1.the Blue Woman Has a Child in Her Belly

7/31/2019 1.the Blue Woman Has a Child in Her Belly

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1.

The BlueWoman has a child in her belly

at night when she wanders

the child whispers to her

she cannot sleep for its whispering

like a wolf, guttural muttering,

like a fox, some wild thing

scratching at moss and leaves of

the forests hide

she is in love

with this moving thing in her belly.

its fists drum a beautiful drum

against her flesh.

Its head flickers

with silver images of the old ones

it is old. it is holy and speaks

to Good and Evil.

it is more beautiful than the Garden

or the serpent it is a light in her

when she opens her mouth

to sing, to hum in the night when she

cannot sleep because

she thinks about it all the time.

its petals are opening it will

awaken in her lullaby of pain.

it will never be hers.


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2.

Blue Woman always coughed

during concerts

the old lady

who sat next to her (smelled of death )

did not mind.

she stretched out her elbows on both sides

so the blue woman must squeeze

her folded arms against her body

then if Blue Woman chewed on her cough drop

very loudly

to annoy the old lady,immediately she was sorrowful

the music existed

only because of the old lady

her elbows claiming a place

inside the sad grey ocean

slipping clinging


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3.

The Blue Womans Desire

as if she stretched out her arm through

a barred window begging for bread

as if she had caught the aria of a

scorned soprano in her fist

as if she had no where to put her arm.

Her desire like a slow drowning,

choreographed of seaweed and grief

like snowflakes, like a sacrament

on her tongue, her desire flew

as egrets doon unwinding ribbons of wind

sleepwalking at a precipice

poised

listening to her heartbeat.


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4.

She crossed her legs twice and sucked on her cigarette

The children mimicked her, cruelly.

Why? she puzzled, her heart fragile as a white dandelion.

The psychiatrist looked away into himself.He cleared his throat.

Its about our shared inhumanity.

And so the children began to see that there was meaning

in the way she crossed her legs and they began to

scratch at the picture of her in their minds as if to

obtain something hoping she might uncross her legs.

her fingernails were always broken; her hands did

not know how to be. The children scratched

with their small nails slowly obtaining

her skin and her blood and her bones.

She knew what the children wanted and smiled at them

and gave them everything.

to the psychiatrist she gave

symbols, signs, trinkets he wanted.

It was never enough so she made more out of little bits

of amazement

She would glance nonchalantly to see if they were all happy.

And then when they were content for a time

she would imagine that she was

an icy mirror, a queen of snow

never to be broken again.She smiled, she laughed out loud and startled herself.

The children would be scratching at the picture of her.

They had already poked small holes.

She sighed in a delighted way if they took her hair,

if they took her skin, her lips,

it did not matter.

She did not need that anymore. she had begun

to live within herself and to listen to herself

around and around

as if she lived inside a conch

The children yawned. the psychiatrist slumped.

she slipped them into bed

she wanted to sing them

with her groaning lullaby,

and to lift the shadows like a shade

on the wavy window.


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5.

The Child

nothing was like it not even smoking

in the convent bathroom.

the child touches your

humiliation

gently just as gardenia

starts succulently then bruises

the nuns sang behind

a translucent intensity

to the child but

no the child was not a saint

black car coming could have

there and then

was a hill of dandelions of cornflowers

there was a piece of white chalk

6.


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The Blue Woman's Sunny Day

probably the UPS man would come todayso she waited in a frail pretty dress

a party dress

to open a package

she would need her hair cutting scissors

and remembered to fetch them

although she felt giddy

The UPS man would come all in brown

except for his endless blue eyes on her

he would wonder why she got this package

but not what was in it

he would narrow his blue eyeschecking out Blue Woman

and deciding what she deserved and what

she would want

If Blue Woman looked very happy

he would be happy

he was so handsome

UPS man believed it was he

who made this happiness

since it was his job

after all

such a nice guy she thought

and then she took the haircutting scissors

and cut the tape on the package

tissue paper puffed out like butterflies

in a wind blowing bubbles

the UPS box was full of light-as-nothingness

fragile as the child holding hands

climbing the stairs with dimpled legs

and the child swinging higher and

higher into the twirling sun

calling all the birds and the bluenessof sky

and Blue Woman's name.

