RIMBAUD IN PARIS (version 2)

A thousand poems
burnt through
his

brains, while one
night pooled
wetly

at my feet

***
(after HOLY THE FIRM by Annie Dillard, Harper & Row, 1977)

++++++++
from NOTA BENE, a manuscript-in-progress

RIMBAUD IN PARIS

A thousand poems
burnt through
his

brains, while one
night pooled
wetly

at my feet.
O Poet--
Descend!




(after HOLY THE FIRM by Annie Dillard, Harper & Row, 1977)
++++++

--from NOTA BENE, a manuscript-in-progress

THREE COYOTES

peeing over the buttercups
yellowing the courtyard--

My dogs barking, forelegs
atop the windowsill--

And so the day fades
as I wrestle a long poem.

BLOG POETICS

I blog for you
roses

but I am no flower
child

I write you
e-letters

but I am not
(t)here

I just wish to share
something--

something that won't
wound

I have gathered all
thorns
into my cupped palms
for gentling psalms for
you

Hands fist into
silence

She bleeds without
pain

You see her blood
through roses

lushly-petalled
generous perfume

"...EVACUATING MORNINGS..."

She also throbbed from evacuating mornings. How would she look through a window? Would she remain indifferent to the same view of a neighboring building’s backside from behind the velvet-draped windows of a hundred hotels? My depicted conclusions of her eyes are unable to transcend bleakness. She is forever a ripe rose.

*****

She longed for conversations—this is the only manner in which she is a girl. Her eyes are wide to pull in more of the world. Others misunderstood and used the nature of her grazing gaze to label her “Innocence.” I never believed: she is intimate with cognac and port. With mahogany walls. She is intimate with empty bottles.

*****

Rain does not forgive. Rain is indifferent to what it wets. I lower The Wall Street Journal to peer at her. She is the wind. She is a hurricane seated in my kitchen, stealing my eggs. For, she forgot to say “Please.” I shall remind her of manners. She is wind, not rain. Presumably, I am rain.

*****

She likes the word “translucent.” I prefer the word “transparent.” Once more, I am unable to fathom why I prefer to be an envelope versus the perfumed snapshot slipped in. Perhaps to be stamped: DO NOT FOLD. Perhaps.


--from SILENCES: The Autobiography of Loss (Blue Lion Books, 2007)

REGARDING CHRISTIAN VINCENT'S PAINTINGS

from SILENCES: The Autobiography of Loss (Blue Lion, 2007)

Christian Vincent’s Faith In Painting And Humanity
A Review of a 2001 Exhibition at Forum Gallery (New York)

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore.
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand—
How few! Yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep—while I weep!
O God! Can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
—Edgar Allan Poe, A Dream Within A Dream

Once, I wrote a poem about riding the Staten Island Ferry as it approached New York City. The sun had just set and the downtown skyscrapers glittered with lights. As night fused foreground and background to flatten the scene, the city’s lights came to evoke loose white diamonds against black velvet. I began that prose poem by stating: “You tell me the lights remind you of Tuscany, the fires in homes dotting the hillsides. I am looking at these same stars and see dying men in white shirts toiling past midnight in the skyscrapers of Manhattan.”

I am familiar with these “dying men in white shirts.” Before switching careers to become a poet, I worked for a decade in Wall Street-related careers where I met many men flushed with money but impoverished in spirit. I don’t think these industries contain more of these afflicted men than other professions—but Wall Street comes to mind easily as I peruse Christian Vincent’s exhibit. For in painting a mahogany-paneled world of “suits,” Vincent evokes the cold-bloodedness that is the occupational spiritual hazard of those who would excel in business. In another poem, I once wrote the lines: “It is so difficult to find innocence in accomplished men. There is always something to be paid.”

The two poems I reference are among those works I wrote shortly after leaving the financial world. Vincent’s “Cockfight (1999)” can help explain why it required years for me to overcome business-derived metaphors. The triptych features the interior of a men’s club. Wealthy men in black tuxedoes and pristine white shirts drink martinis and trade money as they bet on the outcome of a bout between two pale-skinned, almost-nude young men battling each other with bared fists. It is a world of privilege where the crowd of white men can pay others to beat each other to a pulp. It is a chilling scene—and even more chilling because it is not necessarily fiction, even as the artist concocts what the catalogue essay calls his “invented dramas.” (Another viewer of the exhibit told me that such a scene occurred regularly in the late 1970s at Boston’s Harvard Club.) Though I never experienced such a scene (possibly because I wouldn’t be allowed in some of these clubs), I find the brutality of “Cockfight” metaphorically emblematic of the kind of business dealings that unnecessarily have bankrupted many and put thousands out of work—the kind of effect not really felt by those who view the world from Wall Street’s financial documents versus from the trenches of Main Street.

I was ambitious—have you known
The passion, father? You have not:
A cottager, I mark’d a throne
Of half the world as all my own,
And murmur’d at such a lowly lot
—Edgar Allan Poe, Tamerland

Such dehumanization marks many of Vincent’s paintings. “One Foot Out (2000)” features a man in a business suit with one foot out of one shoe as he stares at himself in a mirror. The setting seems to be in a hotel room. The man is seated in a chair, his back to an unmade bed where someone else's naked foot reclines. He either has just finished or is about to begin a sexual encounter. Yet the expression on his reflected face is one of despair as if he is asking himself, “What am I doing here?” In any event, he has found or expects to find no solace in this most intimate of acts.

