 1
Sinful, the sisters perform patience,
coupling as they do,
similar to forms of alliteration,
but these are not words they bind
or break to fascinate those new to these endeavors.
And it is not flesh either, or titillation,
they use to explore the boundaries
of sibling affection; no, it is more powerful,
more forbidden, than sex -- a mundane type
of communication that nearly anyone can effect;
no, these items of angst instead fly everywhere.
Not words, not flesh . . . but thoughts:
a combination of the two, for true thoughts,
you know, choices actually succinct,
are like sex bent into words,
or words squeezed into phantom caresses . . .
something, somewhere, must sail out to touch the soul.
Emily discovered this early,
and never did, as some will suggest,
stay inside that large house from fear,
but rather there was nothing outside
quite as stirring as a flight of words
ghosting across the parchment
of her sister’s skin . . . like a master . . .
not even God held this attraction
of cascading thoughts,
so there will be few real saints
ever found in these poems,
only jilted lovers staring out
the New England winter windows,
while thoughts scream like furies
incinerating around the bedroom.
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 2
The billows, the flames and spouts of fire,
the smoky deluge of despair, the stains of tears
wafting, drying, in the oven air . . .
I lift the smallest of my daughter’s fingers
as if such beauty is our final defense
against the ugliness that some generations
surface in the human heart.
Her arab eyes appear so beautiful,
even stretched now by fear; her saintly nose
slightly flexes, alarmed, by the acrid scent
in this heartless dry air . . . she is so brave
I yearn to explode my lungs in grief,
but I remain calm so I might steer her
through our final walk together.
Her grownup, brown eyes mean to ask me
why there are such volumes of hate in this world,
so much her little life must be exchanged.
She will spare me this impossible question,
and I thank her with my own eyes,
a father’s smile, a kiss of souls, as the soldiers
prod us forward to the stark, concrete building.
This is too much bravery for one man to act out,
too much beauty for one daughter to convey
to her father out here in this forlorn night.
I am deeply proud of us both at the end,
and so I lift her little finger with my thick thumb . . .
a humble wave goodbye to our sinful world,
then I pray this is the proper response
to this horror . . . to meet it
with the smallest act of beauty.
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 3
The obsession of my nights is crucified on my eyelids
like a hang-glider sailing off on a thermal above the maroon desert,
similar to drifting any of my desires around a crowded room
to see if I can attract a woman simply by outrageous
but unpronounced temptations . . . something so primal
only a panther might think to commit them.
This obsession gives me a certain appearance,
a heavy-lidded lust, a whisper of lunacy;
I can make a cigarette appear the same way as my eyes, you know,
and this is the true skill with my mouth -- bending inanimate objects
to make them symbols of my own disregard.
Really, it’s easier to bend people . . .
especially women who already aspire towards
readily malleable shapes, something like the way chrome
bumpers wrap around throbbing engines . . . to mimic
sunglasses which encompass gum-chewing blonde, male heads
ready to gnash down on silver breasts as if these foldable
women could actually show us the way out of ourselves.
Throb . . . this is what the throbbing is all about . . .
a revelation of the way out, and all the bending I would think
to do is simply aimed at attaining an adequate way to escape,
but just as I achieved the proper rejection, an abrupt car ended my
life . . .
and now I weary the feeling that fate or whimsy wasted me.
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 4
They question your capability to lie,
as though this isn’t a common, human
inclination, for we were all born into a lie . . .
were we not?
Not that very many really mourn this,
but the real mark of commonality
always has been the ability
to absorb the lie
then find someone to forgive . . .
maybe you found too many of us.
Fire can separate lies from truth,
but did it also fuel your absolution?
You hinted there comes a threshold
where searing pain twists
into ecstasy, while you crash
through the runner’s wall
into a cool sea of forgiveness
that only saints can discover
then show us.
Your face holds the fire . . .
your tears drop balm
and agony, yet you
forgive and cajole
us poor humans
century
after
century.
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 5
There is a voice, a haunting by notes,
a voice to this ghost, stretching notes on and on,
to implore, to yearn, the breathing ones to come forth . . .
to be judged.
There is a dead woman singing in my ear,
her name is Puma, running, running,
eyes haunting sounds of night gliding
by the skin of jungle cats who hide the souls
of those who might be judged.
What does this ghost want to sing to us
who breathe the air of our own desires?
She does not sing words, for only haunting notes
are singular enough to bear a soul forth . . .
to bring one of us forward.
This, then, is what the ghost
will do . . . she will sing
of wrongs and cinder love, she will hum of injustice,
this ghost in my ear; she will yearn and she will think
oh why come forth, oh why, only then to die . . .
but we all must sing this particular song,
although few know what the ghost
did sing . . . how the only judges
of us all, at the end of all the breathing,
the only judge is our very own soul
who must judge the actions of its
own singular life.
Yes, then, it’s what the ghost
still knew, her own soul
judging her alone;
one sees it in her eyes.
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 6
Poems pounded down like thumping hooves,
staccato oak leaves, slapped paper,
the all-importance of the words
a bond, a liturgy sticking the nuance
of self to your soil . . . even though you were
never meant to be here for long, for long.
You knew this by the way the poems pounded
down like your hand slapping the carpet
when the sloe gin has taken your presence
on another slippery expedition of mortality;
it’s clear the poems do not pound the words pulped
of many other poets, flouncing their fears forward
on paper held like a ticket, a ticket.
The very thing that keeps you here
also makes you flirt with another way,
yet you fear there may not be an exact torrent
of poems there (the only way to pound the blood,
the only way to properly shake the fabric of death)
and if there’s a chance the poems only pound
on this side, this side, can this be why
only a handful of poets come this close to the kill?
Poems must continue to pound, you understand,
even as you caress another way to compose yourself.
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 x 7
I cannot bend this chord,
I cannot frame the sunlight
into a more succinct sound;
and this is what I found,
that certain things of the earth
must be taken as they come
from this ground we all walk.
We all rose up, you know,
all things pure, all forthcoming,
all must rise from the ground,
and this is what I found, or
meant, that all of us of earth
will catapult through air,
sizzling through the firmament.
And we can pound
and pound the songs
forthcoming, beat with fists
and bone and flesh,
pound and pound
the planet’s simple song,
but never will we bend
the chord that is our fate,
those of us who, once flying,
must now learn to burrow
into the ground.
Pound and pound, then
run this song from town
to sound of water, water,
pound and pound and pound,
throughout the simple town,
round and round,
and this is what, at last,
is right there to be found . . .
that our very souls --
the very end,
the very beginning --
are round and round
and round.
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