Sixfold Poetry Summer 2014

  Below

  me men

  & women swim up

      Sutter Street

  These ones will die

  so their spawn had better take

  Lather rinse repeat

  I am joined here by six

  or seven others . . . cormorants drying our wings before

  setting out over

  the sea stretching before

  us each

  A short-cropped gray-haired citizen bends over

  the Sporting Green like a pathologist deducing what led to

  the swoon this June that killed the Giant’s chances

  Below me is a man

  or the facsimile of

  one lying athwart

  a step whose feet long ago forgot the inside of

  a pair of

  but whose mad mats of

  hair offer a pillow for

  his head

  & so on

  In

  this moment I would like to believe in

  many things including how well the cold sun shines off

  my white shirt

  & my tightly tied shoes

  & my clean-shaven face

  Q: Who am I kidding?

  A: ________________.

  Two years back now

  & I still wonder which country is overseas

  Nothing is as it should be

  I can hardly breathe

  because of too much oxygen in

  the air

  or nitrogen

  or something else

  Nothing feels right nothing looks right nothing sounds right

  It’s all been switched around

  Mirrors hang backwards forcing me read my face right to

  left

  Clean sheets are sandpaper against

  my skin

  so I sleep

  w/out

  Those 2:00 am vigils stretch ’til

  dawn

  as I listen for

  movements of

  any soul enemy

  or friend

  But then the man looks up from

  his newspaper

  & swivels his head

      as do all the other guys

  & so on even the drifter

      which could only mean one thing

      so I monkey the men

  & my eyes fill

      w/a billowy blue skirt

  & olive-skin legs

  & a fury of

      red hair

  A woman walking westward   t  r  a  v  e  l  l  i  n  g    s  l  o  w    m  o  t  i  o  n

  though not like on

  TV

  but deliberate motion instead

  Fluid graceful

  & strong all shoulders

  & hips propelling her body                                                         forward

       even as she sustains herself in

       place in

       time in

       mind each movement telegraphing her intent to

       the earth

       so the planet may shift

  & so benefit from

       the blessings of

                                     each

                      fall

                                     of

                 each

                                     foot

  There is also this blond @

  her side a woman

  w/the kind of

  looks that were she to walk into

  a bar alone she’d just cold-stop all talk on

  the spot

  but today hers is a mere rivulet of

  prettiness swept away by

  the flood of

  beauty flowing from

  the woman in

  blue

  I start moving from

  my position

  & when I reach street level

       her eyes lock onto

       mine

   & mine to

       hers

  It’s this instantaneous thing electric + mutual + raw

  Then the blond says something that makes her laugh

  She laughs

  & laughs

   & laughs

  & as she laughs she folds @

       the waist then upright like a fountain of

       water then she folds again

       as the mirthful hem of

       her skirt bounces @

       her knees

     & her breasts sway under

       the fall of

       the fabric of

       her blouse

  She laughs like today is the only day

  She passes on by


  as I watch her backside retreat like a beacon inviting


  & denying me an ember growing small

     & cold.

  Ing

  What a popsicle-sucking fan-waving shade-hogging hog-hauling arse-ogling tongue-parching donkey-stopping feet-perspirating cheese-racing Sata/n-sitting fig-gnawing grape-seed-sucking cigar-chomping chad-hanging milk-carton-reading iceberg-melting answer-machining little-girl-fondling nail-biting carpet-bombing Hitler-longing cuck-olding Lord’s-name-in-vane-taking totally-tripping brown-nosing pencil-nibbling knee-jerking water-wasting loose-tooth-wiggling whore-whispering autoerotic-asphyxiating chain-smoking blister-peeling chin-chinning social-networking mother-stabbing father-fearing tumor-palpating granma-fleecing gas-lighting Berlin-lifting baby-dangling water-boarding Treasury-raiding pressure-cooking turkey-plucking love-handle-grabbing cleavage-leering hem-pulling leaf-blowing pig-sticking scrotum-scalding nipple-twisting beluga-bludgeoning harp seal-strumming level-heading nasal-excavating global-weirding needle-pointing nit-picking likker-slurping tea-partying craptastic-poetry-generating slow-dancing three-times-heel-tapping dog-snatching cat-scratching snatch-dogging hardly loafing time.

