ARS POETICA: LIFE FAR FROM HERE

A written creative work submitted to the faculty of San Francisco State University In partial fulfillment of The Requirements for The Degree AS 30 ^oi> Master of Arts In - 1) 631' English: Creative Writing

by Frederick Denman Dodsworth III San Francisco, California December, 2017 Copyright by Frederick Denman Dodsworth III 2017 ARS POETICA: L ife Far F rom H ere

Frederick Denman Dodsworth III San Francisco, California December, 2017

Poetry reveals the concealed using playful and serious stratagems to offer another truth, often several. Utilizing meter, rhythm, rhyme, and line breaks, or working with unexpected images, potent symbols, or subtle metaphors, this poet hopes to evocatively encourage the reader to embrace a different experience, the author’s, and apply it to their own. While certainly each of us is unique, our lives mirror each other’s. Essential aspects of our experience are proximately universal, or through poetry can be made universal, despite age, gender, geo­ ethnic identities, or religious beliefs. This collection of works, often confessional in nature, attempts to entice the reader into accepting and enjoying poetic narratives that in some cases represent hard or painful experiences. If I am able to call forth memories that have been buried, or bring laughter or tears to the reader, I have done all that I can hope to do. If there is even one poem herein that any reader wants to share with someone they care about, I am satisfied.

I certify that the Annotation is a correct representation of the content of this written creative work.

Chair, Written Creative Work Committee Date CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL

I certify that I have read ARS POETICA: L if e F a r F r o m H e r e by Frederick

Denman Dodsworth III, and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a written creative work submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree: Master of Arts in English: Creative Writing at

San Francisco State University.

Paul Hoover Professor of English ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to thank and acknowledge my wife of 40 years, Linda Sue Franklin, who insisted I return to school in 2011 to pursue a long-delayed Bachelor’s Degree; and who encouraged me when I chose to continue and earn this Master’s Degree. I also wish to acknowledge and appreciate Mrs. Mueller, the school librarian at Tonalea Elementry School in Scottsdale, Arizona. Working with me one-to-one, she taught me to read and introduced me to a world far from the one where I lived. I am convinced she saved my life. I also wish to thank my senior year English teacher, Mr. Bradshaw, who passed me for unknown reasons despite that I’d dropped out of high school a few months into my senior year. Only he knows why. I wish to thank Dr. Sonya “Cherry Bomb” Wozniak at Berkeley City College. She took no prisoners and demanded nothing less than everything I had. Similarly, Instructor Matthew Davison at San Francisco State University; Davison’s demands set a higher standard of accomplishment and helped me get to this point. Thank you. The professors and instructors of the San Francisco State University Creative Writing Department are exceptional and a great gift to the entire writing community. Peter Omer and Katie Crouch, ZZ Packer, and Junse Kim, I was blessed to have the opportunity to learn from you. Working hand in hand with the Creative Writing Department, the SFSU English Department is truly exceptional. I learned so much from Doctors Loretta Stec, Summer Starr, Margaret Schoerke, and Sarah Hackenberg. Thank you. I want to personally and especially thank Maxine Chemoff and Paul Hoover. Maxine, I admire and envy you. You have lived the life I dreamed of living. Your poetry and fiction are the standards we judge ourselves against. It’s been a great pleasure to know you, and I truly appreciate your support. Fondly and with great respect, Fred Dods worth.

Some of these poems (in various forms) have been published in Red Light Lit, Rag Zine, Troop.Cargo, Oakland Review, riverbabble, Transfer, Milvia Street, Bay Area Generations, Writing Without Walls, Saturday Night Special, Something Worth Revising, US Represented, 11-9 the Fall of Democracy, RISE!, and other publications.

v T a b l e o f C o n t e n t s

B ook E n d s ...... 1

T he D efinition O f D e se r t ...... 2

G r a m m a ’s W o r d s ...... 4 1- Going With Him 2- The Visitor 3- The Night Before The Wedding

Ic a r u s ...... 7

W atching T he K racken In F r is c o ...... 8

T rojan H o r s e s ...... 9

Just U s For T he D o w n t r o d d e n ...... 10

A Path T o H eaven W ith ou t Q u e s t io n s ...... 11

Baby St e p s ...... 12

Scents O f A w e ...... 14

O pen Y o u r s e l f ...... 15

N o Re g r e t s ...... 16

Som e E lem ents O f T r u t h ...... 17

In Sig m u n d ’s D ream s D ora Is A lw ays R u n n in g ...... 18

F inally A s l e e p ...... 20

Pt t t t ! (aka Sleeping W ith A Soun d P o et) ...... 22

T he R e c ip e ...... 23

L ove R em em bers Y o ur N a m e ...... 24

H ow T o Forg et Painful M e m o r ie s ...... 26

Y es T o T he F u r i e s ...... 28

Ja pan C u r r e n t ...... 29

A G rea t D is t a n c e ...... 30

V iew s O f H eaven ...... 32

Salt R o c k ...... 34

F in du M onde/L a ke H u r o n ...... 35

C a ndy K is s e s ...... 36 1- the quick 2- fire 3-flying

Y e a r n in g ...... 37

L ovely F l o w e r ...... 38 T a b l e o f C o n t e n t s

H a i k u ...... 40 Two Fingers Hunger SF Jail L itany ...... 41

W hat W e W a n t ...... 42

R ega rdin g T he Pain O f O t h e r s ...... 44

W e W ere W ar Sp a w n e d ...... 45

T he F am ily T a b l e ...... 46

D ad ...... 48

G iving T h a n k s ...... 51

A L ittle ’T u d e ...... 52

M om ...... 53

R em em ber {Ca n ’t R em em ber) ...... 54

Spectral En c o u n t e r ...... 55

G h ost In T he M a c h in e ...... 56

L ife In A M o m e n t ...... 57

T his T hing C a lled L i f e ...... 57

H om o D e u s ...... 58

L o g o p h il l ia ...... 59

N ary Sa int N or Sin n e r ...... 60

T he Sem iotics O f S il e n c e ...... 61

T rav eling C o m p a n io n s ...... 62

P e r f e c t io n ...... 64

L essons L earn ed ...... 65

T he F ire T his T im e ...... 66

T his D a y ...... 69

R ent W a r C elebration So n g ...... 70

C rystal Co ffins & K isses ...... 72

A W olf In T he H o o d ...... 74

M u ham m ad In Th e G u t t e r ...... 76

T he M o m e n t ...... 77

N o Sa fe Sp a c e s ...... 79

vii 1

B o o k E n d s

I remember Admiral Perry not the man, the child who grew up in a good home and fell in love with a good girl who lived next door. He later married her. I remember this, 150 pages of bliss, maybe a few more or less. The youthful biographies of iconic celebrities viewed through the lens of childhood. The library held hundreds perhaps thousands of these books about boys and girls I read them all: Marie Currie, Clara Barton probably General Custer. The idea they were ever children held out hope for me, a window to another world, a door, perhaps. dedicated to Mrs. Muller, the school librarian who taught me to read. 2

T h e D e f in it io n o f D e s e r t

Barren desert, a redundancy. Barren desert, an oxymoron. Life is. Death is. Nothing is simple.

