I.
Your socks, tight with sweat—
An early advertisement
that spring has arrived.

II.
Spring needs a waking-
bed: pungent mulch ambushes
your April nostrils.

III.
Sunshine plashes down.
Through warm waves you saw days
Unfold at your feet.

IV.
Frail infant stems stretch
through your toes and scan the scnee:
thin grass, sunbathing.

V.
And there’s skin on skin.
Come on!  Get naked it’s spring,
the season for sin.

VI.
When it rained, your eyes
dripped clear drops, their spring fragrance
as fresh as water.

VII.
There are nests, eggs; still,
I wonder, do the birds grasp
the meaning of spring?

I took a rose out of our neighbor’s garden;
A pretty thing to take your thoughts on past
The pain.  You shift in bed, reveal your scars:
Red sickles in your skin.  I’d hoped you’d laugh.

Outside, our own rose bush lays bare, the new
Rose petals torn and stamped into the dirt—
The thorns, stained red with drying blood, jut through
The tangled, shattered stems and upturned roots.

But I’m confused; you start to talk about
Your mother.  “My own birth,” you cried, “was such
A mess! And now I have this child…” Get out,
Go to the garden, where snapped branches crunch—
I think of when we smashed the rose bush, thrilled;
How I emerged unscathed as your cuts spilled.

I’d have left off loving you long back
If not for the glory of our local greasy spoon.
Your long fingertips
Curled over the red plastic borders
Framing the menu’s backside, showing me lunch specials, the Hungryman plate.
In this scene we are the couple caught up in a picture-book love
And so shy of speaking it that affection
Becomes a game of concealment versus concession.
We are good at the game, and our strategies evolved
Complex techniques of deceptive chitter chatter.
We made greasy spoon small talk, talk like artificial sweetener;
Because talk of substance would be to take account of the closing in of reality and my
Impending departure to tropical countries, names unpronounceable.
How much simpler to order soggy hash browns.
How much simpler to butter white bread toast
With white butter wrapped in gold packets.
Map spread on the linoleum tabletop,
I pointed out places with names full of P’s and K’s,
Overstuffed with consonants and gathering
Crumbs from our buttery palms.
Our fingers touched so often,
These hands might as well have been holding;
But then, days before my flight into the hot tropics,
These hands won’t touch, they’ll let their fingerprints drown in finger food grease.
Those days it was summer, when the weather was a mystery—
Ceaseless weeks overcast, when grey skies hanging above
Pondered pouring rain on us; it was a very indecisive summer.
We walked from the diner, both tucked under one umbrella,
Felt the unpleasant humidity and
Our own hesitance before saying goodbye.

When, torpid, the sun begins to grey
In the outlines of clouds on the move
But in no hurry, autumn reaches for its full potential.
What leaves there could have been
Were shot away, we’d have paid them no mind, anyway.
There is a roughness tangled in your hair,
It’s best, I think, to let it be
And, instead, to view the wide expanse of beach,
Which marches into the frigid sea,
Debating with itself and at last achieving a landscape
Pure enough to match the temperature: 40 degrees F.

I can feel your hand stiffen and I
Too sense the tension in the afternoon,
A resistance to our huddled, timid presence; we’re nearly frozen in the process.
Drawing closer, hoods, tightening our jackets
Won’t do much to prevent the
Days from shortening and the hours’ agonizing stretching-
Out.  It’s not time enough
To take in the red and white display
Which umbrella shades act out tiredly before us.
Then the waves, mischievous as ever,
Creep up the sand to ****** at our shoes
Before they swagger back to the sea.  Love
Is lounging in the break, sopping wet
And fully-clothed—boots and all.
In the brief moments when our thoughts and talk collide, hours fit for memory
Flit us by.  Hairy swathes of weedy dunegrass
Wilt with hindsight.

Please, slow.  A rushed gaze and a blink are futility
At the shore; looking, here,
Is tenderer than you’d imagine.
Finalized versions of the day are worth one short glance,
But no more than that; you see
Too many things are
Strewn about these days; it is unclear who is
At fault for these mysteries, only that today,
At the boardwalk there are many brooding melancholies.
Silently, a hard wind licks the sand.

Amid the *****, wrinkled scales
of cracked and weary bark
a scraggly old line leads down
bereft of any aim,
leads past the mottled brown and gray
where mold becomes a skin,
and winds a canyon’s ****** crag
which tapers towards its end.

Illuminated buds display
the flowers half in bloom,
just sparse enough to show the scar
like shrapnel-wound ingrained.

