What Makes It What Doesn’t Make It

two
s. lee photo

What Makes It What Doesn’t Make It

and the resourceful creatures see clearly

that we are not really at home

in the interpreted world.  Perhaps there remains

some tree on a slope, that we can see

again each day: there remains to us yesterday's street,

and the thinned-out loyalty of a habit

that liked us, an so stayed, and never departed.

                                             Rainer Maria Rilke 

                                             The First Elegy

Q: What’s your definition of bravery?  Or maybe not definition, but how do you arrive at it?

A:

What makes it maybe is the length

of time its looked at and then seen

seen to bring it meaning to make it more

than mean to tip it off or be

tipped off the                 (remember the first time you learned

                                       what a fulcrum was and was it

                                       a crowbar for you and an arrow or was it

                                       a stick for you and an arrow or was it

                                       a wheelbarrow for you and didn’t you look

                                       a long long time too long wasn’t it

                                       a shard of  your life you were looking

                                       how can I get a wheel-

                                       barrow (and be honest, up until then

                                                       you were spelling barrel) how

                                       how can I get a stick how

                                       how a crow

                                            bar iron enough to lift

                                            jack cool enough to (in summer)

                                            lay down the tip then the middle

                                            of your tongue to tingle it entirely through to the root

                                            before rust comes up like blood before it all                                                                                              comes up like blood look look it square

                                                       (and why square why not round why not                                                                              rhombus or tri-

                                                                                               angle)?

in the face maybe take it into your eye that has a tongue

all its own and it’s got the potential

to be a drinking man

bold at the bar a  man’s man a fire

fighter whose last tail

of smoke is still

living in the crimp

of his kangaroo and kevlar glove what one

he pulled off with his teeth

after he lifted the three

children come together as one

under the bed one soft almost gelled

body Jesus this trinity and now his bare hands

on the what was but is now now tell me

that isn’t a fulcrum designed at lifting bravery

face it face it face it gravely before you let it shudder

because by god who’s going

to believe eyes that see seas that see Sistines that see

runts of the litter come back screaming in a fire I’m telling you

he looked she looked : they faced and saved each other,

                                                they angled the fulcrum

                                                of light and quietly when no none was

                                                watching

                                                lifted it lifted it enough to take it

                                                and ran ran ran for their very lives.

                                                It is the prize of all prizes

stick

stick

Finally in full bloom the live oak

received them all six to come to

squawk and gawp on the lawn

and spread their good news noise

to the whole street.  Oh oak,

oak, to take it like a dog, or

a faithful lady- in- waiting while they

hop from branch to branch, while

I watch them pick a brief bearing

to squat to not to squat to quibble

maybe but to gain the best view

to set off from.  The dead

thing is not far from your trunk:

struck by the tour bus, it’s life fell out

like children who mis-

judge the distance to the next

branch and they slip, foot or fist

and feel themselves listening

from a different part of their body

than they even knew could

listen, the soft possibility between

their legs full of charge, the privacy

they’ve always been warned to

protect, the way crows protect

their ownership of their dead, or not

the same way maybe, but still

with a bit of noise, with some jumping from

bar to bar on the scale, cawing

to the drunk conductor who’s lately

late, ever always late, dropping his baton

in a gutter to watch it stick

to the shitty runoff after the last heavy

rain, to gain some dignity

when, after it’s left alone by him, it’s

picked up by a boy or a girl

on their way out of the rain

and they take it for what it is:

a stick, a simple wooden branch:

oak maybe but how would they know

and would they even care, waving

it around to conjure, to conduct

to orchestrate their flight,

their dark and timid and tumbling

body relenting to the weather

in any kinds of sky

Thermometer

Thermometer

plaster
Chesterwood
The Studio
Daniel Chester French

Ultimately it’s your call

after you take what’s been offered

and stalk your buffet

and ignore being

watched as you walk back

to the place  you’ve been sitting

to the place you’ve been waiting

                doing all your looking

                                and your listening

                                and tasting          (yes, let’s

                                                not forget the tasting)

                                                and touching)

                                                yes, let’s

                                                agree there was a lot of touching and

                                                waiting

waiting especially

because isn’t it              waiting            isn't it one of the primal

spaces or maybe let’s agree it’s married

to each and all of them

the senses I mean

                                in case you’ve lost

                                track

it’s once and for all patient

it’s the kind of patient

a patient may be whose chart

is read in front of them

where all there is to see in black

and white

and grey

matter most

not to the lung

not to the liver

not to the brain

but to the doctor

(maybe sometimes maybe sometimes

                not) this is where you might call him or her

bigamist – or would you prefer polygamist

                                or does it even matter?

