Robert Johnson
lived where there were no arteries
only veins
squeezing blue sluggish fluids
into the heart

Robert Johnson
lived where even love
was poison

Robert Johnson
lived where he could
condemn every one of us
to Hell
with gusto

Robert Johnson
lived where he died
though he got around some
if the story is to be believed

Robert Johnson
lived and died
in pussy
bottle
guitar
one sharp suit

You’re no Robert Johnson
Cigarette boy from the suburbs
You’ve seen plenty and gone far
but I can tell where you live
That smells like good weed
I know that’s good whiskey
And that’s one hell of a guitar

If I had possession over Judgment Day
I’d cut you in your fretting hand
just to see what color you bleed

I might be an otter
in my next life. Play,
play, eat, copulate,
sleep, repeat.  Turn
endlessly in clear water
and live otter-full. 

Or, in fact,
I might opt
to petrify.  Forget
the living, forget
the problems of individual cells. 
Unified! 

And if I could be pure
sunshine — give up on matter
entirely, disregard the wave or particle
debate in favor of warming things up —

ah.  Utility. 
I’m such an American
I need a job to explain myself.

Giving that up, too,
next time around.

My life at times
has been torrid enough
to force me to step back
beyond the light and heat it throws
and watch it burn,
sparks rising from it
like reverse confetti.

I gamble with myself:
how high
will the last one fly
before it blinks out?

More often than not
I lose these wagers.

When I do win,
I throw more fuel on the fire
while saying,
“Double or nothing.
Let’s go for it.”

It’s been a long run
of incredible fires,
empty pockets,
and talking to myself.

Well, I will build a bonfire tonight,
on this Thanksgiving night.
I’m going to build it solid
with hard woods that won’t blaze up
and disappear with the kindling.
When I light it, I won’t back away
but will let it scorch me
as I stare into the yellow-white
under the embers.
I will not look up to see
what is vanishing
above me into the overcast night sky.

Let it be,
McCartney sang,

but then he kept going.
Perhaps that’s what he meant by that.

I always liked the version of the song
that plunged into distorted guitar,

as if there was an edge
hidden in the just-revealed blessing

that needed its own unveiling
before the song returned to its sweetness.

That was John’s doing,
or maybe it was George;

I suppose it could have been Paul’s choice, or Ringo’s suggestion;
I’m not at all certain of anything.

All I know is, I try to let it be
and find myself going on, feeding back,

breaking up in the aftermath.
I suppose that’s my choice too.

I suppose I let it be what it is.
If the sound of trouble set aside

is that shift from soft glory to hard,
sharp breakage, then I shall let it be

and sing on
while waiting for the one to follow the other.

Born split
to never knit.

Half this, half that,
and both got fat.

Mad and crowing
with all work showing.

When I die, gristle
will be all my epistle.

I live between stink and garden.
How did it happen? Harden

your heart to the how.
Just be happy it’s not you now.

My bloody friends and I
need our damage. 

We float
in a colloidal suspension
of belief. 

We are as young now
as when this began,
or so we like to think.

If anarchy rules,
why are we so perfectly
equidistant?

Reaching across
and up, we particulate.

Watch us wave
as we settle out
into a fine sludge
at the bottom.

Watch us claim
to have planned this.

That word
means “disregard.”

It means “no need to listen.”
It means “less than.”

It means “ha ha, ahem, thanks,
let’s move on, shall we?”

That cyanide word,
bitter scent in your air.

That devouring word,
you are minced and eaten by a nibbling horde.

That word is a pat on the head
so hard it shortens you.

That word, like any label,
is used to assign you a place on the shelf:

something
unnecessary at the moment.

Something that will sit there
until it becomes poisonous

and can be discarded
with a clear conscience.

When word reaches you
that he is “boning your girlfriend,”
consider that the word “boning”
as an angler uses it
implies a change
from a catch and release policy
to one of greater commitment.

From where you stand
they’re apparently
passing a joint on her back porch.
“Bone” is of course
another word for “joint”
and for one second you allow yourself
to think that maybe
this is the type of boning
the gossip means: the sharing
of substances.  And then you think,
of course it is that exactly, no matter
what “bone” refers to.

Ah, rationality:
the fisher tosses his line,
decides that this one, he’ll keep
and consume.  You catch a hint
of his catch and try to shake it off,
but the hook’s in and set now.
Smoke’s a bait, lure, scent in the water,
and you take it knowing it’s fatal.
He’s boning your girlfriend.
He’s boning your girlfriend.
There are limits.

