the silk road

Names are always beautiful. As beautiful 
as we can imagine them to be. Framing 
them with the lines of our wants, the unsaid 
and unanswered needs. We tell and we do not
tell; the yearnings are always difficult,

no words come, they balk at the touch.
If I may be direct, how will you respond?
If I tell you I wonder how it will be
to be right across you, the table meant
for two? It is possible.

All these exchanges happening while sharing
a metaphysical table. So it is this, we
have no bodies, no faces, no names; but
how the words flow. Moving and always
in a state of unsettled be-coming.

The silk road can be seen from outside
our window; a candle flickers, you unfold
a table napkin; I search for a word trying
to find an excuse to look at you.
Someone comes close, asks what we'll have
for dinner. 

It goes the same way

and the professor says Hegel,
I understand, is a difficult
read, that
Derrida, afraid, couldn't
count the times he revised
his work on Hegel. Hegel 
anticipating our responses
still 
two hundred years later.
No change then, this 
phenomenon that is ourselves. 

What does it mean, this line?

The room remains quiet. 
Graduate students now past 
the courage of teenagers
(who saw futility 
on first day and left)
wrestle within themselves.
Mostly looking away.

Karl and Mao, Fanon, Butler...
The professor, his 
three translations
and academic German.

The room where empty chairs
outnumber the class
below the first floor
where one entire wall is
glass windows looking straight
at an unpainted concrete wall.

What does it mean, this line?











  

It goes the same way

and the professor says Hegel,
I understand, is a difficult
read, that
Derrida, afraid, couldn't
count the times he revised
his work on Hegel. Hegel 
anticipating our responses
still 
two hundred years later.
No change then, this 
phenomenon that is ourselves. 

What does it mean, this line?

The room remains quiet. 
Graduate students now past 
the courage of teenagers
(who saw futility 
on first day and left)
wrestle within themselves.
Mostly looking away.

Karl and Mao, Fanon, Butler...
The professor, his 
three translations
and pocket German.

The room where empty chairs
outnumber the class
below the first floor
where one entire wall is
glass windows looking straight
at an unpainted concrete wall.

What does it mean, this line?











  

no water but space

What separates us now is space.
Like air   like blank   like nothingness
Not a void   I think  for it too must have
Some vague directions pointing which way
One must go 

Home for now is a transitionary word
Much like the lengthened stay at airports
I have nearly forgotten how it feels like
The not quite entirely have moved in

What sense is it
The mind always knowing this is not the place
Even though it is where the body is
And will be   for years

I try not to think of her warmth 
Realise it has always been this way--a distance
Metaphorical or otherwise

Here  it is the tail end of summer
At 8 PM the sky remains light
I have not yet looked up the skies at night
Knowing there are no stars

So far away from her

(thursday night) a long goodbye 5

For whom is the goodbye? I ask myself now
Finally understanding why they all ask

My consistent refusal for despedida
No send-offs, I said, No one is leaving.

Even so I think of returns.
Knowing all these are leaving me

As I leave them. 
I do not want to sleep, wanting only

To keep awake. Lengthen, possibly, time.
This Thursday night longer and longer still.

There is a date waiting for me. A door.
An airplane. 

A long goodbye

I have few weeks left before final leave-taking.
These weeks pass in slow motion but pass they do 
Just the same. The list of things to do has 
A certainty in it: the number of banks, the emails, 

The visits to dentist, and barber whom I will see 
Twice more before having to find someone like him
Again in another country (though I doubt it

Someone who already knows, by seeing me, 
Exactly what to do). A poem has been written about 
Having the same barber throughout one's life, 

A kind of faithfulness and understanding of being.
I anticipate on the last visit the appearance 
Shall be the same though I tell him 

To cut as short as possible and he might wonder 
But not ask. The scissors and blade will move
In the same way. The look on the mirror 

And the sound of "thanks", the tip before the door 
The same. Of the list, only the dentist will know 
From the way a tooth submits to certainties.

This sunshine

It will be shy of three months time. 
The day set, traveling the wires
Paper to paper, what fate.

I thought it will be like floating.
While away time on placid waters.
She wakes up in time for office 

Plants a quick kiss, I get up later 
At sunup to walk the dogs, running
To leave what behind, moving towards

What waits ahead in time, in space.