two women, one kitchen

the adams memorial
augustus saint-gaudens
(s.cassidy photo)

two women, one kitchen

isn’t (or is it) coming up from some pride some

prejudice in a manner of speaking they say

that you only read people from your kin?

the present moment Richard

Blanco said triggers

                                                a memory

                                                a memory triggers

                                                a conversation

                and to look you see it: con-VERSE!            SATION

(you see verse

and stretch it and you’ll get sated)

                see it sit itself down at ease at your knee see you sit yourself down at ease at its knee

but lately

the word I’ve been looking for

for days and days I’ve been looking for it

is pretention does that mean I’m getting ready

to be tense to be tight to be right

in the moment now only

going back I’m not I’m slack

as twenty year old

unplucked Fender strings

and not getting on with the base-

board heat its been hippin’ with since I moved in

so when finally when there’s time

for a chord for twisting

those knobs on the head (what are they

called) and pressin’ and frettin’ I’m less

surprised at breaking than the sound I’m less surprised

at breaking than the prick of blood I’m less

surprised at my tongue’s taste-buds

coming up from the     
                                                         bottom’s                 s’mottob

(fold it

you know

you can

and want to)

bottom

like the something’s that’s been

stirred is loose enough say it came up from your favorite

lasagna pan finally coming clean at the elbow

brillo Dawn Lestoil (fuck that’s funny given the circumstances) and all

the turning up goes washing down the gurgle the gurgle

s:

the gurgle

of the

in

sink

or

ator

and this kitchen is as glad a place

I’ve been since my mother

deep in the bed-sheets twisted

at her knees her street morphine ease bleeding

beside the lifted toilet seat and the perfect arc of her

mastectomy mark a cello clef I’ve never seen full on

until I found her hours afterwards and the exclamation

on her cheek (temple to chin)

a discrete twin to the porcelain sink

where she went down feet first

and went into her shrine only the once the last ever time

while the tea-kettle burned dry while Segovia

while Bon-Jovi while benevolent

neighbors kind

afterwards save their nasty anno-

tations who like kids with playground fists will

junkiedrunkshitassbitch

baldchemowitch

shewassickbeforetheytookhertits

bring in an arm-load of wood to keep it all

from going colder than it absolutely has to

Tell Me, Darling, Who's Doing the Talking? And Then, Who's Not?

Wilton, New Hampshire

Tell Me, Darling, Whos's Doing
the Talking?  And Then, Who's Not?

                               

...what remains

is the heart, its choke a small reminder to be mindful

lest we go too far

for flavor.

                                                Jorie Grahm

                                                An Artichoke for Montesquieu

What I want to know is how the heart

got to be choke and welcome and when choke

got to be an opening of a vein-

line to fuel.  I’m telling you I’m the first

to admit I’m as naïve as kindness

in its simplest form: how when the poet,

quiet, pulls back the petals of the vegetable

in her hand to get to the heart

all the while loving each peaked piece,

sucking each leaf, all along warning me

not to go too far, not to mar the perfect

knot raw and trembling (somehow

I miss this the first time) in the palm of her hand.

I’m sure all those among us say

at one time or other it wasn’t supposed

to happen this way--such a cliché--I was

happy I am happy, but of all the fruit in the orchard this

is the one that’s picked:

                                and it’s early in the morning

                                and she’s not allowed to be

                                here so she’s had to sneak out

                               

                                and the night all the nights up

                                until now are shivery kinds

                                of nights, especially the hottest

                                and all the clouds conspire

                                the palm

                                the open cheek

                                the pull

                                the helpless letting go

                                (but...

                                                and the only resistance

                                                is skin

                                                is thinning armor

                                                is the wish for a quick knife

                                                is the sigh under pressure

                                                when that knife

                                                and the next sigh

                                                startle and penetrate

                                                at the same time

                                                and afterwards

                                                if we survive, a nick

                                                of a scar

                                                where the corner

                                                of the lip turns from top

                                                to bottom just there

                                                on the horizon

                                                before a tongue

                                                before blood beads

yes--believe me when I say

I am naïve

I have never even touched

the ground

but oh the dew in the night

yes and the wet breath

against me....

driftwood

Driftwood

ˈdrif(t)wo͝od:

wood that is floating on the water

 or carried to the shore

by water

But not this particular piece, the one caught on the waterline
the one that rises yes, of course like the tide, only bidden by
the continuous teeth (isn’t all work like this) of the beaver who keep
rebuilding, keep the water of their sky from falling too low---

