fruit picking:

 

Fathom this, floating oranges, peeled
with fingers and teeth, drift
between words shared
on that backstep, looking out
at the decrepit sheds
full of old toys so lost they spoke
amongst themselves
and to you, that was the shock
even back then, so many things spoke to you
as your father did not, the beer spoke to him
and kept him silent unless rage took hold
then we’d sit on the back step
and share another orange –

even now, old and gray, when I
choose an orange
out of the fruit bowl, my legs automatically
wander me outside
sit me down on the back step, as I pluck
the first hole with two front teeth
as you always did back then
I recall again the sound
of china teacups as they hit
the shocked walls in a song
accepted even as skin and bones
reverberated like cheap plaster.

Shame is a tree:

Shame is a thirsty tree
roots within ribs
winds branches across bones
places leaves between discs
feeds on words
until silence remains
turns hands into fists
furrows flesh, turns a face
into a mountain
with canyons for the secret tears.

Shame grows in the dark
poisonous when shared
murderous when left alone
I have scissors bought at a flea market
snip snip in the late afternoons
treat the tree as a bonsai
and shape it with will, it is smaller now
grows in places set aside
so the rest of me is free
to decide who I should be. 

duck placed under a bucket

Darkness, the slice of a knife
bewildered mind, distant honks
feel the ground underfoot
and metallic dink dink of bill
against nonperishable tin
ponder flight as wings ache
disuse is the hardest excuse
exudes a laziness, no ears
care for stories of imprisonment.

My hard-earned is on certain facts –
two bets;
duck will settle, regain the sense
of being in the egg, wait
until the bucket is lifted
then with a honk and waddle
will hurry off to join the others
and that it is female
in carrying life they must fight
to avoid the buckets placed to curtail.

Absence creates more buckets
than there are ducks in the universe.

a life metaphor

 

 

 

 

the cemetery and all the stone

and marble crucifixes

the angels with eyes

lifted up to the heavens

the slabs of marble and granite

holding bones in eternal hugs

the names and dates and dried up petals

the empty vases and incense holders

the trees for shade

the ashes in rows

the roses for tears and never bestowed kisses

resides in perpetuity

inside our flesh and bones, in the skulls and marrow

of all of us but mostly

in the women who birth us.

Beneath Paris:

 

In the dark city of reflection walls are made

from skulls and other random bones,

create spaces of separateness in the limestone

avenues to wander by the light of carbide

whisper romantic songs into the starless ceiling

hold hands with ghosts who roam the streets

as they try to remember the address upstairs.

It is there voices meet, pretend to be echoes

recount old stories of sunlight and birdsong

with hearts that long to return, seeds that need

warmth for life to burst upon them again, hands

ready to push through rock and soil, two arms

to spread into the joyous stance of ballerinas.

Poets fish the Night’s Oceans:

It is a difficult hunt in waters

filled with the eternally unseen

afterimages of things imagined

sensory echoes of experiences

bittersweet scent of dreams.

 

The water is deep

heavily salted with tears

forces anglers time

and time again back to the surface.

 

The plunge brings a proximity to death

the other side of life’s coin.

 

it risks forgetfulness and idle hours

staring into the currents words leave behind.

 

old friends float

other anglers greet

some hold up catches that can fade

or appear larger in the light.

 

These fish cannot sate

drive the fishers to try again and again

an addiction

to hunt the ripples, the after-taste, the hope.

 

The quest for what cannot be complete

for what cannot ever be brought

truly to the surface whole

but in parts

scales that reflect sunlight

and hold a darkness within.

 

So cold now

and so warm fishing all these years

they stretch out behind

like the drying bones of leviathans

perpetually now at rest

on the edge of night’s tilted shores.

The Carter:

 

Who is this man? Pulls the wagon

wooden wheels, the cart chocked

with femurs and skulls, the remains

removed from the clogged cemeteries

to a new place of rest; even the dead crowd

their silence louder than car horns,

strident as voices can only desire to be.

 

Who is this man? Dressed in white

so that he glows in the subterranean city

working through the days beneath the workers

working through their days; he has no sun

until he returns upstairs to sleep,

instead the gentle hum of carbide, the sound

of wooden wheels across limestone.

 

Who is this man? Leads the cart of the dead

deeper into the labyrinth as if carrying

the rejected who had no coins for Kharon

and must travel by road instead; he wears a hat

and white smock as if an artist, searches

for the site of his next great masterpiece

the ink the years, the bristles the finality of death.