Dream of Flying

High on a hill above the city
I dream of flying.
I dream of flying with yellow leaves and red leaves
with ragged clouds and sunlight.
Over water-meadows and sumac thickets
I fly with wild geese.
Housetops fall away below me.
What tenuous tether keeps me
from the beckoning sky?

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You Bring Out The Moon Maiden In Me

The exercise: Write a poem titled "You Bring Out The _______ In Me" where the blank should be filled with something no one would ever actually use to describe you.

You Bring Out The Moon Maiden In Me

the swirling diaphanous ice-glittering gauziness in me
the vaporlocked vacuity, the astronaut's air-gauge reading zero in me
the ethereality, purity, asynchronous inconstancy in me
the shining sphere of healing quartz, fortune-teller's globe of glass,
gibbous green-cheese Gibson girl in me.
Meet me at the dew point and I'll jump
into your gravitational well like Ophelia in the river, I'll shine
with reflected light and a suicide's glamor. Captive satellite,
willing slave in Newton's chains, I won't
even wobble you on your axis. I'll wane uncomplaining
and wax asymptotic. If any stars or starlets should dare
to look on you, I'll stand in front of them--
that's called occultation. I'll be a cult of one.
You bring out the silver-sickle cat's-claw midnight magic in me
the star-sequined indigo-rayon high priestess robe in me
the rhinestone-tiara champagne-blonde pageant princess in me
the true-blue spoon-June New-Age new-moon moon maiden in me.
Be my strong-armed Apollo, my hot-rocket Armstrong,
walk all over me.

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Suffering for your art

Another guest post at Write Anything.

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Carefree

Oh, do you remember the long-lost Octobers
we smoked cigarettes and we practiced profanity
as childhood went by, adagio...

Don't you think adulthood was poor recompense?

Death and taxes, the unwelcome certainties
that never disturbed us down under the bleachers
down under the bleachers where we sang sha-la-la.

--another word salad poem.
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uttermost blue

this is the uttermost blue
a cloudless day in late October after
rain has washed dust and soot away and seamless
from horizon to horizon, single shade
of uttermost no
smear of cream or copper haze

all the gold red flame fall candles
pumpkin rinds, ripe honeycrisps, chrysanthemum bouquets
only make uttermost bluer
and bluer than oceans
or vats of crushed shellfish or new jeans

there is no blue
bluer

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Her Name

We lost the taqueria on the corner
to La Migra. You know,
the INS. Always keeping us safe
from illegal aliens.

That corner bar was a drug house
for years and years, full of
home-grown dealers. Shots at night,
strings of police tape.

When the Mexican family came they scraped out years of filth,
painted it brilliant colors, sold blue corn and empanadas
wired money home
and fed me cheap burritos.

I miss that lady.
I never knew her name.
I never asked
her name.

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With Yusef on Tu Do Street

Written in dialogue with Yusef Komunyakaa's Tu Do Street.

you were born
pushed through the membrane of your mother's skin
the caul clinging to your face, outlining
hidden features. It took a war
to reveal.

Hindsight is second sight. I look back
to the year of my birth, my parents
black and yellow like the couples
on the wrong side of Tu Do Street.
You looked forward
saw me
reached
through the membrane
through the tunnels
crawled, tunnel-rat, fell, father
naked and newborn
into my arms.

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OPA Conference

Got home from it earlier today. The theme of the conference was "witness poetry." Two very fine poets, Veronica Golos and Bette Husted, each led workshops. Will post the poems I produced shortly.

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Midnight at Normandale

11:57 and it's dead out on NE Halsey, up away from the seedy glitz of Hollywood and not out as far as the sleaze of 82d. Boring as hell on my beat, so I pull into the street by the dog park just to sit for a minute.

The park officially closes at sundown, but you know how it is: there's no locks on the gates or anything. Who'd want to go there at night? Someone, apparently. There's a man leaning against the fence, and even by moonlight I can see he's not some homeless guy looking to crash under the picnic table.

I sigh and get out of the car. Let myself through the double gates. Metallic clunk sounds echo off the silent houses across the street.

"Sir, the park is closed."

He looks at me, very calm. "I'm sorry, officer. I'll leave in a few minutes."

I fold my arms. "What brings you here, anyway?"

"Them." He points.

There are flickers of movement, quicksilver shapes slipping in and out among the fir trunks, the shafts of moonlight. There's something wrong with what I'm seeing, but I can't quite figure it. "You can't bring dogs here at night."

"I didn't bring them. They just come."

Activity swirls toward us and breaks apart. I see the dogs: a rangy Dane mix, a couple of shepherds, a Lab, a maybe-coon hound, a few I can't guess. They're all silent, no panting, no barking, no thud of paws on the ground. They're all colored moonlight and mist and they cast no shadows.

"He loved it here," says the man. "I never see him around the house, but here, sometimes..."

The Lab trots toward us, tongue hanging out. His paws don't disturb the fir needles or the churned-up sand, but as he gets closer, he takes on some color, a dark blond. And I have to turn away, because I can't bear to look at the face of the man beside me.

"Sorry to bother you, sir. Have a nice night."

"You too, officer."

12:05 and it's quiet out on NE Halsey. And you know? I kind of like it that way.

[368 words]

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To Sea Again

Last night I dreamed we went to sea again.
Our upstairs bedroom creaked and rocked in gale-
force winds. The sheets (you know that sailor-men
call rigging sheets?) spread wide, storm-driven sails
across a universe of rain and sleep.
White water crashed against the bows, the rise
of thick blue blankets over feet, the steep
swell of billows against lidded eyes.

Toward dawn, the wind died down. A gentle draft
sent feathers from our pillows drifting round
the wooden planking of our bedroom-raft.
The window murmured with the dying sound
of storms and waves and shipwreck; I
woke cradled in a cloudless sky.

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Dialogues of Brightness

The day was overcast

but the moon nears full.

We conduct dialogues

of brightness.

Between the caterpillar

and the moth's shadow:

becoming

and being

Between moss

and summer-brown grass

there is a dialogue

of brightness

of things seen

and unseen

living

and beneath the earth

darkness

brightness.

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"Our Vines have Tender Grapes"

our grass is dry
full of yellow stars and rockets
drowsy with bumblebees.
In the distance, Mt. Hood floats
above a horizon of haze.
Firs tower over us and in their shade
even the wind is stilled to a whisper.
Hammocks sway like tethered boats
promising at any moment to break free
and drift, drift into that same blue distance
rocking the dreamers to the creak of ropes.
Dreams billow like sails
reaching for sky just glimpsed
through limbs and needles overhead.

Later the dream-fleet disperses to home ports,
sails shrunken to painted canvas and scribbled sheets.
Other dreamers will fit these boats
with their own sails.

Plein Air, Columbia Crest Vineyards, Underwood WA

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Plein Air Anthology - 2011

is now online here. They published both the poems I submitted, contrary to what the entry form stated.

Oh, well.

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