7.


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Blue Woman's Pocket Full Of Posies

She wanted it to always be like this

Where the words were old and comforting

like water in the holy water font

filled with blessing and tears

goodness made her cry

people walking on the stone slab sidewalks

in the old neighborhoods

where grandmother sat on the porch protecting

the chestnut trees

from smudged little boys throwing sticks

where small Mrs. Sabastiano

walked to Mass every morningjust because she loved Jesus

who was bleeding for her

on her flowering bedroom wall.

It would always be like this

in a way of thinking

that was secret and hidden in

the fragrant pockets of her mind

filled with icons of beloved faces

and violets the child brought her

from the woods.

8.


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His name was 'Silence'

leaning against anywhere

smelling of sweat and wine

a lanky mumbling man who wore a dirty white shirtbuttoned up and sagging jacket

used to be a doctor until innocence died

of fever

this is why Blue Woman loved him in an intense

trembling way

and bought him bread

to make him touch her hand with his incongruous

clean fingernails

to make him look through and in her

to see her bleeding

with their gentle and strong silence

they spoke so like prayers to each other

this is why Blue Woman loved him


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9.

Sleepy Time Song

She rocked and she sang

to the full moon

hanging high

the full moon the jewel moon

opalescent as the child's sweet face

the owl hooted and the pussycat rhymed

by the light of the moon

whiteness and moonbeams

lay downy as the pussycatwho licked the milky lips of the child

10.


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Water In The Desert

as if slipping silk over her head

Blue Woman enters

the sun hangs cool and simple behind a knife edged dune

all is a meditationa laughing monk in blood red garments bows

she hears the sand whispering

sand runs through her hands praying a million prayers

like stars in the desert night the monk's laughter

she bows

does not lift her face

because it is not her own face

it is the changing sands of the desert

it does not remember itself

yet she remembers this monk and how his laughter

is like the ocean laughing and his mindfilled with emptiness

how lovely is his presence

Blue Woman reaches for him with her blue spirit

he gazes at her with solemn child eyes

his small brown hand raises to greet her

and to leave her

such things have no understanding

yearning for such emptiness as his

he is the child whispering a million prayers for her

laughing and

laughing

11

Canticle Of Blue


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her glitter eyelid

blinking up at the sky

mysterious she thought,

how some things search you,

blue woman wanted this, to be knownand touched by this knowing.

beseeching this blue

prying till it hurt

as the searching went deep into forgotten pools

darling reflected faces smiling

out of depths half known

dimensions

she entered her own blueness

as if entering a womb

and a tomb

a baby's wail

and the heartbroken lullaby she sang

taunted her delighted her ravished

by illumination

there were no shadows

awful light striking her glittering eyelids

they would not close

so much to see

like a river falling from her hairall her bleeding blueness

never ending birds climbing the light

and singing

forest of souls ascending

solemn paused deer the scutter of small things

under the phosphorescent forest mulch

fall on my knees

there is this

just this


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Some Other Poems

12.

OLD


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old,

old

woman leaning over

the back seat of the

van,

air so hotdry

and wrinkled,

crying mama,

mama

over

and

over

as we walk by;

still crying

mama, mamawhen we come back

13

At A Concert Of New Music


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The audience is suspended as if all their long hair is floating in water

The Orchestra seizes the trembling air and their embrace is a lament

about rivers.

The music knows that it is something else.

It is partly the souls who have died at that moment.It is partly a wolf growling for blood.

The orchestra and the audience are luminous, pale as lovers,

but the music is an old woman pushing naked dolls in a cart.

