After Mark Slavin's Watercolor, “Two Windows”

In the one facing me the sun bleeds

Weapon-like, stabbing with its petals

Lit up by evening into the room

Like a hand covering the western sky,

And in the other pane, winter

Behind a dusky watery splash, snow

On the ground between misty trees.

You might be wearing a helmet,

And going left, away from the fire's

The best option, if you want to see home

Again, your people, your animals,

The trees in your yard, if you want to hope

Again that everything turns out best, to sit

Where two windows make the corner

A place to be, late afternoon,

With the sun coming up in one,

Going down in flames in the other,

That place at the back or side of the house

Where the dreams that life counts upon

Have half a chance to find you.

The Meeting

The Meeting

Okay, I want to call the meeting to order. 

Does anyone have any opening remarks they would like to make?

I, for one, am getting just a bit frightened by what’s happening

On the streets of America.

Me too!  It’s scary.

I agree.  What do we propose to do?

One of us has to start speaking about the poor and the unemployed.

That’s a must.  We can’t forget them.

I think it would be less confusing if you guys stuck with the old message you had,

And we’ll talk about the government’s constant bloodsucking character.

That makes more sense than switching around all the time.

I second that.  I’ll start getting the word out

That there’s legislation in the pipeline

That addresses the hunger issue. 

I’ll give a speech, or you give one, and I’ll respond,

Whatever makes you comfortable. 

I know a journalist looking for an exclusive.  He’s got his own ideas, so….

As far as the American street, I’ll have the bureau set up a few

Orgs to attract the worst of the worst. 

Once they’re gone, cut from the main, like the head of a snake,

The orgs just lose energy and die off.

If it’s hydra-natured, we’ll have the infrastructure to control it. 

If we control everything, all sides,

Then there’s no opposition.  There’s only us.

Good idea.  I’m already feeling better.

Meeting adjourned.

Unselfie Trinity

Blanketed Potato

Sometimes watching a movie
I'll get by a commercial’s gauzy

Drama, with a daughter in tears

Reconnecting with her long lost

Father, who was captured or dis-
Oriented, or developed amnesia

And couldn’t find his way back

To his loved ones, his world,

The one he knows like the green

Eyes of his daughter, now happier

Than ever, as if in the presence of God.

Incomprehensibly, as if there were

No 49 dollar a month telephone
Package to peddle, no deal to make,
No fineprint, impossible terms,
I’ll start weeping, bawling like
A little boy who lost his truck
And then harder and harder
In shame at falling for their trick,
Cooked through eye, ear, my heart 

As I sit there, a blanketed potato.

Bedtime for Diogenes

Sleep sleep you cute little marauding undisturbed sleeper

Sleep like a pampered prince my parasitic paranoid

My dimwitted bombdropping cloak and dagger Frankenstien

My diabolical human piece of heartless earthbound scum

My violent unredeemable piece of misery-dishing fleshfat

Like a cute little prince little runway-swishing coke-snorting

Yacht-sailing meat-packing slave-driving hightalking fool

Sleep my sleepy cute little rapacious dollhouse schmuck

My cataclysmic gene abomination my evolutionary teardrop

My rotten mismanaged illeducated foul-aimed dunce

Sleep my poor little misunderstood pillager my murderer my holy

Little unashamed prince in bed with innocents sleep sleep my baby

So we can starve them in the morning and bomb them later

So we can poison their water and mama's milk to kill them slowly

Make sure they die a painful nightmare so sleep little prince my
Little self-righteous auto-icon sap-souled sweetie of the world

Try to get some sleep we have a big day tomorrow

The Chair

Hurry, someone, bring us a chair. 

If we don’t sit this minute

Who knows what will happen
Next, what we’ll do to regret.

I go grab the junk cabinet, ASAP.

I rip apart its four sides
For a good one to sit on.

I take a limb from the birch

We felled to save the rest

And saw it in half. I notice the old

Well-pin, hand-hewn with the care
Of someone who drew water

From the earth, absurdly
Abandoned in the weeds. I grab it,
And on the way pick up a steel rod that sat
A hundred years under the smokehouse.

