Tap-Root
Main Street Rag's Editor's Select Poetry Series
ISBN 1-59948-046-8
Pedestal Magazine Review of Tap-Root
(audio) Back Through the Storm Door
I left the South broken, a busted wing
and a crooked eye. Still, I wake mornings
with the taste of honeysuckle on my tongue.
The phone rings; voices weary with traveling;
wires weighed down with crows and thick heat.
The South, calling me to christen the born or bury
the dead— Lord, I’m still addicted to its touch:
He doesn’t have long. If you’re
going to come, it better be soon.
In bed hours later, my mind still
taloned to the phone’s bad news.
Weed, codeine, scotch. I’ve ingested enough
fog and brain-ash to black out the moon.
But the crucible of the past is relentless,
grinding behind eyelids. Memories spark
wild along the nerves’ telegraph. The lens
focuses backwards and the mind grays decades.
I dream my past a fragmented play, spliced
together with rawhide ties and silk thread.
It grows claws and jumps the stage: a beast
my hands don’t know how to tame.
There is no balm for the past’s dull ache.
When the blue jay rolls up his song,
the whole damn world spins down on me,
falling back through the door,
I’m broken again.
(audio) Tinder
When the music rising
arcs the sunset into disbelief,
it’s time to sweat away
what kills us in the day hours.
At wood’s edge,
the candlelit shack and
its jackbeat pulse—
its black-rhythm heart—
its pale-veined wood.
Through the door glides
a dress, lily-struck bright
and flowing. We touch hands
and the petals opens in a spin.
By midnight we have covered
and recovered each other’s
steps with grace. The light by
which we dance: candle’s breath
lapping at our heels.
Our other selves, the daylight people,
in this place are nothing more than
dry kindling heaped
on a funeral pyre— (burn sweetly)
a crippling shame
of darkened skin— (burns fiercely).
Armored with smiles
hothouse tears lace our cheek
as we dance the nightly ritual,
sacrifice of flesh stained
in a world that consumes us.
At least,
this immolation is honorable,
saints and demons
have perished this way: frenzied,
spent, ablaze.
(audio) The Blackstone Murders
“Your eaves, attic,
even the chimney;
everything’s infested.
Happens in old houses.
Bird shit. It’s like
strong acid to fresh
paint and primer.
We can’t start painting
‘til the pigeons are gone.
For a little extra, we’ll
get rid of them for ya.”
For three days
we tried to ignored
the scent of almond.
The pale, tortured rain
that shrieked and fluttered
in circles to the ground.
Wood, brick, sidewalks,
everything molted.
The trees sweated
sticky-brown, gaudy
and reddish. We
wore galoshes
to the mailbox.
I asked around,
learned other ways:
You can relocate
the nests. Get rid
of the eggs.
Block the holes.
Lots of things could
have been done.
One morning,
taking out the trash,
I found our cat—
stiff, wide-grimaced,
feathers in his teeth.
Armed with a shovel
and gloves. I collected
beaks, skeletons,
feathers, cat fur,
chips of dried blood.
The day they came
to begin sanding,
I fired the painters.
A month later,
when the pigeons
returned, I put the
house up for sale.