first steps, new orleans

i hesitate at each step, here
my home away from home
forgotten from all the same angles
along canal, i hear the call, feel
down where the bottom is split with rails and wires
the spirits wake and spit and sleep
my own left hand belongs to me less, that mess
that bad hand, the hands of david she told me on royal,
pulling my hair, virile
i drag my ass to the corner of decatur
heavy purposeful ancient gator
i know disaster is having her way with me
she never gonna let me go
that's so, and so and so, and still i forgot
where her thigh rubs up against the back of my hand,
up along rampart, up along the edges, i forgot,
up along the cemeteries, i forgot, up along the projects, i forgot
up where the road meets the bayou,
up where the shotguns are like dominoes, i forgot
how city park spoke to me in the dark and promised
things she couldn't deliver
how i ran to the river, that dark and muddled flow,
and huddled with my arms around my knees
crying into the rocks and dirt, and
that muddy it took every bit and didn't give a shit
welcome home baby



and i would like to turn the corner and see you,
mickey and oliver, otter and squish, jay and jane and chain, thomai and toni and hans, and ralph and mat and michele, steven and adrain and wash and valerie and rodney and chris and pretty boy jason and lj and jason and jeannette and lee and tod and brian and kate and ade and all the saints...

new orleans, 2008

it all comes back
thick syrup moving me through, moving through me.
i'm crying all the time.
moving me beyond my own memory of place
my streetcar is named remember and it moves at it's own pace
i am this city
my body lights up with the smells
my body lights up with the smiles
my body lights up with the love and acceptance
even in tremendous circumstances
historically accurate
immaculately consistent
disastrously delicious
this place
this place here
i'ma holler atcha
i'ma ask fer ya
alright now
i love you

naushon, 2008

from a wedding on naushon this fall. it reminds me of the image of my son, here.

self portrait, 2007

yes, your honor

1040, 12/15/08, divorced

aka irretrievable breakdown

divorce, 2008

divorce is quiet
not unlike that moment when you roll away from your lover,
when the time is right
after the heat and the fire and the light
reluctantly, necessarily, longingly, still
this visit is over

for charise, 2008

when i close my eyes i still see you
brown
charise
blue jeans
hair and lips
part in the middle
your sweetness comes
smoothly through the fuck yous

on the ceiling a place for your face
as i drive myself home
over and over you let me play
as long as i want to stay

eighteen

phillip's porch

this is phillip's porch. we would hang out between my porch on the left and his on the right. his grandfather, mr. lawrence, was a great character, and a great man. in a difficult new orleans neighborhood he was the firm hand that led to most of his children and grandchildren finishing school and going to college. he was a man who was always working, getting things done. he worked estates in other parts of louisiana, and when he was home he helped my landlord, who was dying of aids, with everything a homeowner would normally have to do. he once went out in his pickup truck with a shotgun to get back a water heater taken from an abandoned property across the street. i had watched the whole thing transpire, saw the men and the heater disappear, but in my new orleans summer haze i thought maybe it belonged to the men who took it. they seemed to know exactly what they were doing. he came out on his porch, as if through some sixth sense he knew something was up, and asked me what happened. i told him. it had been wheeled away in a shopping cart. he went back into the house, came out with the rifle, jumped in his truck and said "i'll get that water heater back". he was back in a few minutes. when i asked him what happened he said, "i found 'em up the road and i said 'put that man's water heater back.' they kept walkin' so i got out in front of 'em, raised the rifle and i said 'you put that water heater back up in my truck', and they did." later he explained that if he let them start taking things then everything in the neighborhood would disappear. there really wasn't much more to it than that.

