the north african journals

3 new(ish) poems.

2009-09-08T14:03:00.000-07:00

hi. so i haven't posted on here in.....uhmm a while. here's 3 poems i've written since the last post. there have obviously been more, but these are the most recent 3 that i'm working on now. obviously, the operative word here is 'working'...i take a long time to finalize poems...so these, as per usual, are works in progress still.

Tongue.

Broken language,
tá mo theanga
bhriste.
Bloody language,
tá mo theanga
fhuilteach.
Broken bloody language,
theanga briste
m'fhocal
i mBearla briste
as gléas
deargbhréag.
It's no small wonder I have chosen you
ancient and new;
a shore to be beached upon.
A shore upon which to be beached
as a patient ship.
Hull, bloated and full,
bow and masts slicing
no more;
no more bounding, breaking, the pale cup of that sea
and so a ship upon this sand awaits a cold ocean,
awaits a fluttering sail,
awaits the rough kiss of a fighting gale,
lusts after disaster on the road of the whale.

Is it any wonder you’ve been chosen
to tell the stories only dead things know?
To launch such a sea-steed,
only you would let it go.
Only you would ever know the deep despair
of that hangéd god, that gallow lord
that wild mannered dweller of Frigg’s embrace.
He, a friend to the swan of blood
has called us,
mo theanga
mise féin
here to this whale’s way.
We ride.

In this whale road we dip our hands.
Our hands glide in waters deep,
our souls rise in waters deep,
our men die in waters deep.
We never teach our boys to swim,
we give them woolen wears to tell us who they are.
We never teach our boys to swim;
to die at sea is the fate of great men.

__________________

“Raihan.”

You are my roe-deer.
The first language,
written on this ankle-bone.
The one to be found amongst the rubble years later: the remnants of my first runic tongue,
the one I learned from you I would speak thereafter.

You are my harja.
You sank, and were found;
you, my antler, my Vimose comb.

It is certain that, were we to cross paths today, we would no longer understand each other,
our languages having changed, having been molded by all the other languages it has encountered.
We would find things that don’t translate;
I ask, ‘cá fhad ó shin?’ and get no answer.
You ask, ‘wie lang vor?’ and I don’t know.
And so it’s safer not to talk, our tongues having been sent so far to separate corners of the earth that they can no longer make sense of one another.

___________________________

Cogadh ar chur (“to wage war”).

When the mist rose up from the water,
It settled in the low-lying bushes
And the day that I became his daughter
I learned how to stand, through a series of pushes,
With skin like a bear.

He is old now, living his real life up north,
In the ice, covered in otter,
But that was not the man who called me forth
The day that I became his daughter,
With thick skin fair.

He stalks a bear, a man, a deer
Can call me out into the woods,
Can meet me there, can meet me where
His stalking now can do some good,
My voice disturbs the air.

And hands that once held steely guns, now hold
In their tightening grasp, the hands of one
Who’s heard the stories he has told
Of how their pallid cheeks were cold
Of how he once crawled through the wold
And how the rice smelled in the bowl
And how the world did once unfold
When the freedom bells were finally rung,
God had not answered his prayer;

He was alive. A man with hair like fallen leaves
Does stand beside me in the mirror
The legacy from him I have received
Is one with blood and history clear,
And so I lay the snare.

The Realists' Response

2008-05-18T18:26:00.000-07:00

Our lives lived in the death of innocence
begin on that day
we learn
that life is living
in the death of innocence.

We have begun the praying
the letting go of hopes;
the borrowing of new ones;
the concessioning:
If I cannot have that one, well,
then I will take this.
Hope is not a splendid thing.
It never lit on a shoulder
or flew with feathered wings
and if it were, or ever was,
then we’d have to
grab it by it’s dirty wings,
and cage it.
Feed it the simple food of
impossibility
of praying
of yearning
of need.
No, hope is not a feathered lovely thing;
hope is long and hope is thin
hope is a bony, biting, bird
that never takes
what you offer it.

Were hope a lovely feathered thing, well,
then we’d have to shoot hope down
and clip it’s longing wings
for hope will ever long to leave.
It is a silent, songless bird
an angry, aimless bird
a homeless, loveless bird
that will never land
and love you.
Hope has never perched;
we must drag hope, squawking, out of the sky.

