Sigh

If there are rabbit holes,
Chinks in the wall,
I'll find them.
I'll weave my body through them
Like wicker.

So when the wind blows
Through me, you'll
Hear me,
Little wooden screams.

Contemplation of the Rockies

In these mountains that rise
at the seam of two earths
sewn with hot magma hands
pulled by sky like a birth
and the air in between
unexpected wet nurse
to an unblinking child
to a church, to a hearse.

Slow Harvest

we gather blackberries
plucked from America's thicket
if not blackberries then apples
or figs or cumquats, some
bushel of flesh and flavor
cobblered in country oven
and served a la mode
to the hungry tongues of time.

In the simplest of metaphors, we
are nine forks of a branch that's dividing
in complex dimensions, the lengths
and directions we stretch is unknown.
We are reaching barked fingers and handfuls
of leaves into air, into sky,
into clouds, and we're roasting them hot
on a campfire, dressing in smoke.

In the sinmplest of metaphors, we
are nine heads of a hydra whose god
man in training can't cut quick enough
to keep nine angry necks from regrowing
nine fiercesome white fifty-toothed smiles,
and in cutting our collars he lights
liquid fires. We bloom red atomic.
We flower in shrapnel. We sing.

In the simplest of metaphors, we
are nine harts on the ridge of a mountain,
slow moving and sacred, whose blankets
of winter hang heavy beneath
our black hooves. We sit quiet like books.
We hold court on the crowns of our rock
candelabra, light fires with bone
as the kindling, our antlers the wood.

In simplest of similes, we
are like brothers, like fathers, like suns.

Repatriation: A Thanksgiving Poem

I came back to America today
to her fields, her factories, her baseball and bars.
I came back to her slow burning forests
her rivulets of asphalt, her neon ocean
I came back to her chicken waitresses
Pecking at my coffee with a glass-beaked pot
Her sycamore men, in parks, on porches
thousand year old roots still weaving.

I came back to America to see
her washaterias, her apple orchards
her Rubik's cubes and roundabouts
I came back to dip my head in
her fountains, her soil, her underbrush.
I came back to wade in her politics,
in her media, in her Saturday morning cartoons.

I came back to wear meatloaf like a hat
to urinate on fire hydrants
to run invisible flight plans
from my gabled window

I came back to peel the orange
off the slow setting sun
To walk as wind
through mint-flavored pines
To cup beautiful like a bee
in the hive of my hands.

I came back to America
to walk across her deserts
her prairies, her mountains, and mesas
her trusses and bridges
her ciliche, her dirt, her brick
I came back to walk
on her formica, her tinfoil
her notebooks and negligee
her demigods and dinosaur bones.

I came back to America
to swallow presidents
To say their names
like I say my grandfather's
to chew their words like bubblegum
to wax political with the ants

I came back to America for pie,
for cobbler, for wedding cake,
for t-bone dinners,
for t-bone breakfasts,
for heavy white bread
soaked in egg and fried
upon my plate.

I came back for college football,
for potato chips and paralysis,
eyes glued to the tube,
watching for god-moment men.

I came back for sidewalks,
for cotton candy and caramel apples
for stick ball and dead end streets,
for astronauts and acrobats
for the twenty tongued tiger
to purr at my feet
for constellations, for sewing circles
for homemade wine and biscuits
for scratch and sniff sentiments
for dogs, heavy like a blanket.

I came back to America to pause

to take a deep breath
to open up a book
to curl up at her sensible soles
to hear her harrowing history of me.

Lines Upon the Lincoln Memorial

- for my good friend Jon

I stood in stone
within his words
beneath his feet.

His skeleton chair
a throne of bones
unburied corpse.

His left hand holds
some secret seed
in furrowed fist.

His right hand slow
with heavy fingers
falls like banners.

His shoulders broad
an unkempt altar
his head like wine.

From which his eyes
stare down the aisle
at the empty church.

Whose godless halls
might still recall
these heavy knees once bent.

City of Lights

My travel magazine just referred to Paris
As the "City of Lights."
Flipping the top corner of its silky sheets,
I can't help but wonder if there's a better name.

The "City of Stairs" perhaps,
17 floors of social hierarchy, dangerously connected
with six-inch steps.

The "City of Dogs"
347 breeds pulling the masses under the
shapeless sign of Sirius.

The "City of Bread"
Glazed, sugared, grained, and piping hot
slowly being torn apart.

The "City of Benches"
9,003 different spots to wax, wane,
witness a world of concrete and straw.

The "City of Sex"
Neon eyes and inner thighs pumping ubiquitous
origami orgies.

The "City of Words"
Heads and pens buried in a multi-lingual sand
ostrich rich.

The "City of Churches"
Decorating Paris like an octogenarian's cake
full and empty all at once.

The "City of Tourists"
Ephemeral population pulsing through scavenger hunts
checking off life in blinking digital.

The "City of Gypsies"
Human infestation crawling through the un-swept cracks
gold ring, gold teeth.

The "City of Wine"
7 billion swimming in blanc et rouge
spitting simultaneously

The "City of Glass"
Stained in cathedrals, stained in gutters
no one knowing which to look through for their gods.

The "City of Bruno"
Of Pauline, of Pierre, of beret born bureaucrats
living outside the story.

The "City of Piss"
From the Celts to the Gauls, from Romans to Nazis
one steady stream of gold.

The "City of Ennui"
As we metro through their basement carrying
their stares like blankets.

The "City of Anonymity"
Shadowing the dark places, stepping out
in the fore-head high heels of night.

The "City of Continuity"
The same shuddering shutters open and close to reveal the same
Glockenspiel girl, un-wooden.

The "City of Corpses"
Their dead almost outweighing their living, some finding it difficult
to tell the difference.

Or maybe just the "City of Lights"
One vast power prism distracting us
from the cities inside.