January 26

Today is black. Pieced together in small ways
by a feast of cramped hands. Yes. When we apply
electricity it leaps to life with pretty

pictures, a feast of detours, a blur
of light. But the least of our beloved
memories will cease, should we release
from factories, beasts, cliffs, crumbs.

January 25

Give me one chance to build majesty. No, give
me two chances. Or three. In fact offer me
keys to the kingdom, to infinity. Say please

when I show you my degree and grin
with moxie. What I’ll invent then is
some crop, like the kiss, that we’d be done
without. Or drown me in doubt.

January 24

If arms be arms and fingers, digits which live
life distinct, split from brethren, then we’re rife
with conflict for reasons innate and legit. Myth

of pious or skeptic can’t fit love
into custody. No wit can do
what body must, knit this web of cut
reeds to cloth, to pits, to seeds.

January 23

Take me back, through the blur of time, to that lake
where the barrier breaks between that caring
child and this butcher we’re bred to revile.

Sit me under firs on the shore, split
me along that line which occurs when we
let our dry skin defer to our wet
depths, where what stirs breeds regret.

Episode 3

Episode 3

Audio versions of the poems from the third week of January.

January 22

Cast about for God on the land. In the vast
knowledge it takes to sprout a building or bridge
from concrete; earth and water.The clout you seek comes

not in that stout mix, nor in the watts
spent framing it. Not in the trout bent
upstream. Scout for God in great things. Beam
when your doubt angles, means, ends.

January 21

Once upon a time, before rhymes, we would grunt
our songs, pour out our hearts in howls, devour
whatever personal dialect soared or slurred

from our low-brow lips. We would roar numb
muscles into existence, lore pulled
up from ocean floors, down from trees. Cup
of speech won through war, and love.

January 20

Sudden motion. Or does it, like a bargain,
grow from contention, that vice-like grip which sews
together chromosomes, which hikes along never

ending trails ripe with the tended
crops of life. Or by spite? Fat raindrops
pierced by lightning strikes, by thunder, fierce
hunger of a God, like anger.

January 19

Hold this moment. It is frail. Weak as gold
leaf, as rare, as whole. It fails under brief
touch, like an ailing preemie, and yet, it conducts

electricity. No scale, plea
or sense can finely nail the pure
exuberance beneath that veil. Dance
along, moved by wind, sail, song.

January 18

With all our prowess, each fiber, from the pith
of our being, we beseech the one we love
(as best we might, by speech and deed, with all we have)

to know. But that knack, to preach what woos
us each day, remind what bent makes us
once again breach happiness, that hunt
goes on. We reach, by act and prose.

January 17

Shed this shirt quick enough. Throw off these fine threads
required of work. Desert your skin, your attire
long enough to know the soft, inert touch, the strong

brush of calm. Avert rude thoughts that hush
sweet voices, the faint flirting, the fleet
caress of one who can exert less
than a kiss, lest he hurt man.

January 16

Tasty, this life, this imagination, spree
of senses spun up, sweaty fingers in gloves
gesturing at the sun, begging that turning,

bring just a whiff, some of your charming
spell to this rich loam of earth, run well
your loom till we have one lush thought. Poor
lies the mind dark, done, disguised.

Episode 2

Episode 2

Poems from the second week of January

January 15

No, the world won’t let you sleep, nor let you know
some allegory, as you have asked the sun-
scribe, the night-writer. No. The world wants it’s cured hide,

hours of sweat, wants the hunt. Power
you request must come in process. You
must tear back the flesh in lines, adjust
blinds, sing the tales you find.

January 14

Curve in the road, in the approaching bend, swerve
as the mountains turn to encroach on the vast,
distant sun. We approach madness, armed with our scant

evidence, senses which gloat, present
us with coats of reason, request trust,
say what moves and what’s slowed. We give sway
to eyes, who erode, lie, skew.

January 13

Thank you. That prayer, begun by nail, pounds through
pounds of concrete, anger, silent air. Grounds
us from shock despite bare wires everywhere. Plus

rejects negative. So, a dare; check
how often you pitch, “Sorry,” where now
you can share, blue to green lead, “Thank you.”
Begun by square, by cup done.

January 12

Bend your life for money, your will to upend
markets, your back to get yours. Funny how bets
made daily pay off more, like sunny days that fade

slow, multiply like bunnies, knowing
you will show. But run even a few
ticks late. And watch. Crummy luck comes quick
to gum even earned virtue.

January 11

Dew on the bricks. Or rain from the storm that strew
debris across the lawn. Strain born over seas
who sustained anger all night long. Let us review

wreckage, the pain of loss. Cross this bridge
over which we to gain respite, quarter,
clemency, grace, rest from blame, mercy.
Or feign to stay dry, indoors.

January 10

Love is a connection. When you vow, “I love
you,” deep down, you’re saying, “We are attached.” True
too even if there’s no love back. How also true

what appears opposite. Avow that
you hate, and you allow, through and through,
this same proud connection. The abyss
gives one hope, one how. Forgive.

January 9

Holy holy trinity. Three souls slowly
formed. Three decrees, three egos. These bricks transformed.
House (three levels with three trusty doors). Spouse

no longer wholly life, son by glow
and growl turned to be father. Hand
to paw frees spirit. Holy break through.
What woofs of three. Proud. Sweet. Mutt.

January 8

These soft hums that surround us, when loved ones breathe
or shift in bed slightly. We often ignore
this as background, heartbeat, tick, sigh or cough. We miss

quiet beauty, gloss over if, fret
instead about what we’ve lost. Our dread
could be drowned as we walked across wood
floors, if we doused thought, heard more.  

