rooms

i’m trying to ground my poems
in a body,
or something concrete.
it’s so much work –
giving ideas a skin,
muscling your way
through language.
i still write everything
by hand, a stylus
tracing figures
on the tongue,
carving angles,
breaking lines, shifting
directions.
 
it’s a delicate thing –
how one determines
how heavily to be present.
there’s only so much weight
the poem can bear.
i tend to step lightly.
i tend to whisper.
i would like to be a ghost
walking through rooms –
and by rooms i mean words.
 
(by words i mean thoughts,
by thoughts i mean hearts,
by hearts i mean prayers.
by prayers i mean to say
i want to trust you with this)
 
i would like to write something
where we are both naked.

taking it personal

i just want you
to know that
it’s not personal.
it’s political.
by which i mean to say,
i take sides –
though
i didn’t take yours.
i have no regrets.
i did not intend
to be unkind.
there was neither obligation,
nor wasted time.

when we were
out in public,
there was something
precious to steward.
we did not.
we wounded
know only
how to wound.

the question was
who would govern
whom? who
exerts control
over the heart, who
the tongue
(a fire applied
judiciously),
consuming.
a consummation, 
of a kind.

friday night writing group

we met more or less monthly
to share our poetry
more or less
while mushrooms steeped
and joints were rolled,
we drank glasses of wine
and bottles of beer.

a motley crew, we were
there by choice.
a chorus of voices
joined by a love of words,
a grasping for meaning:
the philosopher and the sci-fi nerd,
the hippie and the party girl,
the cheerleader and the engineer,
the earth goddess and the goth.

we made ourselves vulnerable,
and shared our songs.
we did that for two years.

later, there was dancing.
some of us mistook our love
for words for the possibility of love.
some of us never took that chance
and then all that remained
was the memory
of writing, what was
and what could be.
 
all those dreams:
that together we could build a new world,
that our words could change hearts,
that we could make someone fall in love,
that the attempt is beautiful.

about painting

i don’t remember the moment

when art became important to me,

but i do remember when

i fell in love with mondrian.

while mrs. james loved pollock,

and would often sing his praises,

she at least made time for other voices.

i found all that splash and hiss

too bombastic, heavy-handed.

at that moment the terms were set:

it was either mondrian or pollock

(it would be years before i faced

picasso and cezanne, or

monet and matisse).

i suppose it need not have been

adversarial, but we must choose camps.

i loved the elegance of his project –

all those possible variations

with limited means. i spent hours

arranging and re-arranging

combinations of rectilinear bars

and blocks of red, yellow, and blue.

the elements seemed simple,

yet their effects maddeningly complex.

years later i visited the philadelphia museum of art

and visited the modern European art wing.

there, mondrian was paired with brancusi,

kindred spirits in their search for essences.

they were so small, and still

surprisingly thick and full

filigreed with cracks,

and no less elegant.

reunion

let’s get the band back together –

all of us in the same room again.

i’ve missed the friendly bickering,

all those passionate arguments.

i’m not even sure why we broke up –

something about choices, i think

who was sleeping with whom,

and the reasons why.

perhaps we were too inseparable,

it wasn’t just meals we shared

or workplace, or classes, or holidays.

it wasn’t how we protected each others’ secrets.

there was never any jealousy among us,

and we held all things in common.

then again, maybe it’s a bad idea after all,

fueled by nostalgia or loneliness.

perhaps we’re better off now,

having sloughed off the impetuousness of youth,

having lived through our many poor decisions,

and having forgotten the taste of them.