I’m wetting my shins,
toiling through surge & tow,
recoiling from chill at my thighs.
My torso shudders & sinks
through ocean brown & cluttered
with plastic & feathers.
Kelp threads harness my hands.
Below me I wish for seabeds
of starfish & anemone.
Otters turn ebony heads
to witness the sea lions barking.
Close to the wharf
a breast imprudently slides
from a worn-out bikini.
She’s sleeping, a cloak
of flesh-seeking flies gleaning
her
sun-buttered hide.
Walking
myself dry
I’ve
seagulls for mates,
no sand-crusted lifeguard-
in-training feet sprinting
toward waves, no one
hand
straining for coach's brawn,
the
other backstroking hard
to
earn one of ten batons.
One
my way home
the
sign — bacterial tests,
not
to be touched, not to be ingested.
What
brain do I swim by?
— 16 August 2013
poems: 2013
Carol Peters
Monday, August 19, 2013
Summer
I sing to moisture on the back
deck —
mirroring, convex.
Since May I’ve been doublewide
where density is law.
The fabric of the deck chair
dimples
as moisture infiltrates
thread by thread.
How vacant it is, decrepitating
in morning scrim.
To me this trailer park
is daily abstention,
an intervention.
— after Akhmatova
— 18 August 2013
mirroring, convex.
Since May I’ve been doublewide
where density is law.
The fabric of the deck chair
dimples
as moisture infiltrates
thread by thread.
How vacant it is, decrepitating
in morning scrim.
To me this trailer park
is daily abstention,
an intervention.
— after Akhmatova
— 18 August 2013
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Out of My Skin
Itching —
my torso where
humongous hives had bloomed
after four doses of Aleve.
First I had thought it was the massage cream
but Googling listed rash & hives
as Aleve side effects.
Last night — awful
itching.
Sudden
frenzy convinced
me poison oak was back
conveyed by yesterday's T-shirt —
a blue one, stained, uncovered while packing.
I scrubbed with Zanfel, Mike scrubbed too —
get it off, get it off
me. All of a
sudden.
— 4 August 2013
my torso where
humongous hives had bloomed
after four doses of Aleve.
First I had thought it was the massage cream
but Googling listed rash & hives
as Aleve side effects.
Last night — awful
itching.
Sudden
frenzy convinced
me poison oak was back
conveyed by yesterday's T-shirt —
a blue one, stained, uncovered while packing.
I scrubbed with Zanfel, Mike scrubbed too —
get it off, get it off
me. All of a
sudden.
— 4 August 2013
I Wake from a Dream of Real Estate
Down the river chickens are
streaming —
large chickens with knobbly veins.
They have a trick of catching the current,
racing along. The man who owns the chickens
rides with them, the current so strong
he’s injured — a herniated testicle —
sounds painful, but we don’t like him, so we’re glad.
In my dream, as always, I’m young.
I wake up an old lady, struggle to dress
because the bed’s too high, my balance bad —
I’d sit on the floor but that’s beneath me.
I’m not sure I’m in love any longer —
I don’t feel surges or urges.
Mostly I want things tidy & I want to be left alone,
to go whaling in Patagonia, birding in Ecuador,
to ride my bicycle down Center Street in Santa Cruz.
If I brought Tova to Esalen we’d go to the hot spring baths.
She’s three, old enough to find the nudity surprising —
her people wear clothes
though they haven’t always, her daddy for sure
spent his second summer naked
including a week on a public beach with his naked brother
& mother & her boyfriend.
Two men threatened us at one point, but Steve had a knife too.
A man, his wife & donkey stared —
Whose children are they?
Surely not yours. Your breasts are too small.
— 10 August 2013
large chickens with knobbly veins.
They have a trick of catching the current,
racing along. The man who owns the chickens
rides with them, the current so strong
he’s injured — a herniated testicle —
sounds painful, but we don’t like him, so we’re glad.
In my dream, as always, I’m young.
I wake up an old lady, struggle to dress
because the bed’s too high, my balance bad —
I’d sit on the floor but that’s beneath me.
