The Flash Of The Matrix

It's got the ocean in it she says.
He moves closer to see the sea in her necklace.
She catches his breath. Not unpleasant.
An achievement for anyone over 40 she thinks.

What was he thinking? Hopefully nothing.
Hopefully she had intercepted whatever
passed between head and heart and
back again. Just breathe indeed.

By now he is completely utterly
immersed in the element of her scent,
lured effectively by the flash of the matrix.
Ghosts, she recalls, do get this close

but without such heat. Radiation? Emanation?
Yes. Now his arms lift involuntarily.
My God, she wonders. Can he swim?
She hears him gasping for air. Beauty

does that, she remembers. Will he still
talk to me afterwards. After I save him.
He begins to vibrate in that instinctive
rhythmic way. The way of the animal

power. The waves lap all around now
and she begins to sing. As if his life
depends on it. After all there are rocks
out there suspended in disbelief.

Thinking Of The Other Side

Thinking of the other side of the other's
I'd like to talk with the others eyed by
my inner mind the Oh There! sighed
chin to palm to elbow head alea
and aloft clouds soft and whereabouts
suspended in the mountains nothing
to tell the messenger who waits
but for the resident frog's silence
all last night as if this stillness
stopped his grumbling for once
or was he just afraid to speak
for fear the spell would break
and he might not hear the wind
making her way down the peaks

The Other Side

I had to ask but you're in charge.
I let that happen, didn't I. Out there
in the corner of the other room our food
gets prepared. I scratch my head.
Our elbows shush their way across
open spaces. Motors run louder than usual.
Must be the bakery. I've got two avocadoes
but they're the other side of ripe. I'm still here
in my body but I forget from moment to moment.
This morning these sorts of details were beyond
my grasp. The horizon? Forget it. Not there.
Edges too. Only the waves defining everything.
The sun didn't rise, we rolled into wakefulness.
What if the other side is this hazy and bland?
What if it's full of Chinese prophecies? What if
the bread there is upside-down pan au levain, slightly sour
and your day is going better than this?
I had to ask these questions whether anyone's
listening or not. My ears and your voice.
Softly we find ourselves on the hard road.
Softly we begin to notice the colors of dried grasses.

Patient

Today we sat in the surgeon's waiting room 55 minutes after the scheduled appointment time, missing almost an hour of hula, the last hula session of 2013. Our conversation ran the gamut from Bill Cosby's greeting for a very late doctor: No. Sorry. You can't come in. You have to wait out there till I'm ready...to Seinfeld's, Let's see, 55 minutes, rounded up to an hour of my time, that'll be $125 (I'm cheap. Those are teacher substitute rates from 1999).

30 minutes past time, we were saying, Okay, another five minutes and that's it. Five minutes came and one of us went to the secretary, who said, Oh he just came in, he'll be right there. 45 minutes into the empty, soulless closet with the Thai batik of a man playing a flute to a small herd of goats, we decided to walk out and ask for the $30 copay back. Besides, a friend had recommended a surgeon on O'ahu who would most likely do the consult and the surgery on the same day. After all, this is a small thing, an inguinal hernia brought on by coughing, or was it chainsawing the Formosan koa a few weeks back? or hefting the first volume of the OED looking for Lopate's use of the word agon, referring to Emerson's striving for moderation... The image of me busting a gut cutting back the invasive species on our five acres sounds way good. The portrait of a word searching fool holds a weird sort of glamour. But serious, hard-core coughing points the way, truth be told. 65 is old(er) and I'm still figuring out how to act my age.

54 minutes and 59 seconds into this psychically draining, dehydrating, sensory-depriving experience, my mild-mannered persona actually slipped and I announced I was leaving, Let's go!

A split second later Doctor Harry Wong knocks on the door. I love it. We're stuck in his cubicle for almost an hour having a one couple encounter crisis and he knocks. Can I come in?

Why is it that 55 minutes after the meter's needle has moved from Nice, Easy-Going Pacifists through green, yellow and out the other side of the red zone into Unpredictable Anarchists, Doctor Wong comes in and we're all smiles, shaking hands? In no time at all, one of us drops his drawers with complete, utter trust in a perfect stranger. See how we suffer gladly the waiting, the inconvenience, a disdainful regard for our time, because...because one day in the near future he'll be holding the knife. And for this, he will be richly rewarded.

Trial by patience, I suppose, on the Hero's journey. How did we do? Hobbit-ish, I think, grumbling all the way, without giving up. But really, it's so easy to get caught in the cynical drift of the victim's undertow. That's the real cause of a hernia, isn't it? The whole world's a heavy thing when you try to move it.

