Sunday, June 25th, 2006

Morning Bloom

Anecdotes evade the light,

Failing in this warm evening.

It's a chase of hours

To capture anything

Interesting,

Worth relating,

And laying it here for you.

And it's a rough battle,

Slipping under the spell

Of the cool bed,

Quashing my desire

To plum that rolling path,

Relay fire and fear

Passion or pain.

Instead, I let the blindness come,

The top of the pen

Slipping along the skin

Of one bare shoulder,

My ever inner deepest sense

There at the junction

Of metal and flesh,

Sinking into its simple bliss.

I know nothing

But this one sensation,

Fading and falling,

Sending myself away

Wrapped in shadow,

Secure in the reflex

Of a deepening sigh.

Ever unheard and completely,

Without doubt,

Uninteresting

But for the sticky badge,

The flower of ink,

Left on my breast

For morning.

Monday, June 26th

Pillar

It's no conceit

To imagine myself a pillar

Like those I've seen in Rome,

Imagined by an ancient artist

And soothed from the living stone,

Fixed into place by a true engineer

At home in his scaffold,

His cables and muscled hench,

And now fallen, all.

It's not the years,

The thousands of years,

That erase such skill,

Such love and will, once tall,

But tanks and bombs--

Target practice and contempt

Inflicted on history

In an attempt to break

Not the blocks, but the men

Whose great gone fathers

Coaxed the stone to the sky.

Even the greatest fall in a flash,

And even when found,

Made tall again,

They're never truly whole

When cordoned off,

Purpose seized in time

And left for the ages to ponder,

A curiosity of some past life,

This evidence of

A lost civilization

Open till sunset

For tourists on a dash.

But even fallen, it's there,

The life of the place

Aching for remembrance,

For someone to cross

Their slim shadow,

And steadying themselves

On a slanted marble step,

Trade its strength

For the warmth

Of their outstretched palm.

Tuesday, June 27th

Left

There is no such thing

As left-handed--

Not after all the afternoons

My father stood and

Wrapped the wrong fingers

Around a baseball,

My awkwardness and

His disappointment

The first real memories

That sunk and stuck,

Deepened by every gutter-ball,

Every brick and shank,

Struck from my alien arm.

It was a good lesson:

That I could some to ignore

The sinking of his shoulders

As easily as any sinking pitch

That struck the earth

So wild and so away.

Just another inch of sky

Separating night and day

So there was no surprise

When I told him I was gay.

As if the points connected

And so absolved him

That I never learned to throw right.

Wednesday, June 28th

Harvest

A child of the hill,

The vine must dream

Well past noon,

Half shaded in valley,

Half shaded in mist,

Early summer

A mild meandering,

Mere suggestion

Of the warmth ahead,

Growing round and sweet

With the earth

And soft with the sky,

Red as the weathered hand

That shifts the leaf aside

And cradles the huddle

Waiting for the wind

To split the fog

And set the flesh

Sparkling in its skin,

The inner noon

Known with a kiss

Or a grope less tender,

Spilling the verdict

That the time

Is right to share

The oblivion

Of their bed.

Thursday, June 29th

Exhibit

These paintings

Make of me a sculptor.

And the statuary,

An architect.

And faced with

Tiny buildings

Under glass,

I am simply faint,

My dim ghost

On the case,

Haunted.

I slip between exhibits,

Sour that none

Fill me up,

Color me,

Shape me,

Envelop me,

And am grateful

Only that poetry

Is nowhere

On display.

Friday, June 30th

Curating Home

What the heck--

Call it all art:

Prints and posters,

Photographs,

And yes a painting or two,

A collection gone mad

In the merger of households,

My modern taste

For impact and symbol,

Blazing angles,

Gone weird

In the shade of your earthy zoo:

Lions and tigers,

Uneasily caged

By wide oaken frames

And look here,

On the backdrop of time:

Naïve icons vying

For resurrection

On these matte white walls.

No, Darth Vader will not sit

Next to the unicorns.

But for a laugh,

We could put them both

With the black and whites:

The breasts and buttocks,

The hungry eyes

We've never had

The balls to display.

