Afterimage
New York City, 1962
By the sun I know the stairs from the street
face north. I go up, mote rising through slanted
light, through the door that locks the City out.
Into the darksome hush. I do not disturb the pods
each tethered to a different zero point. I go up
one flight, then two. Here the path turns east
then south again from the old Hasidic fellow's
room with blackout curtains who sits, white beard
guarding his chest, at his table reading scripture
by candlelight in the afternoon, past the bathroom,
toward the kitchen at the end of the hall. But
halfway down I stop, turn west, insert a key into
the lock and open the door to my room. Window
facing North Dakota a hundred years ago. Single
bed in the south and east corner. Table and chair
at the foot. I sit to write then lower my forehead
to the cool green formica. In the whereabouts,
bed spring frenzy thumps and growls startle then
succumb again to silence. A hand makes its way
back to smooth the hair from my face. The other
remains on the edge, absorbing the petulant reds.
We are bound by a mutual debt, these hands and I.
They are here with me now, inexplicable portend,
old friends tracing the cyan forms hovering between
us, past and future working out the difference.
asha
5.14.2013
11.12.2012
Los Viajeros
Los Viajeros
La ruta es larga.
El dia es corto.
La noche es
ruidosa y calor.
Estoy afuera
con la luna.
La ruta es angosta.
El cielo es ancho.
asha
Translation:
The Travelers
The road is long.
The day is short.
The night is
noisy and hot.
I am outside
with the moon.
The road is narrow.
The sky is wide.
asha
La ruta es larga.
El dia es corto.
La noche es
ruidosa y calor.
Estoy afuera
con la luna.
La ruta es angosta.
El cielo es ancho.
asha
Translation:
The Travelers
The road is long.
The day is short.
The night is
noisy and hot.
I am outside
with the moon.
The road is narrow.
The sky is wide.
asha
8.06.2012
Torn page
Torn page
What am I about to
begin in this ongoing
omnidirectional
conversation of ours?
These fever dreams
where meaning
evaporates just
as everything is about
to make sense. So
many doors but turn
back and the hall
becomes a maze.
Retreat to the circle
solves nothing.
I begin again
where I fail to be.
The fever breaks.
I am in a strange room.
I am no longer afraid.
The white sheet,
which is the wind,
caresses me naked.
Fire cools me.
Everything is in reverse
and unraveling.
Finally, I can breathe.
A hummingbird
flits through my ribcage,
pauses on my sternum.
I have no sugar.
I know the passing hours
by their colors and sounds.
And I with them,
an ancient tooth in the tide,
visible then gone.
asha
What am I about to
begin in this ongoing
omnidirectional
conversation of ours?
These fever dreams
where meaning
evaporates just
as everything is about
to make sense. So
many doors but turn
back and the hall
becomes a maze.
Retreat to the circle
solves nothing.
I begin again
where I fail to be.
The fever breaks.
I am in a strange room.
I am no longer afraid.
The white sheet,
which is the wind,
caresses me naked.
Fire cools me.
Everything is in reverse
and unraveling.
Finally, I can breathe.
A hummingbird
flits through my ribcage,
pauses on my sternum.
I have no sugar.
I know the passing hours
by their colors and sounds.
And I with them,
an ancient tooth in the tide,
visible then gone.
asha
6.28.2012
Confessional
Confessional
Come my dear deformed ones who live after the fire, my darlings blistered and raw, whose eyelids have burnt off, who sleep with open eyes. Come you jackals of pain. But there is a screen between us, the confessional screen. I can barely see you sitting naked in the gloom. A fly is caught in my side, a spider in yours. I grab the mesh with my six legs and squint in. You are dressed in black, sweating. I lick the bars tasting your salt. I hand you a tiny drum. Ask you to accompany me as I confess. You weep. I hand you a violin and ask you to play for me. My dreams walk behind me with hollow footsteps. There are so many echoes I cannot sleep. You are reading a magazine. I hand you a gun and ask you to shoot me. I see your booth has filled with water. You are circling mindlessly in the middle, awaiting my confession but the land is miles off and, no matter how I shout, you do not hear me. Suddenly your eyes press against the screen, their jellies oozing in through its tiny openings. A thousand images hatch into the dim space. Writhing one over the other. Some live. Some die. Your eyes have a fiendish fervor. You hand me a clock that runs backwards. You give me an hour. AN HOUR! Already the clock is disappearing in my hands, images clogging the gears; legs, feelers, screams. It’s a horrible sight. You stand up. Vanish. Then call back, Sing the Alleluia Chorus three times. Bathe in blood. Give your teeth to the poor.
