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and here are a few poems for a workshop that Mel & I are taking:
//--
she plays piano like a boy,
slamming different sounding doors
to build the empty house.
she can turn things satisfyingly off
with her foot, like a spider --
Off, or a cockroach Off Off Off.
the computer is too important to turn off.
a nauseous quivering lifts
from her captain sized father.
he is sitting there
when he jogs down the beach
and pretends to skip rocks
by throwing a rock so it skips.
even the angels who would help her
appear distracted by something electronic.
they flap like paper bags from phone lines,
and hum at tires on the busy road.
//--
yes, there's dark matter here on earth
we fill our tires with it.
there's a little in number 2 pencils,
in telephone wires,
and under the doormat (that's why
I can't hear you from the garden).
the librarian is mostly dark matter --
she tends a large patch of it
over the fire station
(sometimes birds fly into it).
there's dark matter in the pills
certain cardiologists prescribe,
my cousin's yellow lunchbox,
the sink in the girls bathroom,
and our dusty math books --
Simon stamps it off his boots.
there's dark matter in the reflection
of my co-worker's wedding ring,
which has us both taking careful steps back.
//--
poem gun:
I
at the party, a bullet will ease toward you
like a stranger's finger
and touch the sweat behind your ear.
it will press aside the atoms in your skull
to make way for its atoms
and will nest as a silver song in your head.
the world will begin to change, for you.
II
it's one way to lose. love, I have no love
left -- for poems. the backyard is full of them,
hit by cars
and the garage is full of dented cars.
hateful -- they were never alive,
pawing at windows with their cold paws:
coincidences of movement, tricks.
III
I had my wits about me when I lost.
there were many spinning parts --
we struck a tuning fork against the bullet
as it passed, lifted our wine
and drank from the shattering glass
while the tablecloth stained.
eventually, it finally died, and we left.
//--
The three beds we build for God
I
The black bed, with filligree on the lid.
The bed with glass walls (he swims its boundries).
The bed we lower him into.
God is about the size of a cow;
Most people arrange to meet him in their garage.
He doesn't seem to mind us, and takes his time
wandering back and forth across the highway;
We drive around him at rush hour.
He attends from the pew in back,
flipping through clothing catalogs
and unwraping different colored candies
with his stone fingers.
II
We found him on a freight train
headed for Santa Monica in a hailstorm.
There were no signs he was coming.
We dragged him in a large net to a field
where he shook himself free. when the weather improved
we peeled open his wings to dry in the sun
and helped him to handfulls of dirt.
danelions began to grow from the cracks
on his shoulders, and in his nose.
III
The devil fell through the clouds
and landed on the gas station.
I got there late, to help Brian
sweep up the broken glass
and hose puddles of gasoline into the gutter.
We joined a group of people
who had gathered to watch from the cemetary gate.
The devil was galloping in circles,
clapping his hands to raise quantities of dust.
God stood on his hind legs, like a man,
and let out a shrill whistle.
around suppertime they calmed down, sat down
and stared at each other through the high grass, like cats.
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