A Language of Stones

will it be from the neck down`

or from the inside out

all at once or minute by minute

the flatirons are pink today

the thin air is warm

when I first laid eyes on

this place

I said to myself

I feel lucky

 

–your grandmother had this

–yes but she was old

–people survive this

–yes but they are charmed

 

stopped time

and in that black and white paralysis

that alley I hurry past

the grainy slip I hasten to cover

the midday gloom I soon snap out of

in that frozen moment

I sit stranded

 

something awful

in stopping the action

action is what it’s about

that the scene will change

train will come

food arrive

morning progress into afternoon

these are the only assurances left

 

Glossary:

Bone marrow aspiration: A procedure in which a needle is inserted into the center of a bone,

usually the hip, to remove a small amount of bone marrow for microscopic inspection.

 

one minute lying in bed

say it’s Sunday say it’s snowing

and the calendar is blank

can sleep or not the day

stretches out in all directions

 

the next minute avalanche

new snow on old

powder slides off ice

and me underneath

 

liver problems

seizures

mouth sores

anemia

 

will they mistake me for dead

shoo away the copters

pick up their long probes

call of the dogs and alert the media

 

bone marrow depression

hair loss

bloody urine

sterility

 

but I’m here

cleared a space by my mouth

made the swimming motions

taught in survival school

 

snow is warm

toes are distant

hands closer

don’t give me up for lost

 

have done

all I could

done what they said to

now it’s your turn

Dear Aimée,    

You’ve probably had all the stories and advice

you can take. For what it’s worth, my advice is

don’t let the doctor get away with anything.

Remember, the medical profession has had

about 10,000 years to figure out how people

work and they’re still basically clueless.                                                                                

 

•••••••

dear Elise can’t dress myself

one day fine and the next it’s over

one cell has lost its mission

one cell has lost its orders

a serial killer off his rocker

out on parole and lose in my body

oh your poor thing

this tainted thought could put me under

each morning astonished to be here

can’t murder me I’m a mother

starts here wraps under the arm

and everyone needs to see it

cover the mirrors

this isn’t bravery but momentum

 

dear Elise on the other side already

what people fret about seems insane

already backstage watching your performance

I can see the ropes and pulleys

one day fine and the next it’s over

a serial killer of his rocker

hair in the sink and on the pillow

one cell has lost it’s mission

can’t murder me I’m a mother

taste of mental in my mouth

taste of metal in my mouth

this tainted thought could put me under

envision this room without me

without yourself a world of furniture

each morning astonished to be here

 

the smallest task too much

dear Elise can’t dress myself

one day fine and the next it’s over

envision this room without me

cover the mirrors

compelled to exhibit my scar

and everyone needs to see it

starts here wraps under the arm

and nobody is immune

I can see the ropes and pulleys

oh you poor thing

this isn’t bravery but momentum

notice my earrings on the bureau

if you squeeze a moment what comes out

 

without yourself a world of furniture

taste of metal in my mouth

happened so fast didn’t pack a toothbrush

out on parole and lose in my body

what people fret about seems insane

if you squeeze a moment what comes out

this isn’t bravery but momentum

calendar ruffling sheets tearing off

hair in the sink and on the pillow

don’t ask what we’re doing next summer

a serial killer off his rocker

hanging’s much too good for him

dear Elise can’t dress myself

envision this room without me

 

I can see the ropes and pulleys

dear Elise on the other side already

and everyone needs to see it

happened so fast didn’t pack a toothbrush

taste of metal in my mouth

and nobody is immune

what people fret about seems insane

compelled to exhibit my scar

cover the mirrors

notice my earrings on the bureau

one day fine and the next it’s over

one cell has lost its orders

don’t ask what we’re doing next summer

This disease is not the enemy–it’s the

despair.

a squalid place the land of the living

recently been there so I can tell

they roll their sleeves just so

as if arms will hang there forever

then shoot their cuffs and check the time

 

the time

can you stand it

 

a sneaky lot I warn you

know when a stranger is around

smell it maybe that metallic taste

in back of the throat translates

outward to a three-foot radius

 

tell me I didn’t sham like that

toss my proud head make

filthy jokes at the body’s expense

(immune they think

vaccinated by bad luck all around)

tell me I didn’t sham like that

when I lived

down there among them

Dear Aimée,

Here is California’s most sacred

mountain.

Sending you healing and good

recovery.

