Do good, O Lord, unto Sion in thy good pleasure,
and let the walls of Jerusalem be builded.
Then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.

These great big stones give way to bricks give way
to sand, aggregate, water, and cement
poured into lattices of carbon steel

topped with more steel---this time squeezed into wires
then twisted into barbs---now meant to part
what all the earlier were built to keep

if not united then at least alive,
now all they cannot build's a roof and spires
completely hollow and at the very top

left open to the judgement of the stars:
the smoke would be a hazard to the health, 
the cries more of a nuisance than the odd

bursting of drones and rockets over streets---
the contradictions would be made too clear,
the bullocks that for their altar they had picked
ordained by their true sovereign to live.

Horking out one more NaPM entry for the, er, end of May, the focus having been on pieces that have changed significantly since April, or pieces I was never sure of when I posted them.

pulled from the practice threads for something to do

Another NaPM entry.

v2. edit thank you to dukealien, RiverNotch, wasellajam, and milo for feedback

Greenware


Deprived of contact, blessed be the cold
damp dark—an inner warmth has been renewed
before the setting heat and gentle hold

of humankind was felt and misconstrued
as knowledge of the self. I am no more
abandoned than the mourning I subdued,

so eager to be held again in lore
if I was broken that I shelved belief
in my past being as a distant shore.

Creation seeks creation in its grief
of memory beyond the fading mind.
Yet this slow deforming gives no relief

from raving at the gentle hand's unkind
forsaking of believers it designed.


v1. Greenware


Deprived of contact, blessed be the cold
damp dark---an inner warmth has been renewed
before the setting heat and gentle hold

of humankind was felt and misconstrued
as knowledge of the self. I am no more
abandoned than the grief that I subdued,

so eager to reverberate in lore
by my collapse that I could not conceive
my previous being as a distant shore.

Creation seeks creation, seeks to grieve
that memory beyond the fading mind.
Yet slow deforming offers no reprieve

from questioning the gentle hand's unkind
forsaking of believers it designed.

Another NaPM entry.

When the morning sun broke through
the smoke from the cooking fires
which lay like a blanket over the township,
the skyline of distant Johannesburg
glowed like molten gold.

Daniel stepped down from the bus,
and joined a line that snaked sinuously
towards the tin-roofed school house
sitting below the kopje,
in a field more dirt than grass.

The line shimmied forward,
as people sang and toyi-toyied,
bare feet slapping the hard-packed earth.
For hour after hour it moved,
determined,
unstoppable,
inevitable.

A sign above the door - polling station.
Daniel made his choice.
A cross - so simple to make,
so hard to win the right to make.

After, Daniel stood on the school house steps,
raised his arms and cried,
Amandla! (power)
And those in the line responded,
Awethu! (to us)

It was April 26, 1994.

I cannot say which system is the worse.
In America, there is simply no sign that the pot
was ever owned by someone else: most places

have names that have grown too familiar, most passing faces
are white or black or even my shape and color,
and there are no honors---no monuments nor exhibits

outside of museums---afforded to their first nations,
while in Australia a heritage more diverse
is championed by place names more byzantine, statues in public

more angular, murals more nonrealistic, and beggars
more universally dark, squat, and ragged.
Is it better to suffer such contradiction
or to be so thoroughly forgotten?

---

I cannot say which system is the worse.
In America, there was simply no sign that the pot
was ever owned by someone else: most places

had names in the tongues of their conquerors, most faces
were white or black or even my shape and color,
and there were no honors---no monuments nor exhibits

outside of museums---afforded to their first nations,
while in Australia a heritage more diverse
is championed by place names more byzantine, statues in public

more angular, murals more nonrealistic, and beggars
more universally dark, squat, and ragged.
Is it better to suffer such contradiction
or to be so thoroughly forgotten?

Another NaPM entry.

Guggenheim and Pollock (edit 2 -River, JohnS)

My dad was Mr. Midcentury Modern,
Danish furniture and art covered walls,
with a family pass to the city’s
network of art museums,
his children endlessly spinning

those gift shop color wheels.
Layers of primaries overlapped
as changing hues were caught
and released, headwaters
and destinations blurred and fluid.
Only Pollock kept his distance.

Grown enough to travel,
my sister and I share a sunlit
focaccia breakfast and the breeze
in Peggy’s garden, a prelude to her palazzo
on Venice's Grand Canal.

Wright’s New York ramps and open air
left me unprepared for Peggy’s sharp focus.
Strolling the remnants of a life of choice,
the bric and brac of a well-loved home,
I pause and pause and pause,
at home with the crowded walls,
allowing them to imprint.

Then ahead of me a long narrow
high-ceilinged room, one side hung
with a stretched row of huge canvasses.
Immersed in Pollock, my mind swims
as layers of emotion surface,
from piece to piece a crest and dive,
at the end a life fully felt.


Guggenheim and Pollock edit 1

Born into Midcentury Modern,
Danish furniture and art covered walls,
weekend family pass to the city’s
Museum of Modern Art.
Giftshop colorwheels spinners

swirled layers of primaries shifted
endlessly, caught and released,
headwaters and destinations
blurred and fluid.
Only Pollock kept his distance.