I’m not sure I’m in love any longer —
I don’t feel surges or urges.
Mostly I want things tidy & I want to be left alone,
to go whaling in Patagonia, birding in Ecuador,
to ride my bicycle down Center Street in Santa Cruz.
If I brought Tova to Esalen we’d go to the hot spring baths.
She’s three, old enough to find the nudity surprising —
her people wear clothes
though they haven’t always, her daddy for sure
spent his second summer naked
including a week on a public beach with his naked brother
& mother & her boyfriend.
Two men threatened us at one point, but Steve had a knife too.
A man, his wife & donkey stared —
Whose children are they?
Surely not yours. Your breasts are too small.
— 10 August 2013
Coming Home
I
mistake my kitten for a demon
breathing sparks & trailing fire. He grew wilder
while I was gone. When I crouch low
outside the front screen door, he raises his paws
mewing like a child lost, now found.
Back when I was eighteen, stranded
without my car, the aged Pontiac I lived in
that summer between high school & college,
I saved my tips to buy a Ducati —
all I could afford. Freshmen couldn’t have cars
at this women’s school, but no one thought
to proscribe two-wheelers.
The bike shop’s amorous Italian helped me close
the deal, score black-market plates from a DMV creep
called Lester the Molester — yes
he made me nervous but did me no harm. I guessed
I knew how to ride. From Western Ave to Garden Street,
Shepard to Walker, I blew through traffic signals,
cropped every corner, careened
through a Shell station without pausing for gas,
braked at the curb in front of my dorm &
tipped the bike over, slid
my left foot into the rear spokes —
a poor choice to stop the wheel from spinning.
Nothing destroyed but nerve
yet I couldn’t walk. My friends found me a ride-share
home to my mother — estranged
I wouldn’t call. Arrived on her unlit porch
I rang the bell. I knew it was late
but college life became me —
skipping morning classes meant
I stayed up half the night. Last I’d heard
Mom was raising my teenage brother, they’d adopted
a Great Dane. The front door opened
to rabid barking in a blaze of light
my mother aiming a revolver at my heart,
crying out to see my face,
the crutch, lowering the gun
she said, I thought you were a burglar.
Lucky for you I didn’t fire.
— 12 August 2013
breathing sparks & trailing fire. He grew wilder
while I was gone. When I crouch low
outside the front screen door, he raises his paws
mewing like a child lost, now found.
Back when I was eighteen, stranded
without my car, the aged Pontiac I lived in
that summer between high school & college,
I saved my tips to buy a Ducati —
all I could afford. Freshmen couldn’t have cars
at this women’s school, but no one thought
to proscribe two-wheelers.
The bike shop’s amorous Italian helped me close
the deal, score black-market plates from a DMV creep
called Lester the Molester — yes
he made me nervous but did me no harm. I guessed
I knew how to ride. From Western Ave to Garden Street,
Shepard to Walker, I blew through traffic signals,
cropped every corner, careened
through a Shell station without pausing for gas,
braked at the curb in front of my dorm &
tipped the bike over, slid
my left foot into the rear spokes —
a poor choice to stop the wheel from spinning.
Nothing destroyed but nerve
yet I couldn’t walk. My friends found me a ride-share
home to my mother — estranged
I wouldn’t call. Arrived on her unlit porch
I rang the bell. I knew it was late
but college life became me —
skipping morning classes meant
I stayed up half the night. Last I’d heard
Mom was raising my teenage brother, they’d adopted
a Great Dane. The front door opened
to rabid barking in a blaze of light
my mother aiming a revolver at my heart,
crying out to see my face,
the crutch, lowering the gun
she said, I thought you were a burglar.
Lucky for you I didn’t fire.
— 12 August 2013
After Watching Another Video of the Tsunami
Half
a city flooded on top of the other,
houses broken apart, whoever
was inside them gone, whether
or not anyone reported them missing
gone because the houses are downriver.
Like papier-mâché once was paper
once these were homes. Many who lived in these homes
don’t care, they’re dead. After Fukushima
who remembers how many died —
many more, we suspect, will die.
