Enough salt spilled
to be noticed on black paper,
not so much that I couldn’t count
the number of individual grains,
though I don’t; it’s surely not enough
to pinch up and toss against bad luck.

Happens often enough but
I’m afraid it’s starting to get
ruinous.  I should have been
vigilant before this.
Spill enough salt and demons
begin to stalk you;

unstable demons, thirsting for salt.
That explains the fear
that’s chewing at me
as the phone doesn’t ring today,
didn’t ring yesterday,
hasn’t rung in months.

I have a good resume, strong skills,
ready references. I interview well,
fit in, get along, can lead or follow as needed.
I know who I am and what I can do.
I know who I was and how I got here.
So it must be demons holding back the job.

They have to be the reason
I have time to sit here and count
grains of salt to collect and throw.
They have to be displeased with me;
I only hope
it’s not too late to atone.

It is salt in the wound
to know how insane this sounds,
salt in the wound that I no longer care.
I am counting
and hoping for enough salt
to throw soon.

changing the bark on a tree,
like marrying the Biblical Sarah,
seems like a ridiculous goal.

putting the rutabaga on a lathe
to turn it into a parsnip
seems pointless and a tad crazed.

ducking into the empty moat for a cigarette —
how long should we keep this up?
child, we’re smashed, we’re gassed, we’re

unwelcome as painters
in a glass walled room. cobweb tough,
kangaroo steady.  brothers of the needle,

sisters of the gearshift, children of the hammer.
what we do is nonsensical for a living, but not
for a life —  we were made to badger

the orderly whorl of creation’s fingerprints
into changing. how’s that been working out?
not well.  but try and stop us.  just try.

it will always come down to us
tending the kettle of crayons,
whether you like it or not.

When a rose I planted
for a dead friend
refused to grow,
what choice was there
but to pull it out and
begin again?

When a second rose
also failed to thrive
and in fact died,
what choice was there 
but to pull it out and
begin again?

Now a third rose
will not take.  
Friend,
what are you trying
to tell me?

Perhaps
there’s nothing
after this life
and such memorials
are pointless.

Perhaps
in this life
you didn’t love roses
and I didn’t know you
as well as I should have.

Perhaps
I am a bad gardener
and kill what I put effort into
because enthusiasm is no 
substitute for skill.

Friend, I have a dying rosebush
with your name on it;
what am I supposed to do with it?

Friend, why don’t you speak to me?
You went back into this earth,
did you not?  Why will nothing grow now?

Tireless watching at the window
if there’s something out there,
not at all if there’s not.  
Working when there’s work, 
not at all when there’s not.  

There’s always something to see
and always work to be done,
cry some.  If you’re bored, you are
boring, they cry.  And when I respond
eh, not so much, here’s yet another case

of blaming the victim, you
and the notorious Puritan
Work Ethic looking for a soft place
to set the hooks
screech like a box of peeved owls.  

Owls only look wise. You know
that’s all in our heads. We see
the forward set eyes, think they’re human
as if that guaranteed wisdom — those
blamers, always yelling “Who?” Just like you.

So, tireless watching at the window
if there’s something out there,
working when there’s work and not at all
when there’s not.  Boring happens.  Someone
can bore me, can be behind or ahead of my page.

I’ll get over it, or leave of my own accord,
but maybe my best move is to get bored, to stay there
for some message about patience or humility.
Shut up about everyone needing to “do something.”
I prepare some of my best work when I’m doing nothing.

She preached
of using lucid dreaming
to visualize material success.

She was earnest and spoke
of manifesting prosperity through
alignment of the chakras.

She was lovely, steadfast in a wan
ethereal fog, bent on directing
the Universe toward her goals.

I pitied her;
so, so sad —
so, so American.

To demand utility
of the unconscious,
to enslave it that way —

I shuddered and foresaw
the Snake Of The Inner World
tossing a constrictor curl across her throat

someday as she slept; I heard a horrid rendition
of the Star-Spangled Banner
as if gargled by a Dragon

being played
at her funeral; I heard her dreams
clapping triumphantly along.

Stop narrating:
hold up
a glass, a stem,
a feather, one
after another.
Let story
fill the space
around them.

Stop narrating:
leap randomly
around the room,
across the clearing,
from one
roof to another.
Let the angles of the path
define sacred
geometry.

Stop narrating,
suddenly cease even
to gesture;
freeze pointing up
and slightly to the right.
Let anyone’s eyes
follow that
wherever it goes,
any number of stops
along the way
will be valid, some few
will not be;

hard to tell them from
one another

and seriously,
it’s not that
necessary — stop narrating,

don’t say a word about it,
it will pass.

Pulled
the wedding ring
from my finger
years ago, but 
there’s still a dent there.

I bet
I’m dented for good.

I mean “for good”
in all senses it can be taken:

permanent dent,
valuable dent,
dented by the forces
of good.

Now I’m in love again —
for good,
I hope,
in all the same ways
I’ve listed above.
Permanently, valuably,
by the forces, etc.  
Make no mistake though:

regardless,
I’m still dented.
Marked, not 
truly whole.  
A little wrecked.
It shows.