I mount the new legs on the new seat
With old nails, rope, and a welded
Anchor bolt. I remove my sweater
Unraveling at the cuff, torn

At the hem, the one grandma

Knitted, and ball it for a cushion.
Here, I say, it’s all yours,
The way poems get made

To be sat upon
To put off whatever comes next.

We Christians

Since Constantine

We've been as sweet
As Jesus, killing
With the passion of pagans.
At some point in the life
Of an alcoholic,
A choice has to be made:

Your story, or your life. 

Words go on
As smoothly as the plaster
Plasterers use
To fill the cracks
Or the artisan uses
To shape the acts
Of a Saint

On the façade of a church

Built to repel an attack.

The heart is
Like a monk

Buried in the library

Looking for proof

He doesn’t need any.

Foot, Tongue, Boot

Twenty-six

bones, thirty-

three joints,

one hundred

muscles

and tendons,

ligaments,

tongues

of thousands

of miles;

who could forget

that dish

of hard candy,

ten lollipops

to worship—red,

green, peachy

as the day

God made them.

What foot lives

without a tongue

to soothe it? 

The boot heats up
the confusion

my mind is—

I raise to my nose,
sniff you out
when elsewhere

rules the hour,

has you all

to itself, like

a bloodhound

on a leash,

drooling

for the fugitive's
return to the scene
of the crime. 

Deathbed Poets

Will hold your hand. Wipe your ass.

Tell tall tales about the coming glories,

Fetch your slippers, fluff the pillow.

Deathbed poets agree with all you say

And will echo it back with genuine pride

In their voices; but otherly, with a lofty

Flair. If weeping threatens to breach

The walls built against such onslaught,

It’s unlikely to bear surprises. Reborn

So often—who would ever want to be

Deathbed poets for them?—they wither

On vines, in bed with the roses. But this
Isn’t about their martyrdom, it’s about yours

And the magnificence that awaits you. 

Take my hand, and start at the beginning.

Tell me what things were like when you

Were little, or have you always been

This old, confined to this deathbed? 

In that case, you might be a poet, too! 

Take my hand; let’s make the thorns

And perfume sing till the nurse returns!

DRONE ENVY

Missiles out of the blue
Is a string of pretty sounds,

A whistling in the woods,

In the dark, the park

Preferable to wasting

Alone in a room

On wards designed for it. 

Thus, I envy the ones

We bug-splat,

We liberate

From elderly pain,

And its foot-tapping goodbye. 

Lucky bullseye bastards

Is the way
My impotence sees them.

Judgement Day Was Every Day

I hope God, when the famous day

Of reckoning arrives, so-called

Judgement Day, which had always

Scared the living shit out of me,

Can relate to my bucketlist.

I hope he takes into consideration

The things I've seen and the places

I've travelled to (hardly ever in luxury)

And that if I did sin, I had no clue

There was a rule against it.  It was

Accidental, all of it.  The only plan

I ever had came already damaged in a dream

After a long bout of insomnia

Counting options on my fingers.

Wanted For Immediate Employment

Position:  Fearless Philosopher-King

Length of Contract:  Number of Heartbeats.

Compensation: Our Gratitude and Love.

Duties: Don’t starve the people,

Don't rob them, don't lie and tell them

You’ll fix what can't be fixed,

Don’t attack foreign poor people,

Almost everyone’s grandmother

Was once poor, and foreign,

Don’t ship away our jobs as if

We had outgrown them while selling

What we outgrew making.  Feel free

To gut the wealthy as you see fit,

But you can’t stash the stash

In Swissland for your kids’ sake

Or set up Foundations to end

Poverty and let the chips

Fall where they may.  We pray

For as little violence as possible. 

If you think you have what it takes,

Write for an appointment.

The job begins immediately, after

The coup and an interview with the historian

You feel best captures the future.

All the Lame Our Glory Provides

It’s impossible to get to me.  I’m surrounded

By the best of the nest. And still, orphans show up,

The blind, the old, women too, many whose limbs

Were torn from their bodies, their stumps like erasers

At the chewed ends of pencils broken beyond use.

