Originally posted 5/27/2012.

A shadow coming up
from dark water: could be
a corpse, a crab, or a blue pearl.

The teacher says, surely
we spy here the blue pearl’s
lustrous mystery rising. 

The soldier seizes upon
how the crab, once seized
and raised, will itself seize back.

The undertaker says,
my concern is that corpse.
Wash it clean. Shroud it.  Bury it.

They are ready to pull it aboard.
What’s it going to be:
blue pearl, crab, corpse,

or another thing entirely,
sparking someone else’s
perspective?  As it is heaved

onto the deck there’s a
sigh from all but you.  You
have fallen sobbing to your knees;

everyone knows at once
you alone were meant
to be here today.  Whatever that is,

it’s looking directly into you.
It is not afraid.  You are not
afraid.  You rise to your feet

and approach it as the rest
step back, as the ocean
ceases to be dark.

Originally posted 12/27/2007.

I used to be able to
pull the world to a stop
and stare into
its perfection.

Everything
would slow down,
there was no
no wasted effort,
my arms synched as I turned
toward the yard
away from the screen door
closing behind me,
and then my vision
would sharpen at the edges
and deepen at the center
of my field of view
so that a jonquil stood out
dead still on the lawn, 
honed against the green
so it seemed cut off
from life, from death;
yellow as piss,
yellow as sunshine;

there was a time
I could stop the world
but I have forgotten how;

I have instead
learned how to think and so
I sit ass-heavy
on the couch all day
thinking of those
good times. 

When I leave the house
I close the door
carefully now, never
letting it slam,
afraid of the consequences;
I don’t know how good times
happen anymore
and I don’t want
to scare them off
so I stay in more often than not
getting excited now
only over monochromes:

marathon television viewing,
the relief when the cigarette
is finished and I can breathe
something that’s not grey fire
in my throat, the relief of
lighting the next one,
the longing for
a good night’s sleep

because the only time
the world stops now
is when I am not thinking of it,
when I cannot see it at all,
when the dark eats my dreams
and I live quietly
for a moment,
living dead
for an hour or two
at a time
in unconscious safety,

not succumbing
to the poisonous hope
that one day I’ll remember
exactly how I used to
become still enough to see
the razor beauty
of this world.

Originally posted 5/17/2013.

Once upon a time,
there was Basket,
and there were 
hats in Basket.

Blue cap.
Black beret.
Red beret.  

All day long
a man living
in the apartment with Basket 
changed what hats he wore:
blue cap for the world,
black beret for family,
red beret for his lover. 

After dark
he sat on the fire escape
hatless,
city wind
snaking through
the brick and mortar,

whipping past other bachelor nests
to end up in his hair, 
fingers tousling through
as if the wind
were yet another lover
with a ingrained disdain
for hats.

There was Basket,
Basket full of hats.  There was
a man who changed hats
all day long.  
There was a wind longing
to become a thief, a vandal:

blue cap
to be left on the waterfront.  
Black beret
to be flung into an alley.  
Red beret
to be hung on a fence out of reach.

Go away wind, said the man one day.
I love your fingers and the way you seem
to end up here instead of with other men

but more than that, I love my hats.
If ever I give them up,
it won’t be because
you’ve taken them from me.

Go away yourself, said the wind.
I love your hair a bit, but more than that
I love thinking of your hats disappearing,

escaping, ending up in disguises, 
in the trash,
anywhere but on your head.
I want you without a hat
and I will do hurricane things
to make that happen.

Go away both of you,
said Basket.
Each of you 
is narrow and stubborn
and unchanging. 
My hats are the only thing
that makes either of you
interesting. All your talk
of some imaginary
bare-headed realness
is wasting my time,
and when you’re both quiet,
when it’s just me and the finally
unsymbolic hats in the dark,
that feels like the start 
of the happy part
of happily ever after.

Originally posted 3/27/2010.

A remark you made

affirmed for me
that someone
had indeed
been listening,
at least once,
perhaps by chance
more than
for any reason,
but however it happened
it happened, and so
I thank you,
for as a result

I was able to imagine
for a moment

myself
as carrier,
as burden-bearer
in the oldest sense,
the honorable sense,
stepping out
of my front door
carrying a seed
which by chance or design
I must have dropped
into a good place
as I hurried away.

Originally published 9/27/2011.

Fiddling on the radio at 4 AM.
A singer with an Icelandic accent.
Maybe.  

You’re lying in bed fully clothed.  
Tonight was a banquet you chose not to attend.
Everyone said community demands it.
You weren’t buying.
You weren’t convinced there was a community there.
All these people coming through town say they love you.
No one comes knocking for you.
You wanna see them you gotta get your butt up and see them.
Get to the banquet.
The banquet you hate.

Icelandic fiddlers on a 5 AM radio show.
Kids these days.
Whatever happened to rock and roll?

Naked or clothed lying in bed or at banquets.
Everyone’s a liar.

You don’t want to tell anyone you’re dying.
You want them to figure it out for themselves.
You want to hear the words from their contrite mouths.

We missed you at the banquet and came to see you.
We didn’t know.
We’ll undress you now.
We’ll sit or lie with you all night.
We adore that old-time Icelandic fiddling and singing.
We adore you too.

You don’t go to banquets anymore.
Your teeth are disgusting.
Your teeth are falling out.
You are exactly as old as you feel.
You are as old as Iceland.
As old as a fiddle.
As old as a gaptoothed singer.
As old as the weird music of just before 6 AM.
Twice as old as some of these meddling kids.

You are better off fully clothed and alone.
Listening to this crap.
Waiting for sleep.

Originally posted on 10/28/12.

How to explain
a new color?
How to define it
beyond calling it
a crisp, refractive purple
only visible
behind my eyes?

I sit in my car
in my driveway
thinking of the two women
panhandling in the rain
at the end of our street
at the start
of a hurricane.

How to explain this color
I know I have never seen before?

When I asked them
if they had a place to go,
one smiled and the other said,
“Thank you, bless you sir.”

I’m sitting in the driveway
looking at a color
with closed eyes,

with my head on the steering wheel.

A color I’ve never seen,
a clear and crisp refractive purple
in the crazed, urgent, irregular form
of a paper flower
or a crumbling gem.

This is the color
of a blessing or a mercy,

the color of
driving back down the hill
to take them to a shelter,
the color of shame
when they refuse
to get in my car,
the color of understanding
why
they refuse,
the color
of praying
for them,
the color
of feeling
that I have not given
enough,
ever, to them,
maybe to anyone.

Originally posted 10/28/09.

Last night’s drive home
was grand moment
after grand moment

of four of us
laughing and chatting
as well as we could
over Parliament blaring,
cigarette after cigarette flaring,
New York City
in the rear view,
home still
some hours ahead.

The towns between
New Haven and New London
are strung along 95
like green pearls on a black string.
I have forgotten their names,
for there was no room in the car
to hold them.

Forgive me, towns
between New Haven
and New London.
You deserve more
than a mention here.
You ought to be
destinations
and someday I hope
I’ll make that right

but last night, you
were just distance
to be covered,
just white letters
on green signs
breaking my trance,

neither
the good time
we were leaving behind
nor the home
we were longing to see.