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Listen to this poem by pressing the play button above.
Miso Soup
(for Jennifer)
the only thing better than the taste of the sushi
is the lingering aftertaste
mixed with miso shiru and warm ocha
a sensation so rich
it’s almost another meal in itself
I always order one extra piece of unagi
and remember walking into Meiji Jingu
holding your hand
you gave me a book on Zen —
I was into that then —
and I gave you an atlas of our world
so we could choose the next destination
we sat in the kaitenzushi-ya in Shibuya
and watched the endless parade
of plates, daring us
in Nikko, we took a photo in an unexpected
tram car that was right there on the sidewalk
then climbed up all those stairs
to see the sanzaru
there were many little tremors and
the one big one
that had us scurrying for the doorjamb
just as the shaking stopped
and yes, there were cherry blossoms —
there always are —
right outside our bedroom window
and the cleaning man came by each week
and always seemed surprised to see us
we gave him our maple tree
(and you gave me its cousin years later)
I savor these moments and roll them around
on my tongue, heavy with the dusky taste
of shoyu and the tang of vinegar in the rice
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Some Poems Have Titles That Are Witty, Creative, Unexpected And Just Generally Better Than The Poems That Follow Them
This is one of those poems.
2 CommentsListen to this poem by pressing the play button above.
Hero
he pulled the sword from the stone
and it turned to ash(e)
he swung ’round to stare at the sun
in defiance of the natural law
the point of the needle
the twin spiral stairway
the walls fell and the enemy surged through
years before, he’d been stopped by white
unable to pass through the veil
while others’ backs were turned
and now, the final indignity
he swung ’round to stare at the sun
it burned away his memory
he pulled the sword from the stone
and it turned to ash(e)
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I am not an Indian
My great-great-great-great grandmother
was a full-blooded Blackfoot Indian.
People say full-blooded not because
they have any proof,
but because it sounds wild, native.
If you do the math, that makes me
1.5% Blackfoot, and not very wild at all.
Say what you will about Ward Churchill;
he was right that all our accomplishments
as a country, all our technology, all our freedom,
all our music and poetry and art and dance and theater,
is being created on land that we stole from people
whose names we don’t even remember.
In college, my roommate’s best friend
paid less for his tuition because he was
above some arbitrary threshold
of Native American ancestry.
Not full-blooded, but bloody enough.
He was generously allowed
to learn quote-history-unquote
in a government building on the very land
his ancestors occupied before they became
little more than discount coupons for the state.
Another branch of my family has lived
in New England since 1638.
We never owned slaves, you’ll hear them
attest proudly, and it appears to be true.
Less lauded is my some-number-of-greats
uncle John Flanders, who served
with distinction in the army of Gen. John Sullivan,
helping to rid upstate New York of the Iroquois.
Sullivan’s troops burned and shot and hung and scattered
the people of many nations, including the Cayuga.
The army destroyed their town of Coreorgonel, and in its place was
established Ithaca, now a haven for higher education and
an oasis for studiers of organic farming and
Native American spirituality.
Living at Coreorgonel were the remnants of the Tutelo people,
who’d been forced from their homes
on the border of West Virginia and Kentucky,
and who were taken in by the Cayugas. It has been
112 years since any human being spoke the Tutelo language.
Sitting on a stage at the Tokyo Film Festival, director Chris Eyre
(of the Cheyenne-Arapaho, remember them?)
was asked by a member of the audience whether he preferred
to be called “Indian” or “Native American.”
“We have so many other problems to deal with
that we don’t have much time to worry about
what we’re called,” he said.
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Entrances & Exits
Jason Lee Borders entered the world
on a late-summer afternoon in 1973,
sharing his father’s middle and last names
and containing a small flaw in his DNA
that he also shared with his father,
who, unlike Jason Lee Borders,
wasn’t strong enough to resist the genetic revolver.
Instead, he held it to his temple and pulled the trigger,
and a wash of alcohol broke through the levy
and swept the borders away.
Before the little boy drowned,
his mother crept through the window
and ran with him into the night,
gene still intact, waiting.