Our clamoring hands have reached up into one such sky
this night
with sweaty palms
with nets
and crumbs;
our frothing mouths whistle and call
our empty stomachs filled with nothing at all
long to make a dinner out of hope.
We, in sibylline frenzy of our own, gaze at a sky devoid of birds
‘til one
makes its way across the dome.
Our eyes take stock of distance
and decide
we can hit our mark.
You have come, and so have I,
to make a meal of such a flighty thing;
we will succeed.
For, this naked bird lacks loyalty
and never would it ever stay
were it not caged, but got to be
a thing lost track of in the fray.

And though it is no lovely thing
with no desire to have a home,
it is the only thing that feeds
and must be devoured
flesh and bone.

these two came out. lots of work to be done yet.

2008-04-13T10:21:00.000-07:00

Dredging the Meridian

Are you dredging the meridian
My brother
Who taught me how to live
Are you pulling
Holding
Up the hemisphere
My brother
My love
The indiscretions I forgive.
We are running on the latitudes
The lateral lines are pulling you
This family
Me
That way
We
Are we
We will always be we
We will always be
We will always

Always
Is always.
The blood is thickening
The water running
We will not run
I will not run
I stick
We stick
We are sticking
While you are stuck.

And you are dredging the meridian and we will pull
Will push
With you.
Long silences are nothing
In the face of what might fill them.
The blood is thickening,
The water running;
We will not run.
I have not yet begun
To fight
He said
Then did.

And somehow
The world continues to spin on its axis
We cannot rush against it
Cannot push in the opposite direction
It will not affect this
Will not have the desired effect,
Will not stop time.
No running in the opposite direction
Will stop time
This.

Remember back
We are driving
Grey ground
Sand sky
You and I in the back seat.
America was a desert then
All the way across to the corn in Indiana.
We crept along the high plains
Crept along the coast
Crept long the high plains
With their flat lands, so quiet, so still, so dry
And we, so small, moving through this parched landscape,
Collecting rocks along the way,
Were bleached by sun.
Remember back
We’d step out of the van
Coated in the desert heat
Dust swirling about our legs and feet
And walk
With dust stuck to the corners of our mouths.
Crawl back in
Untouched
With the dirt behind our knees
Nomadic.
No matter,
Something about the open road
Lets me remember you.
Lets me remember us the way we were before we knew
About the way the world turns without you
And with you
About the unavoidable tragedy of being human.
We knew nothing about that then,
Nothing about the long pain we, all of us, carry
Nothing about the singular cross we, all of us, are baring

It is quite here
Is it quiet there?
Not quite I’m sure.
Well, I suppose it is. But a different kind of quiet
That unwelcome quiet
That pervades all things fragile.
I do not miss you;
I miss what I knew
But I am not gone
And so do not miss you
But perhaps I do
Miss not knowing
The unavoidable tragedy of being human,
My brother
Who taught me how to live.

___________________________________________________

Blood

I
Love on Small Chairs

So sweet was the death of the one that I loved
that I cannot begin.
We are smashing the pianos in this warm room and
conversing in the din.
We are making love on small chairs
And in
the waking from the memories of such things
I am losing him
again
and again
and again,
yet, again.

It’s been twenty days since we last spoke;
you and I
eyes grazing
only grazing
eyes.
I knew not what to say to you then
I know not what to say to you now.
There were moments of passing
only passing
certainty
that I suppose we shared.
A lie in on a Sunday morning,
a lie down on the banks of that lake
with the water lapping
lapping
gently lapping
on the dock.
I was certain of you then, and now,
I know not what to say to you
to yours;
Who does?
There is little consolation in those consolatory murmurs.

I have not been sleeping well,
I’d say.
And you’d say, Nor have I,
And you would look away again
and we, both of us would sigh.
We, both of us, would shrug just then,
Just then, I suppose,
and knitted brow’d meet knitted brow.
Alas, we both know tragedy now.

