Western Heart

Selected Poems The Valley of My Western Heart "Peter Cooper's poetry reflects a diversity of interest... He shows a rare understanding of what poetry is about. He is a man who will, I think, develop into a very significant poet." Cal Clothier International Poetry Society THE LANGUAGE OF TREES I do not know the language of trees do not know how to learn their green murmur the mute emotion of their bark For theirs is not a language for speaking their branches fork but do not tongue They are an instrument for other noises the soft or violent erudition of the wind bitter crackling laughter of fire and ripping rhetoric of the saw Yet, their presence is a kind of speaking Their job, to be a reservoir for new breath They absorb with greeny shields the hot solar gaze or pelting armaments of clouds We stand beneath and imagine protection wait for clemency and begin to cut or chop to solve the anger of our needs We have become this axe, experts at mowing with steel discovering that a forest is no more than the hair on any mountain's face We scrub it clean admire the new human emptiness and turn mass death into housing, sullen suburban caves we paint like necklaces around our streets We make music out of this dying imagine spirits rising out of the echo from rings that once carried water to the leaves We sit upon such shapely turns of woody flesh forced into useful implements of rest or play with toys carved from limbs that waved to God in his own blue meadow across the sky We polish dead slabs of upright life into sides for our coffins tight clasps to keep those renewing vermin from renewing us as well Spin our metallic satellites into the blue meadow looking back to count the measure of our presence turning this lessening green into more and more black pretend we are doing God's work instead of our own I do not know the language of dirt with its microscopic syllables and gnawing grammar Nor do I recognize the dialect of water the slow utterance of minerals the poetry of herbs or subtle whispers of angry atoms BLUE CHILD That clear blue eye you do most of your seeing with bruised by effort it hides a pale heart THEIR PORTION OF SUNLIGHT There is this garden of twisty, wistful flowers So safe in their moveable Four-wheeled pots So fragile beneath the scalding gaze of social horticulture For these ingenuous blossoms bring no immediate profit to the florist with their noisy, unpredictable colors so difficult to place in traditional arrangements Yet, for the rose, we avoid its thorns willingly detour lily fields a-buzz with bees make excuses for that delicate environment necessary to grow orchids We even grudgingly admire the thistle stout, hardy, so difficult to eradicate or those dandelion we press into humble wine So, what shall we do for these twisty, wistful flowers that have burst from swollen buds unannounced, unanticipated Shall we leave them in that dark corner of the garden away from the path away from discriminating view Or shall we give them their portion of sunlight to dance their unsteady dance in the regular wind and not judge the quality of the blossom by the sturdiness of the stem THE OLD DANCER That tree doesn't have the decency to dissolve into a stump raising its gnarled limbs in arthritic, unsteady pirouette an aging master teaching young arms, young legs slowly, a gray antic In its prime the children of the house would pitch a tent wary of the midnight acorns falling as imaginary chipmunks, wolves lions stalking them in the night Now, an irrigation pump sends well water to the small vineyards on either side Beneath the soil of the slope a filled labyrinth of dead roots traces the ancient path to small sips that once raced up to its broad leaves painting it with the green synthesis of water and mineral together fighting against the sun to shade the lawn Oh, how those liquid vigilantes pushed against the nearby concrete of the jade rectangle a useless pond, the smell of water so close, so unyielding The last generation of seedlings stand guard circle the geometric dilemma one eye on the father and mother of their germination They struggle against the stunned, scrubbed sculpture of decaying majesty Their tender roots eating into the family system light green limbs combed by unavoidable breezes young laughter muted by a stand of maple and cherry peasants During regulated electric moments they sense the pulse of this artificial artesian truth is, so much water would kill them their heritage is that of the Valley Oak proud as camels they will learn to travel far between sips forsaking the polluted suburban moisture of the surface for the deep mineral-laden succor grudgingly bartered from Vulcan's purifying aquifers So it is for those who once slept in the tent drinking cautiously, sparingly from the cup of integrity bequeathed by parents who have long since left the house and now sleep rusting at the same depth as the inert roots of the old dancer The pump of new life starts and stops according to its unconscious schedule while the jade pool invites the next generation of swimmers to sun themselves where there used to be shade REGINA for Jean Wheeler Queen of the pastel forest whose guardian hovers at her approach This horn a gate View but do not pass Surrounded by the circling blooms of magical intent this sprite enjoys her shoulder ear quick access to the heart Within this green her colors grow like walls of light cornering intersecting seamless They rise, these flowers upon her greener mist like pale hair that floats above her thoughtful stare