8/30/2008

Beginnings


Beginnings

I.
The steam, low and palpable,
and filled with the bitter stench
of soy, hides the figure of my mother,
the taste of milk.

II.
At night, the wind carries
poetry of insects. Lilies answer
with white anther.

III.
In my wallet the young girl's
face curles in the damp
light of age.

IV.
I put my hands inside
my pockets, but I can't stop
touching my face.

V.
The way body language betrays
a person's words, I fill these blank pages
with water--

Interpretation


Interpretation

Off-road, amidst yellowing leaves and crudely
painted in white, a sign: "Fresh Oranges Daily,"
and an abandoned wooden fruit stand.
I plan the drive around this ritual, arriving
in time to catch the sun bowing in the branches
of those cedars, basking on the opposite bank.
For now the lake ripples along in slow torpor
with the crisp air, made dusty by drought.
At sunset it is different. For the first time
in my life, all I can think of are oranges.
The way one slice so effortlessly peels away
from another, perfectly suited for the mouth.
I drift into this slow perfection, where the sky breaks
into dusk, thin slices of orange cut through the clouds,
and I catch myself thinking of the spirituality of machinery.
I imagine this erosion as some signature of our failures.
Any sort of metaphor fails here, I know; the sunset
is already gone, like the sound of a passing train.
All that's left is an interpretation.
Again, this sunset is different. To sleep
in its sight is to curl into the arms of a lover.
I breathe the air of the light, become its latticework.
I glide over the black trails of crows, into shade.
I plunge my hands into a mound of wet leaves,
the only damp part of this country.
It feels like breath and flight and escape.

Mishima Today or Mishima's Guide to Productive Tennis


Mishima Today or Mishima's Guide to Productive Tennis

If you were here now, I would tell you the way I love you.
It is the same way a whale catches the red of the northern lights
in the gleam of a harpoon, clutched by a Japanese whaler, poised
to let it fly.
Which is to say it is difficult. I heard somewhere that
Harry S. Truman, right before he died, was asked if he had
any regrets, and he responded,"I'm dying. I regret that
I'm dying. And love. I wish I had loved as often
as I died".
I think that was Truman, I'm not sure. Love is hard,
stubborn, and rigid as a bad serve. I've been practicing.
If you were here now, we could play,
and I wouldn't have to waste time hitting against a brick wall.
Serve and return. You should have been named
after Konohana-Sakuya, translated, "Symbol of Flowers".
If you were here now, I would tell you how
in Japanese mythology, the marriage of Konohana-Sakuya
and Ninigi, the grandson of the sun goddess, led to the gods
being stripped of their immortality.
(She also set fire to her bedroom during childbirth).
Serve and return. I grip the racket tightly, and remember
how you would grab my arm, correct my form, guide my swing
like a sword.
The court is lit by one lone floodlight, and behind it, the stars
wane like fireflies. You and I are always fighting for something
and we're always failing. If you were a war, like the oh so futile
Keian Uprising of 1651, I would be that revolutionary writer
who thinks of you a century later as he barricades himself inside
the headquarters of the Japanese Self-Defense Force before committing seppuku
in shame.
Serve and return. I think you're turning Japanese. Me too. I think
that if we were to stop fighting, lay down our swords, and just fall
into a long sleep, we might disappear, the way the color spreads out
from a rising sun. We could fall asleep and never wake up again.
If you were here now, I'd tell you not to worry, that I'm not afraid
of dying or fighting or dreaming or dissolving into the sky overnight,
or however long it takes.

