Prima 

Materia  

“My quietness has a man in it, 

he is transparent and carries me 

quietly, like a gondola through 

the streets.”   ~Frank O’Hara 

                                                   In Memory of My Feelings 

 

By day, I live my life. 

By night, my life lives me. 

How can they 

weigh the same? 

It would seem an absurdity. 

I dare to ask 

which is more true 

or any less fictitious, 

a life that lives itself 

or the one with 

self constrictions? 

 

Asleep I practice letting go. 

Surrendering to the silence, 

a dormant thing set afloat 

in a boat of mulch and ballast; 

a laid out Moses  

ferrying forth,  

whose finger steers 

its rudder North. 

 

Below are dangers no less real 

with dramas more deranged. 

Life on the surface no less 

more than surgery 

performed in a haze. 

 

Like Eliot said 

I go then like a patient 

etherized on a table 

the evening spread out 

before me, and myself 

a hapless fable. 

 

Tonight I may see

my mother wrapped in 

a snarling stole, 

beside her my twin brother 

clutching a shard of coal. 

Who will play my father 

is anybody’s guess 

seeing that he's 

long since gone, 

his memory 

put to rest. 

 

Still, that doesn't mean 

he'll be a no-show, 

as dreamland 

invites them all back

like a time machine 

beneath my bed sheets, 

fusing fictions with

the occasional fact. 

 

The Loss 

that Makes Us

Whole Again

Wholeness has a hole in it from the start.

The day we lose something, its absence 

draws in new air like an iron lung

filling us up again with restorative silence. 

Ill prepared for the privilege of living,

there’s nothing more debauched than thinking,

but a loss can make us whole again;

the unforeseen realization that the negative

is merely the diary of our own shadow.

6/12/21

 

Youth

 

I had what you have once.

I learned too late that

the only ones worth their salt

are the ones that overcome you.

 

Time is a boy full of life.

Time is a beautiful boy.

Time is a hairy leg hung

over a ledge who’s toes

barely touch the river.

 

Because I needed you

I courted you, not meaning

to exploit our relationship,

knowing my love

would never die.

Having loved and lost,

I came to want out of you.

 

You who would have

no compunction but to

drag me by the hair

for all my days,

or were they yours?

Rubbing my nose in

every foolish failure.

 

To thwart you was to turn

a prince into a slave,

to pass the hours

putting things right,

treating a throne

like a toilet

all the while believing

you would return

whatever was taken

from me.

 

Yes, you were a dream

earned only by sleep.

Why couldn’t I see

that surrendering everything

would only bring you closer,

that giving myself away

opened the one door

out of you?

 

Time is a majestic fur coat

held tightly round the throat.

I decorate myself with

the death of all innocence.

But I am better than death.

I will outwit you.

I will do with you

knowing what you did to me;

taking everything I loved

and making me watch

as you choked the life

out of me gently, slowly,

and with such great passion,

I slowly lost consciousness.

 

You made me watch

as everything fell away,

a golden wheat field

mutating into scorched earth

no wind could bother

to caress.

 

My hands, which once

ran circles around the sun

have had to learn to sign,

palms pressed in prayer

because even the angels

are now deaf and unable

to hear music.

The heart, too broken

for its own good

will love anything it can

as it struggles

to deserve you.

 

Now I keep my body

under glass;

a hocked wristwatch

I wish I could buy back.

I suck the wind

back into my lungs

as if it were

my own breath.

I remember I once

tasted your spit

simply because 

you had spat it

and because I loved you

more than myself.

 

God save me

from game shows

in the afternoon.

God save me

from doing

crossword puzzles,

but keep me

enamored of mysteries.

Where is the salt

in being assaulted

by air waves?

I am taking responsibility

for my reverberation.

I am taking myself back.

I will not let you use me

because I will use you first.

Yes, you might

have the last laugh.

But I will have

the last cry

and my crying will

wake the angels

and bring them

to my side.

 

I will find a beauty

that seduces insects,

that does not discriminate

between blossoms and shit.

I will rot slowly, slowly

becoming a fermentation

that becomes a fertilizer

that becomes a flower bed

that births a magenta zinnia.

