The Lives of Trees

Go behind your house

and see the spring twilight's march:

parade of young birches and pines

and tall hawthorns, oaks that rend 

the newly-plowed soil with their roots,

and at night the branches are alive

with sounds that deepen, rumble...

--I wish to show you the sense of it.

Man, born within the leafy canopy,

still shrieks and howls in glory

or terror or sorrow,

worships his existence and the night,

digs graves and visits the dead flowers

in the shadowy glen he holds sacred.

His soft movement, syllabic whispers

grow under the deep green awning,

yet one autumn morning I find it all

bare, cut down, used.

An old man walks by

holding a rusty spade,

coughs into his sleeve,

and leading a horse he tips his hat 

to the sun, and whistles

to the new fence along a road.

Waiting for Mel

Classmate's apartment:

a pair of factories pollute the plush brown couch,

Josh grinds knuckles into powdered lines

periodically checks his cell phone,

and we shift and sip water,

watch the endless days of a dusty fan.

phone buzzes angrily I struggle to contain

its raw energy like it's escaping a locked window,

peel open a newly-formed honeycomb:

It's Mel: "Sorry bro cant make it tonight "

Everyone looks over my shoulders

the words hang between us like chunky dust

watches Josh question a bruised mirror 

hooked to the thin pink wall,

crushed pills scraped across its soft, 

face Josh punches it falls, the pieces sparking

stoops to stroke and drink the mirror's still-fresh nectar.

He turns to me, mad crazy

and everything else feels muffled

like I'm waiting for someone to answer their phone

until reality hums like a hive, the bee quivers

about a boy across town who has the best shit around

and we run out and emotionless sobs from the sky

drench our backs, slow us down.

Elegiac

I write this poem to buy myself time,

like when I breathe or mourn. The days

pass; not sure how many are left 

before I must go outside, 

bury words in my garden

and move on. My poems 

walk, like loved or neglected children

past the stone walls every day, 

on their way to church. 

I often wonder about them, 

leaning on my spade, 

trying to divine the strengths

hidden in thick sheets of denim, lost to me 

because when digging in the garden

I'm blind with soil, birthing new life.

Neglect will lead to death, starvation,

yet...doubt--will these plants grow?

Will reddened trees smile,

my pitchfork's mouth filled with bits of hay 

clinging to its steely smile?

Or will they be like the woman, 

despite braindeath,

whose organs still wrote commas 

in the run-on sentence 

we had to stop reading to correct.

The Words Played Violin Beside Me

I played cello soft and slept walking

until the cold bucket crash of conscious from a quick-passing car.

My face sandpapered, my skin red 

I stand on G string, a street of breathing intervals

that burn like crimson fireworks and you're six years old

and nothing is going to change.

My words are gone

and I see pages between classes,

ideas moving like distressed couples or the pink of sunrise,

ideas lost like a notebook or a romance.

At night lonely poets strike keyboards,

rub their faces and look down into my eyes

and shuffle paper, a pillow.

They live in every brick window

and below I ride the endless concertos

and everyone gets the notes. I catch some.

They move in endless, unfathomable rhythms

that bang the wall of my dorm room

but I can't imagine falling asleep without

them; tonight, I dream without words

and wait for a night of lyrics like Greek fire,

when even from outside the strings sound beautiful.

Each Stanza is an Aerial Photograph of Mullivaikal

There were many; white sugar cubes

glowing breathing in the Sri Lankan sunlight

and the road was dark with moisture. Then

black, patchy silences. Nothing

crosses the dry street and my mind 

speaks such still I'm screaming to fill it now.

Doesn't Snuggle

She cups the soaked satin sheets,

watches the light of a closing door

slam black, now a long line of water

sings from behind the wood. She thinks

about what was before: darkness

blessed by silence, wanderings,

cries into an empty auditorium

occupied by a flung dress and a tipped chair.

She feels empty, twice.

Held still like a threatened spine

watching his form move across the stage,

mumble at the bulbous doorknob

and disappear into a cloud of lanterns

that confuse and scare her. Blankets

warmth envelop her in a velvet twilight;

she sighs--

wrapping the rich lifeless folds 

into brawny arms and fingers, 

a deep cloth voice

images of soft force, weighty mountains

words...just...words--

soft touching breaths that speak unheard.

Baroque Resolution

I need peace when I drive long-distance; Bach's organ bellowing in the concert hall only to end with willful flourish. The radio gives me nothing but fundamentalism, so I turn to my imagination to provide music, create romantic orchestral flourishes loosely based on Tchaikovsky symphonies. Background music for my biopic: a man driving, the black sky screaming, caving in, gravity gone, his car tripping forward, over itself, vaulting, eyes slamming shut, wooing comfort from a hard cushion. Opens to see a mini-van, containing a face like his though distinctly different. The two hover, awkward couple, in this night for some time. She mouths: "We're too young." He places a hand to the windshield, feels skin cells growing senile, disillusioned. "It's a good thing." Headlight smiles but no words, only lips and virtuosity. Their bumpers kiss, and shatter all: glass, circulatory system, the engine of life,  license plates, the credits, light. A rolling C-major dust cloud resolves through the movie theater.