Everything and Nothing


Everything and Nothing

In his youth, the boy had been a worshiper of rocks. His father had given him his collection, something like a cigar box the boy thought was a chessboard. The father told his son he'd had it for over 40 years, and every time he looked at it he remembered his youth, when he found fool's gold by the creek. He had wrapped it up in a rag and given it to his mother, as a gift. But those were just memories, and he had no use for memories anymore, and so the collection was given to his son, the boy. The boy learned how to know a rock by color and weight; to identify lime and sandstone; to wash and dust and care for rocks like treasure.
Everyday the boy dug into the soft dirt around his school, hoping for an emerald, a ruby, quartz, diamonds. By springtime, he had mined the length of the baseball field, caked dirt permanently under his fingers, which had swollen to the size of boys' hands three times his age, and found nothing. But he continued. One day, the boy was resting under a bush of honeysuckle, which grew around a chain link fence. Through the fence and leaves the boy could see the other children playing softball, hear the dull tunk of metal against leather, the softball slowly plummeting like a fat bird. Gretchen was there, with the red pig-tails and brown overalls, a German girl resented and feared for what passed as exoticism in elementary school. At this time, she walked over and sat with the boy.
To him, she wore a crown of light when she stood in the sun, and for her, this daily excavation was the scant human interaction for which she starved. They never talked; Gretchen would hold up a rock and the boy would squint at it for a few minutes. Inevitably, he would shake his head and the rock would be discarded, being not a gem, not a ruby, not a treasure of any sort. The boy and Gretchen eventually moved past the ball field, across the ditch, past the grass so short it never grew back, past the dead blackberry bush, and all the way to the street paved with cars, and back again. This entire endeavor lasted all summer, and was rooted in silence the entire time.
It was an autumn evening when they at last returned to the honeysuckle bush and the chain-link fence. The bush was alight with an orange glow. Gretchen ran ahead of the boy towards the bush, and she disappeared for a moment. The boy looked around the field, at the other children, and they all looked back. Gretchen returned with a firefly in her hands, held together as if in prayer. As she held her hands up to show the boy she felt the firefly in her hands getting larger, heavier. All around them, the light blushed from an orange glow to green. The boy felt as if he were sliding, as if he were stretching out, like ice. The children were there on the field, and Gretchen's foster parents were there, waiting in their car, and Gretchen's real parents were there, spying from the shadows of the dead blackberry bush, and the boy's father was there, asleep in the ditch, and I was there too. I was there watching, with everyone. We were becoming part of their imagination.

Neighbors


Neighbors

On the floor above, a man drops something heavy,
or a gun fires, and you can barely hear it except
for the muted bark, the slight tremble of the wall
you feel inside your fingertips, the hardness
hiding amidst softness, the ripple in your coffee.

The girl sitting next to you looks up,
and you are amazed, because you are also looking up,
and what you both feel is the same concealed mixture
of wonder and fear that disappears
a second later like a lost memory.

Upstairs, something is said about the moon,
about its blackness, how it stares like a stranger
lit by the starlight, but what was said is drowned
out by the sound of a man's heel, bearing down
on the spot where someone else once stood,

and who now calls out to him, from very far away.

8/26/2008

Cutting the Ribbon

The blog takes its name from the poem that follows, by Mark Strand, from his collection Blizzard of One.

The Delirium Waltz

I cannot remember when it began. The lights were low. We were walking across the floor, over the polished wood, the inlaid marble, through shallow water, through a dusting of snow, over the shapeless figures of fallen light. I cannot remember, but I think you were there — whoever you were — sometimes with me, sometimes watching. Shapes assembled themselves and dissolved. The hall to the ballroom seemed endless, and a voice, perhaps it was yours, was saying we'd never arrive. Now we were gliding over the floor, our clothes were heavy, and the music was slow. I thought we might die all over again. And I think we were happy. Large constellations of sound were leading us on. We moved in the drift of innumerable notes, abstractions and histories and as we passed over the ground it formed for us the shape of the earth. We moved toward the future, or was it the past? Anxiety has its inflections — wasteful, sad, and sometimes tragic — but here it had none; in its harmless, cloudlike hovering it was merely fantastic, the sweet result of a musical will. We kept on dancing. And I was with you. Why else would I practice those near calamitous dips? I think it was clear that we'd always been dancing, always been eager to enter the rhythms and transports of light. The attractions of motion were forever asserting themselves — from the beguiling fluff of clouds to the wink of an eye. Rooms became larger and finally dimensionless, and we kept turning, arriving and turning.