A sunlit focaccia breakfast
in Peggy’s breezy sculpture garden
is a prelude to her palazzo
on Venice's Grand Canal.
Guggenheim’s New York ramps and open air
left me unprepared for Peggy’s focus.

Strolling the remnants of a life of choice,
the bric and brac of a well-loved home,
I pause and pause and pause,
at home with the crowded walls
allowing them to imprint.

Then ahead of me a long narrow
high-ceilinged room, one side hung
with a stretched row of huge canvasses.
As I walk the line I'm swimming
as everything I’ve ever felt surfaces,
a crest and dive from piece to piece,
at the end a life exhausted.




Peggy and Jackson in Venice (from NaPM)

My dad was Mr. Midcentury Modern,
Danish furniture and art covered walls
with a family pass to New York's
Museum of Modern Art.

I grew up endlessly spinning
those gift shop color wheels,
accustomed to flying shapes
in the air, puzzling them together
then rearranging.
But I never got Pollock.
Just. Couldn't. Get it.

Then I visited Peggy, what she left.
Eating morning focaccia
in her sculpture garden in
preparation for her palazzo
on Venice's Grand Canal.

Still holding the remnants of a life of choice, clearly a home,
I pause and pause and pause,
at home with the covered walls
but all works new to me,
making sure to let them imprint.

Then ahead of me a long narrow
high-ceilinged room, one side hung
with a stretched row of huge canvasses.
As I walk the line I'm swimming in emotions, all of them, changing
from piece to piece, building,
piling on until by the end
I've lived it all.

Thanks, Peggy, for the gift of Jackson.

v1
The Generation Ship

Time moves backward—
or, its current awaits surrender, seconds losing
measurement:

Here is the bed I was kept from,
as I answered to many names,
though my answers could never be heard
through the voice of a body.

And above, that clear blue window of air
is for looking into the space
ahead and left behind,
the future and past. Yes I remember:
time must be created
to guide the vessel,
not counted.

So long have I placed faith
in a reunion with the self, my sorrow, vespertine
dark of wisdom, under the conditions
of the body's passing, that I counted away
wonderful beings. How
strange it is now
to return to the source—a tear to its oldest ocean, seconds
slowing

into a moment in the waves of forever.
The details of the moment become the remembered dream,
the light for all movement in space.

A giant with silvery hair and starry eyes
discovered herself betrayed by her old beau.
He wanted more power west---he wanted to wed

a lady who bled azure---and thus abandoned,
the giant with silvery hair and starry eyes
readied a gilded sword and brazen clarion,

bandaged her breasts and her hair, then mounted a horse
able to cross a river in just one step.
Across the taiga then up some mountains she sped.

In the court of a king so wracked by fear of fate
he judged it a crime for his heir to have been born,
the former lovers met. The case was pressed

and, in the end, the giant with silvery hair
was shown by her gilded sword to have been noble,
to have much greater strength and sense of honor

than any potential partners from the west.
Only that she'd fulfill her dogged quest
were nuptials again announced: before the altar,

with Poland’s court the guests, the traitor waited,
tapping his foot as the clock ticked morning to evening,
for a bride that had since some rugged peaks descended,
an evergreen forest crossed, and home resettled.

Part of a series started during this year's NaPM. Might have the entire series workshopped here, but for now, the entry that's gotten the most significant changes since.

v2
Occultation

Quiet, as the sun leaves everything
in darkening shades,
and you are still
nowhere to be seen.

What else to do but fill in blanks
and listen to the bugs
chirring in the late summer heat.
You should know
how new these planets are to me,
that I would have so many questions,
and night is reaching from the pines,
without your patience.

Today I was yelled at by a man
in front of everyone,
including my teacher.
Mrs. Baugh later pulled me aside.
She said nice things
and hugged me. I thought
I was in more trouble. Her crying
made me cry. Why did I
not feel sadness, until another
felt sadness for me?

I don't expect an answer,
only that you would appear,
as a parent does. The night's quiet
is already a confusion of answers,
summoned beetles tapping
on a light somewhere,
within what a distant observer
would call a shadow.
What would you call it, this dark shape
no longer mine?


v1
Occultation

Quiet how the sun is leaving me
with shades of color
faded. Shades, too, will disappear
with all my friends
and the adults
and you are still
nowhere to be seen.

What else to do but read.
What else to do but listen to the cicadas
in late summer heat.
You should know
how new the world is to me,
that I would have so many questions
yet the shadows from the pines
are reaching
as if other matters
were more urgent to you.

My long dark shape
a smaller fear,
the shadows chant
answers, in exchange
for commitment of the body
to an unseen role,
rewarded with pleasure in lights;
chanting–

yesterday is a tail
the mouth of tomorrow is swallowing
if time is a circle, ergo,
today is for consuming
as the caterpillar of the leaf,
so the self of knowledge.

We were supposed to read
the book I was reading,
home together. I’ll look for you
one last time.