She grumbles at time and her hunger is of delicate lettuce, dark soup.

God is watching her.

God says she is the same as the dust on her hem.

And yet He kisses her forehead and her lips.

14.

A Frozen Sheet


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The rag man lives

with frozen bits of sheets and broken undershirts

all wound up in raa a ggs a, raa ag ggs a

he calls from the gypsy wagon through glacial teeth;

clip clop

Italian ladies give him rags;

he sleeps in them;

he dreams of love like snow.

15.

A Russian Folk Tale


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My grandmother was Russian.

I lie. No one in my family is Russian,only I. ..

My children are all lilacs and Lithuanians.

They are the color of jasper.

My mother belongs to the Romanian Gypsy Church.She is called Queen

or Little Holy Mother.She must cover her audacious hair

with random wild kerchiefs,and she prays before a flame that we may be changed to swans again.

My father wears velvet slippers and walks in the snow.

He trudges wearily, but see how humblyhe carries the Queen's crumbling train.

My husband went to war. There he slays

winged dragons named in the Holy Book.

He feeds his horses cubes of sugar soakedin whiskey, then, they ride swiftly.I would like to ride so.

If my Russian grandmother had been a CossackI would have had a saddle trimmed with silver bells.

My horse would stride so keen that not one bell would ring.

Now my children have no father.

They nod on their stems and complain like Bolsheviks.

They would be free of their delicate dark roots;They want ponies and beribboned bridles.They forget violets in the woods.

My grandmother, my grandfather, waltz while the doors are breaking.My mother, with narrowed queen eyes says, "I do not believe you."God, who sees all things, and wants all things,

knows I speak in flaming tongues of truth.

My father has beautiful bones that banish me with his tears,

and I run out the door and down the streets crying.

I bless him and bless him and bless himwith my lies.

16.

The Glitter Of The Moon Tossed Carelessly Across The River


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To be the river

is more beautiful than moons, more thani a beautiful drum.

The moon is broken on the river like ourT broken god.

Heart, do not choose the river or theH moon.

To be small,

to be broken as rain.

See how the Heron is brokenS from water and air

One foot, one foot, he liftshis tentative leg across the ashy morning.h He chooses to be small. His shadow

so tenderly unfolded like an antiques wedding veil laid out upon the bed.

There was a man in a brown jacket, who walked downT his street in a sweet small town carrying his groceriesh

home in a sack, A rude pine tree scratched at his

windows and there was no light in them at night

His wife died and one day the man died too. His neighbors were ill at case.

They had known his nameT and, surely they had spoken to him

about lettuce in winter and tomatoes in summer. Still, they were ill at ease

I want to be smaller than I am;

my blood to be red on the white snow as them doe's blood;to cover my head with black silk,t to cover my body with yellow silk.

This is the riddle.T What thing is one

and cannotbe broken?

There, his feathers riffled by air, the HeronT walks on water;

one step, one step, trailing his crooked shadow like another Heron transfiguring in water..

Who can bear it?

A star is colder than winter. God is asA alone as birth.

This is to be incandescent.T No one can bear it.

It is better to be broken.

The dark red heart chooses this.

This is the riddle: What thing is one and cannot be broken?There, his feathers riffled by air, the Heron walksT on water; one step, one step, trailing his crooked

shadow likes another Heron, transfiguring in water.

17.

Poem For The Sparrow


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The people were so needy that the birds

began to feed them,

little by little inviolate

visions and other colors as violent as passion

fruit and yet minute and mustard seed

like (as if to speak), the subtle way birds

can minister to the needy, the heavy and cast down.

It was only the Bird Of Paradise who wept. Still,

others sang more sweetly and clear as if their song

was drawn from a spring in the garden

or through a bell flower.There was a little bird that lay, feet up, upon the cellar floor.

It had come in through the shed door left open

for the garden.

