Places to be quiet

(1)
Slow water dripped ten million years into towers and catacombs
Into traps for the dead traveler
And me, almost smothered on the rocks everywhere
But determined to be here now and here then
To feel the human sacrifice in the air
Years of blood to keep the universe in balance
Years of youths sent underground
I listen, and these youth’s chatter bounces off the hushed, wet earth
Their boys, Pennsylvania, tans and the things she said
All of this is not a part of Xibalba
Only
Ferman’s paddle, soft and even, like the breathing of a mother
And the water drops, moving from the ceiling to our lips, knuckles, down our backs
Each one supposed to be bring luck
We are so lucky today
(2)
Beers and ice and waving to lost friends
They interrupt the singer with their cries of love or biggest hits
We’ve all collected here for a Sunday night
We’re here for these speakers of some truth to dance and delight to
But when the songs get low and slow and shivery
The crowd’s hum rises like a flock of turkey buzzards
And they can’t feel the singer’s voice
They can’t hear how it gets bigger as it sinks into his chest
I wish he would sing to me alone
Not because I crave some importance I don’t posses
But just for how dead-silent I would stay
Listening to the singer

San Francisco

Tobin, last night we staggered into Station 40, weak from a mosh-pit battle
To open couches in rooms divided by hanging blankets
Feet on floorboards, all night creaks of lives spent passing through

Carving out life from dumpsters and dead industries
And we wake to cut oranges and apples for an anarchist named Irish
Fruit that has almost turned, though the smell tears my stomach anyway

But we leave this place with thanks, to find our own way
To take our dirty teeth and sleep-stained lips outside
To the San Francisco streets, wondering where the coffee is

I make you stop for the best graffiti
“Sanctuary city for the rich”
“Don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos”

A Levis ad turned to an anarchist call,
“Don’t work”
You take me to see Bernal Hill

So we climb through the cigarette butts
And the yellow summer dust, the weedy pink clover,
Past the joggers and dogs, you in your dog-eared khakis shoes your mother is dying to throw out

And there are blackberries covering the last ridge
And we praise our free breakfast, yell to Gavin Newsom
Find some citation to stop us from eating your berries

Below us now, the whole city is a perfect model city
And we feel the wind, the kind that always climbs
The kind you can never find on the ground

Yo Hablo

Me gusta eschuchar la musica de La Plebe
At the bus stop at 7, with my cafe I’ve made too strong again
And I get drunk on that, my three hours of sleep
The Mexican punk railed into my ears
I catch three or four words every few lines
I know you would understand more
I hope you understand I’m learning this for tu, mi primo, mi mejor amigo
I like to think of you 2500 miles West, still in bed
I’m awake estudiar espanol
So we can disappear into Guatemala o Argentina together
So we can whisper “pinches fronteras”
As we sneak hot cafe to las immigrants

Grandpa

You would hate the idea,
Still I want to get tattooed for you
I was thinking
A pair of sneakers
And the word pathetic,
On the right side of my left calf
For all the times you would look up and down
Your eyes fall on a family member’s shoes
Mine, perhaps green converse, red and black checked laces
And then you would croak out the same verdict
Pathetic!

And all of us would laugh
Every single time. Grandma too
After 60 years together
That I knew not to envy
You were a bossy husband, a lacking father
Trained in leave me alone
Let the kids win and lose their own battles
Make their own pick-up games in Pittsburgh Birdland lots
Offer comments only if the kids try to wear white socks
Or show evidence of being Hippie-Democrats

You stopped going up to Canada before I could remember
Though there’s that picture of me in your arms
On the porch overlooking the family stretch of Lake Erie
Both of us bald, you tan and looking more the Navy man
then usual. You holding me aloft
As you sit in a beach chair looking so happy to look at me

