Technological Utopian Splendor

The robots are coming. They will beep into transcendence.

Obliterate death. Eradicate disease. What is left to humbly

abide? In the Book of Job God presents a litany

of unanswerable questions. The idea to be awed by that

which we cannot understand, and so to create

compassion. Sorrow remains, always. The robot makers

have looked through molecules dancing on a shoreline

two steps away from bay windows shining home, and

now can reply to God. No longer is it humbling to fathom

the orbit of planets, the size of the earth, the abyss

in a canyon at the bottom of the ocean. We understand

and create. Time stops still. Our desire remains

to overcome fear. A fear of death. A fear of nothingness.

It could be all over. Zero. Nothing. Just like that. Ashes

to ashes. Dust to dust. Done. Or there could be something

different. Something else. A flow into the universe?

An experience of the godhead? A sparkling light? Uncle Joe

at the end of a tunnel welcoming us home? We just don’t

know. Change is the only constant. Maybe we will

bottle ourselves into machines. Walking talking

bionic beings. Maybe we’ll become brains percolating

in communal jars. Perhaps we’ll learn to set ourselves free

and dance with dolphins under the sea. Maybe we’ll just keep

doing what we’ve always done. Imagine

the edge of the world. When Columbus set sail, his crew

took on the possibility that a cavernous gaping jaw

would swallow them whole. Masts, sails, crew, rope,

even the rum, down the leviathan’s throat.

Timeline

1962

As Khrushchev and Kennedy’s waltz picked up a Cuban salsa beat, I was born inhaling the tailwind of a mushroom cloud. I didn’t let anyone sleep.

1966

Love tapped my shoes in ballet class. I followed the teacher’s son across valleys of the moon and began shooting stars from the tips of my fingers.

1972

I no-longer wanted to play with dolls. Mrs. Unruh said I could become an astronaut instead.

1976

It was our nation’s bicentennial. All the cul-de-sac homes had half baths where rose scented soaps rested on white china plates. The fireworks were safe and sane.

1980

I believed I was beautiful. The sun set purple behind a basketball court. I wasn’t alone.

1984

I believed I was smart. Even so I met a man who had serrated teeth and made love with knives.

1986

As he gnawed the remains of my shin bone, the sun filtered orange, red, and purple through pansies blooming light. I didn’t realize it then, but God was keeping watch.

1989

Television waves carried the fall of the Berlin Wall. Worldwide, half moon scars appeared on the forearms of favorite daughters.

1993

My father said the one thing I will always thank him for, “It wasn’t your fault.”

1997

I picked up a pen filled with gunpowder, tears, and the consonance of the letter “s.”

1999

Even though the height of Haight Ashbury was no-longer, Dan played sunrise and sunset on a guitar at the International Café. Left of the moon and under Orion, we hung upside down from trees in Golden Gate Park.

2000

2000 years we’ve been waiting, and still we believe.

2003

Afraid of atomic molecules vibrating free, we were once again a nation of Empire and oil fields burned.

2005

I met a man who kissed my soul and so began many days like this.

2009

“Fine,” he said. “We’re all just fine.” Not better. Not worse. Just as. Still shooting stars from my fingers, I stepped down from the moon and began to cook dinner.

After the Storm

The drought dried lawn

awash in wet. I should

toss seed in bare patches,

fertilize the whole thing,

and keep it watered damp

through to the next rain.

It’s just a weed filled

backyard lawn.

But even there,

molecules stir beneath

and wait for a passing

sky’s thunderous bloom.

Hot off the Press; Draft; Hopefully Enjoy

Iguana Dreams

I have never seen God, the wind or

an iguana sunbathe in the crook of a tree.

Before coming to the United States, Miguel

shot an iguana while riding a jeep with his friends.

I think iguanas might be equivalent to squirrels.

An iguana is a cold blooded

reptile. She spends her time

divided between sun and shade.

We are all in search of balance.

Iguana meat can be broiled, sautéed

or fried. Miguel said he made iguana

stew, then promptly got ill. Something

about temperature and the unforeseen.

The main cause of immigration is economic

with a blended desire to educate one’s children.

Miguel said there were eggs inside.

Where the scars rise on my right ear, I dreamed of placing an iguana tattoo.

Iguana power. Iguana dreams. Green scales

glisten when wet. Those are in the Galapagos.

In Nicaragua, scales twist olive brown.

Both squirrels and iguanas have sharp claws and climb trees.

Somewhere in Texas or Arizona,

there might be one lone tree, a grand

old crotchety oak, with an iguana

in one limb and a squirrel in another.

Latest Poem One

Getting There

Epiphanies arrive in broken colors,

could be starburst, a deep space nebula,

or neurons firing across synapse.

It’s all there: orange slices, the threads

from an embroidered red strawberry,

stains on white pressed cotton.

The moment. The moment from which

to push forward into details of being

a supernova, an interstellar explosion

of dust and gases among stars,

us, inside. Silence. As a little girl,

I sat on a pillow and was good. They stacked

boxes onto a truck. We didn't go to the store. Papi

wasn't with us. I didn’t ask the right

questions. I didn’t know how. Maybe

the cement sidewalk wasn’t that cold. Maybe

I didn’t have to wait that long. Maybe

it was all for the best.

One day we got into a station wagon

and when I woke up,

loneliness began . . .

Never Found


Never found. The moon near midnight.

Fog ridden sails head toward a ramshackle pier.

Water turns still. Never found. White.

Quiet. The wet of approaching evening. Never found

beatific peaceful repose.

An orange rests in a fruit basket. Yellow daisies

drop petals. A glass of water waits.

In the morning. Never found

the same way twice.

One Poem

(Revised 3/22/09)

The Year of the Martini


There was the year of God,
then there was the year of the martini,

a martini finished with four small pimento filled olives.

When all is just too much, when three
more seconds is too long,
when tolerance escapes forgotten,
a martini is what’s called for.

God on the other hand
insists on chattering away about love,
how it’s our destiny, how only
through love we come to understand

how to be kind, merciful, and imagine
a Shiite boy’s shoulder in a bandage.
This boy shakes as he walks with his father
down a street, a street
that for him is an ordinary street,

the street he lives on. God keeps insisting

that we stop, that we stop
being wrong in so many ways: we hurt
those we love,
we hurt those we don’t, we hurt
people on the way home, ordinary

people whose lives we cannot fathom.
We don’t know the sidewalk,
the dirt and cracked cement;
we don’t know the gated fence, the ironwork
and grilled lattices; we don’t know the steps
leading to the front door, the shoes,
the socks, the curled skin of a pinky toe;
we don’t know all that was before

the soldiers came.