Ireland Soundtrack

Dublin

Softs are hard here.

Weightless clouds shake the bowels of metal birds

and the unfortunate occupants--

a new generation of Jonahs,

who have thrown themselves willingly into

the belly of a beast

to be carried to a new shore.

What gods have we ignored?

My body anticipated its return here,

and raises my temperature as a purging fire.

Heightened awareness, my super-self burns,

iron eyelids crash to meet and then are hoisted apart again,

each vertebrae hammers nails into its neighbor's fence,

lungs suck oxygen out of fog,

each breathe thick like the history of this place,

grey like the streets and the buildings and the sky.

To compensate, true Irishmen learn to count the shades of green,

more than forty, they say (with their beautiful r's).

Each shade is a seed,

it gets planted in the spirit

until blood flows green and veins are vines.

I must learn to count the greens.

Camden Town

Today I met you in the day, in life--

not lit by stage lights and scripted,

or through grimy windows on the double deck of a bus

on my way to a park on a hill at night with stranger-friends

[spontaneity and wine overcame nightmare nerves for a view and a memory that was worth it]

I dressed for the occasion in my stompin' red Dr. Martens,

not aware that you originated them.

I ate American food on your street:

milkshake in glass and tin, fries (not chips),

didn't think you'd mind,

something tells me you understand nostalgia.

Thanks to you, I don't have to brave needles or offend my elders

to carry my symbol, my roots with me.

You really took it out of me though.

Never thought I could tire of this hippie Disneyland:

silks and scarves,

rings for fingers and bells for toes,

buddahs and bongs,

superheroes and punks,

mullets and mohawks,

florals next to spikes,

incense, leather, tea, and kung pow chicken.

KUNG POW---that's how you hit me.

A solid aesthetic knock to my senses.

I need a nap, a latte, an inheritance.

I miss you already.

Peace in Stratford

In Stratford,

where the city is two streets that I have known before,

and the bed is a cloud of feathers and white,

there is permission to rest.

It is good to release,

as if collapsing into an embrace,

to offer tension and weight

as both proof of need and thanks for arms.

And so I practice laying like a child

or a cat.

From the window, a breeze strokes my skin

purr purr purr.

Dumbwaiter spirit

In the rush, dishes pile up.

A smiling woman who may be missing a tooth furrows her brow in the eagerness to please as I am jammed full of dirty porcelain and slobbery table scraps.

The world is hungry

and my poor mechanisms cannot keep up with its gluttony.

I am as full and as heavy as the room where intelligence could not mask anger--

heaping plates of history and names my palate has not adjusted to

taste like salt and slime and rust--

I cannot swallow it all.

Pakistan Afghanistan India America Britain

Blame Blame Blame

Hate Hate Hate

Money.

A small voice goes unanswered:

"WHat can we do? Is there hope?"

The silent response is the heaviest dish of all.

It is getting hotter in here,

someone has turned on the sun.

I peel off hazy flakes of skin,

the guilt for taking a dirty dish and polishing it with pretty words.

Dramatic Pose: "I haven't suffered enough!"

Even success weighs on me.

And so I wait.

"What for?" Gogo asks.

But I am dumb.

I have no name to speak and console his anxious, hungry, tired self.

I wait

for an invisible hand to pull my straining ropes,

and lower me to a depth I have not been before

that I may be relieved

and the dishes cleaned

So both are fit to serve again.

Wisdom from Chekhov

"Always remember that the writers whom we call eternal, or even just the good ones who intoxicate us, they all have one highly important trait in common: they are moving toward something, and they beckon you to follow, and you feel--not only with you mind, but with your entire being--that they have some purpose, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, who did not come to disturb the imagination without reason...The best of them are real and write of life just as it is, but because each line is filled with the awareness of this purpose, you feel more than life as it is--you also feel life as it should be, and this captivates you."

May 7, 2009

It is right to water gardens while forests burn.

What more appropriate response is there

but to shake hands with strangers

and puff puff puff to join the growing cloud overhead

until friends.

Strange to see people stop.

Lawn chairs on sidewalks,

camera phones at intersections--

This is not Icarus falling unnoticed in the corner of a painting,

this is sublime.

It calls for stuffed backpacks, like disguised treasure chests,

ten minutes to realize everything that you could live without,

two-dollar strawberries on frozen yogurt,

futons and friends

who raise with thankful hands

the pizza crust,

the wine in the plastic cup.

"This is celebrating." we agree,

while behind us ash falls

and flowers suck up supergrow.