Alice Munro's Dimension: An Analysis

(Alice Munro’s short story ‘Dimension’ is anthologized in ‘The Best American Short Stories 2007 edited by Stephen King. The following reflection and craft analysis contains spoilers so if you are at all intrigued by the story, I would suggest reading the story first before reading my analysis.)

When I read Alice Munro’s ‘Dimension’ I feel like I’m standing at the edge of an ice shelf in Antarctica that is about to break apart and collapse into the icy waters, taking me along with it. I gather ominous signs; I hear deep rumblings, I feel the ice underneath my feet sway slightly but I have no idea what is about to happen until the very last moment when it happens. In this story, Munro deploys her formidable story-telling abilities to create and sustain a sense of foreboding right from the get-go to the climax of the story about halfway through the story (more on this unusual structure later). As a reader, I feel myself dragged inexorably along with the narrative arc of the story, reeled in inch by inch by Munro’s prescient ability to reveal just the right amount of information about her characters and their circumstances to sustain my interest in the story. If that is all there is to this story, it would still have been an extremely worthwhile read but of course, Munro is not content to just tell a suspenseful story. She wants us to get into the psychological and emotional lives of her characters and it is this deeper underlying psychological storyline that she builds concurrent to the main action of the story and develops to its very satisfying resolution in the last half of the story that is the true focus of her story-telling.

The main structure of the story is a little unusual in that the climax occurs approximately halfway through the story with the denouement taking up the final half. Given the length of the denouement, we can surmise that what Munro really wants to explore is not so much the events leading up to the climax but the aftermath of the climax. The climax in this story is a tragic event that involves the lives of the members a working class Canadian family; Doree, the wife, Lloyd the husband and their three children. Munro opens the story in the aftermath of the tragic event and very skillfully weaves in the events and circumstances leading up to the tragic event by intermittent flashbacks. Immediately following the climax of the story, when the tragic event is revealed, the story shifts to how the protagonists (Doree and Lloyd) deal with the fallout from their actions (or non-actions, as the case may be) that resulted in the tragic event. It is this exploration of how the protagonists deal with the consequences of their actions that is the emotional underpinning of the story.

By alternating the aftermath story with the flashbacks, Munro is able to sustain the reader’s suspense as she engages in her psychological explorations of her characters’ inner lives. One of the things I’m amazed by with Munro’s story (and the few other stories of hers that I’ve read over the years) is her ability to condense the complex inner lives of her characters into tiny precious drops of speech and actions. Very rarely will she go into the abstract when describing the inner psychological state of her characters. Instead, we can sense Doree’s nervousness by the word games she plays in her head on the bus trip to the prison. We learn about Lloyd’s insufferable arrogance by the way he talks about medical professionals and the way he talks to Doree.

As I mentioned above, the suspense is created right from the get-go after Doree has been introduced to us. In the third paragraph, we know that ‘none of the people she worked with knew what had happened.’ and that whatever has happened happened in a public way (‘Her picture had been in the paper’). We also know that she’s trying to start over. She’s changed her looks, her name, her job, her home. What happened? The story at this point seems to suggest that she may have committed some crime, or have otherwise done something deserving of shame and public condemnation. Where was she going? Munro’s description of the other passengers on the bus seems to suggest a place associated with shame (They…dressed…to make themselves look as if they were going to church.) Also, as mentioned above, it is clear that there is a lot of anxiety associated with the place she’s going to from the way Munro describes the word games that Doree plays in her head on the bus trip.

In the next paragraph, Munro introduces Mrs. Sands without really telling us who she is and her relationship to Doree but we can glean from the description of their interaction that she is acting as a counselor of some sort to Doree. Everything we’ve read up to this point seems to confirm that Doree must have done something wrong in the past and is trying to turn over a new leaf. At the very end of the paragraph, Munro deftly insinuates ‘death’ into the discussion and all of a sudden, the ante is upped. We know that someone, likely Doree had done something wrong, and a life had been taken. The foreshadows lengthen.

