Dream Tectonics

The blaring sun becomes memory
on our skins, there is no horizon line
between sea and sky. How incredibly
fortunate we are to know the silence
of Zen in these hammocks.
You lean towards me, skim my chest
with a clasp of your hair until I fall asleep,
and here is where the whole
god-dammed thing changes.

I wake up in a strange room to the sound
of public radio, someone has brewed
coffee instead of tea, there are math books
stacked on a nightstand next to the window.
Outside, the streets demand their morning
fix of cars and shoes. A crowd at the
bus stop is blurred by rain.

Years have passed. I still
don’t know where the universe broke.
The champagne toast we planned for later
did not happen, neither did the twilight
horseback ride. Perhaps sleeps got cross-tied,
or a worker on cloud nine misplaced a file.
Perhaps there was a sudden shift
in the velvet black of dream-tectonics.
For all I know, a man I’ve never met
woke up under your clasp of hair from a dream
that by all rights, should have been mine.

DQ 12/30/08

Paperweight

One of the items I cherish most
is a star shaped paperweight
made of brass and smeared with
that eternal moss which grows
on metal after enough years elapse.

Back when it shined like god's eyes
we lived in the apartment where
we kept the windows open
to save on the electric bill, and we used
the weight to hold down love notes on the desk.

I suppose it will outlive
most things I own: my books,
the car, my new home,
-even my own life-
due to its heavy simplicity.

Every now and then I lift it
to check if it weighs as much as I remember
and I look at the inscription you
engraved at the bottom of the metal star:
forever yours, your name, and date we met.

Then I confirm that for any
given volume, memories
are far heavier than brass.

DQ 12/26/08

Kneeling

Slowly they rose from their knees,
heads hung wounded, hands holding
the dead wood of the pew in front.

The heavy man leading the service
read every possible sin from a book
and pointed towards the congregation

directing god about the gilded dome
to seek and punish those that had fallen.
A wicker basket in the shape of a nest

made its way from hand to hand
multiplying itself in green
like fish and loaves of bread.

Later that evening as I walked
through the woods I saw god
kneeling over a small bird

that had fallen from its nest
and I asked him if he had seen me
leave the service before it ended.

He kissed the bird, placed it back
in the nest and said: No, I did not see you.
I’ve never been to church.

DQ 12/24/08

To a Painting

Between green swirls
of ocean where mermaids sleep
she glances towards me
-sunlit face turned in my direction-
with a stare I’ve dreamt of
old gray stones gathering
sun by the shore.
Even and deep
like footprints that have
made the earth quiver with
the weight of something
indestructible.
How foolish of me...
to think I could bear
stare at her in real life.

DQ 12/3/08

Still Life

The alarm clock sits on the
nightstand by the bed
where you and I are sleeping.
Right above your head
our children sway in the swing

behind the old house. You watch
them through the kitchen window
with a jug of orange juice
in your hand and call them in
to do their school work.

My hand cuts through
the perfume of an unknown woman
laying in the bed of a hotel room
and I knock over an empty glass
as I reach for the alarm clock.

One minute before, the repelling dreams.
One minute after, the joined monotonous day.
How we have changed, and how alike we are.
Neither one of us wanting to get
up this morning.

DQ 11/26/08

After Qu Yuan

Wood paddles whip the water in
a frenzy of orchestrated chaos,
the drum repeats the one-pointed beat
-the concentration of the devotee-
each arm a reflection of next, each lung
propelling the same breath, breathing
the mystical word that parts the sea,
each heart calling for the poet’s body
to be raised from the undertow
which is the only absolute we truly share.

The world waits by the shore, the ordered
rows of buildings, the four lane highways,
the paper pushers, the pale skins.
But they don’t exist here.
Here is the narrow floating temple,
the unrestrained prayer of the athlete
who cannot taste sea-salt from sweat
whose skin reflects the alizarin chant of noon.