Definition one: Reality one: Barren: A land too poor, The barren desert, devoid of life, desolate, a hard place of rough rocks incapable of sustaining of dirt and dust and heat, or reproducing life. so dry you could die.

Definition two: Reality two: Desert: The same; The cholla cactus jumps, No place of culture, punctures your soft parts, no intellect or interest, penetrates your moist flesh, no accomplishment. leaves noxious spines inside.

Definition three: Reality three: Desert: to deny, disown There are large and small scorpions, fail, forsake, or forget, swiftly slithering rattlesnakes, leave behind or quit, ponderous pink and black Gila Monsters, to abandon. hairy tarantulas to make you dance. 3

Fantasies: Perhaps there’s another story: Where bleached bones bake, Perhaps you deserved to be scalped. where TV’s “savage Injuns” Perhaps your mother was willing, scalp you, rape your mother, Perhaps your sister wanted a new life. and abduct your sister. Perhaps that story is not the story.

See the problem? I was born in such a place. The so-called barren desert I wandered those barren deserts from Wikieup to Agua Caliente and grew and wondered there, too. from Tombstone to Agua Prieta, There I lived, loved, and reveled, the harsh desert is full of life. but eventually I fled there.

Resolution: Life is never simple. Barren desert, an oxymoron. Barren desert, a redundancy. It was and is a lively, deadly place. G r a m m a ’s W o r d s

1-Going with him. At any moment everything can be lost If toilet paper is on sale, I buy a lot of it ice cream, too, he likes ice cream there’s no reason to go without, we have so much, not like life before, so close to the bone. I won’t talk about the past the past is gone and who I was, gone too that’s why when we started out, I went with him, sitting at his side on those narrow mountain roads where anything might happen a rock, it needn’t be a boulder just a rock the size of your head tumbling down the rough-cut hillside one moment it lands on the road another it falls into the back of his truck carrying that awful load the only job they’d give him the only job he could get him still a child driving dynamite to the mines. 2- The Visitor I don’t like to talk about it. There’s nothing to say. We got along with the other children everyone treated us as well as the rest it wasn’t a picnic but it wasn’t terrible then he came to see us. If only he’d stayed away. He wanted to see his children to pay a bit as he could —for our support. No other parents came no one visited them the forgotten, discarded daughters and sons .. .but him only a tailor ... from Russia not an great man or plain-faced rancher. He was so horribly, terribly, obviously ...Jewish. We weren’t orphans then —like the rest, to be pitied. We were marked. No one forgave us. I won’t want to talk about it. There’s nothing to say. 3- The Night Before The Wedding The night before our wedding other brides excited or fearful —What would it be like? Would he always love me? I was not afraid of the future but of past. A Catholic, if he found out he might leave. I couldn’t take that. I told him we must talk I need to tell you ... my shame. If he said no I would go broken but I’d survive. I trusted his faith, his GOD’s forgiveness. We sat down, my heart my throat. You must forgive me for not saying more before, You see, we were both orphans, You with your family in Alsace, I with parents barely remembered. ...They might be still living. Jewish. He listened, said nothing. His silence an answer. At last he allowed the marriage could proceed if I never mentioned it again. I c a r u s

In life there is no safe word, only the rush of terror as the world falls away and the fiery sun grows ever larger 8

W a t c h in g t h e K r a c k e n in F r is c o

The dot-com boom made me homeless. They rented my shitty apartment to some asshole who works for Google, but she never sleeps here. Now I seek my dreams in the shelters or on the streets, but if I don’t get there early the beds are already assigned and if I do get there in time some poor thief steals my shit while I sleep. Did you know a woman was stabbed in a shelter last night? If America wants to live in the first world we should build a society that uplifts the downtrodden otherwise we’ll snatch your purse smash your window kick down your door stove in your god-damned head. Even the poor have to eat. 9

T r o j a n H o r s e s

Cranes like Trojan horses, 250 feet tall move their legs slowly, hoisting thousands of tons of steel piling up neighborhoods too high in the sky, ripping out old neighborhoods ripping out old neighbors, too. This bright shiny future everything fresh and new with its new world odor... There’s no place left for the likes of you. Seems there’s no place left for the real sense of folks like me and you. J u s t u s f o r t h e downtrodden

There ain’t no justice in politics — the practice of stealing while trying not to look like a thief. There ain’t no justice in capitalism — just another whore sucking cock in a filthy pay toilet, refusing to cough the quarters. “You pay,” she says. “Toilets should be free,” you say. You think maybe she should be free but when her pimp kicks in the door of your impromptu boudoir, your mind on the edge of release, your pants around your ankles, your hard cock between her sharp teeth, your sense of righteousness disappears and you shove your own head into the dirty bowl while they take your wallet and your clothes. You’re glad they left you your stained underwear, your dignity, your invulnerable sense of manhood intact. A P a t h t o H e a v e n w it h o u t Q u e s t io n s

Shooting stars straight from the earth dive bomb the sky and disappear not in a flash, like a bomb with a boom, into the air like nothing.

Shooting stars flashing, bejeweled sparks each on a mission from sweet heaven aflame with the wisdom of hearth and home on business for the queen.

Shooting stars a-flight by the thousands light up my mornings, enlighten my heart as a bee should each bee does her duty without question. B a b y S t e p s

“You can kiss me if you want.” He didn’t know what he wanted so of course he kissed her.

“You kiss like a movie star,” she said wrapping herself around him, pulling him down “There are things I can teach you.”

In high school, he had a girlfriend She was 16 and he was 17. They talked, held hands, kissed a lot.

He loved the way his girlfriend tasted, No matter how she tasted. Even after hamburgers with onions.

He loved the way she smelled, all of her. He loved to listen to her breathe He loved how shy they were together.

Then she was ready to take the next step. He wasn’t. She asked, she offered. He fled. He didn’t tell her how confused he felt.

Seven hundred miles and a year later he was ready to take the next step. This woman was hungry, he was willing. It would be easier with someone he didn’t love with this girl who wasn’t a girl, who was a woman, whose skin was dry with wrinkles round her eyes.

But first she needed him to know: She’d attended a fancy college in New York. He’d droppd out of high school in the ’burbs.

Her parents were important Back East. His parents were nobodies in the desert. She said she was 36. He’d just turned 19.

They took their clothes off, They laid naked on the bed. She was a woman everywhere.

She was tender and caring He was naive and enthusiastic They did what people do.

“How was it?” she asked. “Interesting,” he replied. “How so?” She needed to know.

He hesitated before replying. “I didn’t expect you to be so old.” Tears filled her eyes, but she didn’t cry.

