Ripple the age, dammit:
ripple it.  

Throw yourself in, not because you’ll be 
at the center of all those circles
for that instant, be a target, be a
bullseye; but because 
as others join you, the circles
will disappear, interlace,
turn to full disturbance,

and then what you’ll be
is all wet, immersed,
what you’ll be
is in it for the long swim,
part of the stream, the flow,
the flood. 

Sparse-framed, reticent, particular,
the old hippies come in to the market 
on odd weeks
for what they cannot grow
or raise.  

A friend sneers at them,
calls them un-American.

I hear they’ve got a sod roof on the house.
Life underground:
a few acres
and a 1978 Ford pickup.

Here on the grid we’ve got
fear, troubles,
and the grind.  We all 
talk too much.

Hey, hippie,
go hug a tree.  Go
bathe in the snow.
Get a job.  

Sparse,
quiet, 
don’t associate with us
unless they have to —

un-American
bastards, get in the trough with us
and bring some eggs or something else 
to eat.

Metallica’s “Blackened”
is playing: loud, loud…Then
the tree breaks out back,
louder even than that.

Half of a two hundred year old oak
comes down
across the whole yard
with snow-weighted limbs,
tears out cables,
and only gently grazes the house.

Barefoot in the wet
checking for damage,
and
other than the tree itself,
there’s none.  The power
has even stayed on.

Back into “Blackened”
once back inside.

“Callous frigid chill?”
Only outside.  Life doesn’t always
imitate art.  In here it’s warm,
blistering almost.  I lower the heat

and return to the music
of promised disaster.

“Blackened”
playing.  Then
the tree breaks out back,
louder than that. 

Half a two hundred year old oak
comes down,
fills the whole yard with snow-weighted limb,
tears out cables,
only gently grazes the house.

Barefoot in the wet
checking for damage,
and…
other than the tree itself,
there’s none.

Back to “Blackened”
because there’s nothing else to do.
“Callous frigid chill?”  Perhaps,
but only outside.  In here it’s warm,
blistering almost.  I lower the heat

and return to the music of promised disaster.

Isn’t it something when art, for once,
doesn’t imitate life? 

Santa Muerte
forgive us
for
on stone
reed paper 
vellum
parchment
in script 
by moveable type
in scrolls 
in heavy bound books
on fire-borne data streams
through keyboards and screens
we have cheated on you
our most faithful lover
Santa Muerte

You promised us everything
from within robes of white and red
Gave us what we wanted
The close access to the edge between life and death
and then we went about
seeking immortality
as if death was to be feared
and not honored

We pray you are patient
and as you know us all too well
and are well enamored of what we’ve given you

our peace of mind and free will
our ability to walk away
our strong tongues
our reverent approach to your realm

We pray you will wait for us
for as long as we stray 
(all the while stroking
the skull-pillowed head
of our dreaming child)

We will come home sooner or later
leaving behind
the words that we once hoped
would thrill us past you

Come home to our private altars
where you sit with the piddling heaps
of what we had promised you
and with a smile of suffering
and clean absolution
take us in again

Santa Muerte
whether we choose to acknowledge it or not
we are yours
Santa Muerte

He looked at me
and told me what I couldn’t be,
though I was that and had been that, 
always.  Said, “If you don’t look it,
you’re not.”  And for him, 
that was that.  And for me,
as well.  He was wrong, and so
I put him behind me, and that
was that.

Another told me that because
I didn’t sound right, I wasn’t that.
“It’s that simple, that’s how you win,”
and that was that.  And for him, 
that was that and for me too, so when
I put him behind me because what I called win
was for me a win, and so he was wrong,
that was that.

And then another, and then another,
and then another said I was not 
the one, and for them that was that;
and for me too, almost, because I’d given them
that and now I was no longer that.
“It’s not you, it’s me,” they said, and for a while
I disbelieved but then I changed my mind
and put them behind me, and told myself
that was that.

Now, all those naysayers behind me
have been talking, and they’ve gotten to know
each other, and they call “Fraud!” and “Phony!”
in unison whenever I am quiet for a minute.  
And that’s that.  That’s what it is.  A chorus
of shit-talkers I half-agree with.  I say, “That…”
and then cannot complete, cannot compete
with their dismissal; though I dismissed them myself
once I know that saying “that was that” meant nothing
at all.  I’m pale and flat and dull and wrong, and that,
I gather, I believe, and I know, is that.

My little boy inside
(as predicted by books)
is sad under clouds and
obligations

I will punish him
for not growing up
and out of me 

I have no external children
and must practice bad parenting
somehow
in order to be fully myself
in order to achieve my potential

I am a very bad boy
I am a much better adult
and will be an even better old man
a splendid grouch
with more memory than context
while abusing my inner child

Someone take him away
foster him
reform him
whatever you like
just put him in the system

I’ll only be right
when he’s been thrown away

I know certain stories so well
I can fall into them anywhere
so the torn up, crayoned book
whose only intact pages
reveal the blond in the bed
and the three confused bears
is as dear to me now as it was
when both it and I were new.

So turning on the Manson docudrama
at the moment of the Tate murders
was not disconcerting; I at once began
to hum Beach Boys and Beatles songs
and think about that harem of blood

and remember Snake Lake, Diane
by birth, the girl from Spahn Ranch
I met briefly years later who was still
as cold as the memory of Cielo Drive,

and to wonder where Linda Kasabian
was now, does she ever listen to the band
that bears her name like a grisly hipster badge,
the name that means “butcher” in Armenian

though she never raised a knife to anyone?
Did the name take her to the Family
as surely as any story takes its reader
to its end?  I don’t even blink listening to this;

where has this story taken me since I first heard it
on the news at age nine?
What has it inured me to?
I don’t even need to watch it to see it.
I don’t have any missing pages to comfort me into denial.

The one question left:
why did the bears
not tear Goldilocks to shreds?
Isn’t that
what’s supposed to happen?

Maestro
play on

In the hands of a virtuoso even a decayed instrument, ignored for years, attic-bound,
can make a music strong enough to bend walls.

Maestro
my maestro
play on 

I don’t claim the title for myself but my age being its own reward and punishment at once,
I live toward the words maestro and virtuoso as if they were mine to use.

Virtuoso
I am aficionado
Maestro
I am waiting 

What do I call myself now when, with my instrument all but played out,
I cannot help but seek a clarity in the use of a single string?

Ossessionato
I am obsessed with the hunt
Maestro
I am forsaken

I’ve been told that nothing made on the single string is performable,
but here I find myself facing an audience who expects performance.

Maestro
I am the impression of you only
Aficionado
Ossessionato

In command of the single note
and — of course, now I see!  In command of the silence around it.  

Maestro
I am aficionado
I cannot stop this
Am no virtuoso

Can one perform silence?  On stage, now, I do nothing.
The audience expects something.  But what could replace this?