Jason Lee Gustavson entered the world
in a courtroom in 1979
after the requisite paperwork had been filed;
a new identity, a new life,
another in a long string
of relocations and reorientations.
By this time, even at his tender age,
he’d made one of the few choices
to which he’d remain true,
deciding early on
to leave his father’s revolver tucked in its padded box
in an unlocked drawer of the old oak dresser.
As it turned out, though,
his father wasn’t the only parent with a gift,
and generations of overflowing bathtubs
in the brains of his maternal ancestors
were slowly leaking through his own skull,
surrounding his spongy gray being
with a dark fluid that obscured light and memory.
Jason David Crane entered the world
at a kitchen table with his grandparents
in 1994 after a late-night session of salsa music.
They’d gone through all the family names
when his grandfather suggested the family
for whom an aunt had washed the laundry.
As a gesture to the father
whose name he was leaving behind,
Lee became David
and he became a man.
Jason-Lee-David-Borders-Gustavson-Crane
entered the world and left the world and
entered the world and left the world and
entered the world. His bathtub overflowed
and he sank beneath the water,
one hand clutching the smooth porcelain side.
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This was an idea I had for a short story, but I decided to try it as a poem.
on Tuesday, all as one
on Tuesday, all as one,
every creature on earth
experienced a moment
of pure happiness
not the exhilaration
of acquisition
nor the momentary joy
of orgasm,
but a feeling that all
was in its place
and the way ahead
was clear
no babies cried,
no dogs howled,
and the sleepers sighed
and unclenched their fists
a smile stole
across the face of a boy
sitting beside
a baobab tree,
and two lovers
turned toward one another,
their quarrel
forgotten
babies born
at that instant
entered the world
quietly,
their mothers and fathers
exhumed
from beneath mortgage payments
and piles of bills
as the clinical beeps turned
to a tone
and she released
his thin hand,
a daughter saw
her father’s brow
un-knit and watched the pain
pass away
shafts of sunlight
fell
across the needed places
of the world
and on the other side
a starry night greeted
watchmen, nurses
and late-shift taxi drivers
voices lowered,
index fingers relaxed,
jaw muscles loosened
shoulders dropped
in the coffee shop
on the corner
near the library,
everyone was laughing
and the child hiding
in the boys bathroom
stepped out
into the school hallway
true, the moment passed,
but forever after,
strangers passing in the street
caught one another’s eye
and some would grin
and some would smile
and some would simply look,
knowing
Happy Presidents Day!
Citizenship 101
close the blinds
snuff the candle
fasten the shutters
douse the lamp
pull the shades
don’t ask questions
believe the lie
smile and nod
obey the law
cover your ears
shut your mouth
take your seat
toe the line
pull your weight
watch your language
step right up
place your bets
take your pick
know your place
keep the peace
respect your elders
follow the rules
take it easy
expect the worst
don’t ask why
clean your plate
eat your veggies
wipe your feet
find your name
get in line
sign right here
read the label
write this down
answer the question
raise your hand
recite the pledge
say your prayers
sit up straight
stop right there
do your chores
wash the dishes
do the laundry
empty the trash
mow the lawn
shovel the walk
walk the dog
mind your manners
stand your post
post no bills
salute an officer
straighten your tie
tie your shoes
bow your head
kiss the ring
don’t be late
tote that barge
lift that bail
pay your taxes
pay your bills
pay the fine
pay the piper
follow the crowd
tell the truth
name the names
reveal your sources
betray your friends
kill your enemies
respect the flag
swear your loyalty
sit back down
swear your loyalty
sit back down
swear your loyalty
sit back down
swear your loyalty
sit back down
Listen to this poem by pressing the play button above.
Biography
I could do anything.
I want to do everything.
And so I do nothing.
Leave a CommentListen to this poem by pressing the play button above.
Written on a lazy afternoon while overdosing on the poetry of Robert Creeley.
Creeley’s Balloon
Why can’t we feel the Earth going around the sun?
Why can’t we feel the world spinning?
I tiptoe on squeaky floors so as not to wake my son,
while the cat sleeps on his back under two sheets of paper.
Now I’m in bed, listening to a love song by an old Nazi
and reading Creeley, most of which I don’t understand.
