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featured poetry
SPARTAN SON
Cradling it to his belly -
to where a womb might be -
the Spartan Son held it still,
concealing it in clothing.
His Father smiled down.
Feeling whiskers dust him,
the Son smiled back.
(It bit a door in his skin
tearing in,
penetrating the quiet wound, pulling
its pink, snake tail through.
Like a hand in a sock, it filled his gut,
then squeezed with ulcerous steps
to the stomach.
It burned to his spine,
then climbed, rung by rung -
stopping to grapple the heart,
stroking and groping with delicate paws.
It tugged on his tendons, clenching his hands;
its swell in his neck cracked his voice;
its squeak wore his teeth, and the water it made
seeped through forehead and lip.
Grinning, it entered his skull,
eye beads trained on the matter.
Scouring it hollow and dry, it nested,
awaiting a lover.
He'd seek to spook it with moving soon,
to poison it with wine,
to sate it with night flesh.
Trying to draw this horror out,
he'd quarter himself in the city square.)
The Father smiled.
The Son kept smiling back.
THE SISTERHOOD OF OLD MEN
At a busy stop,
the Sisterhood of Old Men
work on a pretty little boy:
"You're young to have
a sassy mouth
like that."
"He's still too young
to know
which way is up."
"Wrong step,
and the bus'll
run you over."
"He knows."
One's got a plastic bag
and gold ringing each joint.
One's a bony mensch.
One frowns out the corners
of watery eyes,
providing essential gravity.
An autistic,
groomed for Sunday school,
attends them like an acolyte.
The Old Men beg the boy
to patient nanny cleave:
"Hold onto her. Hold onto her. Hold onto her."
ICHTHYOSAURS FEEDING
(published in the Aug./Sept. 2005 issue of "Prehistoric Times")
An Ichthyosaur cow and her pod have cornered
a lagooning school of silver-scaled fish.
Agitating outboard tails, they cut loose,
the spiral cloud smashing.
A nod and the cow's snout swings wide,
toothy arc squared by jaw length,
chopsticking a glittering fish.
A shake -
as if to shake it dry,
as if to shake the eyes out -
and down it goes,
and she crows with a grand outside loop,
shooting into the milky blue
- making way for the rest to deftly plunder -
zooms back in to further undo,
snapping down another one, or two,
then pops to the mercury ceiling,
and there draws down a lungful of oh-too-rich air,
then from her reflection
recoils, acrobatic,
and knocks fish this way, that,
happily extracting bright bounty at will.
Upcoast currents deport the silver school at last,
amnesiac to its decimation.
Sun lulls the pod, fish-drunk, to spend
the day wrapped in gibbous lagoon.
The cow parries dopey, double-belly suitors,
diverting them to sisters, then
finally flaunting ventral white,
selects -
cheloniate paddles slapping,
broadcasting satisfaction over the sunny bed.
DROWNING MAN
Untrained muscles, tiring, fail
on my last night's crawl for the unbeaconed buoy.
I snatch at the sea,
and she snatches me.
Goose-skinned, testicles shrugged, I succumb--disappear,
descending. Numb.
Coward, cartoon balloons abort my head
in mercury burps; reason freezes
and fries--a burbling jam of memory. I die--
the longest, thick, sickly twisting dive and sigh.
Picked clean for the occasion, skull to shin,
at each station groomed by tickling slick schools--
requiem teaching the grin, moray polishing--
encouraged by tentacle pats, I'm
committed, lead as suicide--settling
in bone-lined beds of black horrific,
where needled pressured demons shimmy and writhe
and wear dim lamps as tails and ties.
THE PARADISE BEAST (MOVIE TREATMENT 1)
A snowy red eyed something decades wandering
tears down a vain angry boy of 30
tears his face away tears him out of his autobiography
then noses south to meet
a dark mountain that wanders the south seas
epimetheus captains insanity three women and many fearful humans manacled
belowdecks.
on the full moon 30 becomes a monster mauling his wife
when he comes to he is a suspect
police come friends are trying to trick him
an alcoholic medicine man a vulture medicine man
shows him the news in los angeles
a snowy red eyed something
has killed a little boy
the red eyed something is not evil
30 and the vulture medicine man collect cutlery
and a musket of all things
the medicine man embarrassed to say
sells silver and tourquoise jewelry
by the sea they find the snowy red eyed something
hunting epimetheus he says
if you eat his body
you will not become a mindless wild thing when the moon is full
the something fights epimetheus and loses
the mountain called caucausus sails south
when the moon is full 30 eats animals at the zoo
later he'll find he can take their shapes at will
30 and the medicine man follow the caucausus
follow it through the panama canal
they follow it to africa
and they follow it to the very bottom
of the earth moons come and go
but they fail to sneak aboard.
the snowy red eyed something returns renewed to help
the medicine man kills epimetheus with a thanksgiving carving knife
sterling silver
caucausus sinks into the sea on fire
30 learns
that to have no one or nothing to call your own is a great blessing.
LULLABYE
Don't sleep. Don't sleep. Don't sleep.
Only close your eyes and wonder
and count
(Without counting on your fingers and toes)
how many fingers and toes you own.
One, two, three, four, five.
One, two, three, four, five.
One, two, three, four, five.
One, two, three, four, five.
And ask: "How many pins would you need
to fasten the fattest whale in the sea
to Mount Kilamanjaro?"
And answer.
Count your teeth.
Thirty-two? Twenty-three? Four? One? None?
And ask: "How many feet of ocean stand above you?"
And answer.
Count the hairs on your head...
And ask: "What was it like when you were a wave?"
Reach up, grab a fish. Answer.
Don't sleep.
Scratch your chin with your knees.
Fold yourself like a letter.
Dangle like a silver chime.
Don't sleep.
And in the morning
draw us up bright triangles of silver rings.
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