| Coffee and Astronomy |
| The Baby That Ate Cincinnati / (Audio) |
| The Thin Line of What I Know |
| Nonviolent Resistance and a Cow |
| The Good News |
| Code Orange |
| Untitled Poem For Sarah |
She's alone at a table for four at the bookstore coffee shop,
same as me,
and our eyes meet and I think
"It's too bad I'm a screwup," and I think
"Maybe I could straighten out if it meant I could kiss her,"
as she sits like a book I just need to read, two of us
taking up eight spaces across this place;
we could conserve and share,
"Think Globally, Act Locally,"
sit at the same table in polite mystery of one another,
shower together to save water
but I don't know if she cares
about water conservation,
I can only tell that her hair falls like rain,
she has more fashion sense than I do, our eyes meet
and I'm scared of her,
all her "Noes,"
all her "Yeses,"
her "I want to have a baby"s,
her eyes
as small as stars,
the light having taken years to reach me here
at this gargantuan table as big as my life.
--Dedicated to those others who on telling people you're expecting your first
child find they don't say "Congratulations," they first tell you how you're
never leaving the house again ever.
Way they say it,
they say
baby
like a storm on the way,
they say baby
like that's the cue for the thunderclap
to interrupt the wolves' long howls,
they say I got three
and they're the best
ever happen to me
as they say
baby
same as you'd say "run"
they shout
baby
like there are flames lickin' at window frames
tell us
how their lives
didn't just change,
oh no,
as
they
say
baby
like a hyena inside there
comin' out fangs a-blazin',
they say
baby
like it's standing
right
behind us
like it's a tornado on the highway,
but ain't
it
a marvel,
way they talk,
give that patronizing nod
when we
claim we still goin' to poetry readings,
we still goin' to see movies,
we still goin'
to phone our unwed friends
as they say
baby
like a bomb in the air,
they say
baby
like just waitin' in the shelter now
with AM radio and a can of pork n' beans
you're so lucky,
they weep,
sincerely
as I sit on the bed,
knees held precious,
watching my wife's belly,
larger every day,
wonderin'
what's in there.
We gonna need a priest, a gun,
silver bullets, wire cutters, 16 gallons a hydrochloric acid,
Red Cross, National Guard, seven million dollars
in non-sequential unmarked bills
because all these warnings giftwrapped with blessings
when I know
ain't gonna be the same around here;
but
baby,
when we say "baby,"
let's say it
like "bread,"
like "honey,"
like "beautiful,"
like "dear,"
like it's true.
Iowa flows across the windshield
like a relaxation video; I turn off the radio and listen
to wind rattle the window near my cheek.
Gravel scattered after the last ice popping
in the wheel wells, I daydream about being in Des Moines
already, with you.
The familiar mile-markers pass like hand-holds up a cliff:
Number 31, and six-eighty becomes I-eighty;
66, I'm halfway to Des Moines; 88,
two-thirds; 99, three-fourths; 121, eleven-twelfths...
At number 60, the Purple Martin Train lounges, a primped wreck, zig-
zagging and only a little purple.
On one trip, I stopped
and bought an "It's Purple Martin Time!" button at the caboose-
made-museum. I only stopped there once;
like I only had one flat sandwich at 4-Sons; only made one trip
up the stairs of the observation tower near the Beebeetown exit,
one look from above at the little crease of interstate,
the thin line of what I know
among all the foreign fields and hills
stretching from it like butterfly wings.
I always mean to follow some of the signs,
detour through someplace
like Persia, Casey, Atlantic, Van Meter, Waukee, Prairie Rose State Park,
all just tin signs and exits to me.
I never go further off the interstate
than the Have A Nice Day water tower smiling from Adair,
never go past the gas stations,
never put my fingers
to the skin of the East
or West Nishnabotna Rivers;
never slow at mile 71,
where that pond, always flat and still no matter how windy,
stretches two drowning elms like bony arms
clinging onto the sky.
As the counties slowly metamorphose
from Pottawattamie to Polk, I watch the trees along the road perform
all their acts: fat, naked, flowering, flaming, green, chainsawed.
I know the corn by name,
fast-motion life flowing from conception by John Deeres
through green puberty, then fading,
then death at the teeth of their own creators;
the bodies removed, their ground left for crows and cows
to tidy and fertilize.
More of you forms
as the white-on-green numbers count upward.
At 14, I see your feet; at 23,
you have hands, a hazy middle, lips;
by 57 or 58, you are female; 85, your eyes
are grey like the sky; 96, the cornfields fade
into your hair. I know every mile ticking by, I know, can drive
by sense of touch.
