Streaming Read online

  she hit twenty, a claw or two

  remaining behind when she

  stepped off army blankets

  from WWII, into 2001—

  everything in pieces.

  1973

  Things come full circle, back to where they started.

  That’s Revolution. —RUSSELL MEANS

  It was war by any fine-toothed measure.

  When hunkered down in Grandma’s belly

  culled prickling quill resistance shuddered

  bunkers filled with fifteen-year-old horsemen

  shielding her tongue like any warrior would.

  When it was over, the tanks and troops shivered

  their way back to doom. Manifest licked wounds.

  leciya o iyokipi

  SOLAR FLARES

  solar flare

  noun Astronomy

  a brief eruption of intense high-energy radiation from the sun’s

  surface, associated with sunspots and causing electromagnetic

  disturbances on the earth, as with radio frequency

  communications and transmissions—

  At work, everyone smiling bellicose

  through teeth staked together

  jutted over clenched knees

  all knotted there.

  The Platte poured over choked

  in ice jams, floated past

  blocking all exits west.

  Droid compass

  stroked message spelled:

  Atypical Electromagnetic Field Detected.

  My finger near my ear

  gestured south, so still,

  turning was the only way out.

  Somewhere in this,

  I posted:

  Wisconsin Aid:

  To supply protesters with WATER contact

  Capitol Center Foods at 608-255-2616.

  To supply protesters with FOOD contact

  Burrito Drive at 608-260-8586,

  Silver Mine Subs at 608-286-1000,

  Ian’s Pizza at 608-257-9248,

  Pizza Di Roma at 608-268-0900,

  or Asian Kitchen at 608-255-0571

  on the union listserve.

  Seniority tuned-up

  lodging complaint

  “misuse of internet”

  knees, mandibles clacking—

  Me, I watched

  Which Way Home

  dreamed more for the children there

  and isn’t that why we organized, anyway? This flaring?

  FIRST MORNING

  for Nancy

  DC STR #1 Adams House Suite

  In a room facing chimneys

  over the place Nancy Morejón rests

  between sleeps lining free lines

  she whispers to hearing DC:

  Obsidiana, Vilma en Junio,

  Un Gato Pequeño A Mi Puerta.

  Morning is birdsong

  in an old Spanish town.

  Though the chief

  in his acquired misery

  echoes Kenya until he breathes

  life into malady, or at least compels

  us so to believe, she sleeps with

  Africa, Canton, and other points slavery

  turn Cuban in her bone breath

  bringing love, embrace, freedom from

  whatever holds the rest of us in weight.

  The lifting is simple, yet

  without it how sad we all be.

  Embargo=fear

  Yet here she is!

  Sugaring our boughs before we break.

  BARRIO TRICENTENARIO, PLAZA DE BANDERAS

  Wading footsteps of murdered

  in the barrio Juan calls home

  we sing our songs, tell stories,

  cry a bit when conquistador

  reenactors dance in color.

  Botero blasted away refilled

  with forty sculpted doves,

  in the city where from here

  I love you deeply and from

  there it was but a night.

  Butterflies fill streets

  verse winging ways fluttered

  by faces middling dark hours

  leveling light.

  Here you held

  my hand, urged I follow, let

  Bogotá beckon while we

  played our voices for victims

  recalled by lovers, grandmas,

  niños still swimming Escobar wakes.

  NIÑO DE LA CALLE

  A few coins? Can I leave you?

  Can I walk by without leaning in

  holding you close, telling you

  stars’ pathway beyond this math?

  Niño de la calle, every evening

  moving from the huffing voom

  to isolated despair, translucent,

  like me once, and I love you, I do.

  They tell me nothing can be done,

  the boys, gone to glue, abandoned here,

  believed gone. And I know the boy who

  left lockup for reservation home who

  returned to us his mind half-gone, so

  the asylum brain scan shown. I know.

  Yet, here, your eyes, damn it—

  Can I not leave this duty, the state, reach

  down, lift you, remember my own soul

  starved, muffled, what then?

  Each boy our son.

  CAMPOS

  In the camp, children

  suckle popsicles, ice cubes,

  turn tops same as every era

  sprawling north picking

  someone else’s money,

  handing it over in leathery

  balls, in tiny hearts, in stiff

  shoots they cradle, held there

  reverent to tastes, savory,

  clutched, cradled, caressed

  for someone else’s table.

  DUBLIN CROSSING

  for Jill

  Gulls call over black pool morning

  stout night, still sleeps.

  The Blue Boy, The Magdalene Laundries,

  everything echoes past, passed

  across waters black robed, anointed

  colonial crime.

  Two days ago, on Pearce, past Trinity

  a young man on his stoop, adjusted himself

  to my eyes, then vanished. The door was 146.

