from "NorthEast"

'Detroit, Half-mast'

Detroit, half-mast.
It's better than this.
The citizens know,
but its neighbors have given up.
Its heartbeat was lost to something cheaper.
Now all the ornaments -
that don the names of those who
caused its heart to beat -
stand tall
and abandoned.
Yankee Doodle plays in forgotten Detroit
on the outskirts of city-proper
where buildings long ago burned.
Foundations sag in the shifted earth,
houses split apart.
Families sit on the cracked steps
of their front porches
as their children play through
the streets
where grass grows wild.

from "Corea"

A Sip (or was it a bottle?) of Wine

A spider lurched over
my tongue to my cheek
and started a web.

She crawled the ribs

of my mouth 

and planted her strand of silk
on the opposite side.
She wove her net throughout,
stole sweet, and puckered my mouth.
She caught a fly.
I swallowed both,
she and her meal.
Her web remains.
Her venom’s in my blood today.

from "Corea"

Another from the series called (for now) "Corea"

Psalm

Lord High, which way should I go?
Where do seeds grow?
Where can I be sown?
    I never once imagined
    that I’d be trapped in heaven,
    but here I am with ankles in shackles.
Lord tell me please,
I’m begging,
where’s the key?
    I’m singing to You,
    and I know You know it’s true,
    I’m lost, trying to find You.
You know I have no answers
but my, oh my, this place is cancer.
This society is a tumor
spreading like a rumor;
wild fire gossip
and hell-fire gospels;
we’re no longer all people.
We’re Americans and Iranians
Europeans and Africans,
divided under flags,
each waving high above the steeple.
    Lord how can I
    look all this in the eye
    and keep on with this smile?
Lord aren’t you great?
Greater than the state?
So why don’t you placate
these angry men you made?
Or is the task too great
for something that has gone away
and left us here to stay
lost in the dark? You play
with our lives for your own good times.
You’ve pumped us full of lies,
caused religion to divide,
men and women to fight.
You brought about
the battles and drought
and left us here to die,
so Lord, Lord! why’d you make us to cry?

    I apologize.
    I didn’t mean to criticize.
    You are these blue skies
    and happy loving sighs
    of words whispered by
    the lips of True Love.
So whisper to me,
I’m begging on my knees,
what happened to humility?
    These people who claim
    you, mock your name
    in tremendous ways.
They go to church
and watch
the preacher till the clock
strikes 12. Then they can eat,
so they rush home and feast
and praise your name
and pray and pray,
while others lay splayed
on the pavement in the rain,
searching gutters for what may
be their only meal today,
but I know this ain’t good faith,
so Lord, tell me, what’s the way?
    Infinite You, what is beyond
    this which seems so long,
    this place that seems so wrong?

    Will it all come back around?
    Will kings and peasants play on level ground?
    Will the humble become the proud?
   
O! Lord the politics
of bureaucrats and aristocrats
and church and state
    are so far removed
    from what You say is so
    important.
It’s easy to say
to love and love each day,
but that’s the best praise
of your charm and grace.
I’ll ignore these political games
and monetary gains;
these backward social ways,
the arrogance of religious claims,
the dirty rotten scoundrels
who dare to play me for the fool.
    I’ll continue to flounder
    and stumble through this mire
    until I’m pulled higher
    than all these silly trifles;
    and am one with the clouds;
    and am one with the sea;
    and am happy once again
    in bowed humility
Lord High, please come down and rescue me!

from "Corea"

A poem from sometime past; from a collection of poems written in a number of places.

Hide from the Faces of Clocks

A chair, a table,
a clock ticks the second
    hand around its face,
persistent like a baby having nightmares.
An airplane flies outside the window
and mopeds and flash cars
        mirr and purr by.
Chatter of walkers
down at the street,
    slow passing.
Sirens flash on in the distance,
    then off again.
Fluorescent light.
The light glows. 
The room is stuffy.
Gnats move in mid-air
    and make no sound.
Just the second hand ticking and the night-fallen town.

Eclipsing missionary stars,
the city floods the sky
    with neon buzzing
    flickering
    flash false senses of glam and fortune.
Westward living.
Fly by square currents
on circuit boards.
Flow fast
    with other electrodes
    going from point A-spend money to point B.
Collide and continue,
with antennae outstretched
    so as not to get too close.
Tongue stays tucked behind teeth,
    afraid
    like a shivering child under bedsheets,
    scared to open his eyes,
    scared to speak.
Shot glass, Soju, pilsner,
booth for one, snacks for one,
silent in the darkened bar
    under black lights
    behind the curtain of smoke from his nostrils
he sits alone beneath the sounds of pop culture
    and chatter
        and falling glass and laughter.

