Witchgrass

Something
comes into the world unwelcome
calling disorder, disorder---

If you hate me so much
don't bother to give me
a name: do you need
one more slur
in your language, another
way to blame
one tribe for everything---

as we both know,
if you worship
one god, you only need
one enemy---

I'm not the enemy.
Only a ruse to ignore
what you see happening
right here in this bed,
is a little paradigm
of failure. One of your precious flowers
dies here almost everyday
and you can't rest until
you attack the cause, meaning

whatever is left, whatever
happens to be sturdier
than your personal passion---

It was not meant
to last forever in the real world.
But why admit that, when you can go on
doing what you always do,
mourning and laying blame,
always the two together.

I don't need your praise
to survive. I was here first,
before you were here, before
you ever planted a garden.
And I'll be here when only the sun and moon
are left, and the sea, and the wide field.

I will constitute the field.


---- Louise Gluck

Getting There

Love is carved into the street
but people step over it
they don't know what it means

Under the Lone Star

after Gerry Murphy

I lay awake under the lone star
green light on my face
3:33 AM.

I can turn the minutes into days
that measure the distance
til the moment of your smile.

You, somewhere laying awake also,
are always just out of reach.
Always an hour, a hand,
a state of mine, ahead.

(Yet, the punchline -
actually a year behind.)

Restless I switch sides
leaving the left and
settle right where your body
would be.

I cloak myself in the sweatshirt
of your memory, burying my face
in the water that leaks from me
and dive into the reservoir of reverie.

My skin tingles with the echo of thunder.
My cheek with the cool of breeze.
My lips reminisce about the hiss
of rain falling softly through trees.

And though, I'm not entirely sure
whether this cerebral cinematography
is a dream or mixed up memories,
it's a beautiful picture.

Myself, sailing across an ocean
like the sea warrior I used to be -
before I became landlocked
before I left what is dearest to me -
but the salty hydrogen and oxygen
nourishes synchronicity.

In my vessels, the rose
of the compass always points North
and though I wade through nautical imagery
my heart doesn't belong to the sea.

It is where there are Adriondack lakes and rivers,
It is where deep brown water encompasses me.

And it's blessed FACT!
not fiction, that sings me to sleep.