Poem-A-Day #285 : The Alarm is Going

The Alarm is Going

The alarm is going again -

It has been 15 years 8 years 2 years 1 month -
                    it was yesterday -

I stood in front of the Madonna - the one from 1290
Duccio
               - the painting is on peeling wood

Around her head the gold is sculpture - it is an object grown - the tree gave birth to this fully framed woman

The child reaches for her veil -
                    not yet - not yet -

A etches across the surface - it highlights her sadness - is a weight on her
like the oddly proportioned child -

          too small - too adult looking - a doll really

He reaches for her veil -
continues to reach -

You died on this day - or that day -

                                        the alarm is going again - I am not sleeping -

                         I blame the moon for this - it gets fucked by us too often - blamed for all atrocities - I blame it and the light it steals - the fucking rabbit that lives upon its face -

The rabbit hitched a ride on the back of the heron
          its small white paws going raw from the gravity of what they were doing

they landed and the rabbit reached one bloody hand towards the heron's face
and marked it forever -

The alarm has been going for hours -
                    and I feel like I should have burned up by now

Death isn't fear -

          at least not on the surface - I like to think that I understand this but -

The child reaches for the mother's veil -

                    His hand touches the edge of the loose fabric - blue and shimmering -
          his oddly small fingers pull at the edge - her eyes reveal themselves -

The leaves of gold peel steadily -

Madonna & Child (1290-1300)
Duccio

Poem-A-Day #8 : I Have Been Writing This Poem For Ten Years

I Have Been Writing This Poem For Ten Years

The bus was white inside - blue seats -
          or orange -

                    The back seat is one long space
above the others by one step - there is a pleasure in this
a simplicity of space

                    Phones ring -
          this phone rings -

-

When I found out you were dead I was unaware how sick you were
I was sitting in the back row of a bus from one part of Brooklyn to another
I don't remember what song I was listening to - even if I was
But the day was diffused it was cloudy and indistinct other than the bus ride
The plan was to go to the Met - to stare at the history

-

In another museum - in England that's important -
          there is a painting -

                    Delaroche's The Execution of Lady Jane Grey
in it a young girl reaches tenderly for the block that will end her life
because she is falling -

                    A trip into
          severe presence -

-

At the Met there is an Egyptian temple fully rebuilt brick-by-brick
Worn until naked where else would a god reside than this sun lit Upper East Side room
I don't remember what I thought the first time I saw the displacement
But this time I noticed that the glass in the windows was stippled unsmooth
It moved the light around the room quietly and cooly

-

Your death - it was called fallish -
          the kind that just happens like it was always going to

                    Buses smell like burning vegetable oil
At the stoplight the old woman trips - an apple rolls
into the gutter - it is full of dust -

                    The phone rings -
          The voice on the other end is a block of wood

It is pulling forward