Hundreds of thousands have limped past, dragging

Themselves through their I-tragedies like monsters,

Learning how to live without an arm or leg, learning

To eat without faces, to chew without jawbones,

How to swallow without heaving it back on the plate,

Teaching patience to their loved ones.  I see them riding

Punishment’s conveyor belt, top billing in the drama

When I lift the curtain of my eyes, driving or dreaming

About my place in their suffering. And that’s when

I imagine myself as one of them, over the guardrail

With a carload of guilt, exploding in a ball of flame,

Like a more cinematic Jesus, dusted for the world’s sins

And souls bound for hell. That’s when I grip the wheel

A little tighter, and clear my eyes. That’s when I think
To pat the backs of all the creative-destroyer types,

Because, otherwise, chaos would be the only author.

The Beginning of the End

It all started with Enlightenment scholars

When they tried to fix stupid, and it will end

With unfixed stupid wielding the mirrors

Of the Enlightenment.  Once Professor 

Einstein called civilization an axe

In the hands of a psychopath.  That guy

Was an Einstein about more than the shape

Of time, he knew the Adam in the atom.

Now people get so excited about technology

When it comes in the form of spaceships

And devices to unlock the mysteries

Of our souls, that when wars begin they

Run to see just how lethal smart can be.

Thus, the original target gets enlightened!

Archilochus Makes a Striking Confession, or The First Lyric Poet Loves to Slay Love

1

I won't be doing Sally Mary or Sue

(That's not the me I'd call the true)

With bunghole so close to twat

Only a fool would lick that spot

Rather pals with poo-tipped rods

Than a hairy hole clotted with clods

Give me a youthful warrior’s bum

To plunge my woody until I cum

Not a fur-scented lady's bullseye

Cooking lives just to see them all die

2

The shield’s feathers form a wing.

Whenever a boat approaches the beach

I seem to gravitate there. I pray to be made

A bush, a rock, a wisp of smoke

On a hill. Ares is that kind of lover

Whose weapons appear to be one's own hands--
You smack and clang and crash and thrust,

You defecate, cough; ooze the beast

Of life, the caged animal altogether

An animal kept inside its cage

In the mind inside another cage

Where the gods gather for friendly games

Of poker.  I love the sunbaked islands. 

Love’s my best trait. True, it can be

Wounded, and doesn’t belong

On the battlefield, though feels at home

In the trenches. Let Ares’ wife growl

And bark, patrol the fence like a brave man  

Before sending boys on ships in all directions.

I love the islands, and love is something

To kill for. Love’s my best trait.

Let’s try to keep it that way: your shield

And mine, two wings on an angel for whom

The gods, too dreamy for war, allow

Peace to make space for a sweeter song.

That’s all we ask, to belong to a song.

And if not, to become a bush, rock, tree

On sunbaked islands facing the open sea.

3

My shield is the real deal. I call it love.

The others? Who knows how they roll.

My father had a shield, also real-deal

Quality, but he lost it in Vegas

When his ship plowed a pedestrian

Riding a zebra in the middle of town.

The wine-reeking troubles he brought to us!

The world's debts he left on the tables.

The hungry mouths they couldn’t imagine

When they went off to show others

Their shields and wares, when they set

Sail for eyes that had yet to see such glory,

Such glorious beauties as these men be—

O legacies they proudly re-bequeath

Like litter on a beach that needs to be

Tidied up before the party can begin.

My shield is love. I wonder, does it

Float, will it rust if I bury it? Will it sink

To the bottom or sparkle like a mirror

Broken in the desert? Who knows?

The ones who might have told are gone

And there’s nothing left of them

But the eloquence of their rationales,

Its paraphernalia washing ashore

Like random thoughts pile up in the mind

With no better than to welcome them.