The next paragraph, the first of many flashbacks, fills in the backstory of Doree’s family mainly how she met Lloyd and married him. In this paragraph, we see early inklings about Lloyd’s character by the opinions he holds about medical professionals. What I really love about Munro’s writing and is in full display in this paragraph is her powerful observation of details and the ability to fashion your average workaday character doing average workaday things like work, fall in love and get married without sounding clichéd and pedestrian. The end of this paragraph is where we see Munro’s genius at work. At first glance the last line of the paragraph, ‘Sasha was born’, seems to and does follow naturally from the description of Doree’s family life. But, given the ominous foreshadowing already at play and given what we know at this point, the fact that Munro ends the paragraph abruptly with that stark sentence and reverts to the aftermath narrative of the story leaves us deeply unsettled. The ante has just been upped again. We know that a. someone, possibly Doree had done something wrong b. a life was taken and now c. that life could possibly be a child’s. Hers.

The next paragraph finally dispels any suspicion about Doree’s culpability. We know that it is this person that Doree is spending hours on the bus for that is the guilty one (The first two times I never saw him…He wouldn’t come out.) We can probably already guess at this point that that person must be Lloyd. Throughout the story until the climax is reached, Munro continues to alternate between the present time frame in the aftermath of the tragic event and the time frame leading up to the tragic event. She also continues to fill out Lloyd’s character as an arrogant, controlling, chauvinistic know-it-all who detests people in authority especially if they are in the medical profession and especially if they are women. Again, it is the details that Munro supplies about his behavior and speech that we get this sense of Lloyd. I really like the part of the narrative where Lloyd, suspicious of how Doree was raising HIS child, squeezed her breasts to try and verify her claim that her milk had run dry. I also like how Munro portrays Lloyd through his summary pronouncements; a lot of medicine was a fraud and a lot of doctors were jerks (arrogant, suspicious of authority), I tell him he’s wasting his time, I know as much as he does (know-it-all), you want to speak to the ole lady (chauvinistic), Lezzie and Bitch-out-of-hell (fear of assertive women). Munro continues to turn the reader against Lloyd by leaking more and more details about his paranoid nature, going through Doree’s dresser looking for birth-control pills, berating Doree for spending time with Maggie. Munro also shows us Doree’s role in her marriage, as a long-suffering wife who has no other plan for her life than to be a good mother and supporter of her husband. She is willing to put up with his paranoia, his put downs, his criticisms, his smug pronouncements because she is scared of losing him, scared of losing the one thing in her life that held any meaning for her.

Munro’s prodigious use of descriptive details in this story is noteworthy but I must also mention that details alone does not a story make. Munro is not one of those writers who lavishes her stories with details simply for the sake of it, interesting though those details may be. Her descriptions do real work to propel the narrative forward. For example, her paragraph describing the Christian pamphleteer thrusting a pamphlet in Doree’s hands while she is waiting to see Mrs. Sands accomplishes two tasks. One, it gives us a sense of the community that the story takes place in, a conservative Christian community similar to the American Midwest. More importantly, it sets up the sentence that has Doree contemplating the prospect of Lloyd burning in Hell. This is important narrative work because we now know that whatever crime Lloyd has committed is not some misdemeanor. No, this is a crime against the Lord Himself, a crime so heinous that burning in Hell would be the appropriate punishment.

The line ‘It got worse, gradually.’ opens the paragraph that will finally crescendo in short order to the climax of the story, the tragic event that Munro has been preparing us for. The story is chock full of irony, sometimes only apparent on a re-reading (Lloyd’s line, ‘Think of the kids.’ is just one.) Actually, a few details of the story gave me the chills on re-reading. Lloyd’s phone conversation with Maggie, after he had murdered the kids is one. Munro is quite relentless in turning the reader against Lloyd. There is absolutely not a shred of redeeming quality about him (save one, which I will get to in a second) and just when you think there could not be anything worse he could do to earn our condemnation (murdering your three kids with your bare hands is about as low as you can get as a human being), Munro stuns us with the final line of the climax paragraph, a line that Lloyd nonchalantly throws at Doree as she staggers out of the house in horror, “You brought it all on yourself.”

