Take from my hand
the glass of green tea
and set it aside. 
It reminded me
too much of all the tea
I’ve had so far in my life,
and I can’t learn another thing
from it.

Do not bother
to cover me, if anything
has slipped and left me exposed;
I am past personified.
I was born more naked than this.

Pick up the pipe
that fell to the rug from
my knee, gather
the still glowing litter
before it burns through
to the floor,
and forget about salving anywhere
it may have burned me.
I don’t even feel it, I’ve been
burned so often before.

Let me sit here a while like this.
Mouth open. 
Hand empty.
My skin spotted with ash.

I’ve stopped caring
for the present or the future.
After a while, it all felt like the past.
It’s all a “used to be” now,
and it is enough
that what happened once
happened at all.  I don’t need
a new experience.  I do not see
how it will help.

I am gonna call you
what I wanna call you
no matter what you wanna
call yourself

names are mine to choose
and you can’t take them back
or coin your own

so
my blacksnake
snickerdoodle
little cabbage
friend

simmer down
and feel what
a proprietor’s tongue
can do

Tags: poems, poetry, meditations

In this house,
above all houses,
there is order.

There is order
in the hamper.
There is order
in the drain trap
and at the bottom
of the garbage disposal.
The compost heap
decays in step
with a timer.

Even in the bowls
of chaotic potpourri,
there’s order. 

This is no place
you’d expect to find a junk drawer,
yet there it is:  right where
it always is in every other house,
in the kitchen, top drawer
below the most-used cabinets
and close to the most-used door.

This
is Martha Stewart’s junk drawer.

In the drawer, of course,
there are old screwdrivers, twist ties,
and an expired coupon for microwave popcorn
— those, in fact, come with every junk drawer
straight from the manufacturer —
but they do not rest alone
in Martha Stewart’s junk drawer,

because it’s deep.
Really, really deep.

In Martha Stewart’s junk drawer
there’s a red 1982 Ford Fiesta
with one black fender
and a donut on the driver’s front wheel.

Fifteen baby shoes.
A bootleg copy of “The Rocketeer.”
A tea-stained ticket stub
for a show in Branson, Missouri.

A purple thong, size 18.

A blue hat made from a plastic bag.
A fibrous growth from a boar’s kidney.
A jammed .45 with a broken grip.
Hollow points loose in the bottom,
and a rust-caked cleaver.

A map to the stars’ homes.

A small address book
bound in bonded leather,
blank except for the letter “K”
written on the page for “J”
in orange crayon.

A broken rib she calls “Daddy.”

One old rose.

In the darkest corner,
something squirming
the approximate size of a human fist,
squeaking “I’m a good thing!
I’m a good thing!”
You touch it and
the wardrobe in the bedroom
begins to shake, the flowers
to tremble.  Martha’s far away,
but somehow,
her stomach knows the danger
and she sits for a moment
in fear, twisting a paintbrush
in her aching hands.

When you shut the drawer,
everything falls back to sleep:
the house in perfect order,
the forks aligned in their trays,
the tissues in Martha’s body
nestling back into place,
just so;

while in Martha Stewart’s junk drawer
the lovely chaos resumes its churning
as the house dreams
of its brief sojourn
as a home.

I was always told,
“Pick your battles,”
but that was one piece of advice
I was not able
to follow. No,

my battle picked me
when I was young
and tattooed a new name,
“Casus Belli,”
on my sword shoulder.

Threw its own
meaty slug of an arm
over me, pointed me
at a corner, said,
“Stand there.

Let them come to you,
don’t be more afraid
than them, and turn loose
everything I’ve taught you,
every time.”

Now, after all these years,
I’m a pretty hyena laughing
as I gnaw you down.  I’m ready
to admit the transitory fun
I have…but know I didn’t

choose this role,
I’ve just made the most
of a bad moment
that never
seems to end.

Let me promise you
that I’m truly ashamed
of how good it feels
to let the sharp edge
swing.  In all my dreams I see

a vulture singing
for me, a carrion fly
in my ear…and I know
what meal they’re waiting
to enjoy,  so know I am no happy-go-lucky

warrior.  I just can’t escape
my first kill, who
has never left me.
He wants your arm
for his arm.  He wants

to see me fall
the way he fell, and pushes
on my back every time
I see the apparently easy mark
of my next attack.

When I come for you,
remember this.  Release me from it
if you can.  I long for it,
or rather he does, and somewhere
the first battle that picked me

is sleeping soundly,
secure in the wisdom
of what happens when
that name is given to a scared young man
and he is handed a weapon

he will soon learn to love
more than he could ever
love himself.  I doubt he stirs
much in his sleep.  I bet
he couldn’t tell me my real name.

Tags: poems, poetry, meditations

Like water
that becomes a rope
or snake
when you close your hand around
the stream pouring from the end
of a running hose;

like air that furs itself
and shoves its nose
into your palm
when you hold your hand
upright out of the window
of a moving car;

like grass biting
your legs and arms
as you roll upon it,
leaving you stung and itching
for hours —

some things,
once invisible or seemingly
innocuous, come to life
and push back upon you
when you surrender your usual
inattention
and bring them close.

When you let them live,
they live — not entirely
like pets, not entirely
wild:

reminders of how once
we all danced in anticipation
before barely tamed fires
and expected the entire cosmos
to present itself
and begin speaking.

Under the sounds
of the electric fan
and the traffic, the television
and the click of this keyboard,

there is a voice smooth as cedar flute
expertly played,
simple and utterly present
in this room full of noise;

I could turn off everything
and listen more closely,

but I know
there is no song
except that drawn
from out of chaos.