Wonderful to hear from you. It's been so long. I always admired your wit and ready smile. Did I kiss you once? Forgive my adolescent desire, that dark companion of my teens.
He was a rogue Lothario, my desire. He carved his name in the river and ran deer trails bare foot. He chased rabbit blood like a hound. He knew the name of every tree in the woods behind the barn, but he never told me the secret of leaves. A colony of ants built intricate architectures with their bodies to bridge a springmelt puddle and touch his bare foot. He was the glorious hero of his own story, and I shall never forgive him for growing up.
My desire taught me to dance with language, to touch words that know the music better than I. My desire led me through elusive corridors of sound.
In the deep woods of my desire, I built a bonfire of words, rubbing one against another until syllables writhed and whispered, as if anything in language could make language tremble.
Ha!
There is mystery, Mary, in words, a hidden magic down there between sounds. Touch it. Taste it. Listen as the druids dreamed the hidden names of trees. Frank O'Hara, fine fine poet died on Fire Island. I was too young-- and the stars too old--to know that he taught my desire a song.
Grace to be born, and to live life as variously as possible.
Is there a more fulfilling ontology?
I'm perpetually fascinated by this singular world. I may stand among the grand pylons of the Vicksburg bridge. I may patrol a pipeline along the edge of the Tigris River.
The smallest details transfix me.
A dirt dobber shapes her clay pot around a paralyzed insect on which she laid her egg.
A maple leaf I touched twenty and more years ago, so tender with spring my thumbnail made it bleed and left a scar of my passing.
You are wading through fathoms of dust.
The faintest, stained sunlight pierces the flooded landscape.
You shoulder the red murk, head tucked, windward eye closed
and leeward eye squint-slitting sand-spray.
You chart your course by a row of boulders
edging the buried road. A eucalyptus rustles and sways,
spilling silt from dry leaves; pigeons ruffle dust from dry wings and coo.
Your silt-soaked scarf fails your aching lungs.
The drowned headlights of a lone vehicle tremble past.
Currents of dust flow over concrete walls and wash against vague
buildings skulking behind them.
You are like a sea-forgotten ghost
scuttling along the boulevard of an ancient, sunken city.
Two boys on a small, gray donkey
herd a flock of sheep and goats
past a squad of American soldiers.
The boys are wearing leather sandals,
and each has a stick in his right hand.
The soldiers have been walking a long way.
The boys hit the donkey and the sheep,
but the goats won't be bullied.
A dust twister dances in the distance.
The last thoughts of the sun
will be sifting into the long
black shadows of evening
by the time the Americans stop walking.
Ever
since I had my penis bronzed, I’ve regretted the decision. It is heavy,
cumbersome, and always cracking the porcelain of public urinals. What’s more,
my relationship has suffered.
My
girlfriend, Lonnie, thought it was a cute idea at first. In fact, it was more
or less her idea. One of her regular customers at the Redondo Beach Bar Pub, a
movie producer, came in wearing one, and she evidently got a sizable tip for
complimenting him. Of course, a 14-carat gold codpiece, softer and more
alluring than any other metal, can add appeal even to a middle-aged paunchster
in Bermuda shorts, a Hawaiian shirt, and Birkenstock sandals. He gave her a
special issue of Men’s Vogue magazine, which he happened to have rolled
in his fanny pack, “Codpieces for the Twenty-first Century,” and she brought it
back to our apartment that night.
Two
weeks later, it was done. Lonnie even helped me pay for the dipping, a
procedure I found more uncomfortable than getting my testicles snipped. At
least with the vasectomy, I lay supine on a padded table, my legs raised in
those stirrups used for pregnant women. Dipping my prick in liquid bronze, on
the other hand, was an altogether awkward experience. I had to squat over a
cauldron of the molten metal, supporting myself—get this—with a geriatrics
walker!
My
mistake, I think, was getting it done at Doctor Holler’s Skin Lab, the same
back-alley tattoo parlor where I got Lonnie’s name inked on my left buttock.
She wanted me to go to Sabrina’s Body Art Emporium, and, in retrospect, I
should have listened. But I said no way, Honey. That would be like going to a
beautician for a haircut, and I’m strictly a barber shop kind of guy, electric
clippers, maybe a straight razor for the back of my neck, but absolutely no
scissors. Scissors are for sissies, I told her.