The paragraph immediately following that horrifying line initiates the denouement of the story where all is revealed and we know that Lloyd has been committed to an institution for the criminally insane and Mrs. Sands is a counselor assigned to help Doree cope with the aftermath of the tragedy. At this point, any good textbook on fiction writing would recommend ending the story as quickly as possible and had Munro taken this route, the story would still have been a worthwhile read. But of course, Munro does not take this route. The story continues for another thirteen pages, as long as the build up to the climax. A lesser writer attempting this writing strategy would likely meander around, wasting the reader’s time but Munro has legitimate reasons for prolonging the story. As I mentioned before in the introduction, Munro’s real interest in the story is not simply to titillate and shock us with the events that lead up to the tragic event but in how the protagonists deal with the aftermath of the event. It is this exploration that imbues the story with a greater sense of profundity and showcases Munro’s incredibly astute observation of human psychology in dealing with tragedy.

The denouement continues the narrative arc of the story and Munro’s ability to sustain the reader’s interest in what happens next with searing images shows no signs of abating. The one image that will never leave my head is that of Doree stuffing dirt, grass, sheets and towels in her mouth ‘to stifle not just the howls that rose up but the scene in her head.’ Munro then goes on to describe in more detail the events that led immediately up to the tragic event and as we are all familiar with Munro’s style by now, we are not surprised that it started with some mundane thing like a tin of spaghetti. At this point, we’re probably wondering why Doree would still want to continue seeing Lloyd even though he had completely decimated her life. It is this central question that drives the rest of the story. Munro begins her exploration by throwing us this line that Lloyd himself throws at the police, “I did it to save them the misery. The misery of knowing that their mother had walked out on them.” As if we needed more reasons to feel disgusted with Lloyd. So perhaps, Munro wonders, Doree is seeking to make Lloyd take back the guilt that he had placed on her with that line. It is not completely incomprehensible that Doree would feel a measure of guilt as her life had been so circumscribed by Lloyd’s opinions of her. Perhaps Doree wants to, for once in her life, prove Lloyd wrong by showing him that he was the one who was crazy. Perhaps, she wants to see him mentally and emotionally beaten down, defeated, so unlike the real Lloyd in her mind that had terrorized her life that she can simply dismiss this pathetic physical one sitting in front of her as a figment of her imagination. Munro will continue to explore this question for the rest of the story.

