If somebody gave you a million dollars,
maybe you’d fill the sky with light. THOUSANDS
of sparkly explosions, going boom. boom.
boom.

You could start a business.
a café. a gallery. a futuristic school for metaphysicians.
import/export. office supplies.
manufacture windmills. manufacture furniture.
manufacture houses.
You could start a trust fund for American poets,
or artists, with a very strict trustee, so they can’t
spend it all on beer.
You could spend it all on beer. or excellent wine.
or excellent marijuana. or cocaine.
or a colorful variety of hallucinagens.
boom.

or very healthy food.
or a very lovely health spa.
go for a Masters degree. or a phD.
or a ride in a space shuttle.
or embark
on a fantastic science experiment.

Man, if I could be a million dollars  p r o u d ,
maybe I’d fill the sky with light. THOUSANDS
of sparkly explosions, going boom. boom.
boom.

If you had a million dollars,
(maybe you do, I don’t know)
would you be sitting here like this?
or would you be out there like Jesus, healing the sick?
feeding the hungry? giving out free bibles?
Hey, what an impact. Like,
boom.

Buy a car. Buy a house. Buy CLOTHES.
Computer stuff. Cool electronic  t h i n g s .
Buy presents. Buy dishes. A couch.
Take a year off. Take a trip. Take a cruise.
Dig a little hole and bury it.

Man, if somebody gave me a million dollars,
maybe I’d fill the sky with light. THOUSANDS
of sparkly explosions, going boom. boom.
boom.

If I could be a million dollars  a n g r y ,
maybe I’d explode something.
I’ve always wanted to explode something.
When I was fourteen and mad at my mom,
I’d go outside and look at the buildings and pretend
I could just reach out my arm and shove them over.
boom.
boom.
boom.
It was a secret.
I never told anybody.
Not long ago, I closed my eyes and
had a sit down talk with the brooding
fourteen-year-old that still shadowed me.

I asked you, What do you want?
What do you need me to do?
You said, Nothing I do means anything. I have no power.
I said, Hey. Let’s go.
So we went outside and got real big, like giants,
and we walked down the street
and just reached out our giant arms
and shoved over
building after building.
boom.
boom.
boom.
boom.

We didn’t even have to justify it to city officials
with words like
IMplosion.

Man, if somebody gave me a million dollars,
maybe I’d fill the sky with light.

Maybe I wouldn’t.
Maybe I would call in an  a d v i s o r .
How much of that would go to TAXES?
old bills?
pleasing my parents?
or the apparitions of my parents?
or buying off the jealousy
of my less fortunate friends?
Maybe, I’d dig a little hole and bury some.
Then, maybe,
with what was left over
after I had ransomed my fear and guilt,
just because I went around spouting off about it,
I’d give a little fireworks show in the park.
boom.

IF
If
you could be a million dollars JOYFUL
and
EXUBERANT,
maybe you’d explode something.
Maybe you’ve always wanted to explode something.
So happy, you could burst.
boom.

Imagine
standing in the high tower of a House of God,
Jordan River a couple of miles behind you,
named by an  a n g e l …
pillars anointed
and dreams descending like THOUSANDS
of sparkly, crystalline Jacob’s Ladders,

THOUSANDS
of heavens at your fingertips, unfolding
in burst after burst after burst of light.
boom.
boom.
boom.

1993

and tangled all through a haggard cypress,

wasn’t camouflaged, but more like

accidentally blended, with its scent.

It reared up on a thousand nobby legs,

spitting sticky, pink,

half-wilted

petals that went with me when I went,

though it was years before I realized its intent.

saving pot shards in a bucket,

singing just to sing—
just to throw the door wide.

Four seeds, two seedlings,

untidy shelves,

a bird,

and low sun raising mist on a wet porch.

and it was never a mountain.

I never perceived its turning shoulder,
the boil of its soil,
its breath, or its swell.

Flat and painted on,
it was behind a realer life.
It was beneath a scenic drive.

And the streets are not rivers.

We’re not tadpoles or eels
or water beetles,
swimmering and paddling
past reed people on a pale shore.

Dressed
in their Wednesday bible study best,
these are a clump of middle aged couples
gathered at the corner, chatting pleasantly,
as if the evening were sultry.