My draught of passion hath been deep—
I revell’d, and I now would sleep—
And after-drunkenness of soul
Succeeds the glories of the bowl—
An idle longing night and day
To dream my very life away.
—Edgar Allan Poe, Romance (Introduction)

“Mary Go Round (2000)” features a naked blonde, knees drawn up against her chest, floating in the midst of the painting and encircled by tuxedo-clad men. The image reminds me of “players” – a term I’ve heard ascribed to beautiful young ladies on the prowl for wealthy patrons or potential husbands. Thus, though the blonde is naked in Vincent’s painting, her exposure does not preclude a sense of hauteur on her expertly made-up face. In fact, the expressions on some of the fully-clothed men make them look more diffident than the woman who is using her knees to hide her breasts. Wealth does not necessarily translate to self-confidence, after all, and the image implies that some of the men are wondering whether money will suffice to purchase the company of a young lady desired by many. Vincent adeptly features this narrative against a red background—red evoking lust or passion—while still managing to convey the fragility of a world based on money instead of perhaps more stable moorings like friendship or love.

In fact, something that easily could be a benign image, “The Fan (2000)” becomes more insidious partly due to Vincent’s gesture-laden brushstrokes. The man portrayed does seem to be cheering something or someone off the painting, but a certain savagery lurks within the tightly-fleshed face—one looks at him applauding and yet does not believe that he has lost himself totally into his role as a fan.

Consequently, “Eradication (2000)” compels the interpretation that, from the many that flock to and stay in the business world, there is a small group who would wish to leave. The painting depicts a line of black-suited men and darkly-dressed women being led by a man beating on a red drum; here, the use of red, the brightest spot in the painting, facilitates the evocation of a toy from one’s childhood, which is to say, a period when the group was more innocent and care-free. Behind them, strewn papers rise to mingle with the clouds. In the deep background is an image of a city that, presumably, the group is leaving—the image features skyscrapers, as if the scene is of downtown Manhattan that contains Wall Street, the leading financial capital of the world. One man clutches onto a painting as he joins the group running away. A painting is an intriguing choice—Vincent sentimentally could have inserted a painting to reference his avocation; but the man also could be seen as taking the painting with him because it is a valuable object, perhaps something that he had a chance to acquire from one of his bonuses and that now may afford him the means for starting a new life elsewhere.

Far away—far away—
Far away—as far at least
Lies that valley as the day
Down within the golden east—
All things lovely—are not they
Far away—far away?
—Edgar Allan Poe, [The Valley of Unrest]

It is also worth noting that the faces on “Eradication” are those of relatively young adults—perhaps in their 20s or 30s. It’s as if Vincent is noting that if they stayed in professions whose practices force them to lose their humanity, they run the risk of becoming like the man portrayed on “Interconnected (1999).” A white-haired man in a white shirt, dark pants, dark suspenders and dark tie stands in the center of the painting, his hands in his pants pocket. Behind him, a series of wheels seemingly rotate, connected by sprockets. In the midst of the largest wheel are two naked infants clambering like gerbils within its inner circle—also recalling the struggle of Sisyphus to roll a boulder up a hill. The man, towards the end of his career and/or life, seems to be considering his past – including whether certain decisions he might have made were the correct ones to make. Perhaps, like Sisyphus of the Greek myth, he has worked hard—and sacrificed much—during his life and is now doubting whether such has been worth it.

Certainly, certain lifestyles are implied in the ultimate conclusions portrayed in “Shelter (2001)” and “The Rite of Spring (2000).” In “Shelter,” a white-haired man is featured asleep with a book as a pillow beneath a table. Lying atop the table is a lady reading a different book. The tableau is set within a dim room; a window allows the view of blue sky and white clouds, implying a beautiful day outside. Thus, “shelter” is portrayed to be the gloomier, unattractive interior of a residence where people have become distanced from each other—and where people have become blind (the man is asleep and the lady is reading a book) to the beauty of the natural world. Meanwhile, “The Rite of Spring” features an aged conductor falling backwards into the orchestra pit—seemingly, he may have suffered a heart attack. As he falls, black birds mingle with sheets of music upended in the air as the other musicians try to catch him. By featuring the image of a tuxedo-clad man dying in the midst of his success, Vincent asks: is a life of compromises worth its toll on our spirits when, ultimately, we all die and can’t bring wealth with us to the next cycle of life? That is, whatever we attain in life, if it comes as a result of compromising something of ourselves – whether it is our ideals or our human relationships—was the rationale for such compromise—whether it is power or money—worth it?

Know thou the secret of a spirit
Bow’d from its wild pride into shame.
O yearning heart! I did inherit
Thy withering portion with the fame…
O craving heart, for the lost flowers
And sunshine of my summer hours!
The undying voice of that dead time,
With its interminable chime,
Rigs, in the spirit of a spell,
Upon they emptiness—a knell.
—Edgar Allan Poe, Tamerlane

Indeed, Vincent’s theme is not a railing against Wall Street or any other world dominated by business suits or tuxedoes so much as the tragedy of dehumanization. His theme may be encapsulated in “Icarus (2001)” that features the plummeting Icarus about to plunge into the sea after the sun has melted his wings. Icarus was ambitious—which can be a virtue. But Icarus was also arrogantly unrealistic: he thought to soar on wax-formed wings towards the sun. There may be nothing wrong with making money to finance a comfortable, even luxurious, life. But surely there is something wrong if the process requires us to make bad decisions—perhaps including those decisions that unfairly take advantage of others. If life becomes a dog-eat-dog world, Vincent suggests, it is because the participants have failed to appreciate and respect the “interconnectedness” of human beings.

Thus, we come to “Field of Frames (2000)” that shows a white-haired man surveying a field of empty frames. In the far distance stands another man holding up a pole needed to mark some measurement when the white-haired man looks through a nearby telescope. The white-haired man is measuring in the same way that the white-haired man in “Interconnected” may be considering his past. For the mounds of frames once must have held pictures or paintings before they were cast aside. In fact, the man in the distance is a younger man and may symbolize the white-haired man’s younger self—perhaps from a time when the man’s ideals or dreams had yet to be tested by time and the limits of his own character. Vincent has captured a moment that most of us—just like the man in “Interconnected” —is bound to undergo prior to the ultimate death featured in “The Rite of Spring.” Someday, most of us will reflect on how we’ve lived our lives. What expression then will we discover when we look at the mirror? Will our expressions manage to avoid the pathos so ingrained in the expression depicted in “One Foot Out”?

