Against the Remains

                                                                        

Against the Remains

                           Morning Sun Edward Hopper, 1952, oil

Certainly, you sit, not at the edge

of the bed, close to the window;

but at its center (his center)

where Hopper’s placed you,

told you to stay and to sit still

like any good wife should do.

       

Do you regret it, Josephine?

How willingly you traded

revelry for solitude; vivaciousness

for silent-slants-of-the-sun

on houses, invading sparse

rooms and empty streets.

Looking out that window, do you see

what he paints? Is the long length

of the red brick building with windows

like glass-eyed spies watching

color fade from your skin

as charm from a marriage?

Maybe those barren buildings

remind you of red ochre

stained walls, shed unfertilized

with each passing moon, yet,

your salmon-pink slip

seductively clings to heaving

bosoms, falls from shoulders,

in his shadows and light¾

was it hard to put your brush

down and pick up your Eddie?

We all gaze at your sharp-cornered

cheeks, feel the flesh of chapped

hands you rest on your calves. Ennui

slips between shadow and wall¾

and onto your bed. Yet, how easy

to miss beauty against what remains.

Paper Father (revised)

Paper Father

You fell from her words

like sparse confetti¾

without explanation, sans celebration, so I gathered

what I could of you: your name (along with her own) on the certificate that linked us,

just above diminutive inked footprints. A funeral card

with your mother’s name, Anne Fitzsimmons Sell, along with childish love letters to her

(“I was painting walls today, the color was ‘wild rose’ with a virgin lamb’s wool roller”), posted on different days

(sultry maybe) of August and September, 1960.

I made you into what was needed¾ tertiary folds and creases like the furrows of a young girl’s brow until you were my origami father, pressed and turned until you were enough, a sort of paper doll papa, an image for me

like sometimes a musician who traveled with a band (I roller skated in the basement to her Percy Faith album, thinking maybe he, with his dark hair, was you)

or I’d re-fold you into a soldier, dead of course,

(or on optimistic days just missing-in-action like the boys

of Vietnam) only I would get mixed up¾maybe it was the beach in Normandy, or somewhere south of Heidelberg or maybe you were hush-hush because you were a masked hero like “The Lone Ranger” or “Batman.”

In church I made the sign of the cross and said the words In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen and wondered if you were He and she was like Mary and now you were 

up in the sky with my half-brother Jesus, only I would get mixed up¾and maybe you were the devil¾a monster of a father like in “Rosemary’s Baby.” I knew you could be no ordinary father.

Last year I decided to send for your army records (your death I found when I looked for you in the 80’s) and I got a letter in return saying they were lost in a fire, but I could send for your “Final Pay Voucher” for $20.00, the words on the form strange:

“Requester is: Next of kin of Deceased Veteran, Relationship: Daughter.”

I’ve put her death certificate in a folder with what I have of you, so there you are, together now, and the crease between my brow increases, as it will have to be good enough, these papers, they will have to be what I needed since we fall from ourselves, don’t we?

We fall from grace, a slip of the hip, an apple from the tree, a seed blown loose from the dandelion, until we can define it, put it to paper, bury it or re-classify it and claim names and paper fathers of our own.

Paper Father

You fell from her words like sparse confetti without explanation, sans celebration, so I gathered what I could of you: Your name, along with her own, on the certificate that linked us, just above diminutive inked footprints. A funeral card with your mother’s name, Anne Fitzsimmons, and, and childish love letters to her (“I was painting walls today, the color was ‘wild rose’ with a virgin lamb’s wool roller”), posted on different days, sultry maybe, of August and September, 1960.

I made you into what I needed¾tertiary folds and creases like the furrows of a young girl’s brow until you were my origami, all pressed and turned till you were enough, a paper doll papa¾an image for me

of a musician who traveled with a band (I roller skated in the basement to her Percy Faith album, thinking maybe he, with his dark hair, was you)

or I’d re-fold you into a soldier, dead of course, or missing-in-action like the boys of Viet-Nam¾only I would get mixed up¾maybe you died on the beach in Normandy or somewhere south of Heidelberg. Or maybe you were a masked-hero without a face like The Lone Ranger or Batman. Always without a face.

In church I made the sign of the cross and said the words In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen and wondered if you were He and she was like Mary and now you were up in the sky with my half-brother Jesus. Only I would get mixed up¾and thought maybe you were the devil¾a monster of a man like in “Rosemary’s Baby.” I was always mixed up; you were no ordinary father.

