ForwardEarth

This Is How They Talk

2012-01-29T09:03:00.002+09:00

There's another part, always,
that doesn't want to go,
a shape more practiced
than my humble sincerities,
my tilted resolutions.

I forget to relax my knees,
That I should soften my jaw,
take lessons from the glass,
from the sidelong blurs,
and oblong silhouettes;

take in the everyday words
That clatter around my body.
I should brush against these threads,
learn their girth and texture.

This is how they move,
in great thrusts, driven
by asteroids and thunder.

This is how they talk,
in echos and gasps,
looking right at you.

Falls

2011-10-20T10:01:00.001+09:00

Don't turn your eyes

You're here to keep me safe

From the falls and breaks

And trains and wolves

I know will come

You're invisible to me

But don't be so bold

I can always tell

When the breadth of sky

And weight of the sun

Are meant just for me

Language

2011-08-05T04:51:00.003+09:00

I might as well talk about the rain.
I sat at the cafe, Amici,
Backed into the corner
By the backs of heads,
No more or less judgmental
Than any other surface.
A college-age girl sat
In the opposite corner,
Reading a book
In a black square of leather seats.
There's nothing like the pink half-light
And a pretty Italian coffee
To bring out the colors in a woman.
I watched through the disused door
By the sidewalk tables,
As the rain-soaked streets slowly dried
In the pale cast of the cloudshine.
I'm a little disappointed
When the sun returns.
There's something sad
About watching the deep brown
Of the rich anti-stone
Fade into the unembellished greys
Of every day.
So I sat watching the patchwork patterns
Rising to the blacktop,
Like a language,
Spelling out the fallen secrets
Of the dreaming motorists.
People think me tragic
For loving gloomy days
A little more than the bright ones.
But the real tragedy would be
If no one ever could.

Safe

2011-05-30T13:55:00.002+09:00

Years have passed.
But it hasn't gotten easier
To say what it was
That I couldn't reach.
You were too beautiful
To walk alone.
So I kept you safe
On the brown city streets
That threatened to absorb you,
A colorful drop
Of windblown frailty.
I knelt beside you
And held up your hands
To explain their beauty.
It was the first time I touched you,
And you smiled
As if you shouldn't.

Walnut Street

2011-05-06T11:50:00.002+09:00

I'm walking on Walnut Street,
Where brick sidewalks
Back the office towers
Onto their foundations.
I'm squinting at the blue
So vast it tells the ocean
What color to be,
And I bump into strangers,
Who remind me of friends
I never bump into.
I'd much rather be sad
Than depressed.
Sadness has a heart.
There's no drug for it.
You can feel good about that.
But I forget sometimes
To just be lonely
And call it by its name.

Nomade

2011-05-01T08:36:00.006+09:00

This isn't what I meant to say.
It was like this,
But the words were meant to be better,
And the motivations purer.
This is not the day to say it at all,
But I'm prone to oversleep.
I am the Nomade.
I'm a man made of letters;
The potential for every great word
And every combination thereof,
Faceless and fearless,
Surrounded by princes and brides,
Rulers of their nationless kingdoms.
The absentee sun arrives
And bears down on my folded knees,
Dispersing my shadow
In a membrane of verse.
People pass like drifting flowers,
Casting off pollen
And other bits of their lives.
I am the Nomade,
A man of iron and irony.
I never leave this place.
My brethren scatter to the corners
Break off more corners
And scatter again.
I have no use for locomotion.
Everything that does not come from me
Comes to me.
I am anticipation of all knowing.
I am the great driving force
Of lesser creation
I am the Nomade.
Step too close and I surround you.
I glitter in your sight forever.
I am the house of all wanting.
I am the tower of doubt and wonder.
I am the cosmic spectrum of learning.
I am the center of gravitating awe.
I am the Nomade.
I was never going to say this;
I was promised rain.

Ritual

2011-05-01T08:35:00.007+09:00

Everyone does this sometime.
Everyone like me
Sits in the hippest cafe
And leans over his notepad,
Believing inspiration will come
To choke poetry from the glistening
Channel of creation
In his twitching pen hand.
The coffee is good,
But that is not important.
If it were a bitter brew,
I would pretend not to object,
In case someone is looking.
Is that mocha too hip for you?
I can handle it.
I mean it's fine.
I don't dare look around,
Raise my eyes to meet
What might be other eyes,
What might be the harsh scrutiny
Of youthful self-assurance,
Pierced lips chuckling into the chai.
I just lean over my notepad,
Silver pen twitching in my hand
And listen to the invisible clicking
Of the amplifiers;
Music I wouldn't listen to elsewhere,
But that's how good it is.
I came here believing
The channel was blocked,
Afraid to uncap my pen knowing
Nothing would happen next.
But I wonder if there are eyes
On my table, on this shimmering quill,
The eyes of a young hopeful,
Who came here to uncap his pen
And see what wisdom his moleskine
Would soak up from the core,
Only to watch the ink dry on the nib;
Wordless bedroom poets
Looking on and thinking,
I wish I had that,
That flow.
The coffee is good,
Not that it matters.

May Day

2011-05-01T04:45:00.001+09:00

I only remember giving out the baskets
And receiving them
When I was a kid.
The last one I remember
Was when a mysterious ginger girl
Dropped one off on our porch,
Spun about, and fled
Back to her mother's car.

No one got a good look at her,
And we couldn't find a name
In the basket.
My mother conjectured
That it was Stacey McGill,
Who was in my class,
And that the basket was for me.

I tentatively nibbled on a piece of candy
In the basket
While it was being discussed,
But finally
A slip of paper was found
With my brother's name,
And I had to give it up.

I knew the ginger girl we saw
Was not Stacey McGill.

Salvage

2009-04-10T00:32:00.014+09:00

I was going to buy an old crate for $50.
It said DYNAMITE on the side
And I was going to put it in my bathroom
To hold magazines.
But a minute later I forgot why it was a good idea.
The chairs were better to look at.
They winced and complained when sat on,
As if it were your idea.
But everything was beautiful because it was old,
Because the paint had long since abandoned its claim
And the handles had yielded their shape
To the intruding fingers;
The table tops polished and scarred and polished
By the same wandering hands,
By dishes, books, pocket change.
A great mottled cabinet stood sturdy and proud,
But whined and grunted as I opened it,
As if I had woken it from much-needed sleep
And called on it to perform.
I know, cabinet, I thought.
We're not so different.
I'm not as strong as I look either.
You'll stand unmolested in my kitchen.
We'll get along; we'll lie for each other.
I looked at the price and walked away,
Forgetting it needed me.
I can't afford that much history.
It's all better anyway, because it's old,
All differently, separately old.
I wanted to remain,
To volunteer my atoms into the dust,
Submit my consciousness to other times
And try pieces of them all.
It's not right that we can remember just one.
I could enroll my own history in this school,
Brush off the unpracticed lessons
Under lamps that wait tangled in corners.
In the end I bought a narrow cabinet, mostly green,
Pretending to be ancient and feigning purpose.
It leans away from my window, ashamed.

Morning Glory

2009-03-04T14:13:00.004+09:00

I don't want to write about the world.
How could I write meaningful phrases
About a place I hardly know?
I've sailed across oceans, sure.
I've visited the greatest cities built.
But the world?
I see people who have been there.
They exit as I enter;
Their days begin at the end of mine.
They sit near me at the cafe, in groups,
With things to say.
They speak to others in the world;
That's the difference.
They connect to each other with words,
Sentences stretching out like elastic strings,
Or gravitational membranes
Bending in space and drawing back pieces
That they can keep, suck in like smoke,
Then breathe into others they know.
Nothing I do is like that.
They have energy and memory.
They remember laughter
And the remembering revives it,
Renewed like morning glories.
I think that's what the world is.
I think that's what I mean.

