CHAPTER 1

Still Life Moving Fast

Still life moving fast,out of the darkness, creation—shooting stars, flying apples, asteroids,mixed metaphors. Flash forward ten billion years.

Water turned to wine, suspended in space, in time, in memory,bread to life, my life, I fly out of the womb's darkness, there'sthe shining knife that cut the umbilical cord. One more lifethat can be seen in a frozen moment; as I evolve, capture it-thereare many of me: a child, a restless teen, a husband, father,Bacchanalian divorced man, grandfather, a husband—a still life moving fast.

Above the bed a glistening sea, Salvador, Macuto, scenesof honeymoons, one rising and descending, the other in full glow.There's the bed that satisfied lust and sealed enduring love, the othernot shown, ensured my immortality. An omnipotent hand and a swallowsuspended in flight on the edge between light and darkness, or is itthe Holy Spirit sent to replay scenes of a still life moving fast-inreverse, back to the womb and creation, or forward to what awaits.

The white sheet an anti-gravity table cloth, a bottlefloating, water returning to it from my mouth, the red clothbelow the darkness adorns a casket, a glass of claret wineshared with disciples at The Last Supper, is it mine?

Still life moving fast.

The Limited

We boarded the shiny car under la Guera'scareful watch. The Limited lurched from the station,passed hills that border East L.A., accelerating, slicingthe Mojave, blurred outlines of yuccas and tumbleweedsnear the tracks, home and the overcast sky far behind.Tranquilized by constant heartbeat of iron upon iron,the Limited rocked us to sleep. The train caught itsbreath on short stops—Yuma, Phoenix, Tucson, as it ranwith the night to encounter the sun. Guera awakened usbefore red and orange mountains swallowed the train.It strained, climbed, emerged from the cliffs like aserpent—the last cars visible on tenuous tracks windinghigh above Ysleta and the Rio Grande. My sister and Iwalked into a warm sun consoled and wrapped in the loveof our Mexican family. For 30 days we escaped thepainful, permanent void that awaited.

    Silver Dust

    Silver dust
    covers a glossy matrix,
    records, immortalizes
    in white and black,
    all that the metal eye seizes
    in its path.

    An explosion of light—
    a bride framed by an iconic steel tower;
    school children, hands joined,
    standing in a pristine snow;
    lovers embracing, lips locked in a death grip.

    A flash in the darkness—
    soldiers in black uniforms;
    a lifeless man lying by the Seine,
    face frozen in horror.

    Silver dust
    captures, exposes
    Human as the image of God
    as the face of the Devil.


    Fallingwater

    Spirits of braves and bears
    inhabit a dream, pervade
    a unique structure built
    by a mortal touched by the
    creative God who looks down
    from the Sistine Chapel.

    A rock/metal/concrete
    structure born of the earth
    and human imagination. It floats
    above a stream that bathes
    its sandstone anchor, then
    drops off the earth's edge
    into an eternity
    of soothing sounds.

    Terra colored house,
    whose red steel strips trim windows
    that open from non-existent
    corners, breathes in pure air,
    and welcomes a thousand
    generations of souls.

    Concept of a divinely inspired
    architect, a rebel in his realm,
    lines flow from house to infinity,
    cool water conquers heat,
    overhanging patios inspire awe, while
    enveloped by notes and songs
    of poplar, spruce, and pine
    played by the wind.


    Restless Sands

    (After Emily Dickinson)

    Scorpions crawl over
    Restless sands—Waves of Heat
    Blur reality—A horizon changed

    Yellow sands—
    Gray sands—
    Sands stained Red

    Restless sands Encroach—
    Consume hills, mountains—
    Rotten Icons

    Pervade—cover marble Palace floors
    Approach, envelop
    Monuments to Brutality

USA, Look In The Mirror

"I hereby accuse the North American empire of being the biggest menace
to our planet."
Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela
"Violence in the U.S. has no equal among the world's developed nations."
Tim Weiner, San Jose Mercury

    USA, in this, your third century,
    warts and imperfections are clearly visible ... but not to you.
    Has global power, confidence verging on arrogance,
    great wealth clouded your vision, corrupted your values?

    You overthrow governments—Iran, the Congo, Chile to name a few,
    and fight a preemptive war that kills and maims our own
    and devastates a sovereign state for one man—ours or theirs?

    It is an unwelcome surprise when Muslim nations
    say your Shock and Awe ... you
    make the world a more dangerous place.

    What is the price of hubris USA?
    Ask Sophocles and Euripides ...
    or read Gibbons.

    USA, look in the mirror.

    What persona do you show the world
    at the click of a satellite TV switch
    or computer mouse searching Internet cyber space?

    Hollywood porno magnate and concubines;
    aging beauty queen in a drugged out stupor;
    provocative housewives from coast to coast;
    bloody murder after bloody murder;
    nubile, vacuous Venuses converging
    on a Rock Star or a millionaire?

    Not enough? Then feed the world's visual diet with more of the same—
    USA motion pictures and too hot to touch music videos.

    Is this not the face of the immoral Great Satan?

    What is the profile of domestic America?