What, and take them down

When your mother comes?

Tasteful is a matter of taste

And sorting though

Our rambling gallery

I cannot say that ours

Is any more comforting

Than being churned

By these bare bone walls.

And I myself have no idea

Which sense I mean

When I tell you:

Hang it all.

Saturday, July 1st

This marks six months, the half-way point in this project.

Half

One for me, one for you,

A Cheerio stuck to my finger,

Wet from plunging each piece

Into my mouth or hers.

It's the best game in the world,

And so quickly learned

That there must be more to it:

Some reptilian program

In the pit of the brain

That basks in the act of giving.

One for me, one for you,

A wooden block painted

With symbols that are

As tasty as the Cheerios

And delight me just the same

When she pretends to eat one.

That, I want to see

Over and over and over,

Though she gives in, and goes

Long before I tire.

Part for me, part for you,

A cookie on the playground

Or a bundled section of orange,

Sticky juices squeezed out

In the feat of making

This one thing two,

And no one asking

When the last time

My hands were washed.

It's a gift. A real one.

It might as well be love

Dripping into the dirt

Or burning wicked

In the scrape on my palm.

So yes, I will eat

The same fruit as you,

The same dirt as you,

And spit the seeds

Into the same hole

In the earth.

Now for me, latter for you,

Because there is only

One red fire truck

With a working ladder--

One in all the world--

And it's here

Between the mountains

Of my shoes,

Busy going nowhere

And everywhere

Except the domain

Of lions and dinosaurs

There at your knees,

Even though they burn

In the red light of your face

Forged in the heat of betrayal,

The teacher too at hand

For you to do as you please

And make it yours:

Now and later too for you.

Nothing for anyone.

Is not the lesson

Mom and Dad want for me,

But one I learn anyway

When it becomes clear

Some things do not divide

And have a higher worth

Than love, for this:

That cleft they are nothing,

And whole they are mine,

And if not mine

Then let them be cleft--

As divided as your heart

For holding it back,

For being happy

When I am denied.

Let it break in a way

That cannot be mended

And let the pieces fall

In a place that can't be found.

What do you have there?

What do I have here?

The hundred dollar shoes,

The pants with the silver stripe,

The SUV that drops me off

Four blocks away

Because yours drops you three.

That will show them--

Neighbors and friends--

That I am worth more, too,

Because I have more,

And if not more

Than at least as much.

Because the only way

Unique is better

Is if it's more:

A larger emptiness;

A more stubborn selfishness;

And more years

To reconcile, as well.

A thought from me

As incomplete

As the one from you,

Well past midnight,

Whispered toward

The crest of the tent

Where we send

Insanity, banality,

And dance around

The awkward truth

Of who we really are,

Craving to give back

One thing at a time

Until we learn

Whether what is left

Is that fire truck

Or that orange,

Though it's still not clear

That we really don't

Want to know.

Then it's all for you--

Whoever it is this time--

My ear, my gaze,

My heart and soul,

Because I've never met

Anyone as deserving,

Though a decade later

I'm still waiting

For my turn with the truck

And my orange is gone

And you still somehow

Think I owe you half.

But it's not half the CDs

And the furniture,

Or the car or the kids

That you want,

But half of my dignity,

Half of my confidence,

And you can have it all

If you promise to leave.

Mind the list

When I'm gone,

So carefully prepared,

Not that I'll care,

But I'm trying

To make it easier,

Doling out my library

My art and artifacts,

The things I just

Happen to have.

As if they mattered.

As if it wasn't all

Just toys

Halfway to broken.

And even though

I stopped loving

Any of it years ago,

I still need a place to sit,

And the company

Of a couple books.

Uphill or down?

Where was the mark

On the calendar

Where I met the peak

Where the weight of history

Would be always heavier

Than anything

I could hope would come?

And when did I learn

That the path is half

At the point of no return,

When here, ambling

On the tight track of time,

That day came

With my first full breath,

And everything since

Has been borrowed,

Marring my epitaph:

Whose orange

Have I been eating?