Inspired by “Roses & Bees ” by Robert Hass S c e n t s o f a w e

Your eyes sparkled and shined in the dark, a spray of freckles across your cheeks to hold those jewels up high in our shared sky, the light-dimmed room carved out our tender heartspace. I recall best your good scents, the warm fragrance of your breath. First we shared its soft rustle, hours on the phone. Inhale. Exhale. Murmur. Whisper so softly in my head so intimate. ... then more face to face, lip to lip, tooth to tooth, tongue to tongue. This taste, your taste, no applied scent, no breath mint; earth, a fountain in you, full and fresh and hungry as your breath. I could breathe it for hours. We float in each other, a pool that never empties, never fills. We felt carefully, bit by bit. Most of all I loved the scent of your skin. No dime store girly scents. Unadorned. Our locked embrace. Your long chestnut hair all over my face. Kissing and grinding, rushing hands, slipping fingers, buttons, zippers and then your soft breathy moan and the rich scent of your own wet floral sweet briar bramble patch fragrance. We rose to the moment, seized all that was possible and left that which was not fully ours for the future. I have regrets, but none worth remembering as fondly as I remember this. O p e n Y o u r s e l f

You opened yourself like a window, the front door, a garden gate to a friend. You opened yourself like a flower to a bee, the sun to the morning, like a night in Tangiers with the moon floating over the ocean. You opened yourself like a glass of Chateau Margaux, 1961, a bottle of Stoli straight from the freezer, a cold beer on a hot day. You opened yourself like the oven door on Thanksgiving, your special present Christmas morning. You opened yourself like a hungry bum tearing apart the trashcan looking for something to eat on the mean streets when she hasn’t had any real food in weeks. You opened yourself like a blast furnace recycling broken automobiles and appliances. You opened yourself like a love letter. You opened yourself as a lover unlocks the back door when her husband’s away. You opened yourself like a woman who has no past, no future, only now. N o R e g r e t s

The lines on her face became maps, roads travelled, heartbreak against days of honey, of sweet grass and sunshine.

The wild girl still rumbles round inside her blue-tattoo wings she flew, might still fly, feathers bursting out from her flesh she feels the flutter, fights the urge to flight.

Though the ink of her old tattoos has faded she holds fierce the pain, blood, oohs and aahs the pride felt when first she flashed her wings to a world trying to tie her down.

She flew, wrapping her naked body around lovers, around beauty, toward justice. She opened her eyes and stared hard, bared her teeth and fierce bit the world.

Not every promise was kept nor every day glorious but each choice was dictated by her own decisions successes and mistakes her own, uncompromised. Her life she lived and lives without regrets. SOME ELEMENTS OF TRUTH..

I liked the lists you kept. I wanted to trace the lines in your face with my finger, my tongue, my cum, my tears like a knife. I listened to your warm and tired voice — it is the age that has settled on you I loved most. Anyone can be young — but how I loved your wrinkled eyelids inviting me to come into your eyes. No, I don’t mean to suggest... Nothing is infinite. No thing goes on forever. For just a few moments I dazed-dreamed of knowing you without your knowing. The full flowered bosom of every vision I might have projected onto your scratchy voice. You looked to your wristwatch while I still loved you — three minutes and counting. Night swooped in like a crow and in the haze I was no longer certain you were still satisfied, that you had not already filled yourself from my absence, overflowing mine with fantasies of your own. I never knew those thin lips... slowly the tenor of this song grows scratchy and out of tune. Nothing is infinite. White noise or silence? I n S i g m u n d ’s D r e a m D o r a is a l w a y s r u n n in g

Her father stands beside her bed flames flickering in the darkness he watches her dress, her dangerous curves. She is running — every woman — revealing the unacceptable one who doesn’t defer enough, a delicious masculine silhouette, a little more shape

Botox, CoolSculpt, mole removal, hair removal. Freckles too dark? A corrective’s available, not too expensive: Laser Touch Aesthetics, an intense pulsed light. Eyebrows too bushy? Epilation! Eyebrow threading. Building the better battered woman, one hair at a time We push her too far, she gives too many opinions.

Every woman is the unacceptable woman Every woman’s anti-aging regime exploded, explained, all the specials, the over bust, the under bust, the custom derriere and lovely decolletage, — fright for the boudoir, fight for the vote, murder for the mighty yankee dollar, sacrificing comfort for saucy dandies in leather designed for men but suitable for women, women who are made maids mad for sex.

Mother wants to save her jewel case, but I refuse to save her jewel case, father snarls then she was walking in a town she did not know, prancing like a pony, each turn of her leg a butterfly dance. Where’s the station? she asks of a Lancer, a second-wave translator, a mental masturbator. “He’s dead,” he says, “You can come home,” but a stranger answers the door, “Less than three minutes,” he says. “It’s a silent revolt against female power,” she responds, “the ocean like realities of female sexuality.”

Blushing, a bride offered, gifts exchanged, night falls. “Two and a half hours more,” she pleads for ultra-sexy figure shaping foundation fashions men wearing girlish frocks ... “I don’t know. Is it so wrong?” She is running, leaping, flying with scar revisions, tattooed eyeliner, eyebags packed facials and mud baths, Sir Walter Raleigh’s coat was never large enough to cover any woman’s passion.

This year and for many years she’s been running, tweezing, squeezing, skin sagging and skin tightening, lifting, dermal-fillers and pounding machines and sweet, sweet music something deep by Barry White or with a sexy beat by A1 Green, please pour Madame President a glass of wine. This is what it is. This is all it is. Time for the show to go on. F in a l l y A s l e e p

It’s eleven pm, she’s finally asleep I am the dinosaur. She the fledgling She ran mad all day, a valkyrie chasing valkyries, swords uplifted sacred symbols carefully painted in brilliant colors on each shield. Girls wielding battle axes and oversized battle hammers, eager to seize the mountain, happy to slay her enemy.

Dozens of young women, —average age six— screamed like banshees, swung their violent weapons severed the troll’s head, feasted on candy blood worms spilt from its destroyed skull while we watched, entranced, worried, excited, taking in all this o’rwhelmed, this their time of freedom.

These are days of poetry in motion, neither words nor some parade of flesh and allure strutting down the sidewalk, eyes watching eyes. That comes later. Sadly. 21 This was the real deal the first and best place. This was grace in action without self-awareness with unbounded laughter water balloons and watermelons.

Who could think of words on such a day? Who had time when there were cakes to cut soft steamy flesh to comfort, a child’s breath hot on your face, eyes burning with urgent intensity: “Will you blow up my balloon?” “Where’s the lemonade?” ”Do you have a band aid?”

Life is too good for words now. Now we sleep and dream like warriors. P t t t t ! (a k a S l e e p in g W it h A S o u n d P o e t )

I’ve been sleeping with a sound poet his noises fill my heart with joy working his “el” and “em” combinations rolling his “ars” to roar.

Staccato, legato, sonorous aspirating noisily, then bubbling out sloppy lip farts mixed with plosive “pees” and “bees.”

When we woke we were covered in piss it seems there had been an accident an unfortunate night time release, I didn’t mind. These things happen.

I changed the bedding and made breakfast: cured meats mixed into scrambled eggs last night’s mashed potatoes, left-over broccoli, al dente.

It was delicious. He gobbled it up. I spoon-fed him one bite at a time because his “naa” sounds and his “bah” sounds take me to a place no other poet knows.