II
I Will Not Read You Scripture

I will not read you scriptures, dear.
Not now.
I will not, never, read you scripture,
not when the breathless has so caught your breath.
These lifeless words can’t comfort you now,
not now when they feel so very lifeless.
I will not quote quotations, not lyrics
not poetry.
No mention of Achilli’s heel, nor the hammer of Thor
nor the desperation in Cúchulain’s war against the waves
the waves
those battering waves that challenged his sword.
I will not tell you anecdotes of knowing,
feeling, understanding.
I will not pretend to know.
Not now
not when knowing is so far
from that which I do not know.
I do not know
even what to say,
not now,when saying is so far from said.
So, I will not, never, read you scriptures dead,
not now.

III
I’ll Do My Best to Do Right By You

Your broad features changed last week.
Your lips spread long across to either cheek
parted and said, Who is this.
I did not quite know what to say,
but I suppose you knew the answer
anyway.
It’s a long road leads from me to you.
A long day, a long night, long hours, minutes, seconds too
and yet, we are not so very far apart
Me and you.
When two lives intersect, is it not strange the way
they
stay
is it not strange the way the stay remains?
It is not strange.
There was a time when our two bodies
and our two hands
mine, small
yours, warm
mine, curious
yours, never wandering
met
and knew each other.
There was a time my feet walked up the leafy path to your door
and let themselves onto your porch
and let themselves right through your door.
Oh, there was a time.
And now, there’s only loose, unsatisfying rhyme.

for the hill of tara, naturally.

2008-03-08T14:12:00.000-08:00

M’Aisling: An Ode to the M3 Motorway.

We walk the trodden path of kings,
and desecrate the Ard an Ri,
we care not for these ancient things
our history is history;
So enamored by the new are we
that our blind eyes could never see
this cloak that’s blinding you and me
will cover all eternity.

I have buried a family here
I am old
and I am young
and I have buried a family in this place
and have grown old in the wake.

I am new
and small on this small island
and I hear the fears of a thousand breathing soldiers
shirtless, ancient and young, breathing under this green grass,
I am walking on their bodies
on their bones
driving over their secrets in my car
and they are
all the while buried
their secrets
their bones
a rún
a cnámha

their reverence is not reflected in their children
their work
their roots.
We are the rootless;
we are blowing with the wind
and lacking in our love
but not hunger
or desire
for more and more and more of the same.
We have set with their sun
their love has set with the sun
their sweat
their passion
has set with this weak sun.
And oh, An Seabhac, where have you gone?

I am small
and I am only one
and I have come
to say
we are the ruiners of time.
We, who find little men in the bog
we, who keep the secrets buried for fear of the wrong
we, who are never outraged for very long.
Oh, yes. We are the ruiners of time
you and I
who wandered round and wound up lost
amongst the green greed
grass
amongst the gray gray rock
amongst these 5 city blocks.

So, drag your weary plow along these parts,
más é do thoil é.
Drag your weary plow, your weary bones, your weary heart
along these parts
for we’ve become too tired to hear the sounds
below our feet
too eager to inherit
anything
too weary to lift our voices
Ó fágaim le huacht é
go n-éiríonn mo chroí-se
Mar a éiríonn an ghaoth
nó mar a scaipeann an ceo
too young to have any memory.
We shall be pastless, memoryless
in the name of the new.

I am closing my eyes and giving my cheek to this weak sun,
this sun that never burns.
What shall we do, m’aisling?
Are you raped, beaten, bruised again?
Are you come to us with fair skin bleeding
with the tracks, and troughs, and scars in your skin?
Are you she
yet again?
And who shall take the blame for this
but your own that once fought for you.

That is just like love, is it not?
Once they have you, they no longer want you.
Once they have you,
they just want to change you.
Once they have you, they no longer want you,
but if they must have you,
they at least want to change you.
And what is that, if not progress.

so, here's these for now.

2008-02-18T19:14:00.000-08:00

The Heat of That Uncontrollable Flame.
upon learning of the book, Fire from the Sky, from a woman who knows you well.

We’ve wiggled, fallen, wandered
I’ve wondered.
You are my father and not my father
you are a warrior and
you are a tramp
country
raised on all the things that tramps have seen
the road, the dirt, the collard greens.

With secrets buried deep
you raised me
to know
and not to know
raised me to ask only when I wanted answers
and so,
there are many things I know,
that you don't know
I know.
You with buttoned lip
the soldier
the beacon
my southern cross.

