Writer & Poet:    

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from fistful of poems

July 25, 1995
To mayelle not yet 4 ½

            mayelle
the swing is there still
                        immobilized by oppressive stillness
                        in scorching july heat in boston
                                    you were the open sky
                                    the eyes
                                    the ocean

                        & the big tree is still there fully covered
                        from this year’s new leaves

the swing is there alone
                                    sky/ocean
                                    holding the wind
                                                sun/sky
                                                losing the wind
                        entering gentle fingers
                        through closed links in the chain

the grass is back whispering in it’s growth
to your running image in the park
chasing the birds migrating in fear
that the returning winter might freeze their wings

                                    you are a still moment
                                    in the underexposed black & white film
                                    where for the lack of contrast
                                    nothing is visible
                                    except the sharp white edges
                                    on the contact print

your hair
grows in deep ocean
in coral reefs that release blood droplets
floating above the slimy surface

I close my eyes
                                    to hold the you in the retina
                                    inside the damaged cornea
                                    the virus cut in fragmented steel particles
                                    inside the mind’s camera
                                    that holds the underdeveloped frames
                                    from the day I saw you

even an old man
has a right to love
before the counterfeited credits
roll over the screen in the last show
before the shattered lens inside the brain
melts in perennial winter

                                    the poem in the swing still
                                    immobilized by oppressive stillness
                                                sky/ocean
                                                holding the wind
                                                            sun/sky
                                                            losing the wind

I close my eyes again
mayelle
this time
your hand is strong
breaking the links
the swing
thrusting the woman in you
into the sun

                                                sky/ocean
                                                holding the wind
                                                            sun/sky
                                                            losing the wind

 

July 28, 1995
9:30 pm

to maressia on the eve
of the 2nd birthday

maressia
the moon saw you
when earth's shadow was cast upon you
in the total lunar eclipse

             the sky swallowed street tar
             from city night
             when you were light inside your mother's womb
             when roots howled under chemical earth
             reaching for soil
             beyond the bowel of the globe

maressia
the moon saw you
between the sun
obscuring earth
in the total solar eclipse
             when the cosmonaut
             saw the sun's corona escaping
             the incandescent disk
             embedded in deep cosmic ink
                        & on his return said
                        the infinite space inside the sky
                        is black
                        & it will never be possible
                        to see the universe in the same way
                        from earth

                                     & the cosmonaut saw you
                                     fertilizing the belly
                                     inside the moon 

maressia
I saw you the day after tomorrow
one day old
inside my aging trembling hands breathing
             a life
             howling to become woman
                          inside the electrically charged storm
                          in the white hospital cell
                          in boston
                          that could not suppress the new born scream

                                       maressia
                                       it was all in the moon
                                       the day of the eclipse
                                       when shielding the damaged cornea
                                       I saw your birth in the eclipse's blackness on
earth


                                                    from that day on maressia
                                                    I say your name
                                                    for the world to know

 

January 22, 1996
To Maressia
2-1/2 years old

loving you maressia
is to know space immeasurable
filled in undiscovered matter
gravitating invisibly
in your presence

it is to know the roots
left in the soil
after they strip the forest
to genocide the flora

yet to know you
is not to know the language
in your first cry
is not to see the oxygen
your lungs crave to fill with life

loving you maressia
is to question meaning on why
the lightning ignites a seed
& life is born

it is to know the word love
should never be spoken
unless it is
what in your essence is

 

January 31, 1996
4:50 a.m.
to Maressia

it was the night the dragonfly
mid air suspended
woke up the dormant dandelion flower
with vibrating wings

                        your mother in hard labor
                        on the city hospital table
                        pushing to release you

why was it so difficult
to let you go through the uterus canal
why did your birth
caused so much pain

                                                            NO
                                                            it was not the night
                                                            the 38
                                                            shot dead your mother’s homey
                                                            across the street

                                                            NO
                                                            it was not the night
                                                            she was handcuffed in the square
                                                            & taken to prison

                                                            NO
                                                            it was not the many nights
                                                            she said
                                                            I want to get fucked up
                                                            get high forever

                                                            it was just another night
                                                            full of pain