His name is called a third time,
but his propped-up boots & helmet
refuse to answer. The photo remains silent,
& his name hangs in the high rafters.
She tenderly hugs the pillow,
whispering his name. The dog
rises beside the bedroom door
& wanders to the front door,
& stands with its head cocked,
listening for a name in a dead language.
FROM
WARHORSES
THE HELMET
Perhaps someone was watching
a mud turtle or an armadillo
skulk along an old interminable footpath,
armored against sworn enemies,
& then that someone shaped a model,
nothing but the mock-up of a hunch
into a halved, rounded, carved-out
globe of wood covered with animal skin.
How many battles were fought before
bronze meant shield & breastplate,
before iron was fired, hammered, & taught
to outwit the brain’s glacial weather,
to hold an edge? God-inspired,
it was made to deflect a blow
or blade, to make the light pivot
on the battlefield. Did the soldiers
first question this new piece of equipment,
did they laugh like a squad of Hells Angels,
saying, Is this our ration bowl for bonemeal,
& gore? The commander’s sunrise
was stolen from the Old Masters,
& his coat of arms made the shadows
kneel. The ram, the lion, the ox,
the goat—folkloric. Horse-headed
helmets skirted the towering cedars
till only a lone vulture circled the sky
as first & last decipher of the world.
GRENADE
There’s no rehearsal to turn flesh into dust so quickly. A hair trigger, a cocked hammer in the brain, a split second between a man & infamy. It lands on the ground—a few soldiers duck & the others are caught in a half run—& one throws himself down on the grenade. All the watches stop. A flash. Smoke. Silence. The sound fills the whole day. Flesh & earth fall into the eyes & mouths of the men. A dream trapped in mid- air. They touch their legs & arms, their groins, ears, & noses, saying, What happened? Some are crying. Others are laughing. Some are almost dancing. Someone tries to put the dead man back together. “He just dove on the damn thing, sir!” A flash. Smoke. Silence. The day blown apart. For those who can walk away, what is their burden? Shreds of flesh & bloody rags gathered up & stuffed into a bag. Each breath belongs to him. Each song. Each curse. Every prayer is his. Your body doesn’t belong to your mind & soul. Who are you? Do you remember the man left in the jungle? The others who owe their lives to this phantom, do they feel like you? Would his loved ones remember him if that little park or statue erected in his name didn’t exist, & does it enlarge their lives? You wish he’d lie down in that closed coffin, & not wander the streets or enter your bedroom at midnight. The woman you love, she’ll never understand. Who would? You remember what he used to say: “If you give a kite too much string, it’ll break free.” That unselfish certainty. But you can’t remember when you began to live his unspoken dreams.
THE TOWERS
Yes, dear son
dead, but not gone,
some were good, ordinary
people who loved a pinch of salt
on a slice of melon. Good,
everyday souls gazing up
at birds every now & then,
a flash of wings like blood
against the skylights. Well,
others were good as gold
certificates in a strongbox
buried in the good earth. Yes,
two or three stopped to give
the homeless vet on the corner
a shiny quarter or silver dime,
while others walked dead
into a fiery brisance, lost
in an eternity of Vermeer.
A few left questions blighting
the air. Does she love me?
How can I forgive him?
Why does the dog growl
when I turn the doorknob?
Some were writing e-mails
& embossed letters to ghosts
when the first plane struck.
The boom of one thousand
trap drums was thrown against
a metallic sky. A century of blue
vaults opened, & rescue workers
scrambled with their lifelines
down into the dark, sending up
plumes of disbelieving dust.
They tried to soothe torn earth,
to stretch skin back over the
pulse beat. When old doubts
& shame burn, do they smell
like anything we’ve known?
When happiness is caught off
guard, when it beats its wings
bloody against the bony cage,
does it die screaming or laughing?
No,
none,
not a single one
possessed wings as agile
& unabashedly decorous as yours,
son. Not even those lovers who
grabbed each other’s hand & leapt
through the exploding windows.
Pieces of sky fell with the glass,
bricks, & charred mortar. Nothing
held together anymore. Machines
grunted & groaned into the heap
like gigantic dung beetles. After
planes had flown out of a scenario
in Hollywood, few now believed
their own feet touched the ground.
Signed deeds & promissory notes
floated over the tangled streets,
& some hobbled in broken shoes
toward the Brooklyn Bridge.
The cash registers stopped on
decimal points, in a cloud bank
of dead cell phones & dross.