 

I will have what you had once,

but this time

it will be forever.

 

12/02/22

 

                           

                  

                                                                                                                                                                                          

       

                                                     ~photo by Ward Nixon

Angels Unaware

 

I awaken aware of being

caught up in a battle

to manipulate

my every move.

Everything competes

for my attention

both inside me

and out.

It stands to reason

at every dawn

I resemble

a civil war.

 

Fictional artifacts

ape the originals

yet can never

be the things

themselves.

How can we ever

escape from

the things of man?

 

For instance,

the microwave

humming while

awaiting its ding

does not captivate me

because its origin,

fire, will have

licked my mind clean.

 

The small painting

of a girl with no smile

on the wall in the hall

I pass every day

feels like a mirror

in which I am

accurately reflected.

 

The lamps graze me

with their faux light

while the leather chair

waits patiently for

someone, anyone

to alight.

 

The television,

a window’s

view of a hellscape,

wants to sell

everything it displays,

but instead,

my eyes settle

on the spider plant

whose tendrils spew

a silent fountain,

grassy green

and water-like;

a subtle salvation.

My bed, an altar

for dreaming

rests like a parked car

awaiting a driver, but

since I can’t drive

I am content

to be driven.

Half of life

is being taken

for a ride.

 

What if everything

is its own vehicle

and plays a part

in taking us

to itself, then

instead, why

not lay

fruit upon it,

perhaps petals

or other offerings

for petition;

being that everything

is a means

of arriving somewhere

other than

where we find

ourselves.

 

Hand made things

sing their maker’s praises

because separated

from the hands

that made them,

wait impatient

for another adoption.

 

Suddenly the morning sun

aggressively invades

the room

blinding me

to every object,

a light so bright

I feel it’s heat

scald my skin

forcing me to

squint my eyes

as a cabal of angels

crowd out

all other remnants

or inhabitants.

Their questions

all begin with why

as they appear

to interrogate

souls, but

only to quickly

fade out

as easily as they

had burst in

leaving

us seers

unable to make

out anything

but their trail

of colors.

 

11/26/22

 

 

 

A Beauty that Endures by Aching

 

The more life takes away,

the more aesthetic

I become.

Maybe this is how

an artistic soul

clarifies itself:

through privation.

 

I’ve heard it said:

A heart that hurts

is a heart that works.

Then, it’s feasible

I might always be sad.

 

Though my capacity

for joy is great,

I won't abandon

my wound.

In its aching

rests a potent

source of strength.

 

What if every wound

were an altar

where attention

must be paid,

where candles

need be lit,

where decisions

best be made?

 

If pride comes

before a fall,

joy lifts us

to the clouds

like a balloon

let go

by a child

filled with

the emptiness

of bated breath.

 

How else

should a smile

leap from a face

and crawl away,

pink caterpillar

to God knows

where?

 

I am not a fable.

I am my love

for life;

blue butterfly

preserved on a pin.

11/24/22

 

The Tyranny 

of Ordinary 

Objects 

 

The beds are telling us lies. 

The chairs sit on us. 

The vase has us keeping 

it in faux flowers,  

ever the tart. 

Our things are 

affirming their  

ownership. 

 

Having chosen us, 

they keep us 

in our place. 

The mirrors reflect 

what they want; 

chilly versions of 

both summer & winter; 

glass eyes trained 

on our every move. 

 

The doors permit us  

to come and go, 

their knobs keeping track 

of everything our hands 

have touched. 

The windows allow us  

to look out 

at clouds that 

rely on being  

safely out 

of our reach. 

 

Colors are magnets 

able to predict  

our mood swings 

with the precision  

of chromatic shadows. 

Here, like attracts like, 

especially once 

the objects 

gain our love 

and trust.  

Then why do I fear

their only regard 

is for each other, 

illustrated by 

the breaking of 

their own rigid

rules. 

Who is serving who?

 

The lamps light us 

while the books are reading  

between our lines. 

Pictures gather 

to hang our art  

out to dry. 

Pillows quash  

our chances  

to leave them, 

knowing it only takes one 

to smother. 

 

The desks think 

their thoughts 

by weighing in 

on our minds. 

