American Exceptional
There are rhythms running in my heart, wordless and sensuous as music, that, dreamlike, release images of mountains, massive, even grand, of prairies – especially prairies – immense, open, endless, American, and cataracts, rushing, tumbling, white, silver, sparkling as lifelines. In the caverns of memory, the skies of anticipation, the murk of the future, in treasured rubbish in the attic, broken streets of slums, flower beds behind keypad gates, I search constantly to find words for the energies anterior to words, for the e=mc2 of a single atom in the old wood of a pioneer’s...
Read MoreEmergency!
for Alexander Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease was the doctor’s primary diagnosis when, once a month, Danika materialized at the local ER, was stabilized with steroids and inhalers, and sent home. Chronic obnoxious monthly bills was the insurer’s prompt analysis when its own nurse reported, “Sure, she has COPD, but there is no reason for her to be in crisis every few weeks.” Unobtrusive exploratory talks by phone revealed to Christie, on the insurer’s outreach staff, that Danika was 76, lived alone, and went out little: “I get lonely … anxious. At the ER, they’re nice....
Read MoreThe Shield
Invisible as glass, a shield hangs, from sky to scuffed concrete, from east to west and sunrise round to sunrise, between me and the world. A barrier I seemed to slip through with alcohol as catalyst, altering molecules like fire and fork scrambling an egg, itself remaining unchanged, while I, apparently on the other side, exuberant, headlong, almost heedless from pole to pole and sunset up to sunrise, was on a course to fry my brain. Now, behind (or inside) the barrier – if it even exists, except as I create it – headstrong, almost giddy, I recombine words in poetry like fire in an iron...
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