Living in a Barn

 .The phone rings                                                   
Pahn knows it is for him         
               but there is no one there to answer…

…he is at a river                                                       
a shelter
in age and ruin                         
                      healing in to the riverbank        rotting

   away its scar of newness

He doesn’t know what the shelter was for
gear?
  tools?
     books?
People worked here
Pahn has come to find something
with Rahbin and Ahnjehlia
They sit to look                         

The river is muddy
              and carries things away
There are intimations of the library
                 and the view from here is the same as it is
                                                                                     from there
except
There is freezer ice                     
melting with rain
                  in Wildcat Canyon
                                            distinctly out of proportion
and causing this melt flood

They move about                               
Crawling
                              stepping on old boards
                                            loose and rotting
that hint of old men

Pahn leaves his companions                                
                                            and enters the shelter
For a moment it is a garage

   but Pahn’s mind changes—
                                                 it becomes the library
 ..and in his confusion               
he feels shaking                            

Awakening in his barn
in his bed
he wonders                                 
if he is feeling an earthquake
or if
                he has just rolled over in his sleep

The shelter is again a garage               
                    for now
and the earth is indeed shaking

He stands in a stuccoed arch                                         
facing asphalt and power lines
panicked
He runs in circles                                                             
until the temblor stops…

…This pavement suggests a city                         
and there are city folk                      
talking about the flood                  
showing Pahn the water marks
on their mobile homes         
           without showing themselves

The earthquake bids him inside again
                                                                   It is a school now
He wends through sheets of broken glass
and fallen beams    Here
the earthquake has made ghouls            
                                    left among the children of this school
                and the children          who are threatened by the ghouls
ask Pahn to save them

Pahn shatters the ghouls                                        
with splintered boards
                  as is they were made of glass
and leaves           Down the sidewalk
as if he were going somewhere
he walks on a street of real distance                
wearing only a towel
to face a real city
lost
People deride his manner of dress                    
push him down

He comes to the barn again                      

still no essence
he supposes
this time it is a museum

There is a dark-skinned family             
picnicking outside        
The father rests by a telephone
off the hook               Inside the door           is Michael Jackson
talking on another telephone                                           
The father asks Pahn to hang up for him
Pahn hangs up perplexed                           
Inside
Michael calls his family                          
                                                           The telephones are black
                                             The telephones are always black

There is another family here                            
down the hall    foreign
Penelopeya is with them     
                                                                 She accompanies Pahn outside
and back in again                               
        to see Uncle Lotho
                     and an auntish woman
                             who are comparing gold

At last              they walk through a door
past the black telephone
into the library            
where uncle Lotho

is Pahn’s supervisor                                              
                                      and Pahn is working on a spirit drawing
Uncle Lotho chides Pahn                                     
because this spirit drawing is wrong
                              but what does he know
                                         about spirit drawings anyway?


and he chides Pahn                                     
for leaving old maps out

                                                                    Pahn wants to leave
but doesn’t know where to go

He goes out back with Penelopeya                   
and here is the river

the flood receded                        
Penelopeya does a strange thing—She climbs
                                                            high into a maple
and jumps down smiling

Uncle Lotho has come out to watch and he is also
                       smiling
He says she does this every day                             




Pahn hears the phone ring in his barn
Uncle Lotho answers           
                              hangs up
Penelopeya asks for whom they were calling
Uncle Lotho says it was for                            
                                 Ahgreyeuss Pahn

But he is not there

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


Some of these poems originally appeared in the following publications

Avocet
Dream International Quarterly
mojo risin'
The Muse Apprentice Guild (The MAG)
Transfer

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