Backs in Corners

The Willow Psalms

I Fields of trees, we travel gravel and paved roads by fields and fields dried and dead as Toledo. Yellowing with speed, each branch the shadow of a larger one. II Yesterday’s life was a short drive to a wedding reception where everyone was happy drunk in the garden. III Remember the old poets with the last laugh blues, moustaches, delusions. The music is turned off, don’t think about it, don’t think about it. IV You are only sick if you enjoy the taste of the poison. The well is deep and there’s plenty of rope. V Do not worry about the snail in the bucket. His shell has crusted to the steel, he is now part of the bucket and has been asleep for years. VI Forgetting is an easy memory for those always looking forward. Young poetry is skinny, but remember one psalm in the shade of the willow; to be; not for ourselves, but for others. To be; not for ourselves, for others. VII We were made to live without grid-iron incisions, to make love in the backyard of every country, to feed lions, to sleep on shorelines, to be more like blackbirds; wise enough to sing in the sun and less like wolves, sharpening their teeth on the side of stones. VIII The devil is a defeatist too, always the first in line, wipes his mouth on his sleeves. Even the billion-dollar hotel has bedbugs in the wood of its walls. IX Waiting is not simply counting the clock, finding the pattern of ring stains in hardwood flooring, or disappearing into the weather. Wait like a waiter deserving of a grand-baby piano tip. X Art is not satisfied, abandon your mind and speak in coma. Seek black fly poetry, Egyptian mascara. Whatever you do, do not fall asleep angry. XI If you live your life the last in line walk far as the sole wears, smile, love strangers for being strange, love as friends about to meet and remember jazz grooves indiscriminately. XII Beware of fools who argue simply for the taste of their own tongues, from a distance you are them, they are you. XIII Profound what? Sell your teeth to beggars with broken dentures and let them teach you the meaning of an empty mouth.

HomeYears, Afternoon, 4.24.2012.

Alan Ingus and I were shootin’ pool last night in Iowa City at a bar called Deadwood. A dark bar playing oldies from a juke box and half of the people were dressed like they were ripped off Broadway Avenue’s Lower East side in the 1940s. The funny thing was, Alan and I were hangin’ around that pool table, sipping our bitter ales and measuring up the cue ball and the angles and all that recreational geometry for hours. Longer than it usually takes a couple bull-jawed, red-blooded north American men to sink some billiards, I’d say. Of course I’m no expert. Saying a couple words every now and again and then hitting some conversational chord and talking for a good while about professors or doctors or other poets and writers we had met that weekend at the University. We kept sauntering around the table, just having a good time, buzzing off the beer and the weekend and that hearty dinner we had just wolfed down. The music ran dry off the stereos every once in a while and you could hear the clink and clank of beer glasses, the mumble of voices or drowsy chuckles from the college scene locals. A chill bunch, I wouldn’t mind a couple more pints with ‘em if I was given the choice. There was a whole cinnamon burger kind of feel to the place. So we just kept on hangin around that table, a few games in and we couldn’t sink the damn eight ball for the life of us, must’ve been about an hour, the only ball on the table was that elusive 8-ball. We cursed and fussed, took a sip from our beers and then scratched on the play again and again. It was a cosmic sign I began to realize. God keeping us there, making us work around our thoughts and enjoy the time set aside for friends you don’t always get when you grow older. Alan was working full time up in bear claw country and hammering away on computers and going through pages and pages of scientific research nonsense I could never understand. I was happy for him, he’s got the brain for it and he’s got the stomach for all those numbers too. I’ve been shadowed away like a recluse spider down in the outskirts of Chicago at my parents' house, driving myself mad with all that peace and quiet, drifting through nirvana like the air in the house just gassed you up to it, no problem. Anyway, we finally sunk in the 8-ball and what a celebration we had. I don’t even remember who got it, it didn’t matter at that point, we were bored to death and ready for some change. We split to a booth and got another round of dark beers. Talked for a long while about women and work and women and how much work it takes to get a real nice women for yourself. One of those nights, the blue sky coming in through the windows, and finally the townies were starting to fill up the place and I thought I knew a few of them, but reminded myself I was a stranger and none of us would ever know each other. We got out of there and grabbed a slice of meat-heavy pizza from a slice-joint right across the street, ate outside on a wooden bench and watched the drunks toss themselves in and out of bar doors and across the whole street. What a sight. We got out of there and hit the hotel pretty quick, watching some terrible movie until the television lights sedated all the activity in our brains and zonk. Snoozing like Iowa deadwood.

