Tree, Dusk, Distance

.


Through blossomed branches
I glimpse the edge of the world,
its long purple clouds.

*

Trees silhouetted
in still, silent summer dusk;
day's birds come to rest.

*

Now the leaves turn red,
shiver in a fading light
far hills extinguish.

*

The horizon's trees
rub their branches together
to start a fire.

.

Milkweed

.

The spiked bone
cracked open, threaded
to a dried stalk,
disheveled by the mower.

A layer of matted marrow,
then the flat round
orange seeds inside,
stacked dense as scales,
and the white,
web-thin wings.

Their light tassels
flick open, the breeze
eases them from my hand.
While plumes speckle
this rusting
October field.

.

Che Fece...Il Gran Rifiuto

--after Cavafy

I arrange the bones of my regret
in the light of a black candle.

Smoke writhes in the air,
clouds this gallery of memory
in which I have hung
a leaf, a feather,
two tear-dimmed eyes.

When the candle flame finally burns out
its image haunts the darkness.


Dante, Inferno III.60: "him / who made...the great refusal"

.

Public Execution, Saudi Arabia, 1996

.

In the name of god
In the grainy smuggled video
The executioner lifts his sword
Over the first of two condemned
Strikes once
The body shudders
Head drops to the side
Strikes again
To sever the flap of sinew
Connecting head to body
In the name of the king and his subjects
In the name of god
To redeem the honor of men

*

Led to the sun-blasted square
Hands shackled behind his back
Tranquilized into compliance
Kneeling toward Mecca on a 4x4 meter tarp
Sanitary prayer mat
Blindfolded he hears
The delirious prayers of the first condemned
The executioner shouting the name of god
The rustle of his robe
The whistling of his sword
A sigh
Between sword strikes
Then the thumping roll of the head
A sound among the sounds of this world
The executioner exalted and protected
Strides towards him

*

Death is not instantaneous
Life throbs through the electrochemical pulp
In the skull case
Feels the phantomed body flare
I pray his brain was flooded with endorphins
I pray he sensed a tunnel of light
Drawing him forward then darkness
As when I switch the television off

.

The Chain

Lung-Fa Tang Buddhist Sanctuary, Taiwan, where mental patients, one deemed more stable and another less so, are shackled together at all times at the waist with a chain for the "therapeutic purposes" purported by the facility's director. Pairs photographed by Chien-Chi Chang in the series titled "The Chain," 1998.

The one on the right is the scowling
father, firm grip on the hand of
his charge, who looks up
like a whipped dog.

They are both bald and fat. One is short, the other tall.
Everything is subject to their amusement.

Their hand touch, palm to palm, about to clasp.

They stand as far apart as chains allow.

Barefoot among
maggoty corpses and the din
of a million hens cackling,
they are put to work shoveling feces.
They are trained to use the group latrine
at the same time, then the group shower,
then to pick ill-fitting clothes
from the donated pile. Most wear sailor suits,
the kind schoolchildren wear.

The women's heads are shaved.
The one on the right lifts her arms to her face.
The one on the left floods with hate.

The one on the right looks like he will kill
the one on the left, who
screams at something else behind.
Kill him with these hands, using this chain.

The one on the right puckers his mouth, ready to kiss.
The one on the left is lobotomized.
The chain hangs limp between.

The one on the right
drools saliva onto his shirt.
The one on the left
puts his arm around him.

This one is being led away by the one on the right,
the taut chain tugs at him. He looks back at us
straight in the eye.

.

It's Simple to Speak

.

of the smoothness
of her breasts
her thighs

but not of how
my touch
adorned her

how that winter night
I trembled
in her arms

of bewildering
scents
sounds

of finally
finding rest
in her body

.