Gabriel Gadfly's Blog, page 26

Leave Only Footprints

The sign at the bottom of the dune

said, “Please, leave only footprints

on the beach.”

I wish I could have done that,

but our soles hit the sand

and you stalked towards the grey roil

of the surf, towards the storm

churning up off the water,

and you didn’t wait for me.

You stood down below the algae line,

up to your ankles in the cold froth,

and I didn’t want to talk to you.

Not even the seagulls wanted to talk to you,

not even the seashells or the sea,

and as I stood by the sign

imploring me to leave only footprints,

I realized you’d left me months ago

and the only choice I had

was to leave you on that beach

and wait for the tide to wash you away.

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Kissing Statues

I imagine you.

You are kissing all the statues

in the Louvre. You interject

between dying Arria

and concerned Paetus,

between the knife and the breast,

and you plant your lips on hers.

You kiss bearded burly

Herakles, the dark cheek

of bronze Adonis. You warm

huddled L’Hiver with your breath,

kiss the head of the lion biting

Milon de Crotone upon the thigh.

You kiss agile Mercury,

you kiss brooding Mars,

you kiss even the wounded deer,

the hunting dog’s teeth,

the hand of the Genius

that clutches the knife.

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James Cameron’s “A Love Poem”

Sometimes, when you and I are sitting

at the breakfast table, drinking coffee

and eating toast with strawberry preserves,

I am struck with the sudden and irrational terror

that an alien might claw through your sternum

and burst shrieking from the pale valley

between your breasts.

I imagine the scene in slow-motion:

your head flails back, mouth agape

in a soundless O, your slender fingers

fluttering on the table. Breakfast scatters.

Strawberry viscera splatters my cheek.

Your chest and my mouth are screaming.

You comment, gently, that today is a pretty day,

which isn’t really what most people do when

extra-terrestials are wriggling out of their lungs,

but you never do predictable things and that

is part of what I love about you.

I watch too many movies, but you are still lovely

and I want to take you into the bedroom,

press my ear to your chest and listen to

the reassuringly singular beat of your heart.

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Iraq Veteran Stands At Oakland

October 25, 2011

The street chokes with tear gas,

only there’s no mask on my belt,

nothing to do but clench your eyes

and hold your breath and hope

the wind shifts quickly.

Beside me, a rubber bullet clubs

Mike in the sternum.

He groans, his flag falls,

someone picks it up,

shouting “This is what

democracy looks like!

This is what democracy

looks like!” Wave on. Wave on.

Pop, pop, pop!

Familiar blind and boom

of flash bangs like

I threw in Basra, but

not everyone knows

to blink and brace.

Civvies stampede,

get away get away,

someone carries a mother

out of the smoke because

her wheelchair failed.

Tears keep pouring

down their faces.

I can’t stop staring at these

men with guns and armor, thinking

I thought this was supposed to be home.

I thought this was supposed to be home.

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Insides

I think I want you to break me open.

Like a pomegranate or a chicken egg

or a bank vault full of golden bars.

The shell is just there

for the satisfaction of getting past it.

The seed wants to be found,

the yolk to be spilled out,

the gold wants to be pilfered,

though it might not know it.

Push yourself into one of my cracks

like a wedge and chisel me open.

Use a knife, use a granite countertop,

use a hundred pounds of dynamite,

use whatever you need to open me up

and make me teach you myself.

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New Facebook page for Gabriel Gadfly is up as well.

New Facebook page for Gabriel Gadfly is up as well.

Please share and Like!

https://www.facebook.com/gabrielgadflypoems

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For Falling Out and For Keeping

You asked your mother

if you could keep your baby teeth

and now you have a jar of them

on a shelf above your dresser,

beside a tin cup full of thistles

and a book of Buddhist prayers,

a red book, and purple thistles.

You told me once

you would like to die and be buried

with a mouthful of seeds, without a box,

so thistle could grow up out of you.

You said it was the closest

you could get to reincarnation,

and when I asked what the baby teeth were for,

you said they were for falling out

and for keeping.

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Flowers in the Sink

I am sorry,

but I have filled

your bathroom sink

with wildflowers.

You cannot use it

to wash away your

eyeshadow and blush

and certainly not

to brush the evening

from your teeth,

but you may,

if it please you,

pick one or two —

orange poppy,

purple lemon mint,

white yarrow, perhaps,

to take with you

to bed.

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Famine

The roots starve.

It has not rained

in days and days

and all the lively

shoots are drying

up and dying in the

brittle broken earth.

So it is in the garden,

so it is in the heart.

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Failure to Communicate

I am not very good

at telling you how I feel.

I write you love letters

in the sand of the shore

but the sea keeps

washing them away

before I can sign them

with I love you come back.

I write you love letters

and tie them

to the legs of carrier birds

but they get lost

in transit, they get blown

off course and never

make their way to you.

I write you love letters

in languages

you don’t know how to read.

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