A T H O U S A N D D O O R S
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M a t t P a s c a
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2011, Matt Pasca. All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or recording without the prior written permission of Matt Pasca unless such copying is expressly permitted by federal copyright law. Address inquiries to Permissions, JB Stillwater Publishing, 12901 Bryce Court NE, Albuquerque, NM 87112.
Cover art “Parable: A Mustard Seed” copyright © Jesse Pasca. All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pasca, Matt.
A thousand doors : poems / by Matt Pasca.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-9845681-6-1 (pbk.)
I. Title.
PS3616.A789T47 2011
811'.6--dc22
2011010170
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
20110806
JB Stillwater Publishing
A Subsidiary of Casa de Snapdragon LLC
20110802a
for Terri, who makes anything possible
T h e S t o r y
The title of this collection was inspired by a Buddhist parable about a poor woman named Kisa Gotami whose overwhelming joy at having birthed a son turned to crushing grief when the boy suddenly took ill and died. Crazed with sorrow, Kisa Gotami pleaded with everyone she saw to help bring the boy back to life. A kind man directed her to the Buddha, who, she was told, might have the medicine she so frantically sought. Kisa Gotami rushed to the Buddha’s monastery. “Here you will find the help you need,” said the Buddha, “but first you must do something for me. You must return to the city from which you just came, find me a single mustard seed and bring it back.” Kisa’s face lit up. “Most importantly,” continued the Buddha, “the seed must come from a family in which no one has died.” Kisa Gotami rushed back to her town, stopped at the first house and knocked at the door. An old woman answered. She eagerly gave Kisa Gotami a mustard seed—all India used them in cooking. But just as the seed was placed in Kisa’s palm, she remembered the Buddha’s stipulation. The old woman’s head lowered. “I’m sorry to say the answer is yes. My dear husband died six months ago.” “I am so sorry,” said Kisa. “Thank you for your kindness, but I cannot take this seed.” Minutes later, she knocked at the door of another house where a young woman saw Kisa standing in the doorway and came to greet her. “Can I help you?” she asked. “I am looking for a single mustard seed from a household in which no one has died,” explained Kisa. “We cannot help you. I am sorry. We lost our mother two years ago,” stated the young woman, quietly. “For many months I was so unhappy I didn’t know how to go on, but I knew I had to help my father take care of my brothers and sisters. That’s what my mother would have wanted.” Kisa Gotami continued to the next house, and then to another, but always someone had lost a beloved—a brother or sister, a grandparent, an aunt or cousin, a mother or father. After a time, nightfall came. Kisa Gotami sat down, rested against a tree and felt a gradual change in herself. Not a single household she had visited lived untouched by death. Many suffered just as she did now. She was not alone. Somehow, with these thoughts, her grief lightened a bit and she returned home. The next day, Kisa Gotami readied her son for his funeral, tears streaming down her cheeks as she said farewell. Afterwards, Kisa Gotami returned to the monastery to speak with the Buddha, who saw the change in her face. He asked, “Did you bring me a tiny grain of mustard?” “No, teacher. I am done looking for the mustard seed. I know that in the whole city, in the whole world, there is not one person free from the certainty of death and suffering. At last I have said goodbye to my son. I felt terribly alone in my grief, but now I know there are many others who have lost what they most cherished. We must help each other, as you have helped me.”
C o n t e n t s
T H E B U D D H A ’ S T E S T
Gateau de Mille-Feuilles (Cake of a Thousand Leaves)
A Thank You to William Bayard Cutting
K N O C K I N G O N D O O R S
T H A N K I N G T H E B U D D H A
T H E B U D D H A ‘ S T E S T
C a l l t o P r a y e r
We had just rolled our enchanted eyes—
eggplant and baklava under moonlight—
when it began: a siren
low then launching over
rooftops, splitting sapphire
above the Sea of Marmara,
a masculine echo quivering
in quarter tones, amplified
song of obedience to God soaring
from bullhorns clipped to lissome
towers on sides of mosques, our hearts
swollen like domes, our love
dancing slow and soulful
to this ballad of minarets.
E – T r a i n B l u e s
Squalid stairs to platform A engulfed
in heat, air wringing throats, stifling
subway, westbound fever.
Brakes piercing rails, one
thousand bones rubbed on
bones rubbed on bones. We are
going to Manhattan to dodge
smoke and spit, tourists
whose names we’ll never know.
Rocked through caverns
of desolate bulbs, aerosol
tags under river.
And the train conductor says
Next stop is Lexington,
and the train conductor says
The air conditioning is broken,
and the train conductor says
No one gives their seat to a pregnant woman!
It is 10am, and you are lost
and found in New York City.
And the train conductor says
Today’s terror alert is the color of pumpkin pie,
and the train conductor says
Forty-two languages are being spoken in car 3965.
