Jack, be

nimble:

his eyes dart to and fro with the flame,
passing his hand over then through
no burns, no ash, but warmth.

his foot pumps the piano pedal
his fingers flutter an octave
and the eardrums write out the sound.

he does not concern himself with
the flight of a glacier down the continent, the molten core churning,
Only the man on the moon with prayers in his toes.

jack flips the switch on the television set
tunes out the noise of a broadcasted dream.

jack, be

quick:

over and through but grazed by shrapnel, huddle behind the tank
listen to the heartbeat of candlelight
with the coming of winter in a winterless place

in succession, in a dream:
the snapping reach of the iguana’s tongue, to snatch
and elastic gravity of a tangerine falling from its tree, to provide:

all else is untold,
just jack in his sleep
outwitting the ghostly pyre.

his mother’s arms sculpt him again,
his head drifts to her shoulder:
the winter is ahead again, and unyielding.

shouts in the night to absent voices
a resting mind with mind for you, for me, for them,
not for himself.

and for all the darted eyes
of all the pointed people

jack hops the candle twice
over then through:
that’s what you call nimble of mind,
but burns the body thrice.

Haiku Friday 1/20/12

Jack Frost is as real
as your blossoming nose &
laughter on the air.

Haiku Friday 1/13/12

You go about life
in an all-revealing glow;
I bow to your light.

The Photograph

It’s only a photograph taken in an instant:
saved, uploaded, printed,
posted, sent, forwarded, resent,
illuminated on my computer screen in pixels
(these are not bright things like you and me)
and layered thick on the page with ink
(not blood like you and me).

It’s only a photograph of a house
the heartbreak unto itself:
it was splintered and drowned
claimed by the sea yet not god-forsaken:
no curses cast, no tributes owed, no hubris laid to bare.
For naught then did the waves transform the body left behind.

You could say it’s only a photograph,
“Look, See There how the body lay covered in salt and dust,
and to dust may it return”
a simple prayer to flick with your tongue
while the shutter lens closes.

It’s part of a body, apart:
the greater piece of it hidden
(if a thing covered not meant to seek is hid)
it’s only the calf and the foot. You say,
“Look, See How the toes could be bubbles formed of the salt, sea, mud.”
And it’s only a photograph of a part.

She could have been a statue:
her leg broken off mid-thigh
unsteadied then separated from Diana’s stance.
What better alchemy than to be cast in marble
as the moon herself:
Deified by the waves and the tide,
salt, dust, and mud.

Below the photograph the reporter notes how
she could have been swept away, never to be found,
“at least her family can find peace”
and if you can spare some peace of mind
let there be enough to share
when you kneel to pray in the
salt, dust, blood.

Look, do not avert your eyes, ears, prayers:
see the foot and toes
disembodied by the flotsam;
hear the silence that settles between uncertain footsteps
and the closing clicking lens.
Then let the children see
if it’s only a photograph.

Ode to the brain

Every day lighting strikes the human body
but from within:
messages travel our system like
divine light pulsing swiftly and unseen inside.
the lighting is a fractal:
a branch with branches of itself,
each branch with more branches,
all self-similar—a mirror turned on itself infinitely—
that electricity bounds through the axon to the dendrite
again and again:
our messages are transported by the stars of our neurons
a postal service by cell constellations.
deliver the letters and the postcards down to the spine,
shoot them out, through the muscle,
then out through the fingertips as beams of light,
a hand which releases a baseball into the sky
and were there no gravity the ball would keep going
cease moving but never stop,
to drift:
traveling through the universe
between the sun and the earth and the moon,
the solar systems and the galaxies,
the stars, the universe, and the unknown
sending its light forth like a message over a neuron jump,
carrying the mark of that human electricity.