When the Sun Sets in the East

Poems from 1984 to 1994. Samples follow --Sample One:Glasses Two panes, fattenedto correctmy focus: a plastic trussacross my eyes,bridged at my noseto make me seethe worldthe way it really is; one day I may finda pairthat work.Sample Two:The Breath of New Jersey I still know the breath of New Jersey,the tin-pan howl of Conrailfreights that slash the airwith warning strobeslike machetes at the stalksof dark, then burstonto the Madison Street grade,each locomotivelarger than the Foodtown...
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Poems from 1984 to 1994. Samples follow --Sample One:Glasses Two panes, fattenedto correctmy focus: a plastic trussacross my eyes,bridged at my noseto make me seethe worldthe way it really is; one day I may finda pairthat work.Sample Two:The Breath of New Jersey I still know the breath of New Jersey,the tin-pan howl of Conrailfreights that slash the airwith warning strobeslike machetes at the stalksof dark, then burstonto the Madison Street grade,each locomotivelarger than the Foodtown and blacker than a spadein ink-lets of dust.Night sinks quickly in New Jersey,atop the wailing tractor-trailersswimming Turnpike, spastic,chilled to the frame, fighting up-streamlike salmon to spawn their loadsin Newark, Paterson, and Hackensack,stone cities gone ash in fields of weedthat crust their factorieslike barnacles on a blue whale's snout.Look to the rivers of pitchfor the detritus we spit out!61In New Jersey the leaves all weara tired film of smoke,while new homes are jammedon back lawns and front lawnsand side lawns of lotswhich were drawn for one original house.Acorns flock like marblesto curb stone gutters where dog turdscure, and cigarette butts turn to rust,while grayish rains sizzle cloudsand storm whistles rooftops,"This is New Jersey, leave it alone,leave us! You must!"On my ears I still sensethe flush of the brooksnake wash around the pines, where geesechase field mice that climbperiwinkle to the banks.And the wind, the wind, the hollow wind,that crone, that harbor breathof voice that billows the panesand knocks storm windows to rattleNew Jersey's children's dreamsof when the snow grows thick and Bakelitekitchen radios screech, "1010 WINS News,62the following schools will be closed..."and old men tremble,scrape powder from their windshields,drop salt to their drives.By afternoon the white sheet of the lawn'sgone grey, and the children don't see,and their mothers won't see, and their fathers can't seethat there is death in New Jersey,where the Raritan, the Overpeck, and the Passaic are her veins opened up,left scabbed, mired and stained,where the sanitation trucks gnawtheir trash each Thursday before dawn,then heave into Meadowlands' ponds.I hear the cracksnap as a neighbor touches matchto his piled leaves, and somehowwith the rush of that smoke,the ache of that train,and the hymn of that wind,it's hard to forget a place like that.