Poetry

Astrophysics

“Can’t go on,” sighed the heart taking leave of its mind and throwing itself at the sun. Ninety-three million miles in no time. Past the mad gas of the solar corona shot that hunk of red meat meteoric—straight through the sun’s bubble to the wild interior, the fusion place. Its molecules spat up their ghosts….

The Human Voice

All night rain ran down the window in the spare bedroom where I slept; outside, the lime tree’s runneled leaves absorbed wave after wave of the Pacific storm, which, like a riot, had been pre- dicted by the authorities; awake in the smallest hour, I heard a woman’s voice rise and join the weather— my…

Looking at Kilauea

        I’ve been looking at Kilauea                                       and its various eruptive features for a few years now, and,                                       every time I do it, I really never know what it is I’ll be looking at, looking for, remembering, or comparing it to. It’s kind of like daydreaming,                                       gazing at the birth-stem of all things….

True Prophets

Their speech doesn’t sound prophetic: “Wish the damn heat would let up.” “Do you carry three-inch finishing nails?” Too late their wisdom becomes clear. True prophets, though, care nothing for prophecy. It just sweats out of them like garlic from the pores of one who eats Korean food. Prophets adore food which is thoughtfully prepared….

The Girlfriends

Filled with old lovers, in the clutch of the chair, you are a bloom of uncombed hair. With a collection of roses, bowls of mashed petals, I make a clear cup of sky. Fold away clouds. Roll up blankets of blue. I am a body of empty husks. Indian corn is in your hair, the…

La Source

to Grandmother, Port-au-Prince, Haiti, August 1991 I bear down on the leaf that carries me to home and ground, peer through a corner, see the gaze that slipped in and out of walls at home, bared, looking at the valley, a brown wind that uncords knots, binds storms to dust, lifts stars, skies, the abscess…

Perfidy

A few sounds, over and again, grip me through this     drunken mess. I walk to the oblivious road, gone and done for. A few beats of my pulse splinter through the plates     of my skull. The gun blast, I do not know where the bullet hit or the depth of my wound. My…

Building Fence

My brother, my son, they’re setting jack posts, stringing wire in high wind. I come after, pounding staples in good pine wood. We follow the edge of the jack pine where the foothill opens out to long drop after drop of tough grass sliding down the Front Range. We know it’s a fine day, a…

Straight and Clear

i. Between the confluence of the rivers, the smolt twist and die in massive turbines. Liaison between the proliferation, Nusoox and all the commissions, Yowanswickt watches the roll of dice, pitched in bone games, about irrigation, treaty and young, vulnerable fish. Dialogues with usurpers who are loquacious and convinced of the real in terms of…