Perhaps his plate slipped to the floor but I think he threw it. It landed face down, food flying everywhere.

I kissed him and cleaned that up, too then hugged him close and tight. For someday soon he’ll walk and talk and I’ll miss the baby boy he used to be. T h e R e c ip e

You are the bee's knees, a balm for ragged emotions, an old-fashioned remedy for all that angst and turmoil like settling slowly into an old wooden chair by the window, staring out at the sun setting on this, another day.

Honey? Would you sit with me a moment? would you let the day rest a bit in your bones, my bones, let your flesh, my flesh, this flesh feel a little less stress?

Vigorously, let us shake out our unmet expectations. Let’s make lemonade of our lemons. What’s done is done, what ain’t will wait, nothing stays.

Hold my hand, I love you. I love you sitting by my side like this, I could die now but I’m sure I won’t there’s so much more love to live for with you still and quick by my side troubles dissolve, no heat, cool as ice we yield to the day, such strain released, night settles in and shutters out the world. L o v e r e m e m b e r s y o u r n a m e

Perhaps in another language I am more beautiful, though it may be there is nothing without someone, you, to describe it, me. —the sacred dance of tongues.

My father said pedican. My neighbor said cozy. She said it with a secret smile. I was never comfortable with words, like loaded guns, an sudden danger, not a metaphor.

Coney was not just an island though she was often on my mind. There is more than one thing. Who can handle that? —two oppositional concepts held in your mind at the same time? I mean your body. No dialectic. A boy can dream, can’t he?

My mother spoke of bees so I became a beekeeper. Now I steal their honey. All girls, you know, the males only good for breeding. Their ways of love terrifying — Vagina dentate extremis though I would die like that like that I could live forever.

My mother spoke of birds so I fed the birds. A bird ate from my mouth, she was cunning that way. I was happy just to lick your lips.

I was too eager to share. I said: You may eat off my plate if you wish. I said: You may share our love freely, please let me lick a small bit of peace from your juicy, juicy lips.

You said it was too much, but yes, please. I tried to please you, if you let me. If I can get there from here. Intimacy is frightening, everything else just lonely. How TO FORGET PAINFUL MEMORIES

It’s counter intuitive.

Your mind first flies to thoughts of vivisection, of tearing out your own heart with a rusty spoon and garden shears fantasies of chainsaws and lime, but you know your tell-tale heart would tattle; if not, the creaking and groaning of your misery would drive you mad as you recounted in all the languages of man, the details of her infidelity, her fickle affection, her disdain and disgust, louder than the 4 AM freight train that thunders through your brain every time you try to sleep. You try to sleep to forget your misery, your unhappiness, the insistent repeating of all the details of your suffering.

Murder is forbidden. Evisceration is not polite. Besides, in truth, didn’t you expect to be betrayed?

Don’t you deserve such loathing and disgust? Chopping her into pieces will not deny this but perhaps a cocktail will? Oh... it would. A cocktail. A deep drink to loose your suffering, to swim in the squishy, blurry ocean where everything drifts and floats, where it’s easy to forget 27 ...until it’s not your memories piling up in waves of misery, in harmony, in symphony, with drum and timpani, louder than John Phillip Sousa’s mighty marching band. So tie those thoughts down tight.

Bind them foot and hand. Get to the truth with a red-hot branding iron.

Now, deliberately, with malice aforethought, break yourself into half the man you used to be, and again, and again, and again, until all that’s left is dust. See? It’s easy to forget, it’s remembering that destroys you. Y e s t o t h e F u r ie s

Say yes to the Furies Say yes to vengeance Say something better in the future Pledge a different future in the past It always was different in the past The colors were richer, the wind braver There were more flowers, weren’t there? In color this time, Was it or do we just wish it? Let’s scamper after echoes, the sky what never was illusions, dreams, times those were not those maybe there never is a past just the hunger for something Life is... pain is... hide it in plain sight ...as if remembering to breathe, to build better dreams this too passes, every window closes reveals no hidden doors reveals mechanical joints, soft flesh reveals scraped and raw and scarred A catalogue of successes trophies from battles, yes we are damaged, we are given up for lost but we endure. all of it. then we don’t Travel light, old friend, a great mystery remains. J a p a n C u r r e n t

Floating free on an alligator raft, comfortably distant from the crowded shore, adrift in the swells, on the edge of an ocean, set loose from the din, the rush and the roar.

I watch my young lover wave and smile, she wears a flowered dress much sweeter than my thoughts I hardly hear her voice implore, “Come back. You’re forgiven. I’m so sorry we fought.”

My toes dig deeper, seek the Japan Current. To taste open waters wide or return? Such decisions ride on a moment’s intent, as the aching in my heart breaks and fades

Shall I navigate my life by the Northern Lights, or chart my course by the stars in your eyes? A G r e a t D is t a n c e

A sparkling pale blue cream with shattered glass fragments sunshine fading into darker hues the surface falling away layered up, stacked up higher so far above my head. The world grows quiet a heavier silence.

All this interrupted by a girl, eyes wide and serious who reaches out, captures me raises us up the sound of laughter water splashing with air and alcohol the excited murmur “Oh my God...... Thank God she saw him!” I’m pushed over the edge onto the solid towels surround me and such hubbub “where are his parents? “why weren’t they watching?”

Sixty-two years later I watch my son drowning in his own son life rushing over him I reach out to where I see him my hand breaking the waters my arm extended reaching for his fingers.

His fingers are miles from mine I can not save him from these waters he must learn to swim with this current there are no familiar nor unfamiliar saviors only the will to survive can reach him

The sun overhead traces the sky the same color of blue as water. V ie w s o f H e a v e n

We were alone in a white room nervous She might have felt something else but we weren’t talking about that. We knew we would not be alone for long just two of us. There weren’t just two of us. Infused with the presence of the other despite the daylight from outside which flooded the room. Despite the fogged white windows, the bright white of the overhead lights, a brilliant shine to everything in the room, the white gown she wore. This angel wasn’t floating in heaven, not an angel in dreams, we weren’t singing gospel songs of praise We were quiet. Too quick when we wanted to be quiet. Still, but not still enough. I wanted to be still and quiet. She said she agreed but I still don’t know. She says “That was long ago.” Now we are grey but then everything was white. Nothing was right. Everything not white was clear. Nothing was clear. Everything not clear was chrome. 33 There was a heartbeat in the room emanating from a large clear jar a pump like a heart beating. Someone entered and smiled and asked her if she comfortable. She smiled thinly, palely, and agreed. “This won’t take long,” the professional smile dressed in white said, smiling again. “Just lay back and try to get comfortable.” The pump pounded. She sucked in her breath and held it. I sucked in my breath and held it. The heartbeat of the pump kept going thumpa thumpa thump. I can still hear it. S a l t R o c k

Pound the ground with stones, arguing with the clouds.

No princess spits out hard here from some crack in the earth.

But deep within the underground hear the bleak bleats of Judas goats.