The
biggest problem I’m having, believe it or not, is cleanliness. I’m serious. I
have to buff my bronze appendage three to five times a day, at least, because
accumulations of dust can eat into the metal surface. Again, I am a victim of
my own parsimony, having had it done at a cut-rate and disreputable agency. The
better establishments lacquer the product to protect the finish. Lacquered
bronze only needs dusting and an occasional wiping with a damp cloth. What’s
more, for a nominal fee a board certified practice will offer maintenance
insurance, which among other things allows you to have the lacquer replaced if
it begins to crack.
So
I dust it constantly with a soft cloth. Doctor Holler’s “Care &
Cleaning Manual,” photocopied and bound with three rusty staples, cautions me
against rubbing too vigorously, especially on any protruding parts. I’m not
kidding. That’s almost a direct quote. It does, however, offer helpful advice
on specifics:
If
your bronze codpiece has been neglected for a long period of time and is
covered with many days of weary grime, thoroughly clean it with a soft brush.
Remove all dust from crevices and notches and then lightly rub the entire
surface with a soft flannel cloth. To achieve a fantablulous luminescence,
carefully wash with a solution of 1 tablespoon salt and 3 ½ quarts water. Rinse
well.
Once
a month, we recommend cleaning it with a Salt-Vinegar-Flour mixture, which is
quite simple to prepare and apply. First, dissolve 1 teaspoon salt in 1 cup
white vinegar. Add enough flour to make a doughy paste. Flatten the paste into
a pancake and wrap it around your codpiece like a crepe or burrito shell. Let
sit for 15 minutes to 1 hour. Rinse with clean, warm water, and polish dry.
Polish with copper polish followed by glass wax. Doing this religiously will
prolong the life-luster of the metal.
What
are you doing in there, Lonnie hollers through the bathroom door. She doesn’t
ask. Her voice doesn’t rise like an eyebrow at the end of the sentence. There
is accusation in her tone. Her mouth is apparently so close to the panel that
the door veritably trembles with her breath. I can hear her fingernails
scratching three coats of paint and the locked doorknob rattling. She complains
that I’m fixated, that I love my codpiece more than I love her.
She
says I’m spending too much time in the bathroom with it.
You’re
dead wrong, I yell, looking up from my busy hands. I love you more than
anything, Sweetheart, really I do. You don’t understand. I carry a burden now,
fashionable, au currant, but cumbersome and tiring nonetheless, which, I might
add, is partly of your making. After all, it was you, Dear Heart, who brought home
that special issue of Men’s Vogue magazine, “Codpieces for the
Twenty-first Century.” It was you who emptied your tip jug of thirty-five
pounds in change. You said it would help my career—I’m currently a card
carrying but unemployed member of the Writer’s Guild—and our love life.
Yeah,
well, she says, I was wrong on both counts!
What
worries me more than anything else is the quality of the alloy used by Doctor
Holler—if that’s his real name. Most of these types, preying as they do on the
social-emotional insecurities of their clients, assume aliases. He’s probably
not a real doctor at all, or, worse, he’s a mere PhD. The shyster likely
employs metal of the cheapest copper blend, perhaps even zinc. No doubt, he
manufactures his pieces from a low-grade alloy imported from China. For all I
know, there may be lead in the mixture.
The
reason I’m spending so much time buffing my bronze codpiece these days is not
simply that I’m an out-of-work writer with no ideas and too much time on my
hands. It’s more than that. You see, I think my piece is infected with “Bronze
disease,” one of the most serious hazards with this particular metal.
Don’t
get me wrong. I’m no hypochondriac, nor am I a paranoid Philip-K-Dickian type.
I suspect, however, that Lonnie has been dosing my piece with a chloride water
solution. I think she mixed it in the plastic spray bottle she uses for her
Boston ferns, just enough bleach to get the job done but not enough for me to
smell when I sniff the bottle. Anyway, I think she is misting my appendage
while I’m sleeping, which I do in the nude, unfortunately, as it turns out.
Bronze
disease takes the form of a sudden outbreak of small patches of corrosion and
is distinguished by rough, light green spots. Doctor Holler’s manual warns that
it occurs when chlorides and oxygen combine in a damp environment. Of course
this has been one of the driest years on record for L.A., but Lonnie recently
purchased a humidifier for our bedroom, which keeps so much moisture in the air
that we sleep in perpetually damp sheets.