Daydreaming the Gulf of Mexico

HomeYears, 3.5.2012. morning.

Made it back to the inland, the westside of the peninsula after chirpin' with the fellow flamingos down in miami. Friday night I rented some slick new jalopy out of a shady-busted up place, all dirty money and cheap smiles over there. Got the whip for real cheap, so I zoomed south on 75 right as the sun was sinking over the forested jungle green landscape of mainland florida. Real swampy and hot over there, had the windows down and some old rock tunes blastin' thru the windows. Still had Auntie and Dad's guilt ringin' thru my ears, they couldn't understand why i was leavin', why i wanted to see some old friends. they wanted to keep me there, i don't know what for. i couldn't handle the 3pm dinners and the snoozin' in front of the tv screen everynight. anyway, i got outta there with a grin on my face, singing at the top of my lungs for the 3hour drive, got to Davie, where i met my ol' boy JG and we hit the beach strip lookin' for some free booze and snacks. Had dinner at some swanky joint with real bad service and black-button-up-shirt waiters who usually just hung around the hostess out in front and kept the customers waiting waiting waiting like vultures for overpriced pizza and drinks. Anyway, our ol' gal Sandy Miami made a stop by, with her dark curls and red lipstick lookin' all cute and done up. We got those huge gallon size margaritas and got sauced pretty quick. Felt like a dream, the three of us there, laughin' and tellin' stories and talkin' about every which way, with all the babes in their night skirts and heels walkin' by and all the fellas with horrible tattoos and cigarettes dancing a drunken waltz down the strip. it was a moment all right. we slipped the check and split to the beach. the dark mouth of the gulf like some endless monster lapping for air, trying to bring us in, and turning back with the sand all cool on our feet and the half-moon hanging in between all the lights from the clubs and bars, the faint sound of cubana music bouncing beyond the sidewalk, it was a marvelous night. elegant winds blowing through us. and us three just sitting on the beach, all sauced up, just laughing laughing laughing.
The next day was real good too. woke up too early, i suppose i was too excited to keep still. i wandered around JG's apartment in the morning, went outside and just stood in the early morning sun with my eyes closed. If you stand in the sun down there long enough, you begin to feel like a tall glass of florida orange juice. that's the truth, but anytime before ten a.m. and be still. we had brunch at a little place that's real popular with the locals, i'd seen one before but never gone in, to be honest, i always thought it was a bank or something from the outside whenever i passed the one in downtown sarasota. we had coffee in tiny paper cups while we waited, JG and his roommate DoveDove, who i never really understood, such an interesting guy real quiet and seemed like he was always upset at something or tired, i suppose that's how it goes with all the young professionals, they got their heads slammed up in books all day when they step out in the world and feel the surge of life go through them they get uncomfortable with the strangeness of it all. I don't really know the guy, that probably ain't even close. So after that, me and JG met up with Sandy Miami in the downtown strip at some bar, where her cute colombian friend greeted us with kisses and ordered drinks at the bar with her friends. We left 'em, wandered slowly through this art festival, galleries of hundreds of artists' work, it was pretty busy. Inspiring too. i took the card of one painter whose work drew me back to my outlines. looking at his paintings was like tripping in the amazon again. once i get some money and a house of my own, i'm gonna look that guy up and put a great big picture of his in a room full of books and an easy chair, where i can just stare at that thing all day until the room starts spinning and i hear that music from heaven twirling through my head. we spent a few good hours there, then hit up the beach once we got real tired, and slept for a bit. we were stuck in traffic right downtown trying to get there and it was terribly packed but i didn't mind too much, though JG was driving and i felt bad he was just as tired as me, but i was hangin' my head out the window, drunk off the sun and tryin' to talk to the pretty babes walkin' by with their tanned bodies held up tight in their bikinis, it was such a pleasing sight for me. and the water and the wind and the sun and the smell from the restaurants and the faint waft of cigarettes and car exhaust and the music from cars comin' in altogether it was such a day to be alive, and i knew it right there right then, i was definitely alive and that was as certain as i'll ever be about that. the evening slowed down; we got some burritos and watched the college ball game back at JG's place until we won. JG was so happy, hootin' and hollerin' all over the empty livin' room, high-fivin' and pumpin' his arms like high-powered pistons, i was just glad for his sake that we won. after that, we got cleaned up and dressed, hit the town in the cruiser and headed to the casino down in miami. we met up with a couple of the boys, tony and mikey, real genuine guys, already there, scopin' the place out, lookin' for a good time. the place was packed like Time Square, a mix of old grannies at the penny slots, hootin' and clappin' with their glasses half-way down their noses, and the fat cats just standin' in the middle of the place with musty cigars, all jeweled up in gold necklaces, and wrist chains and watches, and then there were the girls. Oh lord, the girls. Such beautiful babes it broke my heart to pieces just to look at them. their smooth short dresses and their high heels and their hair all pinned up, i couldn't take it. such sorrow for lonely men like me breeds heavily in the presence of beautiful women like the women down in miami. so good lookin'; they don't know what to do with themselves. i didn't know exactly what to do with myself, so after one strong drink we split the place and snoozed back at JG's. We woke up early, with the alarms on and cleaned up, headed to church and got to mass just before halfway thru. I needed that cleansing. Just standing there, praying, opening myself up, trying to fill it with God and principles and wisdom. i always feel the peace simmering around my chest and shoulders after church, maybe that's one of the reasons why people keep going. the peace of God abiding in us. Even then, my long estranged cousin Paul was there, it was good to see him, we all grabbed lunch and i sat next to him, we talked and talked and joked around and he's a great guy i wish we had hung out more, but that's time, and we all know for the good things in life there is never enough time, and i suppose that's how it will always be on this earth. he picked up my check and then the whole group had to split, i had to say bye to the fellas and gave an extra slap n' hug to JG for all the hospitality and for showin' me a fantastic time around town. i split his place and sped close to 100miles an hour to make this rental deadline, but i was about two hours late, but the place was closed when i got there so i don't suppose it mattered too much. Pops and Unc A scooped me up and there was dinner ready when i got back, and i swallowed that whole meal at the dinner table while they watched tv and started sinking to sleep and then i just read a book on the air mattress until i couldn't keep my eyes open much longer and then zonk. out. snoozin til the morning.

