_____________________________________________________________
---- word biscuit ----
-- another season goes on --
06-13-96 - ray heinrich
______________________________________________________________
on may 28 my father died while i held him one breath
and a long time till another and then there weren't any
-ray
< this roof >
(for my father)
from a dirt floor
looking up at a roof
of corrugated
galvanized
iron
the sun
pokes
small rods of dust through the holes
but only a few
this roof
is holding up pretty well
for holding up
eighty-five years
- -
< the best >
the music i see out my window
is painted in gray
the letter
opened
and lying on the table
that stands
just beside the sofa
done
in gray-green and off-white
just
like i am
reading
from you
from somewhere
my breast
sits
my mind
lies
the end is too deep
too silly
i keep remembering
the best
- - -
< cats dancing with dogs under the moon >
(for my father too)
Sometimes we all get too caught up in life
in death and i can understand some of this now
but you know it's a smooth place like a
spring day where we slide from start to finish
just like the weeds the dandelions or roses
some wanted some not but it is all the waves
one after the other each meant each beautiful
in its way we flow one after the other as
important as ants as insignificant and
as beautiful as clouds.
- - -
< the scent of breakfast >
the open window
first morning sun
up
listening to feet
on the gravel path
outside our gate
knowing another day
the scent of breakfast
and you
- - -
< bosnia >
The procession comes down this single street
in the town you always thought it was your
own but in dreams at night it is the same so
it can't be real you tell the person lying
by your side who you thought you'd been
married to for 10 or was it 25 years this
slides like your other visions it's possible
that there has been no one all these years
that they were all dreams even if their
names were pat and philip and susan and
michael and ginger and ginger just had to be
real in this world that possesses no more
than 16 colors and tomorrow it will be time
to stop all this time to make the only
decision allowed and it will come as fast as
the end as slow as your words wanting to
reach that ginger to tell her or was it him
or a vegetable used in the soup that
comprised your life as sacred as the cow in
that mcdonnell's hamburger or that ant you
stepped on in 1989 while taking out the
garbage which had as much an idea of where
as you do now sitting trying to decide which
is the greater sin while sitting on the
railing of the highest bridge in your home
town not high enough like new york or tokyo
or london or moscow not high enough as
she and he comes to take your hand and
you call out mother you call out father
knowing all of you are dead and the
aliens coming across the border have taken
your house and jobs and just like bosnia you
remember the slow pleasure of holding your
hands around your neighbor's neck or was it
the stereo and the cd's you wanted never
enough to have them gone forever but maybe
just a little while just until you listened
to the last chords of orchestra of the slow
sun dissolving into the next day where you
promise yourself knowing it's a lie but
hoping to fool this love you made up this
god you made up this smooth even transition
into the level plain of museums of ideas
never mentioned of the shortest day of the
year which has the longest night.
- - -
< yet to come >
(for my father)
we can write while the ship loads
now
even now when whole bodies and minds
can be saved
these little words
like pictures of flowers
mean something
something like seed
you were the seed
before your eyes
opened on this world
the first looks and amazement
at the colors
at the movement
and a hand reaches
and later
you know
it was your hand reaching
for the toys suspended
above your bed
and you
waking from an infant's sleep
thinking only in images
these words
these words
were yet to come
- - -
more later
-ray
_______________________________________________________________
and all this stuff is (C) 1996 ray heinrich
you have my permission to copy it and post it wherever you want
as long as it's not-for-profit and you include:
"(C) 1996 ray heinrich - comments welcome send to: ray@vais.net"
THE END
back