Foxholes

low, low, low
muddy and drifting
slowly along the soil
like cigarette smoke and mustard gas
all the world is,
is variations of brown and gray,
clumpy clay and gunpowder
black steel barrels
and whiskers
there is no such thing as forever
spend all your time getting here
for the matinee and then you’re dead
so damn long
raspy rattle
bloody phleghm
it ends badly
in the foxhole
there is no God
he’s a picture in a magazine
in a dentist’s office
a thousand miles away
we’re a clump of clay
and blood in a night
of endless dying suns

(I dedicate this poem to my beloved Aunt, who finds my content depressing, its a little poem about the black death that wiped out half of Europe in the 12th century)

the feral wind
blows unjust and blind
through every fetid alley
hearth and manor
the toys of faith
are burned away
and swallowed
in wide graves made three days late
by men now dead
if two men are in the field
then two are taken
children ripe for sacrifice
die just as well
ragdolls in the gutter
maidens cast off virtue
hollow and white
the bells clang in mockery
to the dirge
of midnight’s holy coughs
we all fall down
ashen faces
twisted
paled in the knowing
that life is no promise
but a flame before
a tempest
and that God
is insatiable
with murder

he breathes deep
the sun unrisen
torrents dark
swirl
as he weighs
all the words
he’s dared to utter
doubt’s black lips
back in a snarl
he has come to this
garden of shadow

once he was a boy
the grass between his toes
the sun high in flight
swinging on the gate
slain by wonder
burning in light

come night
blind our eyes
from this cursed day
the beast unwombed
Castor and Pollux
slain

come night
and awaken us
from this cursed day
the sky lied
and hid silent
secrets

come night
and make us forget
this cursed day
the sky was stained
and leave us only
yesterday

Our blood
runs back to Ireland
through men I never knew
and women lost
like songs
forgotten
Our eyes
saw the centuries turn
days to years
and sons to fathers
the blood now colors
the face of my daughter
whom you’ve never met
but know
like a lullaby
your mother sang

David Brinkley appeared again last night. His impish smirk visible in the blue tint of moonlight projecting through my window. He sat at the edge of my bed. I was dumb with fear.

“You know, I’m sorry.” He said, looking at me directly.

I nodded, confused.

“Fear sells, at least it did, I imagine it still does, especially the good old solid cold war fears I got to peddle.” Mr. Brinkley said.

He laughed and slapped my covered legs for emphasis. He turned and faced the window, the moonlight lighting his slicked back silver hair.

“Remember that time you were watching the 4:30 movie, I think it was one of those Planet of the Monkeys movies or some nonsense, I broke in and told you how the Chinese had crossed the Vietnamese Border…ha..you almost shit your pants…you always were a little Sinophobe.”

His hands moved up to rub his temples.

“Hell, now you have avian flu, MRSA, Al-Queda, super influenza, biological terrorism, loose nukes…e-coli…too much salt…ahh…it’s always something.”

He stood and went to the window.

“Anyway, I’m sorry if I frightened you… calling it my job doesn’t make it right.”

He glanced at my nightstand.

“You should be scared, however, of those goddamn cigarettes.”

He paused, awaiting a reaction.

“Maybe I ought to send Peter to see you.” He laughed his abrupt laugh and then vanished.

A small orb of white light flickered where he had stood and then that was gone too.

My heart pounding, I fumbled to find my lighter.

