The street is Carrer Sant Pau & it leads to the bar Marsella where a small boy sits in a chair & prods me to buy his pipe which he’ll fill with his special mix of Asia & Africa & he slips between the slivers of light & is back with a jar & I strike a match & the band plays softly at first & louder & the boy is gone & his mother comes & lays out her cards & I’m told I have to choose & I take the red road & she leads me back to America & a dog I ran from & a girl I kissed in the basement & my mother who always behaved & my father who hid his stained collar like a sore & then I chose the blue road & she took me back to Angelica & a night in Marrakech when the breeze came off the desert & I heard the tapping of camels on the road & she knew how to apply tea to a burn & her lips to a swelling & after that I chose the black road & the peddlers of knives & potions & I bought one of each & ran ahead & heard my own voice in my ear & stopped & asked for the last & she opened her hand & in her palm lay a silver key & I took it & asked her to come & we danced & she left a flower in my lapel & I smiled at her decision & turned away & went on.
This Is A Story Someone Is Trying To Remember
If I can, I will tell you of the deer dying in the yard & starved pullets that wander in circles in the snow &
how I need to find the place they scattered my father’s bones & to hear my mother’s final words.
If I ever can,
I will tell you again of my need to caress my first wife & not be thinking, ‘ Would Gloria take me back as I was.’
When I remember,
I might tell you volumes of lies that disguise faces & florid afternoons with wine & sesame cakes & visits from . . . but
chances are slim & the train will leave soon & before I go I wish you well &
warn you of the blizzard that will come in the night (as it will) & the family that eroded as some do &
the marriage that was doomed & the evil that kids do to one another &
if you remember to tell this story as it was told,
I will send you a letter with a number & a key & when you find what you are looking for
maybe you will remember me.
A Dressing Gown
It may have once embraced the moist & perfumed skin of a Japanese Geisha as she plucked the strings of her Samisen & sang praises to her prince . . .
It may have served as the leisure robe of a dark-eyed Tahitian goddess as she tempted the passions of a lusty sailor from Lisbon or Marseilles . . .
Its green satin sheen may have once graced the long lean body of a fiery courtesan from Barcelona or Paris or Marrakech . . .
& who will know & who will come to tell.
Today it hangs in the privacy of my bedroom where my lover comes to treat me to her unique & eager style of love &
when she lets it slip Oh so slowly from her shapely shoulders it colors my dreams with its red & yellow peacocks & pheasants & soaring hawks &
as she straddles my mouth & treats my lips to her exposed sex I hear the peacocks scream & feel the hawk’s breath in my ear & it’s then
I roll her on her back & ride into the night remembering the light & tawny lovers of the earth & the dreams each has shared with each.
She Wears A Scar
that curves from her lip across her cheek to her ear.
She was cut by a man who found her home &
when she smiles (which is rare) it rises like another mouth &
puckers like it would open & speak &
when she runs (which is often) her features tense & her new mouth glows
like a wire – hot & powerful &
she wears one glass eye on a thong around her neck to see in the dark &
a needle taped to her leg &
she flies a black flag with a man’s face at its center & has etched a red
scar on its cheek & the number 6 between its eyes &
at the end of her street she’s painted a door in the eight foot wall & when she must, she opens it & runs through &
down the hill to the river & to the ship that carries her back
to the beginning.
Five
from The Samurai Poems
after a series of drawings by Manuel Fuentes
We make a cradle of our bodies
lying in each other’s lap
rocking. The small waves barely hum
against the struts of the old pier.
It’s no accident
we’ve chosen this high place
where the sounds of the gulls ripen
and the wind rests easily at sunset.
At night we can be invisible
the only hint of our presence
your raised breast glowing in my hand
your thighs hugging
my cock into you.
We hold our breath just
for a second
listen for the kiss
of the huge goldfish
who’ve begun to move toward us
over the moss-covered stones.
Kite Flying
I like the silver one, she said
pointing to the Japanese frog
shimmering on its back
above the Ghirardelli Chocolate sign.
Her eyes were green
she hunted bears every Christmas
with her husband and their two kids.
Last summer they took a trip to Yellowstone for trout.
In the fall he threw her out.
She moved to Kansas City
and married a teacher she’d met in Washington on a salmon boat.
Summers are best on the bay.
I like the way the wind kicks back and the yo-yo
hucksters walk-the-dog
and do around the world for the tourists.
There’s always someone swimming,
the little red skull-caps bobbing through the short swells
just inside the mouth of the harbor.
I’ve been back six months
got a cheap flat
no job
thought about being a fireman but found I was too old.
Aquatic Park’s one of the few places to fly kites.
There are hundreds to buy
I like the dragon that breathes fire and dances on his tail.
The salesman’s got it about as high as it’ll go
I want to turn it loose
he laughs and says it’s too expensive
I say fuck it
and pay 8 bucks
to cut the god-damn cord.