Heaven is a seed TIGHTROPE There is this tightrope we walk each evening before sleep each morning before we wake where we invoke the dangerous balance between lust and love by even touching fingertips which like matches flare erupt against the silence of a simple glance or brushing our early lips late mouths against the ardent counterpart of this laughing need It is such a silly dance so high above our mutual pasts lying there in the sawdust of yesterday but this audience of we two waiting at the circus gate of possibly forever demands the bright entertainment of watching our other selves climb so high into the canvas sky erected for the very moment of this show Across the long wire which connects us we begin to walk sure-footed toe-grabbing holding aloft the long poles we use to balance only to toss them aside as we meet in the middle I move craftily between your legs as you step over me our others gasping below at such courage Then we finish them off with cartwheels pretend faints and even as we fall we alone understand the illusion There is no danger for once inside each the other knows the truth we both are nets readied for the catch and as we fly toward certain death a casual reach for outstretched hand is enough to insure our mortality by landing upright proud and calm We barely hear the applause MEADOW VIKING for Ed Luckenbach He wears the red hairy halo hgh above his heart so much so it almost looks like a beard These hands that sculpture parks and courses out of meadows and leas they also pluck the strings of light articulate the frenzied hum of historical music all the while sorting those weedy thoughts from the bottom of the tea cup BUZZARDS Hard to think of buzzards mating in free falling airborne acrobatics from a distance they are simply movements a timeless breeze No close-up on their craning necks blue or red gargoyle throats bald unfeathery heads so ugly to us they grow more beautiful to each other as they fall HEART ATTACK Oh, woman you doctor you stop my heart with your arresting morning gaze and then electrify me with your paddle knees beat on my chest until you get the breathing you want the gasping ridiculous sputter that makes our loving such an emergency Defibrillate intubate resuscitate me measure my gases start my fluids scream at me "Don't you die yet, dammit!" as you work me up strap me down to this unmoveable four-poster guerney invoke the oath of Hippocrates call in a helicopter for that gasping hover above as my life passes in front of your thighs my pantomiming panacea my tonsils appendix spleen in-ecstasy take them out they're yours all yours I hear you scrub and tie that mask of lust you wear as if you were a bandit not a doctor not a woman but I submit to the scalpel of your loving your sure incision then faint as if newly asleep as you close around me arms like sutures lips like staples the closing clamp of you upon this opening of me (and if you must leave a sponge trim it in the shape of a heart any heart and tie it to the outside of my ribcage so you can squeeze it whenever you like) Then send me to recovery: a day at work a night out with the boys until I return and you check my pulse call a code and I see those sirens in your eyes and I whisper "9-1-1" QUIET CAFÉ The beautiful one moves her hands in the corner of the café her slippery magic weaving a tapestry of digits a history of hand puppets pantomiming out words, letters the spray of syllables flashing bright as her smile now red as a yawn. Her three friends rim the windowed corner a warm assembly having learned well the virtue of quiet humor Their grins are uproars chuckles dance lightly within fingertips eyes… I envy their noise KUDZU LIZARD A kelly green leaf bobbles in the sunlight surrounded by its shaded cohorts Funny, that one ray could make a star out of such a humble specter Here on the porch, rickety wood framing our new morning deep fissured oak steps still capable of supporting weight while the wrinkles wrought from rain and time betray the end of usefulness Sammy, that black and white bandit of the bushes hunts in the long grass, bouncing, stopped, poised alert a minor whisk of tail, the only evidence he is dangerous II Last night we argued each fighting against our own sticky webs of wishing it could be some other way I wanted to hold you, you wanted to be held instead we wrestled deaf debaters arguing different subjects you were an hour late, I was unnecessarily worried you felt married, I felt stupidly angry and we went to sleep in a purple daze searching separate corners of an alien basement for the source of this dark confusion III We sit on this rickety porch separated by two cups of coffee and an ashtray watching Sammy return from the grass with a gray lizard hanging from his mouth the head held softly between his sharp teeth "Close the door before he takes it inside" and I reach for the knob which is no longer there pull it closed with a finger in the large round emptiness Sammy knows he will not eat it (though the lizard doesn't) He sets it down, prods gently with a white paw and the lizard scurries under a sticker bush Suddenly this play hurts With no teeth of its own, it borrows the green weedy spines to catch its cold-hearted breath Dismayed, Sammy looks to us but there's no way to tell him this is no morning for answers A sudden gray blur ends the stalemate and a black and white flash of cat emerges again from the grass This time holding the lizard by its midsection in his mouth but too gently as it wriggles free and runs under the porch leaving