2012: Episode 1

2012: Episode 1

Audio versions of poems, January 1-7.

January 7

When the sun attends winter, but won’t come
in to befriend us, kneeling at the thin
slats, when it descends like an angel, but is trapped

behind paned, endless glass, we’re inclined
instead to bend beneath blankets, dead
to good acts. One commendable move
would lift the latch, when you stood.

January 6

Bring me a sunrise stretched onto film, that spring
when I’m too broke to stroll outside. Or else pen
new day dyes to your palms, five fingered prisms, hues

pulled though skin, bent and dried, whole armfuls
of starlight. Wash sky on veins above
vacuums until nails can’t hide the bloom:
claret, citrus, peach yet rise.

January 5

Praise the God of good things. Of warm caring raised
to an art, of prayer, of fingers passing through
strands of hair, of folded clothes, of soft snow and

brisk days. Boo to God unaware, risk
taking God of war, rare disease, swings
in market and mood. Swear at the sin
filled God who scares, and who kills.

January 4

Arm hooked around ribs, I pull you, loving charm,
up and into me, full depth of my nose cupped
to your neck, hateful of oxygen, whose pale hue

thins your scent. By will alone will skin
be pulled from skin, by alert, by need,
grunt or nose of some we-loved beast. Front
facing… blue… full… live… embraced.

January 3

Forget the hay. I woke up shaved, bald with sweat
from knees to neck: back, pubes, pits, wrists, lip. All shorn.
Thread stole from brow and small toe, spun to a gold-red

wire weaved to a shawl. Unhired
hands plucked each piece from me, crafted and
knit this cape, this cowl. Mauled, I sit
cold, tug corners I can hold.

January 2

It’s a joy. (Joy!) It’s a gas. (Gas!) Or else it’s
a weight (wait, what?), weighed on your ass. Someone told
stories about rings of brass, someone something more

about greener grass, some see a drought
if they’ve only drunk half a glass. It’s
more a puppet, alas (than a store,
than canvas), mouthing: “I am.”

January 1

The garden, with its plush leaves, locked. Only tree
tops peak over. With wry grin we rush to chop
down sticks. Pray if you wish. Brush your forehead to ground

begging forgiveness. Or gush and sing
our story. Thump some twig to hush far
off sighs of parent or thrush. But scoff
not at paintings, lush thoughts, plots.

The Uns

Your tale beats a drum
to the rhythm that runs
deep in the sole of your veins. Undone

by the shake and the shun
of those who mean none
but harm when speaking your name.

So say, make it said,
the tale in your head,
that tells of the Voice speaking plain.

Make it sad. Make it fun,
Make it go. Make it come.
Let it live in this world without shame.

 

Audio

For The New Having Their Worst Day

I would beg to stop
that wail were there not days
I wish I could just

open wide my mouth
and let Rock out, let the world
know how horridly

the moments hurt when
we’re away. Let those who know
closeness, who recall

the womb of making
make a great noise into space
for leaving, for us.

 

Audio

Of Bones and Vains

The surgeon says he
can reroute the veins around
your heart so your hands

no longer feel cold
so your feet no longer swell.
And you think “Well, fine

as that may be, this
coldness defines me. My God
designed me as this.”

So you stay. No point
good enough to argue, no
self worthy of change.

 

Audio

Born Tonight

Your next love, the love
of your life, was born tonight
or just died, or just

Woke up from one more
too many nights with a love
that leaves open wounds.

Make your next choices
knowing the love of your life
eyes a reflection

Back from a window,
a face in need of strong hands,
and thinks about you.

 

Audio

A Ball

You’ve spent your morning
dark, listening to the clank
of images, jagged

round, cold, chunk of coal
perhaps, or ice, or some dirt
unearthed, or a scrap

of discarded, crumpled
paper soaked through. Let it
cool. Dry until damp

(though still malleable).
Then, with a surgeon’s hand, fold
back tissue. Let it

rest in solution.
Pray the ink has not bled white
the message. Keep it

under glass, under
a keen eye for years. Hope for
meaning to come clear.

 

Audio

Before Napping

You push the button
on every appliance, run
the vacuum, washer/

dryer, set the space
heater, think back to the nap-
hum of mom’s cleaning.

To headphones, records,
to the mobile hanging
above your crib, back

to that premier nap
on your dad’s chest, to
the muffled pumping

of your mother’s blood,
to the moans of conception.
Back to the forest,

or the volcano,
the click in place of proteins,
or the moment God

thought inspiration.
And now, ears built without lids
to rest while we hear.

 

Audio

LOVE

This pen in my hand
like a tree, or like a stalk
of celery. I

sings songs of you, so
more like a flute, or fife, sticks
to a drum, the length

of your legs around
me, curled like a saxophone
played by fingers stretched

out in ecstasy,
the musk of your hair flowing
with ink, like long l’s,

Ode Areola,
legs wide to fit me, the ease
of you curled in me.

audio

In Any Form

We’ve fallen, you

and I, not like leaves, to die,

more like snow, slowly

to accumulate,

melt and grow, someday maybe

made into a leaf.

We’ll reach with cracked skin

and cry, summed up by the storms

of our life, great drifts

in our memory

giving way to dawn again,

to the sun’s blue light.

Audio

…And for your halloween??

lone ranger

Halloween is a night where people put on someone else’s clothes, someone else’s face, someone else’s persona, light up their imagination and walk around begging as if it was there own. Yes, I have celebrated. For years I celebrated until the paint of the mask had burned into my face, until the wings on my back wilted and I could barely walk, until the polyurethane pants with painted on logos that made me look like a cowboy only in my own mind fell to shreds by the wayside. I have worn costumes and masks and carried false weapons. And yes, when you saw me I was laughing. Then one day my legs gave out and I could not see. The batteries on my flashlight had worn down and I found myself out and about in some strange neighborhood.

