Tropism: Behind the Quonset Huts

I had ignored him so far, and assumed I could continue to do so.  He stood a bit apart, left of the old backstop, well behind me...and I could catch a view of him in the reflection of my glasses if I wanted to.  Or not: I chose instead to focus forward, paying no attention to him at all, and in fact to ignore the overt fact that I was ignoring him, pouring myself into the details of the Eucalyptus deglupta across the culvert. 

But although I could fool myself, I could not fool him.  Calmly, passively, and without any hint of intent, his eyes were fixed upon me like a bird of prey.  I knew this without looking.  It was a pencil-point touching my neck.  We must have stood like this for a half-dozen cycles of the corner stoplights.

I redoubled my efforts to seem purposeless, to remain unaware and apart, my fists punched into the pockets of my pants.  So focused was I upon this that I did not hear his approach, his soft old shoes nearly silent against the decomposed-granite playground.  He was right there, just behind me, before I knew it.

He spoke.  Suddenly, I remembered everything.

Circle Poem: A Hopeless Thought

A hopeless thought has sunk into my brain
And in my brain it finds a wealth of fuel
An unconsidered fuel made of disdain
As all disdain seems clever to the fool
I am the fool who yields the war unfought
For pain unfought becomes a soft refrain
An older, cold refrain that holds each thought
A hopeless thought has sunk into my brain

Circle Poem: The Secret of a Word

We never find the secret of a word
A perfect word to excavate the core
The plangent core, a frail and nervous bird
A bird that cannot know what it is for
Perhaps what it is for has left the mind
And so the mind is tangled and absurd
Thus tangled and absurd is what we find
We never find the secret of a word.

Slam Poem #2

A practiced smile and then
Cracked the deck wide open, a flourish
He had practiced far to much
To have learned much else, or done much else
And fanned the cards in that maddening way
That I could never manage
Pick a card, of course, but I refused
And so the smile faded into sincerity
Pick a card, or I am lost
Pick a card, or I will have to wait
I have tried so hard not to disappoint
The experts I encounter in their shapely holes
But I'll not play this game again
I know the way it ends
I know it's not a trick, but something else
A way of forcing me to choose
When everything was chosen long before
So I refuse
And he is still here, fingers extended
In a misdirecting flare
Uncertain what to do when someone
Like me
Thinks he knows the secrets in the pass
And prefers not to be amazed
Nor charmed
Nor lead to bold conclusions about the power of the mind
I've tried so hard not to disappoint
The thought-leaders I encounter in their hard-bound volumes
But every game is old
And taught to them by others like them
Each to each
Requiring worshipful indifference and
Slavish ignorance
Perhaps if I were younger I would train my ears to hear them
But as it is I wrap myself in this protection:
I do not want to win
I will not pick a card
You will simply have to wait

Lillian

Stretching is, to her, an art
In which each limb is tension-held
The arching high where muscles meld
And keep aloft the hidden heart

This yoga is, to her, no word
For there are only ears and toes
When curling to a graceful pose
The eyes are lines, each thought is purred

She lives here in the present tense
Does not engage nor theorize
Does not envision nor despise
But prowls there in the evidence

I'm sure my life would be like that
If I could be reborn a cat

Circle Poem: Thyroid Scan

The tangled skein of fibers in the dark
That in the dark reveal themselves, benign
Or not benign when traveled by the spark
Of many sparks that fulminate the sign
Each isotope, a sign that forms the chain
The radiation chain that burns a mark
The surgeon finds the mark to peel the skein
The tangled skein of fibers in the dark

Slam Poem #1

Picture it
People colliding in slapdash collections
Bouncing into one another
Midday
And exchanging clothes right then and there
Shoes and handbags and everything
Discomfitted
Waddling away into their afternoon task lists
Chafing their heels and scapulae
Irritated
Bumping once again as evening plummets forward
Into yet another group of the faux-transformed
Wearied
And exchanging viruses and expectations right then and there
Spirochetes and phages and post-doc plans
Promising
Eyes pleading into eyes as if this had never happened before
Just take what you find in silence
As we have
Accept your place in this asymmetric polygamy
Do something with that size-four slingback neurosis you're leaving with
Concentrate
Tomorrow there will be another twist of tissues
I will be where you are now and in that same configuration
Picture it
We have always and will always do this on purpose
The hot sheen of your forehead for the swollen bunion on my left foot
Synonymy
Passionate infections and benevolent impact each and every time
Smacking headlong into the angles of our dance
Forever