Light; form shadow; cast shadow
and it drags on, and on.
Across the ridges in the marbled concrete,
like the dark hiding behind, until the light ends.
What is it like, to have your head

separated from the rest of you,
and cast to the side? Like the head
of the Afghani citizen, skewered
on a rock by the barbarians who trudged
through, and ended the light of the unarmed.

Casts for crayfish, to sew their claws
back on so they may hold their heads
up high into the dimming light,
as Canada steals the sun away.
Bridges for peace and walls
that break between river and canal

where teenagers row, stroke after stroke,
down past dead deer and graffiti.
Where the two Puerto Rican brothers
hid the pieces of their mother in garbage bags,
after they chopped her up,
like minced vegetables. He said

the helicopter hovered
feet before their boat, while black
plastic bags rose from the depths
filled with carbon dioxide made
from decomposing flesh.

As my hands danced across his back
I told him I walked along that wall
to watch fireworks, or catch glimpses
of a weasel that lived within the rocks.
The wall was not built for the disposal
of mothers,

but for the seagulls. So that they can drop
their prey against it, until the shells crack
and their warm innards
are spilled out upon it
like the hot Afghanistan sand.

Here it is,
here's your plan
there's nothing beyond it,
it makes me sad to see you reach low like this

You want a fancy car
A fancy house
A fancy woman
  (who only says
the right things,
   quietly,
at the right times)
A large salary
No problems
Miniature models of yourself
         well-behaved and clean

You want a stable, antiseptic love
Something static and sterile

Here's news,
If ever I was in tune with
Hermes and his speed and unashamedness,
(He was ever proud of being the God of Thieves)
His partnership with Iris as messengers
It is in speaking to you, now

My dream is not your 'American'
Because if it was,
It would be neat and profitable
Copyrighted to unnamed sources
I don't want that

I want, chiefly,
something frenetic,
Nothing tidy about it,
Cluttered with memories both wondrous and awful

A proudly imperfect man
To share flaws with
To say "You too? I thought I was the only one!"

Problems to muddle through
And be caught in
And solve, with a happy crow of triumph

A small garden, which I will probably end up killing anyway

Rambunctious, willful children
Who will not be afraid to challenge me
Whom I will teach to argue intelligently
Raised to be civil and
Above all, to be curious

I will not mind the mud
And the blood
And the pain
So much at the end

Because I will be able to die
Without shame for the life I lived

What I am trying to say,
with the hope you are not injured,
is that I don't want a part of your envisioned future
I don't want such sweet synthetic sterility
I supremely enjoy the whole of the mess

Says King Kong to Ann Darrow
the blonde who screams like no other:
Mmmm….we got to talk

What? says Ann Darrow

about practicalities…real things…
…things that matter…
says King Kong

Like a pre-nuptial contract you mean?

No, says King Kong…
I mean like real things…things we have…
things that make me male,
things that make you woman…

OK, we can have a shared bank account,
says Ann Darrow


King Kong can feel it in his marrow
he’s got to be clear and narrow:
Look, Ann…
I can’t be too explicit;
my upbringing at Devil’s Island
is high on modesty;
still
I think things can be too big
and some too small,
if you know what I mean

OK, says Ann Darrow
we’ll live in Colorado;
build me a small shed in the deserts
and you can have the wide open plains

Oh, Monkey God!
says King Kong
Are you a dumb blonde or what?
I mean, Ann Darrow…
Oh, never mind…

Ah, ah…says Ann Darrow
Never hide things, King Kong
You always must bring them out
into the open!

Oh, Ann Darrow;
You speak more truth than you know –
It’s I who have things in the open
and it’s you who hide them!


I love you, says Ann Marrow
with a shrug
and gives King Kong a hug

I love you too, says King Kong
wondering how he’ll ever get through

stupid poetry.
stupid hope.

When you are over me,
I'll pluck my poems from your hair
and shake them from your sheets;
I'll take longer than I should.

The line didn't move, though there were not
many people in it. In a half-hearted light
the lone agent dealt patiently, noiselessly, endlessly
with a large dazed family ranging
from twin toddlers in strollers to an old lady
in a bent wheelchair. Their baggage
was all in cardboard boxes. The plane was delayed,
the rumor went through the line. We shrugged,
in our hopeless overcoats. Aviation
had never seemed a very natural idea.