asha
Ashland, OR 1988
Come my dear deformed ones who live after the fire, my darlings blistered and raw, whose eyelids have burnt off, who sleep with open eyes. Come you jackals of pain. But there is a screen between us, the confessional screen. I can barely see you sitting naked in the gloom. A fly is caught in my side, a spider in yours. I grab the mesh with my six legs and squint in. You are dressed in black, sweating. I lick the bars tasting your salt. I hand you a tiny drum. Ask you to accompany me as I confess. You weep. I hand you a violin and ask you to play for me. My dreams walk behind me with hollow footsteps. There are so many echoes I cannot sleep. You are reading a magazine. I hand you a gun and ask you to shoot me. I see your booth has filled with water. You are circling mindlessly in the middle, awaiting my confession but the land is miles off and, no matter how I shout, you do not hear me. Suddenly your eyes press against the screen, their jellies oozing in through its tiny openings. A thousand images hatch into the dim space. Writhing one over the other. Some live. Some die. Your eyes have a fiendish fervor. You hand me a clock that runs backwards. You give me an hour. AN HOUR! Already the clock is disappearing in my hands, images clogging the gears; legs, feelers, screams. It’s a horrible sight. You stand up. Vanish. Then call back, Sing the Alleluia Chorus three times. Bathe in blood. Give your teeth to the poor.
asha
Ashland, OR 1988
4.03.2012
New Madhuban
New Madhuban
this forest,
planted for a loaf of bread
and a dollar a day,
is a solemn place
the hill it has taken possession of
drops sharply
to a holler too steep for pasture
a place where small skeletons slowly turn to stone
this is a good place to be alone
the sun seldom finds entry to this grove
is a stranger here off his path
from a world that does not exist
his probing beams
only deepen the darkness
and threaten to ignite the brittle trees
one may only be here carefully
this forest has no need of company
birds know it they do not nest
or sing among its spiney branches
there is no undergrowth
nothing pierces the needle mat
and the pines themselves
have shed their lower branches
becoming heartless
pitch steeped trunks with shattered limbs
they offer no place to rest
who comes here must stand alone
who comes here to dream must dream
indifferent as the dead
asha
West Virginia, 1975 - Excerpt from Sunday Feast
These trees were planted during the Depression as part the New Deal.
this forest,
planted for a loaf of bread
and a dollar a day,
is a solemn place
the hill it has taken possession of
drops sharply
to a holler too steep for pasture
a place where small skeletons slowly turn to stone
this is a good place to be alone
the sun seldom finds entry to this grove
is a stranger here off his path
from a world that does not exist
his probing beams
only deepen the darkness
and threaten to ignite the brittle trees
one may only be here carefully
this forest has no need of company
birds know it they do not nest
or sing among its spiney branches
there is no undergrowth
nothing pierces the needle mat
and the pines themselves
have shed their lower branches
becoming heartless
pitch steeped trunks with shattered limbs
they offer no place to rest
who comes here must stand alone
who comes here to dream must dream
indifferent as the dead
asha
West Virginia, 1975 - Excerpt from Sunday Feast
These trees were planted during the Depression as part the New Deal.
12.05.2011
Reconstruction
Reconstruction
One word, one sentence at a time I will reconstruct the story. I have begun it before on countless scraps of paper. One word, one sentence at a time I will reconstruct the story. Forgive me. The original order of the words has been lost but for this endless succession of beginnings. I rely on you to restore the details. One word, one sentence at a time I will reconstruct the story. Forgive me. The original has been lost but I promise to stay true to its drift. One word, one world at a time. Forgive me. The original version of this story does not exist. One word, one sentence at a time, this is its drift. This is the drift. The notes are scattered. No. Not scattered. The notes are lost. Jotted, scribbled. on scraps, in notebooks, on flaps. They were seldom read. They were never read at all. They cannot be collected. The words, disjointed, were set down and abandon. No. Not abandon. It is a story in threads. Images, ideas, phrases, paragraphs, the disembodied alphabet reverberating returning, haunted ... but I digress.