  Tricks the dead give when we move with them.

  In life, we bridge rivers, charge ha’penny crossings,

  trade things, abandon—

  In the end, each child crucified splits scenes, bides.

  WAS MORNING CALL

  for Ibrahim & LeAnne

  It was morning call streaming some emic encoding, ceremonial invitation, invocation mood-altering song, stilling wanderlust premise into meditative contemplation, into internalized presence, familiar. After the first dawn, we awaited every other, from hotel rooftops or friends’ balconies, juxtaposed there against sky and sound in shared sense no matter the difference. There is none, in that place. If you are in. We came to it. My son and I scan the edges of courtyards, alleyways, between building spaces for cats looking something like we haven’t seen in cats before. Something specifically natured Amman, or anywhere else cityscaped we happened to move toward. It was figs, olives generously let into our armholds by Basma smiling or any number of wonderful soulful women who were so happy to meet us, thrilled we attempted language, fond with memories of attending schools in North America, back not long ago. It was whistles for children, clicks for calls, weddings every night in the lobby and ballroom, music, music, music, and song. It was Sufi chanting away angers and misunderstandings when other people from our countries grieved them with inconsiderate proselytizings, demands, or senseless banter. It was feeling funny when called a sa-vage and responding that’s what they try to tell us about you, too, shared laughter echoing back, o Indi Ahmed. Art stunning apartment walls around Ibrahim Nasrallah and more writers’ union poets. Wine, Palestinian, opened just for us after being bottled for so many decades discussion ensued to recall the variables. It was hum
us for pennies, oil so soft, the scent of it, fragrant, endearing. It was qahweh for free and chayi for almost nothing. Bits of fruit and desserts given as samples simply to celebrate someone attempting to order in Arabi, like me. It was cab rides through asthma for fifty cents when others were charged so ridiculously we all gathered round to laugh at the foolishness. Camels and Bedouin camped on the road just outside town. Bedouin, calling us Bedouin, too. King’s crows, hooded, black, white, black, hang around King Abdullah’s grave, longing for royal handouts, tourists tolls, guilt debts, manners of monarchy. It was morning call streaming some emic encoding, invocation, mood altering, stilling brought us home in some shared known never faltering despite the bullets streaming, in spite of ourselves. Stilling for a song, singing.

  HATCHLINGS

  for LeAnne

  Here we hatch like robin eggs split shells

  lying near tree talking base, creaking,

  clearly knocking out loud through ovaled trunk

  into split shoulder blades as you stand singing aside her.

  She a mother tree, matriarch like you, Anitsata,

  hosting half-dozen daughter-sisters surrounding her.

  You with your Southern head above grass, leaves, waters,

  under skies ripe with Wampano/Quiripi in a place

  skated in poet-wielded canoes, some standing balanced, rowing.

  We both know—

  Here, l, n, r, y dialectical embrace

  asunder a, b, c—z notions child’s play.

  Nothing near Mercy Nonsuch, nothing

  Nehantic left to this Old Lyme section, or is it?

  We muse lingua franca, 1658 catechism, pidginized—

  rudimentary ruse relishing our retreat to this river shore,

  where, here, we note loss, burning undergrowth forgotten

  steering deer ticks toward their painful human pleasures.

  In this place known for speaking grounds, knocking things—

  This place of Borrelia burgdorferi, mimicking Euro-gifted

  syphilis, from white-footed mice, sure-footed deer—

  Like Little Deer who punished with rheumatism touch, back

  where we’re from.

  For those who had no reason—

  Here we are hatched into this place ripened with paper splitting

  shell language

  loss lingering long, limbs lifting hatchlings into lingual-tongued

  blue shell shaken skies.

  PEANUT POND

  Under poplars, maples

  between turtles, black bass,

  beauty between pollen

  skimmed waters,

  Canadians, two pair, lead

  at least twenty-four goslings,

  creep in from human worry

  nearer peeper lives.

  Heron swoop dailies,

  kerosene-lighted nights.

  Sometimes duty fails academic.

  Poetry, practice of everything else:

  paddled waters, lilies, samaras,

  pine needled, caned sprigs,

  some sweet vine

  wraps hollow maple

  flowering while I pen

  over your writing

  in the base of this canoe.

  Mooring for a moment

  over waterworlds below.

  Only shift, paddle dip.

  To still, straighten.

  CARCASS

  for Ceca

  Carcass kindled like a rucksack

  jerky-filled snack for Crow & Beetle.

  Split skin stretched over marrowless cage,

  encased dry tomb, like those strewn

  through this loess reach, cradling past

  ever present here, and now you come

  walking riverside, bringing sensory thrill

  into daylight much like this Cervidae

  culled morning each waking before

  demise. We move this way, catching life

  until death captures us, where we rot

  into the same dust holding multitudes

  before us, and welcoming those beyond.