I’ll not throw in my lot with thee there’re too many tears in this salt. F in d u M o n d e /L a k e H u r o n

My black blade cleaves the wide wet plain of hammered glass the color of forest leaving tiny tornados and white crests swirling beneath clear green waters. One hundred droplets fall from my paddle like arrows, seeding circles rippling in the wake of the kayak’s prow. Ahead the hammered glass turns to silver reflects a burnished grey-blue sky and clouds. One lone Great Blue Heron cruises in low flight a dinosaur of the air lumbering gracefully above the glacier carved shoreline, its undulating waves of pink granite. The heron settles into shadows at water’s edge, keeping her eye on me a transient intruder in her ancient home. The loon cries her haunting warble, echoing every loss while the sky turns from silver to dark flame, the sun dissolving into sea. I await the mythic green flash once again I am disappointed though moon and north star appear first faintly, then with growing brilliance a billion stars emerge from the layered darkness, a panoply of wonder, once considered the curtain of illusion between being and wonder hiding the wheels within wheels of our universe. Perhaps they were right, this beauty seems beyond the right and just metes of those so blind to these miracles around us. 36

C a n d y K is s e s

1) the quick Stars in the granite rocks full of sparkle, appear to be alive, I am happily fooled.

2) fir e Shadows of flowers seared onto the walls infinite blossoms never fade Hiroshima Nagasaki nuclear spring.

3) ruin Rain in war can be beautiful for the living not so much for the dead.

4) fly in g Falling from the sky his screams a song only birds could hear. Y e a r n in g

I woke up and found you in my mind like the light from a refrigerator in the middle of the night while rummaging around for tasty bits

I got up and hurried lest you be waiting in the shower I gave myself making myself fresh and clean, waiting for you to soap my back and kiss me all sudsy and slippery and wet

I sat down to work listening for your footsteps I could nearly hear your voice smell your skin, the hint of star jasmine sweet and musky and full of desire carried far from where you were

Then the phone rang. It was you. The sun came out and made a glorious day. L o v e l y F l o w e r

I never realized how little I cared for social niceties until I became an old man. A fresh-brushed breath doesn’t swoon me a fresh bathed body is not so much.

I loathe deodorants though I deeply love the smell of you, your hair, your leafy scents hint at what I want, the best of you, hairy armpits full of life most vital the deep rich scent of a woman who lives, not some porcelain doll, a woman rides the world hard packs in all that delights.

I knew a smart woman, who kept the secrets of grandmothers, we were never more than friends. She shared her grandmother’s truth —those who have lived and failed, flailed and flowered. This grandmother told her the most compelling scent of a woman is her own, entirely her own not made her own by applying some solution, nothing from a bottle, from a factory compares with the secret, sacred scent of your own damp underwear —there’s reason you’ve got hair there, not to hide your perfect flower far from appreciative caresses and licks but to radiate the air with your perfume, the gift which creates the world, an art unmatched by painters or perfumers the font of life, the holy beginning we share life’s most glorious flower. H a ik u

Two F in g ers I slide my fingers Uncovering all your secrets Withholding a little

H u n g e r In the dark alleys raccoons knock over garbage cans looking for a meal

SFJ a il In this hard, locked box I look for signs of new growth. Spring comes, even here L it a n y

Regret is a horse’s corpse rotting outside the bedroom window. Looking back through time’s telescope the wrong way shows little to say worth saying, no apologies correct the errors we made.

If I hurt you, I ask forgiveness. If you hurt me, I forgave you. All I remember now is how lovely you were how fortunate you allowed me to share your time, your body, your life. A different color door, a different view outside a different window, all that follows could have changed.

We were happy together sometimes. We were young and stupid, old and selfish, simply unrealistic, just unlucky, then the world fell away like a planet leaving its orbit, perhaps to plunge into the sun.

I remember the first time I learned a lover died, or friends fell by the wayside. Please know I loved you, the person you were, exactly as you were, whether for a moment or for years and I think of you.

Mostly I don’t remember anything terrible. Mostly I wish I’d been a better person. Mostly I hope you found love and laughter and joy. W h a t W e W a n t

I ran into an old friend his wife wasn’t with him I didn’t ask. I’ve learned. The hard way. Perhaps she had a reason, something innocuous. More likely she got cancer and died.

Or perhaps she grew tired of him, him an old man, she still young enough to try again before it was too late. It probably was his fault, it often is. An affair too many? Maybe worked too late, too often. She got lonely. People do. We all want someone who puts us first, who makes us feel needed who's home when we get there with a smile, happy to see us.

I know a woman who found a new love (more than one) her own doting ex-con, fixated on her, only her, telling her how lovely, how perfect she is, every phrase practiced and polished by years inside, carefully crafted to feed her need to feel exceptional. No one’s an exception to such attention. We’re all naked piles of flesh propped up by our disappointments.

I hope it ends better this time. Last time it didn’t. She served three years He served twenty Five people dead Most of them innocent. R e g a r d in g t h e P a in o f O t h e r s

I’m not sure it happened, I have a terrible time distinguishing what happens from what might have happened I’m not sure the distinction is important.

In the heat of this temper I wrote letters to her she said my lack of restraint was inspiring, ’though I was a few clowns short of a circus.

Saying her name is like losing her to the terrible wraiths of wrath while touring our pasts where everything just evaporates, where people I never met no longer live, where everyone you know dies someday.

In my head I talk to the fantasy of her. She talks to her friends, and before, each time, she asks, “May I?”

You may.

She didn’t hurt herself right away. She let a reasonable amount of time pass. She said when it’s over, let the flames consume everything.

We just wanted to feel something that wasn’t lonely. W e W e r e W a r S p a w n e d

We Were War Spawned We were sacrificed to your suffering We were objectified without distinction We endured permanent defenestration.

Your pain invaded our being, coupled us To the unconscious grief of survivors Relentlessly seeking protection From random acts of violence.

With these crimes we charge you With ourselves as evidence we try you To a remote and distant death we sentence you. We all died for this, this affaire de coeur and then

Each of us built a fire from your roasted flesh Each of us built barricades from your charred bones Each of us fortified our hearts to protect us From the ghosts of you we nurtured in our fear.

But the enemy we sought has disappeared And in his fearsome place we found a child Frightened and alone, shivering in the dark Of his own memories, so like a grave. T h e F a m il y T a b l e

Have you ever made love on the family table? This is where romance and comfort part ways. Sure, I get the connection between food and sex it may be better than the link between sex and death but I prefer a little comfort with my love. Sheets to snuggle under and wraparound hiding and showing bits of fleshy treasure the comfort of a spacious bed seems ideal for the sorts of exploration that bring us together. That’s a long way of saying I’m not the sort who combines uncontrolled passion and kitchens.

