The Fields of Ants in Poems

Walt called them brown,

Back when he lived

For a few months

On a street named

With a Dutch name

That sounds like kin

To some of us.

Who else has called

Ants brown? E.O.?

What if Ralph had

Not read the Leaves

Of Grass, not liked

Them, praised them high

And low? In poems,

Old fields of ants

Till all we know.

So What Are You

You wash through stuff.
You move on. You
Can’t fail while you;
Will fail as you.

For now, you’re here;
Now’s here for you.
The world is what
Is not you, but

You can’t be what
The world is not.
You are a shore
Where waves of one

Kind smash on waves
Of more than one.
You’re that kind, stones,
And tossed salt spray.

That Dolls Meant Death

Or that dolls were dolls
Or that death was death
Or that this meant that
Meant this meant that. Frank
Name-checked like a pro,

Like good DJs rap,
Long, long time now gone.
But that names meant poems
He would have known. Frank
Talk means you don’t know,

And as yet we can’t,
Poems or no, names checked
Like coats and hats or
Lost, to be frank, how
Meant things make meant things.

Prove One Crow White

Life was just what one did, while
One thought on the life to come.

And what if the life to come
Would prove to be just the life

In which one had to do things
To pass that life to the life

Past that? Place the world of birth
On birth on top of the world

Of one chain from worms to God,
And think of God as the end

In the mouth of one sad worm
Who has to eat to the top

From the start. One gets a new
Lease on life each time one turns

To see one is, which is when
One sees that there’s more than one.

With the Same Blood

If that were true, could be true,

Then think of it. Blood won’t stay

Long in a fridge, and not long

In its own home flesh. It dies,

Red and white, in a few days.

Your own blood is not the same

As your own blood last week, much

Less the same blood as your kin’s.

But if it could be, could flow

From vein to vein, life to life,

Not just as a stop-gap flown

In on ice, but as a stream

Through the long years, braids, a thread,

Not just of bits of core code,

But the pure blood of life, spilt

Birth to birth, new blood mixed in,

To fill up all the new flesh,

But the old blood still there, too.

Now that would be a wave, that

Would be a true link for you,

But it’s not. You’re all new blood,

And what comes down through you is

Not once from the same stream twice.

What’s left of all the blood lost?

What life wastes plus what life’s left

Adds up to what life ate, which

Was life, in your case, which made

Fresh blood. Your blood’s food less waste,

Part grass much more than part kin,

More than part your lost self, passed.