MO: always says the same excuse when busted for dope: "but Officer, its just the mer'est samplin'... " also known to claim repeatedly: "its strictly for medicinal purposes..."
Rio de los Brazos de Dios I miss the smell of cow manure And fresh-cut hay, or even lawn, That mixes with my line-dried clothes And cleanses me of dumpster smells Like sour-liquored memories And barroom carpets soaked in piss With cigarettes that linger on The lips, indicting covert shades Of manic nights spent speculating In the place where love is sold By orange neon glaring light That advertises incremental Death served from a spout That calls in still small voices Beckoning with siren-song False hopes made real In fleeting moments, snapshots Of the night before That ended in the cold despair Of mornings spent in silent shame And unforgiving clocks that moved Too slow To cover my iniquities With Grace of Time My fickle ally. Leaving time I turn to space And plot a new geography To cover tracks that otherwise Would seem so glaring Of my infidelities. The tractor on my father’s farm Provides a momentary comfort Diesel smell and throaty rumble Offer solace; cover wounds All self-inflicted As I mow in straight lines Geometric order out of chaos With my father’s periodic Waving, coaxing in my struggles With the demons that have taken Other loved ones in his family While he looked on always coaxing Offering in loyalty All that he had to push the river Back behind the levee crumbling All around his youngest son Who surfaces and then goes under. I can only smile and wave And wish that I could find redemption From the galling black obsession Driving me to find the secret Why the grass, the sacrifice, In heat, oppressive, swirling Thick like Karo syrup hot Like blood that’s leeched of poison Pure like nature for a moment I’m suspended; time is frozen All the voices sudden silence. Harmony is on that tractor In the heat down by the river With my father gently waving On that sea of grass no drowning No repulsive smells to haunt me With the memories my sins die God is Good, but I can’t see Him Like I see my father waving From the porch with his forgiveness Now I’m on the bus commuting With a book to serve as bandage On a wound like vivisection In my gut, but no one sees me, Hoping that next time the damage Won’t be so severe that mowing Can’t repair or stop the bleeding Or that line-dried clothes won’t mask The smell of spirit putrefying Or a walk into the River With the dogs as my companions Substitutes, my Dad by proxy Worrying that they cannot Perform the function God assigns them Looking at this Erring Child Who coaxes them to deeper water Hoping that their God won’t leave them Drowning while he seeks his answers In this stream so aptly named.
Waking Up I take my lumps But what seemed precious Soon becomes a pale reflection Of the greater All that glitters And reflects throughout Creation Until I am blinded I Mistake mere signs for destinations Breathless wonder is its own Reward for looking after years Spent wandering in dark deserts I, most willful, have created Desert has a beauty of its own And retrospection is a trap I lay to hold on vise-like To the toys and baubles, shiny objects Garish city-lights beneath A starry, starry night If I would just look up And then within The gift I have is not for words But tears and laughter Inarticulate; holding in my hands And over-flowing, plentiful I stand amazed Walk forward like a Child.
Posture My back slumps down and I recall The voice of my piano teacher Telling me that I would last A great deal longer if I Thought it like a telephone pole Erect and firm with arms like wires Dropping gracefully at my side And hold my hands as on a ball With fingers poised atop the keys To strike with precision. She had two girls of her own But I don’t know how she made them Perhaps through some immaculate Conception of her own creation That I could never understand. I don’t even think she Used the bathroom. I have trouble picturing her face But I do remember her lips Stretched tight against her teeth The mouth dry as she counted time And how could there be passion For sex in that mouth? And did her husband sweat As he penetrated Into that husk of a body That smelled like my grandmother’s Cashmere bouquet bathroom? Were her thighs soft and malleable To his touch or Did they part like dry leaves of tissue paper To reveal an arid parchment Upon which he could write with his Forgotten language? I’m listening to Beethoven’s Pathetique And I am moved. Was she moved by music? Or was the extent of her scope Only Fisher’s “Teaching Little Fingers to Play”? I think of these things when I hear piano music And I wonder if she actually had children Or just perhaps ate them to keep herself going.
Acid-Tested/Mother-Approved Inner-Man expands Captain Beefheart’s caprine bray Receptors open Anything is possible Permeable I Distillation destroying Insoluble kernel Upon this rock build my church Handing her my gum |
