poet, interviewer, musician, traveler
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Estonia
at this time of year
the sun can’t make up its mind
holding off the night like a spurned lover
confused bees circle the petals
of flowers that reach for the dusky sky
pining for light
this is the season when all lovers tremble
when every park bench is an altar
and hearts are laid bare for the taking
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Another poem written on the Tennessee River in Chattanooga.
Water Song
how many lives have been lived along this water?
what was here before?
before the condos
before the artificial park
before the riverboats full of tourists
before riverfront revitalization
before speeding cars on one bridge
and Sunday strollers on the other
how many souls has this water collected?
what songs have been sung on its banks?
and if it’s quiet enough, can you still hear them?
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On the Tennessee River
woke up in a Manhattan hi-rise
going to bed a Tennessee riverboat
neither of them is home
home is a carousel horse
I can never quite grab on to
not these lightning strikes
or the rain on this river
home was our shared bed
the sound of little boys wrestling
it’s so quiet now, so very quiet
there are bridges on both sides of me
and I have nowhere to go on either one
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Rough Boys
“Remember when Frankie got taken out?”
Three shop stewards are sitting along a marble wall
on Park Ave near Grand Central
talking about the old days.
“You wouldn’t fuck with Nicky Torres.”
They remember heated words in cramped offices,
big men with tattoos from the war
who didn’t take shit off anyone,
no matter how good a college you went to.
“As soon as they found out you were with Nicky,
their whole attitude changed.”
Men who drove in to the office in nice cars
felt their collars tighten and the sweat on their foreheads
as strap-hanging third-generation laborers
let them know how things stood.
“Nicky would raise his hand
and everybody would stop working
until he put it back down. He got what he wanted.”
There aren’t many places left where men talk about the union
like it was an unpredictable beast.
Like it prowled the shop floor, muscles rippling
under taut skin. Like its hot breath
could cause the boss to think twice before mouthing off.
When Frankie got taken out,
it was because Nicky Torres told the plant manager,
“Either this asshole goes
or you’re not gonna have much to ship out on them trucks.”
Frankie left, and Nicky put his hand down.
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Lights in the night sky
you must understand
there is no limit, no end
I have waited a decade
I would wait decades more
what is the boundary of truth?
how far from the heart
does the blood flow,
bringing life to all it touches?
in truth, there is no line
dividing one from another
no piece that can be removed
for we are all made
of the tiny lights
in the night sky
the distance is vast
and it is nothing, too
I would reach out
but there is no “out”
I would draw you near
but you are already beside me
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For my birthday this year, a friend gave me the book The Best American Travel Writing 2009
. One of the essays is “The Generals In Their Labyrinth” by Patrick Symmes, originally published in Outside. It’s a disturbing essay, and it inspired this poem.
In Burma, San-Zarni Bo Tells The Future
he reads ink-palmed impressions
says good things are coming
but stay away from saffron-colored robes
outside the wind is making a liar
of the junta weatherman
and in the cardboard villages along the Irawaddy
no one is going anywhere
no one has anywhere to go
later tonight a killing wind will extract more blood
from a drained people, leeching them dry
even as their homes and shops
fill with dirty water the color of dead sparrows
children will scream for drowned mothers
frantic fathers will search for lost sons and daughters
entire families will blow away, wash away
hundreds of miles away, in a stone compound
at the end of eight lanes of concrete
a bitter old man will chuckle
as he reaches into the empty place
behind his sternum and stirs the acid
with one yellowed finger
but back in his dimly-lit room
San-Zarni Bo predicts the future
says good things are coming
don’t mind the wind, he shouts
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Another poem written during my recent stay in Chattanooga, TN.
Lights, Camera, Action!
this town is like a Hollywood set
look behind the storefronts
the buildings that line Broad Street
there’s nothing there
the bricks rise to the skies
joggers clot the river bridge
but the heart has been cut out
Walter Cronkite once said
this was the dirtiest town in America
it’s cleaner now – wiped clean of its history
all the people shunted out to the pavement
paradise, never far from a strip mall
there are historical markers
on every downtown street
they are little more than headstones
marking empty graves, the city’s corpse
long ago merged with the soil
covered with the dust of razed landmarks
“Right where Starbucks is, this is where
your granddaddy built tank engines
to fight the Nazis.”
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I wrote a lot of poetry during my recent trip to Chattanooga, Tennessee. One of the poems was inspired by meeting bicycle adventurer Joe “Metal Cowboy” Kurmaskie, and reading his first book, Metal Cowboy: Ten Years Further Down the Road Less Pedaled
.
Idaho
for Joe Kurmaskie
on this rainy Idaho morning
I give you a name
I tap your destiny
with my white cane
have you reckoned
a thousand miles much?
have you packed a bag
and left all else behind?
with the legs as the only engine
you can hear what is there to hear
the whispering of spirits on the roadside
singing the world into being
In August, several of my friends participated in an event during which they wrote a poem a day on a postcard and mailed it to someone. They in turn received postcards from other poets. That was all too much for me, but the “poem on a postcard” idea was a good one, so I started writing the occasional short poem and sending them to friends. I sent this one to my friends Jo Lawry and James Shipp:
In August, several of my friends participated in an event during which they wrote a poem a day on a postcard and mailed it to someone. They in turn received postcards from other poets. That was all too much for me, but the “poem on a postcard” idea was a good one, so I started writing the occasional short poem and sending them to friends. I sent this one to jazz critic Richard Kamins:
In August, several of my friends participated in an event during which they wrote a poem a day on a postcard and mailed it to someone. They in turn received postcards from other poets. That was all too much for me, but the “poem on a postcard” idea was a good one, so I started writing the occasional short poem and sending them to friends. I sent this one to Jake Vrabel, the young son of my friends Jeff and Leeann:
In August, several of my friends participated in an event during which they wrote a poem a day on a postcard and mailed it to someone. They in turn received postcards from other poets. That was all too much for me, but the “poem on a postcard” idea was a good one, so I started writing the occasional short poem and sending them to friends. Here’s the first one, sent to my friends Kevin Baird and Jenn Cornish in California:
permanence
some names are carved in stone
because they cannot be erased
ours are written on paper
which burns
Storytelling
telling stories in our hotel room
keeping my game face on
my Superman fights a giant robot
John’s defeats a huge gorilla
Bernie’s Man of Steel takes on a fire monster
he’s tired so he forgets
sometimes his villain is a robot, too
I’m wearing a necklace made of Kryptonite
my powers are fading
keeping my game face on so they won’t notice
never expected this hotel room
never expected the hurricane
and yes, that’s a metaphor
what kind of kit do you pack for a storm of rejection?
I’m happy to announce that an updated version of my bicycling poem “this two-wheeled life” will appear in the next issue of Boneshaker: A Bicycling Almanac. I’ll post details here when it comes out, which will likely be in October.
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