This spring, the tree bursts white and pink
like many springs before;
the patient scar still growing wider,
softening its edge—
a green-white-pink-brown checkerboard
obscures the many lost
small buds, with dead deep-green tinged shells,
who wobble on their stems
and fall, some landing in the ****
to linger and decay.

Unperturbed traffic marches down
the pleasant four-lane road
as ever, crushing scattered blooms
like victory parades—
the tree remains a safe, clean gap
away, a ten foot spread
on either side between the street
and tree…between the new
facades just built to look ornate
and scar-bedecked old tree.

Yet in the full of summer’s heat
the tree is vibrant green;
the flowers long-since fallen
and in the scar become dirt.

Most people would say
things were better here
before the hurricane—

granted
living on top of your roof
has its drawbacks—

no shade in the day
and no friends nearby—
it’s a ****** quiet time—

things certainly were good
two weeks ago
to watch a funeral step second line

droning a hoarse dirge
down the street—
before this town began drowning—

furniture floats by
on its way out of town
smarter than most watchers-by—

but there are upsides
to the situation—
the view

now free to swing
at its leisure
over a whole city of roofs

spread like Monopoly houses
across the flat
teal-blue board—

small rowboats float
down the brand-new waterways
picking up waving folks

from one roof
after another—
there’s people that have done this before—

the quiet after disaster
expecting help wanting none
and hearing no music for days—

Our steps echo inside the mist—
A foggy midnight on some suburban road.
We plod into the pale
Light of vapors hanging on the sheet of night.
In two hours on this road, not a single car
Has passed.  We are tensed, hunching
In anticipation of some visit, the hiss
Of rolling wheels on the pavement.
Its cool and the night is wet
With a thick mesh of mist.  
“Where are we going?” she asks us.
A small shape skips by, maybe a fox, edging the road;
It kills a mouse.  The fog drapes itself across
The pines, the hooked iron barrier, the weak orange
Blur of streetlights, and our black figures.
I slide pine needles out of her hair
And, as the thing leaves its **** to rot,
Wipe traces of blood from her collar.
The glossed yellow lines curve, unseen
Into more mist and the silhouettes of trees:
Writhing shapes against the inky
Background of night.  The three of us walking,
Wreathed in misty veils, like death-hoods.

Fires are unbiased—
They burn what suits their mood.

I like to do my running
In the morning, before
The mosquitoes start their work.
During the dry season, you
Would think it unsafe—
Roads crowded by vulnerable
Yellow stalks of rice, long since
Harvested—but the trash
Is burning all the same.
By the time I’ve finished my run,
I am coughing, and the mosquitoes
Are dead before leaving the water.

At night, if you are lost
And alone, the fires—
Four feet high and stretching for
The lower tips of eucalyptus—
Will light the road for you.
Do not walk near them.

Near the school
Between dying trunks of banana
Trees, three men in jeans stoke a fire—
Reduced to shades
Of their former selves, the long, burned
Banana leaves lay withered
At the white center of the fire.
Much to their amusement,
A few students have fashioned
Swords of the live banana leaves
Not yet touched by the flame
And are fighting to the death.

Not often, but certain days, (particularly
The hot ones) I
Ask myself—
What am I doing here?

We drink whiskey from the bottle
On a night off and
Stand by the river.
In the overgrowth on the other side
Far-off fires twinkle—
A reminder—things burn
Over there, too.

A little longer,
And time will be stronger,

Drafting a world where no such road will run
From you to me
—Philip Larkin


There I sat
Alone with my pie
With its perfect golden crust
And its sugary dust.

The metal fork I
Used rang clear
When it clicked against the plate
Cutting smallish bites.

It’s then that I
Think of my mother—
She taught me how to cook
This pie from a second-rate book.

I was six
When we had to move;
It was best, I was told, to leave what I knew behind
And I didn’t mind.

Everything was new
We had a very small house
Then I started again at school
Oh, the kids were cruel!

And there was nothing
Like our loneliness
I thought to my mother
Too quiet to tell her I loved her.

I hid in my chair
She found the book
“We’ll make a sour cherry pie”
And pulled a glass for whiskey.

We cooked for hours
Cutting cherries and folding crust
Neither of us was concerned
When we saw the pie had burned.

We didn’t care
About the charred
Black welts and the rock-like crust
With its burnt carbon dust—

My mother and I
Were happy, we knew
the fruit and syrup survived
hot and sour, baked inside.

‘D’you see that?
Right over there?
Tough to see in the young grass.’

‘No, what do you see?’

