Dangerous

It was very dark One street lamp One cul-de-sac
He said he would watch me walk home to be safe
I walked past a recycling bin of beer cans I walked past a soccer goal
Not much can happen in a hundred feet of suburb.

In defense of lists in poems

Once upon a time

• i began a list in sentences
• one man found a sentence beautiful
• two man heard it easy to recreate
• two man founded an ugly sentence
• one man sighed
• two man smirked
• his victory was only apparent to himself
• this is an ugly sentence
• some people say numbers and letters cannot
• this sentence says they can
• q listed her favorite words
• e listed her favorite words
• no two lists are idientical
• this list is not identical
• this sentence is beautiful
• list
• i list in sentences
• sentences are a number of letter lists
• i choose letter e, as it begins my name
• list

• e

Driver's Ed

I wish he would just shave
but his eyes are nice.  I explain
the sun makes two things
heat and light. leaning in,
his eyes told him they were
connected.
                       No connection, I said.
His face is one- planes of lips
bright bright eyes and teeth
that are beautiful
black hair black skin.
but curliness at the corners of the mouth- dirty
I dash out colloquialisms and
sprinkle grammatical errors (for to err is human)
in a nattempt.  For he is beautiful.
but I wish he would shave.  I wish my eyes would brighten.
but really (and this is private) I like my face better.
I'm finna apologize.
Fixin to.
Sorry.

Ms. Bosselaar (carried over)

Ms Bosselaar is, I think,
a lot older than I am.  But
something about the way she lines lines up
is sibilant to the way I do,
except better and sadder.
A lot sadder.  She followed a man in a museum once,
and some others other times,
and they looked the same- people- but meant different things
just like all of her repeated lines.
She's a little older than I am,
(Ms. Bosselaar is) I think.
Why is she sad though?  I
follow her around a museum, and she looks at all the paintings unlike the man in her poem.
I watch her face, as much of it as I
can see because she turns away fast,
and ducks when it's apparent her
***
head might be blocking m view of the oil pastel,
and I guess a head might bother some people
but you are the real art here, and
I think Ms. Bosselaar knows that
as well as I do.
Or maybe she ducked out of the
way to see the art behind me,
because our eyes caught.
And as I watch her face change,
from looking at that oil to looking
at me,
I think I know her.
Then she ducks away again,
and I wonder.  Was it the nunnery?  The
death of a child, the poet lover, the-
everything is too close to be real,
and I wonder now if it was the painting that
didn't change her face at all (oh, what a watercolor!)
that really got to her. look!  Now
she's walking away, and all I see
is hair. 
I'm trying to follow you, Ms. Bosselaar, because you
are the real art,
the one I don't understand
no matter how sibilant.
Then again I'm not sure- I rarely read
in art museums.  Are these painting yours,
all frames from a long film strip?  I rarely read
the little placards- (Laure-Anne Bosselaar, all?)
It's the fun of an art museum.
Am I following correctly?
Is this where you stepped?
Why is your walking face soaking in that picture
there? I think you are a lot older
than me, and I stumble on these
polished floors that you've tread. 
I might not follow very fast, but
you are the real art, Ms. Bosselaar.

fitting

Hullo.  No, I do think you are exceptionally important.
human civilization has always followed the rivers
and cried when the rivers flooded or shrank.
we need the water, please.
Hullo?  You are exceptionally important!   Please don't.
I need your water
in an effort to seem thinner in the mirror, you sucked it in
well when I look into a river I see myself and the bottom too
Hullo!  Sorry, I can't hear above the roar. 
the other one, when the rains come in the mountain, turn a muddy brown and there is water all over.
sometimes that's necessary for the ecosystem
but the civilization makes nice dams as well. 
actually, not nice.
"I was just kidding."  I am a bad joker- slurp!  No, I am funny- whoosh! 
I want a quiet rumble, a gigantic trickle.
Willowy lady, stepping one foot in front of the other with a pot on your head
you are a river as well as I
you fit your banks
do not parch us all. The ground beneath your feet gives a little as you run over it
little boy, squish squish. We all need water and banks.
fit.

haiku (100)

hands to the fire
out from umbrella: 
bath of warm and
                                snowflakes! cold.

Sitting in church tomorrows from today

I was sitting in church on Christmas Eve
16, and a little uncomfortable
with my comfortable mother on one side of me
and I might have been holding a round squirming three-year-old
but thinking
and I decided that I never ever wanted to hear Emmanuel
and think Kant instead of Jesus.