I find I’d like to have known the tree whose roots

shoot up from the pond like two bull moose forever hung

and dead now in their rut.  What was it like for the hunter the moment
he stumbled on the stuck carcasses of them in the woods,

two bulls bled out, defeated, deflating.  Does he wonder maybe

after he says shitfuckJesus what it’s like to die that way, the fight going out

of them like a sudden (but then slow) puncture and the panic (listen, wouldn’t

you?) of knowing there’s absolutely no way out now,

enemies locked together holding like glued fists their almost bones

(how did they get them out, how did they (didn’t they?), the game
wardens, untangle them, unhook the intimate latches and see where the trouble

was and poor bastards their way through the woods and say

never me never me and go home later with some animal

drive to take their wife (and for a crack of a second any

girl…(or boy) would do and make and make and make

and bawl and brawl and strike and lock, their pelvis trembling

their breath on the precipice of their grinding jaw?  Didn’t

they?  And safe in knowing they can get out alive, ultimately

it all gets unlocked.  The bulls die together hours maybe days

apart, their antlers their ballsy prize their undoing and the sky

rains on them and snows on them ravens beat down on them
and for a time they are iceentombed and then melted through
and through and the wardens gift them to the state museum, heads
now and glass eyes and completely absent of life.  I like to think

this tree, roots only now and dull bleach, grey as wet beach sand, has made the best

of the rest of its life, and if we wanted to take it away we’d have

to wade up to our hips we’d have to be willing to freeze

a piece of ourselves, a vital piece, maybe give it up

entirely but not know that was what it would cost

when we got in the water, and then, like those moose, or the man

finding them, panic first at our fall, panic a blazing track laid down

and the scorch on the woods road scars to an old old road only animals

and now us, (there’s no going back from such thrust up

beauty) know.

Spoon

See The V: The Wedge of Geese?

Spoon

Think of all the men you’ve fallen in

love with all their hands all their fingers splayed open

on the table that moment they reach for the warm

cup of coffee how it’s not the hand whose fingers

curl into the handle stiff sitting and settling into

the weight

and commitment of the cream,

sugar, spoon with its little mocha pool (once

it’s stirred) beside the placemat no not that hand

that seems the leading hand but the other one

the one that cups the cup that braces it before

it’s all lips and tongues before it’s all

                                                                sssssssst and eyes the lids are hoods now

that look out over the rim

                                                                remember?  How you still

keep the edge of that left hand (it’s warm isn’t it) imagine how oh

how you imagine warm imagine you remember I know

you do being warmed by that hand

your shoulder the curve of your elbow the curve

of your breast (just his finger-

tip) the curve of your back (the whole hand)

curve of your hip (yes) the curve of your thigh (yes) your calf your ankle your

                                                heel imagine relaxing

letting yourself come on into it without coming away

with a poppy of a bruise (it’s too soon but you go

there right away I know you do just like I know it’s only

a cup of coffee and he’s setting it back down

empty and gathering his things and leaving

he’s the first man he’s all the men you ever

fall in love with but never touch ever as if

                                what the first man said

                                came true

                                when you were seven

                                when he gripped you getting into you gritting his teeth

                                                (who, precious thing (his breath was shit)

                                                will ever believe you ) and he pulls

                                                his thumb out and sucks it dry

                                and you fall away or rather just off

                                like skin sun burnt red red red for days

                                of dry pain before its lifted it comes away

                                milky as clear wet varnish the cowl of your hymen

                                in lacy shreds he rubs on his fingers he stirs into

                                the hot coffee stirs and stirs

                                and then licks and sips, never once asking

                                for a spoon.

When Beside Your Bed Is the Last Time Beside Your Bed

When Beside Your Bed is the Last Time I’m Beside Your Bed      

When we can’t alter ills that upset us,

we will change their names to prevent compassion

from disturbing our unique composure:

                words to deny worlds.

Vocabulary voids original sin;

calvary of the lie reaches Calvary

just in time—to bungle Christ down from the cross;

                But: no nails, no Christ.

                                                                Donald Hall

                                                                Let Us Meditate on Virtue

I

When what? When is what is supposed 

different than what is
to see?  When the wind and water?  When
the rale on the new machine?  When

will they bring it all to measure?

When what’s left of her lungs?

When, after all those months with or recovering

from?  When again pneumonia?

When to cry after stepping on the lit cigarette?  When it singed

and riffs and rims in the bedroom

carpet but also on the bedspread?   When to her chin?

When bit by bit?  When she falls yes,

but when she's some apart or completely?.  When barely barely?  When out of her

woods but when did she start?  When

coughing stops? When again blood? when again piss

and puss?  when again?