Last year, I decided to send for your army records (your death I found when I looked for you in the 80’s) and I got a letter saying they were lost in a fire, but I could send for your “Final Pay Voucher” for $20.00. These words so strange on the form: “Requester is: Next of kin of Deceased Veteran, Relationship: Daughter.”

I’ve put her death certificate in a folder with what I have of you, so there you are, together now, and the crease between my brow increases, as it will have to be good enough, these papers; it will have to be what I needed.

Woman Waiting for the Bus

Woman Waiting for the Bus

She’s impossible not to notice:

coffee-washed skin

and hair all attention

to the slant

of early morning

light¾breezes

and humidity fluff

it further than she expects¾

she sits with urgency,

on the edge of the bench,

road dust at open toes,

as she waits

for the southbound

bus to Cocoa.

She braces herself,

leaning forward,

with forearms resting

on gathered knees.

Her hands grip a bouquet

of apricot-colored roses

nestled in green

tissue paper

like apologies

or fervent kisses,

or sleeping babies,

or misplaced thoughts,

or each a please get well

enveloped

in their delicate,

wordless,

wrapping.

Brushstrokes

J.A. Roney

Brushstrokes

Linseed oil, ochre, wax and eggs,

red and yellow clay, habitually

couple with cobalt and indigo

on the painter’s palette to be applied¾

the lucky ones captured

forgivingly by sfumato.

Saffron, walnut’s oil and trowel;

these are the tools of the artist¾

and when they finally come

together it causes me to consider,

to think about Van Gogh, Monet and Pollack¾

all they’d seen and processed

in a minds’ eye;

they beheld life, looked deeper

into a hard world,

and when they were ready,

they mixed colors

on newly stretched canvas,

their hand approached with boldness

and trepidation while a sable

tipped brush held between

three fingers applied

paints, fusing all that exists

between reality and imagination,

and it softened.

Catharsis seizes¾

I mix paints of crushed lapis and carnelian;

ready the canvas

for it’s here you’ll find who I am.

Snatches of fear, need for want,

and worn out conversation retire

into oil and gesso

where you’ll find me,

and I can tell you who I am

as you’ll understand¾

you’ll know me by my brushstrokes¾

know yet for yourself, existence softens.

The Eye of the Wisent

J.A. Roney

The Eye of the Wisent

Pressing soul of foot to shell strewn

sand south of the Cape I approach his shifting

sand haven, a salt licked edge of a wound,

with tattered tent, backpack, and bicycle¾

his makeshift clothesline hangs

with sea-washed laundry like lung ta

prayer flags flickering in a wild horse

wind. He kneels, this old leathered bull,

on the edge of his earth, tries to hang

on to pebbles of words the beach patrol toss

his way. I’m so close now, so close now

I see into the hazeled eye of the wisent.

My lungs slow to slip in for a breath

of transient rasps. Slowed lower, his raspy

pulse, the hollow tin of belly, and blisters

of the sin of not having enough pull

at my heels, ramshackle my logic

of how it should be. With care

he removes papers, threadbare, from an

old leather wallet, tries to confirm

his existence to the wind of the world.

Beach Patrol stands casting shadows

and hunting: why are you here?

what are your plans?

Behind his eyes I feel what he sees;

the dominant bulls, aggressive in glory,

press the wisent to shame. Vulnerable,

unable to defend ground, he gathers

clothing, water jugs, canned goods

and shoes, places skin-thin papers

back in the wallet. I slip back

from leathered arms and face with

its gray mane of wild hair, see the wind

pass through him like prayer through god’s

ear. Sun sinks her body behind empty beach

homes, shuttered and safe, while vultures pick

at the loggerhead dead on the dune.

The Way of the Witchetty Grub

The Way of the Witchetty-Grub

1. How it is in the end

We house hunt near the beach with the realtor

Sunday afternoon. It’s a laborious task

to choose a space to parallel your dimensions¾

a cocoon for maturation, a coffer for dressers and linen.

The realtor parades us through houses; few are tidy,

most are dated, while others are beaten, sapric

and declining in shame. The last house

to view reads like this: Lovely waterfront home

with an exceptional view down the canal. Huge fireplace,

upgraded kitchen in last several years, nice screened porch,

two car garage, estate sale. A wheel chair ramp at the entry;

I feel the slip begin in the foyer¾to the hum of the dead¾

a discernable flutter like the ghost moth.  Realtor mentions

the woman died as if it’s luck; but breath is held in here¾

our sanguine natures hold fast to familiar vibrations¾

she’s hovering like moth wing to the candlewick. I wander

rooms filled with her proofs: piano and glassware,

cabinets of motherless dolls, her fingerprints still on the kettle

and the oven mitt’s shaped to her hand¾these are her artifacts.