Sounds of Waiting Near the Gulf of Mexico

A half paper cup of tea
on white sand
lapped into the mouth of Mexico,
the beach of millionaire dreams
and shattered Modelo bottles.

Seagulls circling the shallow fish
with small hungry beaks.

Under this palm tree I sit for hours,
where the time is not long
but not short either.

It can never go away now.
Once the wind has passed through you,
the salt is forever on your lips,
the shade carried on your skin,
one endless string of sleep
thickening and thinning all the days
of your life.

They say the people here
have such a sun-and-clouds sensibility,
always waiting for paradise
even when they’re ear-deep in the music
only experienced dreamers
can understand.

excerpt from "The Communion of Love," by St. Matthew the Poor

"Receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who observes his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like." (James 1:21-24)

One Memory of Love

She and her mother and father
can only know the fullness of your love
after you have completely removed it,
after you have left the increasing yawn of silence
enter the door of their house.

All with gentle grace, of course.

They know now of love and all it's ardor,
how cleanly it can sever the heart
of fragile daughters directly in two.

She, again she, the one who now
only exists in poems,
is only as whole as the hollow words
you crooned to her years ago,
when you were both naked
in the broken bed.

Do not worry. She will find some other
handsome fool and will try
to fit his words into
the old stamped outlines of yours.

The ones who are first will suffer
the deepest injuries,
they keep scars in the way
miserly men keep books of war,
and will be shuffled back
to the bottom of a dusty and worn out box.