Why not watch, again & again
the wave when it arrived, how it damaged.
Just watching it, we’re still alive.
— 13 August 2013
houses broken apart, whoever
was inside them gone, whether
or not anyone reported them missing
gone because the houses are downriver.
Like papier-mâché once was paper
once these were homes. Many who lived in these homes
don’t care, they’re dead. After Fukushima
who remembers how many died —
many more, we suspect, will die.
Why not watch, again & again
the wave when it arrived, how it damaged.
Just watching it, we’re still alive.
— 13 August 2013
Orare for Argentina
Why
irrigate the desert
if no one walks the paths,looks at flowers.
So many things we bought
there, took there,
what’s missing in our life —
the photo purchased in Carolina —
a sun-blacked heron,
an algae-green pond.
— 14 August 2013
Weather
When
friends put sail to their catamaran
I’m mildly troubled but not worried.
If anyone knows how
I’m mildly troubled but not worried.
If anyone knows how
they
do, still, chancing it
on
water, the heave & hum,
liable
to storms
though
short-hauling
they
can know the weather.
Months
now, spring
&
all summer, they’ve made port
in
Portland,
their
Argentine house finished but untried.
Already
it’s August, the month
the
great wind starts.
— 14 August 2013
After Akhmatova
The
moon’s cool cream pocket has brimmed
& bottled the choir of evening crows.
It’s merely urban citizenry,
crepuscular filibuster.
Who made it my lamplighter
& why does it lampoon me?
Or is this a koan conjuring
vexing voodoo for me?
— 14 August 2013
& bottled the choir of evening crows.
It’s merely urban citizenry,
crepuscular filibuster.
Who made it my lamplighter
& why does it lampoon me?
Or is this a koan conjuring
vexing voodoo for me?
— 14 August 2013
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Ship's Clock Bells
On
the mantel a ship’s clock
bells
each watch —a single chime
marks
half past midnight
six
chimes three. By six
the backyard young men
partying
all night are gone —
no,
they’re still at it though
the
baby’s no longer screaming —
is
it sick? or worse, alone?The bullfrog, knowing I watch
from
the window above its head
doesn’t
answer calls from anotherbullfrog deep in the reeds.
Nuthatch is waiting
for
feeders I carried inside
the
night before — rain be damned
I
sandal up to hang them
— hummingbird
wheels.The washer spins, the dining
room table shakes, my tea trembles
at such fearful asymmetry.
Claw
prints on deck boards
chattering
& screaming —
how
can raccoons affordto mate in the night?
And what’s a kitten’s secret?
No,
I can’t say secret
or
heart or frozen ice or melt —
simply care for, welcome inside.
— 20 July 2013
simply care for, welcome inside.
— 20 July 2013
Losing Argentina
when I disappeared
malbec swamped my throat
like Andean snow melt surging the acequia
how I chose passionfruit ice cream
wishing it were opuntia
how I pretended I never wanted a screen porch
& a cat door she’d lever bats through
moth wings in shower drains
cactus spines trepanning my hat brim
triple-thorn scar bursts
tattooing escape routes onto my arms
hue & cry of zorros every night
when i disappeared
an out-of-mind fissure wolfed
my household down to the nutcracker
i fled with Chinese zapatos & a shooting blind
the burrowing owls agreed with me
parrot flocks burned blue
I felt like a wasp hive in
the air conditioner after a swarm
I ate no more grass-fed bife
my wallet was plumbed for identification
I couldn’t bicycle
when I disappeared
the desert morphed into pan casero
went crumbling off to where llamas stampeded
went crumbling off to where llamas stampeded
acequia, irrigation ditch
opuntia, prickly pear cactus
zorros, foxes
zapatos, shoes
bife, beef
pan casero, homemade bread
— 31 July 2013
Suet
The gray squirrel
hangs from her back paws
from the two-sided feeder
furls her torso inward to raise
front paws & mouth, snares
a chunk, floats full length —
meal in paws — to eat it.
