Poetry
& God sends a colt. The colt’s mane flows
like a river as it gallops wild through acres
of grassland. & then God commands: build
a saddle, toughen the leathers & smith the stirrups
The drive starts early,
before there’s time to cry
about the house we’re leaving
empty. Early, when the daylight
has the crystal clarity of dew.
i.
In ads for medical wigs the hair looks real,
the faces look like faces of mannequins.
In the palms of orange poppies
the fat bodies of bumblebees are in ecstasy.
Somewhere in the middle of the new novel,
Frankenstein the monster is reading a romance
entitled Frankenstein. To think
he came this far without it, it made his life
more romantic, more cloaked in fog, out
there, as childhood is before the child recalls.
As for others, maybe they, too, sense an
outline taking shape—to their days, to their
minds—something glimpsed while waiting
The first cop on scene says
what a strange song to play while driving.
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah…
Everywhere is the same is what I want to say when my friends
gush over the mountains in Boulder. It’s the same Oakley-wearing
A bolt of lightning moving down the sky
is enough. The plastic smell
of conditioned air
and the tick-tick of my dog
breathing beside me—
I was not always this___.
Even this fire, you say. Even your shoes
are falling apart. See the soles giving a bit
to the heat. Through smoke, your face seems
unlikely, your hair in impossible knots. Inside,
Party at the beach!
But J refuses to go
because he can’t swim.
They say she was doll glass, then ghost
glass, a rinsed object that bends
into its own deboning. Her mouth
stitched with rain, wrangling a wet
tone in a shipwrecked room. Her body
I said please get up, but my voice
was flattened by rubber meeting blacktop,
by metal pushing with haste
through air and the scent of blood.
Fragrant bee bodies
dance a map to fertile flowers.
Nectar traded for pollen,
returned to hive,
passed from mouth to mouth,
until it becomes honey.
A child cries out for oranges hungers only for oranges
eats careless of juice careless of body
I’m not sure what to do about the deer
who have suddenly emerged around us.
girls shift in circles on the grass
like stars of mountain laurel,
He falls loose, a leaf,
to bed. But not as light.
His arms keep coming
home, yes, but heavier
I don’t “know my own mind.”
Food has thought for me. Shoes
have thought for me
but more often
“the ideal life” has unrelentingly
screwed up its brain
on my behalf.
then the oral surgery: my four bad wisdom
teeth ripped from their beds, stitches and bloodgums,
ketamine and skin pocked from the needle’s poke.
Perched ornamental like an angel
at the apex of a Christmas tree, the bird’s neck is curved,
slender, the elegant sway of a tangent function.
and the fires are beyond us
the project’s conclusion
All night I groped
for what you whispered,
fingers edging
the pink shag fringe of a Saint
Vincent DePaul bathrobe.
News slaps on our borrowed stoop—
a second chance to know yesterday
1. I’m a poet who spends a lot of time in Hollywood. 2. I write screenplays for movies that will never get made.
Before we were grown, we called everything hunting:
when we trudged through pastures for the mares at night
Sometimes they cry, he says, staring
out the bay window. At first I think
he means my brother and me, that
he’s talking to our dead mother,
Once our mother pinned gold bumblebees
into the ruched hives of our bodices
and whispered to us: physics says the bumblebee
should not be able to fly, but it does,
I clench my fist to draw
a familiar country. The black sea
is guarded and vast, rolling quickly
to scatter its glare. Below,
the metro crosses into itself
like snakes, coiling
strained muscles away
from the center. In the center
is a dark mound I crane my neck
to shove fingers into.
Poetry
& God sends a colt. The colt’s mane flows
like a river as it gallops wild through acres
of grassland. & then God commands: build
a saddle, toughen the leathers & smith the stirrups
The drive starts early,
before there’s time to cry
about the house we’re leaving
empty. Early, when the daylight
has the crystal clarity of dew.
i.
In ads for medical wigs the hair looks real,
the faces look like faces of mannequins.
In the palms of orange poppies
the fat bodies of bumblebees are in ecstasy.
Somewhere in the middle of the new novel,
Frankenstein the monster is reading a romance
entitled Frankenstein. To think
he came this far without it, it made his life
more romantic, more cloaked in fog, out
there, as childhood is before the child recalls.
As for others, maybe they, too, sense an
outline taking shape—to their days, to their
minds—something glimpsed while waiting
The first cop on scene says
what a strange song to play while driving.
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah…
Everywhere is the same is what I want to say when my friends
gush over the mountains in Boulder. It’s the same Oakley-wearing
A bolt of lightning moving down the sky
is enough. The plastic smell
of conditioned air
and the tick-tick of my dog
breathing beside me—
I was not always this___.
Even this fire, you say. Even your shoes
are falling apart. See the soles giving a bit
to the heat. Through smoke, your face seems
unlikely, your hair in impossible knots. Inside,
Party at the beach!
But J refuses to go
because he can’t swim.
They say she was doll glass, then ghost
glass, a rinsed object that bends
into its own deboning. Her mouth
stitched with rain, wrangling a wet
tone in a shipwrecked room. Her body
I said please get up, but my voice
was flattened by rubber meeting blacktop,
by metal pushing with haste
through air and the scent of blood.
Fragrant bee bodies
dance a map to fertile flowers.
