the problem with the New World

the problem with the New World

in the United States

we suffer an abundance

a certain mechanical erotic

a manufactured and mostly plastic sexy

but nothing enduring that says

this was crafted by humans

this has survived countless floods and wars

and still it forces anyone who sees it to think beautiful

•

how can New World lovers know any better

hope to survive the relentless call of being new

without the fermented smoky texture on the tongue

drunk on the mountainous everything that has remained?

•

he was fortunate for the rarity

that he was unable to discern

between gazing upon her face

or Passo dello Stelvio in May

and when he confessed this to her

she took him silently in her arms

others passing by at that moment

imagined them in relief there forever

lavender silk monkeys

lavender silk monkeys

on a planet where everything was finally connected

by the Internet and the glorious promise of Commerce

it came as quite a shock when they were discovered

somewhere remote and wild: lavender silk monkeys

at first the story was a novelty until the children loved them

and someone realized you can monetize lavender silk monkeys

it began with stuffed animals and Saturday morning cartoons

and then cereal children’s clothing board games video games

lavender silk monkeys were everywhere now after eons hidden

but of course they weren’t called lavender silk monkeys at first

that came after someone who had missed the first profit wave

discovered the allure of lavender fur that came to be called “silk”

and reports that in that nearly ignored forest where they lived

the lavender creatures seemed to be damned near everywhere

there were always those adults who wanted exotic things made

from lavender silk monkeys now bred and slaughtered for hide

until the novelty wore off and the machine ground to a halt

and no one bothered to breed them anymore even for sport

you see new things can stay new only so long in the end

so they consumed the lavender silk monkeys every one

on a planet where everything was finally connected

by the Internet and the glorious promise of Commerce

here (belong)

here (belong)

I'm having trouble inside my skin
I tried to keep my skeletons in

“Slipped,” The National

Those barricades can only hold for so long
“Belong,” R.E.M.

Definitiva como un mármol

entristecerá tu ausencia otra tardes.

“Despedida,” Jorge Luis Borges

i’m not here

you think you see me

you think you hear me

but i am not here

she is sitting at her desk at work

legs crossed and wearing platform shoes

open-toed bone-colored straps winding around and above the ankles

a simple bone-colored skirt

and a short-sleeved turquoise top

with lavender stripes so thin almost no one notices them

and there on the floor beside her foot

you can find me ever-poised and heartfelt

committed fully to kissing that ankle solid and sad as marble

she closes her eyes just briefly

at the touch of my lips against her cool skin

and imagines slipping to the floor and never again walking away

i’m not here

you think you see me

you think you hear me

but i am not here

although i understand the allure of the corporeal

i am in the only place i can be

i am in the only place i belong

in light of everything (snow blind)

in light of everything (snow blind)

“We read to know we are not alone.” C.S. Lewis

I, who had always thought of Paradise
In form and image as a library.

“Poem of the Gifts,” Jorge Luis Borges

in light of everything

(and who knew everything was luminescent?)

could you reconsider me?

would you reconsider me?

would you reconsider us?

bathed anew in the all more powerful than a sun

the absence of pigment is white

all pigments combined are black

the absence of light is black

all spectrums of light are white

in the light of everything

the bright white light of everything

shouldn’t we marvel at the indistinguishable all

or do you wish to filter out each moment with a prism?

the colors of our passion and anger and despair

red orange yellow green blue violet

in light of everything

i remain blue and bound to the promise of white light

•

in the dream i am snow blind

i believe i am alone and it is sleeting

the wind is bitter and howling

until i am nearly deaf against the roar

i imagine frostbite spreading from my finger tips

and fear that ice crystals are forming in my lungs

i wonder for a moment about the choice

to acquiesce to the blind stasis of winter

the inevitability of a permanent winter

against which i am not equipped to survive

contemplation is a dead man’s game i decide

diving into a black dwarf as if a martyr or savior

as i move my fingers readying myself to stand

i know that you are there warm as butter on the tongue

“do you pray?” i hear your voice in my mind

although i am uncertain how to answer these thoughts

i know i must move again until my sight returns

and we lie quiet backtoback reading Franny and Zooey

like jesus then i dream of myself walking over snow and ice

deaf and blind in butter-tongued determination to rise again

“yes, yes,” i answer without speaking a word aloud

“i pray with every breath, every heartbeat, this everything”