I do not understand; If God observed that sparrow

fall after flying voiceless and thumping in the cellar,

why did He not come from the garden and open

the cellar door and carry the small spent bird

in His hand?

18.

Red Sailboat


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In the corner

of the picture

a small red sail boat

riding on pointed waves.

The boat bleats

in its sails like a lamb

far from the pasturefar from the steaming barn

and its hewn beams low overhead.

As if it were pulled thoughtlessly

like a toy boat, its slicked keel diving

into fathoms.

From shore,

someone is watching

crossing, uncrossing their

arms under the racing greyclouds.

19.

Green RowboatG


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There is a green buffeted row boat

a man in it and a baby and a dog.

They are speaking to each other

with silence.

What they say is very simple and tender;

it is like the oars and the ripplesafter the boat and the resolve of the mans

arms that feel tired but continue into

the deep of the little boats journey.

There are other boats of different colors,

but all small, all flaked and beaten

a few brave objects in them breathing

in and exhaling the soft tenderness

that is known and unknown.

20.


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Wolf

hear the howling,

its sobbing

running in the pine wind

what wild paces in usfear

a ghost in the moon

a white wolf

hand gliding over the corse hide;

the push of power there and weariness

kissing our fingers.

shall we fear him, his gaze.

we must drum in our darkness.

this lusting thief

bowing down casting his shaman eyeshis velvet muzzle

into our hand.

21.


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Underwater

Paper flowers waiting so long.

the mind holds the trembling hand;

the other picking at edges

of paint always crumbling in interesting ways

old house flowers among a scrawled garden

and wavy windowswhat of the

undulating ghosts that send

a crazed kiss waiting

long behind that greenish glass?

22.

Grey Angel


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the bridge staggers beneath

the weight of the swaddled angel.

The earth looks up with questions;

boats in harbor rock on.

The angel is

wrestling a terrible passion.

Beneath, the earth huddles around its people like a soft hen,

they clap their hands to music while the beloved plays on

a marimba full of birds.

the beloved asks the angel to sing

Then no one can bear the sound.

It is like all winds, all bells, all sighs and stars shooting.

bang.

23.

Henry Benner


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lurching down our stone road with his whining

wagon and his chuckle like the rumble of doves,

Henry hoisted us and we road higher than cattails

to our home of summer,

singing

raspberry bushes, peach trees and apples.

Barney and Queeny wheezing and snorting

with the high song of Cicadas.

Sometimes grinding on to fields

of winter wheat where we opened

kernels like rolled up babies there,

wild strawberries deep in the hay.

Four charmed children in sepia light of Henrys kitchen,

a blue flame from the stove where

we watched him heat cowboy beans

still in Campbells Soup can.

Want some?we put our hands tight behind our backs,

but we did want some.

Once when the setting sun fired the school house

windows into gold, Henry stepped out of the burning

globe to catch the wicked ponys reins as it galloped

toward the highway with Sylvia holding on in terror.

Maybe Henry was our guardian angel in those

fading days of innocence.

Sundays, Henry came to supper,

stubble on his face gone and a scent ofhay and pasture about him.

Mother made him sit alone at the small white porcelain table,

giving my father a look and he saying nothing.

Charlie would mimic his gimpy leg,

the soft hummed yes,yes, yes,

that followed Henrys speech.

Maybe Charlie loved him most of all,

but all of us thought we were the only one that

loved Henry Benner.

One day in winter, the trees moaning,

father drove us

to Henrys house. Strangers filled the rooms

touching things.

In a corner

illuminated by a shaft of dusty light

we found a box of letters

tied by ribbons of curlicue words.


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now everyone was gone

these were all they left.

We did not know what happened to Barney and Queeny,

We did not know then, how we had lost a blessing of summer,

but in the way children know things deep and blind,

we knew then why Henry died that cold winter,

and we would always be gilded by something golden and elegantlike the sun shining on the school house windows.

24.

Hearts and Arteries

Doctor:


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I have performed eighteen hundred

tangos like yours.