The sunrays are in blossom, the drum repeats
the arrow pointed beat, the water churns again
in anger, and there, under the chaos of the blades,
a white-robed figure looks up from the deep.

DQ 11/10/08

Film Noir

In those old detective stories there is
always a reporter in an overcoat
taking photographs of the chalk mark
that outlines where the body fell.
I imagine someone had to actually

straddle the dead and run the chalk
close –if not touching- the edge of the
contortioned shape, and I cant imagine
the feeling of nausea such a task
would bring about on the artist.

Our park. I went there today.
Someone had used a white chalk
to outline the shape of a heart
at the foot of the bench where
I said I no longer loved you.

DQ 11/08/08

Horse Feather

This is a horse feather,
white, the calm of clouds.
I saw it fall from the sky
a slow dart from antiquity
swirling its habitual pattern.

Its vane gentle across my lips
its sturdy rachis could
pen a poem or two about
the process of kissing or
stammering ecstasies.

I wondered if the mythical animal
would part the evening sky
with its pale steady silence
turn its crimson eyes in my direction
and rapture
me on moon-hooves

over the matrix of skyscrapers
wearing nothing but its ribcage
between my legs.
Nothing is impossible.
I once loved like that.

DQ 11/7/08

Kisses I Remember

My father kisses my mother on their 25th anniversary.
They stood behind the table
holding each other as they did
while they slept. Their faces pressed
together like dried flowers in a book.
Long ago, they bloomed.
April 1985

My last kiss.
I can still hear its echo disguised
as memory. One sound. Then
the void of all the years that followed.
Every kiss after that, hollow.
You asked me to leave her as you got dressed.
June 2001.

My best friend’s first kiss at Shenandoah Junior High.
Her face was covered by his,
I saw him release her hands
shortly after.
Girls are like that, they say
the opposite of what they mean.
January 1976.

A kiss I saw on TV
They bridged the gap toward
each other like magnets.
I wanted to be naked, like
they were. The lens closed in
on their moist lips just like I hoped it would.
March 1997.

A kiss from Judas
Every time we make love
I hear its sound, the kiss,
metallic like coins.
You ask me if I love you
and I say yes.
October 2008.

DQ 10.13.08

La Provençal

No longer a fan of French cuisine
I avoid my favorite restaurant.
I wouldn't know if the outside

tables have been folded or replaced
or if they still serve the hot crepes
covered in béchamel sauce.

Last time I dined there, Albertine,
the waitress who always recommends
the salmon béarnaise, gave me

the wonderful news that you were
seeing someone new and had just
given birth to a lively baby boy.

Can you believe my arrogance?
...to ask if she had any idea
what you named the child?

DQ 10/4/8

Aubade

What if we step outside this dream
and not return where we came from,
those ashen images that blur at dawn.

- Look, time has not touched you -
your hair still drapes in waves of indigo silk
and your eyes are still the shade of ancient woods.

You ask me to lay in your bed, to love you
in the room with the red walls again.
And me…restored to the body

of Apollo, the archer god,
the gold sun that woke you every morning
and kissed your bare feet.

Let's walk outside this dream before we vanish.
Don't be afraid, we will not fall.
There are no rules, no gravity in dreams

DQ 9/25/08

Burying

When you knelt by the dirt road,
wedged your fingers in the cracks
and slowly dismembered
the earth’s old flesh
tearing roots to make
a grave, I wanted to warn you
about the useless effort.

Yesterday you sat naked
on my chest, wedged
your fingers deep inside
my ribs looking for the heart.
You found it, held it, read it
and asked about the name it had
engraved.

Here you are digging again, burying
our love...“the part that died” - you say.
Well I got news for you…
I buried one long ago,
and now its blood comes out
singing, yesterday you read
her name out loud.

DQ 9/25/08

Statue

Statue

Lips sticky from pollen,
segments of mid-summer
colored heat. You stood
in foam and shells

with sea salt in your hair
shimmering petals
of blood red blossom, breasts
buoyant in the archaic air.

