English Poems

The night approaches. Dusk drafts on buildings
their future ruins. Dusk deepens windows
and apertures. It hollows stones
with shadows like with water. It foretells
the near death of a hundred clouds
to the shining host. A thin layer of dust,
the seer leaves his footprints on the roofs
as he walks home from the future
not his own, swallowing his voice —
in its rays, fat blood flows down
the golden armor. Wet
blue entrails. Large heads
have rolled down the shoulders.
Speech has grown silent in deep mouths.

Who will stay behind, and what? A wind.
Blindness from the blind man disappearing.
A token of the sea: a strand of foam.
A cloud stuck in a tree.

Who will stay behind, and what? A single sound
as genesis regrasses its creation.
Like the violin rose that honors just itself.
Seven grasses of that grass do understand.

More than all the stars hence and northward,
that star will stay that sinks into a tear.
Forever in its jug, a drop of  wine remains.
What will be left here? God. Not enough for you?

The kids fighting
over 4 or 5 pennies
my ears ringing
bent to the shape
of   the spring moon I
am a crybaby

The present tense
is the body’ s past tense
here; hence
the ghost sludge of hands
on the now gray strip
of towel hanging limp
from the jammed dispenser;
hence the mirror
squinting through grime
at grime, and the worn-
to-a-sliver of soiled soap
on the soiled sink.
The streaked bowl,

Did you ever have a family?
Dark
dining room,
bright kitchen,
white steam
from the big pot my mother’ s stirring
reaching in wavy tendrils to her face,
around her face, all the way around

What never comes when called.
What hides when held.
Guest
most at home where least
expected. Vagrant
balm of Gilead.
What, soon as here,
becomes
the body’ s native ground and,

I.

By the road she hovers in heat waves,
propped up on a cinderblock wall,
revived by mixed house paints,
fending for herself like wild mint.

She is behind your shoulder,
a blind spot, your city's poverty.
A figure waits under a freeway ramp,
gesturing as if she knows you.

I.

The Santa Anas, childlike and profound,
blanket me; I see the dust stirring the valley
and clouding downtown San Bernardino;
I feel the sting of your loss.

The black oak leaves, brittle, tumbling,
crack under my feet. Is your hand
touching the dryness of my lips?

You sing: "Don't sit, mountain-still,
a coyote skull whistling."

I tug at the skin on my wrist, trying
to peel off the seam, my stubbornness.

Now, when he and I meet, after all these years,
I say to the bitch inside me, don’ t start growling.
He isn’ t a trespasser anymore,
Just an old acquaintance tipping his hat.
My voice says, “Nice to see you,”
As the bitch starts to bark hysterically.
He isn’ t an enemy now,
Where are your manners, I say, as I say,
“How are the children? They must be growing up.”
At a kind word from him, a look like the old days,

We who must act as handmaidens
To our own goddess, turn too fast,
Trip on our hems, to glimpse the muse
Gliding below her lake or sea,
Are left, long-staring after her,
Narcissists by necessity;