I cried.

My dad had dropped me off and now I might never get home. So I threw off these coverings, threw down these clothes and let loose the candy I had collected. It was not night. It was not dark. I was neither out of my neighborhood nor lost. The earth rotates like a lollipop handed to us by a kindly old woman. The clouds swell like a grey towel and then dry. The moon is only a reflection of what is true. In the heart of the sun a fire burns. Thoughts are flung together to be refined and made real. Power is released. It radiates out and cleans all it sees. The clothes we wear, the masks are of our own design. Drama feeds the imagination. Without it we warm and brown in the glory of our real bodies.

We never need be dark and cold. We are touched by the eternal. We never need to die.

Taking a Stand

Cave troll as corporate bully

To Back A Bully Down

Fists flew every day, pants tugged down. He’d insist

on taking the chance to use some tease-name, tongue

just hard and dumb. He’d entrance the hallways like rust,

still there, crusted on the pipes. To kill

him, that thrust in all of us, the sin

of rage that touches us, we must love

first; fear, lust, admit our worst.

Homecoming

You leave the city by your lover’s side
through rush hour to mansions to highways
pitch nights and projects that holed mountains.

You leave and arrive in darkness
and never see the leaves until morning
nor the streets nor the students mid-making.

You leave late for the union
and the tour of stories that gave light
to off beat sayings and to food and to humor.

You leave the store red
pizza parlor full, the stadium horse,
the streets recognizing names and envy.

The leaves are falling
and you see your lover crying
uncomforted after some thoughtless sin.

The leaves are falling
and you see blushed cheeks
filled for hours with unceasing laughter.

The leaves are falling
and you see kids changing hair color
and dress and dreams and preference.

You leave by your lover’s side
packed up for the long haul home
all day chasing a rising and escaping light.

If I Could Go Back in Time

 

One time, in reality any one time, I chose to quit something, to change majors, put down an instrument, let time flow by as if it were endless, gave power to the voice in my head that cared more about comfort and protection than the one that wanted to excel and go for it. When I accepted that someone did not, could not, would not love me. When I turned in C work hoping for a B. When I allowed myself to hitch up with someone whose wagon was not headed in the right direction. When I did not return the truly romantic letters. When I was unwilling to sit in the dark and stay there until the heat and pressure turned me fully into something called diamond. I wouldn’t change them all, wouldn’t need to, just one, just one safe and easy moment and the rest would have told me, would have taught me, would have created something wholly different from the person I am here. Somehow I would be stronger.

Hanna furnaces of the Great Lakes Steel Corporation, Detroit, Mich. Coal tower atop coke ovens (LOC)

A Story Without

If you walk from pond wall to pond wall, from bogs of frogs to schools of fish, thinking not about how big or how long your body will hold its longing, you will sound out a truth with the swish of your long limbs dipping in and out of mud, squish of nails and digits into and out of thick moist muck. Prior to finding this truth, you will touch a spot midway from all things, in it you will not sink, you will not want, you will not ask for anything. Only as your limbs lift from this spot and go will you know you stood on this midway. Only by going, by having and living “without”, will this longing inform you that you had it, don’t and must roll on.

Great Blue Heron Looking for Dinner

Setting the Scene: Where I Live

Washington, D.C. from Arlington Cemetery

The sky vacillated between blue and grey. As if the war that took place, that split along these lines would be argued again today. As if it would never be finished. All around, the memorials to the nameless dead and the singular heroic, those who survived the battles, drooped in shadow, a little more sullen and dark and dirty each day. Always, a new statue going up, a new battle to honor, a new class of remembrance. Not long before we build one for those newly dying. This is Washington, this is Arlington, this is Alexandria. Among the various upstart communities, the Townhouses, the planned and gated, the malls and metro stops, all well laid out, there is always the dead, the honored, the terrible price of our current predicament. In any moment of construction, we must always plan our memorial.

What I’m Avoiding

There. Off in the distance. The far off distance. Out of focus and too remote to be seen. Though I know that to be a lie. For what I am avoiding is nearer than my fingernail. Sometimes it is writing. Sometimes it is work. Sometimes it is putting my energy into a situation I know to be a waste of my talent or time. Or throwing dirt down a long and endless hole. I could call a thousand people and tell them what I really think. I could assess the breadth and depth, the width and heights of my life. But all of these are blurring my eyes. I am avoiding the oncoming train by standing on the platform, the head on collision, as we have agreed to our sides of the road, avoiding interaction, commitment, investment, intimacy, needing to worry about losing. The only ones we cry for when they die are the ones we knew, or who’s shirts fits us to a T. So better to keep your eyes down, blurred, vague, to waste life on some flashing light, a sitcom with a definite ending, immediate, interrupted, advertiser of needs, passing into syndication.

The World Would Be a Better Place If…

I’m coming off a good day. A day where everything I did and saw made the world seem more than great, seem almost perfect. And so, the concept of making the world a better place seems somehow distant and foreign, which for an idealist who has railed against self interest, ownership, privacy, separateness, individuality, petty entertainment, consumption and complacency says something.

What I know about yesterday, a good day, is that it did not happen in a vacuum. It did not come about merely as a day unto itself, but was built up over time, after a series of investments, in this house, in this love and this lover, in this body. In one day they all paid dividends.