Rage, I’ve seen plenty of at the dining table murder, and its close cousins have been company with the sort of red splash spaghetti makes when a plate hits the wall, missing the head which was its target. I’ve seen this. I’ve seen my mother sprawled unconscious on the floor in what seemed an ocean of blood after a too long dinner where every act was a gambit with a raise to up the ante. It went where it went too often. I went to my bed room and loaded my 3-0-8 a rifle that saw action in the great war aren’t they all great wars? There are no great wars. I knew my responsibilities. I was a man at 13, responsible for the safety of my family, even if the enemy was my father. Now I prefer less drama in my life. No, I insist on less drama in my life. We share in the preparations and we share in the clean up no blood on the walls or the floor We make each meal a celebration of family or friends or both We might drink a tad too much but no more wars. Love, not war, best fits my table, for it’s my table now. 48 DAD

I was sitting in my lawyer’s office preparing for a deposition my former best friend my drunken drinking buddy my business partner my roommate when he got evicted we did business in the hot tub we did business in the bars we did business over dinner we did business over lines of coke .. .and then it was over another of his screaming fits his coffee cup hurled against the wall storming out of the office again screaming it’s over

then he sued me and now I was in my lawyer’s office preparing for my deposition his lawyer preparing for my deposition the phone rang “Your father is dead.” We cancelled the deposition the suer said he was sorry my daddy died his father had died many years earlier, an alcoholic lying in the gutter dead drunk the boy pretending he didn’t know the man while mine smiled and flirted with the girls, now he was gone. We gathered together and drove and drove and drove for fourteen hours and landed at the old house, the former home which would never be the same and waited until night fall for my brother up from Mexico with Dad in a box on ice in the back “Shall w e... can we... bring him in?” that was his brother — Old School — wanting to prop him up to drink us down to cry. my sister looked frightened who wasn’t? worried her children would be frightened who wouldn’t? so we drove Dad to the mortuary left him in the hands of a pretty, young woman shy with her girlfriend, fresh from the tennis courts still in their sporty short tennis clothes still holding hands colder than the night we left him in her hands cold as ice for the rest of my life.

Now, I wish we hadn’t I wish we’d brought him in 50 and roped him to a chair and lit a fire that roared and cried and drank too much and cried and laughed too hard and cried. That’s the best way to go. G iv in g T h a n k s

Dad died first, Mom took twenty more years.

Like butterflies we changed, transmogrified into mongrel dogs snarling, snapping, fighting to see who might steal a scrap of peace, who fell into disgrace, each of us trying to climb and claim the moldering mound of earth beside the open grave our parents dug.

I try to pull you out, you can’t help but pull me in again to the old hurt so much bigger than an ocean. I would save you but my boat leaks. There’s no room for that many ghosts. A L it t l e ’T u d e a little rude, a little frank Loud and rash blonde and brash with black eyelashes Is it mask or mascara black and bright red red red red lipstick. she loved all that sparkled and shined brash blonde mom of mine Depression baby backlash bomb living hard and fast breaking all that and life too until she was gone at last and the last and the last and the last the gone lasts the longest. 53

MOM

Her eyes the color of the sky turned to ice as life slipped Her skin seems more in my memory the fresh bud of health strangely blossomed as she slipped Yeah, though I walk through... what? no one walked least of all her We crowded ’round her bed She clutched her granddaughter’s teddy bear .. .and the minister spoke those words Yeah, though I walk.... and she walked on her eyes as deep as the sky frozen closed gone. REMEMBER {CAN'T REMEMBER)

I remember (can't remember) everything, words woven into the fabric of (these false) memories, moth-eaten and holy, all we yearn to forget that year. I no longer recall anything if it was winter or spring or a meadow at midnight you were naked, I was crying, we laughed at stars ...these fragments I reassemble to make meaning your eyes a foghorn (your eyes mossy stones) the pale green sea I swim in {drowning), something happened, but maybe not, I can’t recall, the wind blows sand away, waves wash all wickedness I am not a writer (this is not a poem), a browser meanders through the pages of a dictionary for words untongued (my skin slowly peels away) we ate all the assumptions we prepared together undone, our dreams faltered in autumn after frost ice licks us slowly from bitter bits to broken hearts You will remember this when all else is lost. This is everlasting, (nothing remains the same.) S p e c t r a l E n c o u n t e r

I run into you more often you show up unexpected complete, as if nothing.

Your voice or a phrase some tone, no atonement so much judgment so much disappointment.

I don’t like it. Very often I don’t like it. Too often I feel invaded. I worked so hard to get away.

It’s better when I see a little generosity a certain way of looking uniquely yours.

Now you’re here again uninvited, unwelcome staring back at me in the mirror. G h o s t in t h e M a c h in e

Lilith passes out her seeds, gifts for demons, strangers and stranglers weeds from her garden, Gaia seized, we own this and the whirlwind coming. her life force lives in our wiring her nerves turn our thoughts into motions this the meaning which escapes us she is the whirlwind, we, the wind tossed. L if e I n A M o m e n t

The door ajar The limbs akimbo The look askance The future in limbo The days of our lives The errors of our ways It’s not enough to try Or how the game is played Everything fades away.

T h is T h in g C a l l e d L if e nothing’s better than a baby burbling, especially at a funeral. H o m o D e u s “Any farmer knows, it's usually the brightest goat in the herd that stirs up the most trouble” —Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari

Tomorrow knows no oversized attention Trouble dreaming of more trouble Downgrading the up-dream, The ever downgraded data Unusually cognitive Barely in human Oversized ants Farming millions of ant dreams Goats dream of the farmer This is the why of revolution This is trouble seeking attention This cognition knows trouble It’s oversized, it’s second guessed. Mental Meta Farmers The ever downgrading goat dream goat dream goat dream goat dream goat dream

... losing attention usually barely tomorrow pay attention to your...

goat dreams. L o g o p h il l ia

Some damn machine, celadon green, and a qwerty son-of-bitch tapping out rhymes and rhythms onan old fashion keyboard fast stroking out lines skinned knees and elbows

What were we all — are you, confidential information sure to be legally privileged in our blood prevailed upon soon flowing in the streets as the world goes mad even cops selling guns.

Try to feel something that isn’t lonely before it gets ruined by too much money. It always gets scarier.

I misspelled the name of Jesus to feel so much more than I do I misspelled the name of Abraham not modem humans, yes, I’m saying I misspelled the name of Facebook®, the belief that looking is seeing.