In visions of the dark night
I have dreamed of joy departed—
But a waking dream of life and light
Hath left me broken-hearted.
—Edgar Allan Poe, A Dream

My narrative reading of Vincent’s paintings is markedly different from that suggested by Robert Fishko who wrote the catalogue essay. I read Fishko’s essay after I wrote the first draft of this review as I wished my response to Vincent’s works to be as unmediated as possible. There is no right or wrong interpretation of Vincent’s work and it is a testament to the psychological impact of Vincent’s paintings that they compel such personal (and different) readings from me, Fishko and perhaps other viewers. Fishko, for example, considers the woman in “Mary Go Round” to be “caught in the maze of human relationships” due to her nudity and fetal position, whereas I consider the woman to be more in control due to the haughty expression on her perfectly made-up face. What matters is the evocative strength of Vincent’s paintings—an effect facilitated by the large scale of the works, luxuriant oil surfaces, rich though muted colors, confident brushstokes, and Vincent’s use in some paintings of opulent wood frames. The framing is particularly effective in the triptych format of “Cockfight” in seemingly mirroring the painted wood panels within the canvas.

From reading Fishko’s essay, it is worth repeating his note that “The Rite of Spring” shares its title with “Igor Stravinsky’s symphonic masterpiece, which was famously stoned at its world premiere in 1913. A conductor is ejected from the orchestra pit, apparently unable to withstand the disruption of his performance.” Thus, what I interpret as an aged conductor experiencing a heart attack is a scene undoubtedly more intended to reflect on the factual history of Stravinsky’s work, as reflected in Vincent’s title. But Vincent’s paintings are potent specifically due to their ability to tap into a variety of viewers’ subjectivities to create different significances. In “The Rite of Spring,” the presence of black birds allows a haunting doorway into the mind’s imagination—and the birds provide just one key. In all of the paintings, Vincent offers a variety of entryways for the viewer’s mind to reconnoiter with humanity’s stories: desire, loss, greed, regret, resignation, stupidity, duplicity and more. What these particular stories share is the ability to counsel the viewer: Beware!

Here, where a hero fell, a column falls!
Here, where the mimic eagle glared in gold,
A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat!
Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair
Waved to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle!
Here, where on golden throne the monarch lolled,
Glides, spectre-like, unto his marble home,
Lit by the wan light of the horned moon,
The swift and silent lizard of the stones!
…These stones—alas! These gray stones—are they all—
All of the famed, and the colossal left
By the corrosive Hours to Fate and me?
—Edgar Allan Poe, The Coliseum

Notwithstanding my personal background as a former banker, I don’t believe my strong recollections of Wall Street from viewing Vincent’s paintings is far-fetched. I believe Vincent’s themes relate closely to the booming stock market of the last two decades—a development reverberating not only within the business world but in culture. During that period, the accumulation of wealth also served to widen significantly the chasm between the poor and rich. For many, spiritual poverty seemed to rise with material wealth. Against this backdrop, Vincent’s paintings also may be seen to be a postmodern extension of the dialogue depicted by the social realist painters between WWI and WWII.

Before WWII, such forces as the Depression, Fascism and the threat of a world war inspired such artists as Edward Hopper and Charles Burchfield to paint despondency. Vincent is as adept as these artists in using light to evoke haunting moods. The loneliness permeating the room in Hopper’s “Eleven A.M. (1926)” is mirrored in “One Foot Out.”

Whereas much of the twenties and thirties’ art portrayed cityscapes to effect the (cheerless) mood of the times—such as Hopper’s “Nighthawks (1942)” —Vincent focuses directly on the personal world of powerful men to depict psychological bleakness. On this level, “Cockfight” shares much with Reginald Marsh’s “The Bowery (1930)” with both evoking a sense of psychologically ravaged men. However, the men in “Cockfight” seem worse off because the kind of impoverishment that blinds them to the brutality of (paying) the two men fighting within their midst is from an internal cause—not the external source of, say, a depressed world economy.

Consequently, the men in Vincent’s “Interconnected,” “Shelter” or “One Foot Out” are shown to be as much at risk to the vicissitudes of life as the young women portrayed in Raphael Soyer’s “Office Girls (1936).” Vincent presents a world where men try to bolster their security with accumulated wealth, and failed. Just as Burchfield painted a rural American from which pioneer strength had vanished, Vincent paints a world where money’s limitations are starkly revealed for the purpose of guaranteeing happiness.

Despite hearkening back to early 20th century realism, Vincent is plowing new ground unlike many of his peers. His vocabulary reflects our times adeptly. For instance, the conflation of witness with participant in our media culture, as most overtly reflected in the participatory audiences for such television shows as “Jerry Springer,” is one of the characteristics used by Vincent in the perspectives of his paintings. Unlike for a Hopper painting where the viewer remains an observer, Vincent places the viewer right smack in the middle of his scenes – one (even a female viewer) is mingling with the crowd in “Cockfight” drinking a martini; one is yelling “Hurry!” to the line in “Eradication”; or one is in the room, perhaps sitting in an armchair, in “One Foot Out.” The viewer is enmeshed in the intimacy of—rather than looking at—Vincent’s scenes.

In addition, Vincent is drawing attention to one of the most significant (and yet now ignored) periods of American painting to note that we—the country and the art world—are at a critical juncture. In the decade prior to WWII, the United States didn’t have a vision of its future so much as simply was trying to survive the Depression. Events led the country to WWII from which it emerged the victor, and subsequently led to the explosion of American culture including abstract expressionism and pop art. Vincent is reminding us that parallels can be drawn between the social and economic upheavals of the thirties with the situation we find ourselves in today following the recent crash of the stock markets.

