SAYING IT BACKWARDS

TEXT MESSAGE

--for the GLBT Community in Yakima

Last night, in the middle of the seventh inning,
with the score tied 2-2, and momentum still very much
with the Phillies, the make-shift put-together Giants
hoping in the moment only for three more outs,
my momentum for wakefulness fading fast,
a message arrives in my inbox on my computer screen
from Karen's cell phone. Text message. She's sitting
in La Plaza de Limonada, San Miguel de Allende,
eating chicken tacos with her girl friends.
Imagine that, I say to myself, surrounded as we are
by unending war, including  a war surrounding
the State of Guanajuato where Karen is,
Lemonade Plaza. Four women seated at table
in an open air restaurant at a time like this.
There's baseball in my living room,
with a World Series berth to be decided
in the next half hour. Imagine that,
I say again, as the Giants come to bat
in the eighth, lemonade and baseball for all.

Jim Bodeen
24 October 2010

TWO DOG SATURDAY

Sister Sadie knows Karen's gone already
and it's only been one night.
She's in my chair now, belly up
like a yogi, all four paws
frozen motionless. I walk
into the living room to see
about getting my chair back.
She does not acknowledge my request,
so much in the moment as she is.
As I leave the room I remember the poem
I heard night before last
about the talking dog.
Two words: Out and Mama.
The dog's vocabulary agreed upon by all
who remembered him after the accident.
The talking dog.
It's been a week in Yakima.
That's all I can report
after having had my public say.
The pool opens in another hour.
It seems like a long time to wait for anything.
One dog sleeps.
One dog talks.

Jim Bodeen
24 October 2010

GOD SPEAKS

That one time that God spoke to you.
Yes, the time he gave me my name.
Can you tell me again.
When I received my native name?
Yes, I was in the back yard
with Lacy Dreamwalker and Sister Sadie Sadie.
Sister Sadie Sadie had just come into my life
as a pup. My nagual.
The one who would never grow up.
Made more difficult by demands
for devotion from Dreamwalker.
I was full of confusion in the back yard.
And then God's voice.
Two Dog, pick up that dog shit.

Jim Bodeen
23 October 2010

DRIVER'S LICENSE

Such a cipher myself.

So completely without the I,
even when I put it everywhere.
I am not. My I am
always and only other.
Search my poems if you will.
They are not me.
My place.
A citizen here in elsewhere,
county and community.
Complete with parks and rest stops.

Jim Bodeen
21 October 2010

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Line of wonder stroke of water

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SAYING IT AT THE END

Begin and work back
from where it ends,
to the surprising point of the blues—first news from here.

Jim Bodeen
20 October 2010