    Multi-millionaires and billionaires denounce taxes
    from the comfort of their yachts, their private jets, their palaces,
    while millions struggle to pay the rent and bills.

    Lust unsatisfied, the superrich fly off in a Zeppelin
    fueled by American labor and sweat,
    only to burn and fall ... on everyone.

    You nurture your young in the Ten Commandments,
    nursery rhymes, and Disney, then buy "cool" video games
    that teach them how to become actors—
    fantasy heroes who roam streets and kill;
    get in good with gangs and create mayhem;
    loot the bodies of victims to buy 50 Cent recordings;
    take pot, ecstasy, Quaaludes and LSD to increase their power.

    And USA, your adults practice idolatry
    at the altar of Second Amendment rights.
    The right to: 300 million guns, a murder rate
    worse than Mexico's—a city of 30,000 lives eradicated every year;
    threaten Senators and Congressmen with pistols and rifles in hand;
    send gifts to your southern neighbor, assault weapons—
    thousands of them.

    See Mexico crumble ... as droves pour into el Norte,
    fleeing for their physical and economic lives,
    while you complain of illegal immigration and resurrect
    a Berlin Wall on your southern soil, while
    drug lust and gun love shred the red, white and blue fabric.

    Though many cry out, Stop the insanity!
    the NRA stirs paranoia among its overtesteroned fold,
    growls, and timid politicians cower,
    getting the desired Pavlovian response.

    USA, look in the mirror.

    USA, are these the freedoms you fight for and die for?
    When will the protections and rights of your families, your communities
    and your society outweigh those of the individual?
    When will you drink from the cups of wisdom and courage?

    This is not the time to zone out on iPods, iPads, Blackberries,
    cell calls and text messages;
    it is not the time to retreat behind walls in gated communities,
    while your war torn cities and neglected towns decay and rot
    and your people cry out in depression and despair.

    You have been and are a great nation. You are Canaan; millions still flock
    to you. But learn from the rise and fall of Rome.

    USA, look in the mirror.

    (USA, Look in the Mirror first appeared in The Sligo Journal, Spring 2011.)


    Mae Dos Santos

    (Mother of Saints)

    Primeval drums beat
    faster, louder.
    Chants, invocations—
    Yoruba in the new world.

    Mae dos santos,
    lead your children in prayer and dance.
    You are the vessel to the world they seek.
    Open the doors for your brethren.
    Call the orixas.

    Phantoms in white, blank stares,
    spinning, twisting,
    contorted on the ground,
    scream and wail,
    piercing the still tropical night air.
    Souls freed to meet their chosen gods.

    A mulatta undulates on the floor
    in the presence of a goddess,
    whose ample breasts show
    through a diaphanous blue gown;
    a black man stares at a candle flame, pours
    hot wax on his chest and powerful arms,
    seeking affirmation from the red god—
    incarnation of the Oyo king;
    an infirm old woman cries,
    pleading for deliverance
    from the cloaked god, his skin
    covered in mud and cracked clay.

    Touch them ... cool their angst
    and burning inner fires.
    Temper their ecstasy. Help them
    find their way home.

    Halt the drums.
    Bring them back to their humble
    lives ... their poverty and travails.
    Souls are unburdened tonight.

    No strangers to the Mass,
    they worship their orixas ...
    not the church statue of Saint George or
    the pictures of the Virgin Mary
    at the entrance to their homes.

    It is you, mae dos santos, rather than
    the stern, pale priests and nuns,
    they place their faith in.


Letter To The Sun

(after Frank O'Hara)

Dear Sun:

You relentlessly rise, set, rise
set, turn pages—vivid personal photos
spring, summer, autumn, winter
repeated on auto-pilot
slow to fast to faster,
pictures caught in a strobe light
cinema verite mine,
projected on a screen.

I try desperately to slow you,
push you back, walk another
700 miles, 800 miles, lift
God knows how many tons of iron,
torture myself on the physioball—
short cuts only for Dr. Faustus
and Dorian Gray.


You see, Sun, I still have lots of plans. I'm gonna try like hell to make it
to 40, 45, if I'm ridiculously lucky, 50 years with my lovely wife, take her
places near and far we've never been—Niagara, Montreal, a boat ride
on the Danube, the temples of Cambodia, the Hermitage and Bolshoi
ballet, birding the jungles, savannahs and deserts, until we reach 3,000,
family reunions in exotic settings, maybe Costa Rica or Panama: we can
use our Spanish there, see the grandbabies reach 18, 21, if I win the
lottery, 25, keep moving the legs and swinging the racquet supersenior,
but what comes after supersenior?

It was time for my physical again last month,
but was it my turn? Hardening of the arteries—
is the bp high, the cholesterol, triglycerides,
PSA under 4.0, leucocytes, eosinophils OK? Please
doctor don't tell me it's the Big C!

I took a deep breath, left the office,
got a lease on life for another year. I'll keep
going full bore, taking photos for the calendar spring, summer,
fall, winter, until we both stop, Sun, I'll keep running the projector
to the moment the film freezes, the celluloid
burns melts disappears.