               * 

The world too large, we have only
Such life. The dog who survived
Inner city to become part of home

Offered a rat she wrestled this morning.
Dead on its back at the front door.
What is not allowed to pass.

We picked up a snail making its way
Crossing the road and let it 
At the side by the grass and puddle.

               *

Over here, a butterfly comes to visit
The lemon on the sapling 
We bought at the market three Sundays ago.

Three Sundays from now, a despedida.
What must be, must be done in celebration.
Bring in the wine and the photos

Posterity. No one gets left behind.

                *

She and I recently painted the front door 
Yellow and called the place Sunshine,
What is constant in this country. 

words do not die, one must remember the sunshine

Words do not die, one must remember the sunshine
what it was that used to feel 
the world is large enough for all the rooms 

of love. 
All the windows open, you kiss by the street
both twenty 

or something again. Words do not die, especially
unsaid what it was that used to feel
what was meant when she said 

to never call again. One must remember the sunshine.
Words do not die in another universe
someone has courage to dial the phone again.

jazz in the evening and quiet

Quiet of mind becomes not an easy find. Jazz helps
clear the air of thoughts always insistent of importance:
sublunary matters announce themselves loud banging
the door for importance.

the long drive from Saavedra

And it comes to me again.

Even not yet absolute, 
the one remaining 
year in this country. 

From Germany, J sends
congratulations saying
his own return after

Denmark and torn Israel. 
Till we meet again, I say
motioning the years 

near a decade or so. Or
so. G is now rarely
mentioned, left

(after retirement) several
pages back. In Spain. 
In other points elsewhere.

The marching continues
off from coast to coast.
In middle, Raymund

takes his off-road motor
to return to his kids--
a last save before

they are all grown.
G had always said
about the passing

of grace, nothing 
permanent except what
the moment has. 

And it comes to me again.

Even not yet absolute, 
the one remaining 
year in this country. 

During the not-long-enough

drive from Saavedra

to her warmth.

And it comes to me again. 

Nights 

we hold as long as we can.

palm on air

How long is a year? Not long, not long 
enough for a prayer and a piece of
fear to vibrate in waves ever so quiet
morning clear sunshines would appear
not to know, except it is there

in the quiet near certainty of things.
Every time now we hold hands it is with
knowledge of distance, impending, coming; 
every single waking a movement towards
the leaving. It is just over there.

And what lies beyond? What lies we
do not know except blind courage
that belief of returning to love.

the romance of faith

Faith requires, as far as the romance of it goes,
A certain certainty: the blind seeing with his/her heart.
Such faith, such faith! When sober, I wonder.

But how many times in secret in deepest darkness
Did I return the call and listened for what answers. 

sezon deszczowy

I bought cigarettes at a corner store because 
it was late because I wanted to wait awhile longer 
till (maybe) she'll come around because her messages 
had said situations because her new lover left 
and her old meddled and her father half a world away
are simultaneously happening into a bad place 

because in nearly seven years since we met at Gerry's 
she had not talked about bad places except very briefly 
and in passing the time her mother passed on 
and she did not return home and I did not ask because 
she did not tell why because once she said who wants to 

listen about bad places because people care about funny 
and she had worked herself funny because she did
not want to tell about lonely because it was clear because 
it need not need any telling because it was bright as day 
the alcohol and the series of lovers because she insisted

staying in this country because when i asked why there was 
no clear answer because something was lost or someone was 
because she was slurring when she called 
describing how to move the night because she was still 
in transit but wanted drinks because I've taken rain checks 

because our hours rarely meet because she comes when 
she comes and who else was. 
I sent her a message saying I was

coming over because there was really no need for her to bother 
bringing the buckwheat and the wines to my place when I could 
because it was always easier for me to leave than for me to ask 
her to because hours could get so late like the time it was already
morning and my head had become a blast because she comes 

when she comes because I wanted none of it because we've known 
each other seven years now because it had always been good 
distance because there were bad places that need not telling 
because they were bright and clear because it was always

in keeping of spaces she remained quiet while I waited 
outside her door this rainy evening in this rain-est season of the year 
because it was (always) proper to wait for a woman's invitation 
to be let in because no matter the bad places described by phone 
into an invitation to share a certain loss because her door

never opened after knocking and five cigarettes one after another 
because the weathermen predicted rain because she did not stay 
sober enough for an umbrella, story, or train.