And our best love under this

full moon.

hammers and saws

men shouting

on the edge of a canyon

fault left in the earthquake’s wake

laundry hung in the sun

who would do such a thing

one misstep and

one miscalculation and

a ball thrown too far and

must be corruption

land is cheap at the edge

cliffside heights

lemming acres

who would do such a thing

on the precipice

death in your pocket

short trip to the other side

where is this place and why is it so important

that I should be here?

 

BULLETIN OF THE HEMLOCK SOCIETY

Question:  Is cyanide a good means of self-deliverance from a terminal illness?

 

Answer:  Although cyanide in substantial quantities is a sure way of death we do

not recommend it. The   dying might be extremely painful.

 

What would you have done with forty years?

What does anyone do?

••••••

Dear Aimée, 

Sometimes we’ve got to do a

little dying–-

 

rearrange the body furniture–-

to live more fully.

 

Spirit instructed me to send

these to you.

 

Even with wax in my ears I

know

 

who to listen to.

Something putrid in the blood

An unforgivable lapse in my angels’

attention? So the calendar

collapses, flattens–-no more mountain

of abundant blissful

mornings–- maybe not a single day.

Each day

memory of blood

recedes. It’s that blissful

amnesia of sleep–- just me and my angels

jousting a newborn mountain,

ruffling the copious calendar.

Spiteful calendar.

Skinflint day.

You got a mountain

of heartache, little lady, and your blood–-

well, just say it’s up to the angels

now… Remember blissful?

Not blissful ignorance, blissful

bliss, the human brute with a bursting calendar.

To hell with plaster angels.

Detonate a cartridge of day–

light at them, the blood–

less eunuchs. A solid mountain,

a holiday weekend, a mountain

of mail–-cast my lit with these. Blissful

friends, whose blood

has not yet betrayed you, the calendar

is finite, as is the day.

Wake up dopey angels!

And be watchful–-the angels

want for company, the mountain

is a hologram, the day

just a notion, a blissful

mirage. Your cunning cat calendar

is out for fresh blood.

When the angels

are sated, they flock to their mountain.

A new day.

Dear Aimée,

We are sticking with you, praying

daily for you and thinking of you

throughout out routines and the

mundane/sacramental moments of

our days with a love that will not let

you go.

 

The Language of Stones
Languid Bones
Anguish of One
Off Anger Goes
A Gate of Hell Opens
The Grid Unknown
Age the Land
Heal Change Hands
Rage of Halos
Agate of Eels
A Fog of Edges
Feel Notes and Tones
Change Ate Tongues
Go After and Tell
The Language of Stones

 

I know I’ve had a life

scar my twins came out of

pills pumped out of my stomach

watercolors painted while tripping

papers I wrote in college

Secret Service grabs my notebook

rolling around in the desert

sheet music I practiced and practiced

speech I gave with loud applause

presents I got and those I gave

my silk shawl my velvet cape

teaching song to my campers

wheezing a green inhaler in my hand

drunk and singing on top of the piano

that’s me with my shirt off at Watkins Glen

me fighting a rapist on Brook Street

in Providence on Chapel Hill

in Berkely and Boulder

at the Fontainebleau too young to notice

on the Vineyard broke into a beach house

in Munich thrown out of the hostel

on South Main thrown out of the campground

in Telluride under a waterfall

in Paris merlot for breakfast

in Savannah and Santa Fe

at the wheel and at the keyboard

see these letters all written by me

 

more at peace with the end

than with the beginning

dreading children’s adolescence

not dragging out my own

imagine both of us old still married

crossing the Ponte Vecchio

holding on for dear life

furtively watching for signs of fatigue

when did this shift take place

at the continental divide you piss

and suddenly it goes to the Pacific

not back the other way

just where is that point

•••••

Children offer access to the tragic;

to the great dark that stands outside our windows,

and in the urgency of their needs bestow significance; their fragile

lives veer toward the dangerous margins … beyond the narrow

path we have learned to tread.

 

get well soon mom

be well soon

your a great mom mom

 

Plastic hammers and styrofoam slingshots

harmless renderings of tools and weapons

lessons to be driven to

shoes outgrown bought outgrown again

your time moves faster than mine

your needs multiply and manifest

while mine  dwindle  diminish  disappear

Because I am always trying to ensure my children’s safety, keeping a vigil, I’m

paralyzed. I couldn’t respond to a fresh crisis if it arose, because I’m still tending

the old one. Even if I buy the safest car, my children are sometimes pedestrians. As

I watch over the in illness, new viruses mutate. The task is impossible because

control is impossible, even in the present. And the present is gone before I can type the word Now.

 

Knight:    You’ve tricked and cheated me!

