Monday, November 14, 2016

Golden Gate Bridge

marvelous sight. 
The shoreline shines into view 
before it's swallowed as the bright blue door 
of sky opens 
and closes in silence. 
And the ocean restless, without rest
pulls back and forth and heaves itself onto bluffs, 
a wind on its heals blowing grayness fast and furious, 
fog rushing like tumbleweed across the land 
while the bridge stands still and silent as a ghost
lurking behind the curtain, another world.
I love the bridge hidden in fog, the bridge of memory.
I love it hidden as much as I love it clear with red steel rising.
I forgive all whose arms winged from it. I can see all
through their eyes vanish into whiteness, 
then darkness, churning their souls clean. 

The moon

How big the big moon tonight;
how it stirs this heart 
with its perfect swollen shape, 
with its dazzling light--a great celebrity 
in that world of night. 

Forget its cold truth: waterless, airless;
not a better world--it would kill me given a chance. 

Still I never tire of the view. 
Every full moon, half, any phase
feels new and gay and wonderful. 

My astronaut eyes fixed on earth, 
brocaded blue, unguarded in the path of sunbeams. 
The shock of that empty awesome 
surrounding black would change me. 

Even decades later 
while brushing my teeth, the image assails me--
our patterned earth circling in the ink of infinite deep. 

The mystery of it. 
The total mystery of it.
And no one to turn to. 


How I'm feeling

Don't ask me how i'm feeling. 
Please      just      don't ask. 
Because   I      am     reeling. 

No no no      ask me.
DO ask.
Because I’ll tell you 
even if you don't inquire, 
even though I'm drained 
of all routine desire. 

I want to tell you. I really do. 
I   do   not  want     to  be alone 
emoting blue. 

I need to report it. 
Or should I say, deport it. 

But the right word for 
this anguish, what is it?

What explains my hot weeping? 
These pounding moods 
that hound me like a shadow
that follows me around?

That when I see a bridge 
I want to jump!

Is the word....the diagnosis.....
Donald Trump?

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Broken window

I do not want to die indoors.
My last air smelling 
of just mopped floors. 
No.

Set me on a meadow, please.
Lay me near a field or shore. 

Never, never please, oh please 
behind a door. 

I would break a window if I could.
And crawl out to the nearest 
wood 

so in the end my eyes could open
one last time on

something green, immense
something born,

where I can mulch with those 
already gone, 

where stars can clearly see 
what's become of me, 

and once again reach out

and gather my remaining matter. 

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

A beautiful lie

There is a barrier between us 
and the dead; 
not even physics can explain 
where they move 
but they do move 
through a light source 
of their own. 

You can see them now and then 
but only from the corners 
of your eyes before they vanish
in a sudden flash 
like when a light bulb fails.
It can make your heart thrash. 

They are good listeners. 
That's all they do 
because the next world 
can't get through a barrier 
not even physics can explain 
and atheists disdain 
and the faithful sustain. 

A soul steps from worn out armor 
into the immaterial home 
and no one alive can be that happy. 

There is a barrier between us 
but they want for nothing. 
They wait for their own happiness 
to grow. 
And they will greet us, their dearly beloveds. 

There is a barrier between us 
but they do not forget us. 
Eternal without amnesia.  
Old death and young life entwined 
at once. 
Every moment a first moment. 
The best. It's yet to come. 

Believe it.