The story would of course not be complete without an exploration of Lloyd’s state of mind in the aftermath of his crime. Munro accomplishes this through a letter he sends to Doree. This is the point where Munro unearths perhaps the central irony of the story; that this monster, this pig of a man who murdered his own children, should be the one who receives the privilege of inner peace when Doree the long-suffering wife whose life was devastated by him is still in deep turmoil. As if that wasn’t enough, the irony continues in the second letter, when Lloyd becomes her savior as it were by showing her a way out of the morass of her emotional pain. It is easy at this point, I suppose (and Munro seems to encourage this) for the reader to completely disengage with Lloyd. I mentioned before that we see not a shred of redeeming quality in him. Save one. And here, in the denouement is where Munro shows us why we should still continue to care about Lloyd. In his letters, he shows himself to be very sane indeed and more importantly, someone with not a small amount of introspection and self-awareness. Notice that Munro does not have him show remorse. No, we the readers know that Lloyd is beyond redemption and Munro is astute enough to know that and not once in his letters does he ask for forgiveness. She does not attempt to get us to change our minds about Lloyd because she knows that she has taken him to a place that is beyond redemption. Instead, Munro has Lloyd embark on an inner journey towards peace. In the letter, she immediately dispels any notion that he is crazy (although she allows room later in the story for that possibility, I for one am absolutely convinced that though he may have been ‘temporarily insane’ when he committed his heinous act, he is most assuredly sane now). He is certainly acutely aware of the extent of his crimes and was at some point emotionally distraught over his actions. Finally, he is able to arrive at that place practitioners of Buddhistic meditation call ‘samadhi’, that pinnacle of inner peace arrived at usually after years of practice (and usually without murdering your kids). I personally find Lloyd’s rumination to be quite intriguing. Here we find the incredible irony that while the rest of us, the blameless ones toil away at our everyday lives never achieving the deep inner peace we so strive for, he, the guilty one should be set free from the burdens of daily living and be given the opportunity to search for and eventually find ‘samadhi’. His second letter certainly testifies to the fact that he is well aware of that irony. Not only does he arrive at inner peace, he, not Doree is able to reconnect with the kids that he had murdered in some mystical dimension and becomes in a way a savior figure to Doree. How do I feel about Lloyd after reading his letters? Some readers may be further incensed by his lack of remorse or his continued denial. I, for one, completely buy his arguments. I don’t believe he is any more deserving of forgiveness than before I read his letter but I believe him when he says he’s arrived at a state of inner peace and heightened self-awareness and even his mystical connection with his kids. I do believe that it is those people who have seen themselves at their worst who are able to get past themselves to ‘samadhi’. I do not forgive him, I do not excuse him, but I still engage with him because of his insights.

How does Doree feel about Lloyd after reading his letters? Munro says she still thought he was crazy and we can perhaps wonder if Munro herself thinks he is indeed crazy. She certainly cannot fathom the prospect of ever loving him or being loved by him again. Nor is forgiveness even remotely considered (I didn't say forgive. I would never say that. I would never do it). However, as I mentioned above she does derive some modicum of comfort from his second letter. So perhaps, the answer to the question of why she continues to go see him is habit. He has always been the pillar of her life, the person who made the decisions, who had all the answers, even though the answers may be ones she disagreed with. Lloyd was the captain of her life and her role was to obey, a role that did not change even when he had committed the ultimate crime against her and even when he is locked up, unable to physically direct her life. She continues to see him because he has always had all the answers and she desperately needs the answer to the question of how she is suppose to cope with all that he had wrought upon her. The irony of course, is that he DOES have the answer and now we have to wonder, “Will she ever break free from his gravitational pull? Will she ever find another source of meaning for her life other than to follow the path that he has set for her?” It is this final question that Munro will use to drive the rest of the narrative.

At the beginning of the denouement to this extended denouement, Munro would have us believe that she may not escape Lloyd’s gravitational pull after all. (What other use could she be in the world… if not at least to listen to him? Who but Lloyd would remember the children’s names now, or the color of their eyes?) It would seem that, like a Muslim pilgrim making the Hajj, she would be condemned to spend the rest of her life on the bus making the pilgrimage to see Lloyd. But thankfully, Munro gives Doree a way out. In dramatic fashion, she has Doree witness an accident and (thanks to Lloyd’s training) was able to save the life of the victim. Doree realizes from this experience that ‘she was put on earth’ not to just ‘be with him and try to understand him’. No, she has another role, to keep the boy alive. Yes, it is because of Lloyd that she is able to perform this heroic act but in this small act of saving his life, she stumbles on an alternative track for her emotional train that had Lloyd as a distant, magical destination that she will never arrive at. Thus, the answer to the question of whether or not she will ever break free from his hold is given in the brilliant final line of the story.

No.

No, she does not have to get to London. She now has other places to go.

James Joyce's The Dead: An Analysis

(I wrote this analysis for an assignment in a fiction writing class that I took many moons ago. This was suppose to be a brief one-page analysis that eventually metastasized into seven. James Joyce's short story masterpiece, 'The Dead' can be found in his collection of short stories centered around the city of Dublin, Ireland called 'The Dubliners'.)