Bored children floated with faces drained of blood.
The girls in the tax-free shops stood frozen
amid promises of a beautiful life abroad.
Louis Armstrong sang in some upper corner,
a trickle of ignored joy.
Outside, in an unintelligible darkness
that stretched to include the rubies of strip malls,
winged behemoths prowled looking for the gates
where they could bury their koala-bear noses
and **** our dimming dynamos dry.

Boys in floppy sweatshirts and backward hats
slapped their feet ostentatiously
while security attendants giggled
and the voice of a misplaced angel melodiously
parroted FAA regulations. Women in saris
and kimonos dragged, as their penance, behind them
toddlers clutching Occidental teddy bears,
and chair legs screeched in the food court
while ill-paid wraiths mopped circles of night
into the motionless floor.

The shadows have their seasons, too.
The feathery web the budding maples
cast down upon the sullen lawn

bears but a faint relation to
high summer's umbrageous weight
and tunnellike continuum-

black leached from green, deep pools
wherein a globe of gnats revolves
as airy as an astrolabe.

The thinning shade of autumn is
an inherited Oriental,
red worn to pink, nap worn to thread.

Shadows on snow look blue. The skier,
exultant at the summit, sees his poles
elongate toward the valley: thus

each blade of grass projects another
opposite the sun, and in marshes
the mesh is infinite,

as the winged eclipse an eagle in flight
drags across the desert floor
is infinitesimal.

And shadows on water!-
the beech bough bent to the speckled lake
where silt motes flicker gold,

or the steel dock underslung
with a submarine that trembles,
its ladder stiffened by air.

And loveliest, because least looked-for,
gray on gray, the stripes
the pearl-white winter sun

hung low beneath the leafless wood
draws out from trunk to trunk across the road
like a stairway that does not rise.

She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, "Good dog! Good dog!"

We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
And her heart was learning to lie down forever.

Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed
And sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngest's bed.
We found her twisted and limp but still alive.
In the car to the vet's, on my lap, she tried

To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.

Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhoea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there.  Good dog.

I'm no perfect saintly man.
I'm nothing like a Peter Pan.
And my mistakes I oft take out,
By sending you a wicked shout.

And when I've really f'd things up
I spew my venom in your cup.
With wicked silence, evil eyes
I work to hide where true blame lies.

But no full-on self-delusion,
No raged satanic collusion,
Will hide the fact that it's my fault
That I'm not proud of me.

I fail to be the best of me,
That image which I'm built to be -
So on I jump that train of blame,
A ride designed to stop tear's reign.

I know there's hope, I know my heart's
Not wicked, just tearing apart,
Not angry, growing passion's fire
For those whose love I most desire.

I don't want to be a speck in this ocean of humanity.
I don't want my words to be so small and obscure that even the keenest ear, still, cannot hear.
I don't want to be tossed and kicked and shoved about, like the speck I fear I am.
The speck that floats & sweeps and glides & sighs - the speck that will never be examined.

I breathe.
I live.
I mean.
I am.

I don't want to be invisible.

---

The world is one big bustle after another - people pushing and shoving, only to sleep and repeat?

I am the one you bumped into, in a race to catch the nooner to downtown Detroit.
I am the girl you stumbled past, in your rush to catch another cab.

I am the flower ******* McKenzie who sold you more marigolds.
The waitress at PJ's who asked, "More cream?"
The cashier at Aldi's who bagged your Arizona.

I am that ticket taker at Cinemark who gave you your stub and genuinely hoped you would enjoy your movie.

I am the girl you're seated by, right now.
This instant.

So close, you can hear her soft breaths;
So close, you can nearly smell her perfume;
So close, and still...
You stand.

You gather your things, get off the train, and run off to catch another, what?
Bus? Plane? Cab?

You're gone.
And, I'm here.
And, I'm still the girl;

The girl who might have been your soulmate.
But, you traded me for 15 minutes of silence and a bed you'd sleep in alone.

---

I don't want to be a speck in this ocean that is your world.
I want to be a boulder.

I want to mean something,
And be something,
And exist to you.

So, STOP.
I'm here.


"Hello."