Nonviolent Resistance and a Cow
Firing 43 shots into an animal occurs to me to be unusual. --Irvine City Manager Paul Brady Cops put how many bullets into the side of a runaway cow? How many shots per stomach is that? Well, maybe she got surly, maybe she was armed or pumped on growth hormones, maybe the poor cops just needed to vent their aggression on something. And why was a cow on the San Diego Freeway anyway? Who was she in such a hurry to visit? Couldn't she get a ride? Couldn't she figure out how to flag a cab or hitchhike? Or did she just get sick of the same old world of grass, manure, and barn, like others who become "dangerous" when they can't sit in their prescribed niche? Martyrs speak all languages, I guess, their spirit can't be bought by any amount of magic beans as they run naked down freeways, eyes wide as moons, breathing hard, lowing out their brief victory.
"Tell the good news about Jesus" --a bumper sticker I followed for a long time Jesus lent me ten bucks when I forgot my wallet at lunch. Sure, he could've ordered a chicken pesto sandwich and broke it into two full meals, but he's no show off. That's what I like about Jesus. Jesus listens to cool music. If it weren't for Jesus, I never would have known about Tom Waits or Ani DiFranco, and I sure wouldn't own any Lyle Lovett. But Jesus makes a kickass mix tape. Jesus loves cows, thinks my poems with cows in them are a hoot and encourages me to look at herds of white cows in a green field and imagine salvation is underneath each windmill. Jesus tells me Pat Robertson's right, and so is Al Sharpton. That they're both wrong, too, but that's not the point. His point's how God's sewn into every fabric. Even yourself. Even Elvis. Jesus saves and Jesus recycles. Jesus eats fish for more than Omega-3 fatty acids, drinks red wine for more reasons than his sacred heart. Jesus doesn't dress like the Medieval paintings with the gold hats and the Mr. T rosaries. Sure, he can clean up nice, but Jesus likes blue jeans. Jesus pisses me off with his honesty sometimes. But it's not like he's ever wrong. Jesus makes a killer chianti, but he refuses to turn water into Diet Coke for me. "What's the difference?" he asks. Jesus acts real serious when somebody rushes up to him hollering, "Jesus, can you take me up to Heaven, I will see you in the Kingdom, Jesus!" Jesus says they should get their kumbayayas off by putting on some overalls and hammering in the morning. May as well make Heaven bigger, not just your egos. Jesus digs the "How does Jesus eat M&M's" joke. He won't do it at a party, but he did do it once when just the two of us were watching cartoons. Jesus wanted me to tell you he loves you. Jesus also wants you to stop doing that thing. Jesus tells me I'm saved. Then he laughs real loud. Jesus makes me nervous when he does that.
"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are
known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know.
But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we
don't know."
-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld clarifying US policy on the war on
terror at a Department of Defense News Briefing
It
's not always
the little boy
who cries
Wolf!
sometimes
the wolf
cries
wolf
and
points away.
Duct tape your doors shut,
we're on Code Orange, Code Orange, people,
blue skies
no matter, there's anthrax
somewhere, somebody said something about smallpox
wherever, an unnamed man reportedly said something
big
was coming down
eventually. A man said
people were going to die,
people are going to die,
Americans are going to die.
Officials are quoted as saying things,
officials are quoted as saying, Hurry, hurry, run,
seal yourself in a ziplock bag
in a lead-walled box
in a hole
in the earth
in prayer to our God,
and sources report
we aren't ready, we're not scared enough
and if we
don't get a little more hysterical,
then the terrorists will win
because sources suggest
it could be any day, hour, minute, second,
duck!
it could be any metropolis, city, small town, farmstead,
or possibly even somewhere else; for God's sake,
there are
experts
saying
we're not safe, we're not safe,
now do what we say
and nobody gets hurt.
There's fear
out past your walls, there's fear itself
blowing against the plastic sheeting and the bars of grey tape,
there's so much
to fear, we must do more,
we have to fight them,
kill them, cripple them
for Jesus,
Amen!
It's not always
the little boy
who cries
Wolf!
Sometimes the wolf
cries wolf.
And it's not always the wolf
our little boys are sent out
to kill.
Every morning you'd think all the moths would throw themselves into the Sun. But they wait for streetlights to consume them in small coughs of sparkle. My dear, my dear, my dear: I have stopped listening to my moth soul. My dear, I am done tilting at streetlights. My paper wings soar, brush your blazing heart.
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