Yesterday and Today

You
want these words when there's
no words

that I should say to turn

something into something else like
turning roses
into wine
or whatever

hey I have no
words to do any of this.

We live in place.
This is where we live.
Then you go I go.


I wake up in two hundred years.
Everything is made of dust. Everything we
said is rain two hundred years ago.
These are the only words only words.
I have been trying to scribble it everywhere if
you saw what I said.

swallow

when i was a kid--
living in the mountains
of MD--

everyspring a barn swallow
would build a nest of
mud & straw on the top of
the porch light--

i would watch the
swallow toil back &
forth slap mud atop
mud mixed with
straw & grass from our
yard

i would watch the swallow
swoop up & down its tail
spread in a V as it
sailed about

by that time
the farmers would be
plowing fields & the
smell of freshly
turned dirt mixed with
manure would fill the air

& i knew in six months
those fields would be full
of fat corn & green beans &
the swallow would be gone
& i'd climb a ladder to
take the nest down

knowing that it would
reappear next spring

DWC 2008

Where'd Everybody Go?

Waiting for the sun
lonely, dust and dry hot room
damselfly enters

Dolar Store- hollar

offended by her scent
i stand a few steps back
and note the items in her basket
maxi pads; of course
a roll of toilet paper
three lemon pies and a box of kitchen matches
heavy woman without any teeth
makes me grateful
to be me

Steering Wheel Scribe

If I could read the last line
i'd have a post
but i may be too intimidated by the level of greatness which i perceive precedes me
driving home, Springtime pores thick with pollen
rosebuds and thorns shoot from the edges of my eyelids as i grab my pen
and scribe as i drive
thoughts on old suntanned free city paper
progeny on paper
dragged up from the floor board
thorns sting and salty tears drop from my chin
to touch down on
jonquils blond fade
and dead butterfly wings
fallen from young lovers lips
float on smoke filled air with
cinders from Falls burning leaves

(i think that's what it says)

Jessica

Fuck you. You shake down a kid
from your gut then tell me
how I look. Tell me about
holes and worn clothes. Tell me about
food stamps and day care.
Tell me about mom's boyfriends.
And what are you doing in my underwear?

Choices don't make me. I didn't make
most of these choices. I rode the
same bus as everyone else.

You let me get away.
You opened your fingers and
let me slip out.
You left the latches open.
You came up behind me with
a banging sound and
forced me out.

Now come around with your eyes.
Come around with your eyes and
see this: I am not alone with you.
More eyes see you than
you see out.
Don't shake behind me.
You are inside me.
When I blink I feel
your breath.

Jessica

She had several small holes in her panties.
Her skirt,
so punk and school girl
four years earlier, was
frayed at the edges.
All quietly betraying
a wife used hard, a young mother
who has chosen poorly
more than once;
so much like her mom.

Arena Decisions

I have to think about the future
as something worth experiencing.

I decide to live this life,
every day.

I must feel like today,
(the suffering
the frustration
the waste)
is building,
contributing.
to a life worth living,
to a series of days worth risking
for another.

Each day its thumbs up
or down, like an emperor
at the finish of
combat, a decision must be made
I put down the wine glass
and decide.

The mob has not always supported my decision
but mostly the throng cheers.
I remember those responses
and vote again,
thumbs up
spare him,
thumbs up
let him have another shot
at glory.

Sometimes I Wish but Don't Mean It, Not Really

Sometimes
I wish I was less experienced,
maybe even oblivious,
aware of the obvious
aware of only enough
to navigate the room
to the fridge,
bathroom,
and bed.

Then, I think
Then I could just
kick back and ride it out.
I could ease in and watch days pass
like a child
looking out a school bus window,
occasionally wiping the fog in a circle
so I could get a better look
but detached enough
to just watch
and think
about lunch
and the cute
girl across the isle.

The Neverywhere

The attraction of self-pity
The reason some people get addicted
is that they can forget about everyone but themselves
It makes them the center of the universe

The center is pleasantly purposeful,
direction is easily defined,
and there are no awkward in-betweens:
The center is always a destination
and a beginning. Always both.

Self-pity is a surrogate center
a placebo of purpose
a negative nest
nestled in the center
of neverything.

Its killing you
but at least you know where you are.
You're neverywhere.

lament

i found myself twirling a
pen over a blank page

just twirling
waiting for inspiration

the second coming is
more likely

i looked out the window to
the great asphalt plain

i saw stunted trees & heavy
machinery & cars

lots of cars

i looked back at my paper
& my pen-- so much for might

DWC 2008

5-7-5

The whole day off work
watching sunlight cross the floor.
I've done nothing, no.

the plaything

i feel like an extra
in my own play

i think i'm watiting for godot
whoever he is--

eating leftover chickenbones
& flipping coins

i blank stare my way through
each act-- hoping i won't miss
my cue

i invariably do, though
its the stage lights--
they blind me, throw me
off-- i hate when i
forget my lines-- i said
that once, on stage, in clown
makeup-- everyone thought
it genius-- i
didn't break character

i try & hide in the shadows of
the stage

avoiding the spotlight
avoiding the audence's eye
avoiding the play-- really

scrounging through my leather bag
looking for my script--
dogeared & underlined

DWC 2008

Odd way to find morning

The mind
is odd, and made of
berries. Rasp and straw hold
it together. Huckle lines the
inside. The past is made of
blue, and the coming sits
outside the elder.
Anything you can think
fits inside
a mul. The rest
is the back of a boysen.