  The sea is always the color of your last lost love’s eyes

  I spot San Diego wedged into

  the lower left-hand corner like a secret

  as the remaining nation fans north

  & east

  I am told my main problem is never remembering clichés

  & the sea is always the color of

      your last lost love’s eyes

  That’s why I occupy these dunes above

  the beach

  as the sun above bakes my back each morning

  & the crown of

      my head by

      noon before

      finally blinding me @

      the blue end of

      day

  I spend the final afternoon peeling layers away to nothing

  but desire for

  the astringent sea

  I sprint across

  the beach

  & dive into

      the face of

      a towering wave

   & rise to

       the surface beyond

       the breakers where an otter bobs in

       a hidden kelp forest                    the

                                                         to        crest

  I join in                                   up                       then

  as each new swell draws us                                   down

                                                                            
                    the

  After an hour                                                            other

  it gets cold                                                                           side

  so I ride the surf into

  shore bathing in

  forces beyond

  ken

  & control

  Sand up

  my nose

  Water in

  my mouth

  Astonished

  & alive

  The final colors dribble down

  the sky

  covering for

  the night

  that steals light from

  the undone day

  A promise never made

  I shake off the sea

  & cross the beach to

      a pier where I pass a burly black man who wears snow gear in

      summer

   & plays space music on

       his synthesizer

       w/a sign that says Jesus Is A Fisher of 

       Men

   & there’s also this Vietnamese guy casting

  & casting his bait upon

      the waters

   & a pair of

       lovers loving one another against

       the wooden railing

       w/half-empty soda cans dangling from

       their still-free hands

  The further out I go the fewer people I meet

  until it’s just me

  & the slivered silver moon hanging

  like an open palm just beyond                                    my reach

  Jesus had it easy he wasn’t fishing for

  the moon.

  Tim Hawkins

  Northern Idyll

  Flushed and fevered, appalled by the city,

  you crept through nightfall over shards of glass

  back to the Northern forest, whence you’d come;

  An upland preserve of bear wallow and fattening deer

  where tannic alder and maple-soaked rivers cool

  like a tonic the color of tea or bourbon,

  depending on your need.

  You had planned to wade their timeless eddies,

  to meander in their cloudy back currents,

  to imagine lost loves and idylls

  and absent friends,

  until the night I arrived at your door

  with furrowed brow and frown as tight

  as my clenched and trembling fist

  to solve the latter once and for all,

  and to bring word from the late city

  with its campaign slogans and broken bottles,

  scorched pavement and red-rimmed,

  downcast eyes,

  word of the woman and child denied

  this leafy province of despair.

  The Leap

  I hold your small hand in mine

  while salmon lunge

  and hurt themselves

  on the rocks beneath us,

  chasing death,

  immortality

  and a dim and watery notion

  of home.

  In the not-too-distant past,

  folks from the east side of town

  arrived in horse carts and carriages

  on this bluff above the river,

  hailing one another

  in the cool of evening

  as they gaped at the bounding rapids

  and the bears

  who fished below.

  With a promise of ice cream in hand,

  we make our way to the car

  parked on the bluff—

  now a park

  surrounded by hospitals,

  apartments

  and schools.

  One day you will return without me

  and you will understand

  like the generations of salmon and men,

  that though the bears and horse carts

  may be gone,

  the poorly understood migrations

  and countless wet dreams

  remain.

  The Gallery

  My wife was born in a tropical climate

  where trees flourish through sun and rain

  and the four seasons are a myth passed down

  and diluted like generations of conquistador blood.

  Here, in Michigan, she is fascinated by the falling leaves,

  how some nights they swirl and dance across the road

  seeming to perform for our oncoming headlights,

  and she chides me for failing to notice such beauty.

  Thanks to her insistence I now have another experience

  to reconsider, another image to call to mind

  in the cold and austere days that will come

  soon enough, in the long, white gallery of winter.

