That small dent
in the end of my nose?
An homage to a pock-marking
illness in childhood and to
the good aim of my neighbor
with a rock as he took the scab
clean away with one throw.
Left me with the divot scar
and my first inkling
that it might be,
at some point,
considered ugly.

But not to me,
not then at least; I wore
that perfect circle
as a proud badge of
surviving a scrape —
and later on,
when my neighbor died,
dragged by a mundane car
down a mundane street?
It was his only memorial,
the only mark he left on earth
in his eight short years here.
I honor the scar —
no ugliness in it, relic of
one violent moment
of art and skill.

When they have
no set name for us
they call us “beings,”
a simple designation
that what we are
is what we do
and what we do
is be. 

Depending on
where they see us and how
we are being, we might
instead become
“angels” or “demons.”
They don’t see
that we’re the same “beings”
named, renamed, named…

We don’t have much to say
about the choices they make
when they call us up.  
We show up.
We are.  They decide
what it means.

Don’t blame us for that —
that’s up to them.
A being is just what is,

and the naming of it
is how their past
alters their present
as it tries to own their future.
 

in retrospect
becoming a stone
was a mistake

but we learn from mistakes
so in closing let me say
I respect the lesson

next time
I will become water if 
I need patience 

or dynamite
if instead I need
to open up and move 

When first in love
we gladly live
a lot more carefully
than we do
when we are not. 

Make it last forever — drive slowly,
eat slowly, sleep
more delicately,
unsprawled,
not kicking covers or
the beloved or
the beloved’s
annoying cat.

When it comes to sex, though,
we do a lot of edge walking.
a bunch of monkey wrestling,
a heap of knot licking.  

But of course:
sex when first in love
is wild, the wild way
of spitting at death, wild
as not acknowledging
the ultimate way
these things can come to an end.

Careful, careful,
some folks say.

And we are,
just not while danger
is still rock hard
and blue
hot.

White feathers of ash;
slight heap in the hearth
stirs, settles, then stirs again.
We walk up to look at them:
no clues there as to how long ago
the burners disappeared; bricks
are cold, ash subtle and soft and
empty of meaning to our eyes.

We don’t know anything
about this abandoned house,
or about any of the masses of them
we’ve seen boarded up and left behind
during our endless travels
through this once great land.

Like thousands of nomads
in the last one hundred thousand
nomadic years, we’ve enough curiosity
to wonder at the silent graves
of the fires of those who went before us,

enough to determine
if the hearth and chimney
are sound enough
to build our new fire
on the undead ashes
of their last one,

not enough
to want to learn
why they’re gone.

Your furniture’s breathing
has just pushed you awake
and all at once 
you find yourself sitting up in bed.

You tiny mouse, you;
it’s as if your pink nose
is sticking out from under a chair
while you try to decide if it’s safe
out here in the big, bad world.

Cowering at the sound
you realize that like so much else
it must always be going on

but is rarely noticed
until all other distractions
are put aside.  Then, it hits you:

what if
it’s all alive, even
the brick wall in the kitchen?  
What if
the moonlight has a feeling about you?
What if
the floors are fed up
with being untidy?  
Should you be worried
about the complaints
of the dust bunnies?  
Where exactly does one hide
if the world is all lung and 
sentience?

Go back to sleep, 
little mouse, at least for now;
you’re finally asking
the right questions,
and that is most of
the battle.

I’ve folded, unfolded,
refolded myself so often
that I’m starting to break
along stressed lines.

Look closely,
I’m now less single page
and more stack of fragments.
I don’t blame the world for that.

I tried to fit everywhere. The result:
I am a bit of frayed news.  A story
forced into a pocket, into different pockets,
too many times.

I never quite learned
that in order to be read
and truly understood,
I had to stay open.

I should have spread myself early
and then stayed spread
and available to others who might have wished
to add their lines to mine.

Now, though?  Here I am, a wad
in a pocket.  A mess held close
out of habit, something that really
ought to be thrown away.

Start critical projects,
at least ones critical to others —
don’t let anyone down, ever;

set appointments
far out, far in advance, kill to keep them —
don’t let anyone down
ever;

promise people you’re fine, don’t
let anyone down ever;

keep your misgivings within
and don’t let anyone know, or let anyone down
ever;

agree to dates and marriages and children
and don’t let anyone down ever, especially not 
a partner or spouse or child, and your parents
should be on that special list too;

accept everything
people want for you — you wouldn’t want to let them 
down, of course;

get one of those jobs where you can’t
let anyone down; 

find a decent enough God to believe in
and never let that God down, ever, that’s the worst
thing you can do, letting God down;

butterfly walk
and panther dance
and smile smile smile
in the mirrored windows of the downtown stores
as you walk by in just-right-clothes and shoes
and tight strides
and never let your hands fly up awkwardly —
don’t let the passers-by down,
don’t shake them up
with a failure out there;
it’s one thing to do it
at home alone early AM
if no one can see you
in a private, dimlit space, or perhaps
in the same space at midday
in sunshine kept thin by old blinds,
failing alone with no one to see,

but letting everyone down in public even if only
in the company of one or two?  Never.  Ever.
Don’t do that.  

Go now.
You’ll survive a pretty long time like this.
It won’t be forever.

Don’t worry.
It won’t be forever. 

Today,
in and out,
around and around — chasing
the American chase.  Chasing
The Story Of
Us.  

Listening to
how we are, how we
got here, how we
got to
today.  

Learning from this
why I put my teeth
together
and hum/holler
scream/grind
every time
We congratulate Us on
doing good,
even when I know it’s good 
being done:

it’s because I know
there’s always a catch
and a pool of blood
somewhere
that no one ever
cleans up.