We are hurtling towards bedrock
below Manhattan.
It is 10am, and you are lost
and found in New York City.
Gone rabid for homeless, for museums
with subsidized fees and international renown.
Gone rabid for bodacious taxis
and microcosms, New York beckons
artists to come to her in the morning,
in the evening, at midnight,
on time; the city loves time.
T a n y o u
Above taxi queues, gift shops, red velvet
loops and black CB’s—The Metropolitan,
second floor, Manhattan; bamboo and trickles
pool below tiered eaves of a Ming pagoda,
home to winged moonlight and reluctant
spirits falling still.
In this Suzhou scholar’s retreat, I am lifted
by the blue arms of heaven, as in summer
when breeze and constellation rock us to sleep—
restless eyes called to dream of gardens and balance:
boulder and stream, pain and peace.
We are an Eastern species
choking on Western ideals:
Compete! Achieve! Consume!
But Shiva dances on a lotus, Nataraj
creating and destroying by fire; His hand
gestures Do not be afraid. There
is Buddha, folded in our sun-warmed core,
urging us to detach. And there are temples,
facades of camphor and gingko
fashioned by reverent hands to welcome
us from centuries we have outrun
answering a shrill, misguided bell.
Listen
to the drip of melting ice,
the bullfrog at water’s edge,
crickets in the hot night,
the lowing of mottled cows,
the swish of maple leaves,
the silence of the stones.
Listen to your own ancient
drum, thumping its way towards infinity.
T h e O l d e s t S t o r y
for Brian
I just want to kill things
you grinned as you leaned
in my classroom doorway
the day you enlisted.
But I knew
it was your father
you meant, not the Fallujans.
Third period Myth class,
you sat: six-foot-four, marble-eyed lineman
hulking over the flat square
of desk in your hands. Through you
discussions swooned, punctured by
your laughter, unabashed
viewpoints and whimsical
passion for cheesecake.
For midterm, you performed
The Epic of Gilgamesh in toga, sash and sandals,
breathing life into cuneiform tablets—
an arrogant Demigod, cursed
with a need for immortality. You deployed
last month for a second
tour of Iraq—
land of Gilgamesh and Eden—
the sweet sauce of our class
dried and bitter
in your sandworn throat.
Screams now split
your sleep, invoking dad’s
old taunts and tyrannies
as you realize, like Gilgamesh,
you set out to vanquish
a mirage.
At home
we want you back
but know you
won’t be whole.
You are a Demigod too dark
for cheesecake, too wise for laughter—
like your Sumerian King,
humbled so long ago
by knowledge he was
never meant to have.
P a s s i n g I t O n
You snapped her
Polaroid by the red maple—
your curbside daisy:
pigtails, white dress, thumbing
bark as she posed,
a conduit of light.
You kept close watch on
barbecue Sundays, pacing
the perfect rectangle, grass
prickling at your shoe-tops,
paper plates, cold cuts
and sweets for Lenny’s precinct pals.
But day to day, thinking
husband safe
enough, you did not
consider what he taught her
on evening walks to Krausers
while you ran errands,
or when his monstrous feet splintered
floorboards at midnight.
Your little girl, stretched
by the maple, supine
down the hall, hiding
in the attic of her skull
like her mother—
your bodies
still with absence.
Had you stood, stopped
him, your own secret
might have risen—a dark weed
poking through the concrete of night—
and been used to make his
crime your fault.
Still a conduit
of light, she forgives
and blazes for you now:
You reach like ivy,
as if to curl under
doorframes, over mattresses,
down New Brunswick sidewalks
to snap her back from the man
you never wanted.
Your hands are not
as long as you’d like—
your sorry never big
enough to put your shame
to sleep.
O n Y o u r 3 6 t h B i r t h d a y
It was almost midnight when
you asked from the indigo,
eyes constellations
above the floating hull
of my body: Write about this—
that will be my present.
When I start to think of our moments
they expand, like rice in water.
We fly miles above our pasts
spent sifting through closetlands,
grasping for some wide cotton
world to fall into. God is in this
bond, whether we believe in God or not.
Our son yawns and lays his hand on your arm.
I could never map all the streets of our city.
We are oceanside in the morning,
the dark sand our only witness.
Others play in our afternoon waves
but can never know
how deep this goes, how far
beyond the eye, how each
hour I cannot be with you
my heart is a wide hangar waiting
for the flight of you
to arrive.
I n L i e u o f N a r n i a
Evening crowds in and rage blasts through
our house, unhinging doors, belching
lava in violent crescendos: father and brother—
twin volcanoes blown; mother and I—seas
recessed and reddened.
There is nothing to do but wince
as words erupt, lip to lip, singeing paint
with cinders, echoes splitting streetside
oaks and crashing neighbors’ porch-lights till they fall,
submerged in the swamp-high shame of our yard.