On Seeing Julia’s Work In Progress

ON SEEING JULIA'S WORK IN PROGRESS

Up on Beers Road the artist woke up one
morning rising from bunched and wrinkled
dreams and walked out before someone
she thought she knew too well could catch up

this is how she found the light behind
the ordinary the way shadows tell time
what to do as they move over the ground
we see her crouching here hand reaching

touching the surface of things so
many things the plane of passing glances
offers to the trained eye her repetoire
flickering busily we could say interacting

that is to say her inner world brisk
against the outer world trees leaves
bark stones pebbles dust branches
alive and dead some semblance of order

but little recognizably formally human
we could say that's not what she's about
and color her language tempting to say
solitary tongue with whom can she dialogue

when it comes to color? she stands here
and looks about her. Huntress.

This Time

"When you get up in the morning, smooth out the shape of your body from the bed."

Thank you Pythagoras for your hypotenuse of the dream
the triangulation of mind body spirit in a field of 300 count Egyptian cotton.

Even the sunrise holds the shadows in high esteem
saying words such as new and day and break.

Like the hollow forms in the ash of Vesuvius
the puzzles we leave behind are empty.

Meanwhile on the edge of the street we stand
marveling at the migration of geese
while scholars sift through the dust.

Last night I dreamed of snow
vast stretches of cold white perfection
mysteriously balanced sculpted into
frozen dances or lovers' entanglements
but getting close I touch hard plastic forms beneath
and beneath that trickery
the smell of the past rankled enough to wake me up

and send me shuffling through the dark
reaching for door frames fingertips on walls
positioning myself over that hard white opening
porcelain pure functional and implacably sterile
that frightened me so much as a child.

I guess I'm older.
Something's changed I know.

Give me the song of one Winter visitor on a telephone wire
and I'll be good.

Even one of those slow whorled shells emerging emerging
their antennae thrusting in the rains
will do.

All I ask. All I ask is new. This time.

Crystals And Water

CRYSTALS AND WATER

How is it possible, this breaking open? Finding
perfect facets clustered, teasing us with mystery.

And think of this, the first vibration upon which
everything is built, recorded here, frozen.

The flood, the great battle on the plains
and the greatest love story, all here. The ark,

the spear, the kiss that changed the world,
all broken up for the light of right now. Listen.

You can hear the river meeting the surface
far below like thunder, like the breath of a dragon

that never ends. Here. Step here, into the cave
behind that curtain. Here, it’s safe.

You cannot be found. Here you can whisper
the question you’ve been longing to ask, and

when you’re ready—there’s no turning back—
follow the answer over the cliff.

Kupuna Hula

KUPUNA HULA

Last night the rain came in.
Lying there I knew that could have been us.
The way we met: land, cloud, their heat
exchanging day for night. It found me this morning
out here in the pasture getting ready
to tell this story, how we got this far
and step this way, sweep one foot across
the threshold, hold our arms out to each other
thus and thus. We turn one side. A hand flutters
close to the mouth. We’ve come this far, we say.
We give ourselves now to something words
can’t express. We have to say this with the knot
they tied at birth, circling, circling. We reach up,
maybe clouds, maybe stars in this story.
The knees give a little. Our eyes beckon to each other
across the distance. There’s mountains. Now there’s
a fierce hot stirring beneath our feet
but we shake our heads oh so lightly and smile.
We’ve left ourselves at the door. The windows
are all open. Everything’s spinning or holding strong.
We do this for each other, for our children, for the old ones.

I Gave It All Away

Ah! Secrets! Gave those away
but usually paid the price.
Virginity you ask? Do men give
that away? Don’t we just...

Oh, never mind, I suppose
I did give mine but I think I gave it to me
very carefully after 24 hours consideration
of her question Well? Are we

or are we not? I was 17
and she was 24. Uh, yes!Yes!
Giving what you have away
—might imply throw it

to the wind or distribute
randomly out the car window
as you pass through the bowry.
The nagging truth is that

the phrase could be construed
as impedimenta—a lovely word
I recently heard used by an eminent biographer
who seems to relish in things given

and received especially reluctantly.
As I was saying, if I chose
the Buddhist gate they’d stop me
no question and say Wait a minute!

Hang on hang on, you haven’t given it all away.
And I would balefully show them my empty pockets
—a mimed affair since I’d be starkers—
and say Oh Come On I didn’t bring anything with me.

What’d you think happened to it then?
Ah yes. The truth is I’m a hoarder.
A disease. It crawls in your windows
and up your trouser legs when you’re wearing them.

Throwing away is practically
impossible. Every scrap of wood
at our place is inventory and that goes for all
the nuts and bolts in the workshop. Books?