This story really tested my patience. It is a slow and brooding piece. This is the kind of story where you (or at least, I) do not grasp the point of the story until the very end. This is also the kind of story where nothing explicitly tragic occurs, where the tragedy is exposed very subliminally. My immediate response as I was reading through the story was: “Too Irish for me.” (Whatever that means.) However, I have to confess that once I persevered to the end, the meaning of the story began to reveal itself to me slowly but surely and I found myself unable to shake the story from my head.

The story is about those who are living, those who are dead and those who are alive but are really dead. The ones who are alive but are really dead are ‘dead’ because they lost something. Lily is ‘dead’ because she lost her faith in men. Aunt Julia is ‘dead’ because she lost her faith in the Church. Gretta is ‘dead’ because she lost her first and only true love. The events that occur in the story all revolve around the main character of Gabriel. The key to grasping the meaning of the events that unfold throughout the story is to observe its effects on Gabriel. All the events and dialogue in the first three quarters of the story serves one purpose and one purpose only, to set up Gabriel’s reaction at the end of the story. In fact, the author even tells us this by this line in the denouement: He wondered at his riot of emotions of an hour before. From what had it proceeded? From his aunt’s supper, from his own foolish speech, from the wine and dancing, the merry-making when saying good-night in the hall, the pleasure of the walk along the river in the snow. To prove my point, I have conducted a full analysis of the story listing all the main events of the story in chronological order and examining the effects of each event on Gabriel and how it sets up his reaction at the end of the story. The results of my analysis can be found in the appendix.

One of the most striking features of the piece is the way the author creates his cast of characters and how he makes them interact with each other. The title of the story, “The Dead” refers not just to those who are physically dead but more importantly, those who are still alive but for one reason or another, are dead to the world. The reason why this story was initially difficult for me was because the characters whom this story is about (the “dead”), are all in the background for most of the story: Lily, Gretta, Aunt Julia, Mrs Malins.) The author further accentuates their insignificance by explicitly pairing them up with very dominant characters. Thus, in the story, Gretta (referred to as Mrs Conroy throughout the narrative for added anonymity) is overshadowed by Gabriel, Aunt Julia is overshadowed by Aunt Kate and to a certain extent Mr Browne, Mrs Malins is overshadowed by her son, Freddy Malins, Johnny, dear never-to-be-forgotten Johnny overshadowed, quite literally, by the late lamented Patrick Morkan, and Lily overshadowed by everyone else.

The way the dialogue is handled is especially noticeable using dashes instead of dialogue markers. This creates a muted feeling, a hushed sensation, like I’m seeing a painting of the scene instead of the scene itself. The only other time I have encountered such a technique for handling dialogue is in Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain which has a similar feel.

The way the author develops his characters is especially noteworthy. The character of Gabriel is slowly developed throughout the piece as he is the focal point and the protagonist of the story. Aunt Julia’s character is established at the beginning of the story and midway through the story, the author reveals the reason why Aunt Julia is ‘dead’ as a precursor to the archetypal “living dead” character: Mrs Conroy aka Gretta. The author introduces Mrs Conroy at the very beginning of the story yet refuses to develop her character throughout the piece preferring to leak bits of information about her in the narrative. Only in the climax of the story does he let her character bloom. This then is how the author develops his “living dead” theme. There are three main characters that exemplify the “living dead” theme; Lily, Aunt Julia and Mrs Conroy. He introduces the character of Lily in the very first sentence of the story and very rapidly develops and resolves her character in the very first scene of the story. At the end of her initial interaction with Gabriel, we know why she is ‘dead’; she lost her faith in men. This then sets up a slightly more complex “living dead” character, Aunt Julia. At the point that Aunt Julia is introduced, Mrs Conroy is also introduced but the author does not develop her character yet, preferring to let Aunt Julia’s character develop and resolve as a forerunner to Mrs Conroy’s character. At the halfway point (see ‘Aunt Julia’s song’ in the Appendix), Aunt Julia’s character is resolved. We know that she is ‘dead’ because she lost her faith in the Church. Then comes the end when Mrs Conroy’s character is fully developed and resolved in a fitting climax to the main theme and the story as a whole.

