Jackson Pollack

I brought 3,000 pieces for a mosaic. Gold and twin laced together. Stucco shards and flakes of paint pasted. I placed them there with a hairline tip and spilled to make the finish. Garnet molasses buried bits of bone and muscle; fossilized in layers of wit and fuzzy pain. I cannot finish; I will never be removed. Gazing from alternating directions reveals picture and detail; complete and separate; working.

I will not lie to you

and tell you I am lofty purpose;
destined to see diamonds and pearls;
tell you I have the confidence of street preachers
that service is salvation or that I believe
myths and fables about the good life;
tell you I am complete

My Single Journey is a Homecoming

a place, destination unknown to me
mapped out before I knew of the existence of moving

I must trust this
or travel should not be
and the hurried answers of the rivers
should be only maxims of travel--removes
I am dragged along simply to learn
to be with nature: to be one or two or three
selves in the half light of half life.

I must trust this or I cannot move.
Stagnation is not security; it is stagnation.

Nit

Note: Written in 1998, this poem reflects memories of summers in Mississippi--Fourth of July celebrations and late nights at the lighted public tennis courts where all the bugs came to tan.

Just under the dew lies the heat of the day
stamped on the abdomens of carpenter ants.
Crickets push their fires in the early 4am
of human indifference. June bugs are
always early in April, toasted mild chocolate
rust from their mid-winter vacations.
They cling to our screens and shoe soles
waiting for a chance to show off the summer
they brought us. Gnats cluster in our breath
jumping in and out of shallow water
telling craw-dad cousins the early demise of
train track mud relatives.

Little legs carry anklets of tobacco spittle
away from coach-pitch bleachers
across the outfield to lay-cold slabs frying daily
10-5pm. Bed warmers for the horned, the hard shelled.

Perennials

Notes: I wrote this poem in 2000 while living in a very cookie-cutter neighborhood.


I live in the Suburban Hell my brother speaks
so passionately against. Funny how he doesn't live anywhere.

People are separated only by a few brick walls and the uniqueness in their flower beds.
Blackeyed Susans, Peonies,
Zinnias, Marigolds, Goodness Grows Veronica...a purpley
flower that looks more mountains than
mulch born. It's pictured in
Better Homes and Gardens right next to the
Dropmore Catmint, a stunning yellow.
These are supposed to be powerhouse perennials, but basically
it's your choice of what will root: Petunias, Dahlia, Imaptients,
Chrysanthemums, Jasmine, Jonquils.

Well, I won't root.
Not here in the bermuda sod, shot-gun houses
where the only difference between
978 and 984 is the thickness of formality. Please don't
let your yippy mut run through my Miss Lingard Phlox
again.
And Charlotte Lane is not for me because I don't plant.
Especially not the Goblin Blanket Flower.

Sing a plainsong

A sailing leaf turns in circles a clear sky
mocks the dark outline of a hawk 30 feet up

I enter the magic of silence:
my eyes transfixed--glassed over
the heart, soul, mind and strength--pulled along on funneling thermals
sink down through whipping, winding trails in the middle of swirling logic

dizzy

I remember what one man said about the woods:
how dark and deep and still with solstice winter's chill and pall
I linger sirened out of mind in isolation
too long, too still, too deep, too dark
the way I came too far back--

I lift my head, my swimming, prodigal head
to find the straight path--the narrow way
marked well
with Humility's warmth.

This is the way I see it going down

December starlight--frost and snow and clear black sky--
ruthless magic steals away the logic and reason;
beguiles innocently
broken down thought covered over in plastic empirical science

a wrapped mystery
an intoxicating, outlandish and ancient idea;
no, a story, no a person
yes to all of those

strangely grateful and foolish
not to have believed
but to have waited so long in a cold, deep deception

kairos

My melancholy has burst out into full color
full out in strong autumn sun and dances
in a crazy blue sky to see a white birch in a muddy field
followed along by a white fence guarding a milk-filled cow.

Withdrawing into winter's heart; residual joy gleams the veins of leaves wrought amber in my eye--purplish and red: painfully bright in a green lawn next sharing space with a gravel road, brown and wet and gray

These pieces fitted
make changes, once reviewed,
congruous--dripping with purpose and hope

Deaf

White paper morning--crispy shavings of a backlit moon
I find myself praying in sign language

Newly deaf; newly mute—other senses not yet adjusted to compensate

I am boorish—spitting crude assertions from published works onto awkward, stumbling prayer; muddling as though my vesture is sepulcher

—I’m glad to go down, to burrow deep allowing waters to close over;
not sure when the moon will change again and allow me up.

Oh sweet, dark, change--husky sheath and cosseted
Dry and cool, I do the work of life.

I am hidden, in my own mind, at least.
Protected by the confidence that things change—things always change

Subtle

On Wednesday You winked at the evening sky
and made it blush a tangerine candy floss
just about the time I was looking over Your latest blessing.

I stood across the street from the house with an open yard
that shares it's border with a green belt tree line.
This is just the beginning of Your plans or maybe this is the middle--my heartbeats are deep, stretched out with praise feeding the great gray swirls You tied
like a bow on the gift of this day and the rest of my life.