The Quantumverse
I want to see your
Habanero eyes
Señorita,
That crazy hot
Look
Like wild peppers,
Like no way José,
Like you’re too hot
To handle,
That say: “If you can’t take
The heat mister mister mister
Then get the hell
Out
Of
My
Kitchen”
Crickets and weeds cooked dry
In the great dirt skillet
Of the Colorado Plateau –
Record heat crackling
Across to the Panhandle.
In 1942, men of my family
Put down ranching
And took to the sky,
Their tillers trained on Tokyo.
First settlers in covered wagons.
First Lieutenants in flight squadrons.
The Dust Bowl had left
A hard piece of scrabble,
Not enough topsoil
To hold any roots.
The ground grumbling,
Angry, stampedes of B27’s
From Pueblo Field –
Beasts of the earth
Transformed by speed,
Heat and wings rise
Shimmering from the land.
Maybe from the air
Flashes of feldspar
Were a beacon
From the bare rock atop Pikes Peak –
That original, distant promise
Soaring up from the prairie.
The apartment pool is finally open after so many weeks of cold, wet days here in New York. One group stakes out a table early, and outside our window we hear marathon drinking and hilarity from the morning through to the evening. We are good sports about it, but barely. Dozens of toddlers and children sport about on their floats and pool toys, with plenty of splash wars and Marco-Polo competitions. The twenty-somethings oil themselves up and jockey for position on the lounge chairs, sporting the latest in skimpy swimwear.
Summer has its sport –
Thin clothes don’t cool fireworks
Set off by eel and fawn
I’m a happy mudshark
(Family: Squalidea,
Genus: Backyardus,
Species: Lawnranger)
In this summer heat.
Squishy swimming
Through cool, wet dirt,
Finned above the grasses,
Yapping the crickets all
Toothy and open-mawed.
I murk about
As I wish,
Navigate dead reckoning
By sprinklers I am
Peaty of gills
Organic and muck-blooded.
Why tell you all this?
Beware the
Toe taking, the
Catnapping.
Catch me dogfish
If you can.
I’m sorry.
I don’t think my poem
Can keep you alive.
If a river of woe
Overruns your banks,
My words
Will not be enough.
I will do my best
To sit with you
And watch the sunrise
Together
One last time.
Maybe you will hear my whisper
That you were never alone.
My love, your fierce will
Is tempered steel –
Storm forged
From prevailing winds,
The strength of maelstroms
That beat the sky
Back upon the sea,
Anvil’d sparks and strikes
Of lightning –
Watermarked layers
What look soft as damask
But gives you
The sharpest edge
The glass arrow
Of my intent
Shatters into the sky,
Ruby blue splinters a
Kaleidoscope rocket
Breaking apart,
Confetti of mirrors
Don’t cut yourself
On the rain.
Purpose is too fragile
Against the hard distance
To the sun.
The breast diseased, careens toward metastasis. What once nourished life now feeds ruin. Removed, it clears the way for the bowstring to pull clear and full. Power now, strength now. What was weakness becomes the gift of the Amazons. Women warriors.
The Fall: lightning cracks –
Golden dust of fire ants –
The Spring: tea rose blooms.
The mourning bells
Of Ohio churchyards,
Morning bells off
Belle Isle, Sanabel,
Tolling channel bouys,
Boys in bell-bottoms –
The sailors he loved,
Bluebells in Brooklyn
Sway without noise while
The waves change their watch
At eight bells
Ringing across the sound
Lost at sea.
There’s a whole
In my pocket
That I worry
Like a prayer.
Maybe the opening from a
Crown of thorns
Or roses
That will prick my forehead.
Or an oculus
I can use to
Peer through
And see the firmament.
Perhaps a rent from a shard of time,
A splintered second
Left behind in the wash
Like a piece of glass.
Curious, I turn my mind
Inside out and shake. But only
A key, some change,
Regret.
qbit 