In the bathroom her hairbrush lays under a note taped to the mirror

Did you take your medicine?

Shadows hold still in their shape; wait to exhale requiems

to her crucifix on the wall. The fluttering follows, hovers near doilies

like snowflakes on shelves with ceramics and curios;

she murmurs it’s simple and quick, a diffusion of bone.

2. How it is in the beginning

The witchetty grub¾plump and wrinkly¾burrows underground

to the root of the Red River Gum digesting its sap, leaving

sawdust trails in her arboreal home. Her existence terminal,

she slips into her chrysalis¾this is her magic, her pantomime

of the living until later, her adapted inertia, a diffusion of bone,

emerges the ghost moth; wings beat Cartesian circles

over the desert wijuti bush in search of a mate.

Cold City Smoking

Cold City Smoking

The city draws in its breath strong on Friday nights, sucks me right into its belly, long past families are safely tucked into cotton-sheeted beds. Tonight, feeling deviant again, a little sideswiped, I wander out onto the concrete ribbons¾ looking for all that a good girl should steer clear of¾boys will be boys. This night I stray too close to the fringe, the end-line.

I park my car at the corner of South Halsted and Lake Street, place the key in the magnetic box, tuck it under the wheel case, and walk east towards the lake. Chicago bars, in cold weather, make for ample hunting grounds¾lonely men, boys¾sometimes women. I pass up more than a few, sniffing the doorways for possibilities. Darkened windows glow with neon invitations in the form of Budweiser and Corona signs humming to frosted windows. If the bar smells stale, too weak or cancerous, I don’t bother opening the wooden doors separating dingy, stagnant dens from the moving world. I walk for blocks, watching my shadow grow taller as I pass each streetlight, liking the sound my boot heels make as they rhythmically click the pavement.

This crazy late-night bar, “Sullly’s,” under the L-tracks in the frayed edge of the south Loop catches my eye so I head in for fresh meat. Hell, I was hungry for it¾it was Friday night, right? I let my eyes adjust from the bright street light to the mellow golden glow of booze bottles in front of mirrors¾my modus of operandi is to scan the booze shelf like I’m looking for my favorite brand, but I look at reflections of patrons in the mirror, to see if anything’s worth playing with. Men sit on their barstools like sausage displays on a butcher’s rack; some clean shaven and plump; others mangy and lean. I prefer them tall and dark, meaty with good bones. If I’m feeling good, I pick one who’s off by himself, holding his drink or cigarette like it’s his last. I want to take those men and pull them into me, hear their breath ache for a minute¾make their blood move inside them and know I did it; but sometimes, when feeling mean, I want a happy one, an innocent¾someone out with friends, or better yet, with a girl. I like to steal them away, break their male spines¾hear the snap in their throats when they stop laughing because I whisper honeyed insults after they give me what I want. And I always take more.

I see the one for tonight¾yeah, I know he’s it¾he’s perfect. A little Johhny Depp thing going on; but this one’s beefier. A little wool cap sits atop dark, wavy hair that hangs past his coat’s collar like an invitation. What really sold me is he’s only got one arm. I get a quick-flash vision of me unbuttoning his shirt while his eyes turn the color of grateful. The jukebox is playing an old surfer song…what the hell is it? Misirlou! Perfect stalking music; I slow my tracking steps, feeling like a panther-cat. I hover between chosen prey and the old guy to his left who’s wheezing and wiping his nose. Not an empty seat in the place, but that’s ok¾a little less conspicuous that way; but at 5’11 in my boots, in black leather pants with dark brown hair near waist length, I get noticed. Sure as Pops here to my left has the buds of tumors in his lungs, I always get noticed. 

I feel the usual blood rush coming on¾loving it: setting bait, the control¾then walking away when it’s over. After a few seconds of waiting for the bartender to work my way, one-armed “Johnny” turns his head from his smoke and asks me in a soft accent if I’d like a drink. Is he Russian? I teeter for just one immeasurable second, sensing, what? But precariously attracted to this one-armed man, I lean in to him and say, “Sure do sweetie,” as the chords of Misirlou heat up.

