If you ever become
the estranged middle aged son
of still living old people
with middle aged siblings and
a middle aged heart, lungs, and back,
you will one day reach a point
when the shovel
and the snow
will defeat you
right in the middle of a snowstorm.

You will have long abandoned
the over the shoulder toss in favor of
the tip and dump of each shovelful
onto a growing pile of packed trouble
and you’ll have this moment of despair
when you realize there is no place left
to put the next load.  You will
have to figure that out soon
but for that moment you’ll be stopped
cold. 

Your back will feel broken.  Your
chest will be caving and exploding.
You are going to cough
every time you move.

You are going to have a moment
of thinking about how far you are
from your still living old parents
and your middle aged siblings
who are likely standing helpless
in the same storm. 

You are going to look up and see
families on the street
digging more vigorously
than you are, see their children laughing,
see their cars beginning to move.

You are going to think of
your aged parents and
your unhealthy siblings
in the same storm, struggling
to dig out but doing it together,

and you are going to be
ashamed.

When you get out of bed,
remind yourself

that anything you can think about
you can sing about.
Anything worth thinking about
is worth singing about.

Seize hold of the faucet handles
in the bathroom, consider
the logical piping, the gravity feed
of waste water, think about its path
from you into the marvel
of what’s under our streets,

and start humming as you load
the toothbrush with toothpaste.

Add now the lyrics about the nature
of up and down, about
the muscles in your arm leveraging
and bulging under the thick blanket
of skin.  Rhyme “dermis”
with something, something…
rhyme “dermis” with “firmest”
for now, you can come back to it later.

Choral parts for the process
of putting on pants?  Yes.
Antiphonal sections on
the buckling of a belt?  Yes.
Why not write a piano line
on the way the T-shirt
molds over your nose as you pull it on?
Compose, solo, harmonize, improvise!

Don’t tell yourself,
“there’s nothing to write about.”
Don’t tell yourself,
“I’m not angry or depresssed
so there are no subjects left in the world.”
Don’t convince yourself
of a need for emotional upheaval
to make your claim to the title of artist.

And don’t fall in love with a person
just to get cracking on your masterpiece:
love the floor,
love the walls, the fly parts
embedded in the plaster.
See the fugue in coffeemaker,
the symphony in litter box,
the string quartet in the way
the coolant runs through your car’s engine.

Anything worth thinking about
is worth singing about.
You know that.  You’ve thought
about everything at least once,

and there was music
when you did.

The door? One good kick would do it.
The walls? Pretty, flimsy, pretty flimsy.

At home with the feared yet longed for television.
At home with ice in the toilet bowl.
At home with virtual friendships.
At home with cold legs.
At home with foreign junk food.
At home with a creed of tiny movements.
At home with smoke, stale beer, no music.
At home with blank paper and tooth-torn nails.

The windows? How shiny, how brittle.
The floor? The coins don’t roll far when dropped.

At home with uncomfortable sinning.
At home with omission.
At home with small abuse.
At home with no room at the inn.
At home with darker.

At home trying to decide.
At home not deciding.

At home.  What could be better than this?

The ceiling?  Too far away.

I am not light.
I will not claim
an inner glow.
I will not lie about my flame —
what light I throw
is not my own,
and my name and form
when clarified
are best defined
as reflection alone.

This is no shame.

I am the mirror,
always. Even when covered
the possibility of blinding shine
is always present and ever ready.
I have slaved and silvered myself for
years and years
to be prepared for whenever
the Ray strikes. 

Do not implore me
to let my inner fire roar,
to crack my glass
so those before me
may see by my
illumination —
the same Light
strikes us all. It falls
upon each of us. 
All it takes
to throw it back
into the Dark that’s all around
is a little polish, a little
spit and shine: this Light is ours,
not mine,

and I will not lie
and claim it for my own.

A gold, pierced ball
of metal glows
with tamed fire
in a living room. A library
roils with sacrament;
a kitchen rocks sustenance,
and a bedroom saturates its sleepers
in the scent of unconsciousness
and connection to the largest
events in the sphere of love
and dreams.  When a closet door
closes upon a child
fearful of a parent
or a conjured monster,
it is a universe of safety.
and that child learns
the great truth: that
one can make a cathedral
out of any room, no matter
its size.

Is anything
real to us
if we can’t
touch it
and call it
solid?

Have we turned
our lives
into a sieve
so fine
that we call it a bucket
and will only accept
what it catches,
ignoring
the many things
that slip through?
What will we call
the wetness
that is left upon us?

How shall we explain it
to our children
when we’ve denied it
again and again?

What if we tear a hole
in the bottom
of our belief
and let everything through?

What if we’re thereafter
soaking wet
all the time,
shivering and cold —
or what if we’re suddenly,
beyond our experience,
deeply happy?

What then?

Here’s to that breaking
and its resultant minefields.  Here’s
to a calendar
slipping off the wall
onto the floor —

here’s to this date
and this hour full
of torn metal
and rushing water,

and whatever comes after.