And so, the best thing I can suggest, to make the world a better places is that we all do a little more investing, and choose wisely. Find the people we believe in, the causes we know need championing, the debit today that will vest a bit on some unknown future day. Let’s find that and tithe a bit of ourselves to it.

The great love, the great run, the loving moment, they don’t rise up in randomness to land arbitrarily. It is not a freakish rain. They land where we have done the hard work of heating the soil, boiling the lake, gathering ourselves into such raucous collections that the clouds can no longer hold us.

It’s a sweet rain, one that makes the deserts grow and cools the face. One, right now, we could all use. But to have it we must give, must invest, must contribute.

Overheard at My Own Funeral

Eulogy

What can I say about my friend?

He was a joy, a pain, a most

giving heart, fervent brain. Truth

be told he was, in the end,

more or less what we wanted, host

to our worries and challenges, cooth

or raucous when we wanted, mend

for our slaughtered fences. He’d joust

for the sake of argument, be smooth

or curse worse than a Yankee fan. Friend

to the outcasts. Hyperbolator. He’d boast

of deeds done and imagined. He too,

in the end, could say little provably honest,

so in his stead, I shall say nothing modest.

My Favorite Quote of All Time

My father would say, to no one in particular, “People dyin’ today, ain’t never died before.” A sentence, I’m sure, somehow passed down through the generations, repeated by his uncle or father, mistranslated as it was brought from some homeland across the sea. We would see him each day briefly, a flash if we got up early, or for me a shadow wandering through my bedroom after he dressed quietly.

At dinner he was a rabid basset, face full of forkfuls of food heaped high on his plate. In his easy chair, a detached torso hidden behind the high and wide walls of the daily news. His voice would clear before it bellowed. And we all hoped the words about to come out would be nothing political or incendiary, destined to start an argument. Instead he would laugh and say it.

It could have been The Duke, Belushi, Hudson or Gleason. Someone well known or insignificant. He would eulogize them all the same. All with a send off ironic and comical. He sloughed off death without a care.

That I could be so detached and so cold. I, who hated the man to the core, and who could not get out a sentence without tears flowing when it was his time to go.

People dyin’ today. People who’ve died a thousand times. Reborn mystics and hangers on. Ghosts and poltergeists (though they have never been alive). People dyin’ from speaking and from silence. But mostly dyin’, by breakfast, by work and by leisure, dyin’ just trying to use their wit, be clever, just dyin’ to get by.

The Best Advice I Ever Received

If advice was given I didn't listen. Although Mr. T once said, on the set of Johnny Carson, that he never found a hero worthy of his adoration and so set out to be his own hero. A sage observation. Though not one worth my attention. 

My father was a stubborn pig head who let the world wiz by while he rode the right shoulder, stuck in some time when the delineation between sexes and races and paisans was clear as a block or concrete sidewalk. What once appeared to be the crazy left passed him in a blur to become the mainstream. He never once checked to see where the dwindling path he was on would lead. At his funeral the minister handed out verses and mine stated "be sure in yourself and uncompromising." Pith. Pablum. None of it worth listening to. 

If I every actually needed advice I would find someone worthy of my attention, someone faster or smarter or who had something I wanted. No. Advice, as I have both heard and repeated, is like a colon, everyone has them and they are all full of shit. So this is what I can tell you: "Listen to no one, absorb nothing. The world around you is noise. Those you look up to are not worthy of your ears. They will only tear you down. Make it up for yourself. Find your own path. Heck, don't even listen to me."

prompts provided by http://plinky.com

What I Lost and Want Back

When I was new the desire to go to heaven was strong. I imagined myself dead, a soul sitting in some waiting room waiting to be called back, hoping they would ask the question for which, of course, I had the answer. I would sit in church and listen to the sermon to catch a hint of the key needed to unlock those pearly gates. I would study. 

As I grew, the desire for salvation was replaced by things. By stuffed animals and trucks. By books and trophies. By uniforms from all sorts of groups and by gadgets. Now I own none of it. Some of this cloths, these trinkets, these badges and accessories sit in a landfill trying to make their way back to the earth, back to molecules. Some are in a box. Some, no doubt, have found their way to a Salvation Army or shelter. 

I imagine a room, perhaps in that waiting area, perhaps in heaven, where all of these things have been made new, Optimus Prime just out of the wrapping. They sit on shelves, or neatly wrapped in piles, framed, folded, some well kept room from an over doting parent. All of them are ready to be played with and pristine. I am young, alive, uncomplex, easily enamored, full of adoration for these simple things. 

What a disaster heaven would be if it were just clouds and angels, if it were untouched souls of being, hosting nothing of our creations. I loved these hinges and joints, these false skins, these digits and the imagination sparked by them. When they have been used and taken, when I have no use for them in my age or the game no longer makes sense, I imagine their salvation. They are sitting in that room waiting for me, at the end of me. I love them for that. They belong to me. I want them back.

–

writing prompts provided by http://plinky.com

If I Could Relive Any Day of My Life

If you could relive one day?

I might pick the prom. Or the night I lost my virginity. Or any of a thousand days where I made some mistake I would love to take back, make better. I certainly wouldn't go back for nostalgia. No. It would be purely to fix something broken, to do or undo. I guess that suggests my life is full of regret, though not that. I do not regret the scars on my arms. They are our stories and make us who we are. But, I would, in a heartbeat go back and refuse to jump on the car. Or instead, I would come up with some other elaborate method that didn't involve sacrificing my body. I would go back to a day I was whipping a bat around when someone asked why I didn't just swing like that, and learn to swing like that. I would go back to a day where I stopped when I could have kept going and keep going. I would go to some fork in the road and run, run, run the right way. But then, as is always the regret. There would not be this day. I would not feel the weight of my accomplishments, the heavy hand of the things I have overcome. I could not fall asleep sore and happy. I would not have the ones who lie next to me and love me. Sad puppy. I must say. If I could go back and relive one day, there is an equal chance, as any, that it might just be today.

