Library

All work is copyrighted by Steven V. Hight.

The Boy Who Cried Faggot

The boy who cried “Faggot!”
        out the window of his Jeep
       as I rode by on my trike
wore his hair high-and-tight
       as I once did,

and that, and the Jeep,
       and the Army stickers
       on its bumper
should have signified a connection
       between us,
and not the loathing he had for me
nor the sadness I felt for him.

March 11, 2007

Fragment, Consider Revising

Inspiration strikes
       most frequently
when it finds me
       in the coffee shop
when I’m at table,
       notebook open before me.

And the words come
       to my head
and flow
       into my hand
in complete sentences,
       not in fragments,
giving my critics,
       none of whom actually exist,
ammunition,
       as if they need more
than the words
       themselves.

Sentences broken
       and
staggered
       into fragments
and theatrical
       pauses
are not poetry,
       they explain,
some with no concept
       of patience
or courtesy.

They are just sentences,
       and any fool
could write them.

       Genius,
they maintain,
       shows itself
in the poet’s ability
       to tell
his story
       and paint
his picture
       without benefit
of grammar.

(Or her,
       I should add.)

I disagree,
       of course,
of course I disagree,
       and I would,
because when inspiration strikes
       most frequently,
when it finds me
       in the coffee shop,
when I’m sitting at table,
       notebook open before me,
and the words come to my head
       and flow into my hand,
they come,
       as they most frequently do,
in complete sentences,
       not in fragments.

January 19, 2007

Revival

Today it’s Christian rock
filling the sound-space
of the coffee shop,
bland and colorless,
inspired but uninspiring,
the rhythms of pop-rock
infused with words of praise
for the Father
and cries of love
for the Son
lest They forget
They are loved,
lest They forget
They are worshiped,
lest They forget
They are feared
and remove from us
Their protective veil.

All the setting lacks
is the smoke of incense
and the flickering of candles —
the fug of marijuana
and the Zippos held aloft —
for the congregation to raise their hands
to Heaven
and dance away their demons
until dawn.

But for now
the caffeine alone will have to do.

January 10, 2007

Runup to a Showdown

We are not yet convinced.
We need more evidence.
Other priorities call for our attention.

But it’s the right thing to do.
I know it in my bones.
It’s foolish not to disregard the skeptics.

We must ask if the skeptics are right.
We must ask if any questions remain.
We must ask for the opinions of the people.

The skeptics cannot be right.
Remaining questions are irrelevant.
And the people will have the opinions that we give them.

We tend to agree with you.
Perhaps we are convinced.
And we can find the evidence when we need to.
We grant you the authority.
You may proceed as you desire.
And the people will thank us for it later.

November 3, 2006

Fireflies’ Winter

Oh! What a joy it was
to be a boy
and play with the bugs!
Collecting the discarded
carapaces
of locusts
off the bark of elm trees,
flicking June bugs
off the window screens,
rolling pill bugs down the drive,
destroying ant mounds
like some macrocephalic Godzilla,
holding captured grasshoppers
by their back legs
to watch them spit tobacco juice,
and running in laughing terror
from the mantises and walking sticks.

Nothing compared, however,
to the fireflies.
Nothing.

We called them lightning bugs
back then
and nothing was more
entrancing
than their magical green glow.
How did they do it?
Silently floating through the air
blinking blinking blinking,
the Christmas lights
of those hot Midwestern nights.

Collected in jars,
lids pierced by Grandma,
the lightning bugs glowed
and blinked
and amazed
all night,
till we fell asleep
dreaming of their fairy lights.

Or caught
midflight
held close to the eye
to be studied passionately,
or squashed,
at first by accident,
later by design,
to reveal the eerie glowing paste,
the fading luminescence of
lives lived
at unimaginable intensity.
That paste made such wonderful
war paint.

Once, when I was a teen,
driving alone at night,
along narrow country lanes
that traversed the woods
and fields
of eastern Pennsylvania,
I saw a cloud,
a swarm,
a living miasma
of sorcerous colored lights,
and I stopped to watch,
perhaps for five minutes,
perhaps for an hour,
hypnotized by the waves
of sparkling green
that traveled from left to right,
as if the cloud were some
sort of living entity
out of science fiction,
undulating like a school of fish
or a flock of birds swooping
over a corn field,
Northern Lights of the mid-Atlantic night,
a flapping, waving flag,
not red-white-and-blue,
but green-yellow-green,
a flag made of living stars.