One word, one sentence at a time I will reconstruct the story. I have begun it before on countless scraps of paper. One word, one sentence at a time I will reconstruct the story. Forgive me. The original order of the words has been lost but for this endless succession of beginnings. I rely on you to restore the details. One word, one sentence at a time I will reconstruct the story. Forgive me. The original has been lost but I promise to stay true to its drift. One word, one world at a time. Forgive me. The original version of this story does not exist. One word, one sentence at a time, this is its drift. This is the drift. The notes are scattered. No. Not scattered. The notes are lost. Jotted, scribbled. on scraps, in notebooks, on flaps. They were seldom read. They were never read at all. They cannot be collected. The words, disjointed, were set down and abandon. No. Not abandon. It is a story in threads. Images, ideas, phrases, paragraphs, the disembodied alphabet reverberating returning, haunted ... but I digress.
asha
7.30.2011
Dead Reckoning
Dead Reckoning
A bird does not sing because it has an answer.
A bird sings because it has a song. -Anonymous
WINTER
for Joe
In the evening we
carry down our dead
they leave our hands willingly
above Dog Star watches
cold, white
as on ancient evenings,
Dog Star
bringer of rain.
SPRING
Listen to the grass
leaning soft green
through the fence
singing.
Listen to the green
crawling slowly
away from the yard
where the bones lie
under their feet,
under the dandelion's,
the yellow dandelion's, feet
listening.
SUMMER
Sometimes we take
our measure from the dead
as from a stone that sits
unchanged amid the changing seasons
like a departed shore the dead mark
how far we’ve come through mystery
and how far we’ve yet to go.
FALL
"Solve et coagula"
The small things go first
over the blue salt edge of the world
followed by a deconstruction
of their tracks
by the wind
that covers and uncovers
the same finger bone
my own
where it fell in confusion
trembling
at the slow moving wheel
of the desert's rim.
A bird does not sing because it has an answer.
A bird sings because it has a song. -Anonymous
WINTER
for Joe
In the evening we
carry down our dead
they leave our hands willingly
above Dog Star watches
cold, white
as on ancient evenings,
Dog Star
bringer of rain.
SPRING
Listen to the grass
leaning soft green
through the fence
singing.
Listen to the green
crawling slowly
away from the yard
where the bones lie
under their feet,
under the dandelion's,
the yellow dandelion's, feet
listening.
SUMMER
Sometimes we take
our measure from the dead
as from a stone that sits
unchanged amid the changing seasons
like a departed shore the dead mark
how far we’ve come through mystery
and how far we’ve yet to go.
FALL
"Solve et coagula"
The small things go first
over the blue salt edge of the world
followed by a deconstruction
of their tracks
by the wind
that covers and uncovers
the same finger bone
my own
where it fell in confusion
trembling
at the slow moving wheel
of the desert's rim.
asha
6.15.2011
Mélancolie Mécanique
Mélancolie Mécanique
I.
Dear Mother,
I was in the world
a succession of strangers.
How was I to know?
The dog goes on her lonely
way. I forgot about you for
years. Morning has me
in her claw; disheveled, vacant.
Before sunrise the hard bounce
re-tooling of the clockwork day
is done and the great wheel set
between the glittering city
and the far-flung sea.
I called last night. They told me
you were still dead and too busy
but I know you were there, silent
as the white owl come to the terminal
edge. Now it is up to the rain and
Chance. Y nosotros, tus perdidos.
II.
The wind is idling down the road.
It passes with a backward glance.
It is an old conversation, one I can
neither remember nor forget. No
word means the same thing twice.
I miss you. That I remember in the
mother tongue. They will deny
everything. Potatobug begins her
trek across the day. I stop to let her
pass. Ant rushes by. Dandelion opens
to the sun. In this inherited dawn,
first light slanted just so catches
movement, something struggling in
the indifferent gears, washed in by
the collapsing wave, cornflower sea
glass eyes etched with irreconcilable
horizons. Beast or demon? But I am
getting ahead of the story.
I.
Dear Mother,
I was in the world
a succession of strangers.
How was I to know?
The dog goes on her lonely
way. I forgot about you for
years. Morning has me
in her claw; disheveled, vacant.
Before sunrise the hard bounce
re-tooling of the clockwork day
is done and the great wheel set
between the glittering city
and the far-flung sea.
I called last night. They told me
you were still dead and too busy
but I know you were there, silent
as the white owl come to the terminal
edge. Now it is up to the rain and
Chance. Y nosotros, tus perdidos.
II.
The wind is idling down the road.
It passes with a backward glance.
It is an old conversation, one I can
neither remember nor forget. No
word means the same thing twice.