4

What day is it today

Whose birthday

What matter became love

What scatter hate

What patter negate

All that came before

That took hold of all that was

At the waist and dropped

To sniff the motion

To whiff the vibrations

To sail the scent

Bent sea end to end

To plunge and ride

To roll and abide

The monstrous breath

Life uses from here

To there to bear here

To there to fare

A fallen angel’s wares

Fashioning gears

To profit from tears

That be or not be

By the plus they see

What day is the best day

To have a birthday

A day when a new self

Taken from a shelf

Undoes the old

And then itself

And then the old mold

Once gold has to go

So says the new

Become now

The only then worth being

Since then became now

Anyhow wow see

How easy it is

To sail off

Scoffing at naught

In the night and day

Of now

That’s how

Big bangs bag themselves

For future dusted

Lives crusted

Busted by a lack of love

Like winter gloves

Left to freeze

Without fingers

Without a singer

Calling in the night

Bright with white

Moon in tune

With song

With high-pitched

Pleased to belong

Gone on a trip

A flip-flopped slip

Of the tongue

As it explores

The mouth

South behind doors

Whose locks

Mock the clock

In the race

Unwinnable so

Sinnable a trace

Of the hare

That took a nap

While the clock counted

The mounted world

By the second

Round and round

Over the same

Ground the same

Pound of flesh

Fresh from the sea

We how sweet

It be to free

The me

Inside the Oh gee

Sorry so sorry

Mr.  Man

With a plan

A canned plan

A can of faith

Faith in having

Faith in faith

To quake

A new surface

A new topside

Tide to ride

What a treat

A treaty

Of a treat

To beat the age

Of the sage

And let the flags

Fall like rags

On their poles

Extoll

A new scroll

If we’re to go

Going on

5

The elephant raised by tigers

Regrets not having stripes

Jumping straight up in fear

When he looks in the lake

So high that his brothers and sisters

Run and hide in the bamboo

Where the wind plays percussion

In a band known by very few

The elephant raised by tigers

Has some serious issues

With his self-image

He can’t imagine killing anything

Without first being threatened

And he has no taste for blood

Just salad and nothing but

No matter they laugh and growl

The elephant raised by tigers

Hates the color gray

Hates the size of his nose

His ears and treetrunk legs

You’d think he did nothing

But drink water all day

But you’d be wrong to think

He’d ever get used to that

The elephant raised by tigers

Finds himself hiding a lot

As much as possible

Not from fear but it feels right

Out in the open he’s too big

Out in the open too much

Of an elephant too himself

Not to be in danger

The elephant raised by tigers

Knows all the tiger stories

The tiger songs by heart

That help a cub grow up

To be fierce and lethal

And fearless no matter what

When sent into a world

Of stripes and reeds

The elephant raised by a tiger

Loves his mother with all his heart

Big enough to kill

The brood’s hunger yet he

Understands not a word she says

As she sharpens her claws

On his tusks polished 
Like the well-fingered keys of a piano

6

(to his soul)

Don’t let them break you!

Don’t give an inch, even if they

Outmatch you. Face them shield

To shield—in defeat you’ll rise

Illustrious, taller than you ever were.

Stand your ground and you’ll never fall.

And even if you do, so what? Get over it!

It’s not the all of the all! Enjoy good times,

And live with your sorrows—
Look past hope and fear and learn to see the dance

That leaves its trace across the years.

Then: be happy like a tree.

7

All according to the will of the gods

Who pick people up when they fall

And set them on their feet

Then strike down others with a streak

Of bad luck they end up wandering

Off thinking the craziest things

All according to the will of the fathers

Who sit in air-conditioned offices

Riverside and decide when where how

What but not why not why that’s mine

To provide a good enough why

All according to the will of the fathers

According to the gods I’m no thing

A thing like dust in a pile waiting

To cross the living room in long

Slow-motions to fetch the broom

And dustpan and whisk up the sand

Of a birthday in ‘65 on the Cape

All according to the will of the gods

I am matter and matter loves 
And lives on a planet the size of a marble

In the pocket of the gods of gods

Before whom the story matters how

Loving and living accords with the gods

According to the stories a wheel

Spins and the blood rushes out

Attempts to get away feels it going

As if someone were closing the eyes

Of another’s panic and comforted

By all the others residing there

According to the will of the gods

8

The universe is mind seeking form.

Birds talk with birds about foxes.

Birch branches bend out of shape

To avoid the maple’s hand-size leaves.

The bumblebee taps on the window

As if to check that it’s true, as if 

It can’t trust its own eyes. Someone

Penned a list of pressing responsibilities

Though I’m not sure it’s for me or them.

Someone wants his life to be mine.

Do nothing, and it’s amazing how much

Gets done around you. I’d refuse to

Walk two feet for a fight. Come, if it’s

Important to slay the dragon, even if

It’s got no fire and teeth in its head.