Among Friends.

That's memory:
when slipping away creeps under
the floorboards to here.
When forgetting stomps through the
kitchen barefoot.
It takes a pillow by me, and
rolls over all night. It
keeps me awake most.

Day slops in the window and
I remember nothing.
All the parts
break.
The wallpaper of my chest splits and
cracks under the paint.

Voices from outside. Sisters walk down an alley
to school with their singsong -

'Night comes an-d n-ight go-es
Day slips be-tween
Thin shee-ts of li-ght
Co-ver the earth so shortl-y

Now w-e go aw-ay
Off for the re-st of our l-ives
Little shee-ts of li-ght be-tween
The coming and go-ing of n-ight.'

This is only how I know things.
Truth has no similar tale.

About Friends

Yes the end
looks like a pawpaw tree tiny
flowers that smell like death. Yes
the end is a hatch of mayflies
coating the bridge. Yes the end has
fingers made of iron
touching everything.
Yes the end
swims upstream to the beginning.
No the end
has no voice. No the end is all heart.
No the end is Alaska. No
I have everything. Yes
the end has no reason and never comes.

The Comfort of the Unforeseen

Worry
is for the foreseen;
that which we can imagine.

The unforeseen,
the unimagined,
is never worried for.

The uninvited is received
by our most natural reaction.

A credit and a testament
unto ourselves.

When I Worked for the Peace Corps

More important to carry than lift - my
hands full of pounds, Libya on my
shoulder. I'm holding up the dusk.
A five hundred mile shuffle. There's a giraffe
carved into that mountain, and a shaman
or a guy with a stick.
Rome was here.
One
legion held this place for hundreds of
years. I didn't see Leptis Magna.
There was a lot of history.

But mostly it was hot and the locals
stood around watching us dig their well
(which they let sand fill in two weeks) with
no electricity no women and date wine
with fucking chunks in it. Eight
weeks in the Maghreb. Two weeks in
hospital with fever. Most everything stolen.
Every kid wants your watch and pen.

Makes you wonder how
Rome did it. That's the thing
about history. The further in time the
longer from possible.

It is natural that we should rebel in this way

My socks are folded I enjoy everyone to come
have tea at our overlook the pond
is stocked with fishes. Soon the sun will
strike over us we will draw the awning put on
the new sunglasses I gave you.
Yesterday the big turtle dove into the
water from that log with new branches
growing from it
the dragonflies startled him look there
a big one lands near you.
Hold out your finger it may land and we will have
nine years of good luck my father's workers will bring
much grain and my brother will come home and
find a wife. I do not hear from my brother but one
letter he sent my mother kept under the
bed I found it last spring it said. He said he lives
under dirt and rests a knife under his
thigh when he sleeps now quiet the
sun is falling over the house and the trees.
Do you hear the birds get quiet?

I wish every day was this having tea with
you the
airplanes are so nice they will wait
until we finish and there is the turtle
again do you see him, there, there,

stretching towards the bank with
his mouth open.

Things are looking up

Most of us are lobsters (at
the bottom with big
claws). The swift goes
over us. We are giants
on the bottom. We eat what
lobsters eat. Algae, slow fish,
soft rocks, the bottoms of
ships? We scuttle. Lay millions
of nameless eggs. But enough
about us - I smell a fish
in the bottom of a wire cage.

learning to swim

the old testament
we have gathered two of everything,
like noah:

two boxes of cranium
two sets of knives
two sets of pans
two sofas
two tents

we have gathered enough for
two homes

and continue to do so, maintaining
our separate quarters three doors
down

and an eternity away


and the new
we have gathered in two's
like noah, with an ark to save
everything

but ourselves

first steps of spring

i took out some garbage this evening
before bed it was cold & clear
the fingernail shaped moon
lay on its back
stars twinkled &
the light of an airplane
blinked

i tried to find the dipper
or maybe even orion's belt
but i have to be twelve
& wearing a boyscout
kerchief to remember where
those are located

i looked up to the sky
& found myself talking
out loud to my father

telling him i missed him
& wondering if he saw
the pretty sky

& it was
the moon shone
& the stars twinkled
& the airplane's light blinked

If there were

Weather today - the
dog nipped the front door
demanding a walk
on hardened snow. Just
twenty degrees. Down
four houses to the park around the
frozen baseball field smelling
everything. Old goose tracks distorted
by days of sunlight on ice.
Yellow piss on the cold
trees. The clouds of
breath cool and descend.
Today is the only day
there is.

We come back into the house.
Come back into the house.
Television reminds me that
Arizona exists
somewhere.
Somewhere the air is
warm and
crowds with
terrible people
sharing their names.
Remember:
here your name
floats away
over parking lots.
Here you speak and
your voice settles
as it cools.

Your name will
grow into springtime
nettles
along the steep
bank.