Today,
where I live out West,
we have crickets and grasshoppers,
mantises and June bugs,
but no fireflies,
no lightning bugs to amaze the kids,
to spark juvenile interest
and ignite youthful imaginations.
I am wistful and nostalgic
about what they will sadly never know.

August 2006

The Butterfly Effect

When did that Alien figurine
       stop being
a toy
       and re-emerge
as an eBay collectible?

When did Phoebe Cates
       slowly moving in stereo
undress to reveal
       a blushing embarrassment?

When were the blanket fort
       and the shoebox safe
and the pen that fired poison darts
       at the math teacher
set aside
       for houses and bank accounts
and lecturing the kids about the importance
       of long division?

When did the boy’s fantasy
       become
the man’s wistful memory?

July 9, 2006

A Dog’s Life

Today’s paper was filled, as usual,
with the news of the latest disagreements,
of senators, citizens, and smokers,
policemen, priests, and pollsters
wrangling over the controversies —
manufactured, marketable, and mass-mailed —
that take us out of ourselves,
if only for a while,
and distance us from the meagerness,
the paucity, the vacuity,
of our own realities.

Let us worry about what the other guy is doing!

His opinion-religion-lifestyle-party —
is wrong,
no matter who he doesn’t hurt —
my father-mother-president-god —
told me so.

Today, I stopped my trike
to visit a dog that used to hate me —
and fear me
and bark at me —
and fed her biscuits,
while we both smiled at each other
in our own ways,
neither worried about the other’s
fashion choices
or haircuts,
as we wagged our tails in joy
at the beauty of the day.

June 28, 2006

Trees

They whisper —
oh lord how they whisper! —
a roaring, rushing whisper —
like ten thousand voices whispering the words
to the same whispered song.

They shimmer —
oh lord how they shimmer! —
a scintillating shimmer —
like jewel-encrusted waters
springing clear from hallowed ground.

They breathe —
oh lord how they breathe! —
cleansing, freeing inspiration —
like a tai chi master inhaling exhaling
subtle movements of nature.

They shelter —
oh lord how they shelter! —
arching, branching, shading shelter —
like a father’s arms embracing us
when everything has gone wrong.

They tower —
oh lord how they tower! —
this unmoving as they tower —
like armies of God whose only role
is to protect us from ourselves.

They topple —
oh lord how they topple! —
crashing thunder as they topple —
like kneecapped giants brought down by axes
we little men have swung.

May 19, 2006

Careless Mistake, Lately Discovered

Imagine my surprise,
       imagine my disgust,
upon discovering the mistake,

a mistake clearly hidden,
       evident as a bald spot
concealed carefully by a combover,

a mistake reproduced and replicated,
a mistake widely distributed,
a mistake a thousand eyes have seen,
a mistake not one voice has reported.

Perhaps no one has noticed,
       perhaps no one has cared,
but I have noticed, I have cared.

I cared when I made it,
       I care still today.

It is my mistake,
       and I cannot fix it,
and that will always haunt me.

March 2, 2006

Daguerreian Dream Reflected but Not Captured

You are held to me like mirrors
rotting in the sunless branches
of destiny, alarmed and regretful
upset forgotten unseen,
to be held nevertheless by passion’d
parades in endless streams of onlookers
marching but not seeing visions
that shatter and bind,
silver and mercury co-mingled,
amalgamated to reveal
from the glass tiny echoes
we cannot touch, not they us,
nor we them, nor each of us
the other, yet the distance
enbrambled as it is as it was
remains unbridged
to remind us all
of the desiccation
and the rot
and the beauty
of eternity.

February 27, 2006

Neil Diamond on the Radio

Freshly-brewed coffee with cream
washes over my palate,
softly bitter
like good acorns can be
on those rare occasions
when they can be gathered
from under the tree, on the ground,
missed or not yet found
by squirrels, birds, or deer,
before they’ve blackened with rot,
before they’ve spotted with must
and mold,
and I use the coffee
to wash my sandwich down,
sweet-acid tomato tartness
lingering
on the roof of my mouth
and sticking between my teeth,
held in place by small bits of ham
and bagel,
and I pick at the bits
with my tongue,
success limited
by the very mass of the pulpy flesh
I’ve put to work on the task,
failing to do as I ask,
failing to dislodge the stubborn bits,
and for a moment I am perturbed,
annoyed and perhaps disturbed,
but the song on the radio changes
to cleanse and refresh,
and I swallow another swallow
of the softly-bitter, freshly-brewed
coffee with cream,
as Neil Diamond on the radio
reaches out,
touching you,
touching me,
and merges with the coffee
to wash me back into reverie,
back into my dream,
where I drift away
into the pleasant wood
and pluck the bittersweet acorns
from the untouched ground.

