Deng Ming-Dao Taoist Elegy

For Clara and Simon

admin — Sun, 20 May 2012 04:16:09 +0000

Gone was your graduation day
the rose you held,
crushed. Gone was your church wedding day,
the white lace torn.
Gone were your four giggling daughters,
the pony rides,
the parties with hundreds of guests,
the swaying lights,
and the sound of a jazz band,
wailing, hollering.
Simon watched you die. It was like
bearing witness
to a white jade palace crumbling
for five decades
until it collapsed in a heap
of gray rubble.
Simon talked to his lawyers. He
set the business
you both started on its own course.
He said goodbye
to friends, daughters, and grandchildren.
He picked a suit,
closed the bedroom door and lay down.

For Kimberly and Sharice

admin — Sun, 20 May 2012 04:10:17 +0000

Kimberly Black and Sharice Swain sat
in a parked car Thursday
with the motor running
when they got into an argument.

Kimberly left the car,
went into her house,
returned with a knife,
and stabbed Sharice in the face and neck.

Spurting blood, Sharice stepped on the gas pedal
and the car hit Kimberly’s two young children.
Two-year-old Kimshia was killed,
and one-year-old Taraji was hurt.

The car struck a house,
bringing the porch roof crashing down.
Kimberly, twenty-nine, was found naked
several blocks away and arrested.

The women had been
“best friends since birth” and
Sharice considered Kimberly a cousin,
said the victim’s mother, Anita Swain.

For George

admin — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 18:55:57 +0000

In fourth grade, our teacher
noticed we were the only two
who could carve, draw, and paint.

She took us to the museum
and before El Greco,
we looked at each other and knew

we were standing before
a painting of terror and awe.
His tormented brushstrokes,

even the way blue died
into his titanium white
initiated us.

I can’t forget your crooked grin,
or your rooster-tail hair,
the way you argued for “more beauty.”

I can’t forget, because
first you sold stolen wristwatches,
then it was cars, then guns.

You’re in jail now, an El Greco,
hanging on a brick wall
while lightning flashes behind you.

For Lily

admin — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 18:53:11 +0000

The fire burns but brings no warmth.
Cypress stands black against the sky.
You’re gone; shadows die on the floor.

We drove here, our first trip as one,
watched sunsets shimmer on white sand,
and blue waves breaking on the shore.

Later, we came back, to relight
that same fire against the sunset
What was the argument this time?

The fire burns but brings no warmth.
Cypress stands black against the sky.
You’re gone; shadows die on the floor.

For Those Killed in Wars

admin — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:44:44 +0000

I dreamed last night that there was a shrine half a city block in size. A thirty-foot bronze fence enclosed a mountain of human ashes and bits of broken possessions like cookware, children’s toys, and pieces of plastic whose function could not longer be identified. These were the unidentified remains of people killed in the wars, a gray heap of unknown but still honored human beings.

Outside the shrine, with its Chinese gate of wooden pillars and tiled roof, were worn buildings, traffic, people rushing about on their business. The view to the west was open, with a town of old buildings and fading paint, the same as many small towns—well-used, no fancy money, no boastful high-rises, no pretentious architecture. Beyond the hills, the afternoon sun was still powerful enough to light the streets in honeyed tones, but the mountain had already fallen into shadow.

No one was allowed inside the locked gates, but the ghost of my mother brought me there, put my feet into the sand of crushed bones and burnt flesh, and let the particles run through my bare fingers.

For Ken

admin — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 03:32:16 +0000

You were a head taller than the rest of us,
with a lean body clad in white T-shirt,
black jeans, rumble belt, and leather jacket
from a street our parents wouldn’t go to.
You were a man among our nervous tribe
of scrawny kids because you didn’t care
about stupid things like graduation.
We scattered when you walked into the gym,
trembled when your huge hands grabbed one of us
and shook us down for money. Astounded
us when you unshouldered your black boom box
and talked tenderly of Nancy Wilson.
You made recess an ordeal. You made class
a confusing thrill with your defiance.
Then you were gone. Not because you cut class—
you’d knocked the boom box into the bathtub,
it was still plugged in but the music stopped.

For Alma

admin — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 03:30:08 +0000

The summer wind sets the curtains flapping,
the ends of the cords snare-drum the plaster.
Garlic and chili waft from a kitchen
and a sax player on the street blows hard.

She lays on me, panting, black hair flying,
eyelashes wet, damp air like opium.
“Are you hungry?” She says she’ll be right back.
Five minutes later, sirens stop the sax.

I did nothing at the trial. Did nothing
at her funeral. I sit in her room
where the curtains hang limp, and the night fog
smothers the city and snuffs out the stars.

For Ellen

admin — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 06:13:00 +0000

You were a young driver
in a cream-colored coupe.
The rubber tires squealed

around an alpine curve
and then there was no sound
as the car overturned.

It left your parents dead
and you dazed, so to age
with just one memory.

Though your inheritance
and the insurance meant
a comfortable house,

you wandered, your laughter
never easing your frown
or keeping friends with you.

On vacation, you flew
to Thailand. The pilot
erred, and the plane faltered.

It was a fireball
falling to the jungle,
burning one hundred screams.

For Frank

admin — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 06:07:51 +0000

How many times can a scar heal over?
The ones carved into you with a backhoe?
Or the ones you pave over with concrete
only to crack open in an earthquake?
Do tears ever dry up? Or do they fill
the hollow left in your chest by grieving,
a private Dead Sea sloshing when you walk?
Or do they form stalactites on your face?
How many times can you answer the call?
Aching from body blows, sweat pouring down,
gasping on your stool? Yet again you do,
as you will until you can stand no more.

For Mackenzie

admin — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 00:23:45 +0000

You were the oldest of seven,
and the table was never full.
The town suffered in soot and smog,
the clang of gears drove off the birds.
You couldn’t tell your left from right.
Dropped out first. Then you were laid off,
and your father was laid off too.
Killing yourself, you thought, would feed
your siblings, and you gulped those pills.

The doctors pumped out your stomach.
For days, you sat at the window,
drawing both your nightmares and dreams.
You walked by an art school, couldn’t
fill out the forms, but you showed them
you could draw and they took you in.
Just as you take in kids today
and put plaster into their hands,
to touch, to mold, to make, to hold.