On the cover of the book he’s grinning,
spent cigarette in his lips, hat on the back of his head.
I think he’s in a hot-air balloon, somewhere
over the western desert.
What is lighter than air?
What is heavier than sorrow?
Faded in the background, a mesa,
above it, a cloud,
captured by the lens for just that one moment.
Who snapped the photograph?
Who is the other passenger?
“It was at those times that I carried you.â€
I used to find that so comforting
until I realized that “those timesâ€
call for us to plant our own feet in the sand,
on this shifting ground that is spinning, whirling
around a sun in a galaxy
that is itself spinning
in a universe
that is growing into something we cannot explain.
And yet
there is Creeley, now long gone,
in his hot-air balloon, smiling at me,
and I tiptoe to the bathroom, and my son stirs.
Listen to this poem by pressing the play button above.
A love poem.
The Soft Friction of Sliding Glass
On the living room carpet, after the prom,
she raises her pale arms in the light
coming in through the sliding glass door.
Understanding, amazed, he reaches down,
takes hold of the bottom of her sweatshirt,
and slides it up over her head.
For the first time, there is nothing between them
but air, skin and propriety.
He can’t believe that this diminutive, angelic gift is his.
He leans over to kiss her,
but even more to feel her skin
and the rise and fall of her breath.
They slide to the floor, arms around each other,
mouths and hands and thighs and stomachs
searching for every inch of long-sought completion.
For all that there have been many moments of exploration,
long afternoons desperately quiet in her upstairs bedroom,
it is these few moments that he will remember most.
Sitting quietly on the couch many years later,
accompanied by the gentle rush of a fan in the next room,
he will close his eyes and once more
feel her under him,
his palms remembering the soft friction of her,
his body still responding, even now.
I found out Tuesday night that FootHills Publishing, a 25-year-old independent poetry press, is going to publish a collection of my work. I really can’t believe it. Huzzah!
Watch this space for more details…
Leave a CommentI wrote this in Oakland, CA, in October 2008 while getting ready for my sister-in-law’s wedding.
Tomorrow the Wedding
for Amy & Michele
Tomorrow the wedding
today hauling cans of soda,
bottles of beer.
Phone: the Italian groom
carrying a bouquet of balloons
back to the apartment.
Meanwhile…
eastern family, recently landed,
descended from the pure blue.
Our temporary hilltop home,
where we sit silently
on the sun-warmed porch,
looking out over Oakland
at the glittering bay beyond.
I wrote this on a plane trip to San Francisco in 2008, while sitting next to the gentleman described in the poem.
Robert Redford’s Banker
makes perfect check marks
next to the names of Maui restaurants
that he’ll visit when the plane lands.
With measured strokes,
he moves money
from one worthy cause to the next.
The handwriting in his register
shows the passage of time,
a certain revealing tremor in the fingers.
A small picture of the actor —
in his halcyon days —
rests on the tray table next to a bill
from the banker’s club, a map of Maui,
and suggestions for avoiding problems
with Medicare and the tax collector.
He nibbles a deliberate biscotti
and counts to three on his left hand,
fingers pressed, one after another, against his thumb.
Perhaps he’s not counting at all, just
reassuring himself of his own tactile reality,
one not represented by ink on watermarked paper.
The plane touches down, the banker gathers loose papers
to his chest and moves off into the terminal,
searching for his connection, dreaming of the stage.
Listen to this poem by pressing the play button above.
I wrote this over the weekend on the train from Albany, NY, to Rochester, NY.
Maple Leaf
ice flows on the canal
and I flow the opposite way,
bound west on two steel lines
toward my old not-home
now the water is a river
filled with half-wild islands
and on each piece of snowy ground,
a flock of waiting birds
Amsterdam, Utica, Syracuse —
ancient and exotic names
they have turned their backs
on the water and rails
further on now through fields
where sparse grasses and weeds
poke up through the snow
like drowning men’s fingertips
blowing snow, fog-like
makes of the rail line a dream sequence
empty nests wedged in tree limbs
empty factories with no hope of spring
for an instant, beside the tracks,
two men with rifles search the trees for prey
while nearby an empty backyard
where an empty swing set sways