highly spiced


poets and spices
flavors and poetry
history and humanity
have come together here
in this humble shallow cupboard
at the south end of my kitchen

the ginger bottle swirls thoughts
from Eliot, Gingsberg and Paz
who hold quiet communion there
meditating Vedic verse
and nodding to amu nnadi
who likes his ginger beer
the way he writes to women
which is to say with sweetness
but still a little bite

cloves rattle sharply in their Malagasy tin
calling for the 'tompon'ny kabary' to come
use his gifted tongue to release
each carefully preserved meaning
into my easter ham

nutmeg and mace, mother and daughter pair
whisper to each other of Ezra Pound
and how he found the Moluccan life to be
scattered and disjunct
not unlike their own distinctive traits
debating what exactly he meant by
the drifting hedonist thing

paprika powder pouts
anxious to be out and off again
mexico to spain and ultimately to hungary
infusing a cream sauce the way
Pilinszky mingled faith and disenchantment
in the same poem

every shelf its own library
of tastes and tongues and literature
i open the door cautiously
to keep the bottles from crashing over me
a bookslide, a spiceberg
a highly spiced tidal wave
drowning me with flavor





Iron and Ether


Something familiar in the curve,
The anguished bend of steel overcome
By heat and stress beyond belief --
Caught my eye because it was
The essence of you,
Trapped and facing death,
Refusing to yield until
The last possible life
Had slipped to safety.

I bought the photograph.

All I have of you
Are the vapors of memory,
One of three thousand missing
And logically dead.
Still, you are as solid in my mind
As that monument of iron,
Arching as though to shield me
From the emptiness ahead. ​