RELICS

(Poems 1969-1980)

-----"Os poetas

-----se poem

-----ao Poema..."

We don't know

exactly

how many of the Magna Charta's signers

were pigs;


or precisely the proportion of artists

over the years;


and certainly we don't know

their influence on religion

(though likely disproportionate here also);


but tell me honestly --

even considering their pink naked skin

and almost human shit


don't you think there's something

(I can't say just what)

between them and us?


You understand I think we should be tolerant.

Cascara stands beside

her tall stiff husband, Alder.


A gently rounded woman,

in the springtime she gets loose.


and you feel yourself loosening, too.


*Raindance

Gabacho


If I could only put my life into Spanish.


Then I couldn't spend it

more than two or three cents at a time.


No matter how I tried

to blow it all at once


It would still keep piling up in the bank.


*Raindance

Picking his step, his step,

picking his step.


His bones a glass of water,

the old man trots carefully.


*Portland Review

I explained to him that, after much thought,

I had decided that nature had made me a rabbit, only that;

so I couldn't be blamed

for my weakness, and he

should leave me alone.


He explained to me

that he had always known that he was a fox

and should eat rabbits.

needless insult


limp asparagus,

pathetic bassoon --

big nose,

pigeon-breasted,

indecisive --

watery eyes

through thick spectacles --

soggy cardboard son,

you are overawed

by anything.

horseman hobbling around

up & down hills breathing hard

hauling a saddle

looking for a

-- that's how you're reliable

and good for me, you

lazy cruel old lost

horse!



*Mr. Cogito

The cutworm turns a little grass

into himself,

but mostly into shit --


later on, a little of him

is made new on the duck,

and so on.


Am I as right

(I ask you, meat)

turning so much life

into this?

Will I continue to dimple,

with my tiptoes, fearfully,

the surface of life,


darting frantically from fish

who want me to go

into the real depths with them?

I've travelled a long way

through bad places.


I've had so many minds.

So many kinds of mistakes.

I've picked fights with myself, even,

seen from behind.


I can't hold it all.

Like a riddled bucket

it's leaking in all directions.


The million eggs of a fish:

one of them, maybe, meant to live.

Eat suffering, lost causes,

ten thousand theories,

piles of centuries;


bathe yourself in the dampness

of all the women walking

all the streets of all the towns;


drag yourself through prisons,

bad movies, farmhouses,

well-meaning liberals,

traffic flow charts;


pass out on the beach

of abstract apologies.


You are going to

wipe the nose of America

and worse; taste the blood

of millions piled by the roadside

with you; fall down before

ideas that make no sense.


And after you've travelled a hundred years,

sung the national anthem,

swum the map, and lost the argument --

once you've been elected,

re-elected, and impeached, and once you've forgotten

what you set out to do --


then you can sit in the sun

on the shore, drink wine,

trail your feet in the water,

and play the guitar for your woman.

Your signature here is a mere formality


Use our product and at once

you can fuck rocks and boards

or remove all the hair from a woman

with a single sweep of your tongue.


You will realize falsehoods

and remember what still might happen --

those who hear you

will continue to glow.


Birds will nest

in parts of your body,

flowers will bloom

when you pass,

you will be given the love

of insects and reptiles.


On various continents,

in cities where you never have been,

you will be seen many times.

Gold will be found

upon mentioning your name.


Now if you've never tried it

let me tell you it's great,

you'll feel good

in places you never had before.


Every day you will tell yourself

how happy I am;

The use of your new properties

will never fade.


You will look back on the past

each night with satisfaction

and be thankful

for your power to do good.


We have examined neighborhoods and peoples,

we have considered and we have chosen.


Your unique character --

that which you alone possess --

causes us to offer you these benefits,

at no consideration,

as we received the power

to make this free gift:


become a hero,

become a saint,

become a magician.


*Willamette Bridge

Pieces of Halloween


1.

Wading through

the sticky world.


2.

Shadows on the ground

make separate lives

of what is to come.


3.

Wind, sent to lift the cap

from the way things were.


4.

I who am to be abolished.

In my so long lonely room

I tell lies about

the city,


the one invisible jewel city

in many places

until it is everywhere.


