TRILLIUM

I would not want to live
inside anyone else’s clarity;
we always come to be confused.
“Who am I,” she asks, panicked,

when logic fails to put a face on sense.
Trillium, I think, shocked
by the purple of the sockets
her eyes haunt.

Chaired alongside me, Mother fidgets.
Her father, dead now forty years,
and her brothers, out of touch,
are the men she talks to,

those present more oppressive
than the passed.
“I don’t exist,” she says,
turning from my silence;

who, then, is this other
that gains robustness
the farther back-lit
memory goes to work?

Presently, she laughs, recalls
her childhood neighbor
bowing, reins in hands, astride his horse
in a yard only she has seen.

Now she can reach to pat my leg,
for I’m here still, where dusk
puts a patina of fine light
on clouds I cannot ease.

ORTHOPEDICS

The leg is not what you thought it was.

No longer are you walking

to and fro the reconstructed

memories your mind wanders.

Well-lit corridors are a way

outside time, and their stations

hum with voices from around the world.

On your back, unmoving, day after day,

you begin to take apart

what remains of your person.

Someone else can have the sunglasses

and the wallet.  The watch

needs a timer and a reset key.

On one side of the leg, doctors have pulled

skin together with stitches;

the other side’s fish-like design

is a graft taking hold.

An external fixator extends

from foot to hip and keeps in place

countless fractures.

The tree is a painful fact.

The body has been broken

by its puzzle: pieces of bone

that float in the sky.

You recall the brilliance of this sky

and that it did not let you fall asleep.

NOT ONE THING

The heart, first to depart,

is soon followed

by the other parts,

falling, as will being,

through the many

fractured distractions.

The stone mouth idles.

The pining lover,

whose longing was misplaced,

was angry

even as a child.

Of what could he repent?

The different days are all

a trial of moods.

Embers will be sifted

behind the eyes,

winds kindled in the ribs.

Please, may this be so.

May we not break

at the sharp point

or impede

the wheeled vehicle

our sleep has balanced.

Through inevitable

refinement of love,

may we frame fragments

in the generous

number of the house.

DARKNESS HARBORED A FUGITIVE VOICE

Every event has a cause

but the sequence of events is random

and nothing happens for a reason

or by necessity

You might have argued differently

had you trusted logic

for the absence of character

that belied your achievements

Company had eased delirium

Unfamiliar caregivers brought blankets

and pieces of meat to the vigil

they sat as you strengthened

You belonged, after all, elsewhere

It was time to leave your personal space

where the hoot owl called 

as sadness tumbled the river within

The shit you had smeared across your face

could have been streaks of painted color

and you wanted to prove fearless

even with your fallen understanding

DEATH IS AN ANIMAL

There is a word

spoken with authority

and a person

who lost his sense
hearing the word

You have seen yourself act

    like an animal

and would again, if you could,

    with human footing

You are apart from nothing

The parts make sounds

holding their unity

at a distance

GROTTO OF THE GNOSTIC ANGEL

The past comes to an end

reversing itself,

as we restore the future,

contriving to salvage

its garden

of ornate resemblance

We had pushed our memories

through cities,

trusting to find a sky

that flattened land for grasses

the unadorned could plow.

The heat was heavy with water

and the stones nudged into place glistened

alongside bits of chinaware and colored glass

travelled to set up house

(and house again)

wherein we recognized

our persons re-assembled

The two who conspired

to hold each other off

yield as one, oafish,

unable to stand upright

without a hand to help

Wings, no less unlikely,

catch the eye, averted

from the guardian’s

remote and placid gaze

above the whirlwind

of parents

driving youth back

to the old country

grandparents remembered 

We go back with trowels 

and wheelbarrows

to revive the grotto

with forms of promise

fulfilled and then abandoned

and hues of restlessness

inimical to settlement

The angel stays implacable,

as if a figurehead at sea

TWO HEARTS

I brought two hearts to birds.

The first, a silver fledgling

in the landscape’s one tree

polished the sky

when it took wing,

and in its place,

a brilliant sun

declined to nest.

Years ran down feelings,

as if the brooding

had not hatched.

The light came on

one night in the kitchen’s dark

when I opened the refrigerator,

which was empty,

except for the frozen raven,

a past century's relic

on its Wedgwood platter.

As I reached

to pick it up,

the bird’s skin turned translucent

and I could see the heart

pumping inside its cavity.

My hands reached inside the bird 

past the liver and into the sac

where I cupped, good-sized,

and lifted - as if wholesome - 

freedom's intention.

I am holding the heart

in my hands

and it is spilling blood

onto the floor.