World Music

2007-11-30T11:02:00.000+09:00

An American sits at the base of a statue
In the light rain, pushing puffs of smoke
Over his drooping jaw. Others have gathered
In the dusky winter grey, clutching
Umbrellas and each other.
A child stands before them, delicate as frost,
In heavy clothes, a black watch cap
Belying a fluttering brown mane.
She holds a guitar much larger than she.
I lean against the nearest wall, watching
While she plays that instrument
As if she had been born with it,
Raising her voice in a bold
And gritty vibrato
That her years cannot account for.
She plays her soul through that guitar,
Casting it over the crowd
To be dissolved in the light rain
And soak into our clothes and our skin
And change us.
A kind of white aura rises from her,
Like a discharge of spiritual energy,
Cascading in all directions,
Waving rhythmically, like some
Opalescent blood-warm flame.
I'm not ashamed that I want to cry;
I want to let the dampness stream
Down my face to be dried by the cold wind
That is raining leaves and other bits
Of floral matter all over me,
Embedding them in my hair.
I love that little girl,
And all the people who stand around
Watching in nameless joy,
And all people across Asia
And across the oceans,
And I send out great pulses
Of love and oneness
That penetrate the Earth and spring up
As forgiveness and understanding
And radiate and scatter
In waves across the universe.
But before I can cry, a smile
Creeps to my eyes
And frustrates their plans.

Cry Me a Bridge

2007-11-06T11:41:00.001+09:00

In the park I saw an average-looking angel,
And her eye was pointing at mine.
I mustered up all of my blood and said,
All the best people are foreign,
From the far side of somewhere else.
If I dig my own grave,
Will you dance with me?
There is no one around here I know.

She said, I’d rather not have my own opinions,
But I can’t stand the silence of stars,
And I can never get used to being born.
Finality just doesn’t sit well.
All I feel is this wind in my eyes.
So if I cry you a river,
Will you cry me a bridge?
I think everyone needs somewhere to go.

The Day My Brother Flew

2007-10-08T11:49:00.000+09:00

The day my brother flew,
I prayed for the last time;
Asked for his acceptance,
A chance to say goodbye.
Stood inside the chapel,
Whispered through the motions,
Knowing in my chest
I did not believe.
Months gone from that day,
I stood inside a basement,
Staring out the window,
Chainlink in my eyes.
A host of white lights came,
Gathered right beside me,
Waited till I turned,
Slowly sank away.
I never told my folks.
They could not believe it.
I don't know what I saw,
If I’m lying to myself.
The day my brother flew,
I sat down on a stairstep,
Fingers in my hair,
Asking why I breathe.
He lived and enjoyed life.
I don’t even like it.
That was '91;
The answer never came.

Storm Clouds Call Me Home

2007-09-13T11:07:00.000+09:00

Grey clouds, pick me up.
It’s not safe here on the ground I think.
The sidewalk has its teeth in me;
I can't walk straight anymore.
Pictures found in frames,
Growing crooked from forgotten earth,
Show off places I could never go
If I flew across the bay.

Red sky, raise me up.
The world burns and I'm standing here.
I don't know how to be a friend;
Nothing's easy anymore.
I gather all the blame,
Hold it loose inside my weaker hand.
Without looking up to meet the eyes,
I release it to the wind.

So storm clouds, call me home.
Freeze my bones above a mountaintop.
There's a chance I'll see the other side.
Hold my atoms to the sun.
I'm not afraid to fall.
I might crash into a stranger day
When the elemental truths are bare
And the seeker has a claim.

I'm tired of my voice.
There's nothing here that's meant for me.
Blot out the sky and then we'll see.
Storm clouds, take me home.

Go On

2007-08-12T16:09:00.000+09:00

It could go on forever from here,
For all I know.
There’s no end that I can see.
Spotless clouds multiply
Beyond finite finality,
Dropping oily shadows
On the saltwater bay,
Shimmying down and over
The misty grey-green hills
That turn back sailors
And wall off my horizon.
They could go on forever.

From somewhere an ancient tune
Conjures a dance in campfire light.
A glance reveals an elderly man
With a wooden flute, tapping a foot
To music he pries from the flesh of a tree.
This is so irregular I could deny it,
But I hear the music, I see the musician
Here and now on the settling wake
Of the second millennium,
Calling back Celtic glory
To make him whole today.
He could go on forever.

To my left in elm shadows,
A dear old girl of dear old heart
Faces a like companion,
Stretching her arms in gestures
That expand the meaning of her words.
She draws her listener along.
They collude in her retrospection,
In her experiences better shared.
So how can I see them to my left
When they’ve been uprooted
From this now,
To walk in time already past
That could go on forever?

And on this stone I rest,
In answer to a craftsman’s hope,
Songwriters dreaming in my brain.
Here I live among the crickets
Cheering invisibly all around.
I am with the pigeons scavenging
In simple grace to feed their blood.
I am among the lazy pines basking
In the white light of the sun
And among the golden hawks
Bathing their backs in shifting clouds.
I drift along with the quivering sea,
Brandishing its blue in rejection of all else.
I am one with the paver’s bricks
And with the dry leaves that skim their tops
And the minuscule ants that forage between,
And I could go on forever.

O

2007-06-18T20:53:00.000+09:00

O to be young and hoard my wisdom!
To have ambition to match my desires
And strength to achieve my ambitions!
Gangs of children parade by me,
Jumping and punching and loudly observing,
Laughing and popping off like fireworks.
For them to stand at a crosswalk
Is a torment of delay. For me today,
It is temptation to curl up on pavement
With my head against a streetlamp.
Couples still pawing adolescence
Announce everything in earnest,
Every word punctuated with wrath
From gleaming faces, electric eyes
Sparking with passion, arms gesturing,
Sinewy legs impatient at the stroll.
Yesterday, I walked across a harbor,
Twice by bridge, and my body,
Grudging as a forlorn companion,
Has yet to forgive my abuse.
Gravity has learned my name.
As more years pile on my back,
It gets harder for a planet to ignore me.

Farsight

2007-06-08T19:32:00.000+09:00

Frames so unabashedly ornate
They might have inspired awe,
Turning in the air,
Carving out polysyllabics
Like flashing gold blades,
Then returning to their mount
With halfhearted resolve
To resume their chief occupation.
It’s a wonder they're not crushed
Under his beleaguered brow,
So heavy it looks, muscled
From the challenge of toiling
Under the unjust demands
Of all our foreign idioms,
When he's charged,
Without excuses, to pass on
What he's charged to acquire.
Such a bastard thug is language,
Bracing its arms between us,
Palms against our eyes-
His eyes laboring clumsily
Over the misarranged symbols
That he glues together with memory;
My eyes burning with pity
That claims no allegiance.
He would not thank me for my pain.
He sacrificed his native mores
To sail off the end of his world,
And he pays our charges daily,
To keep the passage closed.

Milestone

2007-06-06T19:05:00.000+09:00

A photo made an ache in me,
Though there is nothing sad
About the subject-
Five years old
In turning point garbs,
A tassel against
Her ruddy round cheek,
In a color whose name
Turns over with the decades.
The melancholy
Is only with the viewer,
Flexing fingers
With a need to stretch
Across the meridian
And sweep the ornament
From her delicate arcing brow.
She’s a lot like me, I’m told.

Niches

2007-06-05T13:29:00.000+09:00

Twelve years old, I battered
Cardboard boxes in my yard
And felt strong; relented
Only after my knuckles bled.
I relished the labels
Of my peculiarity.
Yesterday, magically saddened
By the too-loud refrain
Of inappropriate people.
We can't help our skulls.
Some things we know are settled.
But no one expects to bleed.
We seem too well-planned
To fall open like that.

Birthright

2007-06-01T10:47:00.000+09:00

I have to stop hurting my mother.
She does the best she knows how,
In that walled-in life she leads,
On that clockwise path she walks
On a tether to her fictive ideals.
We all have our ancestry,
Who set the stones of posterity
And hide from blame in their graves.
They cast their shadows
Long after they’re lost to the sun.
I would like to believe it’s no chore
To wriggle from under
The thumbs of the dead.
But I keep on hurting my mother,
Though she did the best she knew how.
I injure her with my distance,
And my dismissive lack of concern.
She bore three sons into this family
And half of us are gone.

When I See It

2007-05-31T15:57:00.000+09:00

I don’t believe in time.
There's much more world left;
So much more to learn,
And I don’t believe in time.
I believe in shadow birds flying
Through the green of mown grass
Under the squint-bright sun;
An ocean dappled with clouds
And the white sails of small boats
Crossing my shoulder;
A thousand dynamic blooms
That I can’t name, speaking
With voices of children
And laughing as they pass;
The reassuring chatter
Of great wooden beasts
That sermonize patience
And continuity.
But I don’t believe in time
Or the limits it implies.
I don’t believe in the failure
Of the manifest soul.
I don’t believe death will result
From the cessation of habits
That feed my blood,
Because I won't believe
In a future nothingness
That I can’t see from here.