I walked home from church
all alone
and since we used to keep baked goods in the microwave
to keep bugs off,
I was thinking
that I never ever wanted to live in a place
where cupcakes lasted more than 24 hours
not because of allergies or wanting to save it for special
but just because they did. 

Then I ate the last cupcake.

green paint

I accidentally painted my dresser drawer green
in pursuit of a daddy longlegs that I wanted out of my clothes

The world is corrupt

The postman who brings my mail every day is corrupt
The police officer across the table from your cousin is corrupt
The teachers, the senators, the bosses, the stock brokers are corrupt.
Also corrupt are the button pressers
the bank tellers and the man who handed me my shoes over a glass countertop.
I, too, am corrupt.
Don't trust anything I say.

New flow

I want to rhyme real complicatedly, but
that's not how rhymes present themselves, cause see
in ears inside my head they classify
and separate like boxes in an attic
I want to flow just like that Rothko guy
still rhyming, still boxes: I don't spill my things across the floor
with the line length of Howl or the squiggles of Pollock
My boxes need a special kind of logic
like fractal patterns or squares of a door
and coming to an end like maybe me.

the geometry of the brain

Sometimes I think my mind is two lovers, or




lovers to be: linear and nonlinear




and they are meant for each other but nonlinear is



“playing hard to get”



she is so fast. She leaves pretzels and love knots as trails behind her



and linear stops to sort them out,



finally he comes to a point at the end of the line

and she’s so far ahead, twisty like a cadenza in two measures

wait what? hold on, let me rephrase…

but lines are one-dimensional, as he moves towards her
he’s overtaken but never overtakes
and the old line is simply
parallel.

My Utopia:

My mother's friend I loved immediately
She had been to university, law school
a castle and a ghetto
and she came back to Michigan at thirty-six
ready to settle
on the corner of milkand honey
with a nice lawn.  Why did I love her?
She understood, then humbly chose her place.
Were I a king

I would that all learn as she did;
Were I a scientist

My hypothesis would be:
     with that university,
     law school, castle and ghetto
     we will all pick our corners of milk and honey
     one house per person and fill up the street;

Were I a food critic and acclaimed as well

I truly doubt my own understanding in this poem
I can't settle here or read the street signs.
Do I inspire my friend's daughter? maybe I should
be a king instead- there's honey there, and someone can explain how to write poems
said the ghetto and the university.

"Journal 20"

Influences shaped Kumar's life.
Banks do to a stream.
And like a stream he went to lower ground always:
"they push against sharp turnings and after years they change," like
banks do. To a stream,
Forward is the only truth.
They push against sharp turnings.  And after years, they change.  Like
streams, he reflects some light and yet we can see into it.
Forward is the only truth,
yet he exists where he was gone, as do all
streams.  He reflects some light, and yet we can see into it: 
he has a bank inside and through and under him,
yet he exists.  Where he has gone, as do all,
he changes it, it changes him.
He has a bank inside and throughand under him.
Influences shaped Kumar's life. 

Thunk.

Well what do poems sound like
when they hit you?
Splat if they're empty
(silent assimilation is also possible)
but I am sure they make a sound for you
maybe they chirp like dewy grass on bare feet
just out of a starched bed or
do your poems fizzle like bacon and
candy sugar in hot mouths
and greasy frying pans?  My poems
thunk
like old wood blocks or a dropped guitar resonating in admonition
and hands, thanking the tree
somewhere; a nervous heartbeat
stumbling around a stage
and waiting for the
orchestra
to begin.

The frontier

I knew the front cover was heavy Columbus
and then later Virginia, with Washington, cherry trees, curly hair.
The seashore and Virginia, those I saw. Later,
flipping through, I saw there was close dark print
Something about the Beach Boys singing about Nixon in California
surf.

But what comes in between Columbus and my chapter?
I skimmed through the syllabus Lewis&Clark drew up for me.
Passed unit tests in 1812 and 1914 to check I'm on track.
Firm plots are cordoned off in chapters
little numbers next to them in the Table of Contents
Every year the Almanac reports the movement of the frontier
(by now the Mississippi area has congealed-I was worried
it would never be straight,
when I first went by. But
it did, in hindsight.) Unconciously, I fill out the trail behind me, filing new people. Immigrants and
time and population and so many feet widened and hardened it. Looking
forwards, I send out railroads and wagonloads-
tendrils, I read ahead to ready because
I want a textbook in my head.