Forget it! Not quite true since
I really love giving people books
but I do catch myself picking up doubles
of say, Philip Larkin’s Collected Poems

because I know I’m itching to give one away
but where would that leave
me? Now advice?
You can have that for free. It's yours.

Christina’s World

CHRISTINA'S WORLD
after Wyeth’s painting

I know that girl the girl in the field
the field still long the grasses tall
she’s there on the ground do we say that
the ground bound by tall grasses not mown

the girl twisting at the waist a sense of
distance the house on the hill a place
of remorse the crows gathering
at a window of the outbuilding

washing on the line the far side
the wind slight the dog barking
up at the sky she looks back
it’s hard to care about why

the girl the ground the house
why she’s there as if outside the circle
why do I care I suppose it’s a place
I know very well and recognition

draws me to her
to the girl
and her bleak
American landscape

I Don’t Care Anymore

I don’t care anymore
and the next word is hole
a very tiny arrangement
with sphincter-like musculature
and the guillotine decisiveness
of an old-fashioned single lens reflex

yeah
camera
not obscura
more the fuck you ra

because I don’t care

and there’s so much I don’t care about
so much that will not fit through that
tiny pinprick

if it doesn’t fit then sayonara suckers
with all your politicizing your bureaucratizing
your proselytizing your capitalizing your
monetarizing your theorizing your down-
sizing and your upsizing I’m done I’m through

the magazine subscription reorder forms
make great book markers anyway and landfill
does it ever reach the recycling center?

Oh yeah I forgot
I don’t care

excuse me while I take a sip
brush a hair from the page
filter out the sound of a passing mynah
sit up straighter so the breath
will find my toes
press my thumb against the table edge
just so

think of Kipling Empire and dead queens
which reminds me of that nonsense
about the champagne and Kalakaua
I’d drink too wouldn’t you?
but the military outfits...

my hand isn’t fast enough to say it with ink
and these abstractions begging me to say
Get knotted calligraphers of the world!
Untie or die!
Do you care? Do I care if you do or don’t care?
And that rhymes with not fair their share
who’s the mayor and she’s a player
Bayer Bayer your beehive’s on fire
and the beetles don’t even like honey

I don’t care so much it hurts

I woke up last night talking to a ghost
and she said you have to stop caring
but she didn’t say “anymore”
like the raven or not like the raven

She said just stop

If You Need It

If you need it you’ll find it, I learned
from the Rolling Stones, oh yes, years
after Philosophy 101, I got it from LPs
threaded through and through by steel spindles

turning turning the needlepoint wisdom
transmitted through mesh-covered boxes
encasing tweeters and woofers as if
all the avian and—what’s the dog world called?

fidelity—were being brought to bear in our
search for food, soul food, that is, the sort
found incidentally in famed foraging scenes
of yore as we began copying trees and standing upright

seeing over the tops of wheat ears—beer
would come first, bread much later,
but the yeast the rising agent was born
in a kind of omnipresence that preoccupied us...

I was going to say in a kind of thing-ness
as in “everything” but that feels so mathematical
so Phoenician sheep-traderish. No, no,
the world that truly nourishes us is not made of things.

There’s another bigger essence, isn’t there,
and if you need it you will not only find it,
it will find you, but you will recognize it
there in the laughter of taboos broken

in rush light or candle light
our collective habits acted out
made fun of in the dark
we might even pay good money to sit there

burning our foreheads on the intense glow.

Jack-In-The-Box

He’s missing 
before we get our words out he’s gone
absent nowhere to be seen

even present was invisible a scent a waft
wandering through the rooms
a vibration in the turn of a door handle

or the fall of a hammer least expected

mutely we look around
ask approval most of all advice
knowing this won’t translate

his is a new language
the old useless
where he’s gone

we find ourselves in a world held together
fastened glued patterns arrangements
clever ingenious

his second tongue
he understood how the spring coiled itself under pressure
its mouth biting on the small burr

fingers and thumb of one hand
holding it all together
a jack-in-the-box squeezed into that studied moment

perhaps he will rise again
when we light the stove
twist its automatic ignition

maybe return on the imperceptible desert breeze
when we open the windows on the edge of night
slide them in their grooves

glass walls on the move
hear them click
satisfied complete

releasing us from the box
letting us breathe at last
in this new language

I Stay Tight As A Bud

I stay tight as a bud the rest depends
upon the weather and whether I can
drink your water through my toes

see how the petals nest inside each other
the one spinning against the outside my
overcoat these 64 years keeping all this

together note the elbows frayed
the patina of encounters in late
night conditions the slowest to bloom

that's what they say or what a waste
to quote my mother but I'm not complaining
nodding yes can't you see agreement

with the all when it's in front of you
resilience is everything to me the colors
with their elemental promises of one

long parade that day will come and all
the horses with their leis float up like Chagall's
kites making sunrise and sunset at once