What It's Like

2007-05-29T17:55:00.000+09:00

I know what it’s like
To bury a brother.
Those words choke me
Every time;
Like I can wrap my throat
Around their certainty
And swallow it down
To dissolve its essence.
It’s no good trying
To take back assertions
That really aren’t made
Of words anyway.
Only stifling regrets
I can’t build on
And memories
I don’t look at anymore.

Upright

2007-05-29T17:31:00.000+09:00

The sea could break my back
With the wind it heaves
Against the gloomy pines
Pleading there for clemency.
They would leave if they could.
There’s no peace in living to resist,
Acquiescing in obeisance,
Bereft of their inborn pride.
But this is all they know.
To stand reaching,
Upright and sure. They reach
Until they fall or burn
In fires struck by careless men,
And will the sea be happy then?

Drift

2007-05-28T15:13:00.000+09:00

I’ve grown complacent
On this river,
Its resolute waters
Conducting me helplessly
Under the florid blinds.
But I am beleaguered
By the constant shore
Relentlessly at hand.
One errant ripple
Will settle me in the mire
To end in dismal irony,
Forced to concede at last
That I was meant for the sea.

Distance

2007-05-28T10:51:00.000+09:00

There wasn’t any last week anyway.
So there can be no repercussions,
No fallout, no deprivations
Or injustices that follow.
There was no this morning
And I know this is true,
Because now is the afternoon,
And this is all there is;
A sliding down grey reality
Through cherry blossoms storming,
Pine impressions on the firmament,
And a faraway drone of popping voices
That threaten to distract me
From my careful inattention.

Whimper

2007-05-27T10:45:00.000+09:00

I suspect I want to let go,
Because I’ve seen slow years
Since I last felt permitted.
But it can’t be a comfort
While I’m straining my neck
To validate the bareness
Of windows and thresholds.
I see murky pictures
Implying that I was free.
But it seems like I would know.
I must have read it in something
Or wished it into a dream.

Life Is

2007-05-27T07:12:00.000+09:00

Who ever said life
Should be worth living?

Life is not the point.

Life is a pebble
On a stair step.

Blessings

2007-05-22T17:52:00.000+09:00

No one ever held a knife to me
And meant it. That’s a blessing.
Across the park with umber skin,
A girl clutches her dark scalp
In the startling moments of her story.
I can see the softness of her hands
Gently returning the sunlight.
I stroke the bristles of my jaw
And stretch my wits toward history
Of young hands in stillness,
Of rest In a sacred place.
Someone asked me why
I so often look sad.
I hadn’t heard that in years.
I was always fond of saying,
My eyes are sad, because
They see too much.
I didn’t know a damn thing.

The Club

2007-05-21T12:44:00.000+09:00

I know how he feels. I'm fine.
It's deep in the past for me.
James is a good kid.
He's joking around and talking
About trivial things, just
To give his mind rest.
But his face is red.
That's what you do;
You try to be normal.
Then you feel ridiculous,
And like hell for acting like
Anything in your life matters.
You can see the cry in his eyes,
Just biding its time.

Want Not What

2007-05-19T17:05:00.000+09:00

A waste- it’s not a waste.
A year- a year remains;
Hundreds of days, and a day
Is twice as long as any year
I can remember.
Hundreds of days in the year.
It could take weeks
To get through this one,
In this useless angst
Over unfamiliar people,
And worse, familiar people
I don’t know.
They do look beautiful
In the sunshine.
The sun will rise
On all those days.
It always opens
For the stars.
I find more beauty
On the way to the store
Than would most of these folks
In a week of inquiring.
Just now, looking at the sky,
I stumbled over poetry.

Haunting Trees

2007-05-17T19:57:00.000+09:00

A tree leans over me impatiently
Casting intimidating shadows
That darken the wood table
Where I lean over a pad of paper-
Its pages bristling sadly
In the wind- debating
The most effective metaphor
For the impression of people passing
Hurriedly but leaving their imprint,
Static and indelible
On my peripheral psyche,
Like a jet engine vapor trail or
A brush dragging pigments or
Simply a stain
On the stagnant atoms
Of the holographic sky;
While above me,
Leaves quiver in anxiety.
The trees are proud
Of what they contribute
To the leaping world,
To the extent that this is possible,
But the relentless dread of never
Being suitably appreciated
Is enough to strain
Their desperate tendrils,
Already in constant yearning,
And to knot and stoop
Their aging backs forever.

Stoicism

2007-05-12T15:14:00.000+09:00

Sometimes I’m not sure
Who my tears are for.
Am I crying for the pain
Of the suffering world,
Which reveals itself
In a new guise
With every blink,
Or is all my pity fixed
By egocentric gravity?
Ruminations out of the way-
How now
Shall I begin
To waste my day?

World-weary

2007-05-12T12:29:00.000+09:00

I've scuffed my boot soles
On the streets and boardwalks
Of the largest cities in the world,
Been foreign and peculiar
In a range of abstractions,
Spreading my gibberish
Across borders and oceans,
Up and down skyscrapers,
To monuments ancient and new,
Echoing through valleys
And across red rooftops,
To ripple in silver pools
And undulate in obscurity.
And now I'm ready
To fall asleep to the music
Of crickets resonating
Under floorboards;
To yawn and wipe the dew
From porch rails for a place
To sit with my coffee
And the fauna waking
With elemental ambitions;
To walk in a town so small
That everyone will wonder
Who the hell I am.

Encounter

2007-05-11T23:49:00.000+09:00

You’ve never met me.
You only address the skin
I crawled out of;
Spitting your spite
At the place marked
By calcified sticks
That make me appear
To be standing here.
But I wouldn’t be
Caught alive
In a place like this.
Dead,
There is no choice.

Wood and Nailed

2007-05-09T16:18:00.000+09:00

This is no life
For a man in his thousands,
A man with his spine
In the beginnings of Giza sand
And Peruvian mountains,
And his boot heel dragging lines
On the far side
Of prophesied planets.
I was society’s idea,
Not the reverse.
If I were to build
A box to live in,
I would make holes for breath,
And to remember the breeze
And the light
Of suns and moons.
There is fresh wood on the bench
In front of me; sat upon
Until it gave out,
Unable to cope
With its intention,
The purpose chosen for it,
For the golden planks
That once knew solace in trees.
Now the wood is replaced,
Purpose renewed, because
For men to sit
And look at waves
Is a need that must
Be satisfied.
There is no shortage
Of metaphors.
All I had to do
Was raise my head.

Gather

2007-05-09T16:15:00.000+09:00

I haven’t enough ambition
To be a pigeon
Among the dozen or so
(I lack even the motivation
To count them)
Bending their grey backs
In front of me, picking
At the grass and soil
With a patient resolve
So outside my disposition
That it would tire me
Just to envy it.
But to be so beautiful
In such simplicity,
So by chance-
This is a thing to revere.

Onlooker

2007-05-09T16:13:00.000+09:00

I see an old man
With a bandaged eye.
I laughed to think
That he endured
A wretched backhand
From his grey-haired wife,
Now so attentive.
He’s fine.
He doesn’t want my pity.
He is no more blind than I.
There is not a soul
Walking on this grass
Who sees half
Of what is in front of him,
Or any more than those
For whom the crosswalk
Speaks aloud.

Heavy Rail

2007-05-05T20:40:00.000+09:00

I loved you from station to station,
Carried my torch home,
Where I walked the blue street
With your image hanging off me
Like the sandbag weight of grief;
Resisting the approach
Of prostitutes
And falling planets,
Wanting to shrink
Under the mantle of fog
That nullified the bolstering moon.
You don't know me.
I saw you on the train,
As I was speeding backward
All oblique and senseless,
And I only noticed you
Because you gasped at the sight
Of children boarding.
I felt your smile physically,
Swelling my eyes
As you rose from your seat
To draw the eyes of the boy,
Then peered past tender hands
That made mine ache
With the cramping strain
Of their emptiness.

The Accidental Poem

2007-05-04T23:55:00.000+09:00

I can do this
It will become clear
In the sky of lost longing
Of forgotten wants
And everything that isn't
What it seems to be
Will fall open
Like an envelope
On cedar boards
I can do this
And you can
And all that waits now
Is the being of what it is
We know we can be

Choice of Words

2007-05-04T10:57:00.000+09:00

This inner voice
Bedevils me.
You see!
Right there!
That's not how I
Would have said that.

