The Spire

John Penola

 

For Joe & Dad

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cover by Joseph A. Penola III


 

 

 

Prelude                                                                                                .4

 

 

The Mezzanine                                                                                   .6

 

 

The Spire                                                                                            .11      

 

 

The Photographs                                                                                .23

 

 

Their Echoes                                                                                       .31

 


 

 

 

Prelude


 

 

 

unlock your door and forget

everything that happened

 

this is like the beginning

only with fewer goodbyes

 

sometimes the world

looks more brilliant blurred


 

 

 

The Mezzanine


 

 

 

you find him on the downbeat

 

 

stuck in staccato circles

like cogs in an antique music box

                        dragging the time between notes

                                               

the dented metal spools

                        and warped piano-finger prongs

                        plucked as rafters muted chords

                                               

he fell among their teeth

                        the rest which made the music

 

 

between conductor and captain

 

a curtain collapsed




 

 

while bare feet crush flashbulbs

 

 

you catch orange floodlight

and throw back constellations

            a zodiac cast in asphalt and glass

 

between the dotted lines

where gods and coins are lost

like reflections in fish eyes

 

where the shadows are

paved uneven as skinned knees

gliding twelve stories high

 

 

an archer starves in flecks

 

                                    within your halogen halo

 


 

 

 

they hammer the stage warm

 

 

                                    even without the spotlight

                        pulling trap doors out of focus

                                   

your slippers give like gums

before you sneak out the back

                        or slide from fraying toe shoes

 

pink threads in pirouette

                        to nails preserved in wood blocks

                        where knuckles knot upon grain

 

 

the ventriloquist screams

 

encore from the mezzanine

 


 

 

 

your name crawls like an infant

 

 

                                    to bottomless applause

                        his palms sting for days

                        locked and loaded soldiers left

                        with captains full of shrapnel

                                   

            behind glowing cut-outs

                        you count only empty seats

                        like sheep through curtains

 

the masquerade will be

forgotten by february             

 

 

those years of rehearsal

 

                                    vanish with the patrons


 

 

 

The Spire


 

 

 

the knotted conch spiraled out

 

 

he prodded the soundÕs source

                        turning back smooth pink folds

 

its echoes amplified and pearl

                        dampened by jammed knuckles

                        which used to funnel in like smoke

                        but now catch on shrinking curves

                                               

to carry three heartbeats

the hollow now a part of him

                        and he apart from the hollow

 

 

to smash the spire

 

                                    there will be no apology

 


 

 

 

long gone the color of wine

 

 

                                    the loose strands all that is left

                        brown arches reaching their roots

                        in tiny tin lock box mausoleums

                                   

keeping bandits from spoiled

                        words crawling from hong kong

                        slow as the moles below the ocean

                        committed too long to tunnels

built too narrow too fast                    

 

like a thread on his tongue

                        your hair not all that has died

in the still valley of his pillow

 

 

breathing deeper sleep

 

he follows their way down

 


 

 

 

awaking in someone elseÕs dream

 

 

                        sprouting from the backs of trees

                        pigeons carry postcards from ocean liners

                        blurred pictures from an open freight car

                        far from manhattan skyscrapers

                       

a place where passing wheat

                        becomes a single yellow brushstroke

                        your filthy fingers reach for his

hands which hold no stains

                        though your bodies push the brink of rags

                                               

the order of frames rearranged

                        shifts his stow-away tenses

                        bursting hair back while trains

leave before they come

 

 

thousands of miles away

 

driven through low hanging clouds

 


 

 

 

although he was not captain

 

 

                                    looking over the vesselÕs stern

                        he waited for his stubborn compass

                        to cast its needle to a country

that speaks in tongues where throats

scratch from swallowed cats

                                   

swollen in adamÕs apple folds

                        treading water like the grit in his pocket

                        until layer upon layer coats it in pearl

                                   

an iridescent pair of lost keys

                        to the unseen apartments

                        where saucers of milk are left

                        so they can find their way back

                        to a thirty minute commitment

 

 

his spots cannot camouflage

 

