Tired of Rejection

Tired of rejection Martha turned to the wall. "Hi. It's been awhile."

"Wasn't that a Johnny Cash song," said George.

Martha placed both palms flat against the wall and arched her back.

George had seen that done in a television special on yoga one time. A thought flickered across his collegiate brow. Jesus. Maybe it's too, what's the word? dispassionate. He shook his head and said, "You okay?"

She spoke from behind the curtain of hair that screened her suspended face. "I think it was the Beatles."

Now George was really lost. He knew it really couldn't have been the Beatles. It had a country vibe he couldn't put his fingers on. The ice maker in the refrigerator went off, whirring and clunking. Maybe the machines of the world were sent to save us, thought George.

"It's big," said Martha.

"What?" said George. Then he caught himself. Rejection. It came folded up in the morning mail, a little bent from the way the cute postmistress had crammed it into that pigeonhole they called a PO Box, but when you unfolded it, George realized, it was a pretty big rejection.

"Don't..." he cleared his throat.

Martha hadn't moved and her body language, half asana and half comical—My God. She looks like she's going to push the wall down, he thought. No wait. She's holding it up! The wall of rejection. He shook himself again. "Don't some people, uh, writers," he said, "don't they say you can wallpaper your walls with rejection notices?"

"Go to hell," Martha mumbled.

My Mother's Metaphors

My mother’s an emerald green hummingbird at the kitchen window.

The bird is my dad’s spirit come for the purple heather by the door.

The door opens onto Rossbeigh Strand on a stone cold spring morning.

The morning is the song only she can remember, the one with a banjo.

The four strings are the paths we took from the wild mountains.

The peaks hide the Black Valley’s secrets and hold up the sky.

That’s where the clouds become rashers, eggs and one fried tomato.

Sunrise on the day I left was a bright star shining before and after.

The past waits by the bridge below, wagging its tail, glad to see her.

She is the scent of lavender, a needle piercing the Aran elbow,

the bent knee against the road with the long winding memory.

The memory is a fine bone China cup lifted up and up till there is no more.

Book of Stars

It’s in the book the one you didn’t read

the title I emailed to you the time you

never replied all this time I’ve wanted to

tell you but now this sensation I’m stranded

on an island and you will never find the

bottle I set afloat the message within

I have no blame in my heart please understand

a little confusion a little memory loss a little

delusion such as did you ever exist I could

number you like a new star seen once in

the void but there are so many the book so

full of numbers but these are different times

when words go out like thoughts transmitted

from one continent to another we are gods we

fly we materialize or in your case not

the war is of course still raging the gates of the

citadel once impregnable await their wooden

horse the surprise that follows the gift

and those long voyages too the rocks the

temptations the sleep inducing plants the

beautiful women at the shoreline powdered in

sand taking their own photographs with their

iPhones you’ll soon be receiving one I’m

sure but I’ve stopped caring these are

different times like I say and the book now

is only an icon an image no signatures

no leaves and pages only slightly more than

figments covering our vulnerabilities was

there something you wanted? I still hear

your voice like it was yesterday but I

can’t assume anything anymore certainly where

you’re concerned I saw you once I felt

your pull your gravitational field your

magnetism perhaps I was mistaken some

configuration rising from the horizon like

heatwaves an illusion I gave a name now

I’m here holding your shell to my ear

The Ditch

There's something warm about surrender she heard herself say
half in water half in dream with a chorus of toads one single
baritone reaching out from beneath a twisted Hilo Moon

overlays of rapid bamboo percussion sections she was lost
for words and finding the right word was vital to her even
here in the direst mirest circumstances not one shadow

only ditch sounds nor even a floating lilikoi to light the way
bufo marinus she said and silence looked hard into the darkness
eyes wide open a little formal isn't it she heard a voice return

would you prefer cane toad she whispered or nameless
proliferators warts and all I beg your pardon he said
aren't you forgetting your manners there's no time she said

like the fossilized arteries of a forgotten goddess the ditch
had no beginning and no end it pulled down the stars
to dank sanctuaries crawling with dead languages

what's with overpopulation anyhow said the toad
we're all racing to the edge of the proverbial cliff
but I prefer the ditch he said you've got a point

she sighed perhaps I'll lie here till the smoke passes
till the haze clears till the burning fields choke
with the bitter people's ashes there's nothing subtle

there's nothing worth redeeming there be careful
said the toad I'm the victim of relocation myself
where's home my kids ask hell forget that thought

home is wherever the sky cries out and down I say
life's either a dance or a game of statues and you
take your chances out there on the tarmac

I've forgotten why she said confiding in the stranger
his implacable bodhisattva smile wide beneath
her fingertips I've lost my way I'm running

yeah dance or statues he mumbled and dropped
out of touch till dawn the world still on fire
crazy people out there with coupons and vouchers

waving flags and political placards standing
on street corners trying to make eye contact
with faceless citizens hunkered down in their bubbles

hands gripping the wheels as long as those hands
gripped the damn wheels they believed in freedom
talk about illusion she sighed and sank into a long sleep

The Last Melon

She walked on knowing if she didn't make a decision before sunset
her confidence her clarity her willingness to gamble everything
would exponentially curve away into the soft greedy darkness.

