If not imminence, is it lust?
A need for silence, a want for noise
I ask to live and breathe
But breathe the scent of laced intoxication.
Fabricated bliss in subordinate dictation -
It tastes like blood on the tongue,
An iron will I detest.

Against the color painted hues of false amnesty

In amber rests preserved skeleton supremacy

Montages.

I lean against a stucco building
that has a turquoise  whale painted
on the sidewalk in front and pop in
a piece  of Wrigley’s as vendors
unload eggplant and plump onions,
two women walk past, one isn’t
wearing a bra and the other
should be wearing two,
I see a neighbor listening as three
Jamaican bucket drummers argue over
cigars, my neighbor nods and flips his
Pall Mall into the street, a gal walking
a Lhasa Apso snuffs the cigarette with
her heel, the dog hikes on a crate of
cabbage sitting atop a guitar case;
bravo to you God, a better morning
I could not have lived.

The mailman dropped a letter in our box
for Mrs. Tovia Durkan who has not lived

at our address for forty four years
and is now buried in a small cemetery

surrounded by a black wrought
iron fence and glorious mums,

we are now the caretakers of
a letter sent to a Jewish widow

leaving us to feel responsible
to attend the Bat Mitzvah of

12-year-old Sophie Bravermann;
do we bring a gift?

and when his compelling compunction took him over
he no longer saw the ones that loved him
lost were the days of affectionate splendor
all because he couldn't dare to spare a limb

now a pressure greater than gravity seems to hover
holding back floods of emotional struggle
why can't we redo the past once lessons are learned
breaking bad from all the memories churned


*s.q.

it's not something in my power
a force all its own
i look you in the eyes
and i'm no longer grown

a child, it feels, has awoken within
only one thing it needs
only one end to win
if need be i'll plead
give me your love, love


*s.q.

to want
is to allow sorrow
to enter


s.q.




.

yeah it hurts
but so does birth
and look, you're here
that's not a first

moms and dads
work hard to make
people who help
make this world great


s.q.



.

I remember the first time I saw the glare of a sunrise on your eyes,
Everything was beautiful, even the cracks of the sidewalk

We stayed up all night digging to lay cement, everything was so perfect,
Little did either of us know that we left space in the cracks for weeds to grow

You shined into me and out from my joints sprouted flowers,
They were lavender and lilac; it was always hard to tell the difference between them because of their color

As time went on, not everything stayed as beautiful as it once was,
My flowers wilted and frowned, and so did I,
Weeds took over and wrapped my body in vines, suffocating me with my own breath,
Not being able to catch a glimpse of what's eating you up inside is like watching a flower get trampled on without being able to do anything about it

A year and a day later and I am lying on the sidewalk by my house with lilacs in my hands, finally realizing the difference between lavender and lilac

we are the ancient ones
rooted in the earth
heads rustling in the sky
moss growing on our trunks
on our limbs

conductors of our pulse
over this distance
this faraway
closeness

and should they fell you
I shall feed you honey
from our underground network
should you not sprout again
I shall build a hive in your trunk
buzzing with life
and should the hive desert you
leave you petrified
I shall unfurl beneath you
cradling your vintage pages

(rough translation)*

debt
debt
debtor

tonight it howls
in tumbleweed tongues
beaten about and windblown
over a barren, over-there road
a dust-tongue stretches
licking skeletons
all the way to feet of the silver hills
that lie in the moon of the Little Karoo

debt
debt
debt in vein

Mother is a stranger
just standing there and sipping tea
in another woman’s blue kitchen

debt
debt
debt in her

all staring at the cracks
reflecting on the windowpane
the fragile earth’s
dismembered

but

the rain will come
my child
the rain will come
prophesy the rust-red clouds

all bellowing in the wind

Mother will stand
unequivocal
as untamed buffalo grass --
rooted and valid