If art is to reflect the mood of a culture, Vincent has tapped into something about the current psychology of the country. But instead of lapsing into nihilism, nostalgia, romanticism or kitsch, Vincent evinces a classicist eye and approach. In doing so, he maintains faith in his art—the art of painting—and, ultimately, the future of humanity.


These stones—alas! These gray stones—are
they all—
All of the famed, and the colossal left
By the corrosive Hours to Fate and me?

“Not all” —the Echoes answer me— “not
all!
“Prophetic sounds and loud, arise forever
“From us, and from all Ruin, unto the wise,
“As melody from Memnon to the Sun.
“We rule the hearts of mightiest men— we
rule
“With a despotic sway all giant minds.
“We are no —we pallid stones.
“Not all our power is gone—not all our
fame—
“Not all the magic of our high renown—
“Not all the wonder that encircles us—
“Not all the mysteries that in us lie—
“Not all the memories that hang upon
“And cling around about us as a garment,
“Clothing us in a robe of more than glory.”
—Edgar Allan Poe, The Coliseum

ENHEDUANNA #1

And are you thinking of me while you pace the streets of a city whose sidewalks have memorized the atonal rhythm of my footsteps? Surely you walked through the spaces I have hollowed out from air and left behind in anticipation of you. Throughout the years I have lightened the forlorn dimness of many alleys by leaving behind single-stemmed red roses -- has your shoulder been tapped by their perfume? Has my scent threaded itself yet through the circles wind-drawn by the ink of your curly hair? Once, we stood unknowingly in the same room of this city with numerous rooms -- have you entered its space again without knowing (until now) why you always look at each face?

There, now. When you turn this corner and feel Baudelaire's "infinite expanse" at the sight of a sky thinned by two parallel skyscrapers, do you think of me latching a star on a gold chain so that its shimmer will lower your eyes to my breasts?

In this city replete with paintings who have witnessed us both fail repeatedly to see each other, are you thinking of me while you and I have yet to know you and I? And when we finally meet, will you see me as familiar? Of course you will. And not just for mirroring the color of each other's eyes. When we finally meet, why will you see me as familiar?


*****

from Menage A Trois With the 21st Century (xPress(ed), 2004)

GUEST BLOGGER: MAURICE

"Existence permeates sexuality and vice versa, so that it is impossible to determine, in a given decision or action, the proportion of sexual to other motivations, impossible to label a decision or act 'sexual' or 'non-sexual.' There is no outstripping of sexuality any more than there is sexuality enclosed within itself. No one is saved and no one is totally lost."
--Maurice Merleau-Ponty

LA LOCA

In the green
morning I
wanted

to be a
heart. A
heart.

And at evening’s
end, I
wanted

to be my
voice. A
nightingale.
—LO(R)CA

She fell in
love. Poor
Juana.

Fell in love
with the
most

handsome man in
the kingdom.
How

did the Prince
requite her
love?

By betraying her
with every
woman

who simpered across
his path.
By

lashing a florid
sky across
her

skin. By cutting
her beautiful
hair.

Poor Juana—always
looking behind
her

stooped shoulders. How
her Prince
mocked

her, chilling her
tears into
multiple

strands of pearls.
Still, when
he

died, Juana went
mad. She
clawed

her cheeks and
confused dogs
into

whimpers, then howls.
She rode
throughout

Granada keening over
her Prince’s
coffin

in a gloomy
carriage pulled
by

eight horses. She
rode and
rode

with his stench
becoming hers
until

they both stunk
up all
of

Espana. She refused
to bury
him,

begging faces she
concocted from
receding

knotholes of trees
passed by
their

carriage, begging faces
she drew
by

connecting the stars
pockmarking the
irritated

night sky, begging
faces she
surfaced

from bonfire smokes
and crumpled
balls

of sodden handkerchiefs.
Her plea?
She

pleaded for his
resurrection.
Bah.

She pleaded as
if he
would

return to her
if he
came

to breathe again.
Bah. As
if

he once was
there for
her.

As if he
ever wrote
Poetry

for her. Now,
do not
misunderstand:

We gitanas adore
Juana The
"Crazy".

To honor her,
we cross
ourselves

and touch our
hair. We
honor

her because Juana
never faltered
from

living her Truth
even as
lies

snuffed the votive
lights in
her

eyes. Dame la
verdad. Poor
Juana.

               Once, I stepped
               into a
               story…

I love Juana.
But I
loathe

her, too. Once,
I courted
madness

for Poetry. But
I punched
through

that blur—grew
back my
hair.

Does it matter
that its
harvest

now elicits snow?
I punched
through

that silver, shimmery
blur. Ole!
I

grew back my
hair! So
what

if Winter has
become my
veil?

               I thought the
               story was
               mine…

I grew back
my hair.
I

love my refuge.
It veils
me

into believing that
when I
write

of Juana The
Mad, I
am

still young with
glossy, blue-black
hair.

That when I
write my
poems

Juana is a
subject and
not

the one releasing
the wind
that

flares my skirts
high to
reveal

absolutely furious footwork
—en compas—
conjuring

up the ghosts
of those
who

laugh at my
red eyes—
dark

angels who taught:
there is
no

madness. There is
only a
woman

brutishly in love.
Hear me
read

me singing to
You the
A.

The E. The
I. The
O.

The U. The
You. The
U.

And the Y.
Hear me
and

Juana dance! The
seduction of
flowers

blossoming into vowels.
Hear me
y

Juana sing the
machinegun blast
of

The A, The
I, The
E,

The O, The
U. Hear
us

die from the
Song of
Y,

the Dance of
Why? Listen
all

you nightingales! Why?
I curse
all

you nightingales! Why?
En compas/s!
I

thought it was
only a
story.

