Calle Visión

Calle Visión

Dark Fields of the Republic, 1991-1995 (Norton, 1995)


Calle Visión
Not what you thought: just a turn-offleading downhill not up narrow, doesn't waste itselfhas a house at the far end
scrub oak and cactus in the yardsome cats some snakes
in the house there is a roomin the room there is a bed
on the bed there is a blanketthat tells the coining of the railroad
under the blanket there are sheetsscrubbed transparent here and there
under the sheet there's a mattressthe old rough kind, with buttons and ticking
under the mattress is a frameof rusting iron still strong
the whole bed smells of soap and rustthe window smells of old tobacco-dust and rain this is your room in Calle Visión
if you took the turn-offit was for you 2.

Calle Visióngranules of cartilage in your wrists sand in your teeth
Calle Visiónshuttered eyelids fire in your foot firestorm behind
Calle Visiónof your locked bones rocking the gates
Calle Visiónover your porous sleep dreamnet dropped

3.

Lodged in the difficult hotelall help withheld

a place not to live but to die innot an inn but a hospital

a friend's love came to metouched and took me away

in a carof a curmudgeon, a short-fuse love

and as he droveI felt his love eyes on the road

and that was simply the caseunstated and apparent the way things were

and like the rest of itclear as a dream

4.

Calle Visiónhow is this possible your heart beats on unbroken

Calle Visiónwounded spine wounded knee
wounded eye

Have you ever worked around metal?Are there particles under your skin?

Calle Visiónhow is this possible but your heart is still whole

since what can bewhen not offered in trust and faith will be taken

by the collectors of collectiblesthe professors of what-has-been-suffered

The world is falling downIt's a lonely sound hold my hand
hold my hand

Calle Visiónthe body's pain never forget

never divide it

5.

Ammonia carbon monoxide
methane
hydrogen sulfide
: the gasses that rise from urine and feces

carbon dioxide

in the pig confinement units known as nurseriescan eat a metal doorknob off in half a year

pig-dander-lung scar: breath-shortedness an early symptom

dust from dry manure

And the fire shall tryevery man's workand every woman's

: Calle Visión:

if you took the turn-offthis is your revelation
this the source

6.

The repetitive motions of slaughtering-fire in wriststhe dead birds coming at you along the line
-how you smell them in your sleep-
fire in your wrist blood packed
under your fingernails heavy air
doors padlocked on the outside
-you might steal a chicken-
fire in the chicken factory fire
in the carpal tunnel leaping the frying vats
yellow smoke from soybean oil
and wasted parts and insulating wire
-some fleeing to the freezer some
found "stuck in poses of escape"-

in elbows-

7.

You can call on beauty still and it will leapfrom all directions

you can write beauty into the cruel fileof things done
things left undone

but once we were dissimilaryet unseparate
that's beauty that's what you catch

in the newborn's midnight gazethe fog that melts the falling stars

the virus from the rainforest's smashed lianassearching now for us

8.

In the roomin Calle Visión in the house

all you wantalone on your back is to lie down
let your hands

slide lightly over your hipbonesBut she's there with her remnants her cross-sections

trying to distract youwith her childhood her recipes her

cargo of charred pages hercarved and freckled neck-stones

her crying-out-for-witness herbackward-forward timescapes

her suitcase in Berlinand the one lost and found

in her island go-and-come-is she terrified you will forget her?

9.

In the black netof her orange wing

the angry nightblown butterflyhangs on a piece of lilac in the sun

carried overland like herfrom a long way off

She has travelled hard and farand her interrogation goes:

-Hands dripping with wet earthheadfull of shocking dreams

O what have you buried all these years?What have you dug up?

This place is alive with the dead and with the living
I have never been alone here

I wear my triple eye as I walk along the roadpast, present, future all are at my side

Storm-beaten, tough-winged passengerthere is nothing I have buried that can die

10.On the road there is a housescrub oak and cactus in the yard

lilac carried overlandfrom a long way off
in the house there is a bedon the bed there is a blanket
telling the coming of the railroadunder the mattress there's a frame
of rusting ironthe window smells of old tobacco-dust and rain still strong
the window smells of oldtobacco-dust and rain
1992-1993