February 14, 2006

Mathew Brady Says ‘Goodnight’

Tonight when I sleep
I will dream of their faces,
their faces from the past –

ghostly-silver echoes
rising foglike from mirrors,
crystal-collodian captures
of false memories on glass,
sepia-toned hauntings
on dirty cardstock tombstones,
fragile flaking facsimiles
bound to sheets of rusting tin –

eyes and hair and hats and clothes –
and what I imagine they were –
dancing through time
to treacle-thick jigs
torn from the strings
of dead fiddles –

and when I’ve finished dreaming
and tired of watching them dance
I’ll shut them back firmly and snugly,
secure in their tiny brown caskets.

February 2, 2006

after ee cummings

if the world were more just more fair more true
(all men and all women
love me
love you)
happy as clams we’d be inside us
(very true
yes
no mess and no fuss)
happy as larks of every hue

we’d move on command and sit when we must
(we shiver and shake
so hard
unjust)
dancing and spinning and leaping we fly
(grounded sit
we
we shiver and cry)
rolling and stirring the dust

biting and foaming eyes rolling inside
(see nothing at all
i’m dead
i died)
electric hot wiring searing my flesh
(a headache
fire
a starry net mesh)
i’m choking i’m crushing i cried

and you go away some place in your head
(see nothing at all
you died
you’re dead)
please come back my love and return you to me
(please hurry
come
i need you with me)
starry net mesh shrouding the dead

the world is not just is not fair is not true
(few men and few women
love me
love you)
but happy as clams as larks we remain
(together
we
in exquisite pain)
tremors and love be our glue

2005
(after if everything happens that can’t be done)

Perhaps

Perhaps,
(I thought to myself)
perhaps if I were to write about it,
jot it down,
get it on paper,
as I used to do,
perhaps then I could isolate it,
narrow it down,
examine it,
give it a name,
understand it,
know it.

Perhaps.

But I just live with it,
sometimes,
instead.

October 31, 2005

Flea Bites

Grandma would exclaim
when I returned
from a visit with Mrs. Watts,
“You’ve got flea bites all over you!”
And she’d be right;
Mrs. Watts had cats,
big, overstuffed, fuzzy cats,
lazy and authoritative cats,
cats who purred like German engineering
when their great, bloated bellies
and battle-damaged ears
were scratched
by visiting little boys,
cats infested, of course,
with multitudes of fleas.
And Grandma would fret
and fumble and fluster,
and worry that all those flea bites
might make me ill.
But they never did.
They just itched for a spell
then were forgotten,
as a faded into the white noise
of scrapes, bruises, and scratches,
mosquitoes, ticks, and chiggers.

So I visited Mrs. Watts
almost every day that summer,
and drank her lemonade
and petted her cats
and sat in her big wicker chairs
on her big sunporch
or lay on her rug
watching the fleas jump,
while I listened to her stories
of the husband who died
but loved her before he did,
and of the children who grew up
and made her proud
and who were going to visit her
someday soon,
and of a girlhood always cherished
and never forgotten.

Some strange sense of duty,
some urgency I did not understand,
compelled me to visit, day after day,
to pet her cats, get bitten by fleas,
and listen to her stories,
till summer was over
and I returned home,
and Mrs. Watts died
alone with her cats.

March 17, 2001

The Finer Things

We used to get these strawberries
that grew up wild
on the south side of the house.
We didn’t plant them,
they just grew,
down among the weedy flowers
on that water-starved
and sunbaked side of the house.
They never produced
many berries,
just a few,
and we had to contend with
the birds
for the four or five
that actually ripened.
These were wild berries,
feral and small,
but God were they delicious.
So sweet and,
well,
strawberry-flavored.
We had never tasted
real strawberries
before he found these
little red gems
huddled under shading leads
in the garden.
We’d just had those big, tasteless
things
they sell at supermarkets,
alongside the underripe bananas
and soft, flavor-free apples.
We haven’t seen a berry
in two summers now.
Maybe the birds got to them sooner.
Maybe it’s been too hot.
Or maybe
that was it.
Maybe we’d had our share.
Maybe Heaven is measured out
in small doses.

March 7, 2001

Legacy

I have no past to claim,
no heritage to pass along, no land, no title,
no hard-won nobility
of purpose,
no wealth, no recollection,
no farmhouse on a hill.