I have looked into those steely eyes
and pulled the love right out of them.
I have been wrought in that iron,
wrought in that gaze
drawn through the furnace
and passed through the heat of that uncontrollable flame.
And I have been born;
armored in full,
and wholly unkempt
and wholly untouchable.

My father.
And not my father.
And who can tell
the secrets you have told
the wooden handles on your heart
one handle I forever hold
are worn with the telling
and not telling.
You and I have wrists wrapped
in either end of this tenuous tie that binds
and my love travels down this rip-hand rope to you
silently
and without knowing
we are tied to one another
and, oh, the binding is unfortunate.
all at once
just like he said
a terrible beauty was born.
My father.
These secrets are kept safe with you
with me,
these noble, desperate, family things
those honest words we never speak.
You have told me once
and twice
some things I need to know
but who can ever trust the words of one who's so
important
and so insistent
that actions say what words do not

but wait

that’s not it.
It’s 'actions speak louder than words'
or is it?

Ah, my fury

alas, my father.

_____________________________________________________

The Sin of the Sodomites

This is like the sin of the Sodomites
unknown
to all but the sinners themselves.
We have little or nothing to say these days to each other
feeling
longing
lost.

What constitutes change. and when.
I've changed.
I have little, or no, ground to stand on anymore.
Who can
stand upright among the pillars of salt
bend, and break, and make me new.
Unbeknownst to you, happy and alive with life, love, and all the things people should be living for,
you have become my inspiration,
and we havent spoken in months.
It is the gravest sin of the Sodomites.

And it never had anything to do with sex.

From the gnostic texts to the bloody book of John, we have mapped our course,
so far
from the mouths of babes,
we are
the ones who wrecked the world
brought the wrath down upon us
and we can never know
the cause
ambiguity,
so history repeats itself.

Wrapped in salt, and blown away
to mix with sand by way of wind,
and walking 'til the break of day,
we ne'er look back and, thus, begin

new lives;with hands washed clean of sin
and walking through St. Peter's doors,
we challenge Milton, answer Donne
in wretched ways been done before.

Our cleanliness we would adore,
and with slate wiped clean, begin again,
having forgotten what's in store.
Oh, the paltry lives of men:
to want things well beyond our ken.

________________________________________________

The Mallachtai
You are a fool to think you’ve heard me well,
and I a fool to think I could ever quell
your desire to succeed, exceed, excel,
I am your island
you are my Cromwell.

Whose preachers are dusty?
Whose?
Mine, born out of spite,
born out of violence
mine, who live in it still?
Or yours.
Born out of cracked earth, dust,
yours,
desire
less
yours, born out of home
and feelings of home,
and lawlessness.
Yours born out of dirt, born out of faith, born out of sticky summers
and live in them still.
Or are they both,
though, only to they who have none.
It’s easy for them
isn’t it
isn’t that the way it always goes
and why is it easier
to believe
in nothing.

Oh, to be that soiled Madonna
I will be that soiled Madonna
for you
always.
With no escape,
with much regret
and that is our burden
that is our cross
and wont we carry it for eternity.
Rosaries
and ovaries;
The death of every nation.
What shall we do with her?
Isn’t she marvelous;
the Madonna and the whore
or
were they ever different.

You have come to the right place
put me here
and I can hold you now, can’t I.
Can’t I
what else could I ever be good for?
Now that you have made me just like you
now that you have told me that my guilt
my passion
and my rage
are well-founded.
Oh, I am desperate
that I am,
and I need you now, for that very reason
and yet
you would never understand
and so
can never.

There is no room for dichotomy
in the faithless space where you reside.
You must pick one
God, or no
good, or bad
you must decide.
I believe in one holy, catholic, and apostolic church,
I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sin
I look for the resurrection of the dead
and a life in the world to come
You need not worry for me
don’t fret,
you have not shaken me,
not ever
not yet
not you, that’s for certain, anyway.

Your tearing at me,
your sharpening your claws on my back,
has only passed faith through the fire:
you have become stronger
by my bones,
have you not?
Perhaps you did not know
you were feeding on that in which you do not believe.
But alas, you do
or you will.
You will take him down, and you will eat your fill
someday, in the middle of the night
while you are hanging on her every breath
you will.