But we’ll meet again and I’ll find a way.

 

Death:    We’ll meet at the inn, and there

we’ll continue playing.

 

take this rose beauty it will cost me dearly my task is to off the ineffable to explicate

the workings how to comment on the fall while in thin air the scenery a blur as it

goes north and I south ladies and gentlemen I implore you no I admonish you no I

have been sent here to say this or else and we can’t have that

 

this position has its advantages I can see the ropes and pulleys the next act waiting

to go on the last one ripping off her painful corset but they can’t see me the shoddy

fabric of the curtain the unpaid salary of the maestro the forced laughter of the

planted shills nobody loves the theatre like I do but the illusion has dropped away

and is necessary no more

 

listen to this I say my old Beatles record read this my childhood favorite read this

my college obsession I want you to remember in case nino rota themes from fellini

old stand-up routines you never heard of the borscht belt your grandparents met

there there’s not much time look at the photos read the subtitles here’s the best part

 

the transit of Saturn the connection of Neptune and Uranus the waitron landscape

of my glands and lymph the fifth amendment the twenty third psalm the names in

the phonebook the square root of seven the heart of darkness the intolerable light

of noon the words to this song the screams of our mothers the gold standard at

lunchtime the language of stones

 

Saturday morning walked to the edge I said okay push me off push me off before

we hike left hand ditch before I finish the crossword read Joanne’s new poem push

me off before this peanut butter sandwich this struggle with a rag wool sweater the

phone is ringing should I get it should I will the call be completed push me off

before I drive everyone crazy holding their breaths here you hold mine

 

Dear Aimée,

 

Strange late rains this year.

 

Lots of pollen.

 

Hang in there.

what I have done

does not bear repeating

where I’ve been we’ll save for later

just say the walls stood fast

the forecast was not good

but that story is for another time

when there are

no fevers to break

wounds to bandage

no other better emergencies to distract

a mother from her own

•••••••

Dear Aimée,

I wish you didn’t have to go through this. I wish you

could choose your adventures rather having them

thrown in your path.

got a canuck healer living

with my picture in his pocket

got a templeful of buddhists

blowing incense in my name

housewife psychic up in longmont

sees my future through the phoneline

someone’s sister in pawtucket

threads my wish into her rosary

virgin-spotting chicana

drops glass beads into the mail

 

this is no time theology

 

twenty orthodox rabbis

wait to take my call in brooklyn

fax a prayer into ancient temple wall

scrap of paper hebrew letters

 

wail on

wail on in name

wail on in prime time

wail on via satellite

 

handle snakes speak in tongues

entreat buddha bang gongs

candlelit sooty chapel

raise a holy howl in my name

for my name’s sake

moment of silence

thirty second share of off-peak access air

 

your little daughter

doesn’t know me tell her

I’m a lovely person

tell her I’m your college roommate

or a princess in a burning tower

tell her I’ve got children too

she can bless me in her nightie

after grandma and the cat

 

whose prayers are heard

and whose aren’t who knows

take no chances

all the tongues of babel loosen

let them loose hallelujah

 

crystal round my neck

crucifix on my dresser

shaman down in Texas with

an all-night toll free number

 

cash in your good intentions

put my picture on the altar

read my poems in manning chapel

get my planets alignment

help my chakras to reopen

wail on in my name

my ailing name

 

novena for my blood count

standing shema

half-built sanctuary

 

AN ASIDE:

Dear Friends,

 

Is all this too much for you? Do you tire of my illness, of your duty to remain

concerned, patient, and sympathetic? Do you miss the old me, who was hopeful,

cheerful, and above all, free to show compassion for your troubles?

 

Your problems annoy me now. They are petty and small-minded, distant from my

own, the scratchy half-heard emanations from a shortwave radio.

 

I have exited the planet, taken leave of the race as you understand it. And you–-

with your flyaway hair, caddish lover, noisy neighbor and overdrawn account–-

should find solace elsewhere.