I have no claim on the land
or any piece of it.
I own no memories worth sharing,
no happy childhood moments,
no accomplishments,
no family business —
no, I have never even known my family,
just as I have never known my son.

What will he have
to cede to his progeny?
What memories of happier times
whittling decoys with his grandpa?
What seed will he sow
in a field so barren?

Has he any hope of hope?
Has he any chance of joy?
Will he wander rootless,
a drifter through life,
a man of uncertain convictions,
a man of calcified feelings?

I offer my example,
but will he see it?
I offer my lessons,
but will he hear them?
I offer my heart,
but will he touch it?

What have I to pass on,
what lesson can I teach?
How can I break through
the hardening of his heart?

March 6, 2001

Blockbuster

Look!
I can put pen to paper
and record there
words,
beautiful words,
words that burgeon
with subtleties
and blossom
with images,
words fecund with dreams
and questions
and ideas,
words that illuminate
my vocabulary
and document
the twitchings of my mind,
twitchings exercised
as one exercises a tic,
a spasm,
a tremor,
that runs for my brain,
down my arm,
to my hand,
to energize my pen
to scratch and scroll
these words.

March 6, 2001

A Conversation Overheard

There are four of them,
old men all,
breaking the silence of the waiting room
at the VA Hospital.
One is very large,
tall and overweight;
one is bearded like an Amish farmer;
one hunches forward
and leans on his cane;
and the last stares out
through black plastic frames,
the kind we called Clark Kents
when we were feeling generous
and birth-control glasses
when we were not.

The large man is the leader,
and tugs at his suspenders
while he bellows out his proclamations,
but he faces a more reassured opposition
from the Amish-bearded farmer,
who listens patiently,
and corrects precisely.
At these interruptions,
the large man pauses,
tugs again in his suspenders,
and resumes is oft told stories
of naval battles in the Pacific Theater.

The man with the cane was also in the Navy,
and verifies the large man’s lies
and enhancements
with a rapt attention
and choruses of “That’s right —
that’s the way it was,”
like the amens scattered
throughout a Baptist church service.

Clark Kent stares ahead silently
as he sits rigidly upright in his chair.
His silvery hair has fallen over his left eye,
but he makes no attempt to move it.

The conversation,
nearly a monologue,
drifts from naval battles to politics,
from politics to conspiracy,
from conspiracy to economics,
all with a complete disregard of fact
that men like the large man
where like a badge of honor.
The large man’s honor is stained
by the pointed questions
put forth by the Amish-bearded farmer,
who’s droll commentary should have come
from a mouth sucking on a stalk of grass,
from a body clad in farmer’s overalls:
the beard seemed wrong on a man
wearing a college sweatshirt.

The large man speaks with authority
of security at Area 51, and radiation testing,
and explosive ordinance disposal,
and says he did all of those things
after World War II,
after typhoon near Okinawa nearly sank his destroyer,
after kamikaze pilots nearly killed them all,
after an explosion deafened one ear.

After these things that might be true,
the man with the cane chirps,
“That’s the way it was,”
and Clark Kent continues to stare
and listen in silence.

The Amish-bearded farmer sits in silence
as the large man blames
“the Ay-rabs and the Jews,”
and only offers a few technical corrections
at the discussion of the A-bomb,
but at the large man’s assertion
that radiation testing at Area 51
made him so radioactive
that to this day he magnetizes screwdrivers
and shorts out radios,
at this assertion
the Amish-bearded farmer said loudly,
“Oh, I doubt that,”
then lapsed into an unbroken silence.
There was nothing more for him to say.

The large man and man with the cane
turned to each other and began equating
Democrats with Communists.

Clark Kent rose from his chair,
looked at me and smiled,
then strolled confidently from the room.

February 9, 2001

Mexican-American War

She said, “Te amo.”
I said, “I love you, too.”
She said, “Te quiero.”
And I said, “Let’s get married.”
She screamed, “¡Pendejo!”
And I replied, “You little bitch!”
So she shouted, “¡Maricon!”
Then we both said, “Fuck this shit.”