Search dogs crawled into tombs
of burning silence. September
could hardly hold itself upright,
but no one donned any feathers.
Apollo was at Ground Zero
because he knows everything
about bandaging up wounds.
Men dug hands into quavering
flotsam, & they were blinded by
the moon’s indifference. No,
Voice, I don’t know anything
about infidels, though I can see
those men shaving their bodies
before facing a malicious god
in the mirror. The searchlights
throbbed. No, I’m not Daedalus,
but I’ve walked miles in a circle,
questioning your wings of beeswax
& crepe singed beyond belief.
HEAVY METAL SOLILOQUY
After a nightlong white-hot hellfire
of blue steel, we rolled into Baghdad,
plugged into government-issued earphones,
hearing hard rock. The drum machines
& revved-up guitars roared in our heads.
All their gods were crawling on all fours.
These bloated replicas of horned beetles
drew us to targets, as if they could breathe
& think. The turrets rotated 360 degrees.
The infrared scopes could see through stone.
There were mounds of silver in the oily dark.
Our helmets were the only shape of the world.
Lightning was inside our titanium tanks,
& the music was almost holy, even if blood
was now leaking from our eardrums.
We were moving to a predestined score
as bodies slumped under the bright heft
& weight of thunderous falling sky.
Locked in, shielded off from desert sand
& equator
ial eyes, I was inside a womb,
a carmine world, caught in a limbo,
my finger on the trigger, getting ready to die,
getting ready to be born.
THE WARLORD’S GARDEN
He has bribed the thorns
to guard his poppies.
They intoxicate the valley
with their forbidden scent,
reddening the horizon
till it is almost as if
they aren’t there.
Maybe the guns guard
only the notorious
dreams in his head.
The weather is kind
to every bloom,
& the fat greenish bulbs
form a galaxy of fantasies
& beautiful nightmares.
After they’re harvested
& molded into kilo sacks
of malleable brown powder,
they cross the country
on horseback,
on river rafts
following some falling star,
& then ride men’s shoulders
down to the underworld,
down to rigged scales
where money changers
& gunrunners linger
in the pistol-whipped hush
of broad daylight. No,
now, it shouldn’t be long
before the needle’s bright tip
holds a drop of woeful bliss,
before the fifth horseman of the Apocalypse
gallops again the night streets of Europe.
SURGE
Always more. No, we aren’t too ashamed to prod celestial beings
into our machines. Always more body bags & body counts for oath takers
& sharpshooters. Always more. More meat for the gibbous grinder
& midnight mover. There’s always someone standing on a hill, half lost
behind dark aviation glasses, saying, If you asked me, buddy, you know,
it could always be worse. A lost arm & leg? Well, you could be stone dead.
Here comes another column of apparitions to dig a lifetime of roadside graves.
Listen to the wind beg. Always more young, strong, healthy bodies. Always.
Yes. What a beautiful golden sunset. (A pause) There’s always that one naked soul
who’ll stand up, shuffle his feet a little, & then look the auspicious, would-be gods
in the eyes & say, Enough! I won’t give another good guess or black thumbnail
to this mad dream of yours! An ordinary man or woman. Alone. A mechanic
or cowboy. A baker. A farmer. A hard hat. A tool-&-die man. Almost a smile
at the corners of a mouth. A fisherman. A tree surgeon. A seamstress. Someone.
THE DEVIL COMES ON HORSEBACK
Although the sandy soil’s already red,
the devil still comes on horseback
at midnight, with old obscenities
in his head, galloping along a pipeline
that ferries oil to the black tankers
headed for Shanghai. Traveling
through folklore & songs, prayers
& curses, he’s a windmill of torches
& hot lead, rage & plunder, bloodlust
& self-hatred, rising out of the Seven Odes,
a Crow of the Arabs. Let them wing
& soar, let them stumble away on broken feet,
let them beg with words of the unborn,
let them strum a dusty oud of gut & gourd,
still the devil rides a shadow at daybreak.
Pity one who doesn’t know his bloodline
is rape. He rides with a child’s heart
in his hands, a head on a crooked staff,
& he can’t stop charging the night sky
till his own dark face turns into ashes
riding a desert wind’s mirage.
FROM “AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MY ALTER EGO”
You see these eyes?
You see this tongue?
You see these ears?
They may detect a quiver
in the grass, an octave
higher or lower—
a little different, an iota,
but they’re no different
than your eyes & ears.