Sketches from the Boardwalk

2007-05-03T17:00:00.000+09:00

Sometimes I wish they
Wouldn’t be
So beautiful
So close to me, here
On the edge of the sea,
With the whole world
Right next to me.

These mysterious people
With their inexplicable umbrellas-
Most days I can work out their purpose,
But others, there seems to be no reason
In the weather.
Maybe they’re guarding
Against the loss of something,
Like that somnambulant wisdom rising,
Trailing behind them like hot-engine vapor.

A scarf on a sunny spring day-
What could be more perfect?
Hands on her hips, she points her elbows
East and west to let the heat
Fall from her sides unobstructed.

Slender women squint at the sun
And I can see in their eyes a family story
Going back thousands of years
And coming around again,
Shining through an hourglass.

Heels clicking on the musty boardwalk;
Carelessly she slumps her shoulders,
Her tiny skirt a requisite gesture
Marking the place
Of the anticipated charms
She’ll conjure in a darker hour.
Just you know, she’ll be exciting
When it counts, but now
The sun is high and the sky is clear
And it is good to be lazy.

Mark the bohemian lovelorn.
Are they sincere
In their paradigmatic dismissal,
In the thoughtless clasp
Of pale hands under black cuffs?
Their eyes are outlined
To mask their belonging.

Lemon shoes and a pumpkin bag,
Inch for inch
More dimensional than she.
She had something to put off,
But she couldn’t wait,
So off she strides
On clunking yellow heels,
Her hair,
Her posture,
Her motivations
All leaning.

A simple couple
In broad-brimmed slouching hats
That announce their compatibility
Dangle a small boy above
The iron rail of the bay,
Loving their child and the peaceful water;
And their peaceful life
And peace of mind
Are no more illusion
Than the iron and the sea.

The tiniest girl flies by so fast
I can’t even tell whom she’s outrun
As she stops and giggles
Over her chubby shoulder.
You can’t lure a pigeon,
Even if you spend all day.

Take note of the message
In her arms, friend.
She’s closing herself to you,
Keeping something back for now.
But take action,
Consult your faith.
She won’t live like that for long.

A young woman so colorful
She could have been a bed of flowers,
Or was,
Or will be,
Or maybe I’m not looking close enough.

Why do people film inanimate objects?
Will those images of buildings
And boats at pier
Have more meaning in rapid sequence?
Will your family doubt you,
Or you your fragile memory,
Without evidence that those
Tiny man-shaped figures
Were progressing in natural motion
And not posed for prosperity,
Not carved from plywood
And tacked up on eaves?

Just then a girl,
Impossibly small to be walking,
Stepped within inches
Of my sun-warmed knees
And just then shone
Her lively wide eyes into mine
And just then
I was a father,
For one half of one second,
Before my babe ran
Clomping bashfully before her mother,
Whose face I failed to observe
Just then.

There, I’ve fallen in love again.
She is still around the bend
And approaching quickly
To break my heart.
I wish her luck;
The pieces are getting so small.

A little boy paused
To poke his slight little fingers
Between the slats of the shining boardwalk,
As if he would slide through
And take to the water.
I couldn’t know what grandpa told him,
But I hope he didn’t say
It could not be done.

I’ve never seen anything so real.
The details of this place
Declare themselves
With uncommon fervor,
Carved from material
More solid than stone,
Grown from a source
More substantial than earth,
So intent are they to be,
To be known,
To be seen,
By me.

That nearby island of mottled green
Could be a giant at rest,
And if I had to sleep forever,
I would choose this place, too,
For the endless quiet, in the eyes
And hearts and footsteps,
And even in the city streets;
On city sidewalks, the voices hum,
The egos relaxed, without aggression.
Every whisper is sent for someone
And every syllable lands home.

The white sun has me pinned to a bench,
Like I’ve never felt such purity.
Time has stopped
And I don’t know what to do with myself.
Stop your bicycle here, old man.
There’s room, I think,
In that basket for me.
I am weary from my reverie,
And can’t tell what is best for me,
But to be wheeling south right now
Would suit me fine.

Cora's Rainbow

2007-05-02T21:28:00.000+09:00

She's not asking for gold.
If my pockets were full
I would empty them gladly.
But she doesn't ask for anything
That she can carry away.
She never objects to walking
Under grey casts that counterfeit night.
She enjoys the impression of rain
Dashing against the windows,
Or her upturned blushing face,
The deep tones of sated earth and stone
In restrained gleams of filtered light.
She excites at the snap
Of unchecked power
Across the dusky rooftops,
Welcomes the reemergence
Of birdsong and children
And signs of well-fed life.
And all she wants is that reminder
Of the continuity of familiar things,
The reassurance that we're still here
Tethered to a burning star,
And everything is going someplace
Where all the uncertainty will end.
She doesn't ask me for anything,
But a few well-meant
And thoughtfully placed words.
And the sky doesn't have to be blue,
As long as it's ready
With her rainbow.

Artless Blue Benches

2007-04-30T20:42:00.000+09:00

I’m rearranging the sidewalk
With my mind,
In the dawn-like spaces
Of magic hour light.
Behind me is a sea,
In front of me a street,
And if I had to dive into one,
I’m not sure which
Would leave me colder.
Hawks are circling
High above me,
Dipping their wings
And soothing their brilliant bellies
In the wavering daylight
Of the second bright day of spring,
Hours decaying
Like empty shells on the sea bed.
Passersby crash like waves
Against the stretching maple shadows.
I’m afraid to tell them
That they won’t ever die.
No one wants to know
That there is nothing to dread.
Ask them and they’ll lie,
And then you’ll know.
I’m beginning to think
That I’m imagining that tree.
That crow would have me believe
I’m crazy.
But I don’t even see it anymore.
I can’t tell what I’m recognizing,
Something familiar
In the shades of green
Against brown walls
And white wisps of atmosphere,
The leftover gold leaves
Under my boots;
Not just a season or a place,
But something akin
To the elusive lost sense of home.

Archipelago

2007-04-27T21:26:00.000+09:00

This was paradise,
Tramping lazily on island time
Among dark-skinned islanders
In their slow-motion routines,
Their bright garments
And glaring indifference
Rioting in the sun.
We rolled over sun-dappled hills,
Climbing through villages
Sheathed in a silence more profound
Than a true void of sound,
Emphatically illustrated
By the occasional peep
Of mysterious life.
From the hotel patio where I took my meals,
I could watch, framed between pillars,
Swimmers thrashing in threes,
Sailboats drifting into the horseshoe cove,
Green hills like tattered velvet encrusted
With red and blue rooftop jewels,
Blue mountains with white halos,
Like prehistoric volcanoes demanding
The demonstrative payment of flesh.
Up the road, a stream passed
Through the timber, toward the ocean,
Sharing the shade with a veiled dining hall,
Wrapped by a white porch and emanating
Its own joyous sounds and aromas
To bedevil the wood.
Up that road
And past those trees
And over that stream,
We climbed boulders by the hissing sands,
Laughed and dodged photographs,
And followed sailing crafts
With passive eyes.
I trudged that night with Ashley
Off the courtyard,
Through the azure sea,
Under a cherry sunset
Like none I’ve ever seen,
Its beauty competing feebly
With the sight Ashley shared with me
Through water like polished glass,
A daring step toward reclamation
Of a life long overlooked.

Day and Light

2007-04-26T17:48:00.000+09:00

The sky was in a beautiful mood today,
Admitting just enough light
To embellish the faces
Of these aged wise men,
Women sashaying on heels,
The bright, boisterous youth
In seminal moments of growth,
And all the beautiful immortals
Inhabiting this silver-toned city.
It’s astounding how much
I love these people.
Among them I breathe only
The smaller atoms
From the viscous blue air,
Those grains of living bliss.
Their presence doubles the volume
Of my thumping heart,
Eases the stubborn pain
In my old leaden head,
By means of the quiet
Of their thoughtful steps,
Temperate laughter,
Smiling chatter of worlds
With no mad, elusive truths.
The sky understands them.
Leaning over their unwavering verve,
It faces no demands
To let the sun shine full.
As long as I can walk
In the light of these people,
The sky doesn’t have to be blue for me.

