WE ARE NO LONGER BEAUTIFUL

The morning after the wedding
we are no longer beautiful,
no dancing gowns or tuxedos
in the Greenfield museum, no 
pirouettes beside the Spirit 
of St. Louis, no more bobbing 
breasts and cut vests under portraits 
of Henry Ford. Now, here in the
hotel garden it's all shorts and 
skirts and flip flops, everyone storming 
the buffet to calm the whiskey sweat. 
Yesterday under the old elm 
the flower girls skipped barefoot in 
the grass, leading the parade of 
groomsmen and bridesmaids, then 
the trembling groom, then the bride, 
rambunctious, and when the carillon 
bells rang six o'clock she laughed, 
locusts shimmering in the heat, 
the dry wind scuffling the elm leaves, 
this is the sound of antiquity,
she thinks, and the guests all smile, she 
is beautiful as they exchange 
their private vows. The priest tells 
the story of the Belgian brothers 
sharing their father's farm, how 
every night they stole into the barn 
and gave the other more hay, one 
out of love and the other out 
of sacrifice, until one night 
they met under the moon, surprised 
at the other's gift. Love is no 
contract, the priest warns, love grows 
in time and time doesn't outlive 
love. 

Now, this morning, time outlives 
all of us here in the garden, 
among the painted daisies and the 
roses, a window opens and 
the bride and groom lean down into  
the flowers, they are beautiful in 
this time, like the Belgian brothers 
meeting under the moon, they are
laughing as they throw carnations 
down on us, they have been here 
forever, leaning down and 
spilling flowers on our lives. Here 
in Henry Ford's hotel we are 
not beautiful, no one  ever was, 
except here in this myth of time, 
this myth of loving, loving more 
deeply that we know.
 

MIDPOINT

There comes a moment in
the crossing when you 
can see the horizon, sun
glittering on the water,
a glassy fire, you look astern 
to the rainbow miasma 
all sparkling and ghostly, 
the land fades away 
and you are surrounded 
by stillness. A gold-bellied fish
splashes in the slickness. 
You don't expect it, keep 
hoping for its return. 

Even here there is terror 
and delight.

, 

THE FLAME

So, you're in a Greek diner.
Let's call it The Flame, its
letters enscripted in neon
on the glass, and she's across 
the booth drinking coffee and
reading your poems. Her hair is
raven and she is, in a way, 
beautiful, someone who has
braved the depths of something
and returned arrogant, smart,
there's some faint smudge on her
forehead, the imprint of the moon,
as if she is touched by some 
kind of love as she reads. 
She reads each poem as if,
for a moment, she is stricken
by them, she writes a question
beside a line, jots a few 
words at the bottom, So?, 
A mood piece?  and Oh.
She looks at you for the first
time and asks you what you 
want. She flips her raven hair 
over her shoulder. You cannot 
say what comes to mind, you
want her to love your poems, or 
you, the way you just now love
her, or think you do. What do 
you want? she asks, and just 
now you know nothing, nothing
that you can say, you don't
really know anything but 
there are words tumbling
everywhere, she tells you 
that you must change your life, 
asks you if you're willing 
to change your relationship
to language, to form? You want
to say something smart but 
your mouth swells with twisting 
flowers. You are floating in 
indigo. The typed letters
shimmer on the page with 
a trace of something you 
can't quite decipher -- you're 
smitten. You take the pages 
and leave the booth.  By 
the time you reach the door
you think she's watching but 
all you see is the window, 
indigo on the glass, the 
neon script of The Flame
and these flowers twisting 
in your throat, petals spilling 
from your lips, lavender and 
mustard, ivory and lipstick, 
the flush of becoming 
someone you'll never know, 
again.

