Month: January 2012

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Inflorescence

This entry is part 18 of 73 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Winter 2011-12

“Who trammels whom?” ~ Dave Bonta

Look at the screen: do you see
the bird in the handle of a cup?
do you see the snail curled in

the floral organs of a cornice? and
that one, all shy and shifting, that
is a human in the shape of a tree.

Wings collapse and flutter open amid
the branches. Sweet orange blossoms turn
into paper fans. Their scent is best

in the morning. When nights are hot,
sometimes they bring to mind the corpse
flower and its perfumes of rotting flesh.

Too sweet, it putrefies the faster. Pour
something cool down the throat’s sticky lining.
The leaf tends to pull away, startled by a touch.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Capture

This entry is part 7 of 29 in the series Conversari

No more answering the phone
with my tongue, she says—
I have new gloves
whose fingers conduct electricity.
I am dendritic as lightning,
altering everything I touch.

I’ve been where she’s going
& she’s been where I’m going.
I raise my styrofoam cup to her
as we pass on the escalators.
She clutches the bottle-shaped bag
tighter to her breast.

We debate whether the lives of others
are ever fair game for art:
the moment, decisive or otherwise, when
the trap springs shut.
Perhaps we should be less like cameras,
more like leaves.

If I am the truffle, fruiting in secret,
these must be your roots with which
my hyphae are intertwined.
Who trammels whom? I think
I like this sugar spun from sunlight.
I will kill us some springtails,
harvest the fleas from the snow.

The sun moves out
from behind the house & dazzles me,
but its glare isn’t steady—it flickers
like a movie projector’s beam.
Small birds must be passing in front of it:
juncos, tree sparrows.
Refugees from the long boreal night.

*

See the photographic response by Rachel Rawlins: “Sparrows.”

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Rezar

This entry is part 17 of 73 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Winter 2011-12

This verb cannot be reflexive.

But there on the springhouse roof is a thing
fluffing out its feathers, probing under its wings.

Little promise of flight,
ascending and leaving behind—

The verb is not reflexive.
In many languages, the reflexive is rendered
by the transitive verb followed by a reflexive
pronoun +self e.g. “She threw herself
on the bed.” or “Weeping, she threw
herself on the ground.”

This verb is not reflexive.
It prays to be spared, but if that is not to be,
then it prays to be taken quickly.

I’m moved to get down on my knees.
I’m not even sure what is there.

But if you are, you know the heart
does not exist solely for the purpose
of pumping blood.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Framed

headlines 2

A freshly laundered pillowcase makes headlines. I wake to the bad press.

Without glasses I feel vulnerable but look a little scary. Which makes sense: so often it is the most frightened people who say and do the most frightening things, especially when you get them into large groups: lynching, caucusing, you name it.

Glasses allow me to keep my distance from the world. A couple weeks before Christmas, the frame snapped on my old pair and I had to get new ones. I went to one of these places that offer two for the price of one: great, I thought, I can go twice as long before I have to get another eye exam, by which time I will probably need bifocals. But that’s another story.

A friend with more fashion sense than me showed up to help me pick the two pairs: one a light wire frame similar to what I had before, and the other a hipper style: thick, dark green plastic rectangles around each eye that say I AM WEARING GLASSES. My friend assures me they make me look like an urban architect, but I’ve decided they make me look like someone I’d like to punch in the face. They are, however, made of 100% recycled plastic, so they are figuratively as well as literally green.

So great, I can make a political statement with my choice of eyewear. But the other frames — the ones that do their best to be invisible — make a kind of statement as well. You can bend them completely in half and they won’t break! That’s the kind of politics that actually gets you places in this country. Eventually, of course, they will break, but then I’ll just don the other pair, which by then should be completely out of fashion. Which means I won’t have to spend long hours in front of the mirror practicing an air of urbanity and trying to avoid punching myself in the face.

The optometrist told me I have the eyes of a teenager, whatever that means. I guess it means there’s no medical marijuana in my future.

Hey! I should’ve held out for frames made entirely of hemp.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Oír

This entry is part 16 of 73 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Winter 2011-12

The woman in the cafe wearing red lipstick that matches her red boatneck sweater under a grey raincoat says, The poet is someone who is more a voice overheard, not speaking directly. Not spoken to, of, for. If I hold my head like this, if I hold my head perfectly still, if I hold my head aslant. There is a whiff of a voice that curls from the next table like a wisp of cigarette smoke, though smoking has been banned from restaurants and other such public places. Slide a white porcelain cup filled with hot coffee across the oily film of the counter. Run a fingernail across the velvet-covered upholstery and everything is still there: summer’s burnt caramel and diesel, morning’s toast; sriracha, lemon drop, partly sucked licorice whip. Above the curtains I can watch the sun move through a sky shorn of wildness, which is what some might mean when they say untrammeled. She is right, then. About lyric being a form of lilting paraphrase. Shorthand written in pencil, never ink. Code produced by the faithful stenographer. Careful. A stroke in the wrong place makes unintended meaning. But more, also. If it is spare, it prepares for tenderness. At least, the promise of a listening.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Dark Body

This entry is part 15 of 73 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Winter 2011-12

Dark-promised, soot-colored, life-size statue of the Nuestro Padre Nazareno— Clear sky, bright sun that stripes his rickety carriage, borne on the shoulders of hundreds of men. Carpenter, boat-builder, cop and cobbler; plumber, electrician out of work, not yet sober tuba-drinker; husband, overseas worker, skirt-chaser, wife-beater. They’ve all come to touch this visage of coal, this visage of charred ship lumber. Fire translates into scars on the body’s timber. Any piece of clothing will do to daub its flesh-like surfaces: torn t-shirt, scrap of cotton, burlap sack, polyester, old gym towel. They pull on ropes, conveying this likeness cloaked in saffron and red velvet. In the choked streets, see how urgent the desire to touch, be touched, be filled with fleeting grace. Some have fainted. Some have lost a finger, crushed a rib, a clavicle. For miracle, what does it matter that one might be trampled?

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Words on the Street

Homeless guy with sign: "unoccupied"

*

One of my New Year’s resolutions for Via Negativa was to bring back Words on the Street as a regular feature (I’ll try for weekly), in part as a way of commenting on, or at least acknowledging, the current global economic crisis (which I don’t expect to end in my lifetime, only worsen). Also, in recent years I fear Via Negativa has skewed a bit too far yin-ward on the yin-yang continuum. More satire might help restore the balance.

Incidentally, for some good, incisive yet non-preachy “poetry and prose for hard times,” check out the new online journal Cur.ren.cy (and consider submitting).

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Raw

removing the hide

This morning I helped our neighbors, Troy and Paula Scott, haul some cow and roadkilled deer carcasses to two locations on the mountain for a golden eagle camera trap, part of an ongoing project headed up by ornithologists Todd Katzner and Trish Miller to track the movement patterns of eastern golden eagles. Paula is the point-person for the project here in Plummer’s Hollow since she has the most expertise with trail cams, as my mom detailed in a recent column. There are various other locations around the state, but I believe ours may be the only one to include cow as well as deer carcasses. Continue reading “Raw”