Contemplation of Death

Each of the poems posted below is in some way about the subject of death, or more accurately, how one's contemplation of death impacts the way he or she lives life. The paintings I have posted today, however, are very much about life. They are from a series I painted a few years ago, and they are all portraits of some of my students.



ON HAVING WRITTEN LILY DOWN

I have had this dream
several times now
in one form or another,
several times since Dot died,
wherein we are talking
and she keeps telling me
there is someone there
with her. She keeps trying
to give the phone
to some woman named Lily.

Then I hear the hollow clatter
of the swinging, dropped receiver.

Never any real communication.

And I wake up with my tongue pressed hard
against my teeth, checking
for the first signs of looseness.


AS MUCH AS YOU HAVE TO

You don't have to worry
about the meaning of life
why it is important

your world
your ultimate experience
your fantasy land
is a mesmerizing game
with obsolete plastic parts

but why pay twice as much as you have to?

more people
more stuff
more small talk
means less understanding

straight talk
it's
it's
it's
it's all the same thing
it's nickel defense
again and again and again
and we die

seeing is believing
but I expect more


ARS MORIENDI

I will go
the way of a promise
forgotten
the way of car noise
with unknowable purpose
tension building and passing
never seen on distant roads

like the blackest crow
I will stake my form
to a leafless tree
like a lone cicada
I will sing my ageless litany
toward the sky
as I strain and straighten
without shame
like drying grass

when I am blinded
and inclined to sing
no longer needed
to enhance the air around my head
I will exhale

I fear the source of all true art
one day will show itself
and strip itself down
like news-flash-facts

I fear my heart will burst

then if I can't believe in love
then I will go



ENAMORADA
(from Conversations with the Virgin)

Lady of long silence and restraint,
these flailing words are predetermined
to become more active than sound,
for I have found myself again
longing for a sacred heart.

Hot and cold all at once,
my fogged eyes
have been ignored again
by the spirits of the dead,
and my prayers sound
as though I am spitting
bitter fairy tales
in a foreign language.

Abandoned by my mother tongue,
unspoken laws cause me to alter
my discreet black street clothes
for attire perhaps more expressive.
I seek a temporary reprieve.
But real-life stories
confuse the heart.

I want to give up this place today,
to ride off into crimson brilliance
looking for the ideal metaphor,
like someone to come home to
every night.



1:05

I am with you in my sleep
and we are walking up
a steeply twisting trail.
I dream you want to touch me,
but the light is much too dim.

Being lit from within
is such a subtle technique,
but here I lie, a still pale shadow
in this covering of skin.

From the distance comes the cadence
of a droning makeshift craft.
Then there are insects by the millions,
and they're examining my skin
as though the crosshatched lines
have formed a treasure map.

Within the mystery of their humming,
past the limits of my eyes,
the lessening distance of their thrumming
pulls me closer to the light.

I've drawn no audience
and I have never held the fire.

But when the fade comes,
I will go without remorse,
declaring victory, crying glory
in an ageless, rhymeless,
nonbeliever's voice.

MISSING THE MASS ASCENSION

OUTSIDE ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO

It's most efficient

to fly against the wind,

so we follow our noses down roads

where flamingo windsocks hang from poles

and point forever away from the source.

In the desert I wanted to be moved

by the ascension of a thousand plus balloons,

moon-shaped containers of air

dwarfed by the horizontal,

subjected to the straight sun

and the curved breeze,

but when they dance across the sand like that,

like captive sisters in edgeless waves,

I am troubled by this softness in my knees.

Still, some days are as unsettling

as a severed leg in the highway.

There are things I don't want in my mind.

Things like corpses and abused children.

Things that leave me wanting beauty

with a thirst that makes my teeth clench,

makes my mouth water,

makes salt and violence in my throat...

and I want beauty to be the cure

so I swallow and I swallow and I swallow.

Unsatisfied with the challenge of this box,

as pointless as a flaccid sock,

as delusional as a prophet,

maybe I was wrong to think

I could take the pulse of a planet.

Maybe I have swallowed so many diamonds,

my feet may never leave the ground.