At
first I was pleased with the green spots, mistaking them for the protective
patina one sees on museum pieces or Civil War monuments. Then I realized that a
true Verde develops only after decades of weathering, and I’ve had this
codpiece for a mere three months. Except for the green spots, my bronze is
still as shiny as a new penny. It hasn’t yet darkened, a natural and harmless
and attractive result of the aging process. Doctor Holler’s manual says that to
stop the disease I must wash the piece in repeated changes of boiling hot,
distilled water, and that’s what I’m doing right now. You may have to soak the
object for a week or more in distilled water, the manual says. If this
treatment does not work, consult a museum expert about using a strong solution
of sodium sesqui-carbonate or have your piece treated by a professional.
Lonnie’s
knocking on the door again, telling me that she’s leaving for work and that I
shouldn’t wait up because she’s meeting some girlfriends after and won’t be
home till late. It’s a Wednesday, for pete's sake, I say. Where are you going
on a Wednesday night? Oh, you know, Tokio, 310 Lounge, Little Temple, she says,
her voice echoing as she walks away from the bathroom door. This is L.A., man,
she says. There’s always something happening.
Then
I hear the apartment door shut—not slam, but click as quietly as a secret kiss
blown at a stranger.
I write to let you know that I am well and that I arrived at Contingency Operating Base Q-West, Iraq, on June 23.
We trained in Kuwait a couple weeks, at Camp Buehring about 100 kms west of Kuwait City. We stayed in large, air-conditioned Quonset tents, steel framed with an arched ceiling, a door with an ante-chamber at either end. Seventy cots lined the walls.
I experienced my first Kuwaiti sandstorm the day after I landed, and a fine powder of sand settled on all my gear in the tent--including my laptop. It reminded me of Mount Pinatubo's gray ash, which erupted when I was stationed at Subic Bay, Philippines. I remember waking with a fine coat dust that cascaded from my face and chest when I sat up.
The Kuwaiti sand was powdery, and the constant June wind kept the air dusty. First light was around 0430, and by 0630 the sun hung well above the horizon, its white light filtering through a tan haze. Two days after I arrived, miraculously, it rained. Long whips of lightning cracked, and a brief but heavy shower soaked the sand. Sparrows bathed in puddles that evaporated within an hour or so.
The sparrows looked the same as those in the States--maybe they're not indigenous--but they behaved differently. They seemed more aggressive--deserts surely foster this trait. One would land near, on a concrete T-wall, for instance, and eye me hungrily; moreover, it would pant like a dog, its beak wide enough to see the tongue.
The heat, by mid-day, rose to 110-115 degrees and higher. If I walked a short distance, I'd sweat profusely, but if I paused in the scarce shade the breeze dried my clothes, leaving a powder of salt stains.
I'm fascinated by the desert. True, it is inhospitable and harsh, and I would hate it but for the air conditioned tents, but what interests me are the bloated efforts of U.S. forces to control the environment. Dozers push long, high berms around American bases, but the sand flows over these like springmelt water over levees. Indeed, it resembles the grand efforts to control the Mississippi River, which goes where it chooses in the end.
These ultimately futile struggles are metaphors of American hubris. We delay defeat and call it victory.
Compared to Kuwait, northern Iraq is heavenly. There is sparse vegetation, but at least there are trees and grass and nettles. This morning is sunny and already hot, about 100 degrees, but by evening a cool breeze will flow down from the northeastern mountains. The most common tree here is the eucalyptus. Yesterday evening, as I returned from the cavernous and bountiful chow hall, I heard pigeons cooing in a shady eucalyptus grove.
The stones here differ from those in Kuwait. Apparently slate, they are dark gray and often flat and ovular. The little ones would make wonderful stones for skimming across a placid pond. In fact, this morning I stood at the edge of a breathless reservoir with a handful of small, flat stones. One of them skipped 15 times, no kidding. Trumpeter pigeons circled my feat, and my triumphant whooping flushed five magpies from the reeds near shore. I'm going to collect quarter and half-dollar -sized stones, enough for a board game.
What geologic forces created these stones, I wonder. I suspect that they have eroded from the northeastern mountains and that sand, primarily, has worn them smooth.
Q-West used to be an Iraqi Air Force base, and numerous structures still stand from that period. They are sturdy, built of poured concrete thirty or forty years ago. One section of the base shows the lingering effects of U.S. bombing. The debris has been cleared, of course, revealing the foundation of a command post, but a wrinkled water tower still leans against the earth, rusty and quiet. Ho hum.
Q-West pumps its water from the Tigris River, about 20 miles east of here. Nearly three quarters of what the base sucks from the river disappears into the many villages along the way, siphoned to sustain farming and so on. The U.S. forces have ignored, if not condoned, this practice because it fosters a grudging tolerance among people who would otherwise target Q-West, which has experienced relative calm for months. Water is the currency. Water is the power. The Americans give the Iraqis back their water. Nice Americans.