                                    heÕs become hand-fed

 


 

 

 

no one else sees her

 

 

                                    and few feathers float intact

belly up by the breakers like a

swollen lily sprouting from sea foam

                                   

he pushed her back through cracks

where waves left catfish puddles

in crags and dents with tails tempting

fasting angels to slick black-top

 

beaks collapse in cut time

like hollow points on flak jackets

 

                                    how long they leech upon her

                        until another plummets and sees

 

 

her taste left in toothless mouths

 

                                    lingering like the tide

 


 

 

 

no one depends upon him

 

 

                                    aboard half-abandoned ships

                        his coughs spew powder bones

                        in storms of spore clouds

thick as horseflies above

 

bodies splayed as rainfall

their thin shreds veil

the smiles which shatter

seashells where air circles

a bird eating fish that ate her

                                   

they sing as suns set

the cat that made it out alive

the grit that was always cyst

 

 

pulse upon waves and current

 

                                    they wonÕt let their chorus go

 


 

 

 

he forgot to thank you

 

 

                                    separate skies catch the glare

between sunsets the paintings still

border both sides fixed in frame

                                               

                                    wrist flicks separate seagulls

from single lines that could have been

waves as easy as the street vendor

signatures from third-world countries

                                   

                                    youÕll mule them for miles

                        the light bulbs that drag her back

                        babies that stay bald and wide-eyed

                        with smiles as frail as fingernails

 

                        he pulls them out at once

            so they can grow back stronger

                        rolling their teeth like dice on tile

 

 

he canÕt be as lucky

 

                                    as those children dying

 


 

 

 

the snowflakes make no sound

 

 

            while they forfeit symmetry

driving jagged arms into jagged arms

bayonets that break windows

melt and blur to maintain the brink

 

                                    like leaves suspended uncertain

                        beneath every untouched snowdrift

                        where they wait on their mark

                        between the rotting and rotten

 

they can sleep no longer

                        charcoal outlines will remain

if summer is ever seen

                        each breath is an icicle

                        every icicle an hour glass

                                               

 

when earthworms stay stiff

 

                                    you wear autumn like armor

 


 

 

 

before he can chew it off

 

                                               

                                    the ratÕs own snake tail

                        drags the sandpaper feet

                        of those who forgot how to hunt

the ship where footsteps

                                   

                                    could have stopped

the buzzards who became

the bullÕs eye of her body

                        a spotlight which pulled in ripples

                        until tidal waves erased horizons

 

                                    the sunken-eyed procession

spirals like a black hole

 

 

the center of a still ocean

 

                                    feathers in frenzy

 


 

 

 

he should have listened

 

 

                                    when more than pavlov and poe

                        rang in thatched tin patchwork

                        where she fed dogs over him

 

their echoes filled the capsized craft

                        and called the emaciated to mass

                        against sinking hull and soaring ash

                       

with cotton lodged deep

                        there is a funeral of paper

                        there is a one-match prayer

 

 

shock waves through earrings

 

                                    the anvil claims another hammer

 


 

 

 

their bodies continue to wash up

 

 

                        fur and feathers hang in antique

curtains over slack mouths

while buzzard tongues decipher

                                   

the sand beaded braille

                        in limp eyes that turned

to flotsam in throats left unfilled

                                   

cripples feed upon cripples

where surf softens the lines

between a cracked hourglass

and piles of scales unclaimed

as the biographies of burglars

 

 

before they have the chance

 

                                    he chews off his own legs


 

 

 

The Photographs


 

 

 

the photographs developed

long after the shutter blinked

burning evidence to film

she found as an observer

an accomplice but no culprit

 

the pictures taken to ensure

something more than memory

would survive as a reminder

once the drug store presented

the remainders of the past

 

they are scratches on china

only visible when tilted

so the light hits them wrong

and the public can see that

they are ruined and used

 


 

 

 

she heard this storm before

past the cellar door reflex

set like dusty mouse traps

in the violet glow of television

                                   

it lit his back like arson

leashed by blown speakers

with old dogs locked upstairs

her teeth sank in that sound

 

and branded him a black eye

he swept under concrete

canyons carved with sweat

for the cells that survived

 