Passing Through

East coast towns are swallowed
by the breath of the ocean
salted, grainy air.
These countless picture-sized
connecticut villages.

Nameless and of olde English sentiments
crumbling buildings at the rail tracks,
dark ale pubs, fish and chip shops,
lone houses scattered
in the bare thickets of thorny forests.

There is an emptiness
you can see. A vacancy that fills
the space between daylight and the trees,
the pavement and the pedestrians,
the open doorway of old brick houses.

The metal sheen of cars
glistening the sun
off in the distance.

Except from "The Problem of Pain," by C.S. Lewis

"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell. But God wills our good, and our good is to love HIm (with that responsive love proper to creatures) and to love Him we must know Him: and if we know Him, we shall in fact fall on our faces. If we do not, that only shows that what we are trying to love is not yet God--though it may be the nearest approximation to God which our thought and fantasy can attain. Yet the call is not only to prostration and awe; it is to a reflection of the Divine life, a creaturely participation in the Divine attributes which is far beyond our present desires. We are bidden to 'put on Christ', to become like God. That is, whether we like it or not, God intends to give us what we need, not what we now think we want. Once more, we are embarrassed by the intolerable compliment, by too much love, not too little."

"A Bowl," by Rumi

Imagine the time the particle you are
returns where it came from!

The family darling comes home. Wine,
without being contained in cups,
is handed around.

A red glint appears in a granite outcrop,
and suddenly the whole cliff turns to ruby.

At dawn I walked along with a monk
on his way to the monastery.
"We do the same work,"
I told him. "We suffer the same."

He gave me a bowl.
And I saw:
the soul has this shape.
Shams,
you that teach us and actual sunlight,
help me now,

being in the middle of being partly in my self
and partly outside.

"The Perfect Sleepers," by Paul Zweig

This light flooding my chair
Is too strong at six in the morning;
It was meant for the policemen prowling
In a room around some criminal,
His guilt a form of sleeplessness.

With half-shut eyes, I see horses motionless
in a field
Except for their tails that flick away darkness,
Their eyes blazing like angels
On a beach in hell, bruised but noble,
For they left speech behind them
On their nightlong fall into the world.

Perfect sleepers, erect in the narrow field
Between thinking and dreaming,
Your large eyes merciful, but empty;
I take you with me into the grey milk of dawn,
Knowing your terrors are simpler than mine:
Afraid of puddles, rabbits and the whip,
Not of promises kept or broken, not of breathing,
Not of love's forged signature
And its costly repairs.

Quote

"Let us remember...that in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these things, we might be less apt to destroy both."

--Christian Wiman, Editor of Poetry Magazine

Someday

imagine a world with no language
where there is neither silence nor music
only the pleasure of sound
where words are unable to form in the mind
where nothing has meaning only sensation
where all people are strangers all friends all lovers
where one cannot distinguish their body from the air
from the ground they walk from the spaces they move through
where lines and borders have no bearing
only colors and gradual tone shifting signal the change of a moment
where everything is a beautiful and inspiring wisp of confusion
puzzles that cannot be solved
ideas that do not ask to be understood only experienced
where love and indifference exist as the only feelings
both fleeting both sustained

The Monastery

A place hidden deep in unearthly peace
far beyond the borders of a small Texan town,
a monastery sits on the rocky shores
of white-cragged and grassy cliffs
Praying, praying, praying.

Silent monks with long black beards
sad eyes and always smiling,
praying, praying, praying.
They live in spaces with no clocks,
only the shoreline the sun and the moon
receding and circling the brief and endless span of time.
They live in spaces with no sound,
only shallow lapping from the shore, the hot wind
through open sanctuary windows,
the mid-day braying of the goats in the field.

In this place they are calm,
praying, praying, praying
they know no words other than prayer,
they work in secret, they love God
in quiet rooms and before the face
of every slow and red rising dawn,
while praying, praying, praying.

"Ode to Criticism," by Pablo Neruda

I wrote five poems:
one was green,
another a round wheaten loaf,
the third was a house, abuilding,
the fourth a ring,
and the fifth was
brief as a lightning flash,
and as I wrote it,
it branded my reason.