Stop Moving

2007-04-06T16:25:00.000+09:00

I thought about the bearded man
Who sits on the sidewalk
Bathing himself
In imaginary basins.
Swaying and chanting
In dark, tattered clothes;
Are we better off than he,
Or has he learned
What so many of us
Never seek to learn?
I see a family
Dragging toward buses
Monstrous green cases
Stuffed with some objects
They figure they own.
They huff and strain
And lean into the effort.
And I’m walking behind them
And it’s so obvious to me
That their possessions
Possess them;
Their belief in ownership
A delusion they strain under
Like a boat moored
On a windy day;
Rightfully-owned burdens
Anchoring them in place,
Depriving them of direction,
When they should be yearning
To float free.
So are we better off
Than that bearded man,
Chattering alone
In words I don’t know?
Maybe he’s not in the misery
That we lament for him.
Maybe he’s enlightened
Instead of crazy,
A guru on his mountaintop,
Exchanging answers
In the Akasha,
While down here
Shuffling in my ignorance,
I hear nothing but the voices
Of the anchored masses,
And the echo of my own boots,
Clicking in the dust
Of a stone-floored arcade.

Shiver

2007-03-29T12:25:00.000+09:00

This bench is so cold.
Its painted metal joins
The cold air surrounding me.
Bricked up in the atmosphere,
I sit watching my shadow
Stretch forward, reaching
For the bay, perched
On the grey slats
Of a phantom raft;
Watching steely water
Quiver as if at the fall
Of a giant’s step.
You’re a million miles away,
And I don’t even know
What direction I’m facing,
But you’re as present
As if you were standing
On my shadow.
The chattering of my teeth
Is as good as laughter,
And that single star blinking
In the slate blue
Of coming night
Is as much your smile returned
As it is a splinter
Of the fractured universe.
You might as well be calling
Up to my window
In the exterior light of a church,
Or scuffing shoes with me
On the ancient streets
Of a railroad town.
You’re as near as the day
Your life direction led you
To my doorstep, or the night
I hugged your children
At the bus station.
It’s cold here tonight
And it’s good to shiver with you,
But let’s go now
Where it’s warm.

Like Fresh-cut Grass

2007-02-09T17:43:00.001+09:00

I climbed a mountain without a line
To rest in the hand of the Buddha
And grieve with him;
To bemoan the multitudes
Curving their bodies in obeisance,
Trailing smoke from sticks-
Watery-eyed wanderers,
Wonderers in anguish,
Who missed the mark,
Who miss the answers
That litter their path,
Printed in manuscript that reads
Like the simplest verse,
But crumbles under their feet
As they walk on
With sun-burned faces, in denial
Of the plainness of it, bound
To the notion that truth is elusive,
That it is for the collared and the robed,
The emaciated, squatting on mountaintops;
While revelation drifts
Like snow banks.
Like fallen leaves,
It tickles their ankles;
Stains their cuffs
Like fresh-cut grass.

The Populace

2007-01-20T12:47:00.000+09:00

I fall in love all day-
So many beautiful faces,
Hanging with day’s-end fatigue
Or broken open in the laughter
Of being young and knowing
It won’t end.
I see the boot-heel supplement
Of longed-for stature,
The unwavering sundry skirts,
Channels of gusting pride
That stirs the dust and dying embers
In my cavernous chest;
This feverish ardor
So devastating
I want to pity them,
So I can put a name to the ache.
And with a fervent affection
For the people as a people,
I step off the train
And tumble through rushes of life
Like a rock on a riverbed,
Then emerge into an otherworld
Of bright-light walled-in human vastness;
Thousands of bodies shining
With style and serenity
Like light rain on stained glass,
A oneness of effortless peace,
All streaming toward harmony of purpose-
Colorful drops of humanity
Blending in a watercolor city.

Twinkle

2007-01-11T17:29:00.000+09:00

The last time we argued
Was years ago
And one of the last times we talked.
You had a sad, wasted power in your eyes
That defeated my final efforts.
I see how wicked those eyes have been,
How appalling they make everything
In the unrelenting discord
Of your world,
Where nothing is ever the right color,
Nothing moves right,
No one looks right.
You’re supposed to want more for me,
But those eyes dread nothing more
Than a mirror.

You’re so heavy it makes my knees buckle
Just to look at you.
I wonder who handed you that weight,
The dismal rucksack that you slung
Over your shoulder without question
And never put down;
That you’ve lugged with you,
Trailing the aggregate residues
Of someone else’s putrid choices,
As the weight of it slowly bent your back
Into a permanent uncertainty.

I can’t believe you chose it for yourself.
I can smell the poison festering in you,
That mass of black sludge
That hangs in the place
Where the left half of your heart should be
And permeates your skin
In a foul haze that stings my soul
To tears.
I know there’s something else
Just to the right.

Twice I’ve seen you
Bending over the kitchen sink,
Sobbing your laments into it,
Your broad back straining
To throw off the weight at last.
The last time we argued,
You became so enraged
That you threatened to kill

Yourself.
So I can’t even hate you.
You won’t allow me that.
I can’t condemn you more
Than you have;

And I have your eyes,
And a strong suspicion

You were hoping for a dare.

Later Days

2007-01-04T17:33:00.001+09:00

Like a storm-washed window,
You lived in a riotous haze,
Raging through life
With flushed cheeks
And unruly fists,
Your laughter scattering
Like a handful of rocks.
You must have thought
You were endless,
That you could let life
Trickle from you, spreading
To the end of the highway,
Then hoist an upturned bottle
And rise again
In the shadowless noon.
You never foresaw a later day,
Or ever wondered
What could happen in it.
You never imagined
That you could use it up.
And then the middle of the road
Was suddenly the end,
And all the potential
That waited to create
What you might strive to be
Was left
Beside a dawn-lit bridge,
Among particles
Of reddened glass;
All the color banished
From your ruddy skin
As if drained
Into the umber bottles
That held no reserves
Of time
After all.

Magic Hour

2006-12-28T15:10:00.000+09:00

People pass in a leisurely blur
On horseback, an odd juxtaposition
Of both place and time- a city
Where everything is possible
And in being so, becomes necessary.
A dozen dogs in four hands, soft coats
Softer still in the meager sun
Of early spring. Joggers test their wrists
And happy immigrants talk spiritedly,
Trading sips of coffee and bites of bagel.

Walkers pass under bridges,
Through tunnels, by ponds,
Carrying umbrellas in places
Where they would not walk after dark
Without mad weapons instead;
And along the water, trees shimmer
In brightest green, yellow, red,
Ginger orange of reawakening,
While beyond, skyscrapers glow gold
In the shroud of fog that invalidates
The time of day, enclosing the city
In a single moment of the magic hour.

A group of tourists, young women, naive
Or emboldened by their number, stop me
And hand me their camera, me
In my three-day scruff and my leather,
And my eyes that I know misrepresent
My quiet solemnity. I take their picture
With a green hill of Central Park
Rolling up behind them,
And as I hand them the camera
And smirk a goodbye,
I know they will remember me
As a kind New Yorker,
Instead of a tourist like them,
En route to the Met;

My first time down cobblestone walks
Of tarpaulin tents and lost dignity-
No meaning to suppertime or sunrise
For the lost who could never get it right,
Never find a hold, and now sleep in public,
No room left for shame under ceilings
Half concrete and half celestial,
Where in the spring thaw,
The stone walls weep with the grief
Of compromised humanity.

Streets of Gold

2006-12-28T15:05:00.000+09:00

First memory of a sacred mosque,
Salmon-colored in the brilliant sun
Of mid-morning, birds flitting in and out
Of familiar arcs. On a beach, a man
In elaborate robes sells rides on his camel,
And offshore I can see an island being built
In the shape of a palm leaf, a resort for the elite.
An old man in white robes falls asleep
On a wooden bench on a shining tile walk.

Men in long shirts matched to their pants
Unload massive sacks from a rail truck.
Others stroll by, elaborate cloths draped
Over their heads to ward off the violence
Of the unwavering sun, past enumerable shops
Of countless millions in shimmering ore,
All wedged or molded into every bauble
That could conceivably be sought.

Alleys as populated and commercial
As the streets; men selling watches or blended pulp
Of exotic fruits, or gathered in plastic chairs,
Seeking private congress in the shady tunnel path,
Daring me with their eyes to objectify them
With my camera, which blinks insolently
In my fervent hand. One glares venom
Into my heart when I photograph a scene
As he happens to stop in the middle of it.

Reaching the park, the docks, a smiling boatman;
No interest in haggling, we pay our 100 dirham,
And travel up and down the great creek,
Past parks and glass towers and spherical buildings
And other buildings like great tents;
Men sleeping barefoot on boats,
Fisherman setting out toward the boiling sea.
Here and there, men perched on hoists at work
With small tools and glistening brown faces.