•

i tripped and fell into a well

mistaken for hell but i could tell

by the endless stacks of books

and the stern and silent looks

tales of labyrinthine fantasies

illuminated our sacred eternity

so i decide to stay a while and smile

reading from this pile of books

imagining you will join me

hurrah, hurrah

wine song

wine song

did you bleed in my wine

the way i never asked

but always wanted

these spirits that warm me

wine liquor and beer

cannot move me as you have

elixirs that numb and dull

disembodied from you

and left dry on my palate

do you cry in your wine

the way no one sees

but i watch in my dreams

this distillation of my heart from you

leaves me alone sober and parched

somebody’s somebody who matters (the art of wanting)

somebody’s somebody who matters (the art of wanting)

by the time she returned to him

it may have already been too late she feared

before she looked him in the eyes again

she noticed his iPod was filled with only two songs

Sinead O’Connor and Dido singing over and over

“Nothing Compares 2 U” “White Flag”

•

of all the humans on the planet

Yen To Dollar had perfected the art of wanting

but held her gift (or curse) at bay

nearly every moment of her life until him

when she discovered in him the wanting

like her to be somebody’s somebody who matters

•

“abyss” was a word she heard in a movie

and then read in a novel just minutes later

these synchronicities and intersections

that weaved a cat’s cradle of want in her hands

a dream catcher for the echoes of the universe

these wantings of somebody seeking somebody

•

she had dreamed of him before ever meeting him

and in that dream he was an astronaut cut free

like a scene from 2001 surrounded by roaring silence

drifting away from her mind’s eye like a plastic doll

could he be bringing me back to him with his wanting?

she asked herself sensing him in the room where she stood

midnight (these rituals of recreation)

midnight (these rituals of recreation)

i. midnight

i walk into the bedroom just before midnight

watching the digital clock shift from 11:59 to 12:00

after a hard bicycle ride into fading daylight

followed by dinner and beer among those friends

and then i notice the familiar shape of you in my bed

although we haven’t seen each other in over a year

although you belong now completely to someone else

you stir awake and smile at me through a stretch-yawn

don’t shower you purr still yawning slide in with me

it’s been so long since we’ve held each other you know

ii. dreaming

[as i dream i begin to wonder if i am dreaming]

i lie on the couch alone

watching my DVD of David Lynch’s Lost Highways

i am also re-reading Haruki Murakami’s A Wild Sheep Chase

this time it is the hardback first edition i bought for you

between the film and the novel

coursing through dreaming and contemplating if this is a dream

i think about the possibility of worm holes

and children sliding through giant tubes at the playground

iii. morning

i wake to the smell of coffee brewing

but no one has started the coffee maker

and then i am standing outside in cool spring sunshine

the dew-covered grass almost too green to bear

you were no longer in the bed beside me (of course)

i cannot be sure if we were really intertwined last night

although your voice rests in the hollow of my ears

and then i suddenly drop into an imagined scene

i return to the bedroom for your clothes in the hamper

i wash and then dry them before separating each piece

i smooth your t-shirts carefully straightening the hems

before stacking them over the back of the recliner

thinking of your cat bringing mice to your doormat

gestures of love and devotion offered on padded feet

creature of habit in these rituals of recreation

i start the coffee and inhale the you of entered rooms

the kindness school (beyond the archeology of white people, pt. 2)

the kindness school (beyond the archeology of white people, pt. 2)

it simply happened one day

when the teachers decided

enough was enough

all the boys with OCD

spent the day playing drums

or riding their bicycles

and the introverts sat quietly

smiling periodically in the corners

while the extroverts laughed and laughed

and soon the pleasures became many

as varied as the children themselves

until one day a child stood to proclaim

after reading Hamlet all on her own

“I say, we will have no more tests”

to which there was thunderous cheering

yes it seemed simple and obvious enough

the founding of the kindness school

with open doors and children singing

the archeology of white people

the archeology of white people

I was a white girl in a crowd of white girls in the park

“Pink Rabbits,” The National

“They’re such beautiful shirts,” she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds.

“It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such—such beautiful shirts before.”

Daisy, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

we gather into schools all our children

red brown yellow black and white

leaving them all blue

we continue to serve them the food

of Fitzgerald and Hemingway

the archeology of white people

a Lost Generation fabricated to fool

cigarettes chandeliers and swimming pools

such glorious decadent people

we pull the wool over this rainbow of eyes

all lined up in rows of pastel shirts

like Jordan almonds or Easter eggs

“In his blue gardens men and girls

came and went like moths

among the whispering

and the champagne and the stars.”