First, you’re
the broken drawer
that chirps when I pull
hard and and fast.
The back falls off
and spills the junk inside
down into the limbo
behind.  The thing I want most,
what drew me to reach for the pull
in the first place, is stuck
back there beyond my reach —

how dare you laugh
at me, lie there in mocking pieces
that scold me for an inability
to get at it? 

Then, you’re the file,
corrupted and infirm
on my drive.  Not working,
not even a little, sitting there
as a reminder of functionality:

how dare you
sit and spin endlessly
pretending that something
is going to happen?

Then, you’re
the viral video
being seen by all the curious idlers
on the planet.  You’re caught
by accident doing something ridiculous
like loving me, protesting
to anyone who’ll listen
that it was all a mistake
and you’re not really like that.

How dare you
squawk like this, as if
you didn’t hand me the camera
and tell me how to push the buttons?

Finally, you’re every day
full of errors that leave me
trying to figure out
what went wrong,
when what went wrong
is that the day began and progressed
and aged and ended as it always does.

W’ere in the modern world
with its overabundance
and instant access.  How dare you
accuse me of anachronism,
suggesting that there is agency
and cause and effect
in my stumbling
through it? 

It’s all new.
Neither of us has it locked down yet.

Oh Stella,
we need to talk —
we really need to talk.

The conversation will likely go
to expected places — three common chords,
some modified to add space; switched rhythms
to amuse us both; misplaced fingers that sometimes
surprise and sometimes lead to pain;
nothing inspiring or novel on most days.

Once in a while, though, I stretch
and we find something together
that I thought was forever beyond me,
and I’m young again.  I learn something 
about leaving well enough alone
and breaking what’s not broken
and I’m young again with your neck
under one stumbling hand
and your body springing to life
under the other.  We shout low
or whisper loud where we once
repeated what we’d always said.

Sometimes I resist the urge
to close and say everything on my mind.
I hold back that last home tone
and leave the root unresolved.
Those days, Stella, I can feel us
bending back to the past
where every conversation
was always left unfinished
to be taken up again tomorrow —
those days, Stella, old girl,
when we talked and talked
and always found new things to say.

This fretting hand of mine is cramped
and you need new strings;
we’re both showing our age
in every uncleated crack and stain;
yet sometimes, Stella,
and today is one of those days,
we really need to dig in, lift ourselves
out of the rut,
and talk and talk and talk.

If this is the Devil
he doesn’t smell too bad.
He looks a bit like a god.
Used to be one, you recall.

If this is the Devil
he sweats the details.
Dismisses God
with a gentle wave of his hand
for being too remote.

Says he knows you,
proves it in a low voice
by reciting all your wants.
Knows how to count pennies
and conquests, defeats
and bad checks. 

As you think it over
he adjusts the flower
in his lapel.  The Devil
is a dandy, pastel shirt
and good dark suit.  He lifts
a finger to his hair and it falls
perfectly over his eyebrow.

All those stories, all the fear
bled from the nuns, all the wagging tongues
of the men of God, and here you sit
across from such a reasonable refutation
of them all.  The common touch, too,
sucking on a Budweiser while he waits
for your answer, or pretends to wait

since you and he both know
that you’ve already decided.

The Devil, bearing a resemblance
to nothing at all like a traditional
rendering, sits back, orders another beer.
“You get this one, I’ll get the next,”
he says.  And why not?  Your wallet’s
already filling in your pocket.
Your night’s just getting started.
You’re just getting started yourself,

and there are so many ways to go from here.

I’m lying on the floor
looking up at the TV.
Thirty-nine years later
I’m eleven again.  I like
the upside-downness of it,
familiar people talking
out of their foreheads.

That childhood of mine
is back in effect: another Asian war,
another broken country,  the flag
suspect again, and people arguing
off the top of their heads,

but this time, it seems,
not a prayer
that I’ll grow up
and out of the fear.

The fucking darkness is splintering.
They call it a meteor shower,
I call it a mistake.  I like my fucking darkness
whole and cursable.  All the damn lovable
mistakes and demons live in the darkness
and I don’t like the implication
that something could break it.  I like
my Goddamn darkness dark, not full
of potential redemption.  Curse the candle
instead for lying and trying to pretend
that it won’t go out at some point
and the darkness will be back in effect
at once.  I’ve got to live here, damnit,
fuck it all, all shit-raged and piss-full
of dim — may I remind you
that those things falling aren’t beautiful,
not wishes but trash coming down
in flames and not reaching the ground,
leftovers from the ass end of a dirty snowball.
The fucking darkness ought to be dark.
How the hell am I supposed to be
the professional shitbag I am
when all these fires keep the sky lit?
I need my fucking darkness pure.
I don’t want to have to be forced
to acknowledge hope.