      And then came Bob and Sonia
      And the dance was slow
      And joining them now were Chip and Molly
      And Joseph dear Joseph was dancing and smoking

      And the dance was slow
      And into the hall years later came Tom and Em
      And Joseph dear Joseph was dancing and smoking
      And off to the side were Mark and Jean leaning together

      And into the hall years later came Tom and Em
      Holding each other and turning and turning
      And off to the side were Mark and Jean leaning together
      And Bill and Sandy and Jorie and Jim

      Holding each other and turning and turning
      Then came Jules tall and thin
      And Bill and Sandy and Jorie and Jim
      Everyone moving everyone dancing

      Then came Jules tall and thin
      Across the wide floor
      Everyone moving everyone dancing
      Harry was there and so was Kathleen

      Across the wide floor
      Looking better than ever came Jessie and Steve
      Harry was there and so was Kathleen
      And Peter and Barbara had just gotten back

      Looking better than ever came Jessie and Steve
      Leon and Judith Muffie and Jim
      And Peter and Barbara had just gotten back
      And others were there

      Leon and Judith Muffie and Jim
      And Charlie and Helen were eating and dancing
      And others were there
      Wearing their best

      And Charlie and Helen were eating and dancing
      And Glenn and Angela Wally and Deb
      Wearing their best
      Around and around dancing and dancing

And our shadows floated away beneath us towards sunset and darkened the backs of birds, and blackened the sea whose breath smelled slightly of fish, of almonds, and of rotting fruit. A blizzard of coastal aromas had come to collect our attention, and we drifted through all it tried to impart, not knowing where we were going. And soon the air was soiled with dust and iris-colored clouds. We were standing, watching everyone else afloat on the floor, on the sea of the floor, like a raft of voices. "Hi there," they said, as they sailed by, "may we have this dance?" And off they vanished into another room with pale blue walls and birds.

      And one room led to another
      And birds flew back and forth
      People roamed the veranda
      Under the limbs of trees

      And birds flew back and forth
      A golden haze was everywhere
      Under the limbs of trees
      And Howie was there with Francine

      A golden haze was everywhere
      And Jeannette and Buddy were dancing
      And Howie was there with Francine
      Angels must always be pale they said

      And Jeannette and Buddy were dancing
      And Roz and Denis were talking
      Angels must always be pale they said
      But pale turns round to white

      And Roz and Denis were talking
      Saying that blue slides into black
      But pale turns round to white
      And Jules was there in heels

      Saying that blue slides into black
      Rosanna was there and Maria
      And Jules was there in heels
      And day and night were one

      Rosanna was there and Maria
      And Rusty and Carol were there
      And the day and the night were one
      And the sea's green body was near

      And Rusty and Carol were there
      And Charles and Holly were dancing
      And the sea's green body was near
      Hello out there hello

      And Charles and Holly were dancing
      So thin they were and light
      Hello out there hello
      Can anyone hear out there

And the rush of water was suddenly loud as if a flood were loosed upon the ballroom floor. I seemed to be dancing alone into the absence of all that I knew and was bound by, the sight of the sea coming close, the spread of solvency, the smear, the blurred erasure of differences, the end of self, the end of whatever surrounds the self. All that I saw was a vast celebration of transparence, a clear dream of nothing. And I kept on going. The breakers flashed and fell under the moon's vacant gaze; scattered petals of foam shone briefly, then sank in the sand. It was cold, and I found myself suddenly back with the others. The sea, that vast ungraspable body, that huge and meaningless empire of water, was left on its own.

      They drifted over the floor
      And the silver sparkled a little
      Oh how they moved together
      The crystals shook in the draft

      And the silver sparkled a little
      So many doors were open
      The crystals shook in the draft
      Nobody knew what would happen

      So many doors were open
      And there was Eleanor dancing
      Nobody knew what would happen
      Now Red waltzed into the room

      And there was Eleanor dancing
      And Don and Jean were waiting
      And Red waltzed into the room
      The years would come and go

      And Don and Jean were waiting
      Hours and hours would pass
      The years would come and go
      The palms in the hallway rustled

      Hours and hours would pass
      Now enter the children of Em
      The palms in the hallway rustled
      And here were the children of Tom

      Now enter the children of Em
      There was nothing to do but dance
      And here were the children of Tom
      And Nolan was telling them something

      There was nothing to do but dance
      They would never sit down together
      And Nolan was telling them something
      And many who wished they could

      Would never sit down together
      The season of dancing was endless
      And many who wished they could
      Would never be able to stop

I cannot remember when it began. The lights were low. We were walking across the floor, over the polished wood, the inlaid marble, through shallow water, through a dusting of snow, over the shapeless figures of fallen light. I cannot remember, but I think you were there, whoever you were.