Performance

genesis plays the pink

horn, begots

blare from crimped steel

without victrola

bold mutes & pales

to folded skirt

tethered at shrunken waist

blood-dyed hem

silence of bloom spent

stops my ears

conductor’s pollen wand

can you hear me?

Pod

painstaking moonlight toil

to weave the teardrop sacs

bundle the child's streaking

marbles inside — sunlight

swells the captives, wind

blusters the stalk, seams

strain, a vagina widens

canna genesis spills out

 

Green Horizon

the world where one has companions

has come & gone, & for one wed to

no other — day & night, year in

year out — companion face, the world is an

empty place, peopled by pixels on screens

fractaled figurines

                              oh, to be Odysseus

lashing taut a raft, setting off in soft wind

with skins of provisions Calypso gave

every fresh wave he goes where the wind

blows, he trims his sails, alone on the raft

rimmed with woven limbs to keep the sea

off, he stares off at green horizon

                                                     even if

he spies land, will he know where to land

will they care, the ones he grieves for

Guillaume Apollinaire

The Loss of Grace

by Guillaume Apollinaire

get along, get along, rainbow

flutter your charmed colors

your exile de rigueur

putti of billowing scarves

the rainbow is outré

because we refuse to see

still, a banner flies

takes your turn in the breeze

— translated by Carol Peters

La Grâce Exilée

by Guillaume Apollinaire

Va-t-en va-t'en mon arc-en-ciel

Allez-vous-en couleurs charmantes

Cet exil t'est essentiel

Infante aux écharpes changeantes

Et l'arc-en-ciel est exilé

Puisqu'on exile qui l'irise

Mais un drapeau s'est envolé

Prendre ta place au vent de bise

 

Like Reindeer

virtual memory is memory freed up

by copying what’s in real memory

somewhere else, into the tundra, perhaps

where it remains, like anthrax, until

someone refers to the contents again

causing it to be returned to memory

the time required to transfer depends on

weather conditions — temperature

wind speed, precipitation — sometimes

all the reindeer die, sometimes the

recalled contents aren’t needed

after all, yet a boy dies before others

are vaccinated, the cost of reclamation

The Part That Sings

His head is

at the window. The only

part

      that sings.

— Amiri Baraka

a hummingbird

is not known for singing

it whirs

& blurs

at my window

at lavender, yarrow, sage

the beak, the tongue

tasting, feeding

I watch at the window

the red throat the steady mark

color a blur yet red, rufous

greater than glitter of

cobalt blue

emerald green

a hummingbird sings by being

by looking at me

at flowers

at the cat

mid-pounce

the moment when

bright colors

blurred motion

cease

now throat, head, wings 

are black

a hummingbird thing

a bit between cat’s jaws

a bit never strung to a bridle

an unbridled act

the beak

now a spear

a thorn

pierces my window

two heads at my window

one bird

one cat

no longer any part

that sings

Yesterday's Grass

I drowse while stones melt to moss

cool compost settles underwater

scatters clouds, a hole swallows my toes

someone starts to swim, someone looks back

it’s going on dark, soon I’m missing

soon enough my blood becomes soul

Rilke's Sonnet to Orpheus 1.5

Errichtet keinen Denkstein. Lasst die Rose

nur jedes Jahr zu seinen Gunsten blühn.

Denn Orpheus ists. Seine Metamorphose

in dem und dem. Wir sollen uns nicht mühn

um andre Namen. Ein für alle Male

ists Orpheus, wenn es singt. Er kommt und geht.

Ists nicht schon viel, wenn er die Rosenschale

um ein paar Tage manchmal übersteht?

O wie er schwinden muss, dass ihrs begrifft!

Und wenn ihm selbst auch bangte, dass er schwände.

Indem sein Wort das Hiersein übertrifft,

ist er schon dort, wohin ihrs nicht begleitet.

Der Leier Gitter zwängt ihm nicht die Hände.

Und er gehorcht, indem er überschreitet.

my translation . . .

mark no grave     let the rose alone

flower for her     every year

orpheus is     her morphing

to & fro    we mustn’t re-

name her     everyone is orpheus

when singing     she comes & goes

isn’t it enough     when she stays

two days more     than the rose

yet she wanes     you know that

& fears     her waning

that her words     disappear the here

conjure the there     where you can’t follow

the strings of the lyre     don’t steer the hands

she yields     by going too far

Sulphur, Mercury, Salt

once the world was open space

now we’re larvae, honeycomb

walls between us, food delivered

death for those who go back

& forth, bound & fattened inside

we might mature, into what?

Cusp

she sends a postcard her scrawl

says she thinks I’ll like it the flipside

more writing not a visual not a pond

to slip into to be reflected by instead

a citation of someone else’s speech

not speaking, no, writing about lying

face down in the dirt fallen? slammed?

headlong will? the juddering blow

the smell of dirt leaves animals mold

dry damp sweet sour slimy prickly

five orifices face down in the dirt

penance? parody? prophecy?

 

Ride

I ride my bicycle down the empty

morning street, DiTullio’s selling his house

another is already contingent

the realtor sign in front of the Irma-flooded

house is now a dumpster titled

nature’s calling, the half-built house

rises to two peaks, a plywood bridge 

between, suppose one’s for he

the other for she, or one’s for lowly beasts

taro fills the ditches, rose of sharon

lavenders a green fan, parked trailers

bear boats, a concrete pig wears

a blue mask, caution tape & orange cones

swag a muddy verge . . . pedal, pedal on