THE WOMAN
Is she not but an
orthograde manifestation
of any beauty hidden in the
forest, beneath the rock, deep
in shell, wonder of the heart?
She studies with gentle presence
the eddies astir in our heads
our blood rivers
hurricanes.
The man will continue
to go to her to sift
his sins through her hair
deflate his soul unto her chest
and quiet his longings
in the rapture of her soul.
How beautiful, how
maddening it is
to be a woman.
________
(c) 1996
EMBLEM OF A PEOPLE
Reflections on Charlotte Delbo’s Trilogy
Auschwitz and After
Within this sacred geometry
six bones connect
six dead answers
to null questions
no longer asking
and for every
line sketched
a million voices
protest as they
love you.
From within this skeletal frame of hope
and the assembly of a people
shoots the virility of memory:
these hands holding
keeping us together
keeping us sane.
The “us” that is beyond discrimination.
The “us” that is we when we pray
for sound, equitable minds
and compassionate hearts
that reach with food
to graves
too late.
Within the cells of our bodies handed down
is the persistence of will
the manner of leaving wheat
parted with no trace
the habit of sliding into walls
beneath floors into feces
and dirt to forgo seeing
our unborn children shot.
For those who seek Truth through human history,
there breathes a fragmented knowledge
of the jungle of man’s mind
and it perpetually rots.
______
(c) 1998
this poem is read from the bottom up
to do
to do or not
and we must choose
“doing” he just does
need not contemplate the
one difference is the beaver
skill
his unerring
his fortitude
in his ingenuity
offspring human-like
lodge for his mate and
to construct a suitable
human-like in his ambitions
home
making a
animal is
the coarse brown
looting leaves and mud
as adhesive glue and gum
hoarding scraps branches bark
Building placing stacking pasting
beaver
building
______
(c) 1996
COLD SPELL
In a cold spell
texts are frozen-bound
and the mind caught in
the story between pages
steeps
______
(c) 1996
profundity
my dog is barking
at the mannequin
in the shop window
how can I tell him
she is not alive?
______
(c) 1995
UNTIL
Until I suture myself,
people will continue
to fall through me.
______
(c) 1996