POEMS by LUIS GARCIA

from Berkeley Daze

 


 
THE DECISION

If I can't
make it more than
that, then
I can't.

They talk of
"no subject." I
am a blank,
a total loss.

So now, so
what, only to
go on, I suppose,
to build my own.

The product
is of equal complexity
to the mind
it calls home.

Sacred dome,
I, too, call my home,
but can't begin
to deal with.

Sorry I am
for myself.
Sorry I am
for myself.

 

THE ARGUMENT

We who
hang around
together,
we un-

luckily
together
also screw, "Nuts
to you,"

he said
to me. Then
to him
I made

a dirty look.
Told him. My
eyes told him
to leave.

Love,
let him,
I thought,
let him leave.

 

THE FIRST

The first one,
ones to
come
will be smaller

than I
am, smaller
than stars are
big. Small is

just a way of
saying rain,
brilliant rain
over fields crossing

the whole damn
country, cage.
Once there
were Indians,

there were.
Cities are not
bad places,
not the way

you think,
but
another
way.

 

SAFETY ZONE

The sunlight
is a dog
that bites,
barks its song

in time, in
time to float
about the floors
and windows

of this room.
Down the page,
the words,
the words be-

gin to crawl,
to play. Re-
flected in
their eyes are

wild things,
noisy feelings,
possibilities
that lead us

to the dark
planets
of another
situation.

 

STAGES

The sky is overcast—
a gray spell cast over us.

We're the cast,
the characters.

Built by us,
they act according to plan.

We discuss them.
We speak to them.

They to us
speak from the trees.

Bees in the senses hum.

 

IF IT

If it ever is
as it was then,

it will be
as it has been.

Even so,
enough is too much,

is more
than before,

and/or
if it's not

and if it still will
and still can

do what dreams can do,
you can use it to

construct a mouth
inside your thinking.

After you have finished,
you'll call out with it.

Shout at the trees.
Whisper to their fallen leaves.

Sing to the bees.
Sing to the birds.

Seek new words.
And then,

speak of feelings
long forgotten.

 

THE SWING

Her we go,
low down,

woman,
low,

down under me,
now she,

now I,
up together,

to gather
each other up—

down, up,
down, up.

 

TAKE OFF

God is my copilot. We,
she and I,

I mean, we lose ourselves
in the cockpit.

Oh, the instruments
shining.

 

THE TWIN
for Richard Denner

He finds himself beside himself—
beside a dog filled with lilies,
a horse filled with angels.

He is not beautiful,
but he is as the storm
is not what he thinks he is.

As the mountains occur
in the dream of his mother
he finds there is certainly
nothing moreover than that.

 

JUNE NIGHT

I am standing far out in space,
on a moonlit hill in Berkeley.

A train is leaving a station.
A station is leaving a train.

People are waving.
I am waving. Waving

we watch them
go by.

 


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