PREFACE TO THIS YEAR'S "BEST OF POETRY" ANTHOLOGY

Hallelujah! Poetry, it turns out,

is not dead, I promise you. Reading this 

year's nominations you realize that 
it's not even on its deathbed hacking 

paroxysms of spittle and bile, no, 

our contemporary verse has taken 

a quixotic creep toward health -- nothing a

good six months of drinking green tea with 

ginseng and honey won't cure! This year we're 

calling for a dose of the elemental, 

yoga, meditation, brisk walks to restore 

the soul. So here's my Rx, dear reader, 

this year you'll find oodles of gloomy pantoums 

and an imitation of  Poe's "Ulalume"!

But in this new century poets are 

no longer enjambing the relics of 

our lives into familiar forms. Here you'll 

find the palaver of our xenophobic 

culture translated by Crazy Jim, and 

those whacky internet postmodernists

who present us with a parade of 

numbskulls and street ministries: fire eaters, 

torch singers, Venetian horses galloping 

in golden splendor, tattooed and gurning freaks 

pounding 16-penny nails into their flesh. 

Yes, the pantoum is reborn, reinvigorated, 

reconstituted, recapitulated, 

cleansed from the recent sins of poetry 
when the hybrid jingoistic linguists just 
spit any abstraction on a page, here, in 

this collection, beside the regenesis 

of -- dare I say it? -- the palindrome! 

Yes, our old childhood friend is back on the 

radar, need I refer you to these deleveled 

stackcats?  And for once no one in the country 

wrote a flippin' sonnet, Italian or 

otherwise, RIP my syllabic schemers, 

and while we're reading the obits let's bid 

a fond farewell to the narrative, finally, 

no apostrophes, no sestinas, no 

lyrical ballads, no elegies, no! 

Begone! It turns out that in this new century

there's no time for mourning these exhausted 

forms, no room for pettifogging meditations, 

no precious villanelles, they've all been hauled off 

to the ash leap of literary history, 

so long!, bon voyage, they'll be bulldozed 

into methane-wheezing landfills cherished 

only by misbegotten seagulls picking 

at the smoke-charred crematorium, 

no more love, no more lust, no more blessings, 

gone! Vamoose! No.This year it's all vituperative 

rants and monosyllabic chants, preternatural 

political rhetorics posited by 

post-Christian proselytes, and Occupy 

polemics hoisted on streetlights of the 

new American common ground, burning flags 

(there's even a typographical representation 

of the American flag -- a timely 

concrete poem if there ever was one! --

included in this volume), coffins of 

capitalists and the neo-captains of 

industry paraded through the city squares 

with blank verse mantras, chest-thumping poets 

demanding that someone, anyone, look not 

at the stars, Brutus, but ourselves. These poems 

collected here are not the byzantine beauties 

you're used to ogling, no, they're declarations, 

defamations, legal briefs, syllables 

scattered across the page like 52 pick-up, 

they're the skittering jalopies of 

hillbilly wordsmiths, punks drunk in their own 

neuroses, with form and content added 

on like this year's new infomercial gizmos. 

And so we can finally state that we've reached 

the acme of human achievement, readers, 

for there's no zeitgeist of meaning here, no, 

readers, these are vomited phrases, the 

curse of Babel, the scribblings of wanna-be saints 

and self-declared prophets and beatnik 

prattle-meisters, caveat emptor!, my friend, 

please read this year's offerings freed from the 

dead hand of the past, spurn them, rip them out 

and burn them if you must, for in this new 

era, this new time, our writers have resurrected 

us from all the -isms, with this new volume 

we're reborn with every droning delight, every 

plaintive chant, every carnival barker's 

promise, Step right up! Feast your eyes 

on platonic ideals once cherished for 

the ages now scrapped and sequestered to 

the reliquary! See the double-headed 

beast barking like a pathetic seal! See 

Lazarus, that great begrizzled bard,

bedazzle us with  his high-wire, death defying 

tropes! Enter if you dare, dear reader, and beware,

for the philistine ministers of culture 

are watching over your shoulder, safeguarding 

the temple of poetry, starving in 

their precious principles, imploring you, 

beseeching you, steer clear of this linguistic 

leprosy!, these expressions from ebola-

liquefactions gagging you and blinding 

you with their bombastic truth! Read on, 

dear reader, if you dare.  

