by Sixfold
open my wooden heart and sublimes
into the electric air.
Not my will nor hers
but a reckless current when we touch.
The composition is timeless, she turns
the pages of the score with painted fingers.
It’s not the way she plays the music
I love,
but the music we make
of our entanglement.
The Bow
When she touches
the bow’s rosewood
inlay, its ivory frog, when she lifts the length
of pernambuco wood,
it seems
a kind of ménage à trois. The shock
of horsetail is a fourth, like a stranger
met on a train. Later, an invitation
to dinner,
an unexpected tryst.
The cellist feels their joy.
She carries in her instrument,
selects a bow
and plays a note, a chord. She chooses another,
plays a note, a chord.
No prices are listed.
It makes no difference because price
is not the measure.
She picks a third, plays, sets it aside.
The Cuban Ipe wood shines, the carbon
composite balances, less than weightless
in her hand, but she knows it’s not up to her.
The bow
will choose the instrument.
The morning progresses like a slow dance.
The bow maker makes tea for her
as if
they were merely chaperones
at a schoolgirl’s cotillion. They sit,
talk of music,
wait for the music to begin.
Under The Horse Chestnut Tree
I can’t say if I unlaced my shoes
or he untied
the knots and unrolled the socks to bare my feet
but I felt more naked
than shoeless
from that deliberate uncovering.
Was it the summer wind
that lifted my dress
above my knees or his hands that peeled
the cotton cloth away, his lips that limned
the contours of my mouth and licked the beads
of sweat away, on a summer afternoon, sitting
in the front yard
under the horse chestnut tree?
The neighbors watched from their porches
as we kissed in the wind that lifted my dress
above my knees.
The fine hairs on my thighs
stood upright in the breeze,
his fingertips felt like cat’s-eye marbles,
must have felt their stiffening
when they rolled
into the labyrinth hidden under there.
Was it the wind
that shook those quivering limbs
and bent my body so exquisitely?
Oh, I was breathless as those limbs
palpitating in the wind that blew my dress
above my knees.
There is no longing
like the longing of the wind.
I heard only wind
in the horse chestnut tree,
and chestnuts chafing on their branches.
The white panicles of erect spring flowers
now become these thorny nuts
in summer.
How they will fall to earth in autumn,
cracking open to open their chaste centers.
I will not resist him
nor how he will thumb them
slowly to throbbing luminescence, nor
how he will rub them
to polished perfection.
How can a fallen object be so flawless?
I wondered,
as the wind lifted my dress above
my knees. Horse chestnuts are bitter,
not for eating,
but rolling endlessly
by boys between their fingers
until they shine
like cat’s-eye marbles
under the horse chestnut tree.
Mariana Weisler
Soft Soap and Wishful Thinking
I’ve been poking at this old truth like it’s a dead thing,
lifelessly lying there like blood-matted roadkill,
a deer struck and splayed and ebbing out onto the highway;
I’ve been prodding it, over and over, my pulse
flickering in anticipation of its resuscitation, of
the vivid moment when it will leap up, revived, prancing away
on spindly doe legs across the black asphalt,
up into the thickened navy sky where it will vault
across each of those twinkling memories, those silvery specks of
childhood blessings, until it finally will nestle itself back
among them, back into the place where I first spotted it years ago,
deceptively downy brown and soft, again soothing those throbbing stars with its velvet tongue.
“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.”
—C. S. Lewis
Dear Megalomania,
I finally reviewed the dissertation you wrote on me when I was 18,
and yes, I noted your citations of all the most influential thinkers
as well as your commensurate references to empirical and dogmatic texts,
in which you concluded, naturally, that I was either an Einsteinian genius
or a Marian reincarnation, that I was indubitably deemed divine
from the time of my birth, which, of course, was confirmed by my
first angelic sighting and aptly augmented by my infantile
ability to read auras and Freud alike.
