The fake Parthenon in Nashville, Stonehenge reduced by a quarter
near Maryhill on the Columbia, the little Statue of Liberty
taken from the lawn of the high school and not recovered
for months,
Simon Rodia’ s Watts Towers in the tile maker’ s shape of a ship
to sail home in, the house in the shape of a ship near Milwaukee
They are not angels
though they have the hollow look
of beings bred on ether. There’ s an air
of cool removal from your life, the hawk’ s
indifference to the hare’ s terror.
You see it in their palms, raised casually
against the fresco’ s surface, as to glass
of submarine or spacecraft, and you see
it in their eyes, oracular, that let you pass
alone to unknown agony. The song
The stars are
Although I do not sing
About them —
The sky and the trees
Are indifferent
To whom they please
The rose is unmoved
By my nose
And the garland in your hair
Although your eyes be lakes, dies
And I was born with you, wasn’ t I, Blues?
Wombed with you, wounded, reared and forwarded
from address to address, stamped, stomped
and returned to sender by nobody else but you,
Blue Rider, writing me off every chance you
got, you mean old grudgeful-hearted, table-
turning demon, you, you sexy soul-sucking gem.
Live jazz at El Fresco is one guy, electric plinks,
until he turns off the switch, closes his eyes,
and warbles a boy’ s tenor, wood-flute tones,
pure séance hymns from before Christians.
Rowdies at the bar stop fighting and stare
as seawater washes through the room,
seeping through floorboards to serpent dens.
The chorus stirs spirits from family lore.
Desmond, Big Miller, James MackGehee —
all rise from steerage and sing with the lords.
I.
The empty of stomach
manifests silence
a stillness
that levels
coffee in a cup
and in a respectful manner
allows steam to penetrate
the surface.
Reversal of action
has created my sandstone canyon
rooted cedar and sage at my feet.
This movement is where
a tranquility stems.
Seeing photos
of ancestors
a century past
is like looking
at your own
fingerprints —
circles
and lines
you can't
recognize
until someone else
with a stranger's eye
looks close and says
that's you.
I lift my body one leg then another over the cold curve of
the claw-foot tub
Like a walking stick with a colossal cocoon attached
A beast and a mutant I am this
Hooked on the steam of hot water I
Negotiate stretched skin a sore spine the splitting of imminent birth
What do you want
Mammoth a domemoon stomach
Carved by spidery trails former settlement
You in there baby think you’ re ready for this
My grandmother Eliza
was the family surgeon.
Her scalpel made from a pocketknife
she kept in a couple of pinches of snoose.
She saved my life by puncturing
my festering neck twice with her knife.
She saved my brother’ s life twice
when his arm turned bad.
The second time she saved him
was when his shoulder turned bad.
She always made sure
she didn’ t cut an artery.
She would feel around for days
finding the right spot to cut.
When a doctor found out
she saved my brother’ s life
Question: Can you tell us about what he is wearing?
Well, the hooves represent the deer’ s hooves,
the red scarf represents the flowers from which he ate,
the shawl is for skin.
The cocoons make the sound of the deer walking on leaves and grass.
Listen.
Question: What is that he is beating on?
It’ s a gourd drum. The drum represents the heartbeat of the deer.
Listen.
When the drum beats, it brings the deer to life.
We believe the water the drum sits in is holy. It is life.
Go ahead, touch it.