I swoon with such erotic

Choreography.

(He looks at his antique pocket watch)

Ah, the chronograph, Time is lost in forgotten lives. But I must goso many

Questioner:

do you have an affinity with the infinity of these arteries ?

Doctor:

When I was a child,

when they slaughtered calves in the barn.

I wanted to touch the unbroken glassy tubes.

The quality of crystal, of chrysalis,the tinkle of blue eyed nurses laughing.

My children breathing

.

Questioner:

In the x ray picture they dance

like snowflakes.

Is it you who makes them dance?

Doctor:

I merely oil the carmine metronome. I slice with my silver baton.

(Hello, my child, I am your doctor.

Yes, you may touch my hand.

and

How profound we are, that I may touch the apache dance of your heart.

Yet I am not allowed to weep. My assistant will weep but she does so secretly.)

25.

Questioner

I remember strolling with the dead and they kissing my head. They told me God waits and flees from me . Can

you imagine such humility?

And then we lay under fig trees eating apricots and wanted for nothing not even knowledgeor beauty or love.


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The dead and I lying and dreaming in our one dream. We ate figs and spiced lamb.

Doctor:

I was praying. Yes, often.

You see my hands are stained.

It was Sunday. I thought of your heart. I saw its pain.

I wished not to seethe child that died in your heart.

I prayed to look away, to heal with my eyes closed

or with golden eyes like those

the old people would place before the Virgin,

occhi se miracle

Questioner:

Yes, I remember.

The nurses were laughing. One of them was singing old hymns as if it were a joke.It was Sunday.

she was singing in a high dulcet amusing voice

and the others laughing like glass bells on the Christmas tree, like my children breathing.

I lay in the white bed and thought life

could never be sweeter than this.

*****

Questioner

It smells here.

This instillation of a weary elephant

tethered to a marble column;

dirty straw and excrement smeared around him.

His head sways right and left like a mad man.

He could rage. He could pull down the marble column.

He could rage against art. Is this art?

Doctor

It is truth.

26.

Questioner

You have mutilated my breast. You have balanced my heart

on the paper edge of death.

My heart grieves.


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Doctor

I am sorry.

Questioner

Yes, I can see the adorable sorrow on your face. Your humanityhas become cosmic and unbearable. Yet you bear it. How long?

Doctor

I am sorry

Questioner

His face is like that of a newborn

Questioner

Often in the early morning

I watch the birds carried

on leaps of wind

and heart stopping dives.

If one bird should fall,

I could lift it in my hands

and like a surgeon

I could open the downy breast

and hold its heart and stroke the minute thing

until

it began to beat

the bird to sing.

27.

At Dusk

Children play;

they scream.

Their voices clang iron doors.

Push me

higher.


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Touch the rotting cat

and you can kill

anyone with your finger.

Youre out!

Youre out!

BANGThe air is empty.

I have fallen out

of it.

I press my lips

on the charred sun.

Darkness

licks my neck.

My mother has white socks.

Her pockets are filled with dry leaves

and little mice.I

will break her heart.

If I hide,

if I creep close to the black bark

of sunset,

she will search

the dirty piece of paper street.

She will cry

out all my names.She will kill all the sparrows

28.

A Frozen Sheet

The rag man lives

with frozen bits of sheets and broken undershirts

all wound up in raa a ggs a, raa ag ggs a

he calls from the gypsy wagon through glacial teeth;


30/52

clip clop .

Italian ladies give him rags;

he sleeps in them;

he dreams of love like snow

29.

Garbage Like Stars

Rummaging and Ruminating you will say,

my lovely wildebeest, there are things

here that don't belong,

picking and choosing as you go,

as if this were some literally lousy


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garage sale among geraniums

on a lost rusty road.

Oh look, my buttercup, how I have chosen

each chosen with a caress,

with an audible gasp and quivering hand,

singing each one to sleep

and staining my fingertips

with red wild berries to feed

the little withereds so full of cares

grown antique beyond their years.

