TEARS IN KRAKOW, A Selection From THE SUN LOVES EVERY PLANET

We stood at the airport

Knowing

The moment was near

That I would fly away

And we would never

See each other again

Your face

The image of you waving goodbye

Tears flowing down your cheeks

As I turned to look at you

One last time

Languishes in my memory

The way only foreign things can

The pain of leaving a place

You know you can never fully understand

As an outsider

And yet  

It is somehow part of me now

Comes to me in dreams

I am sorry
That we are from such different worlds

So far in culture and time

Worlds we couldn’t bridge

No matter how hard we tried

When I first arrived in Krakow
And saw you waiting for me
Your face looked so happy and alive

So anxious to start our new life together

You looked so beautiful

I couldn’t keep my hands away

From your warm ones in the cab

It felt so good to be with you again

On the other side of the ocean

After the lonely, rainy nights of Seattle

 

Our hopes faded soon

I’m sorry for that

But not before

We learned so much from each other

Which others can never understand

Unless they know what it means

To be torn between two worlds

 

Sometimes when I’m alone

A memory passes through me

I see us standing on a hill

Overlooking Przemysl

The sun is going down

The river looks distant

Your father is lighting candles

And placing flowers

On your mother’s grave

We watch in silence

I didn’t know her

She died before we met
But I felt her absence too

A vague feeling

That something was missing

She was there and yet she wasn’t

She was everywhere I looked

And yet she was gone

Like those years that were ours

But are no longer

 

Her death

Was never spoken about directly

As most painful things are not

But, I knew that your hearts were good
When I watched your father dance

In a Russian way

That I sensed was very old

Passed down through the ages

By a hard, tough people

Whose dreams

Never really seem to come true

But keep on living anyway

 

I know it was hard for you

Listening to all the people in town

Wondering who the American was
The way they would stare
When we walked by

The news it gave the neighbors

To gossip about

And your father to worry about

As he worked in his garden

Sometimes I still hear their voices

Speaking words I don’t understand

When someone asks me
What I’m thinking aboutI answer

“Oh, nothing”

 I don’t have the heart to tell them

Nor the words to describe

The look I saw on your face
That day at the airport
The rivers of emotion

In your eyes

The pain of wanting it to be different

The sadness of what could have been

But never was

Our plans to go to Italy

For the summer
Quickly fell by the wayside
But just thinking about it was good
It gave me such a tremendous feeling

As I walked to the school I taught at

To find eager faces waiting for me

There were times when I thought

Maybe we can make it work
If we don’t give up

If we keep trying

We’ll find a way to stay together

Like when I would drive

Narrow, winding streets

And you would give me directions

Reading the signs

For my foreign eyes

As we drove past

Castles and fortresses

On cobblestone roads

Where the buildings are old

And dirty from coal

Layer upon layer

Century upon century

Restoring each other

As they fade further into the past

 

I liked it when you were happy

But it hurt me deeply to see you sad

Caught between your father
And what he expected of you
And what I needed from you

There’s a loneliness that settles on you

When you’re in a different country

A loneliness that never goes away

You try to make it work

You try everything

You can possibly think of

But, it isn’t home

Your family isn’t there

So, when you get a letter

From your own country

Perhaps not even from someone special

But a letter from home

In your own language

How much it can do

For a sad heart

That feels displaced

 

I remember looking out the window

Just before spring arrived

The wind was blowing from the east
It’s fury shaking the windows
As I stood alone

In the cold, drafty stairwell

Watching snow fall

Until everything was white

 

I can’t really put it in words

But as I watched the chimney smoke

Rise through the air
I felt further away from everything
At that moment

Than I have ever felt before

A few weeks later

The snow melted

The rains came

Trees blossomed

And flowers bloomed

The streets filled with people

Life felt new again

Before long

The trains from Russia

Didn’t seem in such a hurry



HEROIN, A Selection From THE SUN LOVES EVERY PLANET

She said she likes the way
It makes her feel
Dulls the pain of reality
When it feels too real
 
Running from her past
No future in sight
The warmth of the needle keeps her
Smack in the arms of a baroque alienation
Others can’t understand
 
She can pull her hair back
She can smile when she’s supposed to
She can answer her parents
In a way they approve of
But, she’s not the kind of girl
Who can push it all away
The way most people can
 
Her life is planned to the most trivial detail
Like clothes laid out for the next day
She’s constantly reminded 
Of how lucky she is
All she has to do is play her part
Tired of being pretty
She seeks solace in the demise of everything

QUETZALCOATL, A Selection From THE SUN LOVES EVERY PLANET

Over the border they come
Year after year
Wave after wave
A sea of brown faces
Looking for a better life
Than the ones they left behind

I ask myself

Why do they need to come here to work?
What is wrong with their country?
Why can’t they make enough money there?