a long piece of tail snagged between sharp white teeth Sammy spits out the still-wriggling length which falls into a crack on the step We stare at its disconnected effort to reunite while cat and lizard wrestle underneath us III I reach for a cigarette, hand you one then watch as you strike a match When I lean over to light mine off your fire a fly crawls on my foot and it feels like the dying tail and I jump We both laugh and Sammy emerges licking his lips I push the door open so he can get a drink of water from the kitchen "I'm sorry I was late" you say as we both flick our ashes into the tray between us "Sorry I got mad" IV Beyond the blackberry bushes which camouflage the creek twenty feet away I notice an old oak tree now dead rising out of the prickly patch How beautiful it must have been in its prime What killed it, the creek? the shrubs? Regardless, I am saddened by its bleached limbs which rise like a skeleton above the green life with surrounds it base I think of you, how the specter of your dead marriage stands so clearly on the horizon of your emotions and am reminded of kudzu that green scourge of the South which was imported from China to help control erosion a hundred years ago but instead has become a plague, growing over crops stands of the tallest trees, a green, efficient mask but one which is difficult to remove until it kills everything beneath it I smile realizing that the tree is better off being seen above the blackberries marking the edge of the creek which gurgles below it I listen to Sammy just inside the door , licking the taste of lizard from his lips just as the gray reptile sneaks out from under the porch and no-tails it for the grass again We watch it evaporate into the tall blades and turn toward each other You wriggle onto my lap and kiss me I put my arms around your midsection, then bite your upper lip holding it softly between my white teeth feeling my eyes grow greener with the taste of you AT THE POLE We watch through the large lens of ancient time these images of a place so newly discovered A land of thick white surfaces and long blue stretches water becoming water stopped and land so dry a teardrop cannot make it to the eye for even the most brutal pain We glide the slippery danger crunch the powdery crust and look for animals who hide beneath the ice brave the surface only during this three-month summer of sunlight their eyes taking weeks to adjust after so much darkness and storms beyond imagination This surely must be the place our gods get their strength practice divinity by watching these subtle, ironic creatures sucking the bare life from this cold meal this place where water comes to die and be reborn in foot-long sheets often 11,000 deep stacked like souls that slumber in a limbo of nondescript white Here weather begins as a difference of opinion and quickly grows into a fury of ice spit like bullets from a gangster's Tommy gun II Angelic as it is on the head of this earthly pin surrounded by sea water slowly losing its salt to the dropping temperature Those spirits that exist here wander their own eccentric paths of evolution The penguin, clumsy biped whose wings work the water like a swallows' ballet must fling itself through holy ice to bump and land in icy skids aright itself to slowly tread the rocky slope toward nests of stone where chicks await regurgitated meals Ah, but down below swimming in the thick azure air an opaque sky of ice overshadows these thrumming swimmers who slip the knot of gravity and feet to fly kinetic spurts and twists and turns with equal grace to those creatures of the blue who spin on Neptune's spear the shish kabob of fate Fish into penguin, penguin into lion those roaring, blubbering tusky monsters of the shore who poke their snouts of bloody death through vagrant moments of heat on the white plain to snare a foot crumple a tuxedo from this antic prom These penguins die as easily as teenagers drunk from the music of their time III All that stays, dies All that dies , leaves carried by the currents that arrive find no place else to go and spin across the vortex of their death Like explorers wandering the shifting crevices underfoot the air itself must empty of life rest upon this point of rebirth a blink of cosmic eye chilled by ice as old as heaven This place is farther from the molten core than any spot on earth and yet its winds burn colder than the sun hotter than a knife Like a child left home young man finds it difficult to return Family is the place where we all start and end surely as the breath and spit of a planet finds itself brought back to life at the pole TIGER WOMAN Your eyes fly within the fluttering wings of lids capturing draughts, rising toward the light of a pear-drenched sun Darting reflections of an eagle's anguished cry those shattered echoes tumbling like angry leaves from the limbs of maple clouds The dense red foliage of your lips around the cave of words and sounds a refuge from the tiger tongue that reaches out to lick the bloody air of sunset, muffling the salivating drip against porcelain stalagmites guarding the nest of buds that judge the salt and sweetness of your meals Your Pharaoh's plain with matching milky pyramids this food for the afterlife waiting to suckle corpses while the gods behead the greedy servants of your charm risen from the sandy desert of your windblown ribs penitents wander the sinkhole at your belly searching the verdant entrance to your Nile this river that overflows each approaching spring of fingers carrying the bobbing hopes of