I thought the
story was
mine:

a bird caws
from my
mirror.

My mirror spits
out bloodied
feathers.

I love you
nightingales! All
of

you! Why, dear
nightingales? Why?
Y

WHY? Y WHY?

GUEST BLOGGER: FEDERICO

CANCIONCILLA DEL Primer Deseo

En la manana verde,
queria ser corazon.
Corazon.

Y en la tarde madura
Queria ser ruisenor.
Ruisenor.

(Alma,
ponte color de naranja.
Alma,
ponte color de amor.)

En la manana viva
yo queria ser yo.
Corazon.

Y en la tarde caida
queria ser mi voz.
Ruisenor.

!Alma,
ponte color de naranja!
!Alma,
ponte color de amor!


*****


Ditty of First Desire

In the green morning
I wanted to be a heart.
A heart.

And in the ripe evening
I wanted to be a nightingale.
A nightingale.

(Soul,
turn orange-colored.
Soul,
turn the color of love.)

In the vivid morning
I wanted to be myself.
A heart.

And at evening’s end
I wanted to be my voice.
A nightingale.

Soul,
turn orange-colored!
Soul,
Turn the color of love!


--from Selected Verse: Revised Bilingual Edition by Federico Garcia Lorca, Trans. by Catherine Brown, Cola Franzen, Angela Jaffray, Galway Kinnell, Will Kirkland, Christopher Maurer, Jerome Rothenberg, Greg Simon, Alan S. Trueblood, and Steven F. White (FSG, 1994)

DUENDE

So despairing no
need for
translators.

Cancelled stars bubble
sorrow in
You

for reading me—
The One
who

is as happy
as a
cop

with a donut.
My dangling
nightstick

as black as
the Waterman
I

never write with
but use
in

una poema which
believes nothing
more

Holy than Joy.
Amen. Ole!
Joy—

to whose holiness
the blood
on

my nightstick attests.
An obscenely
fat

baton from the
French who
observed

seeing is suffering.

THE OLIVE TREE

His cante was
an ancient
tree.

An olive tree
that stood
since

Romans ruled Spain.
Since Moors
invaded.

Since ships laden
with gold
from

the New World
sailed upon
River

Ebro. This gnarled
tree‘s roots
penetrated

farther into Earth
than any
other

tree, penetrating as
far as
Hell

to draw up
the demons’
boiling

water. When my
father sang,
no

one pretended to
be angels
because

his songs compelled
demon blood
to

boil in all
of our
veins.

Why must I
be drawn
to

“dark beauty” instead
of being
like

those who hail
the dumb
moon

as if nothing
can cancel
it—

like sun or,
worse, eclipse
which

does not pretend
the opposite
is

now reality but
shows instead
how

darkness is zero.

AS IF THE POET LOVES EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE

Dame la verdad.
And perfect
timing.

Those are the
first two
of

Flamenco’s ten commandments.
To speak
Truth

en compas -- is
that not
how

Poetry also works?
Flamenco's third
commandment

is never to
reveal the
rest

to outsiders. This
is the
point

of divergence between
Flamenco and
Poetry.

In Poetry, you
give all
even

if you must
show the
stained

ripped swathe of
false silk
fluttering

beneath your lace-trimmed
scarlet skirt
fashioned

from the curtain
that once
dressed

a window in
Senora La-Di-Da’s
bedroom.

And the outside
exists in
Poetry

only for its
borders to
offer

a shimmering blur
of silver
hurting

the eyes into
recognizing it
into

a false Beauty.
But, still
Beauty,

Hence, the Truth—
thus, I
contradict

myself. Does Truth
exist if
one

must question, “Whose
Truth?” So
dance

me a poem.
Twine your
hands

around the stolen
pen to
release

your interior darkness
in other
people’s

lives. And don’t
forget to
behave

as if the
poet truthfully
loves

everything and everyone.
Do this
to

begin what you
don’t know
yet

as the Truth.
Don’t worry
about

capitalizing Words because
You don’t
know

what they mean.
Just dance
out

the poem. Y
escribe en
compas.

AS IF

There was un
momento, a
poem

I wrote while
driving the
car.

My ego would
not let
me

pull over to
jot it
down.

"If a poem
is so
powerful

it will return,"
I have
boasted

for a long
time to
other

poets, as if
I possessed
some

knowledge they did
not already
know.

It feels like
years and
yet

that poem has
not yet
returned.

What I recall
is that,
somehow,

it related to
perfect timing
y

flamenco.

TEATRO OLIMPIA

Ole! They say,
accenting the
wrong

syl-LA-able. They
ask for
flamenco,

they say, then
don’t complain
when

they get La
Pulga, a
pesky

dance about a
pesky girl
with

a pesky flea
in her
clothes.

The theater “liberated”
by Nationalists
curdled

from the cigarettes
of troops
wearing

blue for the
Italian Army,
gray-green

for the German.
Behind them
more

soldiers wore red
berets representing
Carlists,

dark blue shirts
with yellow
arrows

symbolizing the Falangists,
and red
fezzes

for Franco’s Moors.
Eh! Different
from

each other yet,
to Clementina,
more

of the same.
Their gaping
mouths

melded into one
voracious maw
poised

to gobble her
down. They
watched

with a hungry
insatiability. But
never

did they clap.
Well, one
man

began clapping on
everyone’s behalf,
not

because her furious
footwork was
better

than it had
ever been
but,

because she raised
her skirt
just

the tiniest bit.
She heard
his

order from offstage
as a
blade

hissing past false
rubies studding
her

ears, “Higher! Show
more! Do
you

eat cockroaches?!” Afterwards,
Senor Vedrine,
owner

of several companies,
touring the
country

in his Espectaculos,
resplendent that
night

in his black
evening cape—
mustache

waxed to fine
points—dropped
a

few centimes into
Clementina’s hand.
Her

hand fisted over
the amount
exact

-ly enough to
stay alive
for

one more day
and arrive
back

at Teatro Olimpia
the next
night

hungry again. Hungry
again despite
lace

hemming a red
velvet skirt.
Hungry

enough to keep
returning to
do

whatever was necessary.
Again. Despite
lace

trimming red velvet.
Again and
again

she is hungry
enough to
repeat

this honing of
furious footwork.
Furious

shoe tips bearing
six extra
nails

drumming into a
floor she
imagined

as the naked
chests of
soldiers

beneath her, looking
up flaring
skirts

while ignorantly dying
as blood
spurted

from the nails
she stamped
into

their flesh with
hungry, furious
footwork.