An hour later, after liquor-infused verbal exchanges, we head to the back alley¾it’s cold out, but I’ve been here before¾I know a little alcove to escape the wind. My body’s wound anticipatingly tight for his one handed grip on my ass while he lets it go. We lean in against the wall; I want to pin him to it¾unbutton his woolen shirt in the frosty air¾see his nipples tighten; but he beats me to it. He pushes me against the brick, mumbling strange words in an alien language. He grinds mean against me. I tell him, “Hey…slow down…no rush!” and try to kiss him. He speaks words that sound like “pacnithar sooka” and pushes me back harder with his shoulder, using his one arm’s hand to rip my pant zipper down. In a millisecond he flings his hand upward, slaps me hard across the face and then it’s down again, tugging harder. Panic?¾shit!¾I feel warm blood from my nose. I think this isn’t how it’s supposed to go. I fucked up. He was the animal I’d avoided till now¾preservation mode and adrenalin kick in¾ I knee him in the groin and don’t wait like a stupid bitch in the movies¾I take off running toward the short end of the alley.

Alcohol in my blood and brain take me down a few wrong streets till I find my sweet little rusty ride waiting on South Halsted. Picking the key out from its hiding place, I slide onto the driver’s seat, lock the door, and light a smoke. I take it in deep, then exhale smoke-laced fear. I watch how the smoke’s vapors hang in the air, meeting the cold head on.

It was only a little after two a.m.¾I think about heading north, towards Diversey¾maybe some college boy or husband out late after work who should have been home long ago to one of those cotton sheeted beds. Turning the ignition, I pull it out slow.

A Aquifer of Self (with a Blessing from the Bog People)

An Aquifer of Self (with a Blessing from the Bog People)

I was caught inside a monkey puzzle

tree¾confused¾a corrugated ripple

of prodded, shredded original skin, a mockery

of what could have been, hidden within

thick sediment of calcified bone

but pulled hard by southern latitude, slipped

southward I did, sloping low to just ten feet

above sea level, returning to primal Summerland

where eight thousand years passed since the Bog

People pinned down their dead with wooden stakes

in water-filled graves for thirteen hundred

years until their calibrations shifted,

their collective equilibrium of weaving cloth

and hunting deer moved elsewhere¾to a vanishing

point, an edge-space where they disappeared.

In the death cradle, here, at peat bog’s edge

I slip in with them, let out my breath

till I feel my bones turn from me¾I hold fast

to the thick of my iliac crest and take in their gifts:

mineral and marrow become a honeycomb

of flexible cartilage. I put my thumb and forefinger

into the hollow of their own woven bones¾

their spine and fossa. I caress the dark plum

of their brain preserved as they slumber,

sustained in sapric peat; swim in their whispered lullaby

and sense an aquifer of self begin the flush¾

the filtering out of sediment and sentiment¾the foreign

and unnecessary. Lightened, my arms sweep

upwards like wings of red-capped crane

returning in autumn. Sleeping child pulls a turtle’s

carapace, speckled, and a toy wooden pestle,

from beneath her shroud in an invitation

to play in their shallow grave¾

her mother, close by, offers muddied prickly pear,

bottle gourds, and elderberry seeds as sacrifice

to the living so that the magic of the dead is remembered.

This is how we learn to breathe. I give silt-filled whispers

back as their bodies encircle my limbs, my torso¾

lift my arms and push at the curved arch of each foot.

Over one hundred men, women and children sing

to me of palmetto and manatee, of ibis and alligator.

They hum vibrations of big wind storms and the biology

of birth till I crawl to the bog-pond’s edge with glorious

gifts: blood-songs and hummingbird, the jacaranda

and yucca in my lung. The starting point of me, awash fresh

in the mud of man, god and goddess, undisturbed¾

until eleven years, eleven months, and eleven

days later, in 1982¾when a Titusville back-hoe operator

digging out a pristine pond for a road in Windover Farms

discovers the preserved bodies of one hundred sixty-seven

people who’d been laid to rest there over eighty centuries

ago. Teeth pulled tight across my jaw as the gift of the bottle

gourd and prickly pear shake under fingertips

of my strong bones and sinuous skin. I hum the tunes

of the queen palm weavers and makers of mammoth rib hammers,

trying to recall what I’d gone into the pond

to forget¾the memory of the monkey puzzle

tree, too small now, to remember.

Photo Credit: http://cchscostarica08.pbworks.com/f/wetlandsregion.jpg

Seaside on Horseback

Seaside on Horseback

Spinning, spinning, spinning

Blue-green sea foam songs

Like little fish through veins. Round

I go¾an ellipse, a double helix¾

Vibrations causing catalystic

Change. Toes skimming water¾

Gone airborne¾

Fingertips touch clouds!

Converting sunshine through slippery skin

With saltwater bubbles on solitary ride.  Fingers

Lock on horse’s mane

While twirling atoms spillback¾

Oh God, here I go¾hips shake

Feet tap, arms circle, come apart, hands

Clap! Clap! Clap! 