I miss you. That I remember in the
mother tongue. They will deny
everything. Potatobug begins her
trek across the day. I stop to let her
pass. Ant rushes by. Dandelion opens
to the sun. In this inherited dawn,
first light slanted just so catches
movement, something struggling in
the indifferent gears, washed in by
the collapsing wave, cornflower sea
glass eyes etched with irreconcilable
horizons. Beast or demon? But I am
getting ahead of the story.
asha
5.15.2011
La Tormenta
La Tormenta
This is how the world was
lightning on the rim and a small boat
moving away forever
lantern swinging over a veiled sea.
We had the world to ourselves.
I was the boat, you were the shore.
You were the lighting, I was the swinging.
We were the horizon.
You were the sea. You were forever.
I was small. I was moving away.
You were how. I was the veils.
We were the storm.
This is how the world was
lightning on the rim and a small boat
moving away forever
lantern swinging over a veiled sea.
We had the world to ourselves.
I was the boat, you were the shore.
You were the lighting, I was the swinging.
We were the horizon.
You were the sea. You were forever.
I was small. I was moving away.
You were how. I was the veils.
We were the storm.
asha
Holding Pattern
Rainy season
I.
Thunder breaking low over the afternoon pressing
Tell your secrets to them
a pandemonium of parrots into the trees. It takes a
days worth of rain to relieve the tension in the air
thunder and the curtains lifting.
II.
I am listening to the muttering dark and how much
older the cricket sounds singing at the bottom of the
wall tonight. Rain slides down around the pebbles in my
grizzle root hair that fixes me in the dirt, fixes me
to the underworld and all the voices there.
III.
There are games you lose to yourself. You stay anchored
to the room through one barely open eye, anchored to
Who you talkin’ to?
the world by a slimy silver line, still as a boat marooned in
Who you talkin’ to?
a cave, lightening cracking outside, over the night, over
the vast awakening water. You feel the pull of echoes
kaleidoscoping too fast to grab, each mutation a little more
threatening.
Hold. Hold. Hold.
The sound of approaching footsteps pass and finally fade.
A hand reaches in and touches the mirror.
Rainy season
I.
Thunder breaking low over the afternoon pressing
Tell your secrets to them
a pandemonium of parrots into the trees. It takes a
days worth of rain to relieve the tension in the air
thunder and the curtains lifting.
II.
I am listening to the muttering dark and how much
older the cricket sounds singing at the bottom of the
wall tonight. Rain slides down around the pebbles in my
grizzle root hair that fixes me in the dirt, fixes me
to the underworld and all the voices there.
III.
There are games you lose to yourself. You stay anchored
to the room through one barely open eye, anchored to
Who you talkin’ to?
the world by a slimy silver line, still as a boat marooned in
Who you talkin’ to?
a cave, lightening cracking outside, over the night, over
the vast awakening water. You feel the pull of echoes
kaleidoscoping too fast to grab, each mutation a little more
threatening.
Hold. Hold. Hold.
The sound of approaching footsteps pass and finally fade.
A hand reaches in and touches the mirror.
asha
Costa Rica, 2009
3.14.2011
2.12.2011
Border Crossing
Leaving my language behind, I entered the labyrinth. Its streets were narrow, old and crowded with small fruit-colored buildings made of mud and stone. Dogs spoke in tongues and birds, following an alien gyroscope, flew downward into a cloudy underworld. Saints loitered in shadows making deals with passers-by. I was greeted by a cockroach who kindly explained their price, plastic flowers and bottled flame. I could see within the wicker shadows of their tiny huts, each saint stood stoic and faithful before their candles and the litter of past offerings; blackened, shattered glass and dusty clods of petals and wax. But at the hour any nearby church bell rang, they winced in their solitude. I asked the cockroach if anyone else was in the business.The dogs, she answered, adding that I best consider carefully before choosing among them. Before I could ask anything else she scuttled off, disappearing into the crack of a flame red wall.
Leaving my language behind, I entered the labyrinth. Its streets were narrow, old and crowded with small fruit-colored buildings made of mud and stone. Dogs spoke in tongues and birds, following an alien gyroscope, flew downward into a cloudy underworld. Saints loitered in shadows making deals with passers-by. I was greeted by a cockroach who kindly explained their price, plastic flowers and bottled flame. I could see within the wicker shadows of their tiny huts, each saint stood stoic and faithful before their candles and the litter of past offerings; blackened, shattered glass and dusty clods of petals and wax. But at the hour any nearby church bell rang, they winced in their solitude. I asked the cockroach if anyone else was in the business.The dogs, she answered, adding that I best consider carefully before choosing among them. Before I could ask anything else she scuttled off, disappearing into the crack of a flame red wall.
asha
Mexico, 2003
Mexico, 2003
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