Well, then, men
and women
came and took
my simple materials,
breeze, wind, radiance, clay, wood,
and with such ordinary things
constructed
walls, floors, and dreams.
On one line of my poetry
they hung out the wash to dry.
They ate my words
for dinner,
they kept them
by the head of their beds,
they lived with poetry,
with the light that escaped from my side.
Then
came a mute critic,
then another babbling tongues,
and others, many others, came,
some blind, some all-seeing,
some of them as elegant
as carnations with bright red shoes,
others as severely
clothed as corpses,
some were partisans
of the king and his exalted monarchy,
others had been snared
in Marx's brow
and were kicking their feet in his beard,
some were English,
plain and simply English,
and among them
they set out
with tooth and knife,
with dictionaries and other dark weapons,
with venerable quotes,
they set out
to take my poor poetry
from the simple folk
who loved it.
They trapped and tricked it,
they rolled it in a scroll,
they secured it with a hundred pins,
they covered it with skeleton dust,
they drowned it in ink,
they spit on it with the suave
benignity of a cat,
they used it to wrap clocks,
they protected it and condemned it,
they stored it with crude oil,
they dedicated damp treatises to it,
they boiled it with milk,
they showered it with pebbles,
and in the process erased vowels from it,
their syllables and sighs
nearly killed it,
they crumbled it and tied it up in a
little package
they scrupulously addressed
to their attics and cemeteries,
then,
one by one, they retired,
enraged to the point of madness
because I wasn't
popular enough for them,
or saturated with mild contempt
for my customary lack of shadows,
they left
all of them,
and then,
once again,
men and women
came to live
with my poetry,
once again
they lighted fires,
built houses,
broke bread,
they shared the light
and in love joined
the lightning flash and the ring.
And now,
gentlemen, if you will excuse me
for interrupting this story
I'm telling,
I am leaving to live
forever
with simple people.

The Things I Learn From Doing Nothing All Day

I learn many things each day; I learn all I need to know
from sitting alone in the bedroom,
staring out the window and playing guitar,
making music no one will ever hear,
composing symphonies already muted and vanishing.
There are things I learn from the hardwood floors,
and the cold dirty tile when I walk barefoot,
from the simple stitched embroidery of my drool-stained pillow.
I’ve learned the gift of sleep is only greater than the gift of waking
if you have lost your last pleasant memory.
There are lessons I have learned in tasting Petrarch and the dust of ancient poetry,
of drinking literature while the light is still out,
of feeling the sun and the clouds waft over my naked body after twenty minute showers.
Some days I have a strong desire to fill all this emptiness,
other days I cannot distinguish myself from unopened books on the shelf.
The time I spent in the kitchen looking outside at the trees,
following the squirrels and the birds and then gazing forever
at the bread crumbs scattered on the countertop.
There is wisdom you learn from silence.
When the stillness of the broken peach trees
you planted many summers ago
match your own motion, it is then
that only your breathing exists. And there you are alive.
One can only truly understand love in death.
When the solemn face passes through airy joy and disengages the mind.
Because here, where I have done nothing,
everything I have loved has turned to dust.
I know this is true;
I sweep it off the floor and throw it in the trash every afternoon.

"The Other Ocean," by Paul Zweig

It was the whip-marks of the horned asp,
And the Beduin sucking his coffee
Through cracked fleshy lips;
It was his ceremonial kindness
In the month-long solitude of camel-watching,
While his animals bellowed over the plain
Like ghosts roaming in the star-glitter.
It was these scattered lives in a country without rain,
And the miniature within,
Crawling, hissing,
Its light almost solid, almost mineral.

The way back smelled of cinders,
Older, emptier than anything living;
A way of faces lost in the changes
Of light into dark, passing grief-wrinkled
Boulders, sand glaring red and grey.

It was a line of rust scrawled on the stillness,
As a sown darkness, and an expectation.

Where Everything Is Music

"Where Everything is Music," by Rumi

Don't worry about saving these songs!
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn't matter.