 

could reach for the shaman inside

tape her shoulder as she squats by the fire

she might come around

 

but there’s a knock at the door

something’s burning on the stove

the woodpile is low

and the mailbox full

 

could call her now

if only the daily maelstrom

would subside

keeping up   saving face   buying time

making messes that will

no doubt

need cleaning up

 

ancient woman teeth worn stumps

resembling me fiercely cries Leap!

but to my sorrow I know

beyond this mountain lies another then another

that even north entire continent

rises up to impede my progress

 

wise one is huddled close

warming her hands

watching jagged hurdles beyond the high plains

gauging wind conditions and atmospheric pressure

awaiting her time

Cancer is a disease caused by deep resentment held

for a long time until it literally eats away at the body.

how do you know when you’re ready

you don’t

you’re never ready

just take butch cassidy’s hand

get a running start

and yell Shit

as the ground falls away beneath

easy to believe that here

solid swirls   rock erodes

canyon winds lift roofs

with no return address

•••••••

this world so remote from the one I grew up in

so alien that leaving it will seem redundant

this is where we go to begin again

there was where we had always been

Pennsylvania Station where we changed for points south

Scribner’s gilded box full of books

the departed Messrs. Constable Wanaker and Simon

 

our customers bargained in Yiddish

numbers on their arms

we sold them charms for jingling bracelets

Eiffel Tower

Trylon

silver dice from Vegas

birthstone   class ring   baby tooth

 

Dear Aimée,          Do you remember?

Life continues to amaze and elude me, even at our

age.

Somehow I though certainty would take over with

time.

I’m still married to the same woman, and we have

three daughters.

 

The kids are great. I love being a dad.

Do you ever think about me?

1971 was several lives ago; our escapades seem

downright dangerous to me now.

These days, it takes only two beers to put me right

out.

 

Whoever thought we’d both get married, become

parents, and worry?

 

I’m so glad we ran wild when we still could.

Enclosed is a picture of our house in Buenos Verdes. I

put in that landscaping myself.

 

Write back, but only if you want to. Bless you.

 

Music by the dead, for the dead. 

The stars you see have long since burned.

The world for which these symphonies and etudes

were written lies buried and arcane–

gilded opera houses razed for parking,

sumptuous ballgowns trussed up in museums.

 

The past often intrudes without meaning to.

A laughtrack embalms the chuckles of the dead.

That easily-amused audience has all gone home, now

is newly arisen with elbows in our ribs.

 

It is dangerous to laugh with a ghostly chorus,

to share the lusts of corpses, the mirth of terminal cases

with sandbags above their heads.

Give me the present any day. 

 

This week’s Top Forty and not the last’s,

today’s weather, purged of blind predictions, 

with no regret for old selves, vanished times,

or lost songs by the dead musician.

 

A benevolent Providence…mercifully allowed everything to

deteriorate 

 

during one’s lifetime. The summers got worse, the music noisier

and more

 

senseless, the buildings uglier, the roads more congested, the

trains slower

 

and dirtier, governments sillier and the news more depressing.

 

Solid as a Checker cab,

out of which might emerge some hoyden

with a muff, the sailor in the photo

grabs the nurse and kisses her.

Later, out of the frame, he tied one on

and had some other girl’s

name tattooed along the biceps.

Each letter bobs with the flex.

 

Here in the old Biltmore,

under the social season’s timepiece,

Wolcott met Benchley for poker,

Garbo stood bored in her boa,

and countless couples kissed,

or though of kissing.

 

The Biltmore clock ticks under glass now,

in the lobby of an international brokerage house.

Stripped of its content and out of a job.

The war is over.

Helipad on the Flatiron.

Trussed clothing swings from a rack.

The keystone and the arch.

 

The process was no doubt a merciful one because,

when he came to the end of his allotted span,

the average citizen was quite glad to go.

 

The carpet was red and the walls eggshell,

mirrors reflection the golden buggies,

carousel horses, Model T’s and fire engines

where we sat. A children’s barber shop resting 

in a huge white department store in old New York.

 

The entrance was bronze, book in the windows,

books inside and along the ceiling on the balconies.

Men wore hats then, and women, gloves.

 

Trains from Santa Fe and Bangor, sleepers and Pullmans,

private coaches with steamer trunks, unloaded travelers

under the vaulted ceiling. More divine than St. Peter’s,

more teeming than Herald Square.

 

The week the papers went on strike,

the old Mayor, the Little Flower,

was on the Philco, reading us the comics

so we wouldn’t miss a thing–

Little Orphan Annie, Dondi, The Katzenjammer Kids.

 

•••••••

SEVEN DREAMS

 

I’m making a film, sitting high up on a hydraulic lift and peering into a camera. The

scene is poolside and I get so engrossed in capturing the two swimmer that I ‘drive’

the camera, the chair, and myself right into the pool. All I can do is yell, “Did I get

the shot”?

 

I’m waiting at a railroad station. But I wait for days. Soon it becomes clear that I’m

not sure which train is mine, nor am I sure that I could tell the right one if it did

arrive. It’s my college reunion, and the commemorative gift is little squares of

Providence, about two feet on each side. I buy three, all outside my favorite bar.

