2005 - Vol. 2, Issue 7

"Lightning"

Some people hide from storms, closing their shutters and doors and blinds.  .  .  . They steep  .  .  .  in their own darkness and rob themselves of the tempestuous journey and its exhilaration.
                        —Neil Marcus, Access Theatre

See Marcus sliding from wheelchair
to choreographed sprawl on theater floor
a few feet from my feet.  Neil in the dark
propped with candle lighting his Storm Reading face.
Neil fighting to control the same Cambridge air as I
rising with the writhing thunder of himself
now whispering his rage and rapture into this art.

Flick   he's up on the screen: dystonic frame
turning calligraphic pose.  Flick   his shadow
becomes brushed speech his torsionform
a pattern inked by some deft stroke.  Breath–
taking character with something striking to say:
Flick  I want you to see me bared see me
for example play this surf.  I dare you see me
this new way.  See how my twisting legs
have become flowing thick vines twined
boyhood to man and yes bearing fruit
sweet as any and ripe with the readiness of nerves
grown to raw surprise.  Strong — I am a storm!
Read me!  So are you don't be afraid read me
read you.   I do.   I will.   Years after

never defining perfection the same again
I still feel his fierce–calm center.  In embers
echoing his electrical charge I remember to see new
my own turning limbs I choose to honor
with oils, flowers, silver and lace.  Fibers
spinning from dreams soft as warm wax.  Ribbon–
reins to ride out fearful weathers edge to eye

to foreign edges knowing how because Marcus
seeded my need to decipher storied bodies, mine too
spilled from quill so fertile we believe the designer
makes no mistakes. The rainbow remember
is a beginning as much as end.

I hold these views to be true revealed to me
in a heartquake the way Neil flashed like that
on that quivering stage.  And because
in a shrinking embroidery–repaired bag where
I drag what little remains of what I'm sure
I know from these years yearning, here's this piece
of undiminished passion for storms
and this desperately given desperately kept glow
bright enough to read in any kind of dark by.

"After Anne"

I have gone out, a
.  .  .  lonely thing,
twelve-fingered.  .  .  .
I have been her kind.
           —Anne Sexton, "Her Kind"

            You
with your long–
red-dress-glass–
in-hand appearances
forecasting your Jesus Papers
opening with  .  .  .  a woman
like that.  .  .  .
          to let
comers guess
what to expect
so if they wanted to leave
right off the bat
they could as you knew
some would.
          Now
when a penfriend wants to hear
what I'll wear to read
what comes to mind first
is a washed pair of gumrubber shit–
kickers and comforting
flannel shirt.
          Next
contrite in sackcloth and ash
I call up black
with an enigmatic drape
conjuring silky Rilke another
aspect to liberate
perhaps with silver.
           Or
a riverfall of crepe
over ballet tights
and slippers
disguising twistings some
might fish a wish from
to license that particular voice.
           Not
to forget pleasures
from a studious choice
something bookish
someone can't wait
to get into to affirm that
habit.
           Whichever
each appointment I'll
expect to be specter
anointed by devil–
ish flaws imps and
familiars clawing
under chairs and tables
           to hear
what is dared
that satin satan
another fake piñata
tittering near as if I cared
I should be so damned lucky
if damned to have been your kind.

"Poetry Gathering in Maine"

Why talk about poetry?  .  .  .  For  .  .  .  the opening of boundaries into common ground  .  .  .  and for countless other experiences unanticipated and unnamable.
        —"After Frost" Series brochure

                Noticing
she'd become unable to keep her head up
having some sort of spell (that outbacker who'd come,
come hell or high water) they just came and stood close:
two writers, two painters, and that woman
saying she's a nurse and knows
about things like this.
               Oh and yes
the gall of those feet and legs so near her emerging shame.
The nearness of those silent feet and legs.  .  .  .  what?
The nearness of those feet and legs turning dear?
The dearness of those eloquent feet and legs!

                           A something
there is an old man might bring himself to sing.

"Patricia, Ascending"

Steroid intense everything grows immense so when
we heard you were coming and George from Live Poets
said come stay while they're here help welcome them to Maine Ed
took a day from work it was our big deal for months.

I'm on the rise too girl. Not on your failed black and white
America–to–Africa–world–beat where you witness and cry
and testify no.  I've done my stint out there now the closer I
get to air the less I can care but that's why I kissed you
after you read knowing you'll be slamming home
what needs to be said and from here on I gotta hold tight
what dimming light I've left to spend.  Pennies

of might  in every sense hoarded to bring you on open palms
woman was it they were so pale or transparent you couldn't see
my offering or were they clearly nothing worth your caring
to claim?  The closer I get to air the closer I need to be before
baring my sole.  Sure I'm ashamed I needed heeding but you
had none to spare a coffee table book earning more of a look
the grateful dog with hair the ink mine used to be honored more
but I don't begrudge someone there being valued some
and I'll be damned if that kind hound didn't look me straight
in the eye backwards and upside down.

You either couldn't discern my diversity's hue or couldn't care
too burned out yourself to smell neurons overfiring flares
in worn tissue trying a heart chafed and charred
from crashing up from ash the bruise from muscles twisting
the blues from speech slurring the color of loss the color of fear.

You dear were a hot pot of coffee come to this iced cream place
and it's true I'm not some body you need to know but I had a few
well welcoming words for you you seemed not to want oh
what words I brought yearning dressed all up in velvet and lace
wanting to learn you but your face returned nothing inviting me.

My vision with us laughing cross-legged on the floor two
raised Patty Smiths the black with white of it the city with outback
of it reciting each other childhood claps from our rich/poor pasts
disintegrating with each failed try until last shot I asked if you
see yourself part of the literary establishment moving as you do
with major poets or underground/alternative referring to your pro–
test poems and your man answered Patricia's ascending  as though
I didn't know you are major yourself missing my point I gave it up
wanting to be gone.

That's the trouble with those B  &  Bs pretending what turns
a false familiarity. Just because we tuck to sleep surrendered
under a same foreign roof breathing one another's hopes all night
doesn't mean we're friends after all and just because we're born/e
by a same name doesn't mean we've a damned thing in common
or if we can write words some call affirmative and true and
with an uncommon and in your case prize pulse doesn't mean we are
or are all the time or maybe you're so used to being admired
or just plain tired you couldn't see I wanted nothing from you
but for you to want that small braved offering from me.

I'll watch for you in poetry's cruel sky:     remote  

and brilliant.

"After Anne" first appeared in LiNQ, Vol. 25, No. 1, 1998, (Australia).