Last time I saw you,
you were made of stone
and stood there, armless, in the
ground floor of the Louvre.

How it must have trembled,
the hand with the chisel,
the first time you disrobed.

DQ 9/21/08

DQ 9/21/08

Raspberries and Cabernet

Remember that evening
made of raspberries,
so much deep pink and ripe flesh,
we thought the air was wounded?

How we exhausted our bodies
carrying cups of Cabernet
across the bed, as our eyes
took snapshots of the mirror…

Later that night we used your
lipstick to paint stars across the mirror.
I saw your image arc towards
the sky before the supernova

fused the surface.
Here we are beneath the quicksilver.
Light years later, hotel maids still
attempt to wipe our bodies from the glass.

DQ 9/12/08

Meditation on the Iris.

Through jade, the sun becomes
a prism of greens, some vivid
like absinthe, some blotched
like leaves awaiting autumn.

Lao Tzu says that words can never
convey the beauty of a tree;
to understand it, you must see it
with your own eyes.

- He makes me lie down
in green pastures
leads me beside still waters -
…and what about green tea?

the way it sparkles in my cup
as its warmth comes up to
touch my lips. My soul
is restored.

And this blade of grass I hold
between my fingers, so
delicate to touch, a phantom
limb of the whole earth.

Every thought is monochrome
or covered in mint,
endless and everywhere,
is the color of your eyes.

DQ 08/31/08

June 9th

I watched the narrow hallway
come to an end where the desk stood.
I was prepared: lessons were fresh,
I had learned from failures, felt sorrow,
and faced sickness. I had even loved.

I heard a woman struggle with pain.

I sat on the black chair across the desk.
This was my moment for honesty.
Time to be assertive, answer quickly,
impress, succeed, and move on.
…and why not? I earned it.

I heard a woman shout with pain.

He walked to the desk, sat on the big chair
across from me, and asked a question
I had never heard before.
I froze, forgot everything I knew.
No answer…couldn’t even recall my name.

A woman released a cry of pain, then grunted
three times as if to gather strength.

Someone hit me.
I cry. I cry. I cry.
I am being handed to her.
She smiles and for the first time,
holds me to her breast.

DQ 08/19/08

Cygnus

She woke me in a different room. Walls
painted red, small circles of pearlized light
reflected by strands of shells.
We said nothing. I saw her face for a moment, before

all seams of the universe neatly
converged between her thighs. Sweet succubus
pheromones crossing the silence in
kaleidoscopes of jasmine and lavender.

Zeus once turned into a swan to love a woman
and changed the fate of Troy.
Are there forces that use dreams
to satisfy their thirst for love, their need for company…

or is it maybe our needs that
wills them through the darkened conduit?
Perhaps my mother knew.
For now, back in my room, there is only the early morning scent
of jasmine and lavender still stirring inside me.


DQ 08/18/08

Coins

The Cadillac driver
looks away and cringes.

Her body hung with icicles
like a slant roof
dripping freezing water
in the north pole.

Even so, she fights the solid flesh
turns to the radio, and thinks:
Let’s not make eye contact.
A few more steps he’ll go away.
Maybe the next guy
can help the homeless drunk.

The same look
again and again
behind every windshield.

They turn aside, check the dashboard gauges,
re-check the radio the station
and go on driving stiff,
without making eye contact.
Maybe the next guy…
each one is thinking.

They treat me as a disease.

What have I done, except
make a bet with my son
that I can give away a jar
of coins in half an hour.

All they have to do is take a handful.
Maybe the next guy…

Tomorrow my son will have twice as much
of the left-overs.

DQ
8/17/08

DQs Book

ALCHETRY

The Other Wish

Not the one shaped
like a dust covered footprint.

Not the one folded back,
hem of the garment I call body.

Not the one
that repeats itself with breath.

This is the other wish.

One kiss.

DQ 02/28/08