February 1, 2001

Searching for Inspiration in a Bagel Shop on Main Street

I sit,
searching for inspiration,
in a bagel shop
on Main Street,
but no tide of humanity
passes me by.
Rather, a trickle of rare souls
crosses my stare,
unique individuals
each with stories and loves and sorrows
of his or her own.
There is beauty and the faces I see,
in the hopes and troubles
displayed therein,
in the shy glance of the counter girl
with the spiked, magenta hair
in the open delight
of the laughing toddler
running by with Mom in tow,
and in the four old, Catholic ladies,
heads bowed and hands joined,
as they recite the saintly prayer
over steaming mugs of coffee.
I could sit here, I think, forever,
watching people as they pass
by my window, on the sidewalk,
running errands, greatly burdened,
and rounding out their dwindling days
with tremendous loves and greater trivialities,
with rolling tears and rolling laughter,
maintaining a slippery balance
on the see-saw scales
of the lives in which we live.

February 2001

Intimate Exchange

The breeze is of the gentlest sort,
as I sit at a table full in the sun,
break apart my chopsticks,
and open the Styrofoam boxes
of steaming Chinese take out.
I eat in silence
and watch the beautiful, happy preschoolers
engaged in laughing play,
and sip my tea thoughtfully,
mindful of the mothers
helping their children up the ladders,
pushing their children on the swings,
or reading romance novels and sipping diet colas.

A young woman approaches
and sits across from me,
with a baby in a basket
placed gently on the bench,
and opens her printed blouse
and unhooks her nursing bra
to reveal the glory
of a perfect, full, round breast.
She leans to unbuckle her child
and cradles it in her careful arms,
placing her swollen, red nipple
in its greedy, happy mouth,
stroking the wispy strands of hair
fluttering on its soft, infant head.

And when the suck has started,
she looks up
and knows I am watching,
but no shame or anger crosses her face
at the knowledge of my trespass,
only a smile,
rare and giving and proud.
She is pleased to have been able
to share this moment
of pure and perfect love
with a stranger
who can never know it.

I return her smile wanly with a feeble nod,
gather my leavings,
and depart,
without us having ever exchanged words.

1999

Unfortunate Truths

Sometimes Death
is not the Enemy.
Sometimes Life is.

1998

Killing Mercy

Her back had been broken
       by the force of the impact —
a hit-and-run driver
       who left her for me to find —

one moment of cautious peace,
       the next of shock and fear
and flying —
       the pain did not come until later.

Fate brought me to the scene
       in the belly of the same sort of beast
that delivered her
       to a slow, painful death,

only she wasn’t dead yet,
       but struggled and fought
against the inevitable,
       in the dying light of my headlamps.

My slow, easy approach
       quickened spasms of fear in her belly,
as she strained to get her legs under her,
       and strove for resurrection.

Her efforts only caused more pain,
       but as pain won this battle,
her heaving sides and wild eyes
       revealed the victory of her spirit.

The plea for life was in her eyes,
       in her struggles,
but the blood foaming from her mouth
       told me the plea went unheard.

There was another plea there also,
       or so I supposed,
hidden behind those rolling, wild eyes:
       the plea for release.

I had no desire to end this life.
       “But it’s better this way,”
I told myself,
       “There’s no other way to help her.”

Selecting the largest rock I could lift, I focused on my task,
       quelled my misgivings,
apologized,
       and dropped the stone.

After the sickening crunch,
       I stumbled toward the headlamps
into waiting, loving arms
       to shudder and gasp for air,

and although I willed against it,
       her will was the stronger,
for there, in the dying light, she raged
       and renewed her fight for life.

Scarcely able to draw breath,
       I hurried
to finish the foul deed,
       to face those pleading eyes again,

for I had become the Reaper’s apprentice,
       a corporal in the battle
between her will to live
       and Death’s ultimate victory.

The weight of the bloodied stone
       pulled down on my shoulders,
pulled down on my soul,
       as I hefted it for the ultimate drop,

and her eyes reached out to me,
       still pleading for another chance, not mercy,
forcing me to shut my own eyes against her gaze
       as I released the stone and her life.

When the stone bounced
       and rolled off her shattered skull,
I saw her eyes for the last time,
       glassy, dim, and lifeless,

much like I felt
       as I rushed to collapse into waiting, loving arms,
crushed to earth
       by the bloody, cold weight on my skull.

1998

The Public School Teacher

The public school teacher
sits in front of the gathered students
and reads out loud
from the textbook,
not so much from
laziness or jaded
disinterest
(although those may be present, too),
but because there are
not enough textbooks
for the students
to take home
and read for themselves.

The public school teacher
leads the discussion
of today’s approved topic,
selected from newspapers
the students do not read.

The public school teacher
counts down
for silence,
and swivels
in the unapproved chair
she brought from home.