mariners seeking travel within your succulence How shall we traverse the alternating path of your legs that marks the valley between them ending in pale, mysterious mountains you disguise as hips with their hidden pandemonium little earthquakes traveling the fault lines of thigh and shin hinged and capped at knees carved and curled from sculpted marble and glimmering sea shells Upraised, your arms humble the most elaborate maypole fingers fluttering painted flecks of dream across a field of flowers the carpet of your dusty dance, These blue-vein wrists arbitrate between contentious palms and sullen forearms dependent on directing elbows and ruling shoulders You are your own geometry, a science unto yourself a recipe of perfectly colliding ingredients a vision of food to the merely hungry Art to those who no longer eat LAST SUPPER Here we sit across from each other at this table filled with misunderstanding I fight, clawing down inside myself back to the core of feeling not the idea of you within me but the raw rudder I use to guide my prowess through your sanguine wateriness You are a liquid, a moveable element that must be ridden above you and like a small craft in a wild sea these dangerous waves must be met sharply all fear of being swallowed put overboard for it is only in being swallowed that I will resurface, right the course eliminate the ballast of the past for the buoyancy of the present You who are quicker than silver brighter than molten gold (these elements lose parts of themselves to evaporation) you grow fuller become more than ever this is your infinite gift where others fall, you leap where others leap, you fly In this, you are no ordinary meal for common eating this lollipop of you must be licked incessantly to keep you even with yourself Holding you-so small, so slight and yet so capable of expanding is a cunning craft knowing the moment of your increase I must be ready to let loose of you watch your new size emerge your greater dimensions reach their momentary border These cautions and awarenesses I give gladly preferring to lose my arms surrender my mouth let my legs explode than miss a moment of your being your becoming In truth I have my own gifts quieter, less apparent my eyes ever willing to take you in keep your focus touching you with their green smile and occasional jade greed For have this hunger that carves at your sweet flanks teeth enough to sink into your pale brisket a tongue hard as a cock to lick at your marrow slurp your waterfalling energy impetus and I am faster than the best rope jumper when it comes to flying within your revolving-door legs as you writhe and turn beneath me now on your back now on your stomach your fairy-tale buttocks rising from the white wet lake of these sheets Where we have fucked and fucked and gobbled each other's waters until one signal from your growing eyes insists on that final plunge demands the sharp sticking sticky clubbing gnashing blue corona (a large fish caught diving back into the sea a cyclone carried tree limb imbedded in the side of a house a baritone's rumbling final achievement a mutual death onstage) Here we sit across from each other at this table emptied of understanding the waiter in me seeks to bring some final cup of coffee and a sweet dessert to finish this meal end with a sugary liqueur before we walk out into the night guided by separate street lamps RILKE Your desk so tidy puffy smoking jacket lined--nearly Maoist a Napoleonic hand searching an inner mystery All so studied All so apparent and yet within those hake pool eyes an elegant vivisecting fillet of life razor glances separating bone white existence from ambient spillways of crimson pulse Your tortured demeanor mechanism of clockwinding mastery over the subtle preventing the hidden from hiding the heartfelt moving out to glimmering fingertips marking the soft explosions of garlic, onion other fetal roots with ink clouds populating the changing sky of myth with itinerant gods latching on to fast-moving freight trains of wind and storm filling and emptying those sheer pillow cases of downy dreams a breath of feathers the startled drool of physical anarchy Yours are no manic jottings the pen waits, a hovering hawk beak splattered with hemorrhaged realities The philosopher's prey scurrying through ordinary underbrush seeking the safety of horizontal camouflage unaware that circling above the talons of true knowing flex and clench steel eyes that blink in conjunction with claws Pen and bird swoop with absolute certainty screaming words across the paper drinking deeply black ink soaked into the very fiber of the fall You eat--flap--caw fly back to the perch a solitary oak irreverent pine to wait thoughtless, gorged to wait spirits humming their dangerous hymn a breeze against feathers ruffled the anger clotted you clean your beak against the bark More Poetry: Catherine Clare Catherine Cross Country The Dew Down Under: All Over America Eating Rainbows Evolution Feral Finally You Grateful Bread Halls of Heaven In The Sea Breeze More Natural Oksana On Becoming Stars Patty Sanctuary Lake Thorns Poems from The Valley of My Western Heart Rilke, The Language of Trees, Blue Child, Their Portion of Sunlight, The Old Dancer, Regina, Tightrope, Meadow Viking, Buzzards, Heart Attack, Quiet Café, Kudzu Lizard, At the Pole, Tiger Woman, Last Supper Vero Beach Wednesday’s House also: Hands Up, Amnesia, Eureka Joe’s, Still Life Support the Artists Where authors and readers come together! 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