You will accuse and harangue

and garble that this is garbage

strewn like stars in a song

where I stroll

arranging just so, and tied with stained

ribbons, love letters, leaves. livres,

lives, plucking: he loves me, he loves me

whynot

So, in the radiance

with which so much verbiage ignites,

who are you to say the unsayable,

the unassailable love he does

or doesn't?

30.

Roberts Mother

grey or blue dripping from the letter

that grief again and her hair I want

to show someone what

the eyes unavoidable like

jealous birds watch from the struck tree


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clouds coiling over

the eyes so obscure closing and opening

cannot read the sweetness if only

when people say dear heart mean

exactly something like fire

oh Robert oh

all the kids come running

because she fell at the sink orwas it over tea

God died and beautiful

and dear heart it is there

there where you, the water lapping

the little dog looking

31.

LISTEN SYLVIA

Blind dolls, bald dolls,


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dirty rubber dolls,d

oh I wish I

could blow my nose on my slip

like Delores does.

The scar-face ladyT Grant St.

has no nose,

has no ears,when they make her cryw

she has no tears.

Some days God

is lying on His stomach lookingi down

when I am on my back looking up.l

(Listen Sylvia

I wish II could die before mama doesc

in the dark.)

32.

Poem For The Sparrow

The people were so needy that the birds

began to feed them,

little by little inviolate

visions and other colors as violent as passion

fruit and yet minute and mustard seed


34/52

like (as if to speak), the subtle way birds

can minister to the needy, the heavy and cast down.

It was only the Bird Of Paradise who wept. Still,

others sang more sweetly and clear as if their song

was drawn from a spring in the garden

or through a bell flower.

There was a little bird that lay, feet up, upon the cellar floor.It had come in through the shed door left open

for the garden.

I do not understand; If God observed that sparrow

fall after flying voiceless and thumping in the cellar,

why did He not come from the garden and open

the cellar door and carry the small spent bird

in His hand?

33.

OLD

old,old

woman leaning over

the back seat of the

van,

air so hot

dry

and wrinkled,


35/52

crying mama,

mama

over

and

over

as we walk by;

still cryingmama, mama

when we come back

34.

OF COLOR

Black man under the florescent lightkicking his feet as he sits on the blue box

outside the supermarket

makes you want to know

the color of his room.

crazed china

blue


36/52

at the end of the hall

that smells of grey

no blanket.

Robert comes back with

the gallon of milkin our green

cloth bag and we drive by him

in the dark

on our way home

35.

But I Digress (Another Folk Tale)

As the seeker in a folk tale ascends glasswithout slipping to Deaths beguiling,

here, within this vaulted glittering with ice

the way Gods eye might glitter watching, watching,

through a crack in the floor of heaven

is the impeccable body.

It cannot be reached by senses

nor five fragile birds on telephone wire.

The poem is of the body

& it is


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the fairest of all.

We cannot stay or rest or delight here long.

36.

The Boy In The Boat

cannot find the

wild fish

there

where the pale morning heron

marks the strange light does

the boy see

that word which blesses

oh does the boy see the wild fish in

the wild word

darkly


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he dreams of the faucet marked

blue

he puts out his hand

and holds it under the amazing

immaculate

he opens his mouth

and tastes

speaking in tongues

tree frogs strum

leaves, leaves

across whiteness of wood

blood, blood

they speak

only in darkness

only in moonlight

as if speaking in glass

as if speaking in breath on broken glass

and the riverexhales its myths

of beasts

the wild fish almost

smiles waits

shivering

in the river's bed

the boy tastes the wild word

it is translucent, alabaster. cold

the heron stretches its throat

to swallow a minnowheart

the green beating

37.