Ignore the body in the road

we whisper in their tiny innocent ears

Isn’t that golden car spectacular?

which came first (or does it matter): out of nothing

which came first (or does it matter): out of nothing

which came first

my feeling as if i don’t exist in our world

or you behaving as if i don’t exist in our world

or does it matter

i know i am prone to feeling the stranger

i admit i am not much like other people

i confess that i have almost never felt a part

and i tend to slip into analysis and distancing

which came first

my feeling as if i don’t exist in our world

or you behaving as if i don’t exist in our world

or does it matter

i suspect it doesn’t matter in the end

because what is done is done and after the fact

and i fear worlds cannot be reconstructed

once one planet becomes two other worlds

which came first

my feeling as if i don’t exist in our world

or you behaving as if i don’t exist in our world

or does it matter

turning this end of us into a chicken-and-egg debate

this is not my best side or even lovable

and i know i am picking this argument over us

although i am beyond debates and winning wars

which came first

my feeling as if i don’t exist in our world

or you behaving as if i don’t exist in our world

or does it matter

asteroids are lifeless remnants but so are most planets

but that is not what two people in love should become

although again i am not arguing about us or even forever

as i gather the dust and rubble to keep up appearances

which came first

my feeling as if i don’t exist in our world

or you behaving as if i don’t exist in our world

or does it matter

and that may be my final act of love and peace

conceding to you appearances and silence about this

ghost walking now we two together and always apart

because people can pass through each other when not looking

which came first

my feeling as if i don’t exist in our world

or you behaving as if i don’t exist in our world

or does it matter

i’ve manufactured this dilemma out of nothing i suppose

like forcing you to choose between a tornado and a hurricane

guaranteeing only the possibility of some natural disaster

the inevitable rearranging and disintegration of us

which came first

my feeling as if i don’t exist in our world

or you behaving as if i don’t exist in our world

or does it matter

i take thirteen steps and the floor falls out from under me

i am untethered but somehow not set free in this orbit

although i have lost my heart entirely to someone else

who has also chosen not to choose me and my disasters

she drew herself

she drew herself *

she drew herself

not into a ball

not into her lungs

but on a canvas

soft pencil curves

sketched into her

* inspired by Wendy Farrow

recognition (the proximity of imagined cars)

recognition (the proximity of imagined cars)

I have only two emotions

Careful fear and dead devotion

I can't get the balance right

“Don’t Swallow the Cap,” The National

i do not recognize friends from 35 years ago

even when they are sitting next to me at a bar

until they speak and then the ones i knew return to me

masked behind new faces those years have sculpted

just as i do not recognize me in the mirrors of my day

inverted and creased at the corners of my eyes now

•

i have come to recognize that i cannot wish into reality

i cannot render real by waving a magic wand of words

no this is not a David Lynch movie

i have to remind myself along with breathing deeply

i’ll not be willing myself out of this prison and into your world

where you stand nude illuminated by headlights in a desert night

but i would recognize you anywhere

any time

you pass me in a car that i have never seen

you are wearing a silver thumb ring

and your hair is dyed auburn

i do not see your tattoo

or meet my eyes with yours

but i would recognize you anywhere

•

i do recognize the rush of recognition and proximity

the sudden heavy hollowness of my chest

everything else of this world falling away

the terrible calm of putting you back together again

i watch the car i have never seen before

disappear ahead of me and i hold onto you

freshly pressed into my mind weighted

by a silver thumb ring and auburn hair

•

do you think of me as i do you

do you think of me still

do you

do you

do you

i pass by you unnoticed

a sudden gust of sand

forcing you to shut your eyes

and turn your head suddenly

although you seem to recognize

a faint sing-song incantation

wonderland (Yen To Dollar pt. 2)

wonderland (Yen To Dollar pt. 2)

"There's a science to walking through windows"

“Graceless,” The National

Yen To Dollar found herself by the ocean

a young woman now completely of the island

there were days when she was alone, very alone

the morning cool in the bright rising sun of spring

she could not recall what had brought her to the shore

could not fathom how the dominoes had fallen

tracing the path that led her to a life filled with wonder

a view of ceaseless water reaching to the horizon arc

but she could and often did imagine a man, Tarame

(she had never known and had never even seen him)

who sat near the ocean carving matchstick sculptures

who had everything swept out to sea in a hurricane

who never had a daughter and tasted bitter solitude

she went beyond imagining to feeling as if this were she

•

often sitting by herself

unable to reform her past

Yen To Dollar would ask aloud

“Tarame, what are you telling me?”

and then she was flooded with longing

knowing the wordless messages

only imagined and never lived like faeries

that ride on ocean breezes and tides

•

she believed in the possibility

that with a scalpel

she would be able to separate

dream memory imagination

and come to understand

this moment when she was a child

in a hotel room at the beach with her parents

she walked into a shut sliding glass door

drawn to the balcony by seagulls and ocean

•

once as she sat watching a small child cry

standing in the sand as her family walked away

Yen To Dollar recognized herself transfixed

not Japanese not American
only this child rightfully named Anomaly

no one loved the curve of her ear

no one longed for the sound of her voice

no one waited for her in the bed she slept in

none of these gifts in her bones

and all this shook her

like a glass door she could not see

but felt as she stepped through it