I don’t know

But
Something forces millions
To seek a chance
In another country
Familiar to them
And yet
Still foreign

They tell me
The border is a dangerous place
Desperate women
Will do anything
To get across
There are men who know this
They take advantage of it
They prey on the hopes of those
With nothing to lose
Those that come to America
To work the jobs that Americans
Won’t or don’t want to work
The wages are low
The work is hard
But they can’t say no

America is changing
The culture is changing
The language is changing
Someday
I don’t know exactly when it will be
There will be more people
That speak Spanish
Rather than English
In America

I suppose

In a larger perspective on time
It all makes sense in some kind of way
Centuries ago
Quetzalcoatl
And the people of the sun
Were invaded and conquered
By the Spaniards 
Now
The descendants of lost cities
Overtaken by jungles
Descendants of people
Who built pyramids
Gleaming in the sun
Are migrating north

Sometimes I tell people

The future is
Portable
Wireless
And Mexican

Before long

There will be more hot sauce available
On every street corner
Than you ever thought possible

They either laugh at me

Or say something to the effect of
Not in my lifetime
I still think English
Will remain the national language

I laugh back
Their responses make me wonder

If they’re deaf or blind

THE WOMAN I'M IN LOVE WITH NAKED, DEEP IN AUTUMN LEAVES, A Selection From THE SUN LOVES EVERY PLANET

As I look through the lens

Searching for

The right reflection of light

To illuminate

The shape of her face

A leaf falls upon her

The moment is perfect

I flash the camera

As she swoons in the devotion

I lavish upon her

Demurely modest and yet

Yearning to be revealed

As the secrets

Of all women’s souls are

They’re not really secrets

Meant to be kept hidden forever

They’re more like treasures

Waiting for the right man

To uncover their pleasure

Hoping it is him to whom

She can finally surrender

All the dreams

She held as a child 

I took picture after picture

Trying to capture the feeling I had

When I first saw her

The mood of her face

The look in her eyes

That made it impossible

For me to stop thinking about her

No matter how many pictures

I take of her

I just can’t capture

Her elusive essence

She takes pleasure in this

Knowing

She gives herself fully

And yet

Can’t be caught

But it isn’t because she withholds

It is simply that her secrets

Have no end

The pretense of distance

Brings us closer

Her beauty

Only becomes more clear

Ironic, I know

But that’s the way it is

When you touch perfection

For the first time

Capture just the right look

A moment frozen in time

To be found one day

By a curious seeker rummaging

Through a cedar chest

On a rainy day

Touching the past

And making it real

Like those old black and white

Photographs of hard western people

With grim looks on their faces

You just can’t capture

Something like that anymore

Mostly because our faces look soft

Fed on the breast of prosperity

Lacking in the nobility of Red Cloud

A real man who fought for real land

And not just some stupid facts to remember

In our modern history courses

As we look back across                                    

The passages of time

Content with our greatness

Now that we have subdued

The primal forces of nature

So we can gloat and slap

Each other on the back

As we tell ourselves

What great salesman we are

Now that we have conquered it all

Now that everything has been sold

Who will write our story

When so many have already been told

By a few great artists and salesmen

Who seek to sell what little is left

To the generations of the future?

The past isn’t just something

To pass the time away

It is as much a part of us

As their past was a part of them

In the way it shaped them

Made them who they were

I regain my focus

She is still there

Laying ever so sensuously

Uncovered in the leaves

As only she can

I put the camera down

Take off my clothes

And dive into the leaves

For the only thing that is real

The taste of her flesh

The feel of her desire

The warmth of her skin

Welcoming mine