in december

lustrous evening
put on lipstick
remembered her inner life
drew the shawl over her lofty shoulders
and laughed

still, in the quiet that followed, still
without my friend, i slept
to remember the first death

a handmade scarf
seemed to float above the frivolity

in december

mass mental

a mental hospital in winter. i found this place accidentally because i can't keep out when the signs say keep out. it was the most haunting surreal place i had seen outside of new orleans. i went back several times. in the middle of this sprawling empty complex of buildings, which was completely embedded in the woods, was a town square with a town hall style building with a clock, and a church. and a rotary. it was beautiful and foggy. i felt like i had found the abandoned set of some post-nuclear film. or the twilight zone. it was 1950 and it was empty. there was an untended nameless graveyard and an abandoned swimming pool that was completely covered in, so that the level of the weeds and soil was level with the edge of the pool. the diving board hung inches above the ground. the manacles attached to the cold ceramic claw foot tubs were silenced. the paint rejected the walls entirely, on it's way out, in every possible incarnation of industrial color. a history of poor choices. a screen door opened onto a courtyard like apple pies. wheelchairs and electric shock. so many sounds in the middle of the silence. layer upon layer upon layer in building after building after building. mass mental.

central park prayer

in the summer before 9-11 i walked central park from top to bottom. i would start down south and work my way up through the day, and then try to enter that exited area the next day, trying to slowly make my way through. i found this image one morning. i sat with this man by the edge of the water. waiting. watching. later i noticed the twin towers.

chuck, 2008

he emerges something like an echo
his armor blue velvet and colorful tunics
sumptuously hovering
in a borrowed time-frame

a rented suitor, roused
in some epic poem
immediately, and without qualm, ablaze

chuck
tangible and transient, descended

the exchange of energies, between floors
the cross pollination, from life to death
spattered, he looked laquered
on the pavement

beneath this portrait
were plum-colored pools
his face was grey

i wanted to say
i did not get to say
goodbye

the forgotten document, 2007

the forgotten document
the lost marriage, certified
the sunshine
in my face on the bridge
in my face on the road
in my face in the city
the smile from inside at the losses
and the gains          JFK
the secret      the smile      the silence
i walk in circles

i give you america
it has been yours all along

reverse direction, take off the suit
avoid the kids and coffee, your thanks
your tears, 'it's just so emotional', again
but not for me, the silence throbs

later, up the stairs, the last child is sent
the one we call 'the dealbreaker'
first envoy of the new world
with a message for the other man

this land is your land

camp whatever, 2008

in the middle of the woods, by the parkway
picking up trash and dead soldiers, she said
'sleep sleep sleep, cuz when you wake up you'll be all alone'

piss and shit and slugs all over camp whatever
drunken adonis, drunken bull, drunken wound
two, laying spoons on the ground, we found ourselves
beating each other about the head, with meat fists,
we left ourselves behind

horseshoes, wheat cent, needles and beer
dreams of knives, the roar of raw pain
scarred, scared, skid row, scattered
faces tattered with small cuts like red kites
lovely little lawn mower bites
already starting to heal

adolescence

tea party simplicity
and a greasy disgust
greeted one another in the miscarriage
of my adolescence
private illnesses, violent thoughts, standard pains
greeted one another in the accounts of their own little troubles
compelled to spend no longer restoring promise
i lit the golf course on fire
explored women's underwear
and stole sterling silverware
as dancing couples brushed past me
disgusted with myself
i tried to form
an ethic
more immersed in suffering than even i could bear

inspiration

this is really inspiring. a time of shift, the beginnings of a new consciousness. 'change' doesn't feel powerful enough. change is a constant. this feels like an awakening. i'm excited and inspired by the choices of my fellow citizens. i keep thinking about kennedy, and richard pryor, and the civil rights movement, all moving, all bubbling up into our larger, sleepy national awareness. 'we shall overcome' has new meaning for me. a promise realized. a waking dream. a new connection between heart and mind.

in traffic, for sherie

my nuclei are all smiles today, opening
my heart
listening for your heart
in traffic

a love moves in, for sherie, 2007

i miss you, too
i have been dreaming about you all morning
love and calendars and clocks

