Room

Consider a room with two doors
One facing east the other west
Both meeting at the same 

Room where one meets another
Where there is no Other
Where the floor between is

A border that is not---
A space undefined
A place familiar

nearly midnight

It seems to you there is a consistent hunger
In you somewhere you can neither point nor name.
Everything else appears alright.
Action movie on the cable, some mutated turtles

The kind you could have loved lifetimes ago
Now you place on mute and sleep through.
Its only redeeming quality, a young woman
Too beautiful only the young can believe

To be real. You would have preferred bio pics, 
Political conspiracies, the end of the world 
As is known, at least; these are familiar.
Closer to what you have come to believe.

And what do you believe? At eight, you had 
Your last faith in Santa Claus; at fourteen,
Fools' love. You wonder how some can go on
Dreaming of romance. Or world peace.

You remember someone saying to look at
Inevitable failure in the eye, exchanging
Blows with it anyway. A hopeless kind of talk,
Pessimism you do not subscribe to but

Remember anyway. The hero suffers in the movie.
You feel yourself pointing out refugees dying
In the next channel. And at the street, 
the stray dog scrawny and sick with open woods.

The three candles you lighted at the church
Of Saint Teresa saying god alone suffices.
You still believe. And you feel it--although
What it is, you no longer know. 

All news by the day growing more and more
Disturbing. Stranger than any tall story
About mutants or aliens. These kinds of movies.
This world. Growing more complicated to resolve.

The TV goes on without sound.
Your dog shifts at your feet. 
It, too, cannot sleep. Ever shameless
In trusting you, waiting for you again.

the motorcycle broke

and i am ill-tempered
over so many trifles

the many things hungry
constantly entitled 

to attention: annual
registrations monthly

bills daily upkeep
such as the yard

weeds who regularly
misunderstand such as

dust overstaying its
welcome the mouse

i saw in the corner
and the by-hour count

of batteries such as
the watch the mobile

phone is it possible 
to leave and be away?

i have half the mind
tell Gloria i am not

appearing anytime soon
but am sure she will

ask for the numbers
when what will she say

do to keep what at bay
until my return

what will not leave
will wait insensitively

the things to do 
in this world

the motorcycle broke
chapters to translate

manuscript to write
events and weeds

i take the dogs out
for a walk and miss

running

the child

so we are patient with god
who has own time
mysterious

something neither one can
measure by logic
affection

longer than mortal patience
length of time
by breaths

or by turn of tides seasons 
revolutions of peoples
planets...

some parts of this country
god is a child
who laughs

is good is teasing is letting
us run afraid of our own
limitations

the flock, the flock

I no longer say "Bless me, Father
For I have sinned." I have left
A long time ago. Not anymore
The same child who read the bible
Every afternoon, cover to cover
For the stories of unbelievable
Faith for a beyond admirable man

Or god; in my life there 
Are stories in middle of stories
The ones I do not dare have light
Or air on them--for what use?
They are the silence between
My god and me. 

I have keep my peace with 
Men and women claiming closeness
To god whom they seem to know
Up close: we are entitled to
Our own brand of delusions. But
I do not say this, let them be.
My own is that god and I 

Are this: cosmos letting me be;
My own weakness leading me--
From time to time--to becoming
That same child again who
Has nothing but faith and fear

And faith: all to be good again.

frames of mind

I don't mean the flowers, I say, when I meant how the day was. We were at her little yard, a patch of grass trying to populate in spite lack of water and too much sun; it has a few herbs here and there, spots of turmeric and also what resembles dill. Not too long ago, I helped tend her basil. The jasmine tree, flowering this time of the year, has a series of firefly lights. Twinkling now and making mellow glows, making being in the yard feel it is those years again. Letting some part of the evening seem to wait for the sweet telltale scent of pot.  

She brings a dainty white pot of oolong tea; on her other hand, a book she is about to finish: about a man proving evil in the world. I am cynical about it: evil needs no proving; but keep peace anyway: she most likely is as cynical about poetry.

I think instead it is quite an evening. Remembering the time we had wine and talked--while embers used to grill the fish for dinner slowly turned to ash--about things forgotten now. What did we talk about?

This evening it is about a possible trip to C: the guide says white sand beach, waterfalls, springs. There again the pictures of sunsets, horizons and outrigger boats. In essence they mean leaving. I notice the slice of red watermelon on a plate placed on the table for me and the palm-size local papaya for her. I think about what I might not have for a long time soon. What we try not to talk about.

The slight headache I have had earlier returns. A breeze passes and the bamboo chimes on her doorway make their water sounds. I pet one of the dogs. It is quite an evening. I shove the rest of the papers and things to do in a full drawer in mind.

from a burning room

I am slow to anger, except in particular times
There is no water. Nothing except dry heat
For instance this, in forsaken countries
(for there really are such forsaken places).

It was not always like this, the slowness 
The calm with which I attempt to take in stride
The many kinds of failure: processes and people.
There had been much audacity when I was younger:

Edition of myself that had not yet known better 
Someone I can now only admire on those still 
Burning in fire, those still absolutely certain 
On certainty. Leading the walk ahead convinced 

Nothing cannot be surpassed, no matter literal. 
Such admirable conviction! Such admirable anger!

Perhaps anger can be exhausted, though not all
Not all. There is still anger in reserves 
The kind that is slow to come, vengeful 
Poisonous and antipathetic, something that does

Not easily yield to forgiving or forgetting--
It is terrible! As all things are when passions
Come alive. Who is afraid? Who else is afraid?

Some days there is the heat

undeniable, seeping its way
into skin and deeper still
through the eyes to be 

itself: a drum throbbing 
in the middle of temples
and behind brows

making everything else too
bright, too humid, too
loud--the temper too short.

Some nights there is the heat
undeniable, seeping its way
past reason and deeper still

into body that throbs into
becoming an animal heaving
groping, finding a latch

in the darkness for release.