My uncle took me fishing.
He’d smoke his favorite briar
Stuffing the cherry blend in with stubby
Welsh fingers more suitable for digging coal,
Than compacting mulched tobacco leaves.
A line taut between his index finger and his thumb,
He took a thready pulse of a line strung along the pole.
He told me stories of his growing up:
Painting my grandfather’s car ruined by feathers
Blown in from a cock who’d recently been plucked.
He would hand the pole to me to relight his pipe, he said.
And fumble among the hundred pocket vest
Pockets for his Zippo lighter
I liked surreptitiously to smell
And play endlessly with clicking of its top.
A trout would tug my line, bolt arching up
Above the water’s edge and topple back to tug again.
I’d play it back and forth until I played it up on shore.
And put it in a basket made of hardened wicker weave.
Some men fish for fishing's sake and others to make fishermen. (2/7/02)
she sits alone on the hotel balcony,
looking out at the city,
chin on knees,
arms hugging legs,
compacting herself into a hush.
but the stillness hides movements.
within her eyes water glides slowly in,
laps her retinas,
borrows what it finds there, recedes,
carries it in to sea.
the quiet water drifts what she sees
to distant shores washed by indigo tides,
around lonely atolls,
into disenchanted lagoons,
and finally back again,
returning it,
sodden with a long-neglected disappointment,
to the brown eyes,
along with a tinge of blue.
Enfolded by pure blue light
Bridging the gap to heaven
Angels' voices carry solace
Distinctly, they resound
The encircling orb drifts
Ever-morphing, ever-changing
Ominously levitates
Lingers atop the badlands
Soapy force-field, of silken woven dreams
Pushing, into the ashen unknown
Splitting shadows
Sullen charcoal black, to a hopeful chrome
Convulsing, the pulsing orb of light
A presence alike no other
Engorging, expanding
Compacting, condensing
Purest o' fluctuations
A heart so tender
So mercifully soft
Exists, within a bulletproof shell
Within it - walking
Dare not to set foot
Dare not to touch
An eternity, shrouded in uncertainty
Cautiously
Drifting through a biohazard...
These events,
Gentle cataclysms,
Sweet, soft earthquakes,
Spasm on wet sand
And smoky panes
With tremors;
Seismic finger paintings
In dust and condensation,
Illicit pictures,
Despairing wordplay.
When you are gone
I will mourn
As if death
Has claimed you,
Packed you in a box
In the ground;
The earth around
My heart
Weighs dense and heavy,
Compacting forbidden love
In worms and clay.
I will hide everything,
Concealing truth
Under layers of
The mundane,
Smiling, nodding to dialogues
Unheard and unprocessed;
Through soil strata
Will beat and bleed silence
Of a forbidden love
Living forever,
Denied breath.
You don't know how this feels,
the pain compacting my chest,
the pressure bearing down,
laying my heart to rest.
Ashes and dust assail me,
filling my aching throat,
gasping and flailing, a drowning man
unable to keep afloat.
I feel I'm in a grave
whilst dirt is shovelled down,
covering up my face and eyes
consigned to the cold, cold ground.
I cannot breathe without you,
I don't know how to survive,
the thought you don't love me
is burying me alive...