Oh My, This Is Awkward

He looked down the ridge of his nose hovering near the glass case, down to the two ends of his mouth on either side. His forehead against the glass repeatedly pulled back and drove forward. Not enough to break the glass, or draw blood, or leave a bruise or cause any other real damage. Just enough so it hurt. Maybe, he thought, if he hurt himself then they would stop. Then they wouldn’t have to. Maybe some other day this would be true, but not today. “Yo! Assface. Need some help?” And with that a hand, he knew whose hand, smacked the back of his head enough to increase its velocity forward. The glass shivered in its cage, but did not give. The same was not true of his forehead. A trickle of blood ran down onto the bridge of his nose. He wanted to turn, told his body to turn, told his fists to ball and his arms to swing. But nothing listened. Things flailed, but in an uncoordinated frenzy. It was like watching people poor out of a bus or a subway, haphazard and in all directions. Simmons simple took a step back to avoid the melee. As soon as he saw his opening he let loose his one first, balled up and on target. No thoughts accompanied that singular landing. No call to action. The only swampy impression was one of wanting it to stop hurting. But it would not stop. It was the beginning. Fists would rain down for some undetermined time, until a bell rang or a teacher walked by, or some student found enough sense of justice to step in. And the latter happened. From a puffed eye and cloudy ear he could see Simmons being pulled back. Could here a verbal lashing. Saw an arm swing and Simmons double over. Saw that same violent hand reach down for his opened in peace. But not until the hand, that glorious hand touched his, did he understand the horror of what just happened. Finger tiny. Flash of a silver ring. Spaghetti like arms. Though Jennifer was older, a junior, and though he was grateful. Forever grateful. And though he stood and thanked her. He would now have to go through the school, through today, through every day having been saved by someone smaller, someone sweeter, someone made of sugar and spice. He had been saved by a girl.

What To Do With A Bruise

Let it sink
in
to your skin.

Go slowly purple
out the back end
and deep.

Then begin
to knit skin over
skin, and heal.

Leave a scar
far below
the surface.

Where no one sees
kept where you beat
where you breathe.

Where its mere presence
prevents you from ever
being new again.

Being innocent
and honest
and free.

In My Defense

When attacked a shark will show teeth
just long enough to give any adversary
a chance to pray before he tries to flee

Some trees secrete a sweet poison,
that would be assassins must eat,
a succulent last supper. The common

bully will strike first, destroy a weak
member of the herd to announce
his superiority. In my defense

I take the tact of a moth, sit still
in a place matching my shadings
and hope, in silence, no one sees me.

Speak. First.

I can’t let the world in, not yet. Not before the words
bumbling round the edge of my nighthead are spoken.
If I take time to listen, I’ll be sucked into the argument
between Tea Party activists and the establishment,
between those making estimates of how slick the oil
and those lamenting, thick with Creole accents,
the fishing off Plaquemines Parish, between loops
of SportsCenter to see Strasburg’s curve (wicked).
I’ll be enthralled by endless recaps of Lost, sucked
into another congressman’s straying loins, carried on
another downed plane, buried beneath the avalanche
of which hollywood newlyweds are already on the rocks.
Before I know it, the impetus will be gone. What I meant
to say simpering in the corner of some snowy channel.
Posted on some URL so long no one’s going to type it.
No search will find it. Before I listen. I must speak. First.

For Julie

The tone is bright,
as if a door opened
to show light. You think,

here is one who owns happiness.
The word that comes to mind is blessed.
Though you learn quick that she has earned this.

Hours making choices, making muscle, making music.
She cracks a smile. Though while she got the audience rapt,
you spot something below that. Some deep running tone

that suggests a voice unheard and unknown. You think
perhaps in her best performance or late some night
when stars burn, when she’s a little more drunk,

a little less perfect, this may well to the surface,
overwhelm and magnify her beauty, this true
essence, her music and her friendships.

What you felt in that first moment
was true, though nothing
compared to this.

“At night I roll in circles…”

At night I roll in circles

round the spine of the space

shaped for me. In my mind

saying prayers to a deity

we shall call All That Is

or Was. In fun we trade

nicknames for Everything.

I say, Deity, and hear back

Diet-y (as if the One Who Builds

All That Begins could be thin).

I ponder, and then Sweet Maker

and am assured, Yes, I made

all that sweats. It’s a play

on words, the absurdity

of a mortal being believing

the voice inside, made up

while asleep, is the God

of the woods, of the planets

of the stars and the cities.

And as such, loves words

and watching one dream.

“Love is…”

Love is the stiff comment
locked, cocked and sprung
without the safety latched
cause you know your love
is bulletproof. Your lover.

Love is the combat
held back cause the cause
is not one you can attack
nor the one who will catch
the flak. Strong lover.

Love is one who spars
so there is sparring
allays the sum
of some anger, strain
to be released. Lover.

Love says “no.” I know
rage, but am not one
who plays well the role
of victim for anyone.
Not for you lover.

This

I have been blessed with a kiss. With eyes
closing. With a face warm to the touch
of the palm of my hand. With an all
encompassing aroma that binds
all but these lip-shapes, hands,

searching for the muscle of a back,
inlet of hips. I have spent my life
searching for one to encompass me,
power enough to know, to tell,
and been blessed with a kiss.