 

 

 

she found things that could not be

written in your second-hand sparklers

 

before their soft walls collapsed

in the creased stages of her palms

 

a harmony of halos flared

their spirals above his head

 

you should have heard the fire

they set to her hands like applause

 

he brought them back together

into a fog of forget-me-nots

 


 

 

 

when she pulled him from

a warm bath of paper cuts

into an ocean of cameras

he could not help but turn

 

the bombs of his fingertips

lagged like horse hooves

snuffing silence like newborns

after the curtain receded

 

he forgot he was hungry

when he saw those photos

stuffed into familiar bags

like unfamiliar letters

 

the rhymes between them

that she never heard

until his fingernails chipped

into thick pieces of shale

 

breadcrumbs which sank

like fossils beneath him

as the wallpaper of her

painted dress peeled back

 


 

 

 

it could have been his guernica

if he painted by numbers

collaging awkward pauses

which shed from muted nods

 

the new american sign language

inside his sleep cycles

the size of movie screens

where cousins suicide like seeds

 

snow-lined and sand-eyed

these medicated meditations

drawn out like dŽjˆ vu             

before aesop gave to grimm

 


 

 

 

words left his mouth

as tape rewound

his fists around himself

 

she whispered for him

to crane his neck down her

throat lined with headlines

 

the stale newsprint

smoldering like perfume

from cherry-tipped sticks

 

skywriting against the static

in flat sounding circles

fingerprints fathers left

 

inside their mothers

they cried like lost whales

found within fish bowls

 

filled with formaldehyde

to breach the soft spots

between memories

 


 

 

 

his eyes paint her blue

spreading perfect circles

in white space that used to be

 

her name and its history

pulled out like weeds

all of it frail as make-believe

 

a thin strip of a hand

flung chivalry to shore

the nights he soon forgets

 

legends stamped with stilettos

maps abandoned at their x

where she cannot hide

 

behind one-way mirrors


 

 

 

Their Echoes


 

 

 

while his camera lies bedside

a deer stamps jewels out of dirt

with a single silver hoof he heard

 

when rabbits were bunnies

dad was daddy and not

marble below an inch of snow

 

when prosthetic percussion

only glimpses his alarm clock

before falling like their conversation

 

he remembers more and more

things that never quite happened

the street pressed to her face

 

part of him must have known

it would have been better to watch

before giving them someone

 

jigsawed from billboards and bus stops

the face of everyone he never met

a martyr who is above all else

            not her

 


 

 

 

every year without her grin

spread slow as arthritis

through each jetty and delta

 

the veins in his fatherÕs hands

brushed dust from spines like snow

that fell from tree branches

 

like a chain-gang of runaways

who orphaned one another

but got locked to knuckles

 


 

 

 

a blind sparrow with a red blindfold

runs thread through his lockjaw

the same red thread over his eyes

 

lost in something more heroic

the last stands of his sons

who managed to swim through

the arrows in their hollow bones

stretching up from sinkholes

 

he rubs them out like sleep

insects packed behind his eyes

scattering when light strikes soil

 


 

 

 

the things she will never see

like the millipede coil in her iris

shudder within oval frames

until he finds himself

five years older in a wheelchair

from the type of car accident

people recall when they hear

words like irony or karma

 

he has watched their echoes

traced them with a railroad spike

 


 

 

 

two outlines of evergreen peaks

spread constellations in widescreen

forming his silhouette

 

like fatigued cassette tape

he renames them all after

cancelled sitcoms and suicide bombers

 

dented pennies beside the tracks

caught on needles and branches

and incense ribbons unraveling

 


 

 

 

the muzzle of her chest

was as jagged and hollow

as outlines where pines stop

 

her kiss became her signature

and crumbled like paint chips

inside a book she did not write

 

with the creases of her palm

hidden behind his hand

pictures of burnt pictures

 

that thick-cracked furnace

which shot hot gusts of words

until they lost all meaning

 

like blowing out the candles

when grandparents could not

muster the breath to wish