www.sandhillreview.org 2001 November

Heart of Fire, Body of Ash: A Sonnet Sequence

(for J.)

I. Cheers

We’re pushing half a century, and half

Of that, almost, is where the end began.

Which might explain why, bracing on this staff,

I’m hobbling through the years that barked and ran

Between my legs not recognizing me,

Their master, stepping from this time machine –

Good guard dogs, how could they have known I’d be

This foggy in their memory – I mean

We locked them in the vineyard, thought we’d romp

That young entwined forever (though with haste

Had known we’d not). Like ripe grapes bare feet stomp

When aged develop their full-bodied taste,

(Strange mind, these vines for all those years enwreathe)

I pull the cork, I let that season breathe.

II. Always and Forever

I’d ask you to recall the bed springs’ squeak

But that might complicate your Midwest twang,

Perhaps one peek between those walls that creak

Until we throw the mattress on the dang

Floor, jeez you’d think we’d have the brains to wait

Till we got home but no the back seat sweats,

You’d bet the night’s humidity would sate

Weird thirst for moisture, wrong, the dawn’s dew wets

Thick grasses dried and mowed by neighbors’ kids

Before we stop to muse, My God, it’s dusk!

And grab a bite, but sucking plum pits bids

Mosquitoes as our boat drifts on the husk

Of summer, leaves fall, showers drench touched heads,

Squeezed skin, pressed lips, harsh snowstorms sink our beds.

III. Dreamweaver

That night we crawled from sex, got dressed cold, drove

Out to the boondocks, down fogged county roads

Of potholes sprouting woods on past thick groves

Of dogwoods glowing into headlight odes

To spring, till twilight sharpened fog to steel

And hills like tomcats stretched and arched chilled backs

To stalk soft waking light, the steering wheel

Turned wide and parked in open field, the blacks

Of silhouettes gave way for miles to white

Wild roses shining as if night had shed

Its stars there, sky’s magenta gold-streaked light

Spilled down, igniting dew drops’ trillion webs

We walked through, flaring butterflies that rose

Through shadows cast by clouds of hungry crows.

IV. Love or Lust

Love makes the psyche hit the ice and spin.

Same jealous love could sideswipe death and grin,

Would squeal her tires and race fate in control

Down brambly ghost roads to the lake. But sin

Must pay for long nights’ sweltry rock-and-roll,

Hot engine ticking under stars so full

Their joy and spin so hushed the frogs begin

All universes’ motion – Each kiss stole

Light’s truth from heat old chaos melts again,

The wheel released, with both hands squeezing skin –

On steamy bucket seats, some dewy knoll,

Or stuck in woods our wheels would drive us in….

Fuck! Damn! Cop spotlight strips the miracle.

We race off, dressed in nothing but our soul.

V. Love as Hate

The day reality climbed up on stage,

Life’s paradox of love as hate stung, sung

By poets. Long before my mother tongue

Let loose its healing venom. Back when rage,

My rage against love’s dying light (mock light’s

The “darkness Christian devils” wear, the mask

Of “pompous bigot hypocrites” who cast

Their “demons in my soul,” their “conjured plights”…)

My lines against their cross/roads raged. Saints stripped

Us, staged as Jesus’ passion, “love’s” hate killed

Faith’s scripts, props, costumes – How their fifth act spilled

Its violent agony! The curtain ripped… –

Can poets, lovers, mad dykes curse to bless?

Can heaven’s sets collapse to dust? – Hell yes!

VI. No Exit

The ground you walk on quakes. A subtle rift

Where continents collide. Our bedroom tilts.

The roof caves in. Cement foundations shift.

Glass sprays, doors slam forever….Structure wilts,

A heap of viewless windows, ghosts of doors

That led somewhere, cold lamplight beaming dust.

Cries, bleeding, suffocate surreal through floors

We lived on – How, when even earth’s tough crust

Collapses, how when love lies manifest

In hate, when pain corrodes the soul, when spite

Screams drown in bubbling acid sludge it guessed

Was water, how when burst pipes suck the night

From hell’s trap labyrinth of torment, worse

Than writhing, how the snake strikes through my curse…

VII. Still Crazy After All These Years

I learned love picked my pocket when I thought

I’d lost my marbles. Why wrath sold my soul

Is where love saved it. What the devil bought

I stole back, let it roll back down spite’s hole

He claimed was hell. Now mine. Fierce pissed spit flames.