Who was that African-American kid shot to death by a computer? White people looked the other away it’s no good to get complicated always money delves deeper the expected quandary, the old bridge to nowhere. N a r y S a in t n o r S in n e r

Was he Paul or John, Saul or Thomas? No rock to batter down an old church no Judas nor Jonah waiting to be reborn Pagan built his new estate on poetry weaving words into colorful pastoral sweet nothings for the thick-furred and thin-finned tumbling by as a creek sings to the sky, murmuring all the love found in a heart all one can care for friends for a life time I’m talking about the wonder of children pretty fresh faces, eyes sparkling sharp as a knives, maidens’ tales word flowers sprinkled everywhere he went this bard and his musician, lyric and melody declaiming while carving a beachhead into the word fray, the way to a misty future so much better but still tied to the past and now you’ve left us as you led us sneaking away into the night leaving a tear and a smile we will miss you, old friend, as we travel far and wide but, by you, blessed be. T h e S e m io t ic s o f S il e n c e

Poets dance in our dreams after the bars close their naked feet slapping out a rhythm to keep us from slipping into sleep. I’ll remember you as you were there then, a birthmark in my brain, sitting near naked, propped up at your dining room table, not like we found you, a turtle trapped on your back crashed up against those free weights, crushed underneath the ancient bench press thinking you were still a prisoner, your pale old skin already deathly sickly cold grey straggling hairs stuck wetly to your forehead, yellowed teeth like broken barnacles spitting out poems or just drooling in time to some secret rhythm. Yes, we propped you up in a chair so we could share ice cream and cookies and wine on your birthday with a candle and a song and shitty diapers beneath the skimpy black briefs you still wore at 82. The room’s light was as yellow as your teeth like an exhausted wave drifting on a dead sea hurt and or damaged, the connection lost to all articles like bullets, like sperm, like everyone old was a child when discos looked to mirror balls and brought the sun indoors like a golden Abyssinian points in the darkness to night everlasting. The dull earth radiates coldness and the scent of everything long past St James the infirm, a brother denied, rings random moments without meaning. This was always coming, this future built of fire, on the wreckage of the past: Words without end.

dedicated to Gene Fowler, one o f the Berkeley Poets 62

T r a v e l in g C o m p a n io n s

The electronic doorbell binged and there stood death and two old poets dumbstruck as death announced: “Today isn’t your day but your day is coming.” “Tell us something we didn’t know,” the old poets laughed as their eyes drifted down to the burden death had dropped at their door then they bowed their heads to allow great sighs to escape, wet tears to fall. “I didn’t know he was so close to the end,” said the slightly younger poet softly. “He was our friend, our companion, we loved him well,” said the other. “His words were strong, his vision clear, but now he’s gone,” one intoned. “He was master wordsmith, a stalwart fellow,” the later affirmed. “He wrote such tales as must be told,” both poets insisted. “Waxed eloquent regarding issues of import as only he could,” they argued. So this went on long into the night, each poet pointing out the merits and faults of the man deceased and whisky flowed along with their words until even death, waiting as patient as only death can, slipped into sleep. When the sun came up, sleeping death and the old poets, deep in their cups, still wondered how it was they had allowed their old friend to slip away, quiet into the endless night unmoumed. Death awakened gave them answer: “He took to hiding in dark rooms with the lights turned low,” said death, “his curtains drawn tight to keep me out of sight.” “He only wished to kept the world away,” said the old poets. “We know his loss and sorrow,” said one, “I feel it so myself.” “We are of yesterday and fit not this day nor the morrow.” “We were once so fierce to fight in love and life,” recalled the other wistfully. 63 “Yes, but I’m tired now...... and with so many who have gone on...” his voice faded. —They echoed a past gone, too, unable or unwilling to see the future. “You’ve fought your wars now it’s time to rest, let me take you home,” said their old friend death and child-like they each took a hand and walked by his side paying no mind to the arcing sun riding high in the sky, engaged as it always is in day’s ancient war with night.

dedicated to and inspired by a conversation with Al Young & A.D. Winans P e r f e c t io n

Any job works doing is worse doing well Any job worth dung is horse and swell Any fracking jab is worse than this hell Tear up those drafts, all of ’em, they’re shite. Mistake runes every time everything’s it another shift of paper wracked by fingers another shaft of despair as the gaol appears or disappears and fears of ever getting nothing ripe, right, write, tight, wrecked don’t do it, just don’t do it, forget, it’s work sit in the dark and sob for all efforts wasted. L e s s o n s L e a r n e d

I don’t give away much these days, what I have I hold to tight I can’t say I miss the thrill of licking the knife’s ice-sharp edge the iron taste blood leaves on a cleaved tongue that won’t heal.

You go chase down the misfits, track down the source of echoes I’ll lay here by the fire, comfortably wrapped in blankets and stare up at the billions of stars sprinkled across tonight’s sky settled in at peace to the soothing sounds of an angel snoring my cock still warm and wet from the beast of her love making. T h e F ir e T h is T im e

My family, my children by other mothers, my children I cherish your bent being and your gender bent clothes Your dirty faces, all your different colors Skin and hair and fabrics and desires unexpected, Gathered round the table, eating, drinking, laughing telling tales of strange, often frightening adventures And footprints on the ceiling. It turned into a dance party, of course. Of course someone would hold someone else Upside down and leave footprints on the ceiling Before you optimistically drove off In your wild painted but broken down buses and trucks Headed to Brooklyn or Cementland or Slab City Wasn’t that an abandoned military base on the Mexican border? Either way, too far from my comfort zone. Who else would take over a national park for a party? With hundreds of ravers from all over the world Security provided by PTSD vets on meth, “but they were cool,” you said. For the party you made home-brewed soda pop with hand drawn labels on scavenged bottles Concocted a solution of cold-press coffee Guarana and Eleuthero and Maca, and god knows what else you put in it. Boiled up on the stove and bottled Sold at that rave in the woods Guaranteed to keep the dance going all night Everyone needs a little something to keep on going, The rangers might show up any moment The party is always bound to get busted Now is the perfect time for lasers Light painting the forests and far skies The heavy beat of electro-house, Or is it trance, or something called deep dub I don’t know because I’m old but You boys and girls with your spirited re-names Your connection to and denial of All that’s crass and commercial Ballet on bicycles or trimming in Mendocino Dance dangling on skeins of silk High over head without a net, Without any safety precautions. Defying the odds to snatch you, but The odds were never in your favor The odds are not in our favor either What are the odds of a motorcycle’s handle bar Penetrating a woman’s skull, Somehow missing her helmet The one you refuse to wear... it doesn’t seem to matter She wore the helmet and was forever altered You won’t wear a helmet and I'm forever altered. What are the odds of a big D depression Getting to be too much this time, some time It’s impossible, it’s unreal, It’s the guesswork of greater powers than mine. Forget all that, let’s talk about the fire. What are the chances of you leaving the party Just before the fire starts. No, not Ghost Ship, Remember New Orleans? Who can forget NOLA? The fire where ten of your friends perished, Free spirits afloat in the smoke and flames, Just another warehouse maze like every other What are the chances that you won’t get to the party Until after the fire starts, with all your friends Hugging, Dancing and then 36 or so disappear. Forever kith-n-kin lost in clouds of fiery dense smoke And now you’re railing, railing against the inevitable The recognition that even if it’s not you who died Some part of you dies each time, every time. Pounding on the ground, pounding on the walls “Don’t take this away, too,” you say That place of peace and communion The one we all yearn for But somehow you keep on going Creating such illegal sacred spaces While we worry about the inevitable You build a better, wholer world While we worry about the future A future no one is guaranteed. Oh my family, my children by other mothers, my children You keep on going on, Creating, Communing, Living I cherish you. I love you. All of you with your smoke smudged faces. Please don’t leave me behind. Take me with you when you go. 69