The televisions  

look askance 

at our meager  

freedoms 

scowling, happy 

to change us  

like a channel 

to another thought 

entirely, reflecting  

as they do 

our lowly stations. 

Their lives live us 

without the slightest  

demarcation 

between the real 

and the untrue. 

We are their

favorite reality show.

 

Clothes wear us out 

determined to live  

a life of their own, 

bent on  

making their own living 

only to hand  

us down 

to others. 

Would that we

were the wool sweater’s 

favorite lost lamb.

 

The mirrors object  

to our porousness, 

resisting and insisting  

our wills are  

of no importance. 

Drawers close us  

out and in. 

Buttons chaff our thumbs. 

Cupboards instruct us on 

the ingredients of every meal. 

Bacon makes us sizzle. 

Shoes walk us out the door. 

 

Our glasses, which often lose 

sight of us, are wearing our eyes 

in order to bring us visions.  

The nose, a filing cabinet

of sorts 

works like a librarian 

employed to 

identify what 

it is we smell, 

shooshing every sneeze 

that might 

break their spell. 

 

 

Medications are  

addicted to us, 

secretly aligning  

with our 

chronic symptoms; 

blue for fatigue, 

red for energy,

yellow for moving

the bowel. 

Curtains string us along 

in hopes of 

coaxing out  

our confessions. 

 

The floor is onto us. 

The walls keep us in. 

The ceiling wanting 

nothing more than 

to look down on  

us all.  

We, who now find ourselves

living amongst

the tyranny 

of ordinary objects. 

 

Confessions of a Town Crier

 

I was 6 the first time I cried in a cinema. 

I wept so hard the sobbing impaired my vision, 

so hard that my poor mother leaned over 

and asked if we should leave.

She thought I was unhappy, but I wasn’t.

Not at all. 

The minute the movie was over 

I wanted to feel whatever that was 

all over again.

 

And so I began my love affair with 

crying amongst strangers in the dark. 

I don’t mean being reduced to tears,

because that’s no reduction.

Crying for art is an honor. 

It’s applause with mucus and salt.

The circumstances of imagery

showing us to ourselves.

 

Actors guide us away from any shame 

we might harbor over our own weeping.

Have you ever wondered where they go 

in order to come back with this? 

Tom Cruise muscles out his tears

so it’s not crying so much as a bench press. 

Isabelle Huppert is a melting ice cap.

Penelope Cruz, a meadow at dawn.

Will Smith, mad that somebody 

got him out here looking like this — all tenderized. 

Gwyneth Paltrow, an elbow 

that’s just scraped concrete.

Psychosis seems to overtake Mel Gibson

until his tears appear to be crying him.  

Julia Roberts, a ripsnorter of weeping. 

Meryl Streep, the Chinese restaurant menu of crying.

Then there’s that lone tear that Denzel Washington

releases as he’s whipped in “Glory”;

two centuries of exploitation in a rivulet 

of vicarious damnation.

 

Tears signal an achievement of honesty, 

proof that an actor is fully in their role. 

 

Less and less we are attending

the cathedrals of crying. 

Instead, we’ve been numbing ourselves. 

Even our lacrimal surrogates in Hollywood 

have been turning their backs on us

toward age-defying procedures that 

culminate in faces that can no longer 

approximate our sorrow. 

A crisis of deadening is being passed down 

to the next generation. 

We are running from ourselves, 

evading the inevitability of emotional difficulty. 

What if my mother had yanked us up that day at “E.T.” 

and insisted that my crying was inappropriate? 

What other beauty would I have become dead to? 

What truths?

 

When my mother died I cried so loud 

I worried the neighbors would call the police: 

It’s a peculiar experience, crying that way: 

undammed, with your entire self, 

with everything in you, roaring out.

 

Our crying distinguishes us from animals.

It also arouses the animal in us. 

I didn’t know such a creature, 

a werewolf in my case, 

resided in there. 

Not a hulk but a hurt. 

You don’t access it. 

The wolf finds you. 

It drags immense sorrow

through the tiny openings

of your nostrils, eyes, and mouth. 

It’s the animal inside us that needs to speak now. 

It’s waiting, ready for a mass howling. 

I’ll be ready, how about you?