The Sea Horse

The seahorse is a guest in our house,

                                    -- from a student poem

In the living room

of the South China Sea

nuclear subs nose aside green shadows

angled like alien levers

while the stately seahorse, its tail

so casually coiled around seaweed,

an almost negligently affectionate gesture,

hovers in a world where everything

sways. The world is intimate

and nothing more

than the shadow of the submarine. The rocking

seahorse stays in place

because its hummingbird wings are a-blur,

below wheels of rolling waves.

We know the sea has been mortgaged

to Waste Management. We know it is urgent

we do something about it. And although

inertia traps us in lazy fear I wonder

about the seahorse-- what does it know

ornamenting the swaying, orchestral weeds

with its tiny G-clef body?

We answer its mystery with a category.

No seahorse knows it shows up in books

as a fish. And doesn’t know the strategic

geopolitical value of the South China Sea.

And so far as I know,

people don’t eat seahorses, probably the only fish

we don’t eat, and even if we did,

it wouldn’t bother the seahorse, the seahorse is calm

with a beautifully coherent eye

wonderfully camouflaged in flimsy leaves.

Not knowing it’s a Sea Horse, it knows what it is.

Oh yes, the male carries the eggs

because the female has two jobs, whatever they are.

She likes to be free. The seahorse is stately 

in its palace of kelp. Everything is perfect

our own neurotic minds notwithstanding: 

Can there ever be any natural thing we might contemplate

without reflecting mankind?

Thus my mantra of sanity is this:

The Sea Horse is a Sea Horse,

the Sea Horse is calm

below the leaping ocean where wind

tears loose the hem of the waters

unraveling them

as if they were a magic carpet woven with spit

coming apart in space. 

Please take my hand, caballoito del mar

and guide me bravely through the trash

with your wide-open eye. 

My wish is to see as you see

feel as you feel

touch as you touch

be as you are

if only to take a break from the bleak

outlook of what I know.

Help me leave myself

behind, on purpose. 

I'm behind on getting ahead

anyway, so I'm going for a strategical

withdrawal for renewal. The Four Horsemen 

of the Apocalypse are so old, such an old play,

I've switched their mounts to Sea Horses.

Everything is dancing

to death and everything 

is perfectly perfect. It couldn't be

any better than this

there will never be any more that

than this, anymore this

than that, and the seahorse stays where it is

without saying anything

his wings going a mile a minute.

Spiders

When I’m wasting time, like now

it helps me to look at them

this one just hangs there, upside

down, below the lamp

a daddy-long legs

patient as a galaxy, as if

it has eternity

to wait for its prey. Sometimes, though

they wait so long they die

hanging in their own web.

Glancing over, idly pissing,

(another form of waiting)

I see through them

and realize

they’re gone, their legs folded

into miniature umbrellas

or tiny daisies closed

for the evening— a little hideous

how they silently

evaporate, in the corner of the bathroom

window, where they took all

their chances.

The window sill is

the Altar of What Has Fallen,

littered with specs of spider crap, a wing

floating a rainbow, a bent thread a leg,

a nano knot in it

that’s a marvelous knee,

discarded in the serene dust—

of a deserted, indoor battlefield—

an L A strip mall

after The War of the Worlds.

She wipes it off. There!

Spic & Span. It’s easy to get up

and get going again. We’ve done it

lots of times. It’s fun! Why have I been

wasting so much time?

But who can keep up

with spiders?

Once I cleared everything out of my room

washed it down and painted it.

Within hours a spider appeared in the corner

of the ceiling

the paint wasn’t even dry.

Where do they come from? Out of the air?

I read that no matter where you are

you’re within twelve feet of a spider.

They’re in your backpack. The garage.

But if you look

carefully into the fierce face

of one of those little jumping ones

with four eyes, the beautiful orange

black and white face—

beware. It sees you

with such fearless intelligence and cunning

you realize it

could take you

like in high school

when you might be absent-mindedly caught

staring at some kid, not even seeing him,

a tough kid, and suddenly he says,

“What’re you looking at.”

You snap out of it

look away

slightly bewildered, even embarrassed, and wondering

What were you looking at?

I just went over my room with the swifter,

shook a few outside. I missed a couple.

But even though they’re nowhere to be seen

they’re still here.  I’m avoiding things

that need to be taken care of

but can’t handle by myself. I'm brought

back to what's at hand.

Spiders avoid nothing. They’re always

ready. But as the wisdom

in the children’s game Hide & Seek warned us

what’s coming is coming

ready or not.

It just amuses me to think

If I died sitting in this chair

they’d use my body

for tie-down points.

It’s good to waste time like this.

It’s very, very human.

Being human’s a refuge

for awhile. 

As for spiders

they’re not only ready

but they'll survive

what’s coming.

Wheelchair at Mission St Garage

He didn’t last long on the corner

a black dude in a wheelchair

two stumps for legs, about the age

of a Vietnam vet, a big man

probably six four if he could stand—

pissed off, a volcanic island spitting fire

really fierce and letting everyone in the crosswalk

hear it.

Crowds at 4^th & Market eddied around him

glanced fearfully, his teeth

spit daylight across the street. People ducked.

Everyone knew he had good reason

but they had their own problems—no little cup

no witty sign no plea—just out there

you could feel what it was to wake up

in the streets, without legs.

There’s a picture in the paper

Clinton shaking hands with the head of Vietnam

cutting a business deal

decades after the war.

Within three days they got him off the corner.

Some are left alone

if they beg within certain rules. This guy

was too much for the city’s face

to face.

There’s a hot thread

in each of us, a fissure of lava

when the hiss hits the sea it’s a sigh

from the middle of the earth

for justice.

Hope’s the dope that keeps you stuck.

Hope your disguise is on tight, hope

you won’t lose what you’ve got

hope you’ll be left alone if you just

shutup.

We’re all eating plastic casseroles.

The signal clicks the light changes.

High-heels hightech running shoes blackened bare feet

step off the curb.