Anti

anti-March is April less one day

anti-cv is la jaula, the cage

we are in training for

what’s left of human existence

anti-quiet is Saturday night music

playing from three directions

anti-dark are fireworks

security lights

it hardly matters

I go to sleep anyway

anti-sleep is the middle of the night

anti-dream is real life

in the beginning was ur

anti-beginning is death by cv

death by old age

go ahead, exercise, wear capris

anti-capris are Birkenstocks

an anti-birk is a privileged domain

e.g., a yacht moored in Grenada

another kind of jaula

no celebrity has died of cv

only Prine, anti-Prine = dead

anticline キ syncline, cf. orogeny

anti-orogeny = the midwest

a lack of rocks indicates

the glacier didn’t make it this far

the anti-uncle is la tia

my last aunt died @ 99

ante-dementia she puttered

as I do now, anti-youth

is the flower of old age

anti-flower is seed

anti-seed is why the hell

not start again

Someone in the Blindness of Your Heart Was Missing

always had been missing, the substitutes

you sought, or had happen to you, circumscribe

space grown larger with time, once

you thought a cat might fill it — warmth

& purring, a weight against you in the dark

or books might fill it, imagination, learning, invention

the space is a child a mother a father a grand

fill with love — what you glean instead

is what it means to be an intruder

you’re simmeringly furious at those who talk of

loving parents, of sitting in laps, being

read to, vacations, favorite meals

you’d stash a box of crackers in your bed

to dull your need — hunger, longing — nibble

quietly like a mouse — all the time

in your room, your childhood years

practice for the rest of time

unfilled, the space opens forever

— for Stanley Plumly

Companion

I’m companion to a new author, a gay man

hiking because he can, because he doesn’t

fit in the world he’s born to, a man walking

the length of the Appalachian Trail with not

a word about anything but the companions

he met & played with along the way — wild

doesn’t come into it, not one encounter of

ascent, descent, fright, injury, flower, tree

yet after all this play, his song & dance at

reaching Katahdin, his re-entry into that

foreign world where he’s still odd one out

still alone, now he steeps himself in theory

I recognize his angle, it’s intellectual, make

a framework that explains why paths are

paths, how humans like horses, like ants

make paths by going some way for some

reason again & again, how a path betters

itself — shorter, smoother, wider — by use

here to there, possibly there back to here

again, as if going had to be purposeful to

matter, as if the matter were not the facts

of what happens during & around the path

time of day, weather, the sight of, sound of

smell of, taste of every natural companion

Stones

curious to live on an earth without stones, no stones at all

as if the soil were a pure mud, partially dried out & willing to be soil

loam, tilth, sand — under some of my mulch the not

even half-rotted contents of my compost bins, material to raise

the elevation, my bins are full again, full of spring weeds

supplemented with prunings, kitchen waste, paper waste

what is waste? some waste I cover with weed, some waste

I package in plastic & toss back to the world, which has no way

to dispose of it, as I have no way, I have no woods to carry

gnawed bones to, though now I do put metal in the compost

nails & screws, I leave brads in cardboard slabs, I’m restoring

base elements to the earth where they came from

rocks are something you can discover & collect & pile up

or mix into the soil to lighten it, my soil is a damp mound

sometimes a slurry, as it is out front on the west & puddling side

after yesterday’s hard rain, hard & heavy, yet pollen in yellow smears

still marks the front porch, it will take a bucket & a mop to clear them

according to McPhee geologists are constantly hammering at rocks

filling bags with rocks, carrying them home on airplanes

what’ve you got in here, rocks? McPhee claims
that plate tectonics is the theory theorists love
but rock hunters love the greater complexity of break-rock geology

machines detect the shape of what’s under

soil, the depth of harder rock, of thickness & angles

what can’t be plumbed by machinery? plumbing not the same

as understanding, more like touch & wonder

Revolt

by Cesar Pavese

That dead man, facedown, isn’t gazing at stars:

his hair’s glued to the pavement. The night’s getting colder.

The living return to their homes, shivering still.

It’s hard to follow them all as they scatter:

some climb stairs, others go down into basements.

