Ray Gonzalez
A BIRD INSIDE THE BUILDING

A bird fluttering inside the huge building, its repetitive pattern like the same window opening and closing, trapping the assumption inside, following its frantic arcs to form mercy at the closed doors to imagined freedom at the high walls, assistance in the form of light that supports wings because the master silence is flight absolved when the bird vanishes inside the building—all the windows open, the bird repeating the pattern of arcs and landings that resemble its mate hovering outside, trying to find a way in.

THREE SNOW STORMS

If you were yourself,
the snow falling outside
the window would resemble
your father’s shaved whiskers
dropping slowly to the floor.

                        *

I stare at you in the photo
and see the white beard
where the poem of
the face is hidden.

The poem of the face
leads to the heart
where the words
we will never write
sit like proud men,
sweating in their
nakedness.

I study you in the photo
and agree the weak crow
killed by its own
falls off the tree
to mark the ground
because ground is
marked only once
for men with
white hair.

                        *

The white storm
pushes me into
the canyon where
the poetry of shadows
emerges when I reach up
to the petroglyph on
the red wall, snow
hiding the lines
carved to save me
from what
I do not know.

PHOTO OF PABLO PICASSO WITH HIS SHIRT OFF

The hairy chests of men always get in the way.
You can love the bald approach, though

it will kill you when the world sees
your painting is the keyhole to the other

world where men’s nipples are actually
dark moon craters on secret maps

woven into their shirts.
The hairy look of genius gets in the way.

You can smear the paint on your cheeks
and say it was madness, broken love,

some idea of fame that made you create.
When history enters the burned museum,

they will find you there, your shirt on,
the buttons gleaming like the stars.

The hairy chests of men will get in the way.
You will worship the brilliant stroke, the act,

a charcoal bull snorting and tossing itself into
your heart, making you finally take off your shirt

to show your chest because your sternum is
the arch sheltering the last sacrificial cave.

IF BY CHANCE, THE CHILD PRODIGY

The northern stars demand
the southern stars go home. 
Instructions say the planets
should not be written about
unless the child prodigy is there,
resurrected as a thought in
a handwritten note dropped
in a school playground.
The telegram floats like a guide
to the burial sites and the color of
the eyes that sit in their skulls. 
The northern stars draw closer
and the galaxy changes into
a pie plate used by a pioneer
woman in a rotting cabin on
the plains of Nebraska in 1882.

It was a voyage intended for love,
but clouds over the territories
prevented such a thing. 
The southern stars realign
the black hole as the universe
intended—no dark star in
the root of all things.
Pursued with Venus and Pluto,
the buffalo herd makes it
across the continent. 
If by chance, the child prodigy
slices a meteor with her mind,
this will not take place.
Men will climb down
stone steps to have a look. 
Star charts will be abolished
and contaminated gardens
will take their place.

The northern hand grasps
the southern hand and the smell
between them floats eastward. 
The western reaches do not
shake hands with approaching
civilizations, canyons,
unused wooden weapons
and worn sandals,
even the empire at rest.
Women run up the stone
steps because they have
no reason to look. 
If by chance, the child prodigy
traces a blood canal in her
spinal cord, the tribe
will be changed.
Devastations will thrive
in perfect silence. 
Linear ideas and lessons
will be perceived. 
The fury created by such
a philosophy will raise
casualties and the nation
will pull out of the country
where the coffins thrive.
Eastern constellations shall
outnumber western nebulas,
though the path of the starship
was plotted in the books
eight thousand years ago. 

Children in dusty schoolrooms,
textbooks turning yellow
on shelves against back walls,
cults and believers presenting
websites for tracking the northern
and southern stars.
If by chance, the child prodigy
survives the cluster bomb,
let her walk again because
her bloody feet can still
move across the ground
without renaming the earth.