NORTHEAST MOUNTAIN PEOPLE
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A Cargo of Green Hearts
~POEMS~

The Fish No One Knows How to Eat 

12/25/2015

 
not a Christian, probably never was one, I don't think of Jesus much at all 
except when my eyes graze an image or crucifix, which always depicts 
a hoax Jesus that could not have existed, mistakenly Aryan-visaged 
for a middle-easterner


but if I do think of him, putting aside the question--man or son-of-god
or god partitioned into man or "son of man" as he called himself--
I imagine him on a isolated beach of average brown sand, no one else 
around, the corner of his robes--how silly


to accept the dogma that he wore robes--caught by a breeze, his long 
hair caught by the same as if the wind could not help but reach out 
and touch him tentatively the way it is allowed to touch flowers and 
with that gaze so benevolent


it burns right through me to the horizon fixing on something 
none of us can see, perhaps a boat bobbing in a storm, perhaps
lightning licking an unruly wave perhaps a wheel within 
a turning wheel. I wonder what he is thinking


of as he walks and why it is that he must be alone in a deserted
place and not Main Street Hong Kong or New York carrying 
a lantern between us and all our guns and money, throwing 
open the doors of our 100-story


temples where we tremble and pretend to speak in tongues. 
but no, he goes where no one is looking, arrives without 
a bus ticket or notice, invisible as a homeless man, carrying the basket 
of fish that no one knows how to eat.


he looks out at the sea. the sun contemplates setting but waits. 
there is always something lonely about him and I am not afraid
to say so. I have never seen him sit down or get to where it is
he is going and wonder


if he would exist at all without those worn sandals, the way
we could not exist without heartbeats. we rarely notice
our heartbeats, by-the-way, which go on ticking and ticking
until they don't. it's a fact: listening, turning


your entire being into an ear isn't easy unless the desolation
has filled you like a sail and the shore has been swept by the great
broom into undecipherable patterns that ask but refuse to
tell. perhaps that is why I see him only


there, among the sand like powdered bone and the tired voices of gulls
where, maybe, the temporary tide of my heart sounds surprising as the
breach of a whale, and like him I wonder the whole question 
what in this wide earth the heart is here for.


Ushas (the Dawns) 

12/24/2015

 
in the oldest Veda, there is not just one dawn
there are many and they often ride
together or arrive from all directions 

at once, shadows crumble
no holes to crawl into, stop pretending to be

a blind witness, you ARE the light
you must be it. this time of year, I wait for a 
solitary red lipped daughter of dawn to open

her eyes. a bump on the horizon
will make me weep. the trees seem to 

be raising their arms overhead. listen:
I am a poor man. have crawled through
the dark for eons just to lie down

at 7 a.m. and see. no more
nightingales, please. don't disappoint me

and I won't disappoint you. I'll put you
in the lantern of my heart and blow
on that flame the rest of my life. 

my kisses, when they come, will burn
us down to the toes so cleanly 
​
no ashes will remain.

12/23/2014

12/23/2015

 
I saw you yesterday. 
there was ice everywhere
over everything. 
it is cold, rows of zeroes.
do the math for yourself. 
look: the last apples have abandoned
the trees. naked branches are
assembling an alphabet that 
can't spell anything. 
funny, in months like this
your face, better than an apple
or even a peach
means everything.
​

Sleeping with Varahi

12/20/2015

 
close your red eyelids, Varahi.
I long to see the sun bob across the sea

like an old boat and disappear. 
the day has been too lengthy 

the rough stones I piled upon my back 
the way I stood upon my heart 

instead of holding it. break
these things for me

break my heart.
your breath in my ear is sweet as grass
 
your curtains as beautiful as any 
day, and I would say so even 

if this were not winter.
the crickets sustain my 

pulse. the owl watches my roads 
with vigilance. there is no longer

any need to be frightened. 
my arm hooping your round chest 

I flatten myself like a field
upon the earth, your warm earth
​
and rest.

12\15\2015

12/15/2015

 
the oval of your face or the 
cut of crescent all are true in the end 
in this end all geometries matter 

and none your body a tribute the 
nighthawks carry away how the sound
of wings lift you discretely to the secret 

place those whiskered birds sleep 
riverside of dreams like tender 

grey stones opaque to our 
sewed-shut eyes 
but your heart unmerciful stone

lives on. we live on. we iron our clothes
we work. we breathe and hold our breath
when our toes find it:

your heart tucked in our shoes in 
the morning like something the 
cat left for us or plump 

soft and bloody as steak on the dinner 
table everything reminds while
we pass it hotly hand to hand 

it stings like an orange coal and
we ache under the dead weight the 
living bear but please don't let them 

tell us it doesn't burn don't let them lie 
and say you lived well or rightly as if 
you were a clever summary

enough
enough. I loved you too much

burn that book go now to the wind 
and scatter yourself vagrantly as we 
chase after, fools falling tangled 

among our stupid legs. damn your 
stubborn voice it always confounded 
me damn the way you departed but 

oh your hand that time in the dark 
theater where I raged breathing salt 
and wrack you placed it on my 

face like so like a wet leaf. I cannot
forget how at once I came to the 
surface how at once 

I dreamed so gratefully of breathing air 
visions of forests that went on and on 
listen: it's okay you're gone. go. 

I know now it was wrong of us 
to hold you so long it was wrong 
of us to stop breathing when you 

stopped breathing. listen, love.
even now you are teaching
me how to let go how to love

again and again and so on without 
ever believing I can bear it.
​

Lie Down

12/1/2015

 
t's okay to lie down with your sadness tonight. you miss her.
               so much between you. words the avalanche of them. what you ate or will eat.

throb of the internet, wired. a closet full of should. your phony Buddha posture.
               whatever else you do to yourself. the doing, the forever of it.

burn all of that shit. let go.
               something snaps like a twig in the forest, or a bone. she slides into

your closet, touches you, finger to your forehead,
               finger to your heart, an accusation: Feel this.  

Feeeeeeeel. wherever you have been hiding. whatever to you're going from.
               imagine cats dropping like balloons around you, the soft weight, the waiting eyes.

imagine you cut yourself and bleed birds. there is a canvas for that.
               imagine you pick up the phone and call someone. the stone of your voice cracks

water comes out, you start speaking like the sea. no words but all this out, Out, OUT!
               imagine ice-crack on a frozen lake. how deep, how roundly cold the bottom.

ten words before you fall in.
               did someone say I love you? imagine. who would say that?

ten words. stop thinking.

imagine everything you broke. the sad tinkling of glass.
                such a sharp rain in a world with no glue. 

imagine what you can't have. the mean little knife of it.
               yes, yes. like that. like a throat in your chest.

a well you can lean over into with bound hands, ankles.
               now spread yourself like a broke-back book.

now open the way the night yields to the pointy stars.
               lie down. resist the way desire resists

with a siiiiiiigh.  

    Poetry Log

    Poems  are posted here when I'm ready to share them. I often don't title my poems. The date you see above the poem may be the date it was posted here and not necessarily the date it was created.  To see more, click on the Archives below. 

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