Dream in Albuquerque

Nine minutes is no time. Yet
we made a whole world inside

those buzzers. Until you jostled me
beneath watermelon mountains

while I muttered the contents
of some dream still swirling.

It was midday. The cast of Lost.
A tattoo in my palm. Who knew

I could shake you with a number.
I remember your matted hair,

hands curled in mine. You asked
why I’ve shared no vivid dream,

but share this. You’re frustrated.
Pissed. All I can claim is this place,

wide open space, time twisting in
the wind like a whistle. I meant

no foul. Simply shared because
it was there. This life. With you.

The Maestros

for Brynn and John

The Maestros know every note.

They can play it fast or slow.

They can start short with staccato bursts that shred the air
and bounce around like two-year-olds
barely landing on one note long enough,
like a new toy, to make the lights go.

They can play it high or low.

Can make you reel fast like a teenage girl with a hot wink,
make you think you missed something
so your brain must go back to catch what was lost
while still absorbing the next wave heading into shore.

But more. The Maestros have rode each scale.

They’ve seen the top of Kilimanjaro covered in snow
felt the sand on the ocean’s floor and rode
like bubbles back to the surface gasping for air
but through it all have proven unstoppable. And so.

You can not catch them.

Not in a race or sham or lie. The fine muscles of their fingers
and throat in perfect time, entirely aware of the valves
and traps they tug on, the heartstrings
playing the audience. No need to say how you feel

when the last note blows.

The Maestros know.

In Right Time

Run when you can, when you must. But the sun
just behind a knoll as you speed up, that rust
rolling over a passing hill, welcoming you, holds
heart and lungs in right time. Where you start

when you love, blind knowing, where you begin,
halo backlighting a face, lips miming a ‘hello’
read like an manuscript, each curl and thread,
line and crease holds your breath, in right time.

In right time, when the elevator closes, when
Metro leaves, you curse your life and show
up late, but stop to hold a door, then close-up,
cheek bones you’ll wake to pass with a streak

from behind. All slows. Halfway. Spent. Sun
rings your vision. You’re headed home. Bring
concrete into focus. Catch the clap-clap of feet.
Find behind that door, everything. In right time.

Potomac

I long to be inside you.
You remind me of someone I spent nights trying to deny.
I see you passing, in passing, run like mascara, goopy and blue.
You have been described by others… the word they use is ‘dirty’. They imply
I long to lap your mossy shores only to screw
you, just because I am a guy.
I have laid over you, but never pressed in. Don’t ask me who
you know said the sludge inside made you stink, or why
I told you the rumor, “You get around” got around. You
knew, huh, I painted your name on a rock in school. The high
I feel around you… let’s face it, we two,
you and I, would fit each other as each other. You outside,
I deep inside, together close as a tattoo,
you, pulling me in, clutching me like a wet skin.

In Exchange For Having

You cross paths with a man in a woods on a search that he claims is for lost gold.
He’s been told you can match this map to a point where a sycamore bends, then turn left beneath an old grey stone.
You see the tree, and the man; course, disheveled, a mess. He turns from left, goes on right and starts to scavenge.

In younger days I would help him, tell him right, or maybe dig, and upon success, take my leave.
I would walk the long path prided in knowing that my jaunt made someone richer for knowing.
But to be true I must tell you something deep would resent the dumb man, and my giving and knowing.

Today, I might well wait, see what happens, not to misdirect, but to meander on a chance for comfort (happiness).
No more that kid pleased by the memory of an old man who knows nothing of right or left, but sleeps well tonight.
But what voice tomorrow might I regret in passing? What’s left speaking which I tamp down in exchange for having?

For Working Class

After the show, once the chairs thin, once laughter
dies down and nerves slow, lines spoke, once the disguise
and gear has been thrown off, even just standing

in the parking lot, you know within
space you have slowed time, that you’ve replaced,
for brief, the hope drained by days, restored
steam to ages ago dreams.

–

http://www.workingclasstheatre.net

What Sense Waking

Sound is vibration, small shimmy rebounding
on an eardrum. I hear you round the sheets at dawn.
Light, a wave unwound by heat. Smell, a strange delight

carried by air, found singing. To marry
our bodies we’ll ground the bonds sour
and sweet wobble round. Capture the strands
chasing our tongues, bound to taste.

“Rage has done nothing…”

Rage has done nothing for me, though it must have
saved me from some nightmare, once. It must have gave
me strength, cause I’ve begun to keep it close to me

like a piece, hushed like a nun and spiked
like punch. When it comes I’m drunk, blind, strike
out at loved ones. Crack fist. Curse first. Out
comes the sun; heat, powder, gun.

Odds And Ends

Life becomes this. A collection of trinkets,
random pieces moved into this new room again:
ballcap, t-shirt from this band you have on tape, that

you can not play, this shot of staff whose
faces you can not name. Still, this space
is filled with odds and ends, with this kiss
from this artist who’s long done.

“Blue. My eyes. I mean…”

Blue. My eyes. I mean, sometimes. Not like those you
radiate out from behind. Cobalt estate
overlooking a lake. Huddled behind a book

on the porch of a wind torn day. Dawn
rises, and for a wink I find my
slate factory blues blind, squinting straight,
dry, climbing cliffs to the sky.

The Verdict

Love is easy. It burns in my belly. Does
the deed like old whiskey. Sober strategies
see that living, though, needs a congressman’s savvy.

Thoughts uttered become seed, children brought
to life accidentally. What they do,
loved or disowned, leads the judge
directly to read: guilty.