In flames I found my wallet. All those bills

Tucked neat in slots of ash. Such sucker games.

I cursed that dame who’d hooked me, picked cheap thrills

Clean, dumped me. She said, life’s a gamble. Laughed.

Bitch left me broke. Old Charon poled me free

Back through her smoke (my shouts had caused a draft,

His lantern sputtered….). Sun’s flames blinding. See,

She loves me. Loves me not. – This daisy chain

Noosed round my neck. Love – lucidly insane.

VIII. The Man

The Man I loved stood on the other shore.

Tough chore to wade half way, I tried to swim

Across, cold currents quickened, widened, bore

Down from the waterfall, its deafening roar

Stark contrast to his silent stare, god-prim

Unchanging features, strange light seemed to pour

Out sinister from glaring shadows, dim

And musty, even as I grabbed a limb

That broke off in my hand, the currents tore

Me farther, distance swept hope past its brim

Into a lake of undertows, its core

Some drowned volcano, yet he stood before

Me, stone, unmoved, when, as I reached for him,

You pulled me, drowning, just below my skim.

IX. Shadow

In all the thousand nightmares you are dead,

The living dead, freak zombie, face of ice

And stone hands twice as cold as hell, which led

Me first to reckon frigid death the price

You’d pay to leave me. Then I thought I’d seen

You for the first time, sadist, through your mask.

I watched you kiss the devil, through a screen

Of smoke I heard you count the cost and ask

For nothing more. Your bigots sacrificed

Our bond, pooled feelings, years of sex we had

Went up in mocking flames – Your fear enticed

Your shame, which murdered us. Which passion’s “bad”?

You, too alive? Love’s death, too much to pay?

My sad, pained shadow twisting truth this way?

X. Fifth Stage of Grief

The first stage wasn’t easy. Had I lied

I’d spared my heart its hermitage of pain.

But no, the truth sets free, though I was fried

By then, and can’t be sure if free means sane

Or just forgetful. Life does wield its way

Just stuffing bills inside a scream, so yes,

I’ve bargained with the devil, he would say

He got my soul, I was a mess, I guess,

But less so than that year the angel sat

Down on my flat, big brooding hen, I thought

She’d never hatch and split, the neighbor’s cat

Got fat just watching, waiting. If we fought

Depression, it’s a draw; still not adept

At loss, your absence I will not accept.

XI. I Do Know

Your breakdown did surprise me. Not one bit.

My shock that you would marry him, not slit

My throat, I had expected. Not we’d spit

And hiss and even slap each other, hit

A little harder, harder, till we laughed

And hit the sack our last day as a team,

Best friends, true lovers, bosom buddies, laughed

Until we wept, until the final scream

Sent neighbors pounding on the floor. They wished

Our quiet murder. We had always known we’d meet

Again, but not that freak encounter fished

Up by sadistic gods who took a seat

As hubby huffed away in agony

Like ours because he knows you just love me.

XII. I’m Lucky, Really

I could have spun off any cliff, or hit

A bridge abutment, could have “fallen,” split

The pavement, crashed brick wall, choked on the pit,

Consumed a drug store’s pills. Pain should have slit

The vein connecting me to God, wrath should

Have briefly tasted bullets – one, at least –

Rage should have dived too deep, unhurried stood

On some volcano’s lip and cursed the beast

Before it learned to fly. Hate would have leapt

Beneath a wing and never pulled the cord,

Insane love would have picked up serpents, crept

Into a war lord’s den, licked vengeance’ sword –

But hey, I been there, done that, and survived

To tell you it’s damn good to be alive.

XIII. Then Again

This photo’s two dimensions multiplied

By ten describes this zone I’m in with you

Here with me – us so young… Is love implied

By memory less exact or real than stew

I stand here stirring, burning, thinking back

As far as stars that burned out long ago

Still burn outside this window, and this stack

Of firewood I just lit, its rings aglow

Were shaped no doubt those years before we split

In two. That axe still glints. – Is light the ghost?

Is smoke light’s essence? Here, now, as I sit

Down eating stew, and stew on you, and toast

You with this poem, I feel connections sever.

All love’s cold ash. Unless it flares forever.