Poetry

Selected Poems

 

The Pollywogs (to accompany "The Pollywogs Vessel")

We visit this place as though it were a sanctuary of fond, childhood memories.  We walk Grandpa through the cabin, reminiscing over the “good times” we’ve had here.  Barricaded behind a brilliant barrage of bur oak and sugar maple, this place was a retreat for a racist old man.  The fire has forced him to flee from his long-time home.  The air smells heavy with thick smoke and abandonment, a welcomed change from the usual mothballs and whiskey that once clung to the air.  This dwelling holds a haunting inhabitability, not because of lost memories, but because of the possibilities; the relationships that were never cultivated as the forest grew wild all around.

I suppose it wasn’t all bad here.  On occasion Grandpa took us fishing in the rowboat (now nothing more than ashes) on the lake down the hill behind the cabin.  He had the children dig through the rich, soft earth for nightcrawlers before letting one of us slog through the mucky shore to push the boat afloat.  We never talked about anything more than fishing.  I loved it.  It was as though the lake water washed away the brownish tinge to my skin.  Grandpa never asked for my green card or called me a little spic while we were fishing.

I did love this place.  Sneaking away into the woods as the rest slept always felt new, dangerous; and yet so comfortable.  I slipped out the screen door, ran behind the cabin, and slid down the dark, steep incline that led to the lake.  I smiled as I moved with the night floor, littered with leaves and (what I thought were) locusts and lessons never learned.  At the bottom I removed my shoes and socks and strolled along the shoreline, letting the cool, sopping mud rise up, around, and through my feet.  In these moments I knew that this place and I were bound by some intrinsic, ancestral force.  Once in a while, though, a stick or a stone or an acorn jabbed at my sole, reminding me that I am not of this place.

Now, as Grandpa crows over his WWII German revolver and his rifles in the cabin, I walk these woods with my daughter, searching for a reason to hold on to this place.  In the hilled landscape of ashen remnants left behind from the fire, we see an old German gas mask.  He still can’t resist an opportunity to endorse white supremacy, but I saw a glimmer of compassion in him this trip.  Maybe there’s been a sort of cleansing through the flames, a warmth stoked within him in his final years; or maybe he just knows he’s going to die soon.  I carry his name, and perhaps his fondness for bourbon, but this place could never be my home.  Still, I love him

For E.L.I.

 

How to Cope with Paternal Postpartum Depression

At this point, I don’t know

 

whether I’m taking my dog out, or she is taking me,

 

but we always manage

 

to meander out our back door sometime well past midnight.  The darkest nights are my favorite,

those blackest of blacks that swallow me whole.

 

I cherish new moons

 

when we move, unseen as shadows slithering past sleeping neighbors’ homes.  The soft glow 

of her eyes guides me through the well-groomed 

community grass towards the edge of the property.

 

It is when we step past the precipice

of the maintained and into the fierce, 

untamed growth beyond the fence.  It is when my dog has her evening piss,

and I do the same,

 

that I feel free.

 

Waldo Canyon Fire (to accompany "Waldo Canyon Fire Vessel")

This dream keeps recurring:

Myself, a wisp of brazen observance, a thread or a strand of hair

carried through a current of thick, potent toxicity. 

I careen through amber clouded corridors, capricious columns

of marigold, flecked with scarlet cardinal and ashen snow.

Charred Earth glows almost opalescent, breathes.

Writhing and gasping yet all-the-while boldly bellowing a lasting grace.

I am defeated by its beauty.

 

I seek solace in this dream

in somewhat the same way as so many 

who have found a sanctuary in this Forest.

Real world romanticized; a way to move through

daily life while retaining a sense of the sublime.

Really, our homes that so sensually kiss the edge of Wilderness

are licked by the flames that have consumed It.

 

The place in my dream is where the fire began,

a commonplace trail that I have taken since childhood.

I can’t help but feel guilty.

Those paths, so meticulously maintained for the masses 

(myself included), are now immortalized as an arsonist’s passage

directly into the heart of the Forest; and its destruction.

 

Many houses burned among that Sylvan blaze.

Soon after the flames subsided, people recrudesce 

near the Forest, now forever scorched by incendiary malevolence.

When I returned home after evacuation with my carfull

of possessions, my priority was to take my beloved hamster inside.

As I approached my front door carrying Her in Her 

extravagant little domicile, I looked down to my despair;

a diminutive stiff, recently deceased body.

 

It may seem trivial, but I wept for that tiny rodent

for longer than I care to admit. 

In retrospect I realize that her small lungs likely could not leech

out the air still laden with lingering smoke and soot.

I brought her back to that place too soon.

Perhaps she should never have been there.

I am defeated.

 

A Child’s Breath Should Come Easily

A chorus of convulsive

ex(and inconsistent in)hales cascades 

through the cathedral, Breath 

escapes those who behold 

that casket fit for a child, 

so surreal,

Her in Her breathless slumber,

Cleansing copal smolders within

a thurible swinging over Her 

small, silent lungs, I fill mine 

with the smoke that saturates 

Her body,

My daughter gasps

as aspergillum sprays

sacramentalia across her face,

I take her outside 

for fresh air, Outside

children playing grasp for air,

I struggle with them,

My daughter breathes deeply.

I am thankful.

 

Comfort Food

It happened the Summer before I transferred to CSU.

It happened again this semester, as I end my time here.

They aren’t the first, and sad to say likely won’t be the last,

but I don’t want to think about why or how

or the poetics of the timing of it all.

I really just want some calito.

 

Calito tastes like Mama soothing me through the night

on our old walnut rocking chair cushioned with cobalt and floral.  

Tastes like her singing You Are My Sunshine, rubbing my legs

I claimed were writhing in growing pains

(though many times those pains were of the heart

and I simply wanted my mother’s embrace).

Tastes like the infinite curve of that chair

swaying pain into stillness.  

 

Calito tastes like Grandma Bea praying over me,

candle lit, one hand on my head, one on my heart.

Tastes like falling to my knees before her,

knowing she understands, fully, and loves me no less.

Tastes like wearing the crucifix, the St. Anthony pendant, 

the Sagrado Corazon de Jesus pendant she gave me. 

Tastes like knowing she has been with me

since the very instant I came out of the womb.

 

Calito, for those that don’t know, is as simple a soup there is:

peeled and diced potatoes, boiled,

slow simmered with browned ground beef (leave the grease),

and lightly seasoned.

I can never really recreate the calito Mama makes,

and I hardly compare to how Grandma Bea made it,

but, still, I try.

 

I’ve come to a point where I realize

all of my friends will die, often too soon.

I can’t control what they do, and would never

speak for any of them, but I do wonder

if they were really just fiending

for that which I find in calito;

and I wish I could’ve shared with them just one last bowl

of that small comfort, so uncomplicated,

before they consumed too much 

of their comfort of choice.