Disorderly glass boxes --

A flower which will rise up! --

A collection of fever....


It is dead in the daytime,

covered with dust and even safe.


But now it glistens

with smeared oil darkness.

There are crazed lights.


A hum of selves --

speaking to others far away --

selves lashing out each instant --

indistinct shiver....


Sharks in uniform and sharks in trouble

slowly cruise for anyone at all.

People are extra,

but everyone must come to the city.

Willingly they enter the mouth;

the brain that wants to grow

unbelievable mushrooms.


In my so long lonely room

I sit waiting for the city.

The city doesn't run

on the same time.


Lives are eaten

seven days a week,

fathers whittled down

to children.


Neighborhoods get lost

in different months;

others stay the same day forever,

ten years ago or thirty.


That man is running

three times at once;

while some are lucky

to get a week in a year.


(Sometimes there's an hour

every ten feet.

Your sould see the excitement

when they come together!)


-- For me, sleep isn't time any more,

not rest or even waiting,

but only the thin line

between two slow days.

Years (1971)



There hasn't been

a real one

since maybe 1960.


I only get scared

when I fall asleep

in the afternoon


wake up suddenly

there on someone's couch

with my boots on


and ask which one it is.

My given name isn't mine any more.

My six-years-ago signature

is a child's.

**

I pity that child --

nice, but foolish and stubborn.

I'm afraid for him,

I'd like to help him a little.

(Of course, he doesn't accept help.)


I'll go on with my life,

occasionally wondering what happened to me.

**

Like a woman taking

a new husband

every few years,


like an Indian taking

a new name

after every battle


there's something I'm carrying

deeper and deeper

into the wilderness.

Sheriff


A poker and checkers job,

and now and then, take care of business

down some back road.


He always finishes his sentences.


He looks at me steadily

and speaks slowly.

But he's come all the way here

to see me,

and that's the move in the game.

The first you I will dissolve in my mouth

for sweetness;

but the next I will impatiently crunch.


Then I will rub you all over my body

and be refreshed;

and strew you about my little house.


One you I will put in my pocket

so as never to be without you;

I may send others

to my mother and sisters.


The finest you will fly on high

to dominate the earth;

after that I will save my favorite parts

and give the rest to the poor.

My wife lies beside me,

a frozen heap.


I suffer only part

of what she suffers from.


After each storm

she makes sure I receive

a tiny dimestore apology.

The dew burned off

because it was dew

and the new light turned plain --


really, I miss you

so much better than I ever

lived with you.


Here I stand

with my awkward memory

going nowhere


my corny piece of jewelty

everybody's jealous of


which I can show to no one

especially not you.

Cafeteria


I go around carrying

the bitter taste of you.


People can tell bad taste

a block away

and nervously cross to the other.


Like these sad old men

sitting apart from me

I sit by myself

stirring coffee.

Called by some funeral

you end up home

and wait it out.


I imagine myself along,

as welcome as

the local hello.


The beauty of you

still hangs in this place

I don't really like much either.

You pile on the dirt

and leave as fast as you can.


I loved you like no one

and could't even say hello.

Goodbye. Here I am.

When I found out how bad

I blew it

there was nothing to do

but the worst.


Something that never happened

keeps on happening,

an amputated leg

still itching.

and at last

the nimble one's bound


into his complicated

twisting stitch

My son is overcome

by the invisible animal,

sleep.


Far beneath

his pale lids he lies,

until tomorrow.


we throw out our sons

like dice, and are used up

like pencils.

He takes good care of us,

but isn't it too much

to ask baby to be our future?

Every step he took excited us,

a month ago --

now he never travels

any other way.


It doesn't happen that fast with grownups,

but I remember -- two years ago

I still wore white socks

and didn't know I should like

this shit-smelling cheese.

He keeps making completely obscure

and very definite statements

and asking that question

no one can answer.


We'll sure be relieved when

he names someone mama

who's never been called that

ever before.

a son is

both feet in the world

holding your breath

until death

and ever after

Youth leader slightly ill on birthday


cold

adolescent

axolotl breeds

& breeds more

& more axolotls

who'll never actually

breathe:


head

cold

thirty years old.