T h is D a y

Cinco de Mayo. You eat Mexican food and drink too much You think this is about Mexican Independence. It’s not. I think of the mother-in-law I love, who never hurt me who is lying in a bed right now, comatose, brain damaged, not going to survive, dying every fucking moment. I think of the daughter bom this day, 45 years ago. A daughter unexpected but much loved, a great gift. So hard, like stones and rocks and boulders, like blood like hearts full to breaking and tears freely flowing. I think of a daughter-in-law whom I adore, a gift who came with a gift, sunshine in the morning, a smile. Her gift, a treasure without a price, no hesitation or regret. We share this Cinco de Mayo, this fifth of May, you and I full of love, full of dismay, full of heartache and joy. Cinco de Mayo, so many treasures, so many bitter tears. I will remember this day forever — with pleasure, with pain. R e n t W a r C e l e b r a t io n S o n g

There is no justice without us, each one and all of us, just as there is no town or city without its people. Each one and all of us fit together to make this particular puzzle. Without you this is no home, just a deadening box without a soul. In our wondrous and various strange incarnations we create this magic by bumping up and awkward all against each other fitting loose or tight and or barely to make a place, our place in this mix, this mess, this is what makes our community special, this is what makes our neighborhood a home. Without such a place and the people in it, we are merely organic machines, little folded bits of genetic material. We believe in a better future, a place where you and your lover, every mother, every father, every child can live a worthwhile life, can claim a space, create a place called home where we celebrate our differences and honor our similarities, where we struggle with our demons and dance with our better angels, every one of us deserves such sanctuary, has a right to a place called home. This is a human right. We will fight for this right. Organize for our whole human family. We will stand strong and united. We will not be divided. For each of us and all of us celebrates our commitment to justice. There is no justice for any of us if there is no place of justice for each and all of us in a place called home. C r y s t a l C o f f in s & K is s e s

Every woman is Snow White, frozen in a clear crystal casket, every damned second of her life just another woman on display, examined, inspected, calibrated and judged projected into the trap to which she’s sentenced for her gender for everyone to admire for us to compare ourselves against or to yearn for as if the right woman could change your miserable life.

“She” becomes our mechanism for imagining a different fairytale, call it real dolls, cut flowers or the birdsong of hummingbirds never mind the mites, ticks and parasites the real world offers. We have chosen to live in Walt’s world full of fake Disney colors, all primaries, no hues or shades. We find ourselves trapped in Perrault’s world where daughters are offered for sale guaranteed to please the highest bidder who flags her blood-stained sheets public display of some sort of virginity a “wedding night” massacre proof of his constructed virility or perhaps he sends her home again to her family in disgrace, to die at her father’s hand all prepayments fully refunded, not even a small discount for the one-night rental rate.

Meanwhile back in the folktales supposedly a prince was to come, not some ancient ruin with more money than grace A prince offering kind words and strange sensations. But that’s only in the storybooks. The real world has always been a much more wicked place. It’s a wonder there aren’t more witches. We’re going to need a lot more witches to break the darkest spells. 74

A W o l f in t h e H o o d some days I’m Little Red Riding Hood don’t get your panties in a bunch there are iterations of the tale, ancient venerable versions, where Little Red Riding Hood is a boy that puts the whole eating thing in a very different light maybe Red wanted to be eaten — women understand and besides gender is unstable it requires frequent threats of violence to maintain a fixed place in the continuum enter the wolf like gender, the truth is slippery there is no such thing as just one story you scare folks long enough with your tales they start to disbelieve you they wonder what it would be like to feel the w olfs sharp teeth on their neck his rough cruel tongue rasping their flesh maybe Red wasn’t walking to his grandmother’s house maybe Red was walking home from school because he lived with his grandmother so many children do these day with so many wolves running the show the thing is, one w olfs truth is another’s wolfs appetizer there were times when Lil’ Red wanted to become wolf food but on other days I’m the wolf yes, I’ve been the wolf it’s not like I wake up in the morning and say, who am I going to eat today? opportunities beckon someone is wandering, sauntering in the dark waiting for a wolf to gobble them up. I’m not judging, I just know not everyone wants the same thing every single day. M u h a m m a d in t h e g u t t e r

Muhammad in the gutter, lost beside the highway a name hand inked on a hard white plastic tag. Muhammad traced over “Mobil,” too, his employer everything underlined for the show-me nation. This is not home, a good thing, the reason he came, still it’s uncomfortable to be different. Some change their names to fit in, like my grandfather, an Alsacean Leon Jean-Baptist Hohmann became Lee K. When asked what K. stood for he couldn’t say eventually offered up Kirby. We snickered behind his back. It was as easy for us to mock him and his foreignness as it was to yearn for the elegance of foreign names when we conjured up such names for our children whose American heritage would never be questioned. Meanwhile Muhammad lay in the gutter, cars passing over him, getting gassed up to drive on. Indeed, how did our oil get underneath his sand? How was it our bombs devastated his home land? I bend over and pull Muhammad out of the gutter, this nametag a metonymic stand-in for the man and chuckle, this I’ll keep, for engraved underneath Muhammad’s handwritten name was Pierre, the name tag’s previous and original owner. Maybe he was from Alsace, maybe Algiers. T h e M o m e n t

Everything began before then Long ago, in the past, in the fog, in the mystery So simple and obvious we could not have noticed. What so precisely just began then? When? A war or a great love affair? Perhaps a simple misunderstanding An insignificant question an answer unsuitable, Astonishingly inappropriate Plainly wrong but you smiled or cried or bit your tongue And thus it began, this great love of our lives The casualties mounted The misunderstandings grew What we failed to see filled our dreams, fed our hopes. There was a possibility for happiness. What did we know? One chance encounter led to a lifetime, A not so simple miscommunication Led to everything ... jumbled up ... piled together Thank you for misunderstanding, For this long and lovely, often lonely dance, This life-long war of well-matched spirits, For loving me. For letting me love you back. No Safe Spaces

Standing midst the flames like wolves’ tongues surrounded by shattered lives, the sun sets in the East this time, a dark orange pallor casting its sickly shadow over dreams once offered. “It’s a republic if you can keep it,” said an old white dead guy while a child, incandescent like the stars, bums through the night her eyes the color of embers.

An abyss beckons to a future too like the past, another season turn, turn, turning, Guernica, guerre, resistance ...... is inevitable Art, an act of war. “You Must Apologize! Apologize!” .. .for the art you never birthed for the smiles you made instead.

There are no safe spaces when the playwright writes “whenever I hear the word culture, I release the safety...” It matters not which safety, there is no safety in such a storm. The sibilant hissing sounds Harms’ wrote are as silent or loud as the starbursts of guns, the blossom of bombs. The bird, victim to its falconer blinded, its talons tom out, its powerful beak broken. This beast knows no center, only a night of broken glass beckons such things as happen in the darkness Still the child stands in the flames, her burning eyes on you, on what you knew, what you know, what you failed to do

In times like these the whole world must be rude, even to the best of men Artists, poets, musicians, such soldiers in such a war, Seize up your arms make no safe spaces for those who would enchant or enchain us stand with that child incandescent like the stars Make your art hard.