‘I see
one muscular snake,
nosing cowpies by the post.
cold little *******.’

‘Well, should I shoot him?’

‘Might as well, I suppose…
Don’t shoot the po-’
Bang—.

Busriding to
the city limits,
I think of
Levertov’s Half-Way House,

lying just beyond
the city limits.
The bus ride is
uneventful—

I rest my head against
the window and count
the cross-hatched streets.
Lulled by the rhythmic

bump and shake
of the bus, I fall asleep.
In my dreamstate
self-consciousness overwhelms

me, and I am forced
to look in on my bus
from the street alongside,
and notice that I am alone
and will soon get off to walk.

Above all the mountaintops
There is peace.
Among all the treetops
You will trace
Not even the faintest tune.
The birds hold their quiet in the forest.
Only wait for it;
You, too, will have peace soon.

And are you also frightened
Of the monsters with nighttime white faces
Of places lined ****** with traces
Of tiger-striped neighbors complacent
Are you all so frightened?

And are you also frightened
Of the German death-expert, that phantom
Of your mother turned raucously pantomime
Of a world-wide prisoners’ anthem
Are you all so frightened?

And are you also frightened
Of the nuclear holocaust schemers
Of the cannibals’ preying on dreamers
Of the new World
Are you all so frightened?

And are you also frightened
Of poetry written in free verse
Of burning alive you foolish young convert
Of the chorus of underground screams in the desert
Are you all so frightened?

I.   You know what it’s like
It’s the carpet pulled away
It’s the hole beneath


II. Smile, smile, you’ve got to
If the truth is smirking at you
It’s the truth you’ve known


III. Draped over your skin
An abysmal sour void drips
Insecurities


IV. As the fog rolls in
Your breath comes out steam, pushing
Cloud into more cloud


V. Your breath and the fog
Watch you.  Ships pull in to dock
Their ghoulish noses


VI. A loose mooring rope
Stray ship’s vein, searching the fog
For all the lost blood


VII. Good, you’re on board.  Some-
  Where beneath you, hot pistons
  Swing furiously.

There is a pattern of tics in my brain, all
Set to twitching in the space behind the eyes.

If I am the assembly of information under the sky,
I am not the person I am in my mind.

The moon is in the manmade pond where I sit,
dressed in sweet darkness with all the rain.

The problem is my perforated soul—
I am lanced open by the multiplicity of girls and things.

I want to trust the person I am in my thoughts, but I’m falling
Through the many inadequate sounds and words.

Rain blankets the pond—
Infinite, miniscule wave dispersion occurs, overlapping itself.

The intensity of data swerves deep beyond me:
My disappearance takes place in the world of computers.

Love for my daddy and love for a girl
Exchange glances in the digital light;

From my pocket, I draw a small, six-shot pistol—
How fascinating, to learn the system of its design!

Winter rain falls like rushed snow,
hurried free of its intricate lattice,

setting down on your silvery snow-jacket,
seeping through its outer layers, now damp—

your sodden nylon sleeves cling
to the limited space of your figure.

Look around, there are no other children
in the wide, dusk-bright park,

there is just the rain tapping against the path.
Best to go home now

before the chilled rivulets forming in the street
begin to freeze.

I think of you, washing my face
I see you in my glass of juice
I hear you, crinkling my newspaper
I think of you, reading some letters

I know you, as I drop down, sinking into the plush couch
I think of you, sitting motionless at my computer
I sense you as I anxiously turn down the heat
I feel you and look through my face reflected in the window

I feel you, tying my shoes and ambling out the door into the open avenue
I think of you and glide past a private garden enclave, dotted with plastic cherubs
I hear you as my beaten sneakers tap and skip up the steps to the store, two at a time
I think of you as I take in the bookshelves draped in rows and rows of secondhand novels

I smell you, mixed with the warm brown scent of coffee; a mild, nervous moment of lavender, the hearty wood of café tables
I see you, quietly seated near the window, two hands on your coffee, shoulders slightly hunched, smiling softly, brightened by the noon sunlight
I feel you, two hands hugging your shoulders, your downy sweatshirt, smart little hands, your perfect cheek that I kiss, those lips
I know you, careful and happy, passing me a pear, looking down with a new, small smile and showing me your reading: love poems, giving a fleeting laugh, calling yourself a sap, romantic and I drink in every instance of you, ecstatic

I hear you in the shake of bells as I open the door to leave and watch you through the window
I feel you, your fingertips lightly drumming a goodbye against the reflective glass
I recognize you in the red glow of street-market mangoes, arrayed in wooden baskets
I think of you and wait patiently to cross the street