Her feet began talking to her in that scrunched up way things get
when bits of grit conspire with sock lint to press here or suddenly
over here ooh here this sensitive place near the veruka like random
annoying acupressure from a really angry pedicurist but she couldn't
stop walking she kept an eye on the long ditch to her right fringed
in cane grass and wet with days of rainfall there was something
that compelled her to pay attention to this cut in the land that ran
parallel with the road as she made forward progress.

Birds once settled for the night now burst out of their peace
and she felt irrationally bad for it shaking her head
a toad or frog leaped from the grass into the water
would she do that she wondered when faced with immediate
danger?

Ever since she shouted out in the cantina she'd been running
running  from the mob running from the corrupt authorities
she was a Banana Woman a revolutionary figure unarmed
and highly dangerous and she made the grave mistake
of fomenting her open rebellion in a nest of melon growers
bitter melon growers in fact because there was only one
remaining melon in the world and they refused to accept
this fate they stuck together and vowed vengeance they
would sooner starve than admit the Banana Woman
had finally won they would never change their ways
but they would find her and skin her alive and throw
her carcass into the ditch.

Banana Woman

She threw the banana skin down in a clear act of defiance
nay a challenge a Take that! you arrogant so and so a
Put that in your pipe and smoke it! sort of action
or maybe not maybe

She carefully peeled away that banana's yellow cladding
a little spotted she noted then raised the exposed fruit
high in the air and cried Viva la Banana! and everyone
in the cantina held their breath to see what happened next
or perhaps

She's in her F250 diesel bumping and jostling down
open country roads in the wilds of Hawai'i when
through the open window she flings the banana skin
like a limp starfish legs akimbo into the bushes
but she misses and the banana skin smacks into
the Caution Nene Crossing sign and sticks there
splayed out for several days until a county roads
worker stands before the sign with a long bamboo
pole pushing and poking until the now brown
decaying sunburnt skin drops to the ground where
he leaves it walking away with a sense of job
well done leaving the banana skin to rot into
the ground like so much compost
perhaps that's how it went or perhaps perhaps

She was being followed and she blithely threw
down the banana skin into the dark and listened
hard making her way forward listened until
she heard the cry Aaaah! and The Fall

Gathering of the Elders

If that phrase sounds like a nursing home or even more euphemistically
a care center then your imagination is bereft you are missing some vital
concept your way is too narrow but you will be forgiven for the paradigm
you're sticking to with all four feet like a bewildered gecko wondering
what's up what's down and how long will I keep my tail because that's
the norm ain't it so when we hear that Ms M got medivacked to Queen's
Hospital for an emergency operation and you know what you know
about the cats and dogs the porch suspended in tree tops and the flotsam
and jetsam of one person's life as it finds the waterline on the cruise
ship called our town you think to yourself how much more can I get
out of this teabag how much longer can my day to day look like oh
man I don't even know what I'm talking about as usual I'm talking
around it I'm one too an elder not becoming but arrived and the gathering
is done in passing in coffee shops and market places occasionally at one
another's house but forgive me now for wondering if my lofty use
of that phrase where community elders actually sit around and work
on what's good for the community itself sits there on the bottom
of that stack of dusty metaphors clichés old wives tales and folk
sayings not to mention personal fantasies based on things I heard
about Lakota Yoruba Pitjanjara Inuit Maasai Yaqui Ainu and the
Disappeared in Smoke but Still There at Your Shoulder Grandfathers
and Grandmothers how will we ever know respect when we lock
up our lives in boxes and live alone and what's this about embracing
the kupuna wearing mu'umu'u and shuffling between Nakahara's
and Takata's with our dark secrets we no like share so what
if the people lock up their kids in schools all day race through
what they call lunch to the minute so they can wander around
the playground under supervision so what if people look at you
making two three four journeys a day for one thing maybe
stumble a bit and they say oh! oh! get on with your own life
clean your windows one pane at a time go to the library
at story time get on your knees and get your fingernails
dirty on the pollen path stop feeling so useless forgive yourself
don't listen to any of this and especially that gather together
oh ye elders but remember the old minds of the toddlers and weep
for it is your rain will nourish the catnip arugula and water lilies of the world