where were we :

Larkin, Purdy, Ferlinghetti,

Cohen, Ondaatje, Heaney, Snyder,

Gunn, Creeley, Olson

By Roberto Lavidez

where

were we -

a girl in

a red skirt

high heels

going up

the stairs

before me

in a made-

over barn

white-wash

peeling

we lived

together

in the loft

on cool

bare boards

lemme

tell you

something

kid

back in 1910

who knows

you?

who remembers

you?

but in

your house

a ritual is

in progress:

it is not

finished:

it needs

more people

let us arise

and go now

into the

interior

dark night

of the soul’s

still bowery

and find

ourselves

anew

where subways

stall and wait

under the river

cross over

into full

puzzlement

and always

the voice

will sound

certain

you approve

this audacious

purifying

elemental

move

beyond

all this

the wish

to be alone

beneath it all

desire of

oblivion runs

while rain

cries out

against us

and darkness

swallows

the evening

and morning

moves into

stillness and

mist climbs

to our

throats

while we

are running

while we

are running

as the dead

prey upon us

they are

the dead

in ourselves

awake

my sleeping

ones

I cry out

to you

disentangle

the nets

of being!

what am I

to myself

that must be

remembered

insisted upon

so often?

is it that

never the

ease

even the

hardness of

rain falling

will have

for me

something

other than

this

I think

of all

the toughs

through

history

and thank

heaven

they lived

continually

the dog

trots freely

in the street

and sees

reality and

the things

he sees are

bigger than

himself and

the things

he sees are

his reality

my body

was braille

for the

creeping

influences:

dawn suns

groped over

my head

and cooled

at my feet

through

my fabrics

and skins

today

what is it

that is finally

so helpless

different

despairs of

it own

statement

wants to

turn away

endlessly to

turn away

birds

suddenly are

a multitude

the flowers

are ravined

by bees

the fruit

blossoms

are thrown

to the

ground

the wind

the rain

forces

everything

all the junk

that goes

with being

human

drops away

hard rock

wavers

even the

heavy present

seems to fail

this bubble

of a heart

midnight

storm

trees

walking off

across

the fields

in fury

naked in

the spark

of lightning

by now

all’s wrong

in everyone

there sleeps

a sense of

life lived

according

to love

eating each

other’s seed

eating ah

each other

kissing

the lover

in the mouth

of bread

lip to lip

why then

I’ll stay

at least

for tea

for all the

brownness

is too brown

and all the

whiteness

too damned

white

I’m afraid of

being any

other woman’s

man who

might be me

we have

no prairies

to slice

a big sun

at evening

everywhere

the eye

concedes to

encroaching

horizon

is the birth

of air

is the birth

of water

is a state

between

the origin

and the end

between birth

and the

beginning of

another

fetid nest

is change

presents

no more

than itself

if quietly

and like

another time

there is

the passage

of an

unexpected

thing:

to look at it

is more

that it was

where there

was nothing

left to

understand

and where

one must

re-enter and

re-enter

thought I saw

someone

I knew

she was

young in an

old summer

I tried

to remember

very carefully

balanced

on one foot

and concentrated

and concentrated

between

my finger

and my

thumb

the squat

pen rests

I’ll dig

with it

there is

my fear of

no words

of falling

without

words

over and over

of mouthing

the silence

as many nights

endure without

a moon or star

so one

will endure

when one is

gone and far

to grey

confusion of

the space

between

now as I

sweep it

clean

I realize

that love

is an arranging

constantly

risking

absurdity and

death

whenever

he performs

above the

heads of

his audience

the poet

like an

acrobat

climbs on
rime to

a high wire

of his own

making

I labored on

an external

silence

like the space

between

insects

in a swarm

electric

unremembering

and it is

aimed at us

©robertolavidez2014