THE SINGER

When they heard
him, they
heard

the whips over
his ancestors
as

they were forced
out from
India.

They heard a
man thrown
into

jail for stealing
a small
bunch

of grapes, then
the ugly
grunts

of his starving
wife and
children.

When they heard
him, “they
heard

a shivering woman
with no
defense

as the solders
came to
do

what they did
with her
and

her still too-young
daughters.” They
heard

the stars fall
into bleak
silence.

When they heard
him, they
heard

his cante come
from him
like

a rusty nail
being pulled
from

an old board.
La voz
afilla—

sandpaper voice. Good
Gitano voice:
Muy

rajo, very rough.
Do you
know

the worst thing
one can
say

about someone in
flamenco? No
me

dice nada. He
didn’t say
anything

to me. He
didn’t speak
something

I realized I
feared but
needed

to hear. Ay!
All these
stanzas

are rough! Or
worse, too
gentle.

They fumble. Earnest
as cows
and

they fumble. Do
you know
what

would be the
worst thing
said

about my poetry?
I created
nothing

that moved you.
Made you
cry

as if pain
was the
only

proof possible for
being alive.
So

who among you
listening will
be

the wild dog
I am
calling?

Show me your
snarl. Reveal
your

fangs. How can
I sing
blood

if I don’t
bleed? Show
me

yourself as the
one for
whom

I will rip
my own
skin.

Show yourself before
you bore
me

with your patient
stalking. Show
yourself

darkened further by
my orders.
My

people trained me.
There is
no

shame in begging
for what
will

part my lips—
what will
trade

caresses with my
tongue—what
will

battle my teeth
and make
me

sweat. My people
trained me.
I

learned knives are
sharp by
being

cut. I learned
fires are
hot

by being burned.
I learned
to

stamp my heels
to sound
like

a machine-gun blast
because…because…
Show

yourself—I have
a song
to

turn you into
ice and
then

shatter you. Show
yourself—do
you

think I’m begging
for a
crust

of bread already
half-eaten by
cockroaches?!

DARK FREEDOM

Oh, this girl!
This Rosa—
dark!

Dark as a
Moor. She
wore

rags for clothes.
Hair a
mat

of knots alive
with lice.
Hands

blackened by cinders
from her
father’s

forge. Feet mirroring
the dirt
that

formed the floor
of her
family’s

home, the sorriest
of all
caves.

Sternly, the duke
forbade Clementina
from

speaking to Rosa.
For everyone
knew

Gypsies are thieves
and cutthroats.
Everyone

knew Gypsies steal
babies, that
they

conspire with the
Devil. Worst—
worst

of all was
their music:
flamenco,

the music of
drunkards and
prostitutes.

But little Clementina
was so
lonely

she disobeyed her
father. In
secret,

she fed Rosa
in an
outdoor

patio, baiting her
with a
plate

of mantecaditos.
Rosa, always
starving,

gorged herself, helpless
against the
little

cookies of almonds
and olive
oil.

Her hunger forced
her to
seek

the young mistress.
Clementina, barely
older

than Rosa, took
the wild
Gypsy

child under her
wing. She
bathed

Rosa until brown
revealed itself
beneath

the black. Washed
her until
water

ran clear in
the tub,
until

Rosa’s black Gypsy
hair glinted
blue

under the sun.
Clementina fed
Rosa

candied chestnuts in
a brandy
syrup,

perfectly grilled sardines,
tender, marinated
octopus.

From her own
closet, Clementina
gave

Rosa a pink
silk party
frock

embroidered with rosebuds,
a delicate
gown

of English lawn
trimmed with
Belgian

lace, velvet slippers,
and a
mantilla

blessed by the
Pope. Rosa,
overwhelmed,

possessed only one
thing to
give

in return. Secretly,
she with
“blood

from four sides”
shared her
history

with an outsider.
To their
mutual

astonishment, from the
first clap
Rosa

released to unveil
the flamenco,
Clementina

felt the rhythms
intimate-ly, discovered
parallels

pulsing within her
veins, en
compas.

Clementina had heard
those rhythms
before.

They often echoed
past midnight
through

her family’s lonely
house. They
echoed

behind her father’s
locked rooms,
bewitching

rhythms accompanied by
other sounds
she

was forbidden to
investigate: men’s
hoarse

voices, furious heels
stamping on
heraldic

granite, laughter from
dusk-eyed women
never

introduced to her.
Clementina didn’t
know

what clashed or
mated behind
forbidding

doors, but their
sounds lanced
her

heart, made her
open palms
toward

the black sky.
Perhaps we
are

here only to
pour milk
over

white marble, pour
gathered pollen
over

gold statues living
in gardens
visible

only to third
eyes. A
child’s

flamenco pierced her
to flame!
and

when she danced
for the
first

time with Rosa,
Clementina lost
her

innocence to feel
her spirit
surface.

She felt milk
and pollen
mate

to release blood’s
torrential flow.
Finally,

Clementina could identify
herself, could
feel

the premonition of
how someone
like

her, someday, could
claw her
cheeks!