Nectar traded for pollen,
returned to hive,
passed from mouth to mouth,
until it becomes honey.
A child cries out for oranges hungers only for oranges
eats careless of juice careless of body
I’m not sure what to do about the deer
who have suddenly emerged around us.
girls shift in circles on the grass
like stars of mountain laurel,
He falls loose, a leaf,
to bed. But not as light.
His arms keep coming
home, yes, but heavier
I don’t “know my own mind.”
Food has thought for me. Shoes
have thought for me
but more often
“the ideal life” has unrelentingly
screwed up its brain
on my behalf.
then the oral surgery: my four bad wisdom
teeth ripped from their beds, stitches and bloodgums,
ketamine and skin pocked from the needle’s poke.
Perched ornamental like an angel
at the apex of a Christmas tree, the bird’s neck is curved,
slender, the elegant sway of a tangent function.
and the fires are beyond us
the project’s conclusion
All night I groped
for what you whispered,
fingers edging
the pink shag fringe of a Saint
Vincent DePaul bathrobe.
News slaps on our borrowed stoop—
a second chance to know yesterday
1. I’m a poet who spends a lot of time in Hollywood. 2. I write screenplays for movies that will never get made.
Before we were grown, we called everything hunting:
when we trudged through pastures for the mares at night
Sometimes they cry, he says, staring
out the bay window. At first I think
he means my brother and me, that
he’s talking to our dead mother,
Once our mother pinned gold bumblebees
into the ruched hives of our bodices
and whispered to us: physics says the bumblebee
should not be able to fly, but it does,
I clench my fist to draw
a familiar country. The black sea
is guarded and vast, rolling quickly
to scatter its glare. Below,
the metro crosses into itself
like snakes, coiling
strained muscles away
from the center. In the center
is a dark mound I crane my neck
to shove fingers into.
& God sends a colt. The colt’s mane flows
like a river as it gallops wild through acres
of grassland. & then God commands: build
a saddle, toughen the leathers & smith the stirrups
The drive starts early,
before there’s time to cry
about the house we’re leaving
empty. Early, when the daylight
has the crystal clarity of dew.
i.
In ads for medical wigs the hair looks real,
the faces look like faces of mannequins.
In the palms of orange poppies
the fat bodies of bumblebees are in ecstasy.
Somewhere in the middle of the new novel,
Frankenstein the monster is reading a romance
entitled Frankenstein. To think
he came this far without it, it made his life
more romantic, more cloaked in fog, out
there, as childhood is before the child recalls.
As for others, maybe they, too, sense an
outline taking shape—to their days, to their
minds—something glimpsed while waiting
The first cop on scene says
what a strange song to play while driving.
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah…
Everywhere is the same is what I want to say when my friends
gush over the mountains in Boulder. It’s the same Oakley-wearing
A bolt of lightning moving down the sky
is enough. The plastic smell
of conditioned air
and the tick-tick of my dog
breathing beside me—
I was not always this___.
Even this fire, you say. Even your shoes
are falling apart. See the soles giving a bit
to the heat. Through smoke, your face seems
unlikely, your hair in impossible knots. Inside,
Party at the beach!
But J refuses to go
because he can’t swim.
They say she was doll glass, then ghost
glass, a rinsed object that bends
into its own deboning. Her mouth
stitched with rain, wrangling a wet
tone in a shipwrecked room. Her body
I said please get up, but my voice
was flattened by rubber meeting blacktop,
by metal pushing with haste
through air and the scent of blood.
Fragrant bee bodies
dance a map to fertile flowers.
Nectar traded for pollen,
returned to hive,
passed from mouth to mouth,
until it becomes honey.
A child cries out for oranges hungers only for oranges
eats careless of juice careless of body
I’m not sure what to do about the deer
who have suddenly emerged around us.
girls shift in circles on the grass
like stars of mountain laurel,
He falls loose, a leaf,
to bed. But not as light.
His arms keep coming
home, yes, but heavier
I don’t “know my own mind.”
Food has thought for me. Shoes
have thought for me
but more often
“the ideal life” has unrelentingly
screwed up its brain
on my behalf.
then the oral surgery: my four bad wisdom
teeth ripped from their beds, stitches and bloodgums,
ketamine and skin pocked from the needle’s poke.
Perched ornamental like an angel
at the apex of a Christmas tree, the bird’s neck is curved,
slender, the elegant sway of a tangent function.
and the fires are beyond us
the project’s conclusion
All night I groped
for what you whispered,
fingers edging
the pink shag fringe of a Saint
Vincent DePaul bathrobe.
News slaps on our borrowed stoop—
a second chance to know yesterday
1. I’m a poet who spends a lot of time in Hollywood. 2. I write screenplays for movies that will never get made.
Before we were grown, we called everything hunting:
when we trudged through pastures for the mares at night
Sometimes they cry, he says, staring
out the bay window. At first I think
he means my brother and me, that
he’s talking to our dead mother,
Once our mother pinned gold bumblebees
into the ruched hives of our bodices
and whispered to us: physics says the bumblebee
should not be able to fly, but it does,
I clench my fist to draw
a familiar country. The black sea
is guarded and vast, rolling quickly
to scatter its glare. Below,
the metro crosses into itself
like snakes, coiling
strained muscles away
from the center. In the center
is a dark mound I crane my neck
to shove fingers into.
