Ars Longa Vita Brevis

Summer in the Valley

2006-07-24T15:29:00.000-07:00

This heat is killing me.
I'm a cold-weather guy
so long up North
that a perfect day is 72
not the 107 of this valley.

A slow pearl of sweat
glides along thin hairs
between my blades
hiking down the highway of nerves.
It stops, sits
in the saddle
until an unbidden shudder
hurtles it into my crack
and it's gone
--assimilated, I guess.

Oh, I wish I hadn't swore or grumped,
gnawing the raw edge of your patience
and hurrying you along and away.

I wish it were Spring
in the orchard
and it was my finger,
my tongue ambling along
your length, your breath
stumbling;
my pulse,
this temperature.

Christ

2006-01-12T10:32:00.000-08:00

I split a log
and saw you there
I joined the halves
to merge with thee
the wood caught fire
and set us free

This poem came to me during my sleep. I didn't write it down on awakening, but instead lived with it in my being until I reached my desk a couple of hours later. It recalls to me the Gospel of Thomas, when Christ was purported to say:

The kindom of heaven is all around you.
Pick up a rock and I am there,
split a log and you will find me.

To my niece's ex-boyfriend (and her new one)

2005-08-11T16:40:00.000-07:00

To My Niece's Ex-Boyfriend (and her new one)

My niece is happy
now that you've gone
though not from your leaving
(nor your arrival)
but from the revival of the vital in her.

You helped her through difficult times
But don't mis-assign
the savior and the saved.

we see clearest what we fear most
and the child-abandoned you
corded the child-abandoned her
yours twined into and sheathed
the raw jute cables of her girlhood.

You were trained to think it your job
to solve every problem, hoist each burden
but some problems root like cancer
and the people we love
most deserve to carry their own
and grow into their skin.

I don't blame you
for crumpling under the stricture of silence
or the impossible weight of her family secret.

Only that you witheld
the honesty she merited
that you discarded the meat of trust
and polished its cracked shell.

Your storming out
for a newer lover
overvoiced the sweet song of her soul
but only for a time.
Only for a time.

I watched her hack those gross tendrils
like a macheted explorer
in the land of confidence;
noted their sudden recoil
and their sure subtle groping
like blackberries, like wild grape,
like the creep of her stepfather's hand
or the silent evaporation of her
mother's objections
and the alkaline tufa of self-doubt

love rose from below
as it fell from above
quickened the seeds of causation
long present but napping
until happiness unrolled
its fragile green body.

In the mental painting I framed
you, sullen, are a few hills over
looking back, demanding to explain,
like the damned guided hellward

she kneels
baptised in the faith of self,
damp with absolution,
the shine of truth glinting from her hair
as a gentle mist freckles the surface

(and you, shirtless, stomping
your rain-evoking steps,
grinning as you grasp
for a lamp post)

Hounds of Hell

2005-07-20T10:00:00.000-07:00

The Hounds of Hell Show Up

I'm riding the Bus Eireann
From the Cliffs of Moher
To the city of tribes,
And it's two PM
And I'm hungry
And I'm thinking of
What I'll eat
When we stop at a quarter to four.

And then suddenly
We round the corner
And the chromatic shiver
Of the Burren
Comes into view:
Great majestic meringues
Of lilac rock
With lime grass sprinkles

And next to that:
Khaki-colored cattle
Chew cud in a pasture
Freely strewn with burren stone
Like pats of butter
On an apple crumble.

And I think:
Maybe the diet wasn't
Such a great idea.

My craving for sugar
Tailed me to this green land
Along with my penchant for melancholy
Self-doubt, shyness,
And odd sense of humor;

Faithful hounds
With unerring noses

god's fragments

2005-06-28T18:19:00.000-07:00

yesterday at noon
I glanced outside.
god had fractured
and god's fragments
were every infinitesimally
large and small thing
visible and unseen
noun and verb
the yellow light
that stroked the cat
the blue shadow
that cooled the grass

and these fragments
fought amongst themselves
like an eddy
fights the current
but are both
the sum of the flow

so that every contentious thing
was perfect
and of a piece

like this life of mine
like this life of yours