And then there’s the photo of you, Grandma and Aunt Boo
At a party in your 50s (You went to parties, Grandpa?)
When Grandma’s hair still lingered Red
As your nickname for her
Boo’s leg is draped across your lap
And you beam, as Grandma feigns shock
Here is my sister-in-law’s leg, your face says
And I don’t think I ever saw you look
Quite like that

I can’t put any of that on my left calf, Grandpa

But I thought about a bigger tattoo
Maybe just black ink
One of your mix tapes you made from the radio
Carefully wrote down the song and artist
Then lost the all the covers
The tapes scattered on your TV tray
But you could always find the one you were looking for
Your stop and start was always a little slow
So you would push play and
Trumpet, saxophone, piano, someone swinging out some old song
Maxine Sullivan, Frank Sinatra, Count Basie the king

You saw them all long before
You ever saw me
But I used to sit and see you
Play air piano, bobbing your head
You might say listen to this cat
Listen to how he played the horn
I learned to love the music
But to love watching you more

I’d like to put all that in the tattoo you would hate
But I’d stop, like all children’s stories, before the end
Before your heart seized and faded you away
No longer king, but trapped in your old chair
Like a cicada skin stuck fast to an oak tree
Dazed most of the day

You couldn’t keep your head up
You couldn’t stay warm
In spite of the space heater
Grandma tried to bring back Basie, Benny, Peggy
But they wore out
When you wore out

And Grandpa
When they took you to the hospice
Dad called me
Told me not to come
So I followed my sudden, choking need
For a pack of the Dentyne cinnamon gum you used to chew
(Not the Marlborough Reds that clogged your heart)
And then I found a Maxine Sullivan record

And I just missed my chance to tell you
How much I learned to love that damn record

Maybe I should just get a tattoo
With all the things I hadn’t said yet
On my the right side of my left calf, I’ll have the tattoo man write
Grandpa, did you ever see Jack Teagarden?
Why wasn’t Maxine Sullivan as big as Peggy Lee?
I almost like her better, Grandpa
But you have to love Peggy Lee

Poetry

All of it by me. All of it endlessly in process.

Rachel on the floor, at Ruby Ridge

Now Mama is in pieces.
My baby sister with blood, brains in her hair,
Mama’s arms still hold her strong.
But all Mama was now stains the kitchen tiles.

Now Mama’s curtains can’t keep out
The flood-lights and the bullhorn taunting,
“Send your children out, we made pancakes this morning!
Send the children out, Vicki!”

Days and days, they won’t stop talking noise,
The tanks in the yard crushed our vegetable garden,
Our dead yellow dog. The shed where my brother lies;
Where Mama washed his back clean
With a kitchen sponge and Daddy screamed at Yahweh.

One second Mama was, the next she was not.

Stop this, Daddy. Now. Let it end

Even if the devil armies overtake us.
I can’t breathe on this floor,
With Mama’s blood turning turkey red,
Smelling like the sun turned to rust.

Going to Chechnya

We’re crossing the cattle guards into Chechnya
Where the Russians and the rebels both cut
off heads and hands.
Where, I have read, the people
are so polite to guests, they apologize for only just surviving,
For how little they have kept.
Where they can’t hear the heavy artillery two blocks down anymore,
where the war is simply years and years.

We are much too old to pretend such terrible places,
But our bloody-curiosity makes us ache
to know. So slowly we build into the game, walking upstream
Up the rocks, the waterfalls, the fighting cold of Harley Creek
I suspect Montana looks nothing like Chechnya.

You and I should know better than to play at horrors
But I’m the daring, beautiful war reporter
You’re my drunk Russian guide
My name is Charlotte Jones, for some reason
You are just Leo, friendly, half-mad,
Porcupine about your true self.

We’re not sure where we’re going, what Rebel
Leader we’re seeking in what mountain cave,
Only that our imaginary cigarettes must stay unlit
For fear of discovery, so we duck and crawl up the creek,
Talking about other wars, about New Years Eve
in Sniper’s Ally. Sarajevo was our big one,
Because we know a little more about it
Than Chechnya, anyway.