Now from front paws
she lolls, her tail a body length
below. I suppose she’ll eat
one whole slab if no one stops her —
not the blue jay watching
from the cast-iron swoop holding
the hummingbird feeder
not two doves pacing the deck
for loot she drops
not even two blue jays, a red
squirrel, more doves.
— 30 June 2013
squirrel, more doves.
— 30 June 2013
Stanley & Adrienne
The street I live and write in
was not a left-wing poet.
I also think of Bernstein,
wild and metaphysic heart —
the risk-taking of one who
makes my poems and lives my life
heavy as the white-lipped boy
from my whole erotic self.
My mother never forgave
your life for the privilege.
My themes and the use I have
dream of a common language.
Images glimpses questions,
art with economic power
are mindful of your garden —
the poet-scholar-martyr.
Bowels of the hippodrome,
great crashing alexandrines,
comets trailing tender spume —
edge of meaning yet can mean.
My mother’s breast was thorny —
think the art of translation,
if anything, makes poetry
your turn. Grass of confusion
is something more powerful —
the cry of writhing nerve-ends,
impaired intellectual.
You are, in a word, avid.
[this poem of 7-syllable line, abab rhyming quatrains is a cento; each line is an unaltered excerpt from two books: Stanley Kunitz's Collected Poems & Adrienne Rich's Arts of the Possible: Essays & Conversations]
— 6 July 2013
— 6 July 2013
Mrs. X
The
woman pulls her wealth behind her
in a wheeled cart. If she’s my mother
it’s because between our last visit
& the day my family told me she died —
alone in her sleep — she escaped,
queened herself onto a plane
to San Francisco, a bus to Santa Cruz,
her white blouse tucked into frayed slacks,
permanent curls though she’s transient —
she’s taller now, seems thinner
but bustier, if foundered swells signify —
cratered-moon face, moth-wing hands,
bandaged flats.
When I look into her eyes
she looks away, she doesn’t keep a pet
or croon for bills in a hat, she hasn’t asked
but if I gave her my wallet, what would it buy?
— 9 September 2013
in a wheeled cart. If she’s my mother
it’s because between our last visit
& the day my family told me she died —
alone in her sleep — she escaped,
queened herself onto a plane
to San Francisco, a bus to Santa Cruz,
her white blouse tucked into frayed slacks,
permanent curls though she’s transient —
she’s taller now, seems thinner
but bustier, if foundered swells signify —
cratered-moon face, moth-wing hands,
bandaged flats.
When I look into her eyes
she looks away, she doesn’t keep a pet
or croon for bills in a hat, she hasn’t asked
but if I gave her my wallet, what would it buy?
— 9 September 2013
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Poetry
poetry
cooks my goose
chops me up, spits me out
stomps on my fingers
kicks me in the head
poetry saves me from the news
from women who lunch
from duplicate bridge, hairdos
celebrities, fashion
poetry authorizes me to ignore
polite conversation
to poke at roadkill, to talk
to children instead of adults
poetry explains my moods
my madcop technicolor dreams
my lack of tact, my failure
to tell the truth or make sense
poetry acknowledges
my hatred for patriarchy
my disdain for your opinion
your politics, your religion
poetry makes me a poor
risk for the guest list
of your dinner party
stomps on my fingers
kicks me in the head
poetry saves me from the news
from women who lunch
from duplicate bridge, hairdos
celebrities, fashion
poetry authorizes me to ignore
polite conversation
to poke at roadkill, to talk
to children instead of adults
poetry explains my moods
my madcop technicolor dreams
my lack of tact, my failure
to tell the truth or make sense
poetry acknowledges
my hatred for patriarchy
my disdain for your opinion
your politics, your religion
poetry makes me a poor
risk for the guest list
of your dinner party
but
a good pal for your cat
— 30 April 2013
It Hit Me on Vacation in Chile
Tipoffs —
llama lips rearing, teeth leering —
llama lips rearing, teeth leering —
trailered the email crafted in Spanglish legalese
ginned by the Argentine caudillo punk
ready & able to kill me.