But—I must admit—I found a flaw, just there in the 53rd footnote,
in which you indicated that you appeared “due to my debilitating fear of failure”,
and thus were commissioned to carve out a future that would
suit my magnitude, throbbing idle and alone in my messy room;
and suddenly it was revealed to me, with clarion clarity,
that it wasn’t I who feared life but you:
too erudite to ever accept error, too mighty to muck through mediocrity.
&
nbsp; It was you, so small and mousy, dull and dim, cowering in the crevices of my mind,
and it was always your cowardice that ever convinced me to believe
I was anything but human.
The Lament of Martha Kent
If you must go, then do so.
One foot on my porch and one on the moon
is too far a stretch, even for you.
I can’t say how long I’ve known about the questions
splintering inside you; I guess when I saw you glance at me then
up at the sky, gray eyes pleading who—where—how—why—
and fantasizing feral flight, all while still grasping at the old
minutes that sank through the sunlight, needlessly
swiping them into your sleeve. . . .
Yes, son, I know you hate to leave when the scent of your childhood
is still a tease of sugar in the air, with all the furniture lidded
in fresh dust: thousands of cells of my shed love and trust;
and I also know that you’ve prayed I could tell you
where to go, that I could somehow teach you your language
abandoned centuries ago, until at last you thought,
“In space? There, would it be possible to trace the
scrawlings of my misplaced past?”
(Much like my body, my heart, once fractured, recast.)
I can picture you now, on that day when you come back, with your
face set in chivalry, your hair knightley black, as
a man: draped and caped in cosmic hues,
and I will still be yours—to have and keep, or to lightly kiss on the cheek and leave.
My father told me once, “Questions are tried on, Martha, answers worn.”
So now I tell you, my son—true Steel is forged, not born.
Hope, Ms. Dickinson,
may be feathered, but it does not perch in the soul.
In these catacombs, aisled between stripes of skulls, death
crowning from the walls, it dug pitchfork feet into my shoulder:
a parrot, not bright, buoyant blue and radishy red but
brown like a mutt, like a mule in the mud, like
soggy cardboard and filthy kitchen floors.
On the loneliest days I’d stare into its black eyes like pearls
of briney caviar, and I’d wonder what’s its purpose here,
sing-songing away, the sound withering in arid blackness;
I’d wonder which god gifted me this grimy wingéd rat
in place of a rope, or a flashlight, or crowbar, or any old thing that could
be used to pry open that trap door looming like locked Heaven above.
So—I’ll admit—I did it. I popped the head off that warbling
fowl and plucked each feather down to the down, and then I wove
them into one fine strand to lasso that door and yank it off;
and oh how that sunshine melted down on me like hot, smooth butter,
slathering my skin, thawing me to the bone! And I saw then, the
blood on my fingertips, the white meat of the creature on the ground;
Hope no longer the flight of freedom, a flittering flag of future
peace, but dead, like everything else here, bleeding into the dirt.
In conclusion: Hope, Ms. Dickinson—I’ve realized—
is a rope.
My Most Existential Poem, Ever
Foreword: First, there are some things you should know about me. I don’t write this with quill and ink by the yellow glow of lamplight in a log cabin nestled somewhere in the deep woods of Vermont. I type this onto my phone with sloppy thumbs while my car chugs idly at a red light, misspelling every other word. For that matter, my spelling has always been atrocious, and I will certainly have to spell-check this before I submit it anywhere. Not that it will be accepted, because I almost never get things in on time. I’m not late—I’m unpunctual. On that note, I should admit that I can be rather lazy. Most of my writing days are actually spent on my cat-mangled couch, ingesting endless episodes of Law & Order SVU and mouthing Benson’s one-liners as my itinerary disintegrates like crumbs at the bottom of the Utz Salt & Vinegar bag. (Which is funny only because I’ve been on this same diet for the last seven years, cheating at least two meals a day—I happen to love McDonald’s and cream cheese.) So I always end up promising that tomorrow will be better, and I resign myself to stalking old friends on Facebook, watching Jenna Marbles on Youtube, and if I’m feeling particularly inspired, maybe a TED Talk or two. But more likely tomorrow will be exactly today, only varying in the variables, and I’ll be splayed out on my couch, sucking on a spoon of peanut butter, late to turn on the People’s Court, retyping this poem with one clumsy finger. And the day will end as it often does as I stroke my mangy cat in one hand and my stash of poems in the other, wondering what exactly it would take, how many more readings over how many more days, until one of us can finally make the other real. Anyway, I guess now you’re forewarned.