'what is this?' something within wants to know
doing this new thick math, slow
scraping at the backside of my soul

a love moves in, is already
alive in these dark quarters
forward looking, laying alone

i rise, for sherie, 2007

we have breathed and brought the season
which will see you leave, together
sewn the fabrics of past and present,
unzippered, between sheets,
barefoot, boldly, beautifully,
full moon, half moon, new
halfway around the world from you,
i rise

self-portrait with wheel

laura lush sublime, 1994

quick knee in the wet spread
a gleam of music across the pond
Aunt Bessie was thinking about her lunch
cigar in mouth, all wheels and speed
my pale eyes turned grey milky
we camped on the plain of yellow grass
unbuttoned gyrations spurting vapor trails
laura lush sublime

sunken trees crept slowly under stars and panther dreams
our mad twitching spasms bumped the hull
and out there on bronzed water
where monkeys screamed
dawn came, always a fool, her caramel eyes would want
childish stories
in the upper air i'd follow her anywhere
laura lush sublime

when we were monarchs, 1994

when we were monarchs
for an entire morning
and the golden dawn and tremulous evening
hung like draperies in our new chemical sky

we blink at the sun and we scratch
my loins stirring like furnaces dipped into serenity

the uproar of blue wine
the new winter rain
loosens peninsulas of my spreading self
that do dances like a diva-Christ across pools
of our voluptuousness

your magnificent shoulder blades
and the telephone poles
run, in the wake of the awakening phosphorous
scattering daylight and the shutters from old shotguns
down to the brown gulf

green night rebounds, enters the corners
hairnets of lightning strobe our bliss
coating our ferment like gunshots
in the abyss of exalted doves

outside the hummingbird, 2008

outside the hummingbird
she'll be just what you want
and nothing at all

hoping someone will take her
without giving anything away
this shrouded dowry awry

i can still see the dull light in your eye
mine to brighten
that upturned lip so hard to impress
i danced for you on the basketball court in my dress

rubber asphalt sheetrock hole

we never spoke that was the deal
i'd circle you and kiss your back wheel

at the sink

on the floor

on the silvery deck above the crackheads' door

i didn't know what was expected
i came out of myself

erected

in this unspoken dream

i was going to do whatever it took
and you were not going to tell me
what that was

so i put the money in the jar for our getaway car

here we are

halloween

halloween, 2000, turner at the tate. my son, my wife, my son. the hallows are upon us again.

father called, 2008

father called
from the city
a breath, a voice
narrow hips, pale skin
memory moved to my fingertips

i am back at the beginning
a kick, a poke, the swell
of something growing

i hoarded what i could
his smile
his blood
his violence

these sonic details
envelop, hard, bright, blindly

i am crying at last

epistrophy

'i am not my complexion'

keith jarrett, october 27th, 2008, in response to people in the audience telling him they were taking his picture 'because we like you'.

train

i just found this image in a bunch of negs from a few years ago. for some reason it has me by the throat. i'd never seen it before but i believe it lived in me in some way, calling to me...'remember me'.

i surf

i went body surfing out at good harbor beach during hurricane kyle, while tropical storm laura was developing out at sea, far off the nova scotia coast. it was a sunday. i had felt pulled to the ocean that day, really since the night before. my sons marek and lukas came with me. one of marek's names is kyle, named for a surfer and artist i knew in nova scotia in the year marek was born there. that was the year of hale - bopp. i can remember it in the sky over the house and how it would accompany me out to the valley, leading the way out, hanging, to see my wife laura and the children. that was the year of crying. that was the fall that brought marek, water unbroken, into the world. that was the beginning, really, of the end. kyle would surf lawrencetown beach. it had the coldest water i've ever felt in the summer. the midwife pushed gently at the clear, rippled film and our son came forth.

