Words & Pictures East Coast, LLC
 |
[Home] [Bookstore] [Gallery] [Poets/Artists] [Fun Stuff] [Vital Links] [Contact]
[Home]
Products
Bookstore
Art Gallery
Poetry & Humor
Lots of Poetry
Featured
poem
Humor/Light
Verse
Essays
Professional Services
About us
Writing
Services
Art
Services
Web
Services
Guests
Poets
Visual Artists
News
Local Events
Releases
Archives
Fun Stuff
Free
Samples
Free Art
Lesson
Experimental
Stuff
Links
Vital Links
Writing
Links
Art
Links
WEB Info Links
Contact
Email & Address
Info
[Return to Guest Poets Page] [Next Page]Anne Curo
Moon Morning Fooled by the Moon And happy beyond all silliness The birds and I Sing glorias to a false dawn. It's only Another miracle To find ourselves awake again And singingly alive On this Spring day. Promises are not the point. "It happens now," we sing, The birds and I. The clock does not compute, Only the Moon that proves An absent Sun Can work this magic Without blushing. Build Your House of Adobe (for Michael) I remember how you spoke of your desire to build your house of adobe. The train speeds through the place, and I recall, wishing we could stop. "There's one," I cry. Perfectly plain, molded to fit the landscape. Fashioned from the landscape. The stream beds here are moist with remnants of spring rain and red clay waiting for your hands. Here, where I imagine you'd have built, the colors are intense. Lush, if bare earth could be spoken of as lush. Hot and harsh the winds that nourish a loneliness that one might choose for its simplicity. New Mexico is not a place for many men. I only pass through on my way to greener spots. My grandpa chose it as a place to die. Others choose to live. You would have chosen that; you were not old. If you had built your house, someday it would stand abandoned like that one over there. The roof gone, the walls shading no one except a few small reptiles-- ruins of a hundred years, or only ten? The ugliness of men is taken care of by the weather, how soon depends on how we make it. Build your house of adobe, and it will stand for as long as you use it, no more. But when it falls, it still belongs. The ruins of adobe shelters slide back to earth, like that 200 year old church whose lumpy outlines decorate the slow horizon. Speeding on, the train rushes to take us far from all this emptiness. I know why you wished to build your adobe house. You would have lived there for awhile as you lived here-- alone. But afterwards leaving no trace, the clay would crumble and erode back to where it always was. Doug Died, She Said There are some I know whose death might bring me slight regret, but when I heard of yours I felt a long sadness. It was in the midst of a fall festival of people, babies, dogs, trinkets for sale, ethnic foods, and music--all day music imported from Peru outside our book store. & the woman came in and spilled the news all over us, this death of one who, at the very least, did no-one any harm, and much that was good. & when last you left us, I was afraid for this, because you were looking for the book Final Exit & wanted to know the best way to do you in. But we had no answers, & certainly not the book. Usually, it was a new language you wanted to learn & we could sell you Swedish or Norwegian, because learning them was fun for you. & when some Swiss kids came in our door, you'd talk to them in German, showing our tourists not all Americans are fools & also listening in German because you wanted to learn what others thought of politics & economics. & you chose to live (When you chose to live) in Tijuana among people you loved & could help as a rich American on S.S.I. & because the rent was cheap. & when The peso crashed & her restaurant failed, you helped your former lover find a job up here managing McDonalds & took care of her kids whom you loved as your own. But what I remember best is your smile (when you smiled). Because your face was guileless as a blind man who has never seen his face & doesn't know it is An ugly face, pock marked & awkward, useless as a facade to protect him as others use their faces who know what they are for. No, your smile Was an event that served no purpose, brought on only by an inside pleasure in an idea, a friendship, a new possibility. There are no more Possibilities now. Depression is an ugly disease & you fought it as long as you could. You finished the nursing course, but when it came time To take the State Boards, you lost hope. It may have been your last hope. The woman who told me (she said she was your friend) believes it was your heart. I also believe it was your heart. You had too much of it. But it did not fail. I know you put a stop to it yourself. Alone in your Tijuana room where no-one Would find you for days, you gave up. You could see too much you could do nothing about. There was no autopsy. The only reason people die is the heart Stops beating. But she is outraged only that they stole from you. "They cleaned out everything," she says. "All his books. They even took his shoes." "He has no need of shoes any more," I said. But she went on hating the Mexicans. Blaming them for taking your shoes, blaming them for your death. She won't Believe you were a suicide. She went out screaming against the Mexican music outside the door. "It's Peruvian music," I said. You would have liked it. Copyright © 1999. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Duplication of this poetry and/or art without permission of the author/artist is forbidden under copyright law. Please ask permission if you wish to use for non-commercial purposesMonday, December 13, 2004 |