My father hobbles forward, a hydra
of ego and despair, curses cracking like wind
across a torn and flapping sail; my mother mists
a vapor too thin to protect.
On the smoldering staircase in Pittsburgh Steelers pajamas—
maize polyester itching thighs—I hope
my presence will make it stop, make it quiet,
make it all go away. But heat has me fumbling
for my bedroom door, swung wide, shut up,
their voices a thousand chainsaws rising
through the flesh of my brain. There is no wardrobe
in my sky blue room to walk through, no snow-licked
lamppost or Mr. Tumnus, no lion to whisk me away.
So I leave:
starboard edge of mattress, staring flat-line
staring frozen through the wall—adrenaline
and bone with a trampoline heart, prone
in a Star Wars-curtained courtroom, no language
in my severed mind, no gavel or robe
to help me object or douse these nightly infernos
with truths I know they will remember
when the lava cools and their
pride is forgotten.
Had I stuck around to swallow
the size and sorrow of it—joined
the voices rousing nails from wooden beds,
singing sawdust into cracks where termites
cannot go—I’d have broken
like a top string tuned too far.
Hardly a boy, a rent ember
in the dark of a little house
on a little street, distended with justice
undone, affection foregone, trying to soften
in a time when volcanoes scorched the seas
and all the right words
turned to stone.
L e t t e r s
I like the rhythm of letters,
the way, for example, a cursive q
spins twice counterclockwise and heads
east, or how the rounding hat
of an f peers on tippy toes
over g’s fence because his grass
really is greener.
I like the friendships letters form:
ambivalent c and placid h
changing to cha cha champs
cheerfully chasing chances
and charming children who
channel chaos—
or when p steals off to meet h
at a midnight rendezvous where,
under cover of philodendron, they can
f in the dark.
Even x’s are excellent,
though mostly for warning—
the siren of the alphabet
alerting us to extremes,
exterminations, axes,
taxes, and ck’s who
want to be slang.
There’s a stupor about abc, I think,
burdened with alphabetic representation—
in every nursery school cupboard,
on every rainbow-streaked cereal box;
is it any wonder how often
they call a cab, find a k
and go back home?
And I never fail
to enjoy the stealth of a g
or e or p that hides by a neighbor
without making a sound, hoping
to be overlooked long enough
to belong, for good.
Twenty-six worlds of sound,
doubled when they spin as thirteen
couples: serif to serif, foot to foot,
dancing harder then softer, though
none so beautifully as u and i.
T h i s W e e k H a d A r m s
They flung open, feathers dipped from
elbows pilling,
curled and carmine;
they hung,
waiting to whip
through horns of wind,
cones of exhaust, ascending,
dreaming of Charles Lindbergh in Parisian streets.
My week’s arms stretched—
squeezed me from Milwaukee,
from Washington Heights, through the Internet—
Boo-ya!
I blushed. She said
PS, I need you want you love you, the compost
of her wisdom producing in me a blossom.
Her voice whirls and climbs in my head—a carousel
accordion jangles till my eyelids close. My body spins
against her hot, pink tongue,
the cleansing slice of her throat,
the speed of comfort in the dark,
the howl of beauty in my hands
plucking curves of elation
from graph-papered air.
My body doesn’t spin really—
it rocks like a rope moored to shoreline
crashing undertow, crashing undertow
and when she speaks, I am sucked to the sea.
Hey beautiful on the tips of waves,
the melodic glass of her aura
stained orange and blue by the sky.
In this ocean of growing infinities
I am found, bobbing at once in all hemispheres.
There are no waters through which I am not permitted to swim
Потому что я ее люблю. They heave and cradle
me in their arms; the wet bulk
of the world buoys me
up, balanced and safe.
G h o s t s
Holding my breath in the slate jade bi-level on Nims Avenue
to fend off smoky plaits of Kent 100's, I shrank away—
from his pink Tab-can saccharine fizz, the orange plash
of iodine smeared across his fistula, the dull stink
of saliva glistening in his thistled beard.
Elbows folded in my ears to stem
the slash of his reckless self-pity, I tracked
his savage hammer of spite as it smashed the white
aluminum front door and ricocheted
through caverns in our bones.
It wasn’t always bad—sometimes dad
was really dad—but then, I wasn’t me, the damage
done, heart on lockdown to thwart the tenderness
of his dark mystical smile, the sonorous
lilt of unmedicated words.
For ten years, with the only childhood
I had, I steeled myself for the coming
of his silent, unexceptional death:
November ’89, hospital lounge, eighteenth floor.
My two boys
do not know I had a father before
Grandpa Harry, do not know what it’s like:
to feel cheated of years,
equate speech with peril,
have to dream cool canyons of unailing love
and realize—despite whatever time is shared—
no one is really there.