Come visit, and we’ll slay it together.

The mind of the universe is as itself

When it rains, and the planets change

Position in the sky. Everything thinks

It's way around here. It's natural.

Sunday Surprise

I was always the one who’d accompany our father to church on Sundays. We’d dress in our best and head out, my hand in his, walking like that all the way to St Mary’s. But instead of going in when we got there, we’d just circle the church grounds, round and round while the mass carried on inside. We’d walk without purpose, casually; “strolling” is the right word, without a care in the world, and all the time he’s telling me stories about Jesus and the Apostles, how the Roman FBI had an inside man among the disciples named Judas, who pretended to be Jesus’ best buddy. He said that Jesus got nailed to the cross just for being himself, and then three days later he appeared as a ghost to his friends even though his body had disappeared from its cave and floated up to the clouds. My father told me that Jesus was the greatest person who had ever lived, even greater than Adam and Eve, and Noah and Moses. Even greater than Satan, who my father believed was the most powerful person on earth.

Last Sunday, on the way home, we met a handsome couple—my father calls anything beautiful handsome—on the sidewalk walking in the opposite direction. You could tell they were happy just to be out on such a fine morning, enjoying the breeze, walking arm and arm.

“Good morning,” my father said. “What a handsome couple—don’t you think so, son? Very handsome, indeed.” My father shook his head because he couldn’t believe that there existed such a handsome couple in the world. “Truth is,” he said, “I can’t help but admire that jacket of yours. What a stunning piece of work!” He continued shaking his head side to side, slowly, repeating the word “awesome, awesome.” The couple exchanged confused looks. “And that tie,” my father said, “silk, isn’t it? The Lord Jesus wore a tie just like that,” he said.

My father was tracing an imaginary arc on the sidewalk with the toe of his shoe, hand on his hip, the other at his chin, nodding, smacking his cheeks, licking his lips. “Tell me about your shoes. Plain-toe oxfords? Is that what they’re called?”

The gentleman’s face looked confused and amused at the same time, but I could see that he was also a bit taken aback by my father’s manner. He turned to his wife—they seemed to be married—to say something, but my father beat him to it: “And the workmanship in that bag? Worth every penny. Those earrings, too, and that necklace—best pearls I’ve ever seen.”

My father was acting overwhelmed, shaking his head in disbelief at all the beautiful things that the handsome couple had.

The husband and wife tried to glue themselves together, his arm over her shoulder to squeeze her closer. They glanced at me, pretending that I was the cutest thing they had ever seen, their eyes asking if I could help them understand what my father was doing. My father continued his questioning.

 “How much would you accept for that watch on your wrist?”

The husband’s face went blank, shocked by my father’s suggestion.

“My son would love to have a watch just like that,” said my father, and then turning to me: “Son, wouldn’t you like to have one of those?”

Yes, I nodded, of course I would. It was beautiful, and had a band that looked like a bicycle chain. But I could see that the owner was not happy with the way things were developing, and he had no intention of selling his watch or anything else.

“Beautiful pearls,” my father said.  “Make a fine gift. How much would you take for them?”

“We’re absolutely not interested,” the husband said. “Thanks, and have a nice day.” He said it like someone who’s forcing himself to be nice. He tried to walk off with his wife’s elbow in his grip, but my father side-stepped to block his path and began to ask the woman about her bracelet. I noticed it too. It had gold bands as thick as my fingers braided around her wrist. I thought it was beautiful in a magical way, the way it glinted in the sunlight. It looked alive.

“We’re not selling anything at any price, not to you or your kid,” said the husband. “It was a pleasure to meet you, and your lovely son. Thank you. Have a nice day.”

My father blocked them again. He wasn’t finished, and they weren’t being nice.

“Let’s hear from the woman, let’s hear how she feels. Let’s hear the woman’s voice.”
The wife spoke up immediately: “I agree with my husband. Now please, let us pass.”

My father rubbed his chin like you see in the movies when someone’s thinking through a situation.

 “I don’t want to say this with my son present, but I’m left with no other option.”

The husband’s face seemed empty, except for the question mark on it.