 

We go to a wedding in a seaside town, maybe Newport. But there is a hurricane and

monstrous waves are crashing over the outdoor reception, like some Japanese

horror film. The chairs and tables look like dollhouse furniture. Mike assures me

we’ll be safe and dry under the striped canopy.

 

Twenty of us are living in a high-ceilinged former ballroom in New York City. It’s

supposed to be a commune, but the place is so choked with beds, stoves, and

people’s belongings, that nobody has any privacy and we can barely move.

 

I am the only on this bothers.

 

My brother and I go to San Fransisco. The only hotel is a convent house in an

abandoned shopping center. The place is spare and bare, with high crucifixes all

over.

 

I move to Boulder and meet my old college boyfriend. He insists he and I have an

eight-year-old daughter, even though I haven’t seen him in 15 years. She does look

like me.

 

you will be weak but you will have survived

make a canyon between yourself and the past

trust in the dark woods

make use of everyone

how long is someone missed

can’t cry forever

gotta eat sometime

first day back to work

all respect all distance 

but then someone makes a crack

and suddenly you’re laughing

how awful

but there it is

things are funny you laugh

and you go on

I don’t know why people are mortal and fated to die.

And I don’t know why people die at the time and in

the way that they do.

You call these choices?

A choice is mustard or mayo,

Tucson or San Diego,

Sedan or wagon.

Which way to suffer

is not a choice,

 

Balance Due: $896.08

 We realize sometimes medical costs can be a financial burden. We are happy to offer you the following payment alternativesL

*a hospital sponsored bank loan

*the ease of paying with Mastercard or Visa

*an approved payment plan

 

MEMO:

Subject: Time Utilization

 

Summary: In the light of recent events it will be necessary to conserve time.          

Therefore the following chances must be instituted without delay:

 

*curtail newspaper reading–eliminate twos of three dailies

 

*children and husband will be encouraged to make their own meals–cold cereal,

eggs and sandwiches are now acceptable dinner items

 

*screen all phone calls–return only a small percentage of these

 

*bargain-hunting is forbidden; all items will be purchased when most convenient,

no matter what the price

 

*tape all desired television programs so the commercials may be deleted

 

*no personal or household item will be saved for a special occasion–everything is

to be used as desired

 

*volunteer work shall be terminated immediately–all charities should be

dispatched 

 

*drop all peripheral persons (relatives included) without apology

 

*there will be no sending of thank-you notes, letters to the editor, Christmas cards

or dinner invitations

 

*inessential maintenance of person and possessions will either cease or be

contracted out

 

Thank you for your attention in this matter.

 

Sincerely,

The Management 

 

back to the upper world

I return as my own older sister

she understands immunity 

and its laughable failings

now where has that girl got to

no longer a platypus among humans

the webbing begins to dissolve

can freely move on dry land 

those are not eggs hatching but

warm male mammals my children

 

made peace with the calendar

at least the square marked today

holds a legible notation 

no less present than before

as malleable a space as anyone needs

to do what time allows

 

tempted though to retreat 

Santa Fe  Florence  Vancouver 

a place beyond oh you poor thing

a place removed from cursedness

where no surface once held 

bloodied gauze and used syringes

where no mirror retains the image

 

last year at this time some sneak made off with my life

show yourself you coward

come out into the light and face me

and now has shame-faced returned it

ripped and with some pages missing

but intact enough to use

no apology  no nothing

He knows he’ll never walk down the street again, never go

into a restaurant or museum. He knows that.

 

•••••••

that’s me all right

smiling dumbly at the traffic cop 

ER doc on new year’s eve

the iced-over trash 

that’s me on the left 

hair mostly grown back

squinting into the light

 

will it be from the top down 

or from the inside out

will I forget and keep forgetting

or will I remember everything

Paul the cute one

George the quiet one

John

sorry girls he’s married

 

My Dear Theo,

 

My work is going very well, I am finding things that I have sought in

vain for years, and feeling this, I am always thinking of that saying of

Delacroix’s that you know, namely that he discovered painting when

he no longer had any breath or teeth left. 

a throwaway moment

phone is silent

hungry ghost preoccupied 

and when the plot resumes

something has changed 

some argument settled

what had been shaky 

has found a shoring-up-place

 

like when a relentless buzzing in your ears

finally lets up

just as you were thinking

of having it looked intp

the quiet is disquieting

 

the buzz had become your companion

and now the airwaves have all gone silent

so there’s no need

to feverishly twist the dial

waiting to tune into something better

somewhere else

 

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