far

the winged fish

the boy casts a dead minnow skipping

the beat

far the wild fish eluding love

loosening the hook

oh does the boy see the moon impaled

the star white hole the

immense

cluttered void


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save the boy

the sycamore sways

the swan

flaps against the water

the sun

breaks brilliantly

the mind is light

light the flesh

of the fish is translucent

only the moon

without flaw

the boy in the boat

cannot find

the wild fish

he eats breadupon water

he drinks

nothing

nothing is

enough

his thirst falls

to the bottom of

nothing

only this

only a boy in a boat

assailing the curving wave

this bamboo flute through semicircular canals

and limpid rivers

38.

imagined deer

sipping at the moon

lie down

pressing damp wild grasses

the leave excrement of wild berries

the boy in the boat is dazzled byonly morning

the wild fish leaps

alone

the sun

infuses the exploded water

the boy is flayed

his flesh is bruised

but the wild fish


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(listen the useless oriental flute and drum

the temple bells)

the wild fish almost smiles with desire

we know not what we do

what have we done

the boy

his alabaster fleshroses stained

hangs above our vision he is

only a boy

his boat is wood

his wounds are almondite

or amaranth

the wild fish leaps

longing to speak the

word

which blesses

save the boy

undo the ribbon

in the hair undo

the hair

undo the button undo

the lace undo

the cord

beloved

the boy is undoneshe lies almost smiling

shivering

wounded

39.

wound in the river

see them

such sadness imaginesnothing glittering hung in

the void

see them simple the boy

and the fish the wild

undo

the far hills'


41/52

intoxicating tangles

40.

My Sweet Uncle

was a young manwhen he rode my grandfather's workhorse

naked and mad

with syphilis

through the small town's streets

the church bell tolling for him

flung himself down

on his mother's sweet white sheets


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too splendid to embrace death

41.

Forbidden Poems


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for Dead Children

42.

A Preface

Their light

falls the way moonlight gentles

the backyard in winter

illuminating the snow from within

and you stand there aware

of shadowy meanings

imagine a Gardenia

what resolve the petals summon


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to open in fierce increments

of time

the hypnotic fragrance, the perfection

which one touch will bruise

Their death is this imperceptible openingand light filling the room

until in the stilled

end

the incandescence of a new star

opens where they lay

surrender of the gardenia

beauty and love are easy words

but they are also flowers and death

and stars

and the way

we in our myriad brilliant paths

are redeemed

43.

when her child died

she closed her lips and would

never open them againthere was nothing and nothingness

something happened but it was nothing

she did not say so

but her stomach hurt and her eyes

were heavy not with sleep

heavy with the burden of this nothing

which had entered the world

like a shadow creeping into the corner


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under the bed or spying through

the slit in the closet door when she had first seen

such obsequious terror

she did not think she was speaking

because her lips would not say

and they did not

even when someone would laughat one of her absurd remarks

but she nodded to herself

knowing that no one could see

where she was sitting alone

on a huge stone and scattering

ashes

singing with her bitter lips

that favorite lullaby

44.

Before children die fearful deaths

God comes to them and carries them in His arms

It is only a game when death comesknock-knocking on the door,

they all fall down

and laugh

and cry out Im not here

Cover

their eyes stern with sighs

of goodness

so like the serpents unimaginable sadness


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when it repented evil..

cover them

with leaves

in mysterious woods

hide the children from boots,

from the nervous handsthe terrorist eyes, blond lashes twitching

through the keyhole

see how He loves the children

who play with His rod and His staff

on the wide green grass

the familiar deep scent of dark loam.

45.

Little Girl Runaway

for Karen

the way her hand touched sweet deathsoft

and unendurable holding.

Little one traveling our street corner

under the maple tree's profusion

she sat on her suitcase

filled with dolls waiting resolute

for everything


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innocence imagining

some winged stranger to take her hand

where the insane foreboding birds would chirp

as if they knew she would come

seducing her to run away.

46.