The summer drowns in shades of green
September blue seeps in between
you’re brushed and scrubbed and pure and clean
a sacrifice to bus fifteen

leave me in your wide-eyed world, your spinning, giggling, bright sky world
of crayola suns and fire-fly nights
you holy thing, amazing Grace, standing at the edge
of the driveway, the world spinning, unstoppable

I hear the growl of the yellow beast
of all goodbyes, pray this hurt least
no tears you shed, no sadness seen
you climb the steps of bus fifteen

four years ago, you waved at me from the carousel
your mother holding you on the prettiest horse
its mouth grinning in rapture, the other horses turning their jealous heads
away, circling, spinning, unstoppable

The summer drowns in shades of green
September blue seeps in between
too soon it seems for this scene
a leaf falls, yellow, spinning, unstoppable

Faraway

the boys from America walk target
in the slums of Ishmael

girls from the Ukraine blow
Chinese men in Alphabet City

waves lap fiords in laplander lands
screws are driven into metal

George dries his underwear
at 25 cents for 15 minutes on Santa Monica Blvd

a life begins in the very same way
ours began

the granite hardens
on what will become your headstone

George feeds another dollar
to the quarter making machine

Out in the courtyard the man kneels down slowly to unleash the dog. The cobblestones are damp from last nights rain. He listens to his knees and ankles crack as he kneels giggerly on one knee. The courtyard is quiet.

“You’re a good girl.” he whispers, searching for her the collar under her black and tan coat. She raises her paw to him as he tries to unhook her collar from the leash.

“Damn.”

His hands shake badly but he finally dangles the leash in front of her to show her her freedom. She gets down on her front paws, barking her invition to play, then she jumps up and down on her front paws, her nails clicking on the cobblestones. He laughs and slowly stands up.

“Let me see…did I bring your ball with me?”

She loses all her regal dignity, she whimpers, whines and makes feigned charges towards the courtyard gate.The man reaches into his overcoat and without any more teasing throws the ball as best as he can. She corners the ball near the guardhouse and brings it back, growling a challenge until she drops it at his feet.

 “Don’t make me bend down again, girl.”

Seemingly, she understands and picks it up gently and holds her head up to him. He throws it better this time, almost halfway across the courtyard. It takes an odd bounce off a cobblestone and hits a staff car. It’s getting lighter. He can hear the sounds of the city waking.

“One more time, girl.” he says, repeating the dance.

She stops in the little garden near the gate and crouches, her back legs taking out some new crocuses when she finishes. She comes back and he bends to pet her head and the length of her back. She tries to lick his hand and moves close to his side.

“Are you ready for breakfast?”

He doesn’t put the leash back on and she follows him faithfully as he limps to the front door. The place is coming alive. A soldier opens the door for him.

“Good Morning, Mein Fuerher.”

“Good Morning, Corporal.”

He stops in the foyer and turns back to the soldier.

“Please get some one to pick up Blondi’s business in the garden, Corporal.”

The sunlight is advancing through the iron gate, the courtyard steams to meet the day.

“There are huge chunks of time in my childhood that I don’t remember.” Kate says.

“Maybe you were abducted by aliens.”

She gives me a look.  Her chin tilted down, her eyes high in their orbit.

“How about you, do you remember a lot?”

I look away and stare through the colored liquor bottles rising like mountains on the bar, greens and browns and blues. The East River lies still beyond them. A slow hazy July day rolls outside. If I were still drinking, I’d tell her about it. I’d tell her all about it.

Nixon is still president there. Every night, the news man talks about how gorillas are killing American boys in Vietnam. I watch them get pulled by their arms and legs through the jungle. The leaves in the jungle jump when the guns fire. This is all I know of the world. This and that Jesus died for me. I feel awful about this. Some years later when I have my first confession, I have to make up sins, because I can’t recall any. I don’t want to insult Jesus. There were battles in my kitchen too.

One of my therapists once asked me to map out the house I grew up in. That I didn’t remember. I remember the plays, but not the stage.

Sometimes I have dreams that are almost demonic, shit flying around the room. Some invisible heaviness sitting on my chest. The dreams have an evil air to them, a primal hopelessness. I’m always a child in the dreams. I banish it all away by invoking Jesus Christ. It works, in dreams at least.

Kate’s eyes are bright blue. I can see the mountains of bottles in her pupils, staggered like terraced mountains. Behind them the East River runs still and deep. Bill Clinton is the President.

“I don’t remember anything.” I lie. “Let’s talk about you.”