm like Lady-and-the-Tramp pasta boiled well past its prime. While the cat, shoulders knuckled, crept toward them, one ear cocked to her prize, the other to the threatening cloudburst, the roll of thunder overhead. Then the clouds split wide –not with rain, but golden sun – showering treetops
in cream soda light,
leaves glowing lemon and lime,
blossoms blinding white
Today the same skies are different still, pale pink haze over lavender-blue, lying whisper-soft as an infant’s shawl above the feathered limbs of fizzy trees. The cat naps on her pillow. The dogwood blossoms tremble still, at the brevity of it all, the beauty of it all, as does the cardinal couple singing cheer, cheer, cheer through the
baby soft hiccup
of this morning’s scene, dogwood
blossoms losing steam
expose the wonder. peel my layers back
with persistence and your forked, silver tongue
‘til light unzips my folds and I lose track
and all control; ‘til hoofbeats pound, unstrung
notes sound, in the bowl of my core, the bell
of my temple vibrating, keenly and round.
peel me with your teeth, pomegranate knelled
and bursting, unleashing all the profound,
forbidden mysteries of paradise
throb after throb unspooling like ticker tape,
grazed nerves flushed with brimstone and god light,
making my body, consciousness, soul ache
for more dances with death, more cessation
of breath, more kingdom-come-hellfire-salvation.
You must change your life, Rilke said.
There is no place that does not see you.
So, burst like a star from all the borders
of yourself.
And to do that, you must:
Pause
and attend to
the riotous performances
of those that
recognize life
and its beauty in the
here and now,
in the being,
said Oliver.
And to do that, you must:
Be alive in the fresh morning.
Be the dark center where procreation flares.
So, pivot like Rilke. Pause like Oliver.
Be permissive.
Like a poet.
Like roses,
fully blown,
drinking the air of the silver morning
with their petal-soft mouths,
tasting and celebrating all that there is,
in moment after moment of perfumed possibility.
Pay attention.
Do that.
I
want
to write
words
stacked with
beauty like
magnets
or rock cairns
attracting and
guiding readers to
breathtaking views
of tangerine skies
sea glass windows
into cliffsides
cranberry bogs
lavender fields mercurial
storm-swept sea beds
to find coral and almonds
the mottled man in the moon
drink twilight smoke
cloud wisp bite
bourbon and
shoulders
hear stars click on
feel fireflies sext
in the gloaming
wings beating in wild
persimmon percussion
hearts lit limoncello bulbs
see me and see me
and see me please be seen
My son swims in jell-o-bright water,
a nine-year-old Achilles dripping blueberry syrup
from sanctified limbs.
Fluid and free to flip his hair, sashay his tail,
he bobs along, suspended in color-soaked dreams.
Sweet honeyed daylight dapples his skin in flashes
and splashes like sequins (not chainmail) like scales
jazzed
and
pentatonic
daring swift-footed heroes to dance and sing
eat peaches or figs
whatever they like.
He’s not like most boys. I know this.
And he knows this too. And because he’s not,
monsters lurk in his idyll.
Charybdis and Scylla cast shadow and stone in his bright jell-o water,
stretch tentacle to tendon, would cleave him in two:
half oil-slicked wreckage half solar eclipse
Claim he’s the monster here –
not dazzling and daring,
but different and dangerous,
contagious, blasphemous,
wrong.
A sinister sign of the times.
I pray he sees the truth – how sinister and wrong they are;
masquerading their message of love
that’s not love.
Love is celebrating your bold, burnished child
(any child, every child)
and love is providing the armor
(why must it always be armor?)
to help your child live out his love
(any love, every love).
Not the love you would prefer he live –
a love dipped in non-Styx Teflon,
safe and colorless, sealing him in tradition because:
it’s easier (not because you believe it’s the right way);
it’s smooth (not because it’s straight);
you love him (not because love is love is love is love).
But love IS love is oh-so glorious and personal and… love.
So, you do love him
and affirm him. Tell him he is alright.
That who he is, is not wrong.
Or I do. Not you…
You wrong and hurt him.
Tell him he is too colorful. With too much sashay.
A boy’s light should glint with steel, not sparkle with glitter,
be myrmidon dark, not technicolor twinkle.
Should be sharp, uncompromising, heroic, brave.
To be otherwise is unwise.
Like some problem to solve correctly.
A choice on some standardized test.
Answer A or B.
There is no C. You were born how you were born. You have no choice.
At least on that we can agree—
I mean, would anyone choose something as hard as this?
in a world that hates heroes so flush and plush with sparkle?
then again, if we could — why would anyone not choose sweetness and light?
not want to live somewhere beyond bedeviled and bewildered?
beyond haunted or hardened?
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