Poem Hunter: Poems - Poets - Poetry

Two floors up, at the corner of Hearst and Shattuck,
he's clamped for good
in an iron lung. When it's time to eat
he nudges his head a sweaty mile
to the edge of the pillow. It takes a while.

His brilliant bloodshot light-blue eyes
steer me from cupboard to fridge:
he would like his chicken burrito
cut into bite-size pieces,
a bent straw for his glass of water, please.

How does the body live its only life
in a cage? I watch him compute the distance
from bar to bar, and squeeze
between them
with a violent compression, a fury of bursting free
that doesn't last.

His will is a crowbar, angled to pry up
the rooted intractable weight
of matter. I watch him slyly, I check out
the way he does it. He
does it. But pain in its absolute privacy
weighs what it weighs.

I come here to study the soul, posing one question
a dozen ways, most of them silent.
"If I'm only a body," he laughs,
"I'm up shit creek." His laugh

...

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, 'Nigger.'


...

Lovely maiden voyage
deepest woman of the sea
as the tide sweeps sand
from the beach.

Embrace me in your arms
caress me with a kiss
wash me clean
make me pure.


...

It was one of those
beautiful
English summer nights
when levitating
on the moonshine
of a moonlit world
was your entranced lucky
fate.

The lilac shimmer of silent
lakes.
The whisper of ghost fox
through your heartbeat.

But the toad in the hand
stank real.

Stank through his palpitating
skin.
Stank of fear.


Is the fabled hallucinogenic
touch of toads
just as Macbeth
witnessed
a hypnotising snare
of toxic apparition?

What thrilling doors of perception

...

This wild night, gathering the washing as if it were flowers
          animal vines twisting over the line and
          slapping my face lightly, soundless merriment
          in the gesticulations of shirtsleeves,
I recall out of my joy a night of misery

walking in the dark and the wind over broken earth,
          halfmade foundations and unfinished

...

Uphill,
over
slick mossed stones;
under golden skies
and tired bones.
I reach the top,
and stop -
on a log,
above the forest
cast in fog.

...

Ah, Grief, I should not treat you
like a homeless dog
who comes to the back door
for a crust, for a meatless bone.
I should trust you.

I should coax you
into the house and give you
your own corner,
a worn mat to lie on,
your own water dish.

You think I don't know you've been living
under my porch.
You long for your real place to be readied
before winter comes. You need
your name,
your collar and tag. You need
the right to warn off intruders,
to consider
my house your own
and me your person
and yourself
my own dog.
...

Body my house
my horse my hound
what will I do
when you are fallen

Where will I sleep
How will I ride
What will I hunt

Where can I go

...

In the shadows of withered hopes,
where whispers coil like smoke in corners,
thoughts twist like vines, both sharp and sweet,
their thorns hidden, but ever lingers.

You stand outside, a watchful tree,
your roots in soil of unspoken fears,
while I'm a storm in a teacup,
turbulence brewing, hidden tears.


...