Weather the Storm (from last spring's final project for poetry workshop. A crude cut and paste job.)

weather the storm
 ghosts carry
 on the spine
 and shoulders,
 weighing their forms
 on skin,
 on flesh 
 binding white bones.
bodies turned
 in the seasons
 to ashes 
to dust
 to dirt 
dug out the ground,
 to make space
 of the solid,
 to hollow a hole
 in the thick 
 of the earth
to scatter 
 the soil
 in chanting 
a final say 
 for the love
 of god. 

weather the storm, 
 as the long scorch 
 of hot months
forgets
 as rain softens 
 barren weeded lands.
 water fills splits 
 in the earth, 
 mends faults 
 in the hard ground 
 while the pour 
 wets forth oases,
atones the cruelty
of a blind sun.
heat condenses,
 extracts damp
 from the fertile
 land, swelters
 a brining wake
 with a turn
of the other
burning cheek. 

columns crumble,
 perish to pillars,
 salts sifted 
 through a sieve 
 of cupped hands.
weather the storm 
 of sirens fallen 
 off facades, torn 
 off steeples
 screamed from 
 a pulpit of knotted wood,
 an assemblage 
 of crooking limbs
 begging alms,
 exacting penance
 in sundering sky.
wings of plastic bag angels 
 rattle in the breath
 mutter crumpled prayers 
 for a turn
 in the wind, a rift
 in the fold.
weather the storm
 when in winter 
 the heart 
 hibernates
 the beat slows
 the body gives,
 cripples in the freeze.
to hold the heart
 in the hands
 pulsing warmth 
 to cracked and dry
 skin
 dripping a trail
 as heat 
 burrows 
holes
 drops on the sidewalk
 sings on 
 the covered street
when another
 for warmth of body
 saves the avalanched self
 the soul
 buried months long
 suspended
months long
 in ice.





weather the storm
 in spring
 for this one,
 the darkest 
 of ever,
 and wet. 
 rain shores
 on the street, 
 shadows pavement
 as a receding tide
 on drying sand.
 in evening 
 if clouds part,
 stars persist 
 through up and outward
 urban light.
 the glow reaches
 wraithed streets
 lunar and delayed
 on the near hour
 and some billion years.
weather the storm
 sleeking manholes,
 pouring forth
from the rivering gutters,
 leaking off awnings.
 soaked rains 
 through seasoned leaves 
 anoint the foreheads 
 of passersby,
carrying through 

on the stop and go
 of traffic splashed
off fallen ponds 
 and straits,
 bodies warm on
 sewer grates,
 a heel catching stubborn
 for a moment 
 missed.
a slip 
in the shoes,
 slackens the step
 stairs slouch 
 in a building’s 
 slummed shadow,
 crumble as fallen rock 
 off the cut side
 of a stone hill
 plywood confines 
decay,
a rot from inside, 
 forgetting 
 the life 
 of a thing.

Slouching Toward

How we left, cleaved our hearts
in two. In my mind
we are pilgrims, dirty and sweating
grit in the eyes, orange clay
in ragged half moons
beneath clawed nail beds.

Bonnets and buckles,
tatters in burlap. Funeral pyres,
wagons. Dust floes, sandy red
apparitions that blinded
our course to the west.

Lately I dream of deserts,
a trek. Boiling sun relentless
in its beating. Hardly in beams
but heavy columns yoked
across our weakened shoulders.

But then it is not so. Our distance,
an ocean, the sea. Steely birds
grind and whir, streak the sky
in earnest. Stomach hollowed
with a drop, a turbulent shudder.

Far below we carry along
a paved course. Outrun
our stumbling ancestors
with their high noons,
their five o’ clocks.

Those ghosts sink once
and over in the soft dunes.
Above I smile at the small hours
to pass before I see you again.

Along the highway we approach
the ends of the earth. Birds bounce
or quiver on half smug power
lines, all a hum and chatter.

I have not seen a road extinguish
on the horizon since the last time
I felt at home.