In Poetry, the Body

Write bare bones;
make the skeleton dance.

Then add flesh, remembering
that we are simple machines,
hinges, levers, pulleys, joints;

wrap them gently with something
scarred and beautiful. Skin holds
every memory. Touch it, beautiful
and ugly both. Wrap them gently.

The blood should flow unseen,
present and powerful. if it must
bleed, let it do so enough to run
a vivid stroke, then scab, knit,
and scar; remembered, smooth.

Then peel. First skin from muscle;
this is not the dry skin of an onion.
It sticks, clings. Strip the elegant
from the mechanical in ragged lines.

Slabs of muscle slip easier
from bone. Cut the strings, let
them dangle, unburdened,

write bones like windchimes
on a breezeless day.

Cefalu'

1. The driver's booming voice

I am the only one to exit

When buses are off duty
but still have passengers
the light up sign
says "deposito"

I am
like sand
deposited


2. There is still a two-
hour lunch break,
from times when lunch
meant family, kissing
your children hello, three
courses, four glasses
of wine to get through
the evening shift,
and back again.

Now lunch means
standing outside
your closed down shop,
wandering, cursing,
cigarettes, the news,
the ocean, four
glasses of wine
to get through
the evening shift.

There are no children.
The population
is shrinking.


3. A man fishing.
Four sidelong glances.

Two nods,
one in greeting
one in farewell.

An hour conversing
with the waves.

No fish caught.
Horizon, lightning.
Resignation.

A cigarette.
Stairs into the sea.

Our Bones are Set (revision)

Our bones that once
stacked tightly, now
are set with pins
and plates against
each other.

The desire to break
apart again
is staunched,
as bleeding,
by pressure:

These nails
keep us steady,
but drive through us; we
occasionally splinter
with the blows.

To Vanish:

On the day that Craig Arnold disappeared
rain was falling in Portland, and the radio
informed us that he had not returned
to the remote japanese village from which
he had departed to hike around a volcano.
The spot was 30 seconds long. The search
continued for three days, then was given up.
A scrap of clothing was found by a tourist
three weeks later, on the lip of the caldera.

In all likelihood Mr. Arnold's bones
were swallowed by the underbrush
but there is a chance that he has joined
the ranks of vanished souls whose
disappearances raise little suspicion,
whose post-mortem sightings will not
be claimed. No tabloids will list "the top five
most likely places to spot Craig Arnold."

(1. The volcano of Kuchinoerabujima, walking
the rim, looking for the scrap of shirt
left as a guide to find home.)

At most, the radio might run another 30 seconds
of commemoration after a frantic call
is forwarded to the local news.

(2. A sculpture museum, hiding among
the statues of Persephone, eyeing
the marble pomegranate hungrily.)

The family will be called,
relatives nearby contacted,
his name will be spoken again.

(3. Vegas)

The sightings are never the same,
always from afar, and usually
far-fetched enough to be true.

(4. Hitchhiking down the autobahn with a sign
that says "poetry or bust!" Everyone swears
they saw someone else pick him up.)

And so we wait to hear where
he will resurface. And slowly
his bones disappear.

(5. A small used bookstore in some big city
where everyone knows the meaning of "ekphrasis"
and tells you that every poet eventually vanishes.)

You Will Come Home

To press charcoal
into diamond
is to rush
what takes time,
patience,
pressure.

Like writing,
the process
is messy,
your hands
get dirty,

and most times,
it breaks apart
just as you thought
you were getting somewhere.

But once
in a long while,
you will come home–
face filthy, teeth
moon-white,
a diamond

nowhere
to be found–
a lump
of charcoal
cupped
in your palms,

perfectly

broken.

Honda CB 350

I shoved its dying there
too readily, the rust
only beginning to gnaw
at the teeth of its gears.

We both rattle a little
too much, our threads
wear down,

we become jammed
and simple force
will not move us.

Some spring day
we will be brought out
and coaxed, persuaded
into forward movement.

Parts will, in time
break, be discarded
and replaced, like new.
The tools will clatter
like windchimes.

Our Bones are Set

Our bones that once
stacked tightly now
are set with pins
and plates against
each other. The desire
for self-destruction
is staunched, as bleeding,
only by pressure:

these nails keep us steady,
but drive through us, and we
occasionally splinter
with the blows.

Counting Scraped Knees

They say the body
recycles itself
every seven years,
and that dust
is 90% dead skin.
We leave traces
of ourselves
everywhere,
and I have left
two-and-a-half selves
in my home town, or more,
counting scraped knees,
and burned palms,
from lessons
still unlearned.

I have also abandoned
half a self to the beds,
lips, and arms of ex-lovers,
and though at times
I feel like the parts left
behind were vital, I know
whatever is lost grows
again, and when
the photo albums are opened
I will rise from them,
hovering, ghostly,
from fingers of sunlight.

Crash

The apartment was bathed
in sauteed scents. I loved
cooking, driving, springtime,
and you. The air was crisp
as the engine started,
leather stiff and creaking
like my knees sometimes do,
engine rattling like my own
on a frosty morning but warming
quickly with the application of
fuel and patience. We all need
a few minutes to remember
how to roll with what rumbles
underneath us. The headlights
turned the street into a tunnel
of seen and obscured
and I did not mind
my inability to see right
or left, because forward
was the only direction
I was pointed in.

The Dead Rose

The clouds burned
off around sunset.
My smile is stitched,
wilting and ragged.

Off around sunset
the dead rose,
wilting and ragged,
bloomed.

The dead rose
also: shambling,
bloomed
from the grave.

Also shambling,
my body decays, but
from the grave
I am revived.

My body decays, but
my smile is stitched.
I am revived.
The clouds burned.