Click here to access poetry in Real Audio. Poetry in Motion The gentle lovers on the subway car so young they speak a language all their own from Eastern Europe have they come so far yet still romantic tongue and touch intone a message that makes all around them sigh - the firm flesh adorned with studs, tattoos her pierced brow and soft and naked thigh, her easy pose, his smile he wants her too! I watch this picture from a distant place, for at my age the senses aren't that strong and I have never framed a gesture slowly trace- ing hollow of a knee for so damn long! If I were young again would I still hide? Yes, for true love lasts a subway ride. June Spring heaves its last heavy breath as every leaf unfolds as far as it can. The rolling mid-June carnival leaves us motionless and spent on straw rugs, while ferns beg for soft drops of rain to come with cool evening jazz and cars purring down Cat Rock Road. My sister, you have found your place and you own it. The house holds your past and your future. In the stone walls and hand-blown glass gypsies dance and love lights up the night like fireflies. We have come to the moment of the solstice, the pinnacle of long day dreams, the place where growing pains end, where we lie back and look at the falling stars, and fall with them. Physics A body in motion stays in motion. Universe expanding to disorder Yet, a body in motion stays in motion. No systems runs indefinitely without energy from the outside. Yet, bodies in motion stay in motion. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Perpetual motion. There is the Second Law, Entropy, God, Infinity. There is inertia, and there is you A body in motion, staying in motion. There is us, two bodies in motion staying in motion. perpetual, bodies in equal and opposite reaction, in motion. Vectors collide, angles of incidence equal angles of refraction, equal and opposite bodies stay in motion. in expanding container. touching less frequently, yet, perpetually, we stay in motion. Grand Central Station IÆm walking backwards down History's dark tunnel to the basement of the station where black men shuck oysters in starched white jackets, and chowder steams under hat brims of commuters. The scene has not changed in over 100 years and looking up I hear echoes from the century of Currier & Ives bouncing of the vaulted ceiling. The wheel of the steam drive pumps industry's strong heartbeat, black smoke pouring down the rails and through the canals to rivers where men in topcoats fish for trout. Civilization moves at the clip of a fast carriage raising dust as as bare-handed boxers dance in circus tents. Mink trappers smell of spring thaw, Cocks fight, and and men wager on how may rats Billy the Rat Killing Dog can run down in the ring, snapping their necks with powefull jaw and stacking them up in a pile. Men chop ice blocks on the lakes, and great fires in Pittsburgh and Chicago level the old to make way for the new. Slaves are branded on the Ivory Coast and in chains arrive at ports reeking of whale blubber. The country heaves forward forging horseshoes at night lit by lantern and strong rum. The ninteenth century finally ends like last night's Rubber game like bleary-eyed captains of the clipper ships like black powder triumph on the Mississippi. like Ice boats on the Hudson, like the stages of a drunkardÆs life, like Queen Victoria's beauty. What remains? The Falls of Niagara, with spray rising toward a rainbow. Optimism. Kandinsky, and non-representational art. Crushed shells, and the world tightening like a knot. Geometry A line goes on forever in both directions. A ray goes on forever in one direction. A segment has two end points, yet still an infinite number of points between. If I work out my problems on a flat plane, circles, squares, triangular sections, I cannot see others off the surface. There may be millions of solutions of which I'm unaware. Do I care? When I focus on all of space I look out my rectangular window and see bleached water towers baking in the sun. Planes become volumes, Cylinders, cones, parabaloids aimed at heaven, ready to be filled with sine waves from the new digital gods. Exhaustion takes me down dozing through curved lines and the smell of newsprint and coffee in the cold, lines of Music, lines of Art, lines of Poetry, healing heart. Then with eyes closed to the cloudless sky I fall into the space in front of me, through the plane before my eyes down the line inside myself to the point where I begin again. East River You awake to icy grate of the Brooklyn Bridge, and the uneasy shimmy of the wheels while the full moon flashes by the cables. An early film strip in black and white shows flat river with breathless calm reflecting splinters of light from city and sky. Reggae on the radio orchestrates the chilling beauty and cold empty mystery of the full flood. Bodies lie below the surface still as shining stone. Swallow the fear in your throat, for you will follow one day as food for fish. Up the Drive feel the brine and frost and return to a childhood delighted by the sight of a burdened barge being pushed North through the ice flows by an arrogant tug all lit up like a Christmas tree. Last summer on the Esplanade the river teamed as you pounded out another middle-aged mile, with sweat evaporating into the thick air and noisy Hispanic carnival. Jiving to the timpani of oil can drums, rap, and sweet barbecue smoke young fertile teens in haltertops lean out over the guardrail, their tight buttocks smirking at your aching limbs and fight against the future. The river does not flow down to the sea but up towards Hell's Gate and back to the Harbor. In and out and back and forth like an animal on a leash, straining against the pilings and conceited man-made meanders that mock God's glacial plan. Strong running and slack, narrow and wide, up and down, and breathing in and out with shallow breath you tremble at the ebb and flow of New York's river streaming by. Chess The elements of play are force and space and time You sacrifice one for the other in the game and so the battle wages in the mind. The opening is rich and undefined The possibilities are endless none the same The elements of play are force and space and time. Options narrow mid game as you grind pitched in struggle and bright flame and so the battle wages in the mind. Destroy the enemy with brutal violence blind sans merci attack with cunning the black dame. The elements of play are force and space and time. And so you think that you have found the line to trap the king and push to end the game and so the battle wages in the mind. Your premature attack falls short and you're behind in misery you see your end game lost and lame. The elements of play are force and space and time, and so the battle wages in the mind. Stephen Wainscot The day he found his mother dead in vomit red on the bathroom floor he fled with short seaside breath and brackish tears, a gentleman at every turn. Taking charge, he grew up strong, a Green Beret they say, he had to kill with his bare hands, a gentleman at ever turn. Eyes glint, gray steal through wire-rimmed glasses that kept him from the Navy. He was a yachtsman nonetheless, a seersucker dandy in the House of Representatives, and in latter years lobbied for defense contractors in the district. A gentleman at every turn, of wrist, strong, clipped humor the drop, the lob, squash court shot, the silver trophies of Steven Wainscot, winner in English tailoring and custom-made shoes, boxer shorts with button fly, honorable, he never let the dirty laundry out to dry. His gallant charm was irresistible to women, he found a wife for every turn in life, He loved them like his hunting spaniels. He had to have his sport. And when they finally left, he'd count the years with short seaside breath and brackish tears. One winter morning early, his purebred bitch gave birth to eight lab mutts. A gentleman at ever turn, he did the bravest deed, the the honorable thing to defend the breed, taking each one, pulling them from the teat, and placing them in a bucket squealing, carried them to the pond to drown each one by hand, and there with feeling dug a whole deep in sand and stacked the puppies in it. Shredded Wheat Shredded Wheat day. Cold run through Franklin Park where brown leaves roll surf sounds and ears hurt as gusty thoughts crash on yesterday's New Hampshire hillside. Light rain lichen lives on damp grey headstones. Whethers granite, softens scene to dark smudge of oil pastel. Kick back crabgrass and swallow the sight of my name engraved on the ground. Today sketch wind chimes in the afternoon as cat whines rise from the basement to mix with Mozart and angels circling in the draft on top of the staircase. A warm patchwork nap under quilt curling deep and dreamless through the windy symphony. Time stops as the late sun streams in the rattling window. Awakened by this warm hand the past is so far behind me I can't remember my name. |