I can’t say I don’t know
how Lady Liberty’s
tilted in my favor or yours,
that I don’t hear what I hear
& don’t see what I see
in the cocksure night
from Jefferson & Washington
to terrorists in hoods & sheets
in a black man’s head.
As he feels what’s happening
you can also see & hear
what’s happening to him.
You see these hands?
They know enough to save us.
I’m trying to say this: True,
I’m a cover artist’s son,
born to read between lines,
but I also know that you know
a whispered shadow in the trees
is the collective mind
of insects, birds, & animals
witnessing what we do to each other.
*
Forgive the brightly colored
viper on the footpath,
guarding a forgotten shrine.
Forgive the tiger
dumbstruck beneath its own rainbow.
Forgive the spotted bitch
eating her litter underneath the house.
Forgive the boar
hiding in October’s red leaves.
Forgive the stormy century
of crows calling to death. Forgive
the one who conjures a god
out of spit & clay
so she may seek redemption.
Forgive the elephant’s memory.
& the thorn bird’s litany.
Forgive the schizoid
gatekeeper, his logbook’s
perfect excuse. Forgive
the crocodile’s swiftness.
Forgive the pheromones
& the idea of life on Mars.
Forgive the heat lightning
& the powder keg. Forgive the raccoon’s
sleight of hand beside
the river. Forgive the mooncalf
& doubt’s caul-baby. Forgive
my father’s larcenous tongue.
Forgive my mother’s intoxicated
lullaby. Forgive my sixth sense.
Forgive my heart & penis,
but don’t forgive my hands.
FROM
THE CHAMELEON COUCH
CANTICLE
Because I mistrust my head & hands, because I know salt
tinctures my songs, I tried hard not to touch you
even as I pulled you into my arms. Seasons sprouted
& went to seed as we circled the dance with silver cat bells
tied to our feet. Now, kissing you, I am the arch-heir of second chances.
Because I know twelve ways to be wrong
& two to be good, I was wounded by the final question in the cave,
left side of the spirit level’s quiver. I didn’t want to hug you
into a cross, but I’m here to be measured down to each numbered bone.
A trembling runs through what pulls us to the blood knot.
We hold hands & laugh in the East Village as midnight autumn
shakes the smoke of the Chicago B.L.U.E.S. club from our clothes,
& you say I make you happy & sad. For years I stopped my hands
in midair, knowing fire at the root stem of yes.
I say your name, & another dies in my mouth because I know how to plead
till a breeze erases the devil’s footprints,
because I crave something to sing the blues about. Look,
I only want to hold you this way: a bundle of wild orchids
broken at the wet seam of memory & manna.
THE JANUS PREFACE
The day breaks in half as the sun rolls over hanging ice,
& a dogwood leans into a country between seasons.
A yellow cat looms with feet in the squishy snow,
arching her back, eyeing a redbird, a star still blinking
in her nighttime brain. Schoolgirls sport light dresses
beneath heavy coats, & the boys stand goose-pimpled
in football jerseys. Anything for a hug or kiss,
anything to be healed. A new-green leaf swells sap.
Each bud is a nose pressed against a windowpane,
a breast gazing through thin cotton. The cold stings,
& a shiver goes from crown to feet, leaf tip down to taproot.
The next-door boy’s snowman bows to Monday’s rush hour.
Heavy metal leaps from a car & ignites the spluttering air.
Each little tight fist of clutched brightness begins to open,
distant & close as ghost laughter in the afternoon.
A crow sits on the fence, telling me how many ways
to answer its brutal questions about tomorrow.
The season is a white buffalo birthing in the front yard:
big-eyed with beauty, half out & half in.
Branches cluster with mouths ready to speak
a second coming, & a wind off the Delaware
springs forth, rattling the window sashes.
An all-night howl slips beneath the eaves,
& next day, frozen buds are death’s-heads
fallen into footprints coming & gone.
IGNIS FATUUS
Something or someone. A feeling
among a swish of reeds. A swampy
glow haloes the Spanish moss,
& there’s a swaying at the edge
like a child’s memory of abuse
growing flesh, living on what
a screech owl recalls. Nothing
but a presence that fills up
the mind, a replenished body
singing its way into double-talk.
In the city, “Will o’ the Wisp”
floats out of Miles’s trumpet,
leaning ghosts against nighttime’s
backdrop of neon. A foolish fire
can also start this way: before
you slide the key into the lock
& half turn the knob, you know
someone has snuck into your life.
A high window, a corner of sky
spies on upturned drawers of underwear
& unanswered letters, on a tin box
of luminous buttons & subway tokens,