  We lift this measure. Toss casing, frame to

  wind over shoulders, swaddling human

  in ruminant mammal rim, softening intake

  in sleek steps alongside rivered bellies

  like stones turn time back into brink.

  Here, where I find you dovetailing wind

  into hoofprint, your antler turned away

  as if to sway yourself back. Me, I follow,

  wrapping myself, enclosed interment, where

  we peek from time to time, huddling here,

  heaving morning, lifting once more, dense

  fog from repository remains we quicken

  in paint, punch key pummel. ’Tis the nest

  of this that brings us here. ’Tis the hide

  we wallow. Carcass veil blanketing morning

  like this foot feels split hooves, now

  knuckled deep between us two. He’s

  with us all the way to page, leading,

  death propelling promise, revisit, renew,

  rekindle—’Tis the seat of it now. ’Tis the life—

  River come clean carcass, makeover mad

  rush with insight, first dawn taste—take.

  MAY SUITE

  WEATHERBAND/FM/AM

  2013, Moore, Oklahoma

  After a while you can’t hear about it anymore,

  switch to something more melodic

  shift to something Heart & Soul

  92.1/1140 KRMP

  Cowboys of Color Rodeo

  soothes you wind blown

  when the Teacher of the Month comes

  grade school disciples shield

  fixurlifeup, fix your life up.

  WE WERE IN A WORLD

  We were in a world, in a world, in a world. Sure, we had our glyphs, but we were providential. Once, some alphabet believers, glass purveyors, Ursus Arctos killers, sent all bailiwick on cursed course far faster gyration backspin, birling intrinsic angular momentum—boson melts. Spinning, it careened away iceberg, iceberg, iceberg; glacier braced time traced yesterday unshakable base—all below flushed alluvion torrent, Niagara pour, special spate, flux, flow, until their coastal citadels moldered from cyclone, tsunami, hurricane gale. Tornadoes tossed turf wherever they pleased. Eruptions molded Her back into something She deemed worthy. Not to mention quakes. And the people, the people, the People, pushed into cataclysm, a few generations from alphabet book imposed catechism, soon were calamity tragedy storm splinters, fragmented particles of real past, in a world gone away from oratory, song, oraliteratures, orations into gyrations reeling. Soon hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot. Hot, dying mangroves, disappearing Waimea Bay, dengue fever, butterfly range shift, meadow gone forest, desert sprung savannah, caribou, black guillemots, bats, frogs, snails—gone. What will sandhill cranes crave? Winged lay early. Reefs bleach. Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, snow, snow, snow, fires flaming fiercely, fascinated in their own reflecting glare. Marmots rise early. Mosquitoes endure longer, lasting biting spreading West Nile. Polar bears quit bearing. Robins, swallows, enter Inuit life. Thunder finds Iñupiat. Here, it is said, glyphs left rock wall, stone plates, bark, branch, leapt animated into being, shook shoulders, straightened story, lifted world upon their wing bone, soared into Night, to place World back into socket eased sky—stilled us. Some say the soup leftover was worded with decolonized language. Some say the taste lingers even now.

  IN THE YEAR 513 PC

  In the year 513 PC—post-contact, post-Columbus, post–cultural invasion—In the year, 513 PC, we heard fluting sounds from southern feathered, feathered never here before this rhyme, never here without zookeeper logic trace. Never. No. Prior to this vast erasure those sounds fell way below equator, left us here without the slightest notion all along. Now robins sing early, leaving them hungry for later worms. Now no bird’s leaving, tides receding, waters capture sand like evening fog: Virgin Islands, Ga
lápagos Islands, Cook Islands, Belize Barrier Reef, Red Sea Reefs, Great Barrier Reef, Tokyo, Jakarta, London, New York, New Orleans—we’ve seen it quarter blown—engraved. Big Easy slipping far past fate of no return, her trumpets flaring. We’re all a jazz funeral display, singing, dancing, masking ourselves to crypt enclave. Banging drums, sounding horns, driving ourselves while making faces leap from costumed weathermen; back to wards, social clubs, quarters. Not so surprising in a place where nothing counts, unless it’s Creole singing. Looking back, signs gave taste to trepidation, foretold all ten years to known. If we’d only seen the writing, bird tracks left etched on earthen wall. 513 you’d scarcely remember until it had all been drowned. Someone still calling, “Saving the Earth is not a competition, but an essential collaboration.”

  TWISTIN’ THE NIGHT AWAY

  2013, Oklahoma

  How that man in evening clothes got here

  well, you know, feel much better.

  Sometimes dancing’s all we got.

  Sometimes move with it, we rock.

  Sometimes take off, see him go,

  just like any other show,