The public school teacher
forgets the names
of the quiet
underachievers,
and remembers the names
of the attention-seekers
and troublemakers.

The public school teacher
sighs,
and pushes the students
through the system
in an efficient,
orderly,
and school-board-approved
manner.

1998

Calling Jack London

The forest canopy parts
to reveal
the Howling Moon,
and there,
in its silver shadow,
He stands,
the growler,
the fighter,
ripper of throats,
drinker of blood.

There He stands,
He who had suffered
from man’s low morality,
knowing no love or kindness,
who crossed the Yukon Territory
and back
at man’s whim,
obedient to,
but distrustful of
his gods,
his many masters,
a sled dog loyal
but vicious,
who bore the harness
when he had to,
but shed it
when he could.

Alone stood He
in the forest clear,
bright of eye,
broad of foot,
deep of chest,
white of fang,
consumed
with a will to live,
chest-deep in snow,
but free and proud.

And then,
in the silence
of silver moonlight
and falling snow,
he was gone.

1998

Sitting in Steven’s Room

Oftentimes I will sit
alone
on the edge of the unmade bed
in the nebulous back room we call
Steven’s room.

Steven doesn’t live there.

He is far away
with his mother
in what might as well be another country,
dimly known and foreign,
for all that we see each other.
Steven has not been in this bed
in this room
in this house
in my arms
for well over a year now.

When he does visit —
most summers —
the distance between us
is drawn into sharp focus
by the clash of rules,

the battle over manners,
the conflicts of family,
the dispute over upbringing,
and the seething of anger.

He is not turning into the boy
I wanted him to be,
because I am not there;
I am not the father
he wants me to be,
because I am not there.
I am here
and he is there.

He is there
in his real room,
surrounded by the bits and pieces
of his real life,
good or bad,
certainly different.
Or so I imagine:
I have never seen his real room.

I am here
in his sometimes room,
where we store the ironing board
and sleep over guests and relatives;
where we have no dresser for his clothes
and the curtains are faded pastel rags;
where the closet is filled with my old Army uniforms
and the knickknacks are really leftovers from my childhood;
where the bookshelves brim with my books,
paperback fiction, Asimov to Zelazny,
and the walls are papered with the posters I selected for him
in his absence,
festooned with the decorations I thought appropriate
for the son I imagined him to be.

It certainly looks like it could be Steven’s room,
with its unmade bed and dinosaur statuettes,
with its Star Trek posters and planetary photographs;
but I am really sitting in my room,
surrounded by the bits and pieces
of my real life:
my memories,
my hopes,
and my sorrows.

1997

A Line (or Two) about Plato’s Cave

— For Dr. Jose Peer, 1947-1997

Seventeen and I knew it all —
and knew nothing just as well.
Smirking,
but well-intentioned,
she threw mystic Plato at me —
no warning (!) —
and told this greasy youth to catch.

The Republic slipped through my oily fingers,
oozed out of my buttered grasp,
hit the floor with a sodden crash
and a flurry of undecipherable text.
I rooted for the bully Thrasymachus,
unimpressed by Socrates’ grinning sophistry,
unable to follow the perambulations of his arguments.
Or of anybody else’s.
All meaning lost
wasted on my untutored, unwilling mind.

Gun-shy . . .
It was twelve years before I’d try again —
chose to try again —
but this time
my new teacher didn’t throw Plato at me
with calloused, casual boredom
or throw me, unprotected,
to Plato.
He smiled and laughed and coaxed,
and by questioning
opened a door,
beckoning, welcoming,
and invited me in,
into the light,
into the Cave.

And I entered the Cave for the first time
having lived there chained and stuporous all along,
and realized that upon entering
I was already on the way back out,
had already begun the long, steep climb
toward the Sun.
And he
and the other great Philosopher Kings
pushed me along,
until I began to run and sing
with the joy of it all.

1997

there is no streetcar here

there is no streetcar here,
only a subway named ‘desire’;
the abandoned rails have long since been removed,
the cables sold for scrap.

now only noisy, belching automobiles
ply the old routes,
obscuring memories,
emitting a foulness
even the hot summer winds
cannot eliminate.

there are no bricks or cobblestones
to resound with cart and hoof,
for only black asphalt
floors these new concrete canyons
where cart and hoof no longer belong.

the brownstones have been blackened,
the stained glass has been shattered,
and the façades have been faced
and filled in,
like all relics,
like us,
swept aside by the tide
of profit and progress.