During early July, a summer shamal, a steady northwest wind, shouldered the base, and the dust was uncommonly heavy. A local Iraqi said that he'd never seen such in his lifetime. At times a powdery chalk hung in the still air like a dirty, gray fog. Hair and eyelashes whitened, and it settled in every crease and wrinkle of skin and clothing. We sweated milk. Other times, the hot wind intensified, bearing a rust-orange dust. This is called "red air," a thick, tarnished cloud engulfing the landscape. We had a hard time seeing fifty feet in such conditions. Wind blew dirt in our eyes, noses, and mouths, so we tucked our bandanas up under our wrap-around glasses. People stayed inside. Few vehicles braved the roads.
Imagine wading through such fathoms of dust. Only the faintest, stained sunlight pierces the flooded landscape. You shoulder the red murk, head tucked, windward eye closed and leeward eye squinting against sand-spray. To chart your course, you follow a row of large, rough stones edging the buried road. A eucalyptus tree rustles and sways against the wind, spilling silt from its dry leaves; pigeons ruffle dust from their wings and coo irritably. Your silt-saturated scarf fails your aching lungs. The drowned headlights of a lone vehicle tremble past. Currents of dust flow over concrete walls and wash against vague buildings skulking behind them. You are like a sea-forgotten ghost scuttling along the boulevard of an ancient, sunken city.
This immense dust storm kept Q-West isolated for a week--no flights in or out, no convoys. That meant no mail, no chow resupply, no supplies, no arriving troops. The sky cleared, finally, but I'll always remember July 4, 2009, at COB Q-West.
I'm at the Internet Cafe in the MWR (Moral, Welfare, & Recreation) Center. This is a sizable tent with numerous rooms. Besides the Internet Cafe, there's a small paperback library, a pool room, a video game room, a theater, a large gymnasium, several television viewing areas, a telephone center, and (what decent MWR would be without?) a ping pong table!
I finished Dickens' David Copperfield on a cot at Camp Buehring, Kuwait, and I wrote a couple poems there, too.
IN THE EVENT OF ACTUAL INDIRECT FIRE MOVE TO THE NEAREST BUNKER
Your words and I danced
mazurkas in the moonlit desert.
They have green eyes, your words,
and sharp teeth. I danced wearing nothing
but skivvies and flip-flops,
sand fleas be damned.
Your words wore a Gypsy's dress.
Why do your words
have "USMC" tattooed on one ankle
and a fist on the other?
Your words led me
to a field of smooth stones.
I said that they looked like devils’ eggs.
Your words said the stones were loaves
kneaded by the thinnest fingers of sand
and baked for ten thousand years.
We picnicked in that field.
I made a ring of stones
in which to spread
a quilted poncho liner.
From a birch bark basket
your words laid out
a cup of raisin challah,
a dish of gefilte fish,
a platter of honey-breaded chicken,
a bowl of avocado salad,
three bottles of wine,
and a pint of Gzhelka vodka.
I brought a cooler of ice,
a canteen cup,
and a goose down pillow
for your words.
Your words lit Shabbat candles.
It isn’t Shabbat yet, I said.
Shut your goyim mouth,
your words said,
and kiss me deadly.
I love that movie, I said.
THROUGH THE HANDLE OF A COFFEE CUP
Your words were waiting outside my tent
near the concrete bunker,
sporting wrap-around sunglasses
and a Bedouin burqah hung with silver coins.
And you don’t seem to understand
that I can read your mind
is what your words told me.
A sparrow landed near and eyed us,
beak open like a panting dog.
Venus, the evening star,
watched us too, through dust and darkly.
When the last days come
we will recognize each other,
your words said. We will see
ourselves for the first time,
dancing in a sepia desert.
I am drowning, we will say.
Help me to breathe.
We will see visions.
A hot wind carried the day’s last
dry thoughts into evening.
A plastic bag snagged on the concertina,
fluttering like a tattered flag.
I don’t know how metal rusts,
I said, when it never rains here.
The way we really are,
your words said,
is like Sam Cooke singing—
I was born by the river in a little tent,
oh, and just like the river
I’ve been running ever since.
What I’d like to know, I said,
is how long it takes a year or so ago
to sift to earth, to settle like coffin dust,
a breathless spiral, sure,
but brighter than these stars.
Tomorrow morning, your words told me,
the sun will pierce this brown haze,
passing thin and small and white
through the handle of your coffee cup.
