Strange land

Coming home from up high

where I waded motionless

in the breeze blowing down

from volcanoes over bubbling

mud, a boiling lake

where I loved life so much I

worried every hour of losing it.

Now I am back in the land of

man-made things—

moss from still ponds and

twigs still stuck on my shoe

Home where throngs frenzied 

with goals clog the streets, 

their constant motion drugging 

the air

where every place I go

too many got there first

where I sleep pinched 

without sight though the moon 

shines here too big 

and white.

Intermission

Our cancer patient plans big trips now.
Africa. Europe, Puerto Rico.
Not knowing how much time is left,
she will fill her glass to its
tipping point.

She will keep moving,
open her weary eyes wider,
stick out her parched tongue more often
 (though the taste buds are toast).

Her finger tips seek every sensation.
Nostrils flared, she tips her head
to hear this earth like never before,

to make it stream through her wool sweater,
her bald head, to force every remaining hair
on her body to tingle.

She carries her new life
as a baby chick in her swollen hands,
never taking her eyes off it.

She will pour breath down her blistered throat,
gulping it whole
the way a boa swallows the fawn.

Remission is only
intermission, she explains.

The night before

Tonight a bitter, bitter, bitter smell
of old olive trees shading my ground.

Bitter the scent of last week's chow mein
strangles every room.

Bitter, bitter, bitter the wind chime
wheezing beyond the door.

Bitter bitter seems all
outside and in.

All flesh, all down, all spider skein.
All of it sour, hard to swallow.

This bitter night before the morning
when I learn she's cured.

Bitter acid pools the food, the sleep tonight.
This bitter body shaking

Like a bitter bloated flatfish dying
at the bottom of the pail.

Only days ago, fresh

These berries, only
days ago plucked,
now sprout
a polar fur.

Already
chemistry finds another
nest to lay its egg.

Life invades from every
opportunity of light, of
drop, of death.
Thirsty and temporary.

One of many
strange things
about this world.

Her birthday

Today was her birthday.
Thirty-seven.
Her eyes dart around the table,
down to her menu, over to my menu,
resting briefly on my left hand,
noting perhaps my empty ring finger,
or the absence of nail polish,
or perhaps how much my hand
now looks like my mother's
as she often points out, then back
to her menu, and then over
to her man's face, on which only
an attractive nose and pleasant lips
are visible under the shiny cobalt blue
sun glasses and battered baseball cap.

When the menu absorbs her,
I stare at her disheveled hair
tied into a crown atop her head
and flash on the little girl she was,
the stunning beauty born into her
and for a jolt of sorrow pricks me,
seeing how it is fading so fast
in the street life she shares
with this nice man.

It seems nothing more will become of her.
This is her life, a life no one could envision
until she began living it.
I can see she doesn't mind it.
She has what she wants:
A man who cares, a mother who
buys her lunch and cigarettes,
and crystal meth.

The News at 6

All day every day the cries
invade my house,
so shrill they burst the glass
from souls of souls they come
from all directions
screamers sniped, gassed,
buried in their homes,
blown into walls, thrown
into holes, every day I hear
wailings--sick, hungry,
despised for some singularity,
some disparity at birth and then
the other mourners too
whose soldiers left.
What can we do
after the postcards to Congress,
after the marches,
the all-night benders?
Crying deep rivers soothe,
somehow a gray river of tears
holds one steady,
and so does chanting
and so does rocking,
and so does cursing,
though no one beyond the lamp post
will hear or give a damn
but we keep testing.

.

Feelings

Don't trust them
none of them,
not one tiny bit.

All liars, clowns, thieves,
making believe, misleading.

Why, even when I leap in joy,
that fear pops up,
Ha! Another blunder, Fool!

Fear, joy--they don't last
and that's my point:

Weak or strong,
you always wonder,
will love grow or smolder?

Either way, the feeling flees
with all its thunder
and in its place, another.