Four Poems (July 20, 2010. Issue 19.)
Idiomotive
Translated into Spanish, you are an orange tabby
cat and you slink around Galicia begging
for scraps from the white iron cafe tables
above which faces laugh. In German you're a mountain
troll clubbing goats. I awaken in the aluminum expanse
of airports shoveling spoonfuls of Norwegian
off my tongue. Dutch turns you staggering
into a tortoise with a heavy weathered shell;
in Japanese a single wing on a humming
tiger beetle. This serpent hates the taste
of its tail. In Greek you're rendered bone. I've built alphabets
out of emu tracks, out of candlewax paths,
raindrops on car windows. In Latin
you're an engraving of a fig leaf
on a hilt; in Bengali you're too small to see
what you are. Whatever you is you ain't
moving. You're swinging your voice
around whim. I've tried but there is no one English
word. The closest I've come is a fingered glove,
or the smashing of puddles by boots.
Somnipath (Origin)
I have not
slept since I was
six when the
town filled up
with water
like a jar
under a silent
faucet and the
trees dragged
green fingers
across my
windows as
they floated
away
Thesis Antithesis
Breathe deep, kids. You won't breathe this well for months.
Hold it in like trees clasp stones in their roots.
Lungs wither in the smog. Let the mist drown you dead.
Strap snow tires to your feet. Walk up rocks. Let yourself be
blown clean off the top. Witness everything you kill
with each footstep—think of those who sweep the paths
before them, who refuse antibiotics. Meanwhile, I carve grooves
in the soil with my feet. See the way
the sun gleams off the striations on the beach. Markings
of salt—do you need hands to make art? The chasms
snap their jaws. We sit on the other side of the window
from the rain and try to imagine something so beautiful
you would need to destroy the whole world in order
to create it. Call it seventeen bookmarks in a folder
labeled “hope”. Consider it done. “The world needs
human eyes to be beautiful,” but I don't know who
said it, or whether it was only sketched
in the sand. They lied about lichen—it clings
to all sides of trees, rough and desperate. I'm not sure
how long wood has to be dead before it stops smelling
like itself. The dark knots on the planks make faces
in every room. I think I smelled the most like myself
chasing my brother through summer rain. Then again,
I have never been dead. They say you are allowed
to die for seven minutes—the length of a good rock epic—
but I've heard stories of broken curfews, half-hour escapees
who could map the trajectory of their souls
upon their return to the flesh. I might do well
with a death sentence. All cellos once lived
as trees. All blood turns back to steam. In this rain
the lights flicker now and again. The phone
rings and it is a mother asking for a son
who does not live here. My boots have gnawed
two holes in my ankles—they're pink, they ooze
a bit. On the misted window I sketch the edges of something
that would take the ashes of everything to grow.
Mountain Sickness
For high altitude poetry
make sure you strap your pen
snug in your glove
and tighten the band.
Dilute the ink but take twice
as long with each stroke.
The colors dancing around
the edge of your eyes
are normal. Describe them.
Devise a new strategy
for breathing when your lungs
won't fill. See your childhood
summers reflected in the snow;
hear the buzz of cicadas
in the gears of the ski lift.
Forget the shame of being
carried when your veins
clench and your ribs
become prison bars;
count the faces you'd miss.
Lie back, sign in,
let the nurses slide tubes
into your nose and murmur,
"everything will be alright, hon,
everything will be alright."
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