The tenderness I feel

mixes with yearning

for the redness flatters

its aeration.

I don’t want to explain

myself into trouble,

taking back 

what had belonged to me. 

LOCK-DOWN

  “Escape did not promise anything worthwhile.”

                                                    - Chekhov

The rickety door opens out

from a dark room

onto a screened porch,

as far as one can go

(without violence)

in the faltering make-up 

of sense. 

Pine boughs sweep

a view of the uncut 

meadow birds prepare

in faded light

for lock-down.

The bent figure 

of an aged woman

he had once seen buried

continues its ceaseless rooting.

FROM HERE TO THERE

Go through the wall
when you get back

a dust pours
over your hands 

your soul was once substantial
oscillating in the mud face

you wear dry
through fanned air.

Between dignity and intimacy
you can now inhabit

the long countryside
under construction, 

ribbed passage 

through bulwarks,

and the clanging bell
of darkened light.

THE COMPLETE PRESENCE

The complete presence

of almost nothing

- the person vanished -

stirs a memory, embodies

name, voice, and gesture,

forgets the face.

Unawares, others trust -

only I am

watching this familiar

relatedness turn duplicitous,

the man seeming

equal to no

more of distance

than umbilical measure,

is, will be, has been

uncoupled - finessing

recall from indistinct

imaginings. His silence

breaks the trance

of speech, will

cracks, forcing acts

to hope for

incoherence or movement

toward vital, joyous

enterprise. The car

pulls out, heads

for the horizon's

linear necessity,

scraping past perspective's

diminishment. Clouds flatten 

feeling, the storm

moves in, and an entrance-

way door closes

prematurely.  Skittish

with indifference?  Bowed

beyond boomerangs,

the here comes back, 

returns to life 

from what he had thought

to put

behind.  Others.  

Estrangement.

for THE HUDDLED

This never happened,

that things are as they are

because we changed

out of jumpsuits.

 

Dancers, staged to question, 

improvised.

What more instrumental

than the body?

 

One person's expressions

become an ensemble’s

disclosure through abandon

meant of form.

 

We dreamt of scattered presence

re-assembled 

and offered to the self 

(of the audience)

 

Original emotion, 

shaped by attention

and instantly focused  

here, where we are, as we are seen

 

      *

Bowls sang

for the huddled 

flawed 

on the floor, 

uncoiling heat's 

prodding impetus

 

Sky, as always cold

Each silver breath

a struggle

for memories

etched, then 

let go,

 

separating

into limbs

and airy 

trunks of bodies

widening

proportion,

 

a wanton 

flurry of leaps

no taking eyes 

off movement, 

lifts by

grace of 

simple lines 

their crescendo 

of voices

thrown into a skin

across the mirrored 

sphere aflame

 

      *

 

You touch your feet

with your breath,

ranging with intent

in prophetic space

knowing the cue 

to put up a hand.

 

There are no lights,

but lit by wristbands

and polished nails 

upturned faces beam

 

in moon masks

until the shoulders droop

the back relaxes

and the arms flare

 

elbowing as wings

bank a spiral rise

and fall while hips pivot 

into twice-born throes

 

    *

  

Love lengthened

For sweetness

A season’s snow

Pouring into the river

Fields, roads,

Again flooding.

A twig of brain glows,

fizzles, into honeycomb.

Spinning at far remove

we each take our part

feeding from the palm

of death’s many hands.

 

        

                                - for Michael Chorney

FAMILY PORTRAIT

Pop songs, on a radio,

scratched at the darkness

Doors shut and opened

throughout the house

Your parents were snoring

but nothing was trustworthy

Chance had left you

to wall and ceiling angles

that converged, like feelings,

foreshortening corners.

In a dream you ventured out

to the unfamiliar woods,

prowled trees

adorned with scalps,

and withered as the dead 

snapped back,

stinging across the face.

Scurry, dampness,

and torch light

halted the warrior's yell.

No telling how

frightened or captive

the family would look

in the kitchen, in the morning

THE MIRACLE

We came upon
and entered
chance w/creation,

participating
in an unfolding
of events

that went on

earlier

without us.

Fire was the event 

that turned my desire.

*

Either and Or

set up the choice.

To take a breath
before I needed one

or flash out
of my appearance.

The sun always got dizzy
from its fear of heights.

