Thursday, January 29, 2015

The Swan Flight

The Swan Flight

Some days with the girls are problems all day. "Problems" was AutoCorrect for "how I am" Which was in turn AutoCorrect for "Helen's" Which was always supposed to be "poems." Weird how that all works. Poems all day and I rarely have time to stop and get any words down in the cloud. So I'm dictating a sonnet of sorts to tell tale of a spontaneous dance to John Philip Sousa's "The hands of the sea" that has suddenly erupted around me. I put the music on because I thought it would be an appropriate background track to what happened on Mulberry Street, The Dr. Suess loaner I got from the Queens Library today and was getting ready to read to the girls before bed. Suess and Sousa together at last. But I guess old Suess has been waylaid. Both girls are swimming on the hardwood sea, doing the dance of the mermaids on the march. And now Lucia's doing the Tinkerbell. Now Sofia is free-forming to the actual music, jumping up and down, doing windmills and kicks, very expressive, very Mulberry Street. Suess snuck back into the mix! The song is over and I ask Sofia what she calls this dance. She says "the swamp life." That was AutoCorrect again, it should have been "the salon fight" Nope, "the swan flight" Weird how that works.

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

The swan flight

Some days with the girls are problems all day. Problems was AutoCorrect for how I am. Which was in turn AutoCorrect for Helen's. Which was AutoCorrect for poems. Weird how all that works. Poems all day, but I rarely have time to stop and get any words down in the cloud. So I'm dictating a sonnet of sorts to tell of a spontaneous dance to John Philip Sousa's "The hands of the sea" that has suddenly erupted around me. I put the music on because I thought it would be an appropriate background track to what happened on Mulberry Street, The Dr. Suess shiner -loaner- I got from the Queens Library today and was getting ready to read to the girls before bed. But I guess old Suess has been waylaid for now. Both girls are swimming on the hardwood sea, doing the dance of the mermaids on the march. Now Lucia's doing the Tinkerbell. Now Sofia is free-forming to the actual music, jumping up and down, doing windmills and kicks, very expressive, very Mulberry Street. The song is over and I ask Sofia what she calls this dance. She says "the swamp life." That was AutoCorrect again, it should have been "the salon fightCloser, "the swan right" Nope, "the swan flight" So weird how that works.

Monday, January 26, 2015

The Button Holding Together the Universe

The Button Holding Together the Universe

I was taking a walk with the girls down 39th Ave
when I happened to look down and see a clump of

faded golden grass. Some would've said the grass was dead,
some might say latent, not sure what I would have said,

maybe something ludicrous like center of the universe,
but I would only say that because in the center of the grass,

dead center, was a golden button, the same faded
gold as the grass it was laying in, as if the two were fated

to be found here together; the way the leaves
were splayed out around the perfectly circular curves

of the plastic button, and the four little holes
suggesting a square, pointing to the four poles,

as if squaring up the center of all that infinite space surrounding.
The button seemed to be holding together the world, suspending

the earth itself, just as Wallace Stevens' jar in Tennessee
did -still does- holding back the hills leading up to it. I was lucky

to have been there just then, to see it all so improbably
arranged, just so like that. I picked up the lucky

button and put it in my pocket, aware now, suddenly,
but not then, yet, that I had just unbuttoned the universe, as crazy

as that sounds, even to me, but I'm not that crazy.
I didn't think about it again for a few days, but then I

put my hands in my coat pocket and there it was,
and there it was again the next day too. I would buzz

a little bit every time I touched the cool plastic
of the button between my thumb and fingertip,

like a talisman, or worry bead, or old Roman coin;
I was rubbing it like it really was some magic thing,

and not just some piece of cheap trash. Or maybe it was trash,
but either way, when I picked it up, it took on the weight of a fetish,

proven through the constant seeking of my own unconscious touch.
So flash forward to last night at Dynaco, after Anselm and Eileen read such

beautiful poems, and I'm talking to Anselm's daughter, Sylvie, at the bar.
She is showing me her button collection. Are

you kidding me with this? It was a terrific collection, but I smiled
with smug satisfaction because I knew I had a trump button. I pulled

the gold-dollar-sized one out of my pocket and unfolded my hand.
Carley Moore was there and she she asked me, Are you going to give that

to Sylvie for her collection? No, I said, I can't give her that one!
There was an awkward pause. Sorry, I said, I have to keep that one,

Because I found it perfect in a halo of golden grass, like Whitman reborn
and holding up the tender button of Gertrude Stein, like a gemstone.

I thought it was holding the universe together! I can't let anything happen
to that one, sorry, kid. Carley must've been embarrassed for me. But flipping

the whole script was Sylvie, because she just reached in her pocket,
pulled out a tiny red button and handed it to me. I took it

and then the thought slowly dawned on me that I was an idiot. I pulled
the big gold button back out of my coat pocket, rolled

it once between my thumb and fingers, for luck, or something
like that, and handed it over to Sylvie. But here's the cool thing,

the little red button is now the new talisman, and it's mine!
at least until the next time some kid wants it for her own,

and then I hope I won't be so slow to hand it over.
It's funny to think that maybe the button holding together the universe

will only hold the universe together when it's given away,
but that makes more sense to me now I have to say.


 



poem for a baker

Poem for a Baker

I listened to Anselm and Eileen on the floor of Dynaco. Floored.

After the reading a young woman sitting next to me on the floor turned and said, -These were the perfect seats.

-Oh, watching the reading from the floor you mean? Yeah, right, especially when Eileen got up on the chair.

-Yeah, it was like she was reading poems down through the clouds.

-Totally, like we were children sitting at Mama's feet and listening to bed time stories.

-Hey, is that a sky-light up there?

-I don't know. If it was it's been boarded up.

-I had a sky-light growing up in my room.

-That must have been amazing, to see the clouds and stars and sun and moon right above your bed.

-Yeah, it was, I used to look for the moon every night.

-And there was Eileen Myles reading poems from the clouds.

-Yes, and this morning I even baked a loaf of Challah.

-You wha?

-It was cloud shaped.

-Well, there you go, you got a poem right there.

Thursday, January 1, 2015

Uh

Dear Alice

Why are you writing to me?
No reason to convince 
or respect, or even for me 
to convince you there is no reason, 
but interest me yes so far 
as truth is beauty does,
So far as interest means glue. 
Interest is not just for boys is it?
It's coded  in our chromesomes.
Interness!

I can stand your voice 
In tones of bursting out
until my legs fall off my ears,
Ringing like shattered glass,
But I still will never have it.
I'll become it or other,
Maybe, but not here.

The destroyer/preserver card
Is a hard card to hold but I'm still
Reading aren't I? Thank you, sir
may I have another? I am
Changing it up altogether.

I will sit down 
In the pines and whiff
The Needles of 
Clear forests until
I'm inside the ascent.

Everything, even this
Refusal of weakness.

You feature him who
Will come with you
If you want him too.

His own dead eyes
Lit up in a rat.