1997

Stille Nacht

Two sentries in a tiny, frigid guard shack,
we, nervous and bored,
swap lies and scratch our heads,
helmets lolling at our feet,
sip flattened Cokes,
puff smuggled smokes,
and hide
behind door frames
in case of snipers.

At first we had only batons,
and when we complained
they authorized us rifles,
which scared us more
because they did not authorize
ammunition.

But we had that intruder
last week, who
casually climbed the fence and
scared the shit out of Simmons
by asking,
Haben Sie Feuer?
of an armed,
but bullet-disadvantaged,
sentry,
who pretended to lock and load
his semi-automatic, plastic and steel rifle,
and shouted,
Halt!
(which means the same in German as in English)
to the quizzing shadow,
who smiled his knowing, phosphorescent teeth
in the darkness,
turned, and left
Simmons standing there,
a warm wet spot
expanding toward his boots.

Now we have bullets,
but we’d rather have more guards
and dogs
and floodlights
and a clear perimeter
and alarms
and a few million volts of electricity
to heat up that dreadfully inadequate
single wall of chain-link fence,
where regs call for two.

We’d rather have been here on tourist visas;
we’d rather have spent the night in our own warm beds;
we’d rather have spent the night in somebody’s warm bed.

Instead we have the darkness
and the quiet
and our helmets
and our flak jackets
and a flashlight apiece
and our two rifles
and ten rounds of copper-jacketed lead,
eight for the enemy and two for each other,
we say, only half-joking,
but the laughter trails off
and we stare into the dark
in matching silence.

The field phone
— field phone! not radio, but an honest-to-God, land-line-dependant,
readily-tapped, easily-disconnected, Korean-War-issued
field phone —
rings its insect-clicking ring
to warn us,
The relief is coming.

We dutifully snap on our helmets,
chin straps digging
into the stubble of our beards,
leather padded webbing cutting into our skulls
under five pounds of Kevlar,
and one of us steps out of the shack,
disappears into the inky darkness,
and pretends to make his rounds,
while the other pockets the contraband
comic books, soda cans, cigarette butts.

The Sergeant of the Guard drives up,
the relief riding, exposed and cold, in the back,
and takes inventory,
so the relief can assume our rifles
and our ten rounds
and our field phone
and our post
and our fears,
and as we hop into the back of the pickup,
the sergeant asks me,
All quiet on the western front?
and I pause long enough to quip,
What a strange Remarque,
but I know the pun is lost on him
as I close my eyes against the darkness.

1997

Grand Unification Theory

Rising up,
as if from the earth
from which it was drawn,
a house,
stone and wood in concert,
stands,
set back among the woods and fields,
surrounded by wooden outbuildings,
an old, sod-roofed, log schoolhouse,
ancient, towering cottonwoods,
and a blighted, hoary orchard,
whose trees valiantly persist
in yielding fruit.

The house is never empty,
but rings with the memories
of more than a century
of laughter and tears;
high over the threshold,
set in stone,
the builder’s name and the date 1881
bear testimony to those all too short years.
It’s not really that old, as houses go,
but it’s as loyal and as loved
as any ancient manor.

It is a house of Thanksgiving
and long loving weekends,
a storehouse for the remembrance
of horses long-gone
and of children soon-grown,
outside of whose walls
old dogs lie buried.
It is the place where we said,
We do and we will, always,
the place of our marriage bed.

The schoolhouse out front bears with pride
a photograph on one wall
of the students and the teacher
who learned there once;
we pray they learned the important lessons
like love and hope;
we pray the children who play there now,
whose crayon drawings adorn the walls
alongside that photograph,
learn these lessons, too.

They will.
How could they not?
For great things are taught there,
lessons for whomever will look and listen.

A coyote teaches us
to live life to the fullest,
even if danger may lie in wait,
by the simple act
of eating sweet apples
from the orchard floor
in full daylight.

A marmot,
boldly issuing his chirp from a hollow tree,
instructs us to sing out,
loud and strong,
even if we might be noticed
and recognized.

Two old horses,
huddled together under a tree,
sharing warmth and shelter
against the frosty night,
elegantly demonstrate
friendship and loyalty.

An old, stray dog,
a survivor,
gives lessons in trust
and perseverance,
as he nervously accepts
a bowl of food
and a pat on the head.

A young buck
lectures us silently
on unconditional love
and self-sacrifice,
as he slowly prances into the light
to lead us from his doe,
while she escapes
into the safety of the dark.

