Have You Seen Him?

Chicago
threaded through your city
longing in lines unspoken

Have you seen him?
Walking down Sheridan drunken in his splendor
Why did he go away?
I am lost without him here
I crawl belly down on the street
inching along, a snake in the city
shedding my skin in a long trail of what was
new skin so tender etched
with swirls, spirals holding
a denisty of things that could have been
if only
these words rise in silent echoes
from beneath, from below
from what is underneath
and a street battered by the weight of cars one after the other
in succession, a line stretching as far as the eye can see
does not weep for those once here

This is a city
slanted with a thickness of the breathing
of breath, in breath, for breath
of dreams unbound
of things unencumbered
the dead walk bound by things
the living cannot know
a ghost I cannot hold him
his flesh is emptiness and sorrow
I touch him, love
set him free
He is a drift of smoke
disappearing before my eye

when the night
when your night falls
it is held within a breath
that separates before and after
and what can no longer be

Swallowed

Poetry raw unfiltered
Not processed for consumption
Finely crafted
Freely given
With consideration
To rhythm, image, feeling
Of me through me
Of my everyday
Of my extraordinary
Capturing moments
Like a camera

Click click
A flick of my eyes
As I look
Air scented with heat
Drying my throat
As I walk
Down Cole Ave
In Dallas
I cough and catch
On my tongue
What is in the air

I am bitten by this thing
Infected with a desire
To spread words
Falling like clouds from the sky

Leaving

I will peel myself
Away from you
To go home
Where you are not

I’ve been the one
To leave you
At the center, the hub, home
The axis around
Which I roamed

I will drive across miles
Of long grass prairie
Between home and here
Alone in the grasslands
Listening to the song of the wind
Echo empty
Trees strewn
In abandoned silos
Viewed from the road

In Dallas
The wind in the trees
Sus-sus-sur-us.
The cars on the Dallas Tollway
A distant constant hmmm.
The man in the next room
A voice leaching through the wall,
the bounce of a ball on concrete.
A dragonfly buzzes the treetops
Searching for sustenance.

In Dallas
I wait for you day long
While you work, come home weary
I am alone in a room writing
I could walk, explore the city
Instead I write
Fiction, poetry and this.

Dallas,Texas May 4 2012

In Dallas far
From the Mississippi River
from St Paul
The earth where I can see it
In the city
Is dry and cracked
Not the deep black loam of Minnesota

Dallas to me
Chihuly at the Dallas Arboretum, an accidental meeting again
Zinnias at the end of April, magic I have never known before
Tamarind margaritas, reminscent of Nicaragua
Texas peaches, small and sweet
Shiner Ruby Redbird, a beer filled with color and flight
Avocados ripe and delicious, ready to eat
Blackberries, big luscious
Texas blueberries, sweet this May

A white egret flies
Over our hotel
Every night
Flying home

Where do I fly home?
Home is St Paul where our life is
Home is Dallas where you are
Home is Philadelphia where I am rooted
In Budapest the first time, March 2010
I was home
Walking the streets of my great-grandparents
In St Istvan’s where Aunt Adeline was baptized
I knew her when I was a child
She was an old lady living in New Jersey
With Aunt Katie who spoke English
cut with the slash of Hungarian

Home is where you are
Where love is
Where I was raised in love
Where we raised our children in love
In love
Is home

Plump

My daughter says
My favorite word is plump

Rounded full
Spilling over into curves
Peaches are
So overflowing
Their scent follows
The sweet not sweet
Taste on my tongue
In the heat
Of a New Jersey
July day
I walk down sandy streets
Barnegat Bay on my west
The Atlantic at my east
To Viking Village
And the produce stand
I stop for an iced coffee
At the Village Brew
Dark bitter tangy
Cold cold cold
As the sea
The cup sweats
As I carry it
At last I stop at Tony’s
For my daily peaches
I hold them in my palm
With tenderness
Testing their weight
And their fragrance
a certain pull of
Subtle softness

To me a peach
Holds all that summer is
A plump lusciousness
Unknown in any other season

Prayer

Poetry is my prayer
solitude in chaos
quiet in the noise
soft falls the rain
wind on my face
a breath a sigh
flying in the sky
a red-tailed hawk circles
a feather drifts to ground
a sacred contemplation
a transmutation of
what happens
an alchemy distilled
to an essence
that is poetry.

Petroglyph Meditation #1

 

 

on a lush green slope
of Volcán Maderas
in dappled light
sun and shadow
weave a swathe
over rock strewn path
lava propelled from within
formed basalt, carved with spirals
falling from time and space
curvilinear lines
rendered on the surface
twisting coiled curving movements
a snake slithers across
a butterfly wings through air
a turtle swims
two volcanic peaks
known before
by other names
imagine these possibilities
made by hand long ago

Roses Embroidered on the Seams of her Jeans

Roses embroidered
on the seams of her jeans
ascended vertically
from ankle to knee
then climbed her thigh
a pink so lush
I could inhale their perfume
from across the empty parking lot
a beaded barrette with a single rose
of the same strength of pink,
held her inky hair away from her face
her shirt painted with the blue of Montana sky
her shoes echoed shirt and sky
a color impossible to believe
then she so deeply hued moved
deliberate, focused, fragile
back held straight
all her concentration on each step
as if moving to a rhythm
only she could hear
of age and illness woven
desperate to reach her end
the sun glinted off
her tinkling silver bracelets
each weighted with turquoise
her gnarled ring-less fingers
clutched the chrome handle
of the women’s restroom door
in the distance the Crazy Mountains
framed us
two dark-haired women
with the same destination