Ned

poems

I’ve compiled the poetry I’ve written over the last several months into one post, mainly for my own edification, but also for those who are curious about my brain:

the middle of may

we take on too much in spring

we welcome too much rain

plant too many flowers

impart too much hope

to frivolous new friendships

for it to all come to naught.

we call it an awakening.

bah. spring is for the little

children. well what isn’t?

spring is the girl with the parasol

on easter sunday who’s a bit

wizened for such a needless 

adornment on easter sunday.

maypoles are such fun

when you’re young. well what isn’t? 

“”What now, Nicole? What are you thinking, my love?”

“That every truth was once an illusion, and every illusion is but a veiled context, a textured filter through which time does and has already passed. The epiphany is not a declamation, not the exposure of the raw flesh itself, but rather like a silk stocking, all the more precious once abandoned. Reckonings have little value in this world, momentary in their effect, cast out upon mortals; but in the next world, Nicole’s world, we will grasp the ecstatic vision and who among us can doubt that there will be more, much more, than this.”

against the rose of sharon (for h.s.)

against the rose of sharon

she stood guard allowing

only men of good standing

through the hedge

amid white blossoms

she let down her hair

for the man

who loved her

amid white clouds

she let him go

bomb the enemy

until he returned

all grins and grime

and they married

they are married

in white diamond

splendor she lies

on white sheets 

her hair is white

he lets her go

to no enemy

their love is like that

no scorn no envy

aghast she turns

to his white head

is this it? he ponders

her face once more

white like flowers

this is the life I live now. 

Now miles from nowhere,

alone in mid-winter, 

listening to who else? 

Anita O’Day. She’s lost her heart again.

 Bewitched. Bothered. Bewildered. 

Wild again.

christmas, 2010

when the sun

shall die and

all the world be

ecstatic

with love of night

a distant star, mercy,

shall settle and we

shall shatter each

one of us our

silvered glass

when the moon

shall die and

in the new world,

love dies, blood

shall be flung like

rubies like comets

across the sky

as we shall pray

each one of us

for the divine slice

of the child, the child

the divine

She Knew What She Had

Azzadine Alaia. She knew what she had. The drape, the silhouette, the color, the 10 million stitches required by the roped gathering.  

Imagine, she thought, moving across a crowded floor in this dress. Imagine opening a pair of French doors and shyly merging into a swell of friends and admirers as Brian Eno or Laurie Anderson provided a background of ambient art noise from a Bang & Olufsen sound system.

Imagine Kathryn Hepburn in this dress, seated, for once.    

Or, I, Tilda Swinton, whom I’m quite sure, surrounded by handlers, would confidently hold her hands in the air as they lift the dress and let the hem fall to the floor and then lower her head as some stylist sprays black lacquer on her fingernails and hair.    

Someone comes running to color her lips. A brilliant Chinese red, and so her nails.     The cheekbones and eyes remain untouched.    

She arises, our Tilda, takes one look in the mirror and shakes her head like a dog. Down comes a hank of jet black hair over her left eye. At this point she requests a can of spray, lifts and presses the right side of her hairline into a man style, tucked behind the ear.    

She slips her feet into a pair of black silk foile heels. And stands. “Wait,” she says. “Eyelashes please.” For this night only she will reveal her eyes. First midnight blue, and then blacker than black mascara, layer upon layer. Someone remembers to powder her eyebrows.    

She stands again, walks to the three-way mirror that blocks the view from some other room and like anyone in a department store dressing room examines herself.

“Diamonds,” she mutters. “Neck and wrists please.”

The 13-carat pendant is quickly draped against her chest. She fingers it momentarily, considering the light. She is an expert photographer. She knows what’s next. First one arm, mining her mother’s treasure, is wrapped and coated with what once was an 18-inch necklace, a single strand of diamonds that Tilda prefers to wear as a wrapped wrist cuff.    

And then the pearls. So many pearls.

“Get this thing off me,” she says of the diamond pendant, reaching into the box of pearls and untangling them herself, finds the one strand with a ruby clasp. “Quickly,” she says. “I’m late.” She lifts her left arm, and a stranger, new to her staff, ropes the remaining pearls around her wrist and forearm.

She sits. She breathes, lowering her head. “I cannot fuck this up,” she thinks to herself.

black girl (for a.w.)

curled at the edge of a ragged bed

the clawed-off wig tossed off to

a corner of this room, what room?

is this, unlike Aurora, she smokes till dawn

…………

face down on a gurney fools rush

in to some place like Egypt, anxious

to ready our Cleo for the tomb

paint her face & spike her heels

…………

get her to a stage the wig is (hurry!) 

reattached to the head which 

rotates to the sound of wild 

applause & once again she does it

…………

bends to the wild, opaque applause

crosses her ankles band begins to blow

microphone please remember to smile

or kick the cymbals the pain is she

must remember: not the audience she

must not feel the audience it’s a figment

scared to fucking death she plants her feet

& begins to sing again they do it scream

she should have been a ragged claw

exeunt omnes

I am Abraham

I move through

shadows Lincoln

is my name

strange am I the 

one who wonders

and ponders

the possible and

the absolute which

is at its end and

who am I the 

truth maker

when beneath 

my feet run rivers

shifting but I

cannot shift I

see rows of men

like trees a forest 

to be sawed off 

doomed roots

reaching reaching

upstart branches

leaves what are leaves

but another spring

I am Abraham

in the shadow 

of the leaves

a brief respite

they flutter and I 

remove my hat  

to witness the 

jutting of the leaves

from hard wood

only to raise the 

gods I have never

seen an ocean never

loved nor been loved 

but it must be like 

when there are no

leaves in winter

and fallen trees are 

blanketed by fallen snow

as is the great big

unknowing wondering

will it happen will

there be another 

spring and what

will happen this time

how many men

will I kill I am a 

poet killer and a 

woman killer and 

it may as well be 

said a child killer

I kill them all 

there is a grove 

of centuries-old pecan trees on my family’s property in northeast texas. they served as a primary food source for the indigenous caddos who originally inhabited this place. 

today, in the years that nature provides—thunderous spring rains followed by the slow, measured hisses of july and august—days and weeks that leave you curled at the edges—they are proof of confidence, branched signals that the earth will again tilt on its axis; the harvest will not fail. spring’s promised provision will be hailed down on the earth. We gleaners shall gather.