Seventh-Inning Stretch

The baseball announcer
on the AM dial:
the sound of summer
corked with amber

My granddad sits
in his favorite spot
working The Times 
Sunday crossword puzzle

The knock of the ball
against the bat

The announcer's call 
reaching the upper deck

His pencil hovers
over 39 Down

A six-letter word
for unfilled

The Reds are looking
like they might stand a chance

Same time and place
tomorrow, fans

Independence Day

I saw a stack of firewood

looking like a Kandinsky

   you know,
   the pretty one

Circles as blithe as
any eyes or mouth

In New Wave shades

of German Expressionism

   passed in a flash
   of country road

And yet the urge to return
gnaws at me.

A vision exists
by its own specifics

   and I can be that child 
   again, tasked with 

A box of Magic Markers 
and rings of trees to color in

Before growing bored
and taking up matches,

   setting off such a
   phantasm of flames

That the whole stack'd crack
and burst like Independence Day

Round little mouths
all going "ahhh"

   which is a sound
   the same
   in every language.


Awe.
The word sings such a song in me.

We should all set
our sights on fire,

given half a chance.

We ought all stand back
together

to watch what we're capable of.

Testament

Her nails want some skin
to sink into.

Her jaw sometimes aches 
when she wakes up in the morning.

She'll fashion a foothold;
the back of her knee, maybe.

Twisting her wrists
around her own DNA,
she'll drag herself up

Base by base,
until she knows the length
of her rein

Touching her mistakes
the way Jesus touched
the lepers' feet 

Until she touches
an ending place.

There, 
she'll plant a flag.
Scatter some stars.
Update the myths.

Punch a black hole through the Milky Way.

Be put in her place. 

Pout.

Hurt.

Be over it, a bit.

Remind herself
again
that she is free to fail,
that freedom to fail
is everything.

Her religion
is doubt.

It changes her

Hourly.

Free Wheel

The evolutionary tree split
at the intersection
of what is
& what if.

That’s where we got lost;
that’s where they took a hike.
In the smudge of a serif, 
humans were off. 

That’s how a limb
loped on and up,
sticking its head
between the clouds,
where cities gleam 
and giants growl.

Sacrificing an impulse 
to devour and fuck
for a Reveille call
of more sacrifice.

Until— 

Civilization

But then—

A crack

And now—

Clouds pissing carbon
on the rest of 
the schmucks,
and if it’s not dark yet,
Cassandra's warming Taps.

So—


I mean—


Are we just—


Atlas shrugs;
they look away?   

When, exactly,
will what is 
become what is not
and never will be again?

Can we naturally select
for some sanity here?

Or are we doomed
to fall 
on our bottom line--
cartoon apes 
with spinning legs
as the snap of the trunk
ricochets--
blinking at so much earth
rushing up,
still having the gall to ask, 

My God, My God:
Why hast thou forsaken us? 

Deus Ex Machina

Close-up of Judith I by Gustav Klimt

Open me
with your mouth;

                        make me three
                        dimensional

I like the drama
of your lips

                       against the act
                       inside

I like the way 
you concentrate

                        light to one
                        specific place

And how you break  
the final wall  

                        to bring the curtain
                        down

Yellow No. 1 & 2

The frank, open face
of the daffodil,

replicating itself
in thickets and glades

like someone cloned
his own happiness

but forgot to turn
the sequencer off

A childish trick
that nonetheless

loosens my grudge,
bit by bit,

until it's lanced,
sliding down the blade

of this buttery, lovely
happy thing

----------------

Every breath,
my dandelion wish

to be swept up
by whim or lark

and disassembled,
sold for parts

to any puzzle
in search of a piece 

like this grass,
that leaf

the eyelash on
your cheek

Valentine's Day is for children (like us)

From Florilege des Amours de Ronsard by Matisse

You were a poem
fully formed

when I was learning
to read on my own

And if violets were blue
before we met

Roses are red
ever since.
     
And it really is 
as simple as that

Though you would
say it better,

my love   

Confession

(Detail from Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa. Photo credit here.)

I want to lick
the skin
of a toad

I want my eyes
to go 
big and dark

until the light
is all there
is

and blind,
I'll weep

an ignorance
of bliss  

Red

(Bullfight III by Pablo Picasso)

Still that naked child inside 
squeezing her eyes,
striving only
to please.

My first memory in life?
A time where I did not.

But the future sways
like the matador's cape
in Hemingway's hands
or Picasso's brush

calling me out
with every flash
and snap

of passion,
shame
and sacrifice.

 

Impression

sunrise to sunset

time is the iron shackle

and the last crusade