Reading at the Forsyth Chapel May 2013

Here is a link to my reading at the Forsyth Chapel in the Forest Hills Cemetary. The clip is called "Sam Cornish and friends" (Boston Poet Laureate) and was filmed by Boston Neighborhood Network. What a beautiful place to read.

I am at approximately minute 9, 23 and 30.

https://www.bnntv.org/tune-in/shows/around-town-may-8-2013

Ancient History Lesson

Ancient History Lesson

First, there were floods

Lots of them, and they always wrecked the crops.

Everyone starved.

Then there was irrigation. And fighting

over water. And battles.

Everyone was slain.

Later, there was religion. Thousands of gods,

then one god (whose?) then more battles. Everyone

was converted or slain.

After long periods of nothing happening—

(except the usual—marriage, children, death from disease,

parties and music, drawing and inspiration, the rustle of wheat)

suddenly war would break out.

This goes on for 5,000 years.

Everyone hated the others for no reason

or every reason we know: the crops, the rights,

the look on his face, don’t look at my daughter that way.

And what will we be remembered for?

Airplanes and electricity? Voting?

Or more battles where everyone was slain. Followed by

long periods where nothing much happened.

First published in Sonora Review

The Heart

The heart                                                                                           

On August 19, 1996 I realize

the idea that love

is physically located in the heart,

that pumping thing

inside your chest,

is not as arbitrary as I thought,

a convenient symbol for valentines and poems,

that it could not be placed somewhere else--

the left ear or right foot for example,

or the hands--though they might come in second,

their need to touch coming from a place

we do not control.

I had seen you again, a few weeks before my thirtieth birthday

and again dragged myself over the same ground:

Could it work? And again the conclusion, probably not,

over and over, like the woman

who sits outside the Boston Public Library

and runs her fingers along the hem

of her skirt, all day long

each nubble, each tear.

People pass by and look away

believing what she seeks

is not there.

I know where it is.

At the BU track I run six laps.

A boy starts to cry as I start out

in a language I don't know

or none at all

a wail that comes from his chest and

does not end.

A mile and a half later he still cries out steadily

not giving up.

The wail gets inside me

but I do not stop.

I am here to say you are wrong--

with your stethoscopes, your psychologists.

It is my heart alone that pumps the blood,

pushes me forward

around and around this red, dusty circle.

Boston City Hall Prose and Poetry contest winner 2013

Warrior

Warrior

Someday I'm going to make a movie

and it won't be about nothing,

or charge you $8.50

or star anyone with

plastic, Hollywood teeth.

My movie will star my waiter

at Chau Chow's in Chinatown,

the one with the plastered down hair,

the little one, the only one

who ever brings me the water,

who looks up sideways and nods

silent

no matter how often

you ask, how are you

The camera will light his way home

from the restaurant

reeking of shrimp and cabbage

wearing his dingy black and whites

through damp insomniac streets;

he will be lit from behind like

a crusader, glowing, meeting evil

and saying Chi! and Chi! again

all with his gray teeth and small shoulders.

Of course, he won't use his real name and

he won't quit the restaurant,

arriving there each afternoon

like every warrior, doing what he must.

Boston City Hall Prose and Poetry contest winner 2013