I wish I were barely imagined,
unfleshed, a mere mist.

I wish I could simply float
above a fantastic beast

with rainbow-lit fur.
I could not ride it, could only hover,

doing the wind dance 
among others like me.

Singing along to choruses
with beings I only know

by their voices, voices
like my own. 

Instead I’m here, human,
burping and shitting, 

so embodied I can barely move.
My weight one mighty link

in a dark and silent chain.
Not a dancer, and I am no singer. 

If there is any grand beast waiting
for me to saddle it and ride

I fear for its comfort
if not its life, and 

as there’s no rainbow
to light our way

I will keep it safe.
I will remain here in the dark,

will become darkness itself. 
As heavy as everything would be

if it could be lifted. 
As stationary as if the world itself

were to suddenly tumble forward,
rushing away from its past.

All I can be is present
if I am to save anything.

Think of that scene
in a favorite movie 
where a silhouetted couple
makes love while
the Eva Cassidy version of 
“Songbird” is playing
on the soundtrack.
It’s not as if the couple
is playing it on some
device or sound system;
it is as if it hovers
over the bed of its own accord,
unheeded by the lovers,
unnoticed except by 
the audience who
are not actually there
in the world of the film.
It’s all pretend
except for the sadness and 
the ache you may feel
for the singer’s death, or
the longing for the fantasy
being played out before you 
in the imaginary setting
of a perfect scene you can, 
if you so desire, enter
any time you have time,
pretty much any time
you choose to be, any time
that makes you weep, makes you
lust, turns you into
a chaste voyeur until you close
your eyes and begin to hum
or even mouth the words 
to the song, your eyes slowly closing
as always, yet also as never before. 

How splendid it must be
to live an uninterrupted life.

To be one bird from egg
to last fall from a branch.

To wash up on shore
as one skeleton in littoral sand.

To leave no trace behind
that would prompt alarm or fear

of there having been 
an unnatural break in a natural span.

I think of every being
I have been: ones I lost, ones

I abandoned, ones
I suicided or murdered. 

How splendid it could have been.
I could have been an army by myself 

and won. I could have gotten
older and simply faded away

without leaving a body behind 
except one required by convention

for a final rest. Instead
I’ve left litter for folks to sort through

and bicker about. Who was this man,
they will ask. Which one

of these husks he left behind
should we revile or honor as his own?

How splendid to think
someone will choose one and make it so.

How splendid for me. I await an answer,
hoping I am able to rest.

Morning: opening
room darkening blinds
in January, acting
on hope

not that there 
will be light, as that
tremendous gift
is given; 

more that overnight
nothing will have made
what’s outside less
welcoming

than when they were
closed last night at
dusk. That there will
have been

no ice, no snow.
That there will have been
no casual vandalism. That
something still stands

of what we left to
night and shadow
when we tucked ourselves in
till this moment, hoping

it would happen
as easily as morning
can come in January, that
it would happen at all. 

Thinking of the nicknames I’ve worn
from the first one practically given at birth
to the few I’ve chosen for myself in jest
to the few I’ve been called out loud by others.
Were there ones I never heard, and still have not?

Wondering if any of them were close enough
to being my true name, one I should have worn
with pride and grace. A name I should have held
close and waved now and then as my banner
in battle, grief, and celebration. Wondering

if any of the ones I do not know
are more fitting, are more me 
than any I have gone by so far,
and is it too late to take on a new one?
Would I even be proud to wear

the closest fitting name?
Would I hang my head to know
that this was who I was, or would I 
instead retreat into the falsehood 
of the name I preferred? 

Around 4 PM a newish Civic
made a magnificent left-hand turn 
across oncoming traffic. 

The cursing that followed it 
was a stunned music for bystanders
but the driver who sparked the song

rolled on through
without taking notice
of what they had created.

Hours later, everyone
who saw it happen is still
feeling some kind of way about it.

Life for them
is so different right now
from what it was.

They all went home
filled with the spirit and story
of the happening.

That they were fairly numb
prior to the squealing
of wheels and horns

and the profanity
has been forgotten.
Opinions abounding,

hard words flying:
they were so alive then,
Death’s nearby presence

not withstanding. This left
their bodies giddy within.
It made the whole dull day

shine. You’ve got to do something
with this, Death told them. You’ve got
to make something else happen.

Today is January 11
and I woke up before 6
with little to do but
accept that I’m not a man

I know it’s not true 
and that even the words
“I’m not a man” are suspect
and reek of Whitestench

except that when I look at
myself and all the failures
that even I call failures
it’s hard to argue that the ‘Stench

is just covering up a good person
instead of adding its flavor to 
the general reek of my 
utter incompetence at being alive

I mean of course I’m breathing and
excreting and God knows I eat
but how will I escape the way
I fail to prosper and no

it’s not just the lack of money
it’s the utter insignificance of 
my work when I think I’m 
doing so well and it’s brushed aside

without so much as a thought
It’s the reduction of my once-keen edge
to a pinprick the barely draws blood
It’s the shame of slowly recognizing

the mistakes and looming disasters
have not gone away overnight
as they rise to the top like old bodies
in the pool of darkness in my brain

as I wake up daily before six
slightly happy until I see them
and drag myself out of bed into
the cloud of chores that each day brings

And at last it’s the knowledge
that in a better world built
without Whitestench or Manstench
or Moneystench it might have been 

different but in the long run
I’m here now on January 11
already up and regardless of society
it’s still my fault that I was and am unable

to get away from all that smell
breathe some fresh air 
take one deep breath and plunge
back in to do what I can and must do

on January 12 and beyond