I see you in a graceful, dated streetlight
I think of you, rolling back my cotton sleeves
I feel you in the sunlight touching my neck
I think of you, and see an old man resting on a green bench

I feel you, gripping my door handle
I taste you in a square of chocolate
I see you in my tall, clean glass
I think of you, and turn on my reading light

The trees have left leaves aplenty
for me to rake
they curl and tense and dry
I claw them all away

Little piles form of my work—
hills to dot the suburb-waste
the bent tips scratch and click
across the concrete face

Of a faded summer’s deck
and I think briefly of her hair
the brownish tint that would not rest
but flashed like an auburn glare

These ******* leaves weigh nearly nothing
my breath slinks out in rasps
then settles on my knuckles’ clenched skin
a sweaty bead slips through my grasp

It creeps to the bottom of the handle
drips—**** my luck—into the leafy mess
into the paper pile—
I cannot look, just rake what’s left

Forming more and more heaps
of crisp and crunchy detriment
which rest, unassuming, amid the scenes
of quiet days that I have spent

While sliding into sepia
in the slim space between house and fence
which could be her house, then she could see me
and I would dive among the leaves

Of my finished mess which stands
at last, a brownish jumble
tribute to my deadened fear
collected on my lawn, as if to humble

a cold fall regret
and I look, questioning, down
to picture pushing you into it
where stiff leaves’ stems may hurt like thorns

After sweeping clear the grounds
The boys were sent to wash the showers.
You once wore your hair like they did—
Skull-tight shave, except for the top,
Where a thin layer was allowed.
I remember how they tossed soap
Onto the floor and bent down to scrub
While others laughed and slid through the water,
Their rough feet leaving slalom trails
Of bubble over the cerulean tiles.

Driving down the dry road to the port
Five o’clock and soon the ferry leaves
We listen to your homemade folk
Music, much too slow
Much too slow to be on time
And still, we drive lazy all the while.

Roll past mothers’ clean-cut sleeping places
Feeling ‘round for cigarettes
In your empty glove compartment
Though you no longer smoke
Shut my eyes, smoke it easy
Taking slow and separate breaths.

I am looking through my sunstained window
A place where older trees had all burnt down
Its not far to reach the docks
But I skip the soulful song
About finding love and folding boxes
Threadbare weeds and scrub have grown there now.

Pull up to the boat for my departure
Just five minutes late it starts to rain
Find my bag and coat, grasp my ticket
As the ferry throbs to life
Run to board the rusted giant
Wave to you a hard-to-see goodbye.

The sun lights through the window
And a scattering of rainbows slants
Across your eager eyes.

Nothing comes from nothing,
That’s the way it’s always going to stay.

A poet scribbles down a line or two
To keep himself quiet—
You set fire to his pages and
The words all smoke into the air.

Stitch a needle full of fumes and sow yourself a coat;
You’re as good as making nothing.

Under the rural darkness, they formed into a circle.
‘Keep your secrets,’ they whispered, smiling—
Even from the distant hills
The shrieks of the dogs made more noise at night.

If you’re afraid, be afraid,
This is nothing you can understand.

There are too many nights in a lifetime—
hours spent sleeping through the story
between birth and death.

The images are simple:
an empty highway, blue under midnight;
the huddled peaks of spruce that line the background.

Now and then, headlights ghost past.
I have time to reflect
in the interim silence in the car with my family.

Nearly all of them
are fast asleep.  There are too many nights in a lifetime—
so many moments of calm that I forget.

Years of life full with nights roll by, headlights shining;
there’s peace in
the steady beam of headlights, streaming through the dark.

Sparse snowflakes fall through the path of light
which leads a car
around a curve in the road before us.

The wind and silence on the road and in the car
dissolve into my body like a liquor—
I am calm.

The car ahead rounded its turn,
bearing down the highway,
its headlights fell across our windshield—

I forgot the events of my lifetime, and
felt no urge to think.
I flinched with a twitch before the impact.

The stiff cold
In the air today, and
I was thinking what I might like
To become
Of me once I’m good
And dead.

There are really so many options, but right now,
I think I’d prefer
To be cremated,
Or something like that.

A starchy cotton jacket was
Such a bad idea,
Now I’m cold!
Sheer buildings leaning
Over me, on almost all sides.
Are crematoriums like that?
Must be, here,
I suppose...

But how warm I bet they are
And then you slip into death
At the end of it all and into
Those lovely, gorgeous urns.