Finally landing in the spice market,
Where I make a sincere promise to a shopkeeper
To return for a box of his dates, which I tried
Yesterday, and later forget completely.
A sand-colored apartment building where balconies
Painted turquoise boast the garments and practical
Items of the residents, drying in the arid sunburn
Afternoon that would be foolishly squandered.

Walls enclose what once was a thriving village
Of fisherman, setting out in wooden dhows
To return with a bountiful catch to cook over flames
Or dry on twine. Now a place for tourists
And abandoned even by them, the solitude
So familiar that the shopkeepers leave merchandise
Unattended as they seek shade. Outside the walls,
Wooden skiffs are marooned in sand,
While across the boardwalk, a rich man’s catamaran
Idles in the bay. Men rest more than work
In the now low-lying sun. Two men- garments flow
Behind them, as they roll by serenely on vital bicycles.

Lumbering now around the inlet, parched and weary
Back toward streets where Dubai taxis are plentiful,
Ready to be carried back to synthetic atmospheres.
Ahead, two businessmen amble in the street.
In the reclining sun, they throw somber shadows
Over gleaming cobblestones behind them;
Voices low in the temperate surrounds;
A suggestion of evening in the desert city
As they merge into a transitory painting.

Woke

2006-12-21T14:35:00.000+09:00

I dream the most amazing women.
Last night, one simple and lovely-
She trusted me,
Turned to me in her need,
Leaned on me physically,
Bent over me, speaking
Her perspective into my eyes.
She was my friend
And I was grateful.
With her, I needed no pretense.
That was peace I don’t know
In the light.
So I slept her existent
And I was happy,
And then I woke her away.

Reaction to this poem compels me to expound on it. I think I wrote it in under a minute. I had this dream after a day when I felt particularly isolated. Hers was the kind of companionship I long for. I liked myself and was at ease with her, and gratified at being her leaning post when she was struggling with something. She felt so real and welcome to me that when I woke from the dream, I didn't want to accept that she wasn't really someone in my life. When I couldn't place her, I was genuinely heartbroken. Maybe these are things I should have put into this poem, which was a desperate, spontaneous effort to bring her closer to reality.

Instead

2006-12-21T07:35:00.000+09:00

I have photos instead
Of memories.
I keep looking through my albums-
Thousands of images
And not a single story.
I wonder who I am.
I wonder why.
All those years I spent
Yearning to get out
Into the world,
Instead of dying,
I saw it differently.
I thought if I traveled
A million miles,
I would arrive somewhere.
But I’m nowhere.
I’m no one
And nothing in particular;
I’m cold and weightless,
In a void without gravity.
I’m a thief of oxygen,
A waste of atoms.
I could have been wild
In the jungle, or the sea.
I could have been a star in Orion
Or a stone at Giza.
I walk the streets
Just to see living.
That’s the only way I can see it-
From the side, watching
Other people breathe the air
I’m only tasting.
I should lie on my back
In the street,
Cross my eyes
At the buildings that sparkle
In my periphery,
Hanging from the sidewalks
Like beaded curtains.
I should reach up,
Pluck a single blue thread
And watch the sky unravel;
Watch the world

Fall away.

Keiko Wore Black

2006-12-16T23:08:00.000+09:00

This is half-truth that's almost unbearably cute and traditional. It started at the train station this morning.

(a poem)
Keiko wore black today
And I saw her in a different way
Her figure was more delicate
Her eyes more bright
And was it my imagination
Or did her hair catch more sunlight?

Keiko wore black today
Why it mattered, I couldn’t say
We share just enough language
I can show her my mind
But the language of my body
Divulged views of a new kind

Keiko wore black today
Our goodbyes went a different way
I passed up her cheek for her lips
I hope that was OK
But I can hardly be blamed
She was wearing black all day

Or maybe it was charcoal grey

Blue Street

2006-12-13T23:18:00.000+09:00

I only want enough quiet to read by
Silence that I can see in
Pale light washes all the color
From my skin like paper ash
Grey blood through my charcoal heart

Hostile buildings spit lamp luster
My eyes stinging I rise and pace the decks
My knees debate the insistence of gravity
As my spine longs to press cold metal
A shadow squawks over the black water below

Shadows drag men to the edge of decency
If my mind could push them into the bay
To put an end to the vulgar uproar
My scruples would be tested
Windows shine like apprentice stars
And surrounding stars applaud

Make it enough

In the morning I walk the blue street
Tile chips fleck the black top
Like splinters of fractured day in night
People make sounds as they pass me invisible
Their implications lost on me

The others hear the sounds and know their meaning
They smile because they like knowing it
Or they laugh or just look on and care
A white-haired man bends over the sidewalk
Pushing leaves toward the street

Sun pours through a frosted glass canopy
The pavement is soft as warm butter
And the old man glows like disembodied joy
Wisdom stems from his pores
Breaks through the seems of his doorman's jacket
Sprouting in the filtered light like fountain grass

Make it enough

A side street carries me on its bending back
Archaic craft sit in patient abandonment
Waiting dutifully by narrow staircases
Winding curves twist from me any sense of place
Of where I am going or where I might land

Slanting walls stamp out the distances
I rise and fall with the assertion of the street
I am lazy and unashamed
I want nothing asked of me
I ask everything to happen to me

To be proud is to miss the point
When I give there is no charity in it
My passions are unforgiving of doubt
The wind blows and I remember gentleness
Trees stand up and tell me to reach
Children sing and I believe in the connection

Make it enough

I'm talking to no one but myself.

A Murder of Doubts

2006-12-10T22:05:00.000+09:00

A crow landed on my table by the bay,
Looked in my tired eyes and asked,

What is the nature of my soul?

Does it grow from my body in lustrous plumes?
Does it stretch for wind when I cross the blue?

Does it grip the arms of wooden beasts?
Does it peck and tear at rotting meat?

Does it blink the light from all I watch?
Does it rise from me in woeful squawks?

What part of me makes me a crow?
What, in essence, is my soul?

The part of you that is the crow,
Is the part, I said, that seeks to know.

It took to the trees, an acorn in its beak.

Errancy

2006-12-10T14:03:00.000+09:00

I can't understand why they choose
From those self-anointed lords
Of the crippled masses, wretched
Punching holes in pretty things

While the otherworldly sane
In the blinking baron sun
Huddled, grip their bones
On some cold masonic craft

In the absence of a word
To the right incensed and pure
It seems the sickly driven blood
Gains a sweetness in the air

Formative Years

2006-12-10T10:45:00.000+09:00

One more before the road
Of grinding rock and sleet
And elevated intersect
Teeter underneath

One more before the hills
Of browning tumble grass
With rutted recess interrupt
Catch the spirit fast

And one before the walls
Of red-brick vision screen
Too hastily adjacent built
Necessitate the dream

Firmity

2006-12-10T00:11:00.000+09:00

All my time is exhausted now
Gleen the yielding second skin
Of resonant distant yesterday
In black and stinging din

The mirror fakes its flattery
Through endless spiral song
The ends reset in everything
Giving back the endless gone

OK Grey

2006-12-09T18:42:00.000+09:00

The sky is as I left it
Occupied in subtle turnings
Loose unto the dogged road
Spent up in mystic wage
Altogether disentangled
From expectation holding
Indifferent to the bitter states
Of aeronautic interchange
Excessive in its blue attempts
Spectral in the window frames

Forced Perspective

2006-12-03T10:51:00.000+09:00

If everyone could see the world
As I see it,
There would be no murder,
No war.
No one would ever dare
To spoil perfect landscapes
With blood stains;
Shatter it's native peace
With explosions.
It was good to be so ignorant,
Eyes closed,
Groping my smiling way,
With the world revolving
At arms' length.
The only locales on Earth,
The place I inhabited
And the places
I'd rather be.
My private concerns
Played out on a stage,
While just behind the curtain,
People were dying;
Killed by the hundreds,
Killed in their homes,
Killed in a fervor
Of self-righteous belief.
Maybe the closest thing
To peace is believing
Your own problems
Are important.

Side Streets

2006-12-03T10:35:00.000+09:00

Slipping into an open space
In the fading gold of morning
I stroll past store fronts
Small and unpeopled
Snacks, pets, bamboo decor
Silk and glass, fashions of Europe
Locals walk by, barely moving
I am lost and I am charmed
And I was never more alone
I choose a hill and follow it down
A vague notion that at its bottom
I will land near a place familiar
Orient myself again
And return to where I began
No fuller, no better.