“I’ve admired the lives…”

I’ve admired the lives of those who’ve thought, thrived
on works of those who’ve made, lead and fought. They’re gone,
dead from age and blood, by bullets caught. They lost threads

from every thought, till bare, they succumbed
to melodies. Their voice taught me who
one ought to play. Those preachers long done
speaking. Caught, midsong, singing.

On A Flat Run

Stitch in my side. Right knee, slight twinge. Lungs, some glitch
I’ll blame on genetics. Bright beads of sweat. Tiled
concrete. Fists preparing to fight, if only feet

will keep me upright. Nothing stays still.
Not a thought. Not the night sky. The spot
where my spine twists shifts. Then the nightmare
splits. As I run right through it.

Intellectuals All

Mother would yell about the house, another
day spent cleaning up after ungrateful strays.
Father gave us hell about the lights. He’d rather

we dwelled in darkness. Cheaper to see.
Anger would swell and wane. We preferred
slamming doors to a well placed exam.
Eggheads. Scholars. Nerds. Well read

At Kora

Sometimes, the one you long for looks to you, one
furtive glance cross a table. The throngs forgive
you a moment of bliss. Your heart ping-pongs. And you

is a word no longer single. His
and hers are wrong dualities. Sands
say dying, songs off-key. If you pray,
wish to belong here, in this.

Go South. Turn Left.

Go south. Turn left. What’s left of your life is no
longer than the rest, stopped at a red light. Wrong
just means you’ve messed with what folks think a good man must

believe. Lay your head on my breast. Weave
your heartbeat to my breath, blessed with more
clout than others could digest. Go south.
Turn left. Unload what you’ve learned.

The Lost/Won

Because, once we kick off, are done, what one does
must, if one has earned the sunlight, justify
how much, and in what order, and to whom one sowed

good will (you had to sow some). It would
not do, though perhaps fun, if you got
caught up in the lost/won you were taught
nor punished for assigned chores.

What Good

Each morning, a choice, to wake from sleep and reach
for glasses. The red river makes none. It pours
to lakes filled with rain that couldn’t help but fall through

clouds chocked from taking droplets in crowds
tugged by a baking sun whose bright mug
could not shake the need to burn. What good
our fake complaints, this hour?

Scars Hatred On Your Heart

Devout, on knees, starting every morning out
supine, in prayer, apart, pleading to a fine
God. But what echos back, tart intonations, odd

voices, tones imparting anger, noise
called music or muse, smart assed quips scrawled
cross the start of each day, fear and loss
scars hatred on your heart, ours.

The Mope

Look at you with your sad eyes, your head all crooked,
as if you haven’t been fed and played with, have
to sleep by your lonesome, not next to the bed. Who

do you think believes your red tongue, drool
on the tip, that instead of the dawn
run into four times, you’ve led a shunned
life. Shed the mope. You’ve no strife.

At The Wake

Lie there, sleep petered out, eyes half down, the sky
slipping through slats. A bird in each window sings
about horizons, lovers or God’s word. Let doubt

creep in. Then, breathe out. I’ve heard that deep
moan, your slurred speech, seen you curled and prone.
You know, rising means a cur and blue,
lips skyward, and death eclipsed.

You Can

for Will Brown

When the next word comes humming, you can act. Then,
later, when you told yourself you would cater
to the voices you honor and long for, then you

have a place to begin; home, a grave,
by the river, in the attic, high
for the first time. Your pen before
ink runs dry. Sins to just think.

To The Coming Dawn

Quick. For so many nights we were in darkness,
but running confers upon us strength, what
we need to make out shapes. In the dim blur, a knee

jerk reaction transfers the sun’s work
from some interned place to the coming
dawn. Lungs burn, but the new morning’s yawn
drives us on. It spurs our lives.

In Time All Stillness

Joyless to watch your loved ones in a cage, toyed
With by fate. A cause to blame the botched myths
Of good parents, a well notched body. And above

It all, a kind God. Scratch and find shit
And blood attached to crotch and dust. Hands
Can dispatch only foes out there. Can
Not catch the enemy sought.

Rage

Rage for the days I give away, the stage
on which I ply my madness, relive long gone
plotlines. War drums pound. My head like a sieve. I’m not

listening. I’m reliving some string
of scenes, fists through walls, made fun of, shoved
though a locker. I persist in schools
long shut. Running, lost, pissed, wrong.

Up Early In Darkness

God said, “Let there be light.” But, It’s still this odd
morning, on this porch. In this bland fog I cling
to this thought, this hope that the grand voice will renew

the command for edges, shades, for blood
to flow through kidneys and hands, renew
my chance to fan our love with fire.
We, apart by land, sleep, sea.

Itch

Itch those places where I wish to scratch, where which
ever edge grates grateful flesh matches weather
suffered by poisoned geckos, batches of birds

draped in plumage. Snatch me down like grapes
with your teeth and tongue. We’ll patch which
ever thatched roofs leak with sticky fur,
bark and leaves; latched, scalding, marked.

Kiss me…

Kiss me. On the lips. With the shore of your pursed
mouth. What more could I ask than to be left out
from the cage of my fears, the store of my wants? Home,

in concept, is a door closing. When
you are closed, nothing more escapes. Who
stops to find my body, tore to drops
of flesh, sees your lips hover.

Negotiate

Whine all you will, sweet puppy. Your wants combine
needs nature supplied (hunger, excretion, pleads
for more water, or a treat) with urges galore

to tug a rope or meet a ball threw
some great distance, beat your tail drum
on the floor while you lick feet. You’ve won
what we all want. Love, sweet mutt.

