MURAKAMI
“you must have big rats
if you need Japanese steel”
Kill Bill, Volume 1
I read some Murakami
that we might
be on
the same page
if not
dance together
at least be able to
whistle
the same
tune
which I hear now
floating over old Edo
before
it got firebombed to death
turned to ash
rose again as fresh colossus
spreading its fingers
into how
we picture our world
SUSQUEHANNA
there are ghosts
in your country
I saw them dancing
in the mist all
along the Susquehanna
one cold January morning
just after 9/11
a couple of miles upstream
from Three Mile Island
and we were talking Civil War mlilitary,
myself and this kindly
African American
Professor of Sociology from
Harrisburg Penn State
him detailing how the Federals and Confederates
were criss-
crossing this territory
playing this cat and
mouse game
only to crash headlong into
each other at a
place called Gettysburg
of course neither of us
back in 2002 could have imagined
twenty so years on this
land would
find itself of the brink of
such a division
where the spectre of such
horror looming again
and those precious
twenty or so days
my sole experience
of America
of breathing the air of
its liberty, if
such is your belief
something the ghosts
trying to tell me, their
cold touch
alerting me
a new world and
forever graveyard
tension
in the spirit world
it seems far-fetched to bridge
the river
with its
Native American name
flowing with the forever
waters of such secrets
leaving
the old lies, the old lies
to spread, make
good trade,
do good business
what ripples outward here I fear
ultimately chain
in its reaction
REVISED
saw Adonis and Aphrodite
at the Heavy Metal ballet
watching barriers collapse
boundaries stretch
saw sheet metal fluted
rolled exquisitely sheer
the weight of those chords tempered with
grace, fluency
of style
and Adonis and Aphrodite
if not riveted in love
at least
holding hands
the truth of their narrative
so handsomely revised
the
years so softly silvering them,
their conquest of time
CURVED (TOGETHER)
chaos dawned
fractals like schools
of forever spawning fish
did
abound
and with them
as summoned
Aphrodite
that absolute beauty
born of monstrosity
was born
(if birth is a word that at all
befits
her genesis)
time stretching
space stretching stretching together as
interlaced reality
everything stretching to
accomodate
run
with that pattern
and with Aphrodite
the universe really curved. with but
a single goddess glance
stone, rock,
sand
came alive, sure antithesis
to Medusa
she and me riding that wave tracking
that curved ball
roving
through left field (the grass
grown too tall for baseball)
moving all the
time
desire and its object
gold and
base metal chasing each other
ad infinitum Achilles
and tortoise
mortal and
divine
sacred and profane moving together
forever (unless
I get my relativity wrong)
BUTTERFLY
butterflies remind him
of his latest
out-of-body projection experience
from which he
did not entirely
return
in the same capacity
every memory
exactly remembered
as discussed, as
re-
organized
and carefully
pre-planned
STING
The Master told her
a page
is like a lover
waiting to
be touched
demanding
to be explored
at which
point she frowned
not
fot the first time
reminding him, with
due respect
as his student
with
so much
to learn
that the words on
some pages
are satirical, no
nonsense
cut
to the bone
carry a sting
sharply pointed, venomous,
touch
them at
your peril
not big
on that
love-touch thing
COLLIDER
they claimed you were
the Einstein
of literary studies
but then
you went
and dissed
my poem
so I dragged
you down
to our local Collider
had you
smashed into
sub-atomic particles
the quantum impact
of which on the world
as we know it
being
at best purely
academic
OUT THERE
we sat around
the campfire
talking about
the evil out there
and anomalous
interstellar comets
that may well
be mother ships
such moments
the ontogenesis of
so much philosophy
the words out of which
much of our celestial framework
were once born
.
but the infant
in each of us sat there
growing ever
more terrified
the evil in our tales
quietly encroaching
creeping closer
drawing us
for comfort
closer
to the fire
until, ultimately
amongst the embers themselves
if we
are meant to burn
be
reduced to ask
prevailing logic
determines
best do it ourselves
we sat by the camp fire
long nights to talk through
FINALLY
the ground is calling
blind creatures of the soil
need me
I sense that
cloying feeling
and me — sad inevitability —
headed in that general direction
soon to satisfy
(in intimate fashion)
all those tiny
desires for connection
there
down in
the vertigo
imagining our
small, precious
time together
my time to revel
in close acquaintance that
is different, radically other
a change from all those
macro forces trying their
utmost to shape, define,
dominate me
as was the case from
first breath
was to
take
farewell to these forces
finally
CRAZY THOUGHT POEM
you are
a light
for
anyone’s
darkness
you are a star
for any
lost ship
at sea
as I float through
deep space
looking for
something
I might
call my own
new home planet
a crazy thought finds me
the idea
that should
I find it
you
will be there to meet me
exactly
my cup of tea
poems 2 die for