  A Rain

  A sudden chilling autumn rain

  blows through darkening fields and towns,

  drums on moss and weakens stones,

  moistens eyes and dampens skin;

  shrouds the bleak and withered hedge,

  snaps the slender wavering branch,

  floods a narrow wooden bridge,

  and gathers battened skiffs to launch;

  takes no heed of wall or fence

  nor burnished plaque to mark the deed,

  seeks the least resistant path,

  deaf to human remonstrance

  and blind to monuments of their dead.

  The Archives

  After the stabbing light of the sun

  has dimmed to a wintery ache in the eye,

  one grows accustomed to stark interiors,

  intimate with corridors

  and their convolutions

  of gun-metal gray.

  After a certain period of adjustment

  amid the superficial scrape and glint

  of marble halls and their distorted

  echoes of coughing like laughter

  in the rarefied air,

  after the clatter of metal slamming

  and footsteps marching away in lockstep,

  then fading along the corridor,

  something rare that we are gifted

  and burdened to name

  is bred in the silence that follows

  and filed away.

  There is a veneer of winter solitude

  that can linger then, briefly,

  like snowfall melting on clothing

  or that can remain for a longer term

  like wintering in some forest hollow,

  marking a more remote frontier,

  a knife’s claim on ragged bone

  bounded by a feverish wind.

  Perhaps that is the end of it, after all,

  a sudden shiver, an abrupt decision

  followed by the tinkling of ice

  and a return to the sunny port

  of conviviality.

  Or perhaps, after numerous seasons,

  after window-less years spent

  locked in dutiful chambers

  by turns airless or drafty,

  idly tracing the torn and faded map

  of one’s veins,

  from some half-remembered story

  rescued from the false bottom

  of memory

  one hears apocryphal footsteps

  creeping away

  along the chilly corridor

  among the snowy drifts—

  a second self

  cloaked in the terrible

  gift or burden

  of a second skin.

  One imagines archival landscapes,

  even the frozen scar of a frown

  so like a familiar horizon.

  Abigail F. Taylor

  On the Pillow Where
You Lie

  Pause. Pluck the moon into memory

  before the sun cracks open the yolk of dawn.

  Sorrow weak and gone in reverie

  of heaven’s breast bone; the wild blue rambling on.

  In this now, I am not watching you die.

  You are whole and fit to me as you were

  once, when we were new. And foolish.

  We, Tom and Huck, aged hard this year.

  I won’t be ready for your rye

  departure, your stone-wrought name slurred

  in clipped grass. I am too selfish

  to let you go. With death so near

  I mourn the living you, but it’s not dark

  yet. Soon the moon will cradle its mouth between

  the burden of sky. You and I, marked

  by fate, thrust into an idle god’s routine.

  The Older One

  I do not have a fairy-tale sister.

  Not the sort with twisted fingers

  and charred spirit. She is the winter

  between seasons. She is only a whisper;

  the gladness of fresh snow and honey lemon tea.

  What we are is not a Hollywood marquee.

  We do not gossip or share ice cream.

  We are ships in the night.

  Blood strangers.

  Once in the morning light

  we built stick houses for The Green Folk.

  Begonias ruined and laid by the stream

  to garnish crowns as we sang “Da Luan, Da Mart.”

  All for a moment.

  I am as unsure of her as I am of that day.

  Small clean memories are too few to be forgotten.

  Sisters, we are told, have a bond that is uncommon.

  Not so. Sometimes sisters struggle to obey

  the path. We fall apart. Unaware of the dangers.

  Young Australian

  We lay in the summer bed

  having never slept together

  but for the steady breath

  and the quiet warmth

  of our arms pressed as one.

  A Threesome with Liquor

  Ah yes! Music is the fool of love

  but not as forgiving as rusted brandy

  shattered like the melody.

  Reach for that tender woman in the bottle

  then tell me you adore me.

  But goodness falls short of

  this. You, unable to hold promises, scanty

  in bockety hands, are still astoundingly

  beautiful.

  We often cherish the difficult things.

  They glue together small pleasures.

  You sleeping while I read.