The author fills the story with keen observations on human behavior and interaction. There are many points of awkwardness in the story which happens in any social situation and is simply a delight to read about.

The line that haunts me is this one: “He did not like to say even to himself that her face was no longer beautiful but he knew that it was no longer the face for which Michael Furey had braved death.”

APPENDIX

Chronology of events and its effect on Gabriel’s reaction in the denouement

• Gabriel’s initial interaction with Lily
  

The result of this interaction was that ‘he was discomposed by the girl’s bitter and sudden retort. It had cast a gloom over him which he tried to dispel by arranging his cuffs and the bows of his tie.’ At this point, the author is setting up the mood reversal that will come at the end of his speech by starting Gabriel off in a dark mood. This mood will reach its nadir during his interaction with Miss Ivors. This episode introduces (unbeknownst to a first time reader) the main theme of the story, that of the “living dead”, those who are alive and go through the motions of living but who are essentially dead to the world. We know this is true of Lily from her bitter response to Gabriel and also in the next scene when Aunt Kate remarks that she did not ‘know what has come over her lately’ and ‘she’s not the girl she was at all’. The author also takes the opportunity in this interaction to show us Gabriel’s generous (sincere if somewhat shallow) character which will be further developed in the story. This episode also introduces a sub-theme: class distinctions between the highly-educated and the common folk. At the end of the encounter, we find Gabriel obsessing over his speech. From the narrative we know that he is concerned about coming across as a highly-educated snob. He is extremely conscious of the class difference that separated him from the rest of the crowd.

• Discussion in the hallway between Gabriel, Mrs Conroy, Aunt Julia and Aunt Kate.
  

In this scene, the author further develops Gabriel’s ‘niceness’. We discover that Gabriel is a caring if overly solicitous fellow. Aunt Julia is introduced and her character established as the second “living dead”. She is described as a passive woman who ‘did not know where she was or where she was going’. Aunt Kate is introduced as the dominant contrast to Aunt Julia to further accentuate the “living dead”. Mrs Conroy is introduced but interestingly, even though she is the archetypal “living dead” character, the author does not develop her character here or very much at all throughout the story until the very end.

• Scene in the back room

Mr Browne is introduced and his character established. He is described as a flamboyant, ladies’ man. His role in the story will be to play the part of the dominant “living” character to contrast with the “living dead.” Bartell D’Arcy who will play his part much later on in the story is also introduced. Freddy Marlins, the town drunk is introduced. His role, like Mr Browne, is to play the part of the dominant “living” character and specifically will be used in the story as a contrast to his “living dead” partner, Mrs Marlins, his mother.

• Scene in the drawing room

The author uses this scene to inform us about Gabriel’s family background. This is a further development of the class distinction sub-theme as we find out how Gabriel came to be so highly educated. The author also very briefly develops Mrs Conroy’s character; we know that she is not very educated and she is a caring person.

• Gabriel’s interaction with Miss Ivors

At this point, the author builds the class sub-theme up to a climax. The author also uses this opportunity to reveal much of Gabriel’s character to us. We know that Gabriel is somewhat ashamed of his own culture, Irish culture (O, to tell you the truth, I’m sick of my own country, sick of it!) The author uses the class sub-theme to bring Gabriel to the nadir of his emotional state. By the end of his encounter with Miss Ivors, he is completely agitated, off-balanced and defensive. There is further development of the main plot line. We find out that Mrs Conroy has a strong attachment to Galway. This point will recur in the climax of the story (Perhaps that was why you wanted to go to Galway with that Ivors girl?)