HEALING DAY

A white owl with red eyes

lands the sky

We twist around, go for

the open garden’s edge

drawn to the sounding river

because the back

is a flowing river

rising to silt

the danger darkness

has dropped over us

     *

The lover, the friend,

and the stranger

each will betray you

the lover for passion,

which is beyond reproach,

the friend for gain,

which will not last,

the stranger for evil,

which has no recompense

With each you must go

willingly, permit all wounds

to bear touch, lose

the directions, and scar

threading sinuous

complexities

     *

The brightening light

we wade in

obliterates distress

powerful

as a mountain,

dispersing agile winds

moving the owl onto

the last landing branch

as its wing tears 

the feathers now stitched

to the taxidermist's

skeleton

WHEN THE POEM MOVES ON

The starting point is at the bottom

you reach using words, their tilted

sounds and false count, for support.

Surefooted, laconic, and culpable,

your work moves past embellishment

girding image with mendicant emotion.

Constructing loss by left to right ascent

fixes a watch for wear

inverting the sky, feeding its empty bowl.

Something was happening off the ground.

This is the poetic leap,

finished with meaning, and there is nothing

     

about it to point at.  The poet goes back

to the articulated house.  Its brick

chimney draws smoke above a gable roof.

HERONS

Spaced along the shore 

like chess pieces in an end game,

stalking, patient, still

feelings sorted, thoughts 

not meant to arise 

and feed off memories.

An egret moves suddenly,

stabs at a fish in the water,

swallows it whole.

Then what you desire

(and you are always in pursuit)

folds into difference

needs recalled as pleasure. 

You brought rod and reel.

Always, the scout of wind,

water’s white caps. 

Past lives float upside down

in the lake swells,

and just beneath the surface,

anger glinting like a silver lure. 

The sky fathers traffic,

twigs carried in beaks,

a landing dance 

of plumes and clapper. 

The knowing self points out

a female heron, lining 

the woven nest 

awaiting ritual, high 

in a tall tree's chill

and the rookery's noise.

The place will be defended.

You go away. 

.

SHAPE-SHIFTER

                       who changes ways

                                     n

                                     o

                                     s

                                     t

                                     i

                        p h y s i c a

                                       

                                                            by melancholy  healed

                                                                         

                                                 in the half life of a star,

           

                        must hold desire fast                        well past

                                                            amorous tradesmen

                                                           pocketing  diagnosis

           

         *

           much/might

           make/mulch

clumsily pronounced                        peeves

                                                                        are no end

                                    against is with

         *

            the breath of an animal

                                                imagination    a long winter 

opening for light

          *

to recognize as mine                                    ideas so foreign

                        as to seem some other’s

                                    and what assent I gave

            I now retract

SCAFFOLDING

The top of a building climbs 

to the bottom of the sky,

lifting its dream bones off the city pavement.

Clouds patrol coffins closed 

to the failing afternoon sun 

and the cotton candy vendors wail

across the traffic and pushcarts.  

Workmen are taking down scaffolding

and untying the blue tarp enclosure

that billows, like a sail before a wind dies out.

Onlookers point to the building,

its reflective glass, which alters perception, 

entrapping shards of straightforward light

bundled for flight.

STRAGGLERS

The roughened barrier of skin stops the cold

and the blood continues to drip

through scant sums of flesh, numb thought

the frozen earth begrudges air.

Use has exhausted the abandoned plains.

We trudge across their pillowed sheen

like the remnant of a scattered army

struggling with diminished strength

The embrace of ice forestalls us.  

The sky runs its factory of heat

at such great remove only a trickle escapes

to warm the garnets set in our chests.

These are the tiny transmitters of feeling

our bodies herded to recover.

The breath you can see is a thin blanket

for the seed-bearing sleep of form.

CACTUS

The desert has kept its promise of peace

to the son who accepts the havoc

his presence brings to hostile ground:  

wind-scattered rubbish, metal scrap,

rusted and twisted beguiling shapes,

and the off road vehicle trails

across heat-cracked gullies of creosote

and boulders spewed by infrequent storm.

The place he comes to isn’t named

for divine encounters, and he wrestles

not with angels but with less remote

forefathers, who vie with him for the red

flower atop the cactus barrel.

They claim resilient ornament

to justify the pain they bring to others.

The son hears his father pronounce him worthless

knowing that the grandfather listens

and confirms the judgment;

the evidence runs through him, failure

to go it on his own and make with little parts

a semblance of the greater whole

and he within its emptiness.  On the night 

his silenced mother tossed her mind in

with the screech and howl of dark distances,

she made her final argument

in his defense, entreating

an inscrutable issuance of old suitors

and fresh rivals that flapped for her.

On the clothesline stretched outside her home,

ghosts way back in her inoperable brain

threatened and cajoled, and like her husband, 

were most severe when feeling

came before them stammering, and the cold

chill of stars feathered fright, speaking strangely.