on a train
through the snow
in the dark
through the snow
on a train
in the dark
in the dark
through the snow
on a train
which is it
does it matter
who chooses
the dark
the snow
the train
Monthly Archives: March 2013
Dark Snow Train
Soon Enough
I’ve begun to speculate
on how I will react
to the news
of your passing;
will I, as is customary
for my age and gender and tribe,
stoically free but a single tear after
a deep longing sigh? No —
I think, instead,
the air will fill with stones
so that breathing and bruising
become the same thing;
I think, instead,
that stones will cover my path
and I will stumble for miles
no matter which direction I choose;
I think, instead,
that my eyes will become stones
and I will not see anything I fall upon,
will never know everything that has broken me.
Surprised By What Again?
when orchids
grow wild
among forgotten land mines
when children sing of enemy mutilation
as sweet stuffed bears sit
on their neat beds
when nice ladies at the restaurant
whisper stinkhearted
about those people at the next table
when at least one of those nice ladies
owns a pink revolver and dreams now and then
of a home invasion that will give her an excuse
when that lovely blue sea
hides brown sea bed and red blood
hides terminally blue whales
when outrage easily tagged for sale
is easily diverted and easily unfocused
till it’s time to put us to bed
we are trained for contradiction
for losing the last truth in the next lie
how are we still surprised
when wherever we go
evil perches bloodied and unruffled
upon the left hand of good
That Sound
There’s a certain vocalization,
the top of a sung syllable that breaks
into halves like a split particle.
Chirp and bark echoing over each other.
Fragmented call of vulnerability welded to one
of aggression.
I’ve heard it once. Someone I loved
made that sound once. Someone I loved
made that sound singing a song
in Italian. I was sure I would recall that song
for all the rest of my time on Earth,
and I have all but forgotten it — all but
that one sound at the top of a syllable
in the chorus, the one she was singing
when she turned
and saw me listening
and stopped.
Breaking The Block
Tell it
to vomit a little
See where that takes you
Tell it
you can hear music
it needs to describe
Write / discard
paint / discard
sculpt / discard
compose / discard
then smile
when it tells you
to knock that shit off
and save a little something…then
discard some more
Get with a partner
and ding the paint a little
Got a cliff?
Jump off
Tell the thing
to fly piss fuck
off
Rename yourself
then remain yourself
with a ream of paper and
blood crayons
Forget about it
Knuckle drag a week around
Club your foot into submission
Blah Blah Blah a college course
Masticate masturbate
Make up a word and
Manchurate then
define it for us
Christ,
if you absolutely have to
Drop a little acid
if after all that
you still can’t make it work —
I know a guy
Just
for the sake of crisis
stop writing 600 word epic posts
notes and updates
letters to old mentors
and essays
about how you can’t
write
anymore
Because the block
is a ghost
only as strong as
your belief in it
The truth is
all you’ve got is a bad case
of hating your results
so do the art you are meant to do
toss what you hate
you will get there
and if not?
do the art anyway
for the love of process and
self
Bedside
Listen:
that clock of yours is sick,
or maybe time itself is ill.
Trust me on this: you’re going nowhere.
I won’t let you go, not until the daffodils
in the front yard are fully up and open.
There’s bad television to watch yet,
lots of it. Enough that we could get tired
of watching and go for a walk — there, it’s settled:
you can’t go until we’re both tired of bad TV
and we decide that even a walk up and down
this terrible hill of a street is better than that.
Listen, listen to me: that clock of yours
is sicker than you, time itself is what’s ill,
they’ve both lost their minds, you’re going nowhere
until the daffodills have bloomed twice
and we’re thin from walking away
from bad TV. Not this spring but next
we’ll replant the beds out front and get
something other than daffodils in there,
I know you love that yellow but face it,
everyone’s got daffodils. When we walk
the hill, you’ll see. You will see all the daffodils
in all the neighbor yards. You’ll see
how the robins are back. You’ll see
all the sodden trash of after winter
and how much still needs doing.
Just listen to me please: your clock
is sick and so is time itself. Please
don’t agree with them in their fever.
Please don’t agree with time,
with how it’s burning you up.
Say you’re going nowhere, please. Say
the only place you are going
is to the couch to watch bad TV with me
until it’s time for our walk.
Say the clock
is delirious, is making a huge mistake;
tell me it’s too sick to ever be right.
Civilization And Its Discontents
Look, a mistake —
a moth, caught
between window
and screen.
Another mistake:
from the bedroom,
faintly, a whisper
that might be sobbing.
There’s another mistake, and another;
in fact there may be evidence of
many others; but sitting here, I
don’t see much of that.
Soon enough that moth’s
going to die trapped
because I will not care
to raise the window to save it.
And whoever’s in the bedroom
crying? Screw her. If you know her,
you come correct her. Bring
me a snack while you’re at it.
A Slight Chop
It would not have mattered at all
if I had been known, unknown,
or mildly known — evil or good or,
typically human,
mixed and befuddled —
no matter at all. I still
would have ended up as I have.
I’m today and every day
thankful, in motion still
but no longer restless,
splayed like foam atop
a slight chop
just beyond sight of land,
thankful because on a latter day
after all the usual questions
were supposed to be
over and settled, I looked into
your damn fine eyes
and understood that questions
are only over and settled once
in anyone’s life. I wasn’t there yet,
still am not there,
not planning on getting there soon
and certainly don’t want
to get there alone.
Animals As Leaders
Once upon a time
a wolf, a hawk, a dog,
a cat, a snake, and a pig
were hanging out together
in the one place they could relax and not
be each other’s natural prey or enemy —
outside a poet’s house.
