SOCIETY.

WHAT IS SOCIETY

And this society, the one we live in, where people in wheelchairs
Are thrown into the trash;
And people named Mikel are picked on in public,
Carry picket signs down foreign-sounding streets, like Pickled Eggs;
Deviled Hands; High Street, the name rolls off your tongue.

The words are like plastic sheets put on a brown couch.
How autumn quickly changes into summer, and summer and winter
Are both entwined,
And monkeys are both riveted by words that are spoken from old vowels;
That the sounds of summer rain drift softly through the dark,
In the dark of the night, and the night

Drops like a monsoon out of Japan; and the Emperor was angry,
And the entire Atlantic Ocean was angry, and it was angry with its voice.
How people think they are not in a society, and how the society
Gets back at the smart people, and the dumb people get everything,
Especially the blondes and men interested in art.

Sometimes, the museums whisper softly at night, and the night
Calls down to the dinosaurs in the museums;
How the museums are like parts and ghosts wander around
In the dark, like softly moving shadows,
And how some people are homeless, and not breathing,
And breath comes out of me, and is me and NOT.

I don’t know what to make of this, what to speak of this,
In the words that pour from my lips, the lips that speak the poetry-how kings
And queens mock me, and think I am grand, but no one sees
Me stand in the shadows, unless I destroy entire empires…
My mother thought it was a bad idea, not a good idea, that ideas
Shouldn’t be put in society, shouldn’t be spoken of in classrooms.
Sometimes, even the walls are dim, and sometimes I can hear them.

The Nature and Nothing Else.

The long drawn out marches,
bridges on solid grounds.
A black cat in white mounds.
A tree on blue birches.

A finch sits on a warm rock,
and tweets to the wind-
the sound of the rhythm,
is in each crack and bend.

The grass waves in the wind.
It weaves around the trees.
Everything we seek, is sheltered in the breeze.
Nothing else is what we seek, and in what we find.

A finch warms itself on a rock.
Everything around it is empty and lonely,
and the houses at night are botched-
everything in the dark is a phony.

A sparrow flies and sits on a rock.
It dances and moves in a graceful arch.
He is a brother to the finch; you don't want to pick up the block,
and put it down and on you march.

I sing chorus to the wind.
And in your naked eyes.
You weave and you bend,
and tell permanent lies.

Nothing else is broken; nothing else is the same.
We took the lies out of distant cries,
and in the end its in the name-
we say our last goodbyes.
The wind moans its own name.

You told me you wouldn't find the trail
of the sparrow-
that you wouldn't let on, you wouldn't wail,
and you would see me again, tomorrow.
I guess I tried to let it fail.
You hear the naked demons wail.

That's what they call finches and sparrows.

The Rocking Chair Was Sold.

It was sold.

The rocking chair was sold to a poor Vietnam veteran.
He clashed. His eyes were brown. He was born of something
Better than anything. His mind was shallow. He was shallow.
The wind is cold.

I was not happy about the color of the clouds-
The ash color of the sky.
We fought tighter temptation,
The land mines were broken on broken soil.

My mother’s old cow lifted his ears and mooed
And chewed the grass around his feet.
He was not an it. He was my mother’s favorite,
He liked him better than anyone else,
Better, even, than the doorframe.

The books taught me better than the professors
At Brooklyn College or Mott,
Where famous professors haunt piles of old
Rocks.

Rock sold. Rocking chair.
You took your rest for too long, and now your ears are dumb-
They wove in and out of highways,
Anything within reach.
Oh rocking chair, I fear you-
You are farther away than anyone.

My mother climbs over walls to reach new heights.
I was bored, I carved my name in old cellos.
I was burdened by the flowers in the vase.
I was burdened by my flyaway hair.
I didn’t understand the English language.
I didn’t understand the words that crawled outside of
Tiger’s mouth.

River Pierre.

She is dressed in an Afghan and black clothing.
I told her I was over the whole black outfit thing,
she could wear anything she wanted. She came from South Africa.
She spoke in broken English.
I told her the wind is like a language...that it is a language.
It speaks to tree branches and rocks.
She told me I was different. I didn't know where I belonged.
I took an essay writing class when I was six.
We ate lunch on the River Pierre, in France,
and looked over her notes on Gibraltar.
They told me I do everything wrong. I'm not the way I should be.
Everyone makes me feel uncomfortable. No one understands.
The lake is filled with fish. Every day, I take bread crumbs out to
the lake, and only see three things-a toad, a lily pad, and
a tortoise. The tortoise has a brown-speckled shell. He looks
at me and wanders away. Everyone says I am selfish. I agree
with them. I haven't had a job in seven years.
The word, Gibraltar rings in my ears. It is an interesting word,
and I wonder what it means. Gibraltar.
We're not in France anymore. We're back at home, leafing through cake
magazines and talking about the football game on tv.
It's almost Thanksgiving.