Yours Sincerely,


    Sentinel

    I was formed by molten innards of mother earth,
    carried down Pangaea's massive eastern mountains
    by a sea of ice, buried by remains of giant ferns
    and millions of creatures large and small,
    uncovered by thousands of years of wind and rain,
    yet here I stand, a sentinel perched upon a hill.
    I am a time machine that records
    the cycle of life and death,
    light and darkness, warmth and cold.
    I have seen wonders—fanged cats and mastodons,
    stone age peoples mashing maize
    and worshiping gods at my feet.
    I have felt the warm blood of slaughtered elk
    flow down my sides,
    the obsidian knife cut beyond flesh and into me,
    a record of 3,000 years of human history.
    I took pleasure at the center of my finite world,
    like a time-lapse photographer
    instructing modern man
    on the miracles that ebbed and flowed
    here, on this spot.

    The majestic gnarled oaks,
    fruit-laden chestnuts,
    and tall, proud poplars
    that covered me in a chartreuse canopy in spring,
    and a blanket of yellows, golds, and reds in fall,
    the blue birds and cicadas that serenaded me
    with songs sweet and shrill, are gone now.
    Gone too is the clear, cool creek.
    In its place a solid river of black runs through
    a barren canyon, on which flow steel machines
    that pound and shake the ground and
    leave behind a noxious smell of tar and fumes.
    I cannot cry, but my core is shaken.
    The joy of being one with the living earth is no more.
    I must wait a long, long time,
    but the day will come
    when a new frozen sea
    will cover the black river
    and carry me, a white flint boulder,
    to another hilltop, where
    I will again serve as sentinel
    that overlooks stream and woods
    filled with new life forms.


    Alternate Reality

    The doctor tells me I need surgery.
    Can you help me, Hermano Benjamin?

    Mother receives a reply postmarked
    Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico.

    Querida Natalia,
    Lay a fresh linen
    on a table in your bedroom,
    with a pan of boiled water,
    a strip of white thread,
    a sterilized needle,
    I will cure you tonight.
    Con Carino,
    Benjamin

    Brilliant blue light in the night sky crosses the border
    between logic and Plato's second reality, streaking
    through space, an old man's face embedded
    on a two-dimensional silicon pane hurtles
    into dream state consciousness.

    The white thread glows, rises like a snake,
    and passes through the eye of the needle. A blue light
    enters mother's bedroom, slicing through her abdomen.

    When she awakens, tired
    and sore, she approaches
    the table—the string
    is stained red, the pan water
    pink. Mother says that
    she's healed.


    Sonnet To Autumn

    Farewell to the sun's intense rays and heat,
    Helios struggles to warm the morning
    air. Wrens and robins gone, south they retreat.
    Prisms of dew—red, green to blue, sparkling
    on tall grasses; leaves brown and ochre fall
    gently to the ground. Queen Anne's Lace withers,
    yielding to goldenrod. Oak leaves snap, call
    out annoyed, punished by strong nor'easters.
    As short day retreats towards long night, a cloud
    floats in a deep blue sea. Soon, radiant
    moon bathes the Earth in its silvery shroud.
    Needles of ice form in the ambient,
    spreading a thick blanket of autumn white
    as the world sleeps, then marvels when it's light.


    American Nomad

    Plastic cape snaps and flows
    in the December wind,
    flimsy shield for a soiled, moth-eaten
    coat and broken old man. His skin
    cracked like parched earth, ravaged
    by years of relentless winter cold
    and unyielding summer rays.

    Meager belongings piled onto
    a rusty grocery cart, nomadic
    refugee from life that he became
    long ago. He walks with a limp
    and leans on the cart, not the brown
    cane that rests inside.

    His coarse handsome features
    approach. Sad, dark eyes reach out
    to people stopped at the light,
    and to others who walk past him
    as if he does not exist.

    For the few who approach with coins
    and bills, a surprise—abandoned by family,
    by society, how can this tortured soul
    whose lonely struggle for survival
    waged every day and night
    be sympathetic?

    He shakes his head, laughs,
    and says the mean wind pushed
    him and his cart in front
    of an oncoming car.

    Who were you before your
    demons robbed you of reason,
    your job, your family? A teenager
    thrust into the hell holes of Vietnam;
    an accountant, bus driver, handyman
    who made a living fixing other
    people's problems?

    Strange and noble, this wounded
    creature, despite the smell of stale
    sweat and urine that surrounds
    him.

    His desire and will to live
    another day still flicker within,
    for he chooses not to abandon
    the cart, lay down in the cold,
    surrender to the darkness.


    Aliens

    2010—farmers frozen in a past
    millennium

    human oxen till soil, harnessed
    to curved wooden implements, labor
    under hot Kenyan sun. Parched
    hands plant kernels-corn,
    wheat, harvest
    meek crops, others fail.

    21st century
    aliens descend
    determined, bridge ages,
    cultures, technologies.

    aliens of conscience

    birth a cooperative—lush
    green and golden
    crops, bushels in burlap
    bags, school houses arise
    from the land.

    the oxen shed their yokes.