A MEMENTO TO THEIR SOMETHING OR OTHER

As a memento to their 
undying something or other
she took the unripe palm nut 
and bear claw she'd filched from the 
hotel brunch and retreated to 
their room overlooking the island 
necklaced in bosomy gold and 
diamond glittered surf. This was 
the end, she knew. They'd come here to 
restore that certain sparkle, that 
certain precious something they'd 
always known was theirs, and now, 
just now, she knew for sure, the palm 
nut cool in her hand, it was when 
he asked for coffee and she spied 
his ring so thin and brassy on his 
finger, the way he poured in so much 
cream to dilute its bitterness, 
the exquisite acidity, it was that 
stupid ring he'd bought at Federal's 
when they first met, a lark back then, 
a testimony to his rugged 
immaturity, she'd called it, 
his rakish innocence, he was 
moving to California to 
make films, to reinvent  
American beauty, Sunset Boulevard 
and all of that, so in love was he 
with Norma Desmond, the idea of 
pathetic beauty, and eros, 
and now, sprawled down there in his 
cabana beside the pool, gaping 
at the golden calves of women 
half his age, his big belly now burning 
red, squinteyed and leering at 
the older women in their cover-ups, 
he might as well be floating face-
down in Norma's pool, that outrageous 
garden of Salome's, let him live 
his fantasies, his films, let him 
have his little mind-fucks or candied 
flings with platinum tinsel dolls 
from Reno or some big-bosomed 
Danish tart from Peachtree Gardens. 
She was packing. This time she meant 
to go. She would drive their rental 
to the island and disappear among 
the flesh walking the shore, her name 
now was Freedom, she could feel 
the tug of the shoreline fizzing 
at her feet, it would be water 
and wind, salt and sun, tide and sand, 
she was Norma Desmond now in 
sunglasses and stunning in her 
black swimsuit, beauty reclaimed like 
the flamingos nesting in the trees, 
ravishing, she left the bear claw 
on their bed and held the palm nut 
in her hand, warm and burnished smooth, 
something or other reclaimed, she knew,
she couldn't quite say. 

HOUSTON 1980

I needed

     a job pronto so

I drove in the petro-

chemical darkness, 
     past pawn shops and 
U-Tote-M’s and shrimp 

stands, drifted 

     into the shadows 
of downtown where 

fungal rats the size of 
     dogs danced among 
pick-ups on Texas Street,

entered the Alamo

       Diner, it was 5:30,

the waitress

sat me at the

     window where I could 
watch the rats 

and see myself

     flat on the glass,

the only gringo 

in the joint.

     Beside me a 
maid and her son, 

his eyes like

     a sleepy burro,

he ate a buttered

tortilla as she spooned 
     her juevos rancheros, 
I ordered eggs, stirred

   
sugar in my coffee, 
     turned to the Want-Ads, 
circled the ones with 

promise when I 
     found my calling,

a bookstore!  I 

lit a Winson and 
     laughed at the
man on the phone 

last night who

     said the streets aren’t 
paved in gold here

son, I loosened

     my tie and squinted 
through the smoke and 

said “Who says?” 
     The woman

and her son stared at me

as if I was nuts and

     perhaps I was 
but I knew something 

then that no one else 
     on Texas Street knew –

that I’d have a job

by noon easy, 
     this was America,

all it would take

was the quarters 
    in my hand

and the Alamo Diner 

pay phone, some mints

     and my white shirt 
and tie, I’d sell 

self-help psycho-

     babble, bodice rippers,

gossip rags, newspapers,

skin mags, Necco

    Wafers and cokes,
gum and cigarettes,

it was all such 
     an easy mark, 
a lark, that night we’d 

eat jambalaya 
     from a roadside stand,

return to The Thunderbird

motel and drink
     a six-pack of
Lone Star in the

stiff sheets, our lives 
     blessed like 
the streets paved with 

gold.