• Before supper

There is more obsessing by Gabriel over his speech. The author does a good job of setting up the speech which I find to be one of the most moving passages in the story. The author exposes the shallowness of Gabriel’s ‘niceness’ by giving us a full glimpse of what he really thinks of his aunts (What did he care that his aunts were only two ignorant old women?) One of the results of Gabriel’s interaction with Miss Ivors is that he is at this point, very self-conscious about his class status and desperately wants to be accepted among his countrymen. This is reflected in what he plans to say in this speech.

• Aunt Julia’s song

Aunt Julia’s character is completely revealed. We understand what caused her ‘death’: she was betrayed by the Church.

• Miss Ivors’ sudden and unexpected departure

Her leaving enabled Gabriel to nail his speech and gave him that emotional reversal which in turn set up his reaction at the climax and denouement of the story (It shot through Gabriel’s mind that Miss Ivors was not there and that she had gone away discourteously: and he said with confidence in himself).

• Supper

This is one of the events mentioned in the denouement as the cause of the ‘riot of emotions’ that set Gabriel up for the final scene.

• Speech

This is also one of the events mentioned in the denouement as the cause of the ‘riot of emotions’. The author uses the speech as a resolution of the class sub-theme. At the same time, he uses the speech as a means to delivering that emotional reversal that put Gabriel in a state of ecstasy.

• Goodbyes

This is another one of the events mentioned in the denouement as the cause of the ‘riot of emotions’. This is the beginning of the finale, when the first wave of lust towards his wife hits Gabriel as Mrs Conroy hears Bartell D’Arcy sing The Lass of Aughrim, stirring up the memory of her first and only true love.

• Walk along the river

Again, this is one of the events mentioned in the denouement as the cause of the ‘riot of emotions’.

• Climax and denouement

Here the author finally allows the character of Mrs Conroy to bloom and we get the climax and resolution of the “living dead” theme. She was ‘dead’ because she lost the first and only true love she ever had. It is also here that Gabriel gets his comeuppance for his well-disguised snobbishness at his superior status as a highly-educated man.

ReGenesis Chapter 1

(This is one of those fragments that I have no idea where it wants to go. Could be the beginning of a short story, a play, a prose poem, a new cult, who knows. Comments welcome.)

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And God saw that it was good. But God was lonely. And God said, It is not good for God to be alone, so He created man and woman in his own image, in the image of God created He them; male and female created He them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. And so they did and filled the whole earth. And God saw what He had made and, behold, it was very good. Then man and woman became arrogant and told each other that God was dead. So God died. And man and woman were lonely after God’s death. And they said, It is not good for man and woman to be alone. So they became God and created man and woman in Their own image, in the image of man and woman They created them; male and female created They them. And They saw what They had made and, behold, it was very good.

Poetry is

the music silence makes

Dream #2: Again I dreamed...

Again
I dreamed you were a child again

Dreamed
you depended on me for everything

I was your parent
I
not your daddy or mommy
I was your parent

You put your tiny hand in mine
as we were walking down some steps
slowly
easy does it
take your time
and then you fell
and you cried
and I died
for a second
then I tore into you
searching for signs
you could be broken

You laughed
You thought it was funny
I was angry
but I didn’t want to yell at you
like your mommy always does
like my mommy always does
I was your parent

Dream #1: The Anatomy of a Massacre

A fat naked man walked up to a large woman sitting at a hair salon in a mall and demanded her blouse. She refused whereupon his mechanical cock stood erect and started shooting.

On a moonlit night

(This poem was written many years ago when I first fell in love with Emily Dickinson and was my feeble attempt to imitate her lush, intimate voice that transforms even the most commonplace objects into magical things)

At night I sit by my window
imprisoned by shadows cast
by the blinds in the moonlight.
In vain try I to break free
with a file, a saw, even sticks of dynamite
yet long and gloomy the bars did stand.