Could rip a
silk blouse
to

bare breasts for
a stranger’s
teeth!

With a flick
of her
wrists

and stamp of
her feet,
Clementina

laughed back at
Rosa, laughed
at

her Father’s black
brooding windows,
laughed

at the purpling
sky as
Clementina—

oh that girl!
dark golden
girl!—

freed herself. She
laughed at
her

bruises, both then
and those
yet

to come. She
laughed at
her

emerging scars and,
en compas,
she

set herself free.

BAIT THE DARK ANGEL BY

saying “Lizard” or
avoiding the
touch

of iron, or
choosing a
black

dog. Mama stood
as straight
as

only a true
Flamenca can.
She

pulled the dress
over her
head,

careful not to
stain it
with

her blood. In
the moonlight
I

saw how my
mother’s bleak
eyes

had swollen and
turned purple.
But

she licked her
teeth and
smiled

when her tongue
discovered none
missing.

The floor was
checkered with
green

and lavender tiles.
He pointed
at

Mama’s eyes and
joked, “Chop
up

those plums. The
sangria needs
more

fruit.” Everyone laughed.
Mama laughed
loudest—

a laughter bearing
the harshness
of

aborted histories. Then
all crowded
around

Mama, repining her
still blue
-black

hair, snagging loops
of oiled
strands

from either side
of her
face

to camouflage her
bruised eyes,
giving


her glasses of
aguardiente to
kill

that which cannot
be killed.
Once,

he wondered if
she’d been
formed

from molten gold.
Touched, she
bore

what can never
be killed.
Outside—

perhaps beyond the
scarlet mountain—
perhaps

just beyond the
other side
of

that dirty window—
a bark
then

a prolonged howling
shriveling the
coward

‘s lungs. She
bore what
cannot

be killed: the
oversized heart
of

her dance: Pain.
Poetry. Blood.
You.

You. Blood. Poetry.
Pain. Her
Dance.

DAME LA VERDAD

Old and frail,
a sugar
sculpture

in a world
threatened by
storms.

But the real
shock was
her

feet, as misshapen
as I
imagine

the bound feet
of Chinese
women

might have been.
My future
beckoned—

the aborted wings
long have
wreaked

memory and desire
against my
back.

My poor back,
its skin
continuously

gathered to fatten
the puckering
nubs

atop each collarbone.
The claws
ending

her feet. The
fists bunched
on

my back from
reined-in wings.
We

are connoisseurs of
secrets, the
biggest

secret being how
we lost
all

rights to pray,
“Lord, have
mercy”

once we lost
desire for
mercy.

SANGRE NEGRA

How does a
small tree
kill

a big tree?
The way
Vincent

Romero died onstage
dancing one
more

escobilla. Ole! Ayan!
The way
cantaores

drown in their
own blood
singing

one last letra.
Ole! How
does

a small tree
kill a
big

tree? His smell
like the
first

time: sweat and
marijuana. Oranges.
Cloves.

How does a
small tree
kill

a big tree?
Fall of
blue

-black hair. How
does a
small

tree kill? He
was nicknamed
“Bullet”

for his bald
head and
thick

neck, all smooth
except where
puckered

a long scar
documenting the
flight

of a gunshot.
How does
a…?

So moved he
ripped off
his

shirt. So moved
she clawed
her

cheeks. How does
a small
tree

kill a tree
so big
its

roots encircle the
entire planet?
How…

wither all red
roses into
insects?

How? You never
answer to
outsiders.

Drape black velvet
over the
Sun.

BAILAR O MORIR

(ARS POETICA #20,000)

En la manana verde
Queria ser Corazon.
Corazon
—“Cancioncilla del Primer Deseo” by Federico Garcia Lorca

Waves
roll in
all the way

from
Asia and
slam the shore.

Their
roar comforts
for reflecting / echoing

“heels,
two dozen,
pounding on wood

floors,
pulsing to
a flamenco beat.”

Ocean
mirrors ocean
and you surface—


*


Flamenco contains Ten
Commandments. First,
Dame

la verdad. Second,
Do it
in

time, en compas/s.
Third, do
not

reveal the others
to outsiders.
But

you can share
Federico Garcia
Lorca:

Y en la tarde madura
Queria ser ruisenor.
Ruisenor
—“Cancioncilla del Primer Deseo” by Federico Garcia Lorca

*


Once, I stepped
into a
story

I thought belonged
to me.
I

became a character
in it,
giving

the story all
the years
demanded

from my life.
But this
story

began long before
i entered
it.

Was I roaring
flamenco? Was
I

not whispering, Poetry?
It was
summer…


*


Hard
history, yes.
but it begins

with
nothing less
than sinuous twine

of
her hands,
perfectly-calibrated arch of

her
back, effortless syncopation
of her feet:

Ocean
mirrors ocean.
Ocean mirrors ocean.

Waves
tap out
the Morse Code

intricately
embroidered by
Carmen Amaya’s heels.


*


Carmen was “Gypsy
on four
sides.”

Blood is flamenco
is blood
is.

Carmen’s blood gave
her life
and

it also killed
her. She
possessed

“infantile kidneys,’ unable
to grow
larger

than a baby’s.
Carmen lived
as

long as she
did only
from

sweating so much
when she
danced.

At the end
of each
performance

her costumes were
drenched. You
could

pour sweat out
of her
shoes.

That was how
her body
cleansed

itself: the sweat
from a
dance.

Bailar o morir.
Dancing kept
her

alive. Ocean
mirrors ocean.
Poetry

as a way
of flesh-and-blood
living.


*


Documenting
the last
year of Carmen

reveals
the feral
lines of her

face
swollen with
fluid her infantile

kidneys
could not
eliminate. She sits

at
a rickety
table in a

dusty
neighborhood, like
her childhood slum.