Up and down hips plunge,

Slip slip slip

Onto shoreline to dancing men;

Sweat sweat sweat

Into bare-naked dune. Glass breaks

Spilling energy into raw lust¾glorious lust!

Whip snap clap tap, can’t stop¾   

Hesitant chance breathes faster¾exhaling

Inhaling, teasing sadness

Into submission. Evening wildness

Blurred under new moonlight

As celestial body exhales moon breath

Like silks shifting. Horses clopping,

Gaining strength as old secrets

Breathe back in¾letting truth

Go wild; let it go¾let it go to the bone spring,

The aching rib, keep it long past old age¾wonderfully

Afraid¾alive! Feet fly, fingers play  

At twirling silk. Can’t breathe¾

Sing in the air then, and always¾

Always let the men wait

While women and horses have their way.

Betwixt the WInd and Water (Revision)

Betwixt the Wind and Water

As Tillman Swidden finished his eighty-seventh birthday
he suffered pinpricks in his knees sharp-end roadmaps within veins
Hell’s fury felt in red-hued fists smashing betwixt the wind and water
watching other boats (virile) sail out to sea like lover’s trysts of fecundity

He suffered pinpricks in his knees sharp-end roadmaps within veins
while raising harpooned muscle from bitter dock-side chair
watching other boats (virile) sail out to sea like lover’s trysts of fecundity
Gnashing choleric teeth he spit tobacco to gusting salted wind

While raising harpooned muscle from bitter dock-side chair
his ragged wrath rejoiced at nothing; vexed bones bare-viewed to the eye
Gnashing choleric teeth he spit tobacco to gusting salted wind
and turned his back on what he’d passioned--his love-song for the sea

His ragged wrath rejoiced at nothing; vexed bones bare-viewed to the eye
Tillman swore in broken hammered colors with aged lapsing tongue
and turned his back on what he’d passioned--his love-song for the sea
Foul anchor after seventy (lovelorn) years upon her riptide breast

Tillman swore in broken hammered colors with aged lapsing tongue
for knotted fists and gnarled hips kept him from his wet-skinned love
Foul anchor after seventy (lovelorn) years upon her riptide breast
Palsied eye gauged a brazen tempest; sea-kelp lashed at withered wind-worn skin

For knotted fists and gnarled hips kept him from his wet-skinned love
Chipped and frayed, betrayed by age and brittled flaccid lung
Palsied eye gauged a brazen tempest; sea-kelp lashed at withered wind-worn skin
Could she offer no ex-love’s respite while others sailed those sensuous waves?

Chipped and frayed, betrayed by age and brittled flaccid lung
as Tillman Swidden finished his eighty-seventh birthday
Could she offer no ex-love’s respite while others sailed those sensuous waves?
Hell’s fury felt in red-hued fists smashing betwixt the wind and water

Betwixt the Wind and Water

Betwixt the Wind and Water

As Tillman Swidden finished his eighty-seventh birthday

he suffered pinpricks in his knees; sharp-end roadmaps in veins

All fury felt in red-hued black, fists smashing betwixt the wind and water

watching virile boats sail out to sea, like lovers to fecund tryst

He suffered pinpricks in his knees; sharp-end roadmaps in veins

through his rising from bitter dock-side chair,

watching virile boats sail out to sea, like lovers to fecund tryst

Gnashing choleric teeth, he spit tobacco to gusting wind

Through his rising from bitter dock-side chair,

his ragged wrath rejoiced at nothing; vexed bones visible to the eye

Gnashing choleric teeth, he spit tobacco to gusting wind    

and turned his back on what he’d passioned; his love-song of the sea

His ragged wrath rejoiced at nothing; vexed bones visible to the eye

Tillman swore in broken, hammered colors with aged, lapsing tongue

and turned his back on what he’d passioned; his love-song of the sea

He’d spent seventy lovelorn years upon her thankless breast

Tillman swore in broken, hammered colors with aged, lapsing tongue

for knotted fists and gnarled hips kept him from his wet-skinned mistress

He’d spent seventy lovelorn years upon her thankless breast,

but now a brazen tempest was she; her rage against him showed

For knotted fists and gnarled hips kept him from his wet-skinned mistress

Chipped and frayed, betrayed by age and brittled dream,

but now a brazen tempest was she; her rage against him showed

She offered no respite as others sailed her sensuous waves

Chipped and frayed, betrayed by age and brittled dream

as Tillman Swidden finished his eighty-seventh birthday

She offered no respite as others sailed her sensuous waves,

all fury felt in red-hued black, fists smashing betwixt the wind and water