One will walk until dawn, then lie down in a field

in the sun. And tomorrow, another will grimace

at work, despairing. Then this too will pass.

Asleep, they look like the dead man: if a woman’s there too,

the smell might be thicker, but both will look dead.

Each body, facedown, clings to its bed,

as to red pavement: their long labor since dawn

has earned them the quick death of sleep.

On each body, a dark filth coagulates.

But the dead man’s laid out under starlight.

That rag heap also looks dead, propped there

in the blistering sun, against that low wall. To sleep

on the street, you have to have faith in the world.

There’s a beard in those rags, and the gathering flies

have plenty to do. People move down the street

like flies — the beggar’s just part of the street.

His miserable grimaces are hidden by beard;

like grass, it imparts an air of serenity. He’s old

and could die anytime, facedown in blood,

yet he looks like an inanimate thing, and he lives.

Except for the blood, everything’s part of the street.

And stars have seen blood in the street before.

Like Smoke

we personify death

as if it were more than light

a pink streak, a red wash

fractaled clouds dissolve, diverge

wisps like smoke from failing fires

the oak tree releafs, & struggles

balance may or may not achieve

gold coin smears wide

water ripples as if it were rush

molten spoil, forgotten war

green umbrella, black bowl

does wind, do clouds, does sky

feel pleasure or pain

blister of gold burn

How Dark, How Light

the moon has seen it all since the

start, how light replaced night’s

dark, how dark returns, how homeless

find homes in rooms of California

hotels, not meek, not blameless

merely poor, even if the room is in

the poorest hotel, think of the running

water, a bed, a roof, think of someone

gaunt, suddenly clean, looking out

a window watching rain fall, think of

volunteers bringing meds & meals

far away on yachts let the richest

complain of what they’re losing, what
they’ve lost, may they suffer the cost

Voice of the Cane Field

cicadas sing dry mouthed

chafe like dry paper

the way the news unfolds

cane fields harmonize

steel breath of wind

through razor leaves

day & night the wind’s

barbered voice bleeds


A voz do canavial

by João Cabral de Melo Neto

Voz dem daliva da cigarra,
do papel seco que se amassa,

de quando se dobra o jornal,
assim canta o canavial,

ao vento que por suas folhas,
de navalha a navalha, soa,

vento que o dia e a noite toda
o folheia, e nele se esfola.

Time Catches Us Up, Small Lives, Fish

Diamond Head Beach Park, Oahu, day

after day I descend the rough path

to study the tidepools — rocky sandy

shallow bays — what holds air soon enough

holds water, glimmering streaks of fish

then no fish, no beneficiary proves them

no record of life or death, swim or flail

however many fish are left behind, more

follow, gold & silver charms tracking

a Mobius strip — life, death — one fish

Leaving

when children are small — very small — we leave

them in the hands of other people — caretakers

we have chosen to keep them safe while we go

off to work or shop or take a test or a hike

or we merely drive around to be alone, or sit at home

with a book & coffee or a drink, a few hours

without the clinging child — we tell the child what

is about to happen, we construct a world of more

children & smiling caretakers, yet the child

stands big eyes in a wide face screaming

not to be left, clinging until someone tears them

away — Phaedra lay face down on the floor

screaming until an hour later Erika came for her

this trauma of separation, they must be taught

because they can’t count on us, can’t count on

anyone, sooner or later we leave them for good

Dimples & Rust

what if you are the thimble? spend

most of your life in the sewing box

even though Mimsie mends

every day — who mends these days?

every curtain needs mending

she says & can’t find the cord to power

her machine — think of stitching heavy

curtains all by hand, upholstery needle

pricking your thimble-free thumb

the sewing box rattles with promise

remember me? the thimble cries

only a few stitches into the job & I’ll

be shiny as when I was born — stamped

furled, however thimbles are made

I’m a lowly thimble, the smallest size

if lucky, I’ll be borne on Mimsie’s

finger until she dies, mending

the hired man’s overhauls, the master’s

waistcoat, the Sunday dress

the cook wears to visit her mother

miles away in Chipping Sodbury

my dimples welcome your thrusts

bless all thimbles, keep us from rust