In his dream he was at the end
of a long hall.
Was it a dark hall?
At the other end of the hall he saw the nude figure of his
father
bent over an object he could not define
moving up and down.
He began to walk down the hall, walk
towards his father.
As he came closer he saw
his father was pumping up and down up and down
working with a bicycle pump
blowing something up.
Arriving he saw his father was pumping
a goomey women she got bigger and bigger
and his father kept pumping
The fire doors
open out going down
hinged at the left
to the outside frame.
In the intricacy of the stacks,
tier on tier,
turning always right
it was possible
for a man
to remain unnoticed.
incurved
the frame's vault
the door's metal
the hand opens
in the gesture
of closing
I walking on the railroad ties
I am on your legs sometimes
I am using your eyes
to see
The mussle shells cracked and jammed
Between the pilings
Father to see
Blackberry vines naked and rusty
Pushing up through concrete and
Around the fence posts
Enterweaving earth and sky father
Pushing back the city
With your legs and with your star eyes
With your hands of rock and moss
Laying her to seed in crimson sage
Again making her to seed the highway.
That in his face
was no orgasm
but a rabbit,
paw caught
steel at the base
of the tree,
which was his face
was generous
spread to heaven.
At night the roots
would sneak out for water
past the trap in which wrestled
his contraries, was my teacher
& never knew why
his sternness recalled my father
as Reich in Freud's
the father's face comes broken at the face of the water
face to face they flow to the valley
water and father
Each puff, I wince
As I know what it means:
Someday soon, you'll go.
Each puff, you know,
But you can't help it:
You just have to blow that smoke.
One day, I'll pick up the phone:
It's okay Daddy,
I'll be prepared.
Although your roots are weak and small
And only visible to the left
Your grew strong proud and tall
With a heart so big so red
Who knows who the father is
The seed that made you grow
Sometimes you wish to see his face
The face you don't even know
Swiftly leaves and branches fall
Another life another year
But yet your still stand brave and tall
Like a tree with out a fear
My father is 88.
Yesterday I got a letter from him.
He said he has not been feeling very well lately
for in these last six months
he has lost four of his friends
and three of his teeth.
My dear son,
thanks for the invitation
but I can’t come.
It’s spring time now
and you should know that I am busy.
The snow just died and I have to go to its funeral.
Leaf buds are going to be born soon
and I have to attend their birthday parties.
After that the flowers
are going to have
their wedding celebrations
and I cannot miss those.
You know,
last month death invited me too
but I told it that I couldn't go.
I said, “It’s spring...I'm busy”.
It’s the only number
I’ve befriended. Others see
it as sailboat or
tree. I see it
as a sentinel in
the snow, a draftee
more lost than zero,
more alone than one.
Circular and disorderly, I
love nonetheless angles, geometry.
I spent summers truing
four corners of foundations
with my founding father.
Four’s the only number
that romanced me; it’s
the beat, the measure,
Early on summer days
I'd wake to my Dad's wedding band
clicking on the ivory keys.
His hymns would nudge me awake off the living room couch;
my camp site when AC was a luxury we still ignored as a family.
There was often no sheet music, no scrawled chord progressions guiding him,
just his hands knowing; finding the keys that agreed without looking.
At the time, it might as well have been
an alarm clock prelude to my chores, the signal that a break
from school could still be spoiled slapping paint on the peeling
exterior of our house as some lesson of work.
But now, I'd speak of this less harsh bugle call fondly.
I'd construct it into conversation so it appeared that
She told me to sign the form
but the name just wouldn’t
come out. From the tip of my pen
my own name simply refused
to be written. I kept wondering
what the hell was wrong with me,
asked for more paper, tried
again and again, but the letters
wouldn’t form the correct structure.
I wrote JOHN
instead of JOSHUA.
John is my dad’s name.
My dad’s. Not mine.
She gave me new paper.
Said I still had time.