there we stood on the beach, in awe. me, marek and lukas. kyle. laura at sea. it was definitely all on fire that day. it was a powerful day, full of raw beauty and return. the ocean is always about return for me. and renewal. i went out into the waves and after being battered and slapped and spilt, went down and grabbed at handfulls of sand on the bottom as i dove and pulled my way through. below, pressed down, smiling, in the cold grey-green underworld. forgotten. i emerged, and took a breath. the pull and release, the joining with the rush to shore. thrown up on the sand. the mist so heavy that it was as if water and air were one. the softness of the bobbing surfers. the disappearing dog walkers. the free dogs wheeling in the sand. the boys called to me. so faint and invisible, only suggestive of sons. small friends of monet’s in motion. arms and muffled shouts. they had found a dead seal washed up on the seaweed line. she seemed to be an adult grey. it was hard to see any signs of trauma, but the back of her head was bloodied. such a beautiful animal. such a perfect shape. the females can live into their 30s. had she brought children into the world? i pulled a tooth from her lower jaw. a canine. my wife was in her 30s. a similar size and shape. reminiscent. perhaps laying somewhere in a similar position. reclining. we were now two years into our separation. can we still count those as years of marriage? are we 10 then? or 12? either way, we didn't make it out of our own childhood stunted. a life cut short. 30 years of living in the oceans sounds really good to me. i could start now. i tried to roll the seal over for lukas. he wanted to see where she was hurt. i put both hands on her side and the first thing i felt was warmth. it felt familiar. the dead weight. the oils and the smell on my hands. i went to the water and sand to try to work them from my fingers, but they would not leave.

we found a snail on the way back, away from the beach. gloucester, we call him. he was on the sidewalk heading into town. not far from the bar made famous in 'the perfect storm'. he has now been joined by a leopard slug, rescued before the first frost, who has laid a pile of eggs and lays curled around them. slugs and snails are hermaphrodites, they are both male and female. i have dreams now of my slug body. ready to be both, as the need arises.

peace

my friend lv and i went out to the peace abbey in sherborn, massachusetts, recently. from wherever you are it is worth the trip. she was performing with sgt. maxwell's peace chorus. it is incredibly moving to be in a place where the fundamental is peace. i remember the 60's and 70's and how often we would flash the peace sign from our car to everyone we saw, just hoping to get the sign back. so often it came back with a smile. we were children but it felt like we were a part of a movement. stop the killing. stop hurting each other. we are not in danger. this can't be our way. that war resulted in nearly 3 million vietnamese deaths and 60,000 american deaths. and of course uncounted casualties and trauma. i was traumatized by that war. the green cast on the black and white television in my livingroom gave improper cover, camouflaging the horrors taking place in the jungle but giving a haunting reality to the leaves and light and suffering. i see fatigues and rifles. i try to see the cong. i am eight years old. i am growing into what will, at full size, be used to continue the telecast.

lock the knee

roots are important. the great unseen. like the unconscious itself. my connection to the earth is changing. i feel great joy that i am here, one among many, of this same soil and water and air. of one. of one moment. the health of the physical body, being in touch with the physical body, the physical body itself, is a manifestation of the earth. we share the earth, this birth mother, and coincidentally are becoming her caretakers. as we spring forth from the earth and learn to care for ourselves we realize we need to care for the earth as well. the earth is our larger self. the word yoga is derived from the basic root yog, which in hindi means uniting, a yolking of one thing with another. also from sanskrit, yuj, meaning 'to unite, to integrate or to cohere and is thus taken to represent the highest state of union, integration or coherence between individual or personal or human consciousness and cosmic or universal or divine consciousness.' so speaking, the yoga is uniting with source. in many asanas, or postures, you are required to lock the knee. bikram says 'you must lock the knee', and 'if you can, you must'. so there is no chance of missing out on this primary connection to earth. in a standing posture, you are rooted through the ground, through the earth. the pull of gravity, of the earth and the complimentary rising, treelike, of the human form. that connection or force can be imagined coming up from the center of the earth through your feet, through your locked knees. as you rise away, with spirit embodied, you can feel the gravity of the earth in all of your cells. the death that is to come, that is ever present. i am in process of both rising up within that gravity and being returned to earth in each moment.

day one

to witness within. without. without judgement. i see witnessing as the ultimate teacher. there is no attachment to outcomes. it reminds me of a return to earth. a sinking in. an interment and return to soil, where the tree begins.