We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.

The strumming and the flute notes
rise into the atmosphere,
and even if the whole world's harp
should burn up, there will still be
hidden instruments playing.

So the candle flickers and goes out.
We have a piece of flint, and a spark.

This singing art is sea foam.
The graceful movements come from a pearl
somewhere on the ocean floor.

Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge
of driftwood along the beach, wanting!

They derive
from a slow and powerful root
that we can't see.

Stop the words now.
Open the window in the center of your chest,
and let the spirits fly in and out.

Daydreaming Arthritic Branches

Meditation

And now the sun descends behind the grassy cliffs, the rays are a deep golden hue, bringing everything into color, into being. The monastery bells are ringing, the time for vespers is now. I wish to stay and bask in the eternal and benevolent glow of the sun, to sit here and sleep, to write myself into existence. The present so vivid, there are too many mysteries to ponder, much beauty to behold. I still gape in awe, soul-spaced and light-bodied at the thought of Divine creation, of the secrets brought to the senses. And there is a strong red ant marching toward me, two now, on either side of me. They hunt me out, they consider my nature, sense me and know I am harmless. I am a benign giant shading their atmosphere, a thin bearded being, loving to live and to continue living. The monks have taught me things. To be simple, to love without ceasing, to become lost, absent-minded in the immensity of glory that is continually overflowing. To eat little and pray much, to know that God has words to praise Him properly, of all the books written it cannot be contained, of tongues and minds it cannot be explained. There is a lonely fish jumping in the sea. I hear the splash echo through the bay and the grassy cragged shores and I think of how it has been for me for a long time. And like me, it has been the same for many others.
Oh monks, brothers, teachers and saints, those of you held by a stronger rope to the heavens, pray for us all, that we may live in kingdoms and kingdoms and kingdoms for what we suffer now.

'Just Friends," by Robert Creeley

Out of the table endlessly rocking,
sea shells and firm,
I saw a face appear
which called me dear.

To be loved is half the battle,
I thought.
To be
is to be better than is not.

Now when you are old what will you say?
You don't say,
she said.
That was on a Thursday.

Friday night I left
and haven't been back since.
Everything is water
if you look long enough.

Currently Reading:

"The Temptation of Saint Anthony," by Gustave Flaubert.

James 3:13-17

"Who is wise and understanding among you?
Let him show good conduct that his works
are done in the meekness of wisdom.
But if you have bitter envy
and self-seeking in your hearts,
do not boast and lie against the truth.
This wisdom does not descend from above,
but is earthly, sensual, demonic.
For where envy and self-seeking exist,
confusion and every evil thing are there.
But the wisdom that is from above is first pure,
then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield,
full of mercy and good fruit,
without partiality and without hypocrisy."

Plane Etiquette

A sneeze pregnant with disease,
she’s reading a dirty magazine
on the plane, in the seat next to me,
dropping snot-crusted tissue
and rubbing her face
all over her sleeves
I dream only hypothetically,
Ma’m, if you could please,
release your nose grease
away from me, preferably
in the space between
the garbage and your teeth,
because I can already barely breathe
something so calm, so serene
she would gladly believe my
mild gesture of courtesy
like a hygienic call from a referee,
because on this plane, when all
we see are clouds and a hint of blue
from the surface of the sea, we have to
plead silently: Please don’t bother me,
or else you’ll get what you see:
an angry man with gritted teeth
within arms reach of the door
labeled “Emergency”!

Want

Grandma moved to Los Angeles
last summer, she said
she would miss us so much
she was only going for the weather
and the ocean and bloody mary’s
in the mornings on the beach,
all-you-can-eat-crab
and oysters, oh! unlimited
oysters on Mondays
down by the pier.
We should visit.

On the phone her voice
sounds happy. She lives
by her sister and her last brother.
They play cards all day
and watch Egyptian dramas
on satellite while cracking
dried watermelon seeds
between their teeth,
and church a few times a week,
it gives her a sense of peace.

At home mom says the house
feels cold since grandma’s space
heater is never on anymore.
But I know,
she misses dinner
being ready when she and dad
come home.