He tries to smile,
    but is silent,
noticing that glances ignore what has no chance of understanding.
Language; philosophy; principle; helplessly misunderstood,
so he laughs.
A man can get away with laughing at helplessness
    more than he ever could cry.
The ember burns in a damp cloth ashtray.
His lips are moistened by another sip of his boredom.
It comes down to understanding.
Do you understand?
If this was written in Farsi, would you understand?
If this was written about making dinner with a best friend,
    about building a fort out of blankets,
    about lost love, would you understand? 
If this was written about floating down a river,
or about a forest of giant trees,
    would you understand? 
Will you understand?
The short circuit that blows the neon tube;
    the misspelled word to alter doctrine;
    the dropped call;
    the house on sand;
he has been patronized to death by polyester promises.
In red burning; yellow, pink, blue glowing; stay open late to sell until you drop; buy because you have nothing better to do; or, drink because you can’t afford any more things;
where alcohol plagues men
    and hope is blinded by manifest destiny;
in a chair
at a table,
he listens to the second hand,
a baby trapped in nightmares.

from "Corea"

'Here, now'

(after reading Aku Ingin, by Sapardi Djoko Damono)
I wished to tell you;

laced lips with a bow in the middle.

I hoped to show you.

The leaves fell.

from "Corea"

Going forward with my plan to post, with some kind of discretion, old poems in the next few months so as to develop a sort of online, "bgoing" collection, here is one in a long list. (Specifically posted with friends in mind, this is not about anyone in particular, but was written in a setting similar to what they now experience. More or less dedicated.)


Hard Nights, Dark Curves

The gargoyle’s eyes glow.
His frostbit frame
clutches snow.
He puts me on edge,
but I fall
into his gaze again;
get lost
in this blank space
daze again.

He sweats in puddles,
unforgiving
devil-son;
always tempting me
with loss of mind.
Always ready
to put me on.
Vice alone,
my virtue’s gone.

Pity on me.
He takes no pity on me.

Temptress
in the black light room,
piercing eyes
that eclipse the moon,
asks me what I want.
But she doesn’t care
what I want,
unless it gets her paid.

Her long bare legs
reach stilettos.
Her long dark hair
drapes over
her shoulders,
and I want only to talk.
I want someone
to join me
for a walk. 

Happy once,
lonesome vagrant sorrows.

Serpent
in the tree of knowledge,
pandora’s box
was a flask of vodka
and boredom;
one person
with nothing to do
and no one
to do nothing with.

Walks alone
along cobblestone,
away from home,
I haven’t been there
in so long.
Always on the go.
Headed with no
destination known.

Pushing on
cause I got nothin better to do.

Missionary stars
drown in the city’s flood
and constant buzz
of begging
neon lights.
Firestorms
into the night;
glowing gods
in a firefight.

Polyester promises from
flippant tongues,
everyone wants to think
they’re the one
to give me what I need,
but it’s all based on
their own greed.

Here’s my drink
and here’s my problem.

The second hand ticks
like icicles melting –
necessary evils
with no escaping
and the clocks
march on,
reminding me
of all my time
lost.

The sun melts the day
but then it goes away
and the moon
freezes night
and we’re left to pray
until the sun comes back around.
But that’s just
another day.

Pressing like an army,
time overtakes me.

On days
when clouds leave,
the sun beguiles,
I sit
and contemplate life
for a while.
Clocks don’t really exist.
People try
to challenge Life
for their business.

The statues
atop the cathedral
fall into the snow
as the day thaws
and the sun
comes back around,
revealing everything
I’d once lost.

The world’s not collapsing,
but it sure is a struggle.

The Warm Blanket Nostalgia Winter

Stars glistening in the frosty belt Milky Way streak
the sky like an ever-whirling comet’s tail;
like the sparkle of crisp leaves; and frozen damp streets
wind up and down the mountain side - the
animals hide and spiders greet me inside -
we brace for another cold night.
Friends join me for wine in a large house lit
in four candles. We play music and together step
out to fill our warm lungs
with satisfying smoke of cigarettes and green-tips we
shiver through - and the cold nights
press against the walls and bare on the ceiling of my home with
candle-light lamps, acoustic guitars, and jokes wine as
stars glisten and frozen roads sparkle up and down
New Mexico’s pitch dark shivering mountain night.