I never get tired of the word epiphany
though it's out of fashion I know and
I know too the many splendored day

should never be saved up it must be spent
woken up lifted against the eternal night

Aaron Thibeaux Walker Is Asked To Set Realistic Goals

But but but he raises his cup
opens his mouth to say it
and drink it both at the same time
what's possible what isn't possible
without a suit a shiny silk suit
and a cool tight sleek silk tie
a knot I tie around my own neck
this morning before the medicine
cabinet you know the one with a slot
on the back wall inside for used
razor blades and a clean shave
with a close shave I can do anything
but I know what you mean how long
a pause is this going to be?
lips part and the next sound
caught in his throat here it comes
he croaks okay okay I get it
never be president that what you mean
or a brain surgeon or a rocket
scientist or an automobile designer
and anyway don't wanna be no
transvestite cross-dressin' fool
keep your hands off me don't come
any closer just kidding no
I know what you mean but I don't know
I just hit the notes and if they
wrong I know which way to go
what road to go down swinging my axe
flick my tongue between the frets
twist them pegheads home I
ain't holdin' back long as my sweet
strings hold up five minutes more
I've got more I know the rules you
keep your goals my friend I play
by the rules while you fools can shoot
for the moon and who knows
that's you not me

An Incredible Number Of Coincidences

An incredible number of coincidences fall
from the tree each night and in the morning
wait glowing in the grass for our fingers
this is Easter and Christmas everyday
all around us being awake in a dispassionate
and curious way it's how I got here after all
an event that now runs in my blood
acted out six thousand no seven thousand
miles away from here across two oceans
and one continent ah but the ship's name
was hindsight and my own tongue the rudder
in the salty seas of analogy here now
the pages of light where I point my dark
words twisting the lines around the sun
till penumbra rhymes with rain and every
thing every living thing drinks and drinks
you call my name and my thirst is slaked
and bent like this my roof holds out its
wings spreading the downpour evenly
to the flower beds below the hanging
fuchsia and strawberries the Spanish
moss with its curtain flattering your eyes
as you look out on this scene gardenia
begonia Mexican sage Hawaiian ti
and variegated banana mamake
and ferns all speaking in tongues
while we list the ways we might never
have met let's listen longer you say
okay I'll get the wheel barrow and
meet you in the lower bed the mulch
too with the ten tine fork and old
newspapers old news we will lay
out on the ground ready to return
to the worms before sunset

It Goes Like This

It goes like this there was weather and people in outfits
crying too and my father hands in trouser pockets his
cuffs belled out over his shoes he was Clark Gable in
-cognito later I would attend college near the famed
actor’s home town unless that was a drunken rumor

this however was fact my own birth I remember it well
the release the lights the rush of air I look back on wet
claustrophobia the little movements when my mother
surrendered her bicycle to the gods of the pavement
those moments were not my style though I am open

to contrary opinions Paddington it was the hospital
not the station subsequent visits to both confirmed
my suspicion it was a grey world entered either way
when my cave turned inside out when her waters broke
and I tumbled helpless in the shallow waves onshore

in view of all but out of reach until I got my drivers
license it was raining that day too with some sun

Putting Away The Firewood

It's time to put away the firewood
our orange cat still
hasn't come home

In That Sea Of Desks

Clenching two days travel between my teeth
I perched on an empty desk in that sea
of desks a hundred or more of those
hungry inkwells sucking at shadows

in that lifeless classroom where the bell
expelled one last ring and the long board
long wiped clean holds only ghosts
of how things added up or names

famous or merely naughty or shifty
how fitting the flag hung down up center
where the last teacher to stand on that spot
beamed up or bled down through those 13 stripes

of red and white to that field of stars
oh say can you see there's no ceiling
in heaven no spit wads or notes
passed blindly hand to hand

while here on earth the founding fathers
framed like a recent photograph
look hard into the room for the living
ah what's the use I wanted to come here

now there's no one else to blame
no point yelling or even hunkering down
cynically thinking about the children
I had a thought that drove me here

and now it's gone I'm seeing over there
my dad looking out the window
and the brother in the brown cassock
fingering a rope belt giving him the eye

Study For 3 Graces

stripped away
the cave venus juggler
with her tummy flopping
right down to her mons

how many millenia
has it taken us
to get so close
to the bone

how hungry we still are
will always be
we mustn't show
the old signs

childbirth's stretch
smoothed over
hills valleys
softness lost

airbrushed out of the picture
even the knot
just a spot
for a bauble