“Are you honestly happy with this man,” asked my father of the man’s wife, “this man who can give you nothing but trinkets; who carries you around like that handbag you have on your own? Do you really believe he takes you seriously?  Thinks of you as anything but a handbag?”

I was lost. I noticed the woman’s face pass from pink to gray.

My father said: “I don’t want the pearls or bracelet so much as the watch. The kid wants the bracelet, I think, but what kid wouldn’t? Now, the watch is enough, and will make us forget all about the bracelet, not to mention the earrings and necklace. Let’s say I buy the watch—make it 20 bucks!—and you keep the pearls and bracelet? That sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?” My father always prided himself on being a reasonable man in an unreasonable world, and was always asking my mother if he sounded reasonable. You could hear him all the time around the house: Does that sound reasonable; is that reasonable?

The couple traded sour looks before the husband spoke, and not too kindly: “I wouldn’t sell it to you for a thousand, or any other price. Now beat it, jerk off!”

The husband had grown angry, which to me seemed like an exaggeration. I couldn’t understand why he was so upset. My father was looking at the street or his shoes, and scratching his earlobe, shaking his head gently but he must have noticed something go wrong because with his other hand he pulled his pistol from his coat pocket.

“Okay, the watch for 20, or all for nothing.”

I couldn’t believe my eyes and ears. It was like my father was starring in a movie about strolling with his kid on a Sunday afternoon when he gets stopped by highway robbers. The husband, his face frozen in disbelief, jumped at my father, who leapt back just in time, though the pistol unfortunately exploded in his hand, and the man’s wrist was instantly gone. Remnants of his hand were hanging from a sliver of bloody skin and my father’s watch was broken into its original state of tiny parts, brass gears, springs, and screws mixed in with pieces of gooey bone on the ground at our feet. At the sound of the gunfire, the wife on her husband’s arm jumped straight up like a cat. The husband’s voice was calm, scary calm. He seemed to be stuck in confusion, while my father and I looked on. I also noticed that his face had yet to react to the pain of his hand’s destruction. The wife, in contrast, began to unsnap her jewelry—ears, neck, wrist, and stuff it inside her purse. Then she thrust its purple leather with all the embroidery on it into my hand. I was surprised by its weight, and for some reason I imagined a herd of purple cows grazing on purple grass, and purple pigs rolling around in purple slop, and purple rattlesnakes wiggling off through purple shrubbery. My father took the purse from me so that I could scrunch down to pick up the gold from the asphalt. Though it was broken and stained with the husband’s flesh and blood, gold is valuable no matter what.

For his part, the husband held his arm just below the elbow, dancing on one foot and then the other, rocking and moaning where he stood. My father told the wife to pull herself together, and get her man to a doctor as fast as possible, or “he’s likely to bleed to death on the street."
Naturally, she sprang into action. Placing one hand on his shoulder and the other on his handless arm that she gripped tightly like a tourniquet, she guided her husband to safety. My father pocketed his pistol, handed the purple purse back to me, and with my free hand warmly engulfed in his, we walked toward home where mother was waiting for her Sunday surprise, which, in all those years of marriage, my father had never once failed to bring home.

Transcreation/Translation

La Musique

La musique souvent me prend comme une mer!
Vers ma pâle étoile,
Sous un plafond de brume ou dans un vaste éther,
Je mets à la voile;

La poitrine en avant et les poumons gonflés
Comme de la toile
J'escalade le dos des flots amoncelés
Que la nuit me voile;

Je sens vibrer en moi toutes les passions
D'un vaisseau qui souffre;
Le bon vent, la tempête et ses convulsions

Sur l'immense gouffre
Me bercent. D'autres fois, calme plat, grand miroir
De mon désespoir!

Kinsella’s translation of the above

Music

Music often carries me away like a sea!
Toward my pale star,
Beneath a ceiling of mist or in a vast sky,
I cast anchor;

My chest a bowsprit and lungs billowing
Like sails,
I scale the back of waves gathering
As night drops its veil;

I feel all the passions of a stricken
Vessel vibrating inside me;
The fair wind, the tempest and its convulsions

Upon the immense gulf rock me.
At other times, becalmed, great mirror
Of my despair!