My eye turns upward towards the moon
a gleaming orb spraying
silver dust that coats the
furniture of my living room.
It is you, I swore, you who have
imprisoned me.
Go back to your castle
there behind the clouds
and leave me be
free in the darkness

Father's Day

I sat in my car
at the parking lot
of the Target store

with a Father’s Day
card I had just bought
for you

It had a lovely message
on the cover
and inside

words like ‘love’ and
‘gratitude’ in cursive form
words I never would

say to you but
are nice things
to have

in a Father’s Day
card. But I wanted
to write a personal

message. Something
from my heart. Something
honest

So I wrote
Dear Pa
on the blank side

of the card and
I stared
at the blankness

-Father's Day 2005

Bridge

Children of immigrants are the bridge, we say.
They connect the alien land of their parents
to the alien land of their adoption.
We say that as if we are according them
a great honor.
As if we aren’t trampling on them, every time
we want to get to the other side
for whatever reason.
As if they aren’t the first things we burn when
we are fed up with the other side
for whatever reason.

Untitled #1

When I am away from you
I am a torrential river of words
When I am face to face with you
words leak from me
dripping down the drain
one awkward drop after another

Haiku #1: On seeing a contrail

An airplane slowly
draws a razor blade across
the skin of the sky

Scenes from Interstate 280

I.
At 70 miles an hour
I can swallow the torrent
of mountains and trees
and not spill
a single drop

II.
The pasture rolls and tumbles
and crashes into my face
like a wave that carries
in its wake a few grazing cattle
and a giant satellite dish
that is too big
for my shell collection

III.
The sun sits
like an old-timer
on the tops of
the Santa Cruz mountains
and blows clouds of
rust-colored smoke
as he dips
his tired legs
in the silver lake

and watches the trail
of ants on their
weary journey home
at 70 miles an hour

IV.
A herd of clouds stand
grazing at the tops
of the mountains
Evening comes
and they lumber
across the freeway
to where I do not know
but I’m sure as hell not
stopping for them

Boy on a bus

The boy sat; quietly, immobile
slowly drowning in an oversized blue jacket
his pant leg straining to reach the black shore
of his fake Adidas sneakers
but failed, exposing the white sock
that continued screaming for help
though all hope was lost

A girl got on the bus
and sat next to the boy
Her boyfriend, a
freckle-faced
sandy-haired
sandal-wearing
lip-ringed
punk of a boy
sat next to her
playing with her golden hair
all the while carrying on
an indistinct, incoherent
and utterly forgettable conversation
that teenagers are wont to do

The boy stared; quietly, immobile
at the golden slippers
next to his black Adidas
Without turning his head
his eyes sailed up her black pantyhose
past the knees
to where it disappeared
underneath the brown skirt
to a place of mystery and mythos
a place where men through the ages
slew dragons
rescued maidens
crossed oceans
murdered natives
a place known to the conquistadors of old as
el dorado

On and on he navigated
up the summer dress
in the winter’s warmth
of San Francisco
Dusts of gold on the dress
spurring our conquistador on
that mad quest to the mother lode
He climbed that final mountain
That stood between him and his treasure
and there he stood; quietly, immobile

The treasure he could never touch
with his bare hands
forever buried in the brown of her dress
with just enough lying above ground
taunting our poor hero

Long he stared; quietly, immobile
Until she and her boyfriend
broke up over another girl
and she swore that
all boys are jerks
Until she fell in love
with her professor in college
and married him without graduating
Until she divorced him
over some student
and she swore that
all men are boys and
all boys are jerks
Until she married another
and then another
Until luck or love or statistics
caught up with her
and she married the man
who knelt by her death bed
and drenched their fused hands
with angry tears and swore that
god is a jerk
Until the last passenger got off the bus
and the driver went back
to his Chinatown home
to a warm meal and hot sex
and no one noticed
the blue jacket