And the gunshot,
which may someday
take that buck at his word,
screams out a warning
that all life stems from death
and ends there again,
that Newton’s laws of conservation
do not apply to life,
only to the stuff of life.

As a springtime comet
dies,
gloriously,
shedding a little of itself
back to the heavens
from which it came,
where it contributes again
to the furtherance of the Universe,
adds to the starstuff
of which we are all made,
and as a star,
forge of matter,
in living and dying,
concentrates and redistributes
its energy
that life may thrive elsewhere,
so we, too, come from the earth
and are returned to it.

And when we,
the apples,
the coyotes,
the deer,
the children,
and the very sticks and stones
of the house itself
return to earth,
we are only adding back
to the cycle of oneness,
returning to Creation,
embracing the Creator,
and the love
that is
the Universe.

1997

Fly Hours

It’s hot.
My uniform is drenched with sweat,
Its mottled canvas layers imprinted
With the musk of my lethargy,
Steeped in its ghastly smell.

Uncountable flies swarm about my head and eyes,
Enlivened by this unbearable, unbelievable heat,
Lighting on my skin — probing, tasting . . . defecating.
I protect my eyes with a damp towel,
But the malignant, unclean droning never dies . . .

It’s stifling, the dead heat inside this dark, canvas oven,
Far hotter than the living heat of the Sun.
But the Sun is a merciless, unblinking god
Who tears at the very flesh of His victims . . .
This, then, is the hell reserved for heroes.

My cot provides no comfort, no rest, no relief.
I can’t sleep . . . can’t think . . . can’t breathe.
A fly lands, screaming, in my ear —
I want to scream in return,
But can’t catch my breath.

These fly hours are killing me!
I simply cannot just lie here any longer,
In this cage of immobility, this prison of heat.
I must get out . . .
The tent’s open flap beckons to me, like the maw of Hell . . .

God rides high and mighty overhead;
His angelic host? Vultures. His minions? Flies.
Hateful and cruel, this Sun, this first god,
Has lorded over us, unchallenged, since the dawn of time.
He does not yet relax His grip.

I pause at the oasis of the water tank,
The wet sand under its dripping spigot
Breeding still more flies.
I kick furiously at the maggots, trying to kill them all;
Generations of flies continue the attack, eating at my eyes . . .

Here, outside, under His blinding eye,
The flies are worse,
Much worse.
I must keep walking to avoid them.
I must keep walking to escape.

Escape from the uncamouflaged odor of latrines,
Escape outside our entrenched compound,
Escape through its trebled rows of barbed wire,
Escape past the dozing sentry,
Escape beyond his silent machine gun . . .

The baking desert floor spreads endlessly before me;
My evanescent footprints drop rapidly behind.
I know now I must run to escape.
I must run, helpless and senseless,
Beyond the reach of that filthy, portentous buzzing.

Beyond the unknowable chattering of Arabs,
Whose language and culture I try to understand,
Try desperately,
But fail,
For they are alien to me.

But more urgently, I must run from my own people,
With their pent-up, patriotic bloodlust, their righteous, militant fury:
Like family, I know them far too well.
Like family, I did not choose them — I do not choose them now —
I see much too much of myself in their eyes.

My equipment has now grown heavy; my rifle weighs me down.
Soon they are swallowed by the desert behind me,
Eaten up, as the flies eat at my soul.
My canteen sloshes, nearly empty — soon, it will be empty . . .
Too soon, it is.

This day I learn there is no escape:
No escape from the Sun,
No escape from those I should call my own,
And soon . . .
No escape from the flies.

1996

My Grandfather

My grandfather
Could blow smoke rings,
And he’d chew his pipe thoughtfully
When the fire had gone out.

He fished, of course —
That came with the title —
And whittled,
With a resin-handled jackknife
Almost as old as he.

He sharpened that knife meticulously,
spitting on an old, grey whetstone,
And showed me
How he could split a hair after;
I’m sure it was sleight-of-hand —
I could never do it.

He’d make things:
Jewelry boxes and dollhouse furniture,
Leather belts and wooden clocks,
Toy swords and model planes,
Things I wish I could make,
Things magical and mundane,
Whimsical and practical.

He showed me how to draw a blue jay —
It’s a lot like drawing any other letter
Except that red ink won’t do —
And read me the headlines:
“Hundreds found dead
In the local graveyard.”

We played cribbage,
And I drank R.C. Cola
While he drank beer;
He didn’t care which kind:
He’s the only person I have known
Who drank generic beer.

He had such awful taste,
But often rose above it,
Because he was my grandfather.

1996