II

I think in retrospect

these days (how else)

like Keats who knew before

he left England with Severn

he’d be gone out of there

forever eked squeezed

his fists a lung a lung

his fists a lung and me sitting

near her gurgling it was

like this for his painter

friend the only friend

who could or did or would take time

the time (something profound

was happening

here) to accompany him

all the way to Rome...     and the room

closes in on both of us.  In the end both

all of us will shrink and shrivel

from the body dying

but not before we (Severn’s and me) ink

it all in the brief alive but still

face the stroke on the paper the way

just moments ago

(years and years now ago)

we’d stroke the hair/the cheek

and see now how like April

our leafs one by one and leave

in the beginning but not before they unfurl.

And how quite like late November

they curl and crumble and devote

their numinous pieces

to the wind and soon to come snow—

III

Keats.     he      ...     well    ...    he     ...      why

wouldn’t he

had his doubts close

as he was to the mouth

of the drainpipe close as he was

to the intake of a breath listening

his brother (one gone one gone

to America) his mother

right? he must’ve                            running

or all he could do

in the end was float

to Rome to take the air there

or let the air take him

with Severn tending him a friend

a breath

a fresh word

a string let out like knots

off the

                                what side?

                                                                of the ship

to guess the wind

                                speed

                                                when will she be…

Nurse?  I touch my mother's face maybe
the way Severn touched Keats---pen stroke---going true
while there's still a bit of breath in the throat
in the bubble coming up to the lips
to the nose and so is this the moment?  or is this
the moment?  What about his?  But there’s no one true
left to ask

I Have to Say

I Have to Say

Part of me dims with pain,

Becomes the stinging flies…

Part looks into your light

And lives to tell you so.

                                                James Merrill

                                                “Last Words”

For Becky B.

I haven’t seen enough

                of autumn—I haven’t I can’t be

                                                content

               

                with a drive by drove through

                                                on my way to

some stop quick slip it all in and make it

               

                                home

                                               

                                                to supper at dusk a dusk under

                the and over the

                                                tree I walk beneath I haven’t seen

                                enough see this girl I knew once she

                                                                came though sometimes

                                                sober

                                sometimes (k) not she’s not

now plain and simple she’s not and won’t ever be

                                again

and I wonder if I hope so she saw

                                on that rainy day before

                she

                                dropped

dead

                if she thought

                                                                yellow

                                look

                                                yellow I love yellow

                                it’s raining it’s been raining all the way back

from Phoenix I’m about to scream see

                                this shits real it’s dope it’s lit look

                I haven’t seen it since I got out

                                I’m clean I’m stayin’ clean

                                                baby don’t not in front of me

                               

                                                                                                don’t I know listen don’t

                I said I won’t no no

                                                                   I'm supposed

                                                                           to stay

                                                        sober

                                                ok                                           ok

                                                                just this one more once one more

                                                                                last time

what whah’d you say too late

                               

                                see all that yellow

                                                                that’s deep that yellow see it the sun shining

                fuck it’s shining in the rain

I haven't seen enough

I've already seen 

                                      (this is number fifteen second one this year)

             enough

                                                

Today Memory is a Staked Cow Grazing

Today Memory is a Staked Cow Grazing

These days remembering:

                                an dull throb yeah? won’t you say? straight through

memory

it takes excessive

                lengths makes

                                                itself the iron

                                stake we’ve chained

                out our dairy cow every early morning

                                                                she’d steam release the heat

of the night of the barn the links clink

                                while she grazed raised her great

                                                black and white face and made to look

into me and I watched and wanted

                                (but I was afraid

                                                of those horns)

                                to talk her into

                               

                                                knowing me

                the way people should

                               

                                                but would not didn’t

                               

                                                                                want to

straight as that iron stake and she’s the strangest sun

                                dial her moving mowing down

                                                the sometimes green sometimes blond

grass and along the way

                                                random

                                                                and instinctive as need

                her piles

                                of shit;

In the closing

                                                of the day she’d walk

                                right through it she would

                                                                flatten everything she made her way

days soft clay soft warm wax soft

               

                                                making her way now their way

                                                                                                                                falling off

                with each lift

                                                                these days

                                                (we stand and eat we need what maybe we need we press

                                                                the cool two barrel muzzle

                                                                                we use

                                                                                                                to let her loose

and we walk through too

                               

                                we leave

               

                                                                                tracks all the way

                to the length of the chain

                                we’re all every one of us

                                                staked out

                                                                                                on

                                                                                               

                                                                grazing