You Said Say

God. I lay prone in my bed to pray. It’s odd,
but you answer in my head with quips that
would sound biting from a kin. Instead, we share good

bellyfull laughs. You tell me my will
keeps the tension that weds us and leaps
of faith are fay. “Don’t dread the fall, love,
or rising.” You said. “Leap more.”

Veteran

A man walks in, obviously a veteran,
to the shop I work in. Obvious if you
notice the nub and skin on his left hand. Some hiss

from a bullet in a chamber, some
shrapnel spinning. We are the lost selves
of our cells, of our quests to win. Love
and flesh living in our hands.

What Sight

Tune your body like a awful machine. Prune
fatty thoughts. From your memory wipe ratty
images of agony. Forget the stages

you went through. Believe you can undo
any mistake. Say please. Now, many
gather to see you. Though they’d rather
plough debris. They don’t know how.

Ends

What will you do when the world’s not spinning, stuck
awkwardly on it’s axis, when all objects
stop shimmering and the light around them flip-flops

no more, when you see the walls plateau,
each a land of objects within reach
resting peacefully in 3d? Best
if you then kick a fresh riff.

For Marley

“Get up.” said the Rasta. Said the faith healer. “Git.”
said the rube on the porch to the mutt he met
sleeping. Don’t be led to your resting in a heap

of blankets. Forget who you laid, loved,
lost, who you freed or fed, at what cost.
Life is best lived feet below head. Strife
and sloth are useful dead. “Stand.”

In That Key

Someone improvs a few notes, and what’s been done
cannot by undone. Emotion taps a hand
as an ear, that just wrote the riff in neurons, has

an epiphany. It totes the band –
bass, snare, keys, the lead’s coat — in a case
smaller than a pick. It can quote all
the changes by rote. Two. Three.

Established 1710

Lashers and millers who made the grain. Acres
of woods drug from the glades hovering above
Hudson’s waters. A crusade of maples beaten

to ships. Cascade of eighth graders who’ve
called this home “home” for decades. Where all
aunts and grandparents stayed. Where transplants
came to good trades, with no names.

Towards Stillness

Asleep on your pillow, noses close. I keep
my breathing slow. Move not a muscle lest I
break the spell that holds. All night, the effort I make

tends towards stillness, calms the folds and bent
muscle-blankets, elbow uncrinkled
only if I know this: You, holy
gift, won’t go, won’t leave, won’t shift.

To Ankles

Fear faced at the mouth of a river, the sheer
weight of rain and melt, thick waves native to great
cold-snaps, laid by an off-kilter sun; olive, old

as untold sin, as death, as the hiss
of wind whispering to our motives,
soaring round in an octave cursed (or
blessed) to outlive forgiveness.

Thirty Seven Thank Yous

Thank you for this body that is still working.
This body is thanking you for still working.
That is a thank you for this still working body.
That thank you is still working, for this body.
For still this body that is working. Thank you.
Thank you for working this body, still.
Thank you for this body. That, is still working.
Working is this body, for thanking you, still.
This still body is working. Thank you for that.
Thank you for this working body, that is still.
Still, that body is working for this; thanking you.
For this still working body that thanks you.
Thanks. For this body is you, that still working.
For these workings, this body still thanks you.
Thank you for this, a body that is still working.
Thank you is working for this, that still body.
This body is still working for that thank you.
Is that body still for thanking you? This it is.
Thanks; for you, still body, that is working this.
Thank you, for this body is still working it.
Thank you body, for this is still working that.
Is that thank you still working for this body?
Thank you for this body that is still (working).
This still working. That body. Is for thank-yous.
For-still this working body that is thanking you.
For you this body is still working. Thank you.
This, for-still working body, is thanking you.
Thanks for working this, You that is still body.
Thank you; for this body is still working.
This is a still working body. For thank yous.
Thank you working body. For this is still that.
Still body, thank you, for that is this, working.
Thank you for workin’ this still body.
Thank you body, for still working, that is.
Still for this body. Thank you for this that is.
Thank you four. This body is still working.
For You: this body; still, working– thankful.

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Three

Three does not divide equally
but when the obsessed is faced
with the last tic-tacs
that must be eaten in pairs
and gets stuck with three
she does not take two
and hand one to me
but bites down hard
and passes me her half.

One and a half is not even
and so when the obsessed
makes sure that between
the pair of us the tic-tacs
are split equally her lips
are my lips and we
are more than two people
separate. We are done
searching for the one.

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After the work

After the work, in all its usefullness and emptymaking
I could argue with no/ones in traffic, tossing cursewords
only to arrive home horse and exhausted and laydown
for something like a nap, approximating giveinsurrender

I could, but when I get there, arrive dead in that statehood
you smile and dig my back muscles with themlovenails
and I sense your want/to dripping into me, as in an IV
and whatever anger I held for them no/ones goesout

You smile, and lead me from that frontporchangry in
to where hands/squeezed and backpetting catlegs
absentminded thigh kneading, our limbs like saying love
and crawl onto me curling up and asking for comfort

To where we tie up in that thickhug at our neckmeets
where nolight flickers and we see smell lumps of candle
batting off our eyeshine, which can’t spot eyes, but
your head buried in my neck teeth dug of moon and stars

Where nolight is wrapped inside but each other’s heart
that beats away whatever stupid/dumb nothing done
coworker customer again today. Who cares here?
where we pounds of flesh, we godinlaws try to get back

That beats away like wings thee thick gravity and lifts
our love bodies into something approximating heaven.
After the work, desire for giveinsurrender, your silt grin
settles in, awakes me for goodwork to begin, and for better.

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