On the Fault Line

Why is it we forgive the land
and not each other? Entire
countries shoved over several
feet and we call such disaster
natural and blame people

elected or hired to build say
nuclear reactors call them
irresponsible shame them
make them bow before the flag
as if that slack rectangle

drooping on the pole were their
superior and they're the ones
who couldn't rise to the occasion
and save the nation not quite
the same as one hundred

forty two thousand
square miles of land that
commits instant subduction
a nose dive so big and loud
it cracks the pavement

all the houses courts castles
and institutions sends a
jolt right through the world
splash crash words aren't big enough
changing everything especially

the routines of everyone
who didn't know till yesterday
they went to work and school and play
where all the action now isn't

the epicenter

the zone the radius
the evacuation and contamination
and probably no cherry blossom
parade this spring only cleaning
and TV reporters asking how

do you feel could you stand
a little closer to the rubble please
what's that you say? you're offering
the multi-millionaire host of reality
a crust of campfire cooked something

so easily we forgive the land
and not the brother sister mother
father uncle aunt and all those
grandfathers who say it's too late
to start anew it's not their fault

or was it? did they get us into
the mess before it happened

living on the fault line

The Last Blank Book at Borders

Now in plexiglass like the Aztec skull

those crystalline nebulae spinning

in frozen suspended cranial reaches

atop a plinth in the Museum of Man

just off Piccadilly Street in the

Burlington Arcade now the journey

of pulp pressed against the screen

and pushed through the bleach to the

day's beginnings in the wide margins

of the writer's mind before breakfast

here exhibited finally as one bound up

abducted from the Silk Road interconnections

en route to Charlemagne's court at Christmas

those disappointed horrified monks who

so assiduously crushed lapis for a blue mood

on the backs of Cooley's cattle dismayed

now the chance will never be given again

the pages of history fluttering before them

like endless autumn can you hear them

laughing their holy laughter now

as the willing page is free no more

the blank fibers that displaced monks' vellum

and before that the neolithic carvings

and thumb-framed etchings that pictured

the sublime mind hungry for more

than meat or fruit just to say

the word blank was an achievement

now here the achievements encased

and labeled with the digital bells

ringing out from their silicon miniatures

pathways to a future already here

As one should sue a star

"As one should sue a star"—first line from Emily Dickinson

As one should sue a star
the air is liable when gray
and oceans absolutely wrong
when waves turn rogue and break the day

Night, too, can be so fickle, therefore
punishable by battery-operated light
But worse, delinquent rain that sulks
in passing clouds and will not fall

Takacs-Yang Ghazal

Even my big black truck's windshield wipers made music

while I peered through the smears at the lines on the mountain road

First they played Haydn's "Rider" and we tried to sit still

but applause broke out between movements and the cellist smiled

Next was tricky, Bartok's number five, arching dissonance

and spooky sounds of night mixed in with a melancholy or longing

At intermission, the retired bookseller said he liked the first one—

but the second, too raucous. I thought of the miles the quartet had traveled

Dvorak's piano quintet with the young feisty pianist came last

forty-five minutes that lasted three days or a rapid plunk on the viola

We stood right away, we cheered, we roared and shouted for more

you know how greedy we get

Time

First, Second and Third sit inside each other's skins
Like Russian dolls all varnished up with nowhere to go because they're already here

Whenever I see a butterfly taking a breather on the road
I know it's either warming up its wings or clutching onto that broken stone for a last look

Don't you love the lovemaking that goes on
Between mountains and clouds?

If I am now who I was in that overgrown garden using weed stalks like swords
Whose hand is this writing down the words sixty years later?

Some people need a clock to boil an egg
Me, I just guess and that's why sometimes it's runny and you know the rest

I don’t know what it is

I don’t know what it is

about the vertical line

of the cat’s eye

how the world shrinks

into the frozen still-life

between running and readiness

breath fierce and calm

like sister and brother

What is it I don’t know

the beginning of the world

or was it only this morning

when the wind stopped

clouds forgot their way

the neighbors’ dogs

telling them what for

and the moon not full

Don’t I know this song

no tell-tale repetition

or give-away rhyme

the dance a hesitation

the voice sticks in the flute

eyelashes open and close

their mandolin curtains

rapidly or not at all

the blood sings down

narrow cliff-hanging

paths and trails

making up stories

for anything that moves

bamboo leaf fluttering

spider tight-rope walking

honey bee struggling

Is it what I don’t know

that keeps me here

my fingertips hovering

over the keyboard

my tongue pushing

against the backs

of my patiently waiting

rows of teeth

The Net Thrower

A shadow breaks free
reaches into a dance-move
one arm tracing the arc
of the planets one leg
angled in flight
the other tree deep-
rooted, balanced

Those fine, knotted intersections
held back in their gathered mass
now float aloft wrinkling
and unwrinkling in waves
of geometry folding
and unfolding

To capture the moment
release a chaos of ink
to seek synchronicity
land it on the page
caught up, wriggling
to get free

He knows of the dark mass
under the surface
so he returns to the edge
of day and sea ready
to undo life's energy
huddling in tide pools