Arlington National Cemetery


When you get to Agnew

tell him that we are ordered here

in obedience to his lies;


beware gifts

bearing Greeks;


feral pig

offal;


actually, The People

are just like anyone else.

Thinking with their elbows and

odd parts of their bodies,


The People fall inevitably down

the stairway of History.


Is it sad that usually people deserve

whatever happens to them,


or should we be grateful

that at least the world makes

some kind of sense?

After I had turned against him

and once I had him cornered,

the man who had loomed over me

made himself so small....


There was nothing I could do.

It was as if it was his revenge.

To Robert MacNamara, for instance


Your mind is a rotten tooth

which needs pulling --

we have the toothache.


Your just destiny

is to sell pencils on streetcorners.


A tooth so rotten

it crumbles in the forceps --

afterwards the dentist boils his tools

and washes his hands a long time,

he goes home early

and yearns for different work.


I wouldn't give you a dime myself.

Reader's Digest


1.

issues,

issues, stack after stack

of unsold issues.

2.

Slowly he crawls out

from under the newspapers

who knows what he'll do?

3.

Take a step back.

Astep definitely back.

Just a first step,

back.

4.

Not every thing

at the same time.

5.

Sometimes you do

the best you can.


"Too easy! Not enough!"

cry those who want better or,

more often, worse.
6.

"How could I have known?"

asks the demagogue,

afterwards.

7.

Worse than hypocrisy

is when the hungry crocodile

smiles.

8.

There will always be someone

able to believe

anything anyone

will ever be able to say.

9.

You're invited to the party,

if you pay.

10.

The last person

ever to understand

would be anyone dumb enough

to stick around

to find out.

11.

Enough

is too much to ask.

12.

To find the exact balance,

bounce a check.

13.

I don't want

any enemies.

My enemies

want me.

14.

"You say I'm no poet,

but you're no judge"

explains Brodsky.

15.

The living standard to be borne

forty-seven more years:

your life expectancy.

16.

Living in caves,

always and forever

beaten from history --

good Christians,

good pagans.

Of what I have to offer

you find only the suffering

worth anything,

and only enough

to make it a little less.

If I could take just one breath

I could handle this,

but I'm already under water.

I'm afflicted

with the name of a disease.


What a fast disease!

And they only offer me

what slow cures!

Sitting in my room

what am I doing

but mixing stolen things?


What is a person

but mixed stolen things?

Go make yourself --

we happen to ourselves

& to each other

& things happen

to us all.

There's no choice.

Every day you must face

unmaking worse than death

and don't ask me why.

I live in an old hotel.

People move slow,

seldom leave their rooms.


Any noise you hear

could be dying.

Nothing I could do

with what I had

could change the bitter eyes

of her who had been given

only death.

Smokesignalling for rescue

the stick tossed from the fire

points desperately toward shore.

Already I am too heavy-laden:

and these are only blossoms.

Swaybacks

with such sad eyes

you think there's nothing

holding them up

but the leather

they're turning into.

*Portland Review

At last I'm getting

some of it back,

frying the trout

that ate a mosquitoful

of my blood.

they think

I'm wasting time too,

watching them chase

the mechanical rabbit

like a fish on the line

I feel the world

distantly

In a thousand years

you will also

be in a museum

and people will walk past you,

smoking.

weaving one another's

wrong sides,

the tapestry between us

a nightmare

passing through others' lives


passing now from their lives

as others have from his

and at last

the nimble one's bound


into his complicated

twisting stitch

Mojave


A sign: "Last Free Water"

and we move into gasoline mountains

indifferent to life

hating man.


I would stay

open myself to these mountains

worship this inhumanity

and be rebuffed

and enslaved

and die here in the end:


but my driver says, move on

to free water ahead.

Out just for the moon

I set off Mexican dogs.


"What's my name in this town?

My business?

What year is it?"

I cross the hillside snow.


The dog behind me winds down,

a new one picks me up,

the moon lights cloud after cloud

in the mackerel sky.

12-13-93 Edited to 41 poems
10-08-94: 46 poems. Corrections.
5-15-95: additions