ALL I HAVE TO DO

                          revision of a poem written
                                in 1985 -- found 27 years later


All I have to do is
smell your hair in autumn, 
flame red wet leaves falling
and rain smeary windows,
these white stucco walls 
and oaken floors that groan, 
blue jazz all night kicking 
cigarettes, sipping
Seagrams and 7 
so I feel it all waiting 
for you.

|bi' get|

Let’s beget at

the beginning, baby, |

as in who begot whom

and who begot what –

before there were

voices, before there were words |

because the begetting

leads to begotten

and the misbegotten

and the begotten leads

to more begetting | see

it’s not a who story

or a why story or even

a where story, it’s

not even a story at all |

Scheherazade, it’s just

the begetting |

the endless begetting

because there’s a

lot of the begotten,

as endless as being gets,

get it? | If getting begetting

begetting be – you see

where this is headed,

don’t you? Whew! It’s |

as if begetting begetting

begot you and once

begotten the world begets

its infinite jest, its |

infinite space, its

infinite mind

all over the begetting

creation and begotten |

begotten – let’s

face it: it’s all good

for the begetting

getting our being gotten. |

TO A SWORDFISH ON A BED OF ICE AT THE ST. PAUL FISH MARKET IN MILWAKEE

Not one of the passersby here
expects you, all slick and mystery
skinned, your black fish eye no longer
refracting the sea but reflecting
our faces globed as we stare down
and nudge our fingers on your
cold stiffness, a state that creeps us--
the agony of your death
somewhere vast and now unknowable,
there's no misery of the fight
here, no memory of the depths,
just cool indifference, a marvel
reduced to marble. Your bony
schnozz, once a terror in the dark 
climes, is just a calcified 
protuberance, a lifeless harpoon
pointing viewers to the oyster
bar where the shucked glimmerings
shiver with life. Your crescent tail
once torqued you through the elements
and spanked the surface when you 
battled that angry hook. No one 
here questions your existence, your 
lack of consciousness, you are now
a specimen, you have joined 
the great thingness of our world, 
the broad disregard, the casual 
fear we carry in us, please
forgive us, for you have leapt from 
the sea's great soul and breathed the air 
of wonderment! We are nothing
but our trembling!

FORWARD

Visiting the Wisconsin capitol one year

after protests to collective bargaining

On the third floor

under the great rotunda

there’s an advocacy

hearing for the disabled--

a Down’s syndrome boy

is flapping a paper, it’s

a crayon drawing

to fight budget cuts,

he’s growling like a tiger,

his grrrr swelling the dome.

Outside the meeting room

a clump of legislators

caucus. The boy waves

his drawing and growls,

grrrr, he’s no poster

boy, he’s an avenger

for action from the

gray suits, his prey.

In the Assembly

Chambers the legislators

honor the memory of

one of its great fallen

statesmen with a

proclamation and a

plaque for his

surviving family,

all of this is duly

entered in the record

and the legislators

vote and clap for

this fallen lion of

the people.

In the great room

a page delivers

cheeseheads to

an Assemblywoman—

they sit piled on her desk

like perfect faux

cheddar wheel slices.

The Assembly honors

the makers of these

wonders as the speaker

dons a cheesehead

and smiles for a

photo-op and partisan

snickering.

Then let it be known

that an 11-year-old boy

named Noah is called

to the chambers, he’s

the citizen who raised

money to save a

woman’s home from

foreclosure—she raised

100 foster kids

in that house--the

Assembly claps and

bestows Noah with

the Hometown Hero

award and thus

the sworn members

under this rotunda

applaud this fierce

boy for achieving

where they have

failed.