sometimes bad looks different

Evening and Slow


I will tell you of the street night and
Peace - late after a storm, and haze on
The corners. The car strolls from
Lamp to lamp. Meets no traffic.
Night’s gotten cool but still humid.
There’s a breeze and a cross
Breeze. I have dimmed all the
Dash lights to nothing. Fog lights duck into
The roadsides and sidewalks and yards.
I see no fences; will not escort alleys.

The beers open themselves. They siss and
Glugg cool and cold. And disappear without alarm.
I am risking everything in the safest way.
The streets must be seen. They are sharing their
Joy with me. It makes me a criminal. The
World only opens sometimes. And now it’s open,
Asleep and alive.

There must be day and night.
Each carries invisible stillness and slow. Sunlight
Shows daylight and everything glow.
Night shows the insides of things.
Tonight is time between the two. Both
There and not there are on the yards and sidewalks.
The whole world opens and receives and gives. There is
Shade in the pole of the street lamp.

Then home calls through haze to come home. The last thing I
Saw was a small boy with a small fire fishing
On the dark bank in the park.

ds

me and me

Details of the Wonder

Something sharp moved in the trees, and I
Knew the easiness was gone from the
Morning. It was time for the end of the quiet.
I leveled off the bore; made adjustments for wind and distance.
The hooves made
Small sounds.

There was a giant sound.

I do not care for the details
Of the thing. We were fed for
Several days. Square meals.
Then we moved down to the river, for
A week of quiet fishing, without liquor, or women,
Or any of the other small worries.

dsds

This one has really been a favorite of mine for a while now, sorry it's not new

The Glare of the Sun on the Water

Momma don't afford us a
Babysitter, but in the summer she
Lets us a pass to O’Connors
Pool. She is nice.
I hold Cody’s
Hand when we cross Washington, and
Ninth, and Huntington. He barks
At the chained-up dogs. I
Tell him its mean.
I worry about him.
I worry about him when I
Go to the girl’s room and
He changes in the
Boy’s room. There’s older boys in there
And they’re mean. We
Meet outside the
Snackbar and find a place to
Put our towels.

The water is warm, and alive. If you
Go under you can hear the
Kicking and splashing. I can’t
Open my eyes underwater, but
Cody can and he says it’s cool. I jump
Off the middle diving board, and sometimes
The short one. They’re both too
High for Cody. He watches
Me dive. I watch him do
Cannon-balls by the ladder.
It’s like the water
Swallows him up. He
Comes back up all
Smiley and blinking.
He kicks with his arms.

Today Cody got in a fight with
Russel. They used to be
Friends but they aren’t anymore.
Russel’s mean. And the lifeguard’s mean.
She made Cody go home. He was
Crying. I walked him through the
Girls room so nobody would see.
Cody didn’t bark at the chained-up
Dogs. He was nice. I held his
Hand across Huntington and Ninth
And Washington, and down the
Sidewalks too.

When we got home Irving was
Awake and smoking and watching TV.
He was mad. He don’t like us
There. Cody tried to tell him what
Happened, and I said it wasn’t his
Fault. Irving didn’t listen.

Irving’s not nice, and he’s
Worse than mean. I don’t know
What he done. Cody cried.
And Irving wouldn’t let
Mommy near him. I snuck in his
Room after everybody was
Asleep and Cody was quiet.
He was so cold. I whispered that
Everything would be alright tomorrow.
That I wouldn’t let
Russel or Irving near him, that I’d watch his
Cannon-ball, that we could
Split a coke.

The next morning they wouldn’t let me
Go to the pool. They said something
Happened, but wouldn’t tell me what it was.
The lady, Mrs. Caston, said
We had to go. We drove down Washington,
And Ninth, then Columbian, then Lincoln.
Then a whole bunch of streets
I don’t know. I tried to tell her that the
Car was big and there was room in back
For Cody. She really didn’t say
Much, but I think she was nice.
I think she wanted to say more.

The ride was quiet, and long.
I thought of the water, and the
Anxious hands breaking the still.

ds

when you're trying to train yourself to write more often and do manage to write but not so well.

you know, I used to sit awake at three a.m. with mouthfulls of poems that I didn't write down. then you wake up terribly old. anyway...

The Face of the Scepter - How Things are Made

I will not regard you, giant, as
A giant. I do not give, and
Will not give you the rivers that
Whisper across our land. My
Tribe is small, but my
Brothers have married well.
You will find nothing here.
Go while my mind is soft.
If you stay a thousand blades are
In the wheat. They will
Meet you. There is nothing here for you.

When you have left, I will send my
Sisters back into the fields, and
My uncles will join me
Under this roof. We will call
You a man of judgement. You
Will have my consent. I will have
Your olives at
The end of the season.

later

ds

evening coda

our bodies, and
now we are in our place.
The evening will
please us. Feel
the warm in the air.

I drank from a bottle of water, then
you drank from the bottle. It
was hot today and dust was
in the air. You
looked like you were looking through the
clouds. You
saw something. I cannot remember
what you
say it was.

Now I am all
tired, and have wiped the
sweat off my face. It is
late. The yellow
moon is over the
west and will go
leaving night
sounds curled under the fence curling under.
I love



ds

dearest third worst - response to your latest blog entry

I notice how well
you create people's lives
from
their face or
something you see in
their eyes. What
you wonder and what you
create. The difference (I think) between us
is you start in
real and drift to imagine. I
start somewhere else and have
less questions. I know less also; only
be.

Your town is three or four hours from mine.
The road is
made of kilometers.
I am afraid of your town, but only
because I have been there. This town
has people. I drink them. They sell me things
and smile or don't.


The world is the same everywhere. We
make our worlds from the world. Then talk
about it somewhere else.

It is time I come to bed. It is tired here.
In the morning
we will carve the earth and
form it into the
shape of
lives.