The Thin Red Line
“There
is only a thin red line between the sane and the mad.”
A
crocodile, silently malevolent, slides slowly
and
secretly into the tropical algae,
where
the mosquitoes breed and inject malaria
from
their blood-bloated syringes,
hovering
and swarming in paradise.
“Why
does nature vile with itself,
land
contends with the sea?
Is
there an avenging power to nature,
not
one power but two?”
Beware
all the youthful innocence,
beware
the mothers who send their healthy-born
into
an imperfect world.
Yet
they long for answers beyond the distant horizon line,
for
they come with their dark tasks
to
set this paradise afire with crimes
against
their own natures.
Yet
there is the endless discovery of beauty,
like
the rainbow-colored parrots, tamed to the touch
mimicking
their names, seeing the sweating uniforms,
thirsting
from every pore in the deep kunai grass.
Hermit
crabs tingle the friendly palms.
Tribal
songs in their harmony
show
no portents of the destructive history to fly
towards
them from the near future.
Look
what alien stares can lead to,
innocent
heads swimming together in a paradise of crystal lagoon,
moving
in a womb of time
and
treading towards the light of death.
“Who
are you who live in these many forms?
Your
death encaptures all, all that is to be born.”
How
are we to know the right path,
how
to cast the dice of sanity, to remember
the
splendor and the wide power of the sender,
the
world’s mortality and wrath pass it on after our surrender,
the
uncompromising figures
of
the global Math?
“Your
glory, mercy, peace, truth, you give calm,
a
spirit’s understanding,
causes
the contented heart.”
Always Finding the Moon
(For my son, Dylan)
No
matter how overcast the sky is,
My
youngest son always finds the moon,
Pointing
at it like he had just discovered it,
Full
of youthful excitement, saying “It burns.”
We drive past a field of dead sunflowers,
Slashing
over the puddles and bumpy roads.
From
a moving gray haze in the east, rising
Like
a dream over the restless Lake Michigan waters,
A
full moon appears, disappears, then appears,
My
youngest son pointing his rigid finger
Into
the eye of The Sea of Tranquility,
Before
a lunar silence pulls a tidal blanket
Over
once deep-remembered, magnetic night.
Luna moth, in your sacred greenness not to be
seen
By
any mortals, fly at the light of the moon, you sporting
Your
delicately ribbed lime green and veined wings,
Perfectly
camouflaged–flitting through the dark forest
Like
a phantom, like my youngest son’s unbridled imagination,
All
our imaginations, when we choose to use them
For
moonlit visions and Luna moths dance till dawn
In the fullness of the moonlight.
Death at the Kabul
Marketplace
I awoke to the wails of the muezzin
From the minaret. On the mountains,
Layers of fog masked the fir forests.
I awoke to the calls from the horn of plenty,
Seeds planted in my memory.
Today’s sun shines on market day.
Forgetting the fire and fear of those slayers
Of my sleep, my sons and daughters,
I haggled for fruits and fares.
Arcing from the mountains came produce
No one bargained for, let loose
From the mists that always hide a truce.
I awoke, hearing
shrapnel burst and fly
Around me like a mad festival, the brooding
Mountain peaks silently soaking up
More of the feuding history of my blood.
I awoke and haggled for fruit and my life and lost.
“Who will walk with me into this terrible and beautiful world?”
—Dorrianne Laux
Looking down from the rocky fortresses, the imposing
parapets,
In the crystal Valletta Harbor, the dghajsas, the bum-boats
we called them,
Moored together in families of primary colors,
Sun-saturated and joyful bobbing,
Laid-back lifestyle of Malta.
That eyeball staring at the sun too long,
Slashed with blood and veined
8-Ball hemorrhage.
The sailor, lone sentinel swiveled on the bar stool,
Knew we saw his eye but said nothing;
But so much anger burned in his eye.
Just how did you get that eye?
The White Mice, the Shore Patrol, did this to me.
At Mail Call I got a Dear John letter from my girlfriend.
He ascended the elevator from Hell
To the Garden of Hesperides,
Where the lovers strolled, hand in hand, made out,
Surrounded by the olive trees,
Those benevolent branches,
A quietus in King’s Cross,
The sounds in the distance
Of prayers and chanting Latin vespers.
So filled with good tidings he approached the precipice.
The idea was to finish his leap,
To die in Valletta, Malta,
Such an exotic and mysterious country.
The White Mice talked him down,
No ordinary drunk poised on the edge of the cliff,
His mistake to start cursing them back.
They did it with their night sticks,
While straightjacketed on a litter-
He told the White Mice to fuck themselves
And they thumped and thumped
Blunt trauma bloat his evil eye.
Blind Homer, strumming your sad lyre, sing those songs,
That smell of lemons and olive trees, sea- surge of distant
lovers,
Never again to walk, hand in hand.
(For
Taro Aizu)
Beyond
the Pacific beaches
The
blind rip tides try to shake
Off
their bruises as it is always done. The building many called
"The
Two Tits" nipples erected
In
the cool sea air, will shut down.
Taro
Aizu, haunted in Mt Fuji's triangular shadow, victories come
Less
frequent as the world grinds
Off
its axis by the man-made fission
Already,
the detritus of Japan's tsunami
has
drifted to our unclean shores.
Now
ghost ships settle down in the lapping surf
Devoid
of their captains.
The
two maimed nuclear reactors
Are
joined by that vast Pacific
I
once crossed, Japan to Hawaii,
When
my ship tracked the Apollo 10
With
a special radar dish.
So
we are close now
In
our laments.
San
Onofre, silenced nuclear plant,
Some
brave souls complain of your closing; lost jobs dog us now.
But
Taro Aizu smiles in the wreckage.
There,
on contaminated Fukishima soil
He
plants seedlings
Of
cherry trees which might thrive,
Given
a chance, given a chance.