She
taps the
table. One knock,

two.
Sufficient for
announcing the palo.

In
flamenco’s code
of rhythm, Carmen

rapped
the symphony
of a history

bleeding,
remembering all
the secrets her

tribe
kept from
outsiders. The secrets

translated
into rhythms
so bewilderingly beautiful

they
lured you
in like honeyed

drops
of nectar.
But you remained

hungry, could never
find your
way

back out again.
All you
wanted

was more burrowing
deep into
deepening

code. All you
wanted was
one

more secret of
the siren
Flamenco!

I arrived to
the secretive
ocean—

to the beach
house when
crimson

revealed the sun
ascending from
green

rippling glass where
earth gave
way.

I railed at
the light,
wanting

to break this
drug, this
desire

for more darkness
I could
golden

into Poetry’s most
ferocious, feral
flowers.

Ocean
mirrors ocean.
Pounding ocean mirrors

nails
pounding forth
a flamenco rhythm—

One more sip
at your
nectar,

please. Dear Ocean,
mirror me
damp

wet
               drenched
                              sweating

waves of text
mirroring my
hand

pounding a keyboard
in flamenco’s
most

honeyed, most drugged,
most bleeding,
most

truthful and perfect
-ly timed
beat..


*


Afterwards,
the nightingale
blossoms to song.


*


Lorca pounded out:

In the green morning
I wanted to be a heart.
A Heart.

FAITH

The Fairy Child’s Prayer
—for Rene “Master Dragon” Navarro and painter Max Gimblett

Because the sky can never be a margin against my desire, I raise my hand to you and, in so doing, compel the swoop of the falcon with jade eyes, cobalt breast and ebony feathers. I have emptied my bag of tricks, released the barbed wire from its tattooed bracelet about my left wrist. The shade recedes as I refuse to look away from interpretations overwrought but opaque. I shall learn Faith by keeping my eyes on the sun until a life’s definition becomes a synonym for the sky’s cerulean gift: an attic door to face without trepidation. Those who ascended after their initial falls now frolic with stars swirling in the cosmic microwave background—obviating directions like "top" or "bottom" as the world is more than a diamond: its glory includes facets marred by trapped flecks of coal. You said of Life: "It is all stunning—including the shadow." The Milky Way that grazes the Maori mountains of your birthland is the same silvery cascade that threads through my hair as my mind’s eye wanders through a universe I once thought I inherited instead of something I can help paint. You nudge my memory for afternoons of pollination: lemon dust attaching to the centers of open flowers whose petals form light’s prism. The sky, you teach me, shall never drop. For in a distant past, I loved well enough to earn wings formed with gold wire, not wax: soon, I shall soar. My tongue shall yet become a bolt of white velvet I shall swathe around our planet and hold as an infant against my milk-laden breasts. When the horizon stuns again, it shall be from the sumi ink you brushed against dawn’s canvas, evoking my hands when, for the first time, they shall be graceful as they dance the new and ancient form: "Fairy Child Praying to the Goddess of Mercy Kuanyin Shaoling Kung-Fu Fist."

AURORA

wake to a scent

of the woman you never were


and still one believes

no memory is false


yesterday, the sand

shimmered with black diamonds


once, you opened

eyes and still loved me


tomorrow, the world

will form one black diamond


once, I loved

you back with much helplessness


and fear was only as real

as a black diamond

BREAKING SILENCE

Returning The Borrowed Tongue

warm stones gather the rainfall
speaking a gray language
i've tried to imitate.
i read books compiled
from anonymous scrolls.
i eat their dust
hoping to trace
the steps to heaven.
--from ": Looking For Buddha" by Jaime Jacinto

He cannot seem to stop trading one ocean for another. Back and forth, he rides different waves. One day, a gentle wave with warm surf depositing him by a green and orange fisherman's boat, overhead a sunlit blue. Another day, a squall pounding against the face of an implacable cliff, no sun in sight—and he is clinging to a slippery boulder, shivering. Either way, he cannot sleep in a room whose window does not overlook water. He notes, I am my own bridge.

Once, she dropped out of the world by joining a caravan of students traversing Siberia towards Lake Baikal. It was November and the River Angara that fed the lake had thawed into shifting pieces of grey slate. But the lake remained frozen, like the endless bank of clouds she had stared at from her airplane's window. A stranger had clutched at her arm, whispering, "I am inexplicably afraid our plane will drop." The lack of fear in her eyes over this possibility provided no relief, she knew, but it was the best she could offer for consoling a stranger's premonition about life. The stranger's fear evoked Lucifer. But she did not question why she held a false memory of witnessing this angel's fall.

He asked her to accompany him on one of his transitions towards the direction of a country whose people can never control their arms from enfolding invaders against their hearts. She replied with sorrow, I can be myself only in exile. He did not look back as he departed for an ocean whose salt he already could taste, whose embrace he already could savor against his naked back and whose sun he already could kiss with his uplifted face. Both knew she will wait on the other side of the earth that he must continue circling until he is felled to his knees. And, when on his knees, he still will continue moving forward, she will be the altar that will halt his travel, make him stand, then stay.

For this fable, there are no words. There only is the Breaking (of) Silence: the evenings of solitary grace in a dim room, at a desk a piece of blank paper spotlit by the beam of a lone lamp and, yes, one more attempt with the wake of yet another day.


*****

from Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole

CANDLE

No boats burn here

nor birds drop


nor do waves abort here

from oil slicks deadening water


Only the sky burns
here and only from embracing
the sun liquefying
into satin ribbons
as it descends


But as above, as below here

there where the ocean fringes its hem


here where Golden Dragon stands

on one foot by the water's edge


the sword invisible

over his closed eyes


burning their gaze into mine

to light as the sun ascends


the votive candle

now flickering within my navel