They are stretching out the good parts
to make them longer.

I brush a billowing end as I pass:
It takes me away
and brings me back

to the scent of a pipe,
rolling acorns in the palm,
the sea in my mouth,
and a mountain that waits
to be touched.

.

.

.

Creator scanned the ancient clutter—
shards of broken plate glass strewn in ancient corners,
brickwork fallen,
rust corroding rusted metal fragments,
sofas, armchairs, and beds reduced to moldy tufts—

when, to Creator’s vast surprise,
sitting regally upon a pitted slab of concrete,
sat a teacup of bone china, translucent,
hand-painted and gilded on its rim.
It was perfectly intact.

1996

that flowering, that naked way
where oranges spill out from shells
and purple orchids, crisp like lettuce,
stiff like bells,
are sprinkled ’cross the gentle rims
that arch so delicate and thin.

That sunny, that baked on way,
when women bend their thoughts around
to fit the curve of their own lips,
soft and brown.
They free the angels from the sky
to fall to earth with happy sighs.

These days, the thing to wear is gold;
Green linen is immortal now
And opulence inspires awe
and changes lives.

These days, the thing to be is old;
I wear my senses on my brow
And beckon hearts out onto sleeves
from where they hide.

That holy, that incense way,
where censors swing and spout perfume
and fabric rustles in the room, under gowns
more odors bloom
and burst from underneath the hem
of sweaty, absent-minded men.

That delicate and subtle way…
Sometimes a garden, sometimes a bouquet,
sometimes a story, other times a dream,
initiates
a sparkling stream of images
that blend to form a hollow in the sand.

June 18, 1994

The exhibitionist on the bridge,
The other robbery,
The haunting melody,
The courageous village
and the father of three —

All buried under nothingness,
swallowed by forgetfulness,
Nobody’s cautionary tale. Nobody’s allegory.

But if I’m quiet —
If I open my hands, and listen,
My heart flashes.

Like recalling where the exit was, having passed it just a moment ago;
Like looking down a hurricane, gazing into its white funnel,
I am reading the Chronicle,
Singing with Troubadours,
Reported and reporting on the Network News.

Everything is everything and I don’t wish to smooth it,
Only to infuse it
With the knowledge of its own unpublished grace—
A memory of the gift it gave itself.

May 2009
Revision of the original, written June 2007

*
Alice

*
Bernice

*
Celia

*
Danielle

She avoids the open plains
She avoids the unrelenting heat

*
Emily

*
Fanny

*
Georgina

*
Hanna

Subtle orbits she has christened, whose natures are a pattern,
a Celestial Book of Ways

*
Iris

*
Jenny

*
Katherine

*
Louise

Her face is striped with shadows, framed in fur
She says the sun will burn her, consume her

*
Minerva

*
Nelle

*
Olivia

*
Pauline

If I ask her a question
She watches the rings for a sign

*
Quintina

*
Rochelle

*
Stephania

*
Tilly

If I ask her a question
It reminds her that one day
She will have to walk out onto the plain
And unwrap the frosted fur,
Unsheltered by the pantheon of shadows

*
Ursula

*
Viviane

*
Wanda

*
Xaviera

*
Yvonne

*
Zena

This piece was performed in 2000, with two voices: German Santanilla recited the names as an ongoing chant while the main text was read.

and layers of paint
down to the Wood,
where I wait
for the scent of grace.

Could this
Wide, bright field be
Wide enough?

It’s dry.
I waved away
the thought.

The grass, too short—
the buildings, old,
but pretty. White.
Green roofs.

The hot, hard sun
Pulsed white
and pulsed again:
Enflamed the air.

Alarmed,
I watched its beams explode
Upon the backs of
10,000 red-golden bees,
the color of his hair.

They arced,
a swelling, backwards S—
a fat, descending snake,
Threatening,
or threatened—
I wasn’t sure,

and all the time
I wanted this to be
enough.

Awake,
I watched the rain washed cars roll past
Like water in a river, sun-splashed,
brushing cool, gray tints across the day.

Maybe
I wasn’t there,
or maybe
I just didn’t write it down.