Landing

2006-11-30T19:03:00.000+09:00

She could never cross that landing
At the top of the shoe-worn stairs
Without the past coming for her,
Gripping her arms painfully.
Sad truths she should never have known
Sprang from depressions in plaster
And hurled brutally against it.
Her son drawing himself from his room,
Seeing that man, red and sweating,
His knuckles white and unrelenting,
He had expected to feel fear,
Even greater than the fear that had held him
Trapped behind his own door
For so many years of night.
But he saw something now
He hadn't seen before;
He saw how small his father was,
How much bigger he himself had grown,
And seeing this made him bigger still.
Before she could voice the terror
Of what he might also become,
Her husband was staggering down the stairs,
Just catching himself on the banister.
And looking up, panting, trembling,
He saw his son
As he had never seen him before.
He saw how big he had grown.
He saw something else as well,
And it was this that stopped him from raging
Back up the edge-worn stairs.
Seeing the man on the landing
Hovering over him like a warrior angel
Telling him it was ended,
He saw himself and turned,
And never climbed those stairs again.

November in the Forward Earth

2006-11-23T14:11:00.000+09:00

In a dream I saw Kerouac
Beside the grey mist bay in the company
Of other writers I also recognized,
And he read from a small pad a few spontaneous lines
Inspired by the view.
The dream lasted only seconds but as I drifted
In and out of it like a boat on his wake,
I scooped up a single line, one line
That he hadn't thought to write while he lived
And so imparted to me in a place
Where he'd never been and knew
I would have more use for it.
So I think of him sometimes and wonder
How he would sketch my days if they were his.
Ducking in and out of crowds and trains
While sharing music on strings with a lady friend,
Laughing as we pivot and dart between couples;
Sitting on a bench in front of some important
Up-lit building in Tokyo, while she falls asleep
In the cold with her head on my shoulder,
And I'm watching two boys running crisscrosses
Back and forth, and leaping and spinning
In a dance rehearsal in the open air,
Because they need the space.
Sitting alone on a boardwalk,
Across an inlet from three submarines,
Like lazy titans sleeping in the fog
With smoke rolling over their backs;
Watching three people on a bike,
Two generations,
Three quarters of a century of love,
Peddling over clunking wooden planks;
A man with an odd way of walking,
A difficult squatting lunge, as if gravity
Approaches him with particular determination
And he has grown accustomed
To resisting its advances;
A little grey man, calm and round-bellied,
In a jogging suit that's not fooling anyone.
Walking the blue street where unseen men
Fight with sticks, and the guttural shouts
And the clack of bamboo
Fall to the ground around me;
Where vegetable venders and young women
In skirts and boots become post-impressionism
And the street noise that would pass
For silence back home becomes
The humming mantra
Of the Buddha himself.
And when I browse the days of my life
For stories worth telling and find
That so much of it is like cracked photographs
In the unadorned black album
In the back of the hutch my father built,
But that the picture keeps improving
As I continue on the road,
I think of Kerouac.
I think
of Jack
Kerouac.

Over

2006-11-21T12:43:00.000+09:00

I don't know what makes me groan,
Quake and rattle,
As if a pendulum swings
Behind my rib cage;
Some fleshless devil
Breathing on my cheek.
Maybe I'm just cold,
Adrift on icy atoms,
Shivering in the space between,
As wordless answers fly at my face.
They sting me and mock me
For my failure to channel them.
Maybe I'm frightened of the day
With its void of promises;
Or the cosmic background
Of the dark matter night.
This empty airless room
Adheres its walls to my flesh
And falls away,
Pulling at my sides.
I close my eyes and open the rest,
And wait for inspiration.

East of Home

2006-11-20T11:53:00.002+09:00

A million blue miles
East of what was home,
I found myself in an alley once,
Both its ends invisible,
Hinted at by traffic sounds.
Young men on bikes
And old women with baskets
Drifted by like ghosts.
I caught a look that said,
One of them, even here.
Is there no place left that's ours?
Full of love, I did my best
To return a look that assured,
I am harmless to you.
You would like me if you knew me.

If I'm Not Beautiful

2006-11-17T12:10:00.001+09:00

If it's not beautiful,
Will you get any closer?
There is more back there if you look.
Take the door off the hinges
And watch the dust rise in funnels
As the wind rushes in.
There is matter in that dust,
In the stale air around put-away things.

If it's not beautiful,
Is there nothing to see in it?
Climb to the top and, sweating and fearful,
Swing your head around.
You've never seen this Earth,
Because changing your perspective
Creates it anew.
Maybe that's where home was built.

If I'm not beautiful,
Can you find nothing to love?
I'll share all I have,
All I've collected across the miles,
In the hours and years and all ways of measure.
I suspect I'll be no less without it.
But if it seems that it's no use to you,
Will you leave it in the dirt?

If it's not beautiful,
If all you find is the oddness of texture,
The displeasing shape unsettling in its self-ness,
Its brazenly willful efforts to become more
Than the pieces that you recognize in it;
If all that is worthy is what you can place in its box,
Then I'm sorry for all the ugliness in your world.
It seems I've stolen all its beauty for mine.

The Ache

2006-11-16T09:50:00.000+09:00

Lying on the bench of the deck table,
My feet propped up on a rail of the boat,
I see nothing but a vast sheet of blue,
Feel nothing but the breeze and a dull ache
In my head. The silhouette of a woman
Is suddenly next to me, carved from the sunlit sky.
Regarding me casually, no obvious emotion,
She steps astride my legs.
Young, subtly attractive,
Her face made mostly of shadows.
I may have seen her around before.
"Do you think I'm someone else?"
"No," she sighs, leaning forward.
She lays her head on my chest. Her dark hair
Graces my cheek, drapes my shoulder.
Raising her feet from the deck,
She rests the whole of her slight weight
On my body, gripping my arms gently.
I stroke her fragrant hair, graze her back
With my knuckles and fingertips.
She sighs contentedly.
A little saddened, I watch a hawk
Cross my vision, high in the satin sky,
And quietly lament that things like that
Never really happen.
Sitting up, I take the notebook from my backpack
And write under the setting sun.

Sloth

2006-11-13T09:10:00.000+09:00

Is that rain?
The bless-ed rain,
Making it fine to stay in bed.
I'll live all I need to
Before I'm dead.
I'll cast off this sloth,
You'll see;
The weight of human flesh,
The heaviness that slows me,
That holds my eyelids low,
Makes me want the still repose.
But I see no pressing need
To fight the somber gravity,
Now that it's raining.

The Bright Empty

2006-10-25T04:41:00.000+09:00

I see the silver bay blinking
Under the influence of tall buildings,
Tossing out window light
Like the banter of well-meaning women.
They say their good-nights
With reassurances of constancy.
More light: fire in flight;
Fireflies filching firelight
In the heart of man.
I remember when the night was dark.
There were places you could walk to,
And once there, you could be anywhere.
Nothing grounded you, oriented you
To houses or highways.
Even the trees gave up their shapes
To the persuasion of night.
To find one, you had to feel the bark,
Like calloused flesh, and look up.
The tree was a hole in the web of stars,
The only light on moonless nights.
That was a thousand miles from here,
Or maybe more;
A thousand years ago
Or a little less.

Signs

2006-10-24T18:53:00.000+09:00

In a pile of crumbling pieces
Looking up at the occasion without rising
Popularly rejected
I show my back, shuffle my boots
This sedentary pump
To what end do I let it beat,
Let it thump and gasp?
What destination makes the road worth walking,
Sore and blistered and terrified?
Is there a door, a sign, a god a chair?
Is there joy, rest, revelation, peace?
What cliche wraps it up?
There is no benefit to reason
Be paranoid
Be irrational
When your sanity and your knees beg to yield
To relentless downward pull
Fall in the grass and face the sky
God damn it's a beautiful world.

Quiet

2006-10-24T12:16:00.001+09:00

I can't imagine anyone caring
what I think about,
what is last to leave my mind
when I sleep.
I'm just getting old.
No one is older
than the ancient dead.
Think of all they knew,
easily,
without caring to learn.
They knew the truth
of the worlds.
They knew the oneness of it all,
before we living built
our delusions
and forced ourselves
to live in them.
When the living young
are roaring in my brain,
I am thankful
for the quiet inanimate.
A dilapidated building
looms by the road,
no windows or paint,
the ceilings sagging.
The sky helps it
to be beautiful.
There is always
a broader view.

