James Leveque currently lives in Oakland, California, studying the Bible of all things. He is pursuing a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature. When not working on his thesis and poetry, he keeps himself busy with social activism, live music, and quiz night at the pub.

Stalemate

The tankers, lumbering into the bay,
After a lonely pilgrimage across the Pacific,
Make their deliveries from Japan and Russia
And Korea, and then just rest, just doze off

In the middle of the water, as the afternoon
Light spreads like molten gold,
Populating the surface of the waves
With a billion gold voices.

The great cranes of the Port of Oakland
Bend their rusted heads, lift cargo
Like strongmen playing to a dwindling crowd.
From my seat on the seawall, the view

Is of a world constantly
Playing a chess match with itself:
It doesn’t matter who controls the center,
The game still ends with two kings

In stalemate, one square apart, staring at the dust
On the rafters gleaming in the sun after a tapped-out conversation.
People like that skinny kid – with his legs
Planted in the sand, tightening the wheels

On a model airplane – they never learned
How to play, never even bothered
To figure out how the pieces moved.
His tiny socket-wrench emits chilly,

Metallic bird-calls. He stands up and runs off,
His arm in the air, introducing
His contraption to a world that’s too tired
To even muster a half-assed huh…

Transients wash themselves
In the water, lay down their packs
And roll up dusty cuffs just to stand in the weak
Surf, letting the water rinse its salt

Over the toes and arches and ankles.
I’d like to ask them,
Does your skin dry out?
Have you slept on a freight train?

Is it calming to sleep by the beach,
Or are you kept awake by the seagulls’
Calls, their bullet-hole sounds shot through the endless thunder
Of the waves? If you could work on the docks,

As the smell of fish and coffee kicks you awake,
Would you? Would
Anybody here describe their days
With anything other than a long drag

On a cigarette, and the word sucks
Riding out with an exhaled stream
Of smoke a defeated blue? Wash a few
Of the more obvious stains,

Splash some water in the armpits,
Put the shirt back on
And go to a street corner, to ask each person
On a sidewalk, whose back is turned to all this,

For a quarter, a few dimes, whatever.
The kid dashes by again
With his flying machine high
In his hand; it’s as if it wants to escape,

The air bearing it up
Under invisible shoulders.
To think that it could squirm
Its way out of his grip, with a belligerent gust

Of wind, leap into the sky over the waves,
Casting its long shadow over
The lapping waves.
And I hope for the beauty

Of watching something like that wrestle back its own gravity,
Becoming its own moon flying
Through no orbit.
And I say let it go, let it bounce

On for a while, catching each breath of air,
Before its nose turns up a little too high,
Until that last minute when it loses its lift
And dives into the green and black

And gold on the water. When all we can see is
The naked quiver of a ghost
Sinking beneath the surface of the water,
Then we’ve seen enough. More than enough.

Germination

Wonder creeps in with the pale bone
Light during the early hours in the lab.
My eyes are bleary but still calculating.
Unshaven, a light beard clings to my face, I've discarded
My lab coat as it reeked of sweat in collusion
With ancient dust. The archaeologists
Standing as if we were fountains, and silence runs
Like water, and silence runs down to this tank in the middle
Of the room – a device designed to maintain
A specific heat, a specific humidity. The bed of soil
Is aerated and gently laced with nutrients, the water so
Precisely measured, that we don't even do it ourselves,
But gaze as a timer releases a specific volume
At specific times.
What business does a date-palm have
Germinating here, 2000 years beyond it's own life?
Odds were, this dry seed should have been dead as it fell
Into the hand of some student working on her Ph.D.
Who never stopped the slight and rapid motions
Of her brush and chisel, a pause at the top of Masada,
Happy to burrow into that mausoleum in the quiet company
Of it's ghosts. And despite the rattle, like the sudden
Appearance of light to a prisoner, in the hollow of a jar,
The student wasn't startled because she never doubted that she would find
Something, it never once occurring to her, that perhaps nothing is left
Worth finding. And the tremors inside me grow,
And my stomach is knotted at the possibility
That this seed from a tree that gave shade to Roman soldiers
Might sprout, might open its fanned leaves, might
Fill its branches with sweet dates, and even though I've never
Liked dates, they now seem to me the sweetest fruit.
I watch coffee cooling in the mug next to me, the steam
Drifting up from the black liquid, curling, forming
S's and question marks, and I feel angels guiding
Every little thing. Not angels
Like centurions bearing sword and fire, but angels like mice,
Small and busy, hiding your keys, leaving a lost buck
On the sidewalk for you to find, keeping you up
At night, whispering into your ear “dig there”. It takes me
Hours to say it, days, weeks, my entire life,
And I'll lose it immediately, but I hear myself breathe
The words, as I see the drowsy neck of a waking date-palm, Oh god...The Last Photograph of Karl Marx
Shaven,
having sold his mane
to a barber, sits
on the terrace of his hotel
in Algiers. He’ll stare
at the ocean for the rest
of the day feeling,
with his cheeks, the breeze
coming off the Mediterranean,
as the light slowly dies
past the horizon.
By now, he has outlived most
of his children. His son
Edgar, in 1855, was slid
into the moist skin
of the earth, and,
for a moment, Karl Marx
stepped forward to the edge
of the grave as a wooden box,
lined with mildew
and carrying his only son,
was released into the soil.
My own grandfather sits
as well, 120 years later, with folded
hands in the corner of a birthday
party. The steroids he takes
for his heart
have thinned and purpled
his skin, and his teeth
have worn down
since the last time I saw him.
He silently watches his great-grandson
carelessly playing
on his first birthday.
As a child, this man used to occupy
the part of my imagination
reserved for the supernatural, perhaps
as an old god of Canaan –
demanding, wrathful, unpredictable.
My mother would tell
me about living with him
during the 60’s, and how
he had to stop watching the news
because the Civil Rights Movement
enraged him, pounding
his fist against the armchair,
yelling in the living room.
He says that he didn’t think
he would last this long
in a voice both frail and cracked,
but with a crooked and knowing
smile. His great-grandson
is laughing while playing
with a yellow balloon.
The child falls
down and the old man
just smiles as the child
gets back up to play
with his balloon.
This photograph is dated
1882, a few hours before
Marx sheared off
his prophet’s beard and
a few months before
the bronchitis filled out his lungs
and sent him to a small gathering,
in the light rain, at Highgate Cemetery,
where he was the guest of honor.
His mustache still retains
a strong blackness, although whiteness
pervades the rest of his hair.
His face betrays knowledge,
and exhaustion, and indifference.
He presents himself to us
not as a breaker of nations,
but by the name given
to him by his children, Moor,
a man wholly contained
in the creases under his eyes,
in the darkness of his mustache,
and the white hair
that will fall in clumps
onto the floor
of a barber shop in Algiers.