Reader, I bailed —
house, garden, gear, cat, husband Mike if need be —
flew like a budding leukocyte
to Esther’s aid, her latest breast cancer bleeped
but her future vague.
Grandmother now
I housekeep a toddler, sleep in a doublewide.
Andean weather frescoes a turned page.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Civil Space
I
feel our borrowed car
contact
the car
behind
us
the
slightest bump
a
nearly zero-
impact
collision
surprise,
yes, shock
Mike
believes
the
other driver hit us
as
Mike was shifting
into
reverse
doesn’t
believe
he
backed into him
we
all disembark
look
at the cars
no
damage
to
either car
to
any person
I’m
sorry, Mike says
the
other driver
raises
his arms, raises
his
voice at Mike
This
is not good
We
have a problem
the
other driver
repeats
himself
pushes
himself
in
Mike’s face
demands
that Mike
repeat
a string of words
the
other invents
I’m
sorry, it was
all
my fault
Mike
says it
the
other slaps
Mike’s
shoulder
we
walk away
Anticipating Fennel
next to a second planting of St. John’s Wort
I sow arrowy chamomile & feathery yarrow,
strew borage to interpolate blue, Greek
oregano so prolific its prunings should crest
my gray plastic wheelbarrow, & sacrifice
bunkered persuasions of underground mint
for sage & thyme the afternoon desert winds
will sandblast springtime thru summer, isolate
prickly pear from artichoke, rhubarb heart
to rosemary's proven veins, lie lavender.
— 30 June 2013
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Mynah
1
Forty
feet in the air,
the
stob of a flowering ohiʽa
bows
under a mynah.
2
Mynahs,
their wings black-&-white
black-&-white,
strobe the soccer fields
scanning
for the epileptics’ team bus.
3
A
flock of seven ducks shares one mind.
Seven
mynahs pretend fourteen.
4
Every
region has its rowdy –
mockingbird,
magpie, or mynah
playboy,
bully, or lout –
ornamental
gardens with broken statuary
may
be granted more than one.
5
Downtown,
I watch them rise with alarm
settle
with hops & swaggers. At home
nothing
larger than ladybugs fly
aside
from cardinals & pigs.
6
Unseen,
the jungle whistles
with
honeycreeper, scrubland
fosters
nene. Then settlers come
with
talking mynahs, chili fed
to
etch their naturally slit tongues
for
finer articulation.
7
O
ill-paid inspector
How
does my apple evade you?
Will
you be relieving a widow of her potpourri
while
mynahs swoop through the air space
to
nab the core from my hand?
8
I’m
selling my air gun, bought years ago
but
never used, the barrel now rusty.
Rod
will pay $40 to shoot the hundreds of
bandoliered
mynahs looting his money crops –
mangosteen,
rambutan, lychee.
9
When
mynahs stand in a downpour
it
doesn’t mean they can’t fly or don’t care
it
means they don’t feel it.
10
The
gutter along the ocean side of our house
amplifies
the morning fusillade
stepped
off by mynahs.
11
She
hears outside the window
a
sporadic tapping.
Tapping
back in Morse code
she
begs the mynah’s forgiveness
promises
lacquered boxes, nacreous collar studs
yards
& yards of gold braid.
12
Ringed
by contenders, one mynah spatchcocks
another,
dip & peck, dip & peck. Which
yellow
eye blisters red?
13
Mynahs
are not like ocultos
in
Argentina. They do not startle up at night
from
ground nests or shriek from the branches of trees.
Mynahs
dissolve two hours after sunset
&
reassemble eleven minutes before dawn.
— 12 February 2013
— 12 February 2013
Walking Out
Walking down this
steep trail, I drone to myself:
Kent, I need to rest.
Juan, necesito descansar.
Twenty times, one
hundred, breath harsh
against my ears. My trekking
poles swing too far, not far
enough. I stumble
over tumbled rocks
square-cornered boulders
slick & tilted slabs.
A man-made trail
maintained by falling water.
My foot bones ache.
— 10 January 2013
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