A Song

This one or the next one
she holds in
she holds it out
she's crazy about the gals
at the Madison Square Inn
this one is the next one
all of em

In memory of the little black spring chicken

We had just heard about
 the video of a tiny hummingbird held out
by human hand for its mother to feed
It could have been ruby red
though I had only heard about it
held out on the human hand to feed
and brought inside while its shoulder healed
until one day mother and human hand healed
baby flew away
my black dog can't catch a fly saw you
and we brought her in.
I watched you in the corner by the forcynthia bush
I watched your mother sit on a limb.
I caputured you in my binoculars
little black spring chicken
lumbering in short green grass
We had just heard about it
how a man healed a hummingbird
practical nonsense we tell children touching baby birds
but, we are leaving for New York in three days
It was our distaction
dogs and cat, houseplant's and  May garden
and the packing

We had just seen a video about you
and I drank my wine and we kept our dogs inside
I watched the Robins closely
and the mother slowly over head.
Black bird you were fat
the first coat of dark reflective blades had almost grew out the grey fluff
except your feet and
your beak and crown and your eyes were tucked under
your wings into your breast
My wife found you laying on your stomach
little bird you made it far
along the side of our house to the
the chicken wired downspout
.
A cat
a cat sliced your chest with four fine lines
and seeing it all didn't know what to do
The skin was bare under your armpits
only beggining
I should have buried you
so your mother could see
buried you in the Ghanges
blackbirds sing one mourning song
buried you in the trees
We had just heard about it

the hummingbird
I forgot about you
young little

Dream, an obit and one.

  I was standing on a cliff that offered no glass or wood  barrier to keep any us from slipping on the loose dirt rock down into the swell of the pacific ocean.  The ocean was blue and foamy and the sun allowed me to see the gulls a quarter of a mile out.  The guide was an old Asian man who beside collecting our tour dollars commanded a respect from his white eyes and lined face that he felt was condescending coming from us hour-long foreigner customers.
Below us, 400 hundred fields down, a group of men waded close to rocks.   They floated heavy iron caskets along the water and I knew they were transporting items of gold and jade and the compartments of Isis in them.  On the orders of another, one man bent down into the waters and scooped a hole in the seabed.  He lifted a great iron casket overhead and I saw that on the coffin plate an ancient man had been engraved.   The metal was now blue so I knew the ore was copper and it's people were homo sapians and the bone flute was an heirloom that died with the sage.
      Down at the the low tide the man held the great casket above his head and shook the bone and dust from it into the pit he had dug with his two hands on the ocean floor.
Our guide began muttering.  I was crouched below him and saw fine black barbs grow out of my fingers.  Our guide said, "I curse all  of you.  Every letter you write shall be excruciating."
The couple behind me were taking pictures of their two grandsons along the ridge.  They said, "We didn't do anything."
The guide replied,"You didn't do anything."
I looked at the short barbs coming from my fingers and was not alarmed.  Another couple, old and touristy--the man wore a blue Pearl Harbor cap and the woman a fanny pack.  He walked away towards the tour bus.  "You're crazy if you think we're responsible for that." he said. 
I walked over to him and put my barbed right hand on his shoulder "I curse you." I said.
. . .

John Metzler carved planks of wood into smooth tables that showed the fine grain of an object living.  An object living that too many of all of us are too small to see as alive when it is living or dead.  John Metzler took old trees and recycled them into art.  John Metzler used a giant power saw to carve the chunks from dead things so he could smooth and sand and varnish.  John Metzler wore hearing protection to save the cilia that youth had not already gathered.
     John Metzler stood with his back to the road feeling the vibration of the saw in his palm and groin.  His teeth chattered and foot sole shook.  A U-haul wagon dislodged from it's horn and careened towards him for 50, 100, 200 feet while John Metsler carved an old tree.  He could not hear the metal of it to his back, hopping the the curb and killing him May 13th, 2010.

. . .

this garden i planted
soil i tilled
grass i beat from dirt
will all return eventually.

One dog on the lawn two on the porch, Oh Pittsburgh, you make me cheesy.

birth to Liberty
I expose you to the unbaptized brains of pagan foreigners
to Pittsburgh, your native  burnt
if yr brigdes collasped
we would stand in this tunnel and celebrate
like the first heros of the strecthed calf skin
strained like our eyes as the sun slips smoke on your bones
like our eyes for what no camera can take home
words fall like your writers eyes into green wakes
the green stillness of your viens
if your glass buildings recidivate to sand
and fill your bowls with them
I marvel, like a rich child imagining
himself shoeless and half naked upon cities
whose hands suffered to create
trees choose to fall
and rains gather homes
I would dive from that mountain hole
risk death in the green viens
of unsolicited prophecy
to sleep beneath your fountain and look up upon that hole
gound to be taken
   cool days
    lips to listen
    hands rubbing you while our eyes look the other way.

Friday afternoon from my porch

When stars die
Pearl calls,
with yellow sticks in her throat
a sanitarium
  I was with stone.
Wished away all the life
for a nap upon a leech
the day before she was pink gone
Pearl, I shall wait,
wait for bone
mother-
belong in the coulds
I will point my finger
you go.

Arrington de Dionyso

That is right; a love song.

I think about all the things I said today
I wonder if it was alright
All the things I said

Were my words enough to sooth my girl
she needed a good cry
Did I sooth my girl

Were they truth, the feelings, did I hold back enough
Did I boast too much or linger too long

All the things I say I need them good enough for two
All the things I say make them good enough for two

Did I wake with alarm
the birdong
sirens through the window

Did the black squirell make you smile
the little child make you cry
Did I run the water too long
Did we drink all the wine
I can't remember what was said
or if it was true
as long as I said it to you and no one else

All the things I say I need them good enough for two
make them good enough for two.