New Music For My Daughter (for two voices)

of breast cancer 5/22/04

And In Memorium, Adam Ross

by Hari Kari 1988

In heaven

At the concert of New Music


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it rushes like tsunami from

the violin, cello, the flute, the flute.

We are all drowning.

Karen is swimming naked

with Adam. The cello.

Laughing among the rocks Out of the chaotic swaying and swelling

lyrical romance and

they navigate by a swinging electric

light

to his father's kitchen

where he committed

Hari Kari

its passion like flame flower

She does not ask him

Why?possesses us.

But touches the small

bleeding place and tastes.

Red is the color of my true love's blood

He and I are made of mud.

Adam.

Her children,

with their stained

eyes, like a cobra the saxophone sways,

47. one ruby eyeundulating as it muses upon

the unimaginable sorrow

of innocence.

sit at the dinner table

eating lemon pie.

It is good,

The marimba, the cymbals and sticks,

signify nothing.

Dust in my mouth.

He spat into the dust and made Adam,

DUST

the little boys tell Phoebe.

Where is the God of our mother?

Her beauty was the sweetness

in our mouths.

Dust.

In that place in the forest


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The piano is a beast who lies down

with the children

in the dark fragrant grass

to watch the stars.

where we used to go,

the darkness, mysterious

with light,surrounds like Karen's

wild hair.

How mystical is the moon.

Is it not forbidden to sing its name,

seven veiled in beauty?

There wild irises grow.

Adam bends on a slender stem

and plucks one flower for Karen.

She holds it out to me.

The waves lift us; we hear the screaming

sea birds, the Iraqi woman who tears her hair;bodies of exotic children piled among

the minor lament covered with flies...

three quarter notes.

They touch my tears

and taste.

In childhood sleep

the children hear

the delicate song ,

the lullaby Karen dreamed.

48.

From far away she sings

that beauty is more

Over and over again I asked

to play the little piece by Bach until you knew that I

had guessed your secret face

and you ran away among

apple branches to hide your faceagainst Adam.

than pain.

Far, far away

Karen's sweetness lives.

And the children,

soft,

soft as a breath


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Saxophone, cello, violin, making a terrifying

sickle. Tsunami!

Passionate curverising and falling

and the music

stops and stops,

the flute...

She was the sweetnessin our mouths.

are touched

and taste.

49

A little song for Karen

by Evelyn Glennie on marimba

As if during the night of fireflies

darkness so soft your hair spread like a peacockthe echo of you laughter made large and larger O's

and marble saints, laying down their marble hair and curled lips

praised God in language of rain's percussion.

They lower their stone eyes and cover their heads

Grey clouds fly out carried by sad angels

over rooftops closing their eyes

remembering your name on every street.

Your sweetness simple as a wild strawberry and you hands

kissed by mourners


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who listened to your story as if you floated on water

or your sighing floated in the strange place of dreams.

The road of morning lonely

your slender color standing and waving as if

we had just parted after tending the nodding garden

lingering a little while;

the sound of marimba played by a deaf woman;a wind winding through sedge grasses.

50.

Once upon a time Blue Woman

woke and found that she was lost-

she was not.

Not in death, not in a dream where

birds flew up as one angel.

No, not in death although it was dark

and shivering as old leaves silvering in winter.

Blue Woman was changed into something

formless, a swarm of golden bees, a veil

of fog covering a breath held.

Well, she wassomething....

Pain

like an earring drawing blood

it minced through her veinsan aged insect carrying its sack of

venom to her heart. Yet the pain was soft

like no other. Almost beautiful, almost loving

as if she could sleep with such sighings.


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Once upon a time Blue Woman knew

in the vast snow falling halls of her spirit

what must be finally done.

She carried Pain gently and crooning

dressed in a long white christening gown.

Sweet rosebud Pain.

She crossed herself seven times and rippedPain into tiny paper pieces like this...

One does not like unhappy endings

after-all....

1.the Blue Woman Has a Child in Her Belly

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