we looked for light

and walked outside. the longest time
i've ever been alone with her, beautiful woman, beautiful
and i, the constant loss of words.

smoke? she said. she had a box of cigarettes.
now the occasional, i gestured having neither 
stick nor light. no one else in the room 

smokes and we exchanged helpless smiles. 
we walked outside looking for light.
the only time i've ever been in long conversation

with her, whose "fate" in the boardroom was
just partly decided. the word she used for future
was "unease". she wanted to stay

a year more in the country. i didn't
know why, but didn't ask. we might never get to
see each other again until a time.

two cigarettes after at the side of the street
just outside the gate of no-smoking zones, 
we hugged. and she went back in

and i took my leave.

among the lasts

Let me tell you about my restlessness, the uncertainty
of my leaving because dearly I wanted to that I am 
afraid the dividing line that will be the news. Two worlds.

At the moment, there is nothing beyond September
those days that are steps toward a cliff of two bridges
one must I take given the word. What word. Not one 

of us now says a thing, both waiting, while things away
making endless strings of short travels: points A to B;
A to C; A to D etcetera where the sea is a moving part.

Roger says I am ready now, I am. Am I? Of course,
there is no better time than now. This year no longer
than necessarily so being a turnstile in the middle

this road that is now as lived. We do not say what needs
not be said. I hold you close in mornings that I repeatedly
memorize even as I know I cannot forget.

Anger

is something i have 
in bursts i try to understand
where it is coming from
some remote place
insisting to remain
unnamed---
is something turned
from inside out---
roger does muay thai
to reciprocate 
violence into the cosmos
a channeling out
of fury
a welcoming of pain
we had a good laugh
about his broken heart
how his body wants
to be broken in turn---
three months he says
honeymoon stage i say---
who has the capacity
to take in 
my negative when it hurls
itself dark and unforgiving
angry

The Poor

Who are the poor? It depends
who is defining the abstruse lot
that continually grows
no end, all children
of an absentee god.

If You Hire a Poet to Draw a Map

He will take liberties with the land. He’ll unwind rivers that
offend him. He’ll move mountain ranges that get in his way. He’ll
expand the coastline to make room for more otters and seals. He’ll
slide the equator a dozen degrees north so the winters won’t be
quite so harsh. He’ll rename major cities after the lovers of his
past. On the east coast there’s Penelope, so plump and polluted.
And Melinda in the west, awash in fragrant flowers. He’s likely to
add a few states. Some as small as a cafe. Others span great swaths
of the open sea. He’ll sketch in highways where it pleases him. The
black ones are designed for families and grandmothers traveling
alone. The green and orange roads are not for novices. They twist
and turn. Go underground for miles. Pass right over lakes. Then
the asphalt ends. You get out of your car. A farmer greets you by a
fence. He hands you a carrot. You ask the obvious question. And
he replies, Yes. This is the end of the orange road.

—David Shumate

exiles

That one has to drive two hours from the City of Angels to see stars
we all laugh about it, it being close to impossible where we are now
seated in the middle of an island still to be overtaken by what has
already covered cities of our past lives, stardust, blankets, bog
no one really wants to talk plain about in words brave enough not to balk
from one's own forgiving the things underneath, unspoken, hidden.  
A circle of us who ran away, who got away, are sorry to have left but are
not coming back, are lost but not asking, are abandoning, are making.
Here, no need to drive anywhere to or walk away from but the moving
is constant anyway, from shadows real or of our own making.

A Whisper of Storm (a pastiche)

Three days of rain             Early sunrises             Early darks

On this listless December         On this island of rain
There is a whisper of a storm not half an ocean away

Nights the beggars pretend not to beg by carolling
The city gates have opened         The strays have come to stay


                                          *  *  *


I drove all the way to your neighbourhood and found
You were not yet home         Your new wife        The one I haven't met

She answered the door and knew my name
She looked different from the last two I've known

What leads you 
one woman to another?  

"I just dropped by.  Friday and thought maybe a couple of beers."
I drove around town


                                          *  *  *


Finally at 65         G will be leaving for Spain            to retire
We threw a celebration for her leaving or for her life        both

T made quiche
And after everything        we all had tea

Of course nobody really talks about leaving


                                         *  *  *

And

Adam wrote to Eve
"I am breathless and anxious and sick with dread and desire."