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
If I called myself a poet,
Would it be true?
Michael Kramer
Nighthawks, Kaua’i
Hamura’s Saimin, Lihu’e
Edward Hopper likely never traveled here,
but it’s 10:21 on Sunday; outside, yellowed light
streams across the empty asphalt to the dumpster
by the Salvation Army where pickers find the choice leavings.
They’re in the shadows, and inside the night-blue restaurant,
three late diners sit at counters: two top left,
a man and woman; alone, a man sits near the door.
Behind, an older waitress leans looking off.
The man alone, khakis, a navy golf polo,
forks noodles with shrimp, broth dripping; he considers
returning to his empty room. The couple, heads together,
he murmuring, split a won-ton appetizer. Her sarong
barely covers her cream bikini. His board shorts, bar T-shirt,
seem grimy. He drains his Bud, wants to go.
She hasn’t touched her Coke, isn’t sure, looks away.
The waitress, a glance at the clock, remembers her son in bed.
A Cycladic Harp Player, Marble, c. 2700—2300 B.C.
The Getty Villa, Malibu
Seated, harp at rest, you’ve waited
buried, excavated, glass encased,
four thousand years or more.
Someone revered you, your words,
your melodies, enough to invest the time,
the tools, the marble. And you were treasured
and are. Before our history your histories,
your literature caught image enough
that someone invested in this sculpture.
A god? are you some god for memory
or intent or value set for times,
ancestors past, or simply a good tune,
escape from labor’s bold tyrant
of all our days? Anticipating
the view of you, not crowded to
the Cycladic art exhibit, a room,
I try to hear your music, your words.
But you don’t play, your harp at rest,
completed? yet to begin? discerning
what to play, how the audience unfolds?
And that is what we do,
you and I, with God, with life,
with beauty on an inexpressible morning,
an audience who needs the image from our past
that grants this moment holy meaning,
tomorrow sacred as we plot our play.
St. Francis Venerating the Crucifix (c. 1593)
by Domenikos Theotokopoulous (El Greco)
(to be read antiphonally)
Long-fingered and graceful his hands, veined so like the crucified Christ,
the gray-robed monk,
his cloak heavy and patched,
adoring, gazes at the crucifix, topping a yellowing skull.
His Bible closed and marked, his grotto rock and dark,
the tonsured priest, gaunt, eyes sleepless with prayer,
enraptures presented mystery: grace through his savior’s death.
A cloud-filled sky, bare light through grotto face,
cave light echoes browns, shadows, earth gray.
His adoration sparks, his devotion speaks,
his saintly pose presents, his concentration folds,
our interruption now? should we speak? keep silence?
should we kneel with him? Grace extends here:
We stand in a foreground of peace, the cave floor beneath our feet;
death conquers death; resurrection engenders miracle.
The Minotaur Etchings from Picasso’s Vollard Suite
The British Museum Exhibition, July 2, 2012
This morning, when I rose and saw you sleeping,
night passed warm, and, your side, your leg,
your thigh and hip, your arm covering your breasts,
your back exposed, I stopped and stared; I almost
climbed back in behind you. But
you were sleeping. So I chained my beast back
into his labyrinth. He’ll come out, but not
until he’s gentled, combed, mannered, calm.
After Pierre Bonnard, “Table Set in a Garden,” c. 1908