Turn

2006-09-08T19:02:00.000+09:00

Turn out that sun
For all the good it's doing
Can't get a feel
Can't understand your face
My eyes are low
Your neck is twisting

Turn off this road
For all the distance covered
My legs won't bend
My back won't straighten
Fingers flexing
Cramping with the weight

Turn down this alley
For all the scent of roses
No periphery
Stack bricks against my ears
Scuff my shoes
Scrape up my forehead

Turn back this clock
For all the progress noted
My pencil's sharp
This book open and dusty
Breath sucked in
Shining expectation

Turn down that noise
Host of angels' voices
No place for that
Light under this heap
No one's kidding me
Aching brain unfettered

Turn inside out
Creep into the hollow
Reset my heart
Clinking vertebrae
Blink out and in
I'll take another pass

Breathe

2006-05-10T19:39:00.000+09:00

I wrote this a couple of years ago, when I was alone in a hotel room at Christmas time.

Are you getting enough oxygen?
You might as well take mine
I'm not using it for living
I can never find the time

But I'm not really being honest
I started out with time to spare
But I never spent it living
I could never find the air

I guess I'm not making sense
I'm only wasting all these words
I use them up like time and oxygen
They're rarely ever heard

If the world's so big why can't I see it?
Maybe I should raise my eyes
All I see is rain on pavement
And the street light makes it shine

Think about the things in stories
Like the red sunset clichés
I was looking out the window
Looks like my oxygen is grey

Giving up on making sense
The only thing that's true
Potential wasted just like oxygen
And nothing left to do

Unless I get the hang of breathing
I never got the hang of breathing
Later on I will try breathing

Regression

2006-03-28T20:52:00.000+09:00

Faster than it seems
Dragging past the sign
Lifting out of graves
Living out of lines
Every single drum
Beating out of time
Take me to the quay
Wash me of my pride
Care for my misgivings
Close for me my eyes.

Meantime

2005-12-20T13:22:00.000+09:00

Ready for what's next
This body weighs me down
The drama gets inside
Falling for a sign
The passionate fool
The arrogant fist
Petrified in salt
Purified in soil
Angling toward the bed
Skidding toward the wall
Heavily in burden
Attributes misnamed
Stripping off the labels
Warding off the flame.

The Island

2005-12-19T14:57:00.000+09:00

Borrow my voice
Take what you want
The words never ask
It's all about me
Walking away
The Earth bumping, scraping
Driving against me
Never alone
If I were Jesus
Or your prophet returning
Would I even know?
Would it all have voice?
The foreign grating sound
Look at the ground
Pulls at my eyes
Follow me down
Across to the island
See the doubling blue
Cry because it needs me to.

Alien

2005-12-19T13:56:00.000+09:00

Rooted to the wall
Stretching toward the hum
Focus of the mass
Epicenter squared
Errors in a frame
Weapons on a shelf
Proud and judging hands
Pulling at the cloth
Contagions falter
Dying on my skin
Learn which one to be
Stately colors stain
Absorbed into the core
Drawn toward the door.

Tall Grey Men

2005-12-18T19:27:00.000+09:00

Tall grey men with knobby knees
Their cultures on their backs
One has eyes and the other sees
But neither one keeps track

Past the bridges and knotted hills
Through tree lines, streets and snow
One must eat so the other kills
And farther on they go

Draw from streams a taste of life
That cascades over stones
Nourishment for withered minds
And rest for broken bones

Everyday the sun beats down
And vultures peck at worms
Astral planes and settled towns
Wait 'round every turn

Feel the way with tethered feet
Outstretched hands find light
Cobbler's stones on sunlit streets
With manmade lamps at night

Epic is their circumstance
Their travels take such time
Gone the days when peasants danced
And actors spoke in rhyme

Hopeful for a place like home
A kiss to bid them in
Long years since their cause was known
The nature of their sin.

Upcast

2005-12-17T12:40:00.000+09:00

Alone here in this summer
The only man with eyes
Patently inert
Secretly alive
Concave steel and paint
Sharpened by the skies
Dangling from the sun
Falling through the tide
Messengers in water
Talk to me inside
Blinking in the absence
Tugging at the sides
Rain on concrete curves
Street lights make it shine
Everything perfection
Never even tried.

Semblance

2005-12-16T19:18:00.000+09:00

Occupied with normalcy
Straining outward from all sides
Bracketing indulgences
Disposing of my gall
Show me how to see
Teach me not to learn
Step in me
I'm normal
Feed on me
I'm wrong
Open wide my skin
Notions pink and clean
Take from me my vision
Disenchant my dream.

Simplicity

2005-12-16T19:00:00.000+09:00

Your misdirected view
Lying to believe
Profane and childish
Swallow it down
Feel it stick
Meat for pointed bones
Retching poisoned air
The field is burning far below
Ashes like wisdom
Soft and subtle
Weak and broken
Mark your forehead
Smear your eyes
Now denial
Now escape
Now longing
Leap of faith
Blinding light of gleaming spies
From in the hollow
Planets rise.

The Body

2005-12-15T15:50:00.000+09:00

The body is aware
Leaning through the side
Losing all its hold
Giving all its pride
Tangling with space
Paring with a flame
Falling past the end
Rising all the while
Give it space and time
Give it fear and hate
Take from it the good
Leave it in the ground
Thankful for the dream
Grateful for the sound.

The Secret

2005-12-15T15:49:00.001+09:00

The secret at the end
Tearing at the sky
Drifting through the clash
Breaking down a life
Lift the earthward bound
Leave the subtle land
Beat the endless game
Traffic in the mind
Lessen at the bend
Blistering with pain
Following the lame
Giving out in time
Running after stones
Leading all the way
First forgive the blame
First to live again.

The Screws

2005-12-15T15:49:00.000+09:00

Everyone is better
Is that satisfactory?
That was very simple
Is that all you needed?
I've freed you and I’m glad
Everyone is good
Exception to the rule
It's nice we got that straight
I have my flaws in tow
I use them all the time
Yes of course I'll try
Yes my face is flat
My brain is whole
I'm wholly wrong
Stand by, sir
I'll soon be gone.

Cycles

2005-12-14T15:48:00.000+09:00

Falling from the sky
With others close behind
Trembling knees and hands
Following the road
Knowing where it goes
Pieces fall aside
Piling in the swale
Breaking down in time
Flesh in stagnant pools
Still the trail leads on
Helpless not to move
Gathering the noise
Circulating air
Calculating pain
Finally at the end
Reaching through the dust
Lifting into sky
The others close behind.

Reason

2005-12-14T15:47:00.000+09:00

It's writing by itself.
I'm trying to keep up-
Leaping from my head?
Leaning on the dead?
Lessons all the same,
Messages rephrased,
Answers turning 'round,
Leading underground-
Possibly insane,
Certainly inane.
But stepping back in time,
In time to change the rhyme.

Gravity

2005-12-12T15:46:00.001+09:00

Gravity is my choice.
It's conscious of me now,
Pushing it away,
Choosing when to fall.
I walk up to the edge,
Peering through the dust-
Clouds of atom grit-
At winding steps of grass,
Shifting from below,
Taking all the height,
Eliminating need.
I walk along the edge.
No one is impressed,
Least of all myself.

Egoist

2005-12-12T15:44:00.000+09:00

My body wants me to weep
I'm afraid it won't satisfy
I fight the need
It's too much
I want it now
It terrifies me
I should leave it alone
Live on the ground
On the dirt
The far end of the road
Stands before me like a wall
Changes my perspective
Blocks my eyes
Makes me see
Draws in the periphery.

Question Marked

2005-12-03T19:30:00.000+09:00

I don't belong here
A mistake has been made
I was born already wrong
And the universe doesn't know me
I broke a rule in ignorance
Thrown down here with strangers
Miles from my front door
My crime would be forgiven
If he knew how much I hate this
I hate being me
In a world that denies me
A world without gravity
I listen to the background
Answering the question marks
Answers spilling from the box
This is not my business
I didn't mean to wonder
Show me where the switch is
I'll turn it off right now
Then can I go home?
Cobblestones and rivers
Nodding heads and quiet
Everybody knows me
They all say my name
The universe forgives me
From there I'll say goodbye
I'll write a letter saying
I'm home now
And I don't want to die.