Each was waiting
to be chosen to serve
as a symbolic inspiration to others
or to be pressed into service
as a metaphor for something else.
They spoke in low voices over coffee —
who might be chosen? Snake and Pig
prayed for the writer to be
politically motivated; Dog and Cat argued
for a sonnet on domestic abuse;
Wolf and Hawk, as always, took the
metaphysical angle and hoped
for someone with a natural bent
who could press them into
aspirational role modeling.
When the door opened
and the poet beckoned
it took them a moment
to swarm him. It wasn’t planned
but they were tired and damned
if anyone was going to be asked
to be anything other than what
they were.
This is the poem they ended up in
and they lived happily ever after —
well, perhaps it was not
ever after but for a moment
they were happy.
Not as happy
as they would have been
if the poet had just offered
to put each of them into a haiku
without bending them
to human need at all,
but pretty happy.
For a while anyway.
The Last Man Stomp
It’s been a big fat dance
around a long hot fire
but looks like the Man Stomp
is coming to a close
A bunch of Stompers
don’t want that to happen
Start it all again,
they say
(Drill baby drill
Supply the demand
A Man Stomp’s no place
to mention the sun)
Rev up the oil lamps
and the gold maps
Yank us off a haunch
from a mammal
We don’t need to burn it
to eat it
Make it a little edible,
is good enough, they say
And to finish if they hadn’t already
invented birthday cakes
they’d invent one
just to smash on a Girl Face
(Resolution, honor,
acceptance of fate
A Man Stomp is no place
to take a date)
Delicately extract ourselves from the circle
The world outside the Man Stomp is cold
for a moment — then
farther we get from shouting and banging
boy howdy here comes the big reveal
what they called love didn’t come close to the possibility
and open space potential of what Love really is
A whole different kind of dance
(Sic semper tyrannis baby
Dulce et decorum est
Man Stomp is no place
for a humble request)
They will stomp a while yet
It’s part of the dance
to be unable
to forget
They will stomp
a hole back there
Some things will fall in
and disappear
Maybe they wil set
the world on fire when
their torches fall
as they dance
(Scorched earth to turn from
Bones to rot away
A Man Stomp is no place
for a real man to stay)
List Of Human Sacrifices
I built the Pyramids
from the thick skin of my dead parents
carved into stones of great size
which I broke myself lifting
then outgrew my
sexy eyebrows
and gave up alternate
mushrooms
I gave you this screed
instead of my open arms
sold off our entire
collection of hope
stopped sneering
for Lent
bargained away
all our divinity remnants
for mumbled
and cheap prayers
to address the masses
when I should have been sleeping
and now butchered
and open
what is left but the meat
and essence of my faith
Rime Of The Ancient
My arm, darker
than the tip of the candle,
cooling like the dead wick.
I was meant to give light —
but see the curl of last smoke
from the end? Call that
the last will, or the last
bit of my will, at least
for the moment. It tells you
what I want done with me
now: I want to rise away.
My arm, stark little twig black
against the garish night,
holding nothing, pointing.
See that distance it indicates?
I’ll never get close to the end
of the ourney. Call me the forever
step-aside on the path. My arm
tells the story: over there’s where
I’m going, I need to go,
but I’ve been standing here
for a very long time now.
Do this long enough…right,
it’s never long enough. Never
the grip needed, never a long enough
fire. Always the knowledge
of the destination ahead; never
the attainment of such a thing.
So perhaps I am meant to be
the One Who Does Not Arrive.
The one who tells his story
to the traveler who has made it
this far. The old one
without so much
as a dead symbolic bird
to fall back on
as his arm drops,
at last, in surrender.
Tiger Mountain
Today, yesterday,
for a long time now,
no depth seems deep enough
to get to the bottom of anything.
Tomorrow
and beyond tomorrow,
no horizon’s far enough away
to represent a future
instead of a brief extension
to this present we won’t abide much longer.
Join me then as I sit upon this ledge
in the side of Tiger Mountain.
Together we can distrust
anything not cold and damp and immediate,
anything not here and now.
If there’s no understanding the past
and no getting to the future,
let’s instead seize hold of this granite, these maples,
the thought that somewhere during the climb
we may slip and fall and gain death’s certainty,
and the greater thought that in climbing
we might reach a place where certainty is unimportant.
Obsidian
A man who has never been rejected
is watching women on Highland Street
Looking at women on Highland Street
as if this were ruins in the Yucatan
As if in the ruins of a Mayan city
these women were exhibits to be viewed
Exhibits to be viewed
as if they were souvenirs
A man who has never been rejected
is shopping for a souvenir
among the women of Highland Street
imagining he is a prince of a lost realm
Prince of a lost realm he learned about in school
or perhaps in books from his father’s library
In books from his father’s library
that displayed women as souvenirs
Souvenirs for the taking by princes of the realm
Who imagine the backdrop of old roads and palaces
Ruins and palaces and even temples for men
who have never been rejected
from the Yucatan to Highland Street
never rejected ever at all
because they’ve never asked permission
when they take a woman for a souvenir of the realm
A man watches women
on Highland Street
Imagines himself a souvenir
carved in obsidian
Imagines himself as player
in a usefully bent myth
After The Revolution, We All Agreed To Agree
When at last
we’d overthrown
what we’d let become
a bloated squid feasting
upon our heads,
we reeked so badly
it wasn’t long before
we swooned, fainted,
passed into a fog of stench
and fell into sleep
as deep as the one
which had given the squid
its opportunity. This time,
however, we all held hands
as we dozed, secure
in the knowledge that
whatever came next,
it would be our very own.
And it was —
it was our own new squid we woke to,
our own stink weighing us back down.
Dark Matter 