If Your Skin
For R
If your skin were fine sand
I’d burrow
to the bone
planting apples for the morning
If your skin were slate
I’d chisel leaves
and branches
bowed with yellow blossoms
If your skin were moss
I’d drift in the tendrils
sleep between your ribs
with the drowsy snails
If your skin were oil of cobalt blue
I’d scribble fingers
with long strokes
up and down the breathing of your spine
If your skin were field grass
I’d rake the cuttings gently
sucking down
the faint odor of rain
If your skin were rivers
I’d bob for crayfish in the pools
rescue quail and white peacocks
from the flooded banks
If your skin were air
I’d conjure bats to glide
mercilessly
through the waves of tiny flying eyes
If your skin were ice
I’d wrap you in the womb of a wolf
stroking her belly
with oil of mulberry and eucalyptus
If your skin
under my hands
almost iridescent
in this dark room
reached warming
your sealed, secret, supple
skin…
Jason
A blue fog bats the window of No. 37 bus
beating the slag
to Southeast Chicago
(two 13 yr old kids foraging for rubbers in Ford City)
Pink hollyhocks butt the fence
fencing the dirt lot
behind the station
. . .
A parakeet lost in Grant Park
flies from one maple tree to another
banging her head in the branches
eyeing
The soft bed-woods of the Amazon
the eiderdown spruce
the cottonwood
the wooly oak
…only hard maples in the park
. . .
my words prey on my mind
you pick those you like behind your seven teeth
swallow whole berries just to hear them swallow
pretend to be a dog or groundhog eating grass and swilling at the
garden hose
you’re a bear
browned, ferocious and naked bounding over lamps and picture
frames bellowing
hunted and hunter
through the dog’s door and freedom under the asparagus.
. . .
the busses jockey for position and line for blocks
empty and waiting as the rushed afternoon shift breaks at Ford
the drivers crush their waxed cartons of milk
chuck the last bite of bologna on white to the sunflowers
rev the burly GMC’s and follow each other
all the way to the loop.
. . .
So new you are
separate
from the rest
of us
squeezing our feelings
like eggs
or buttons
like skin, teeth,
fingers of the dead
with which we touch ourselves.
. . .
The hands of your mother are maps to guide you into yourself.
. . .
The warm air suggests summer.
Under the apple tree frogs divide the seasons
croaking after each other
and the young.
. . .
Your laughter stops you
wrestling with your face as it drifts over
wide and round
you’re not afraid
don’t cry
you seem to wonder at its similarity to something you know already
your name is not your own.
. . .
I’m alive again in the dream of racing over open roads.
You lope beside me as I accelerate and feel the tires lift
I’m intent on speed
you’re content to move
your skin shines with the silver oil of seasoned wood
your tiny fists flay the air without anger
as much as I would like I can’t slow down.
. . .
Tender shoots of the crocus poke through roots of crab-grass
the rake pulls them shivering
taut as nipples
under the rubbing.
. . .
Jason, your name is my wish
. . .
When the bells of the town clock check the silence
I confront the dog
that hangs inside my dark eyes. Pick
its green-cased blossom
and drain the juice between my teeth
. . .
I’m naked in a small wood
the sun bastes the leaves over my head
across the clearing
the monarch butterflies are turning north
I watch their brilliant dust
settle in the weeds.
. . .
Short turns of the scythe crop the old corn
you straddle my shoulders
as I walk
between the rows
the tassles stand high
and you ride them
weaving and rocking in their delicate dance.
A Christmas Present
I’m on a highbacked sofa in the Al-La-Deen,
I got a scotch & water workin an another
on the table. There’s this chick doin the popcorn
tryin t’get her tights straight an a off-duty priest
sluggin on a warm beer. The bartender’s dryin a glass
when the door opens an in walks this Amazon, 6′ if she’s an inch. She’s got this long, shiny black hair that looks like combed tar,
an when she takes the seat cross from me I bout shit.
The bartender comes round t’get her order for a gin over
while I light the cigarette she’s squeezin & pushin
with lips that work like bellows. We got it together,
I think, when she leans down with this big grin
an starts t’shimmy from the seat, reeel slow,
til she’s up all the way an reachin for this switch
The next thing I know she’s got her hair off
and she’s hangin it over a chair, an then her lips, an nose an…
she keeps takin it all apart and layin it down
til there ain’t nothin left cept her eyes
lookin up from the palm a one hand, an I see
the priest’s asleep an the bartender’s readin the scores
so I gulp my scotch t’make it
when this mouth comes off the table growlin
“Where in the hell you goin with my new toy”.
It’s A Cinch
Yeah, I found the Plymouth where you said you’d leave it
and the trail of Coors cans that kept me goin fore they petered out.
Been camped here three weeks.
My food’s runnin low an I’m pissed.
Wherever you’ve gone
can’t be that good.
Maybe it’s best we split,
I’m bout due for a rest an followin you
ain’t no fun…member tha time in Denver
when I’d hang round the Squire
til you got off. I liked that. Seein you
ditch the boss t’leave with me.
An the scene in Chi.
when the x-cop tried to make time an I had to pistol-whip the
motherfucker
jus to get you out (spent 6 weeks in the slam & never did know
where you’d gone).
Ain’t this never gonna stop, truckin over hell
an freezin my ass t’boot.
One more day an I’m gone.
Even if you show’d right now, even
if that light’s your car, I don’t think I’d care.
But then, I’ve known worse, I guess, an if it’s you comin on so slow
I’ll make room and maybe find a bit a food,
you must be hungry after all this time. It’s a cinch
I ain’t gonna starve the best piece a ass in North Kansas.