David Sten Herrstrom P.O.Box 219, Roosevelt, NJ 08555 ROOMS We enter rooms at our own risk. Empty rooms are abandoned pueblos Where the brother who died Before it was time Still greets us on the street. Every day is a new day in light-filled rooms. And every night is new in attic rooms Where darkness scrunches in wedges above the eaves. When she enters the room Smoke alarms go off. When he enters, a single hibiscus bloom Floating on its green sea Follows him like a little sister. Entering, I see a black asterisk At the top corner of the window frame But ignore its signifying. Big as a squid’s eye, the spider Notes my every twitch. One room invites me To take my clothes off. Another demands That I take up stilts to match the light. The last, with its shades drawn, says, “This is your last.” Crouched like a Mayan glyph, I search the baseboard for the reference— A name, one note of explanation. David Sten Herrstrom P.O.Box 219, Roosevelt, NJ 08555 IN CONSTANT WEATHER BY RELIABLE LIGHT No lake surface full of clouds in the office, But light at play in pixilated fields. In the morning how quiet the desks, expectant. Unconcerned with our dreams, they respect ideas. In the evening they let go, await our return. Inviting as a tennis court Each supports the tedious Production of shots for a wondrous Combination—work done In constant weather by reliable light. I’ve seen a city of luminous figures Rise from the depths of a desk. I’ve heard Arguments recurse and tumble, finally Obvious as polished stones. Levitating above the desks, work Artificial and beautiful as an airfoil Or the cat-track backhoe’s immense, tender Gesture unfurling a steely thought Through crafty space, and I accept my fate— Love-slave of the human-made. David Sten Herrstrom P.O.Box 219, Roosevelt, NJ 08555 STOMP FOR A BLUESMAN #1 This kid skinny. He be upright. This boy blowin’ the blues harp like a bar fight. This boy wire. This boy tight. This boy smackin’ the mouth organ till it bite. Go down bass get up bright. This boy workin’ the coal face by match light. He dig mine. This boy findin’ the red fist in my chest pit. This boy fine. David Sten Herrstrom P.O.Box 219, Roosevelt, NJ 08555 HOW A POEM IN LOVE JUST FALLS APART I want to give you this very poem very woven very built. I made it out of words and from the light at the crease of your cheek. Let it be your favorite scarf be dark sweet chocolate. It’s fat-free. It’s got your arm hinged with my head in it when we lie spent, hand at my earlobe, turning your fingers out to graze. Did I mention you are my dictionary, my order my serendipity? Meaning is that crescent of hair listening, right now, at your ear. It is the curves & corners of your voice. Come, sashay into this poem. Pick your way through the crowd of words. They’ve had a bit too much, I admit, rubbing and coupling everywhere. Look around, shake things up the way you do, tossing out some tucking one here and there into your bra. Go on, re-make my poem the way you do my vast audience of one. You give me a better view of the light wearing nothing but … OK OK. I hear you. Screw this poem. Let’s go tongue some vowels. Come, give me your labials. We’ll go share liquids and bump a hard consonant. David Sten Herrstrom P.O.Box 219, Roosevelt, NJ 08555 PERSON UNDER CONTROL (PUC) Moaning. Turned his head from left to right. War surrounds as if my fur on fire Lucky I am to live a dog’s life. Unmuzzled, I lunged at his face as if I’d bite. His shit stank fear. They screamed it smelled of liar. Moaning. Turned his head from left to right Blindfolded for a month, day and night Hands bound behind his back with wire. Lucky I am to live a dog’s life. Panties pulled over his head white As his face yanked from the “water cure.” Moaning. Turned his head from left to right And bit his IV tube in two from fright. Crying, his body twisted like a briar. Lucky I am to live a dog’s life. Arms trussed behind his body, hung from a height, Kicked, kneed, punched. They never tire. Moaning. Turned his head from left to right. Lucky I am to live a dog’s life. David Sten Herrstrom P.O.Box 219, Roosevelt, NJ 08555 LONE AND LEVEL … eye drawn farther by farther into seeing without filling this dry sweet sea la pampa distance like thought’s thought tugs the narrow compass look out far pupil of the plain where real unreels continuing its infinite polishing of the shine while sky looks on helplessly the fragrance of eucalyptus pretends to be California the furnace wind blowing for 1000 miles across indifferent land takes available air hostage the hammer sun keeps on banging this anvil plain “abstraction approaching form and suddenly denying” evidence la pampa proof of flat earth and astral plane threatened when a tree arrives which could be a school girl or boy on the horizon near disappearing as if it were the point a tree anchoring the plain so clouds can’t carry it off or file of trees ripping a seam between the sky and the plain but here everywhere is everywhere here the plain point among empty points that the vanishing point vanishes like an absent guide here where exile is impossible glare taking the pupil away in the way of reflection the sun sucks up land tense from pulling the horizon wire taut eon on eon so the violent sun can step like an artist across the deepest surface of the world swallowing itself like the word nada empty plain brims with meaning here where the eye learns there’s no work to do imagine distance from distance the world farther out while eyes sink in deep and flies come from a 1000 miles carrying one small purpose on their extra legs buzzing about their job of work and allies the birds in flight across this “infinite yawn” who suddenly self-conscious land and walk on a surface that commands all where to stand how to move over traceless level trees marched off the edge of the earth and the athlete sun swaying across from another country through vision to a murmuring always mourning behind the silence of never diminishing distance from distance where human talk wanders mocked by the birds strutting the Great Level proven best for digesting David Sten Herrstrom P.O.Box 219, Roosevelt, NJ 08555 space where absence finds itself face to face with absence one cannot think a lonelier thing cannot convince oneself of thought how to say with the bubble-eye of a spirit level “I am” the “I” dissolving into the ranging unreal plane without desire bird curses like saws ripping into sheet metal binding tearing binding tearing until they level the imagination peoples who from 1000 miles bedded on ancient plain settling and who came after could see clearly to kill settle then in the distance next who killed settling killing settling the Great Level under sun performance one sees the approached and the approaching universe happen to us intersecting this plane where I am not here in the here of it the where of it denying itself away perspective rays lancing by me as I back away step by step back away from that imposter dot on the horizon out this gape mouth of space its lone incline to known estancia I’m not alone while games continue polo ponies setting up a shot on the level annoyed their riders ignore it croquet players on arrogant lawn which saddles the pampas laughing embracing unaware of dogs flushing a hare and giving chase their legs out far lunging like rapiers through expanse with every space slice nearing their quarry who accelerates at will knowing he can outrun death but still it’s difficult to keep the spirit level for no one has seen the boy as if he walked out on the plain and walked and walked and I am not here denying what play keeps at bay at the near school the ex-rugby player teaching Shakespeare saying as bird curses tilt “you cannot imagine how hard it was when they came to my class and flashed a badge and took the boy out and no one has seen him no one since” the pampas polishing distance a pulse of ponies in the open field flinging themselves like a girl tossing her chestnut hair delighting in their bodies taking my body in their eye as they whip out far and race in deep and the horizon goes slack and the sun tumbles on us and then we settle … David Sten Herrstrom P.O.Box 219, Roosevelt, NJ 08555 FAMILIAR, A RIDDLE How I’ve envied you giving yourself into the hands of trees bending the bough as tenderly as a girl from her bath leaping the void to a place proffered to you alone. Ground bound I long to flit above the duff of dead through leaf whisper never touching earth, dance branch to branch and flicker my fur pennant like a flame on the limb lanes giving me to twig tips that dip like witching lift me out of shadow.