Five-thirty AM, a couple of days after Christmas. 
The street is grinding awake again as always,
as it did every day before the holiday pause.

Across from us the neighbor we call
“Jeep Lady” (to distinguish her
from “Escalady”) is trying to figure out

how best to pull her Grand Cherokee 
out of its tight spot into the road.
Her wheels grumble in the gravel

left by the sanders and salters
as she twists them back and forth
until she can pull out and drive away.

The black Escalade won’t be moving 
until later on when “Escalady” comes out
to take her baby to daycare before work.

Next door the cabbie on the first floor
gets his motor running long before he leaves
for the long day ahead. We don’t have

a nickname for him yet. They just moved in
in early December and there’s been no storm
thick enough for the bonding ritual

of pissing and moaning to each other
while shoveling out
our driveways. 

The junkie who lives upstairs from us
(who we unaffectionately call “Shithead”)
has already gone and come back from the clinic

as he does every day before dawn. His rotten 
Hyundai makes a sound when it turns over
like the slide whistle from a circus act. 

Here I am, at work before any of them,
my old but solid Subaru cold in the driveway,
my love’s Beetle parked until its repair appointment

next Monday. And nothing is moving here
but my fingers. What do the neighbors
call me? A bum? A writer? How would they know?

That fat guy with the fallow container garden along the fence
and the frozen solid compost tumbler?
I doubt that they think much of me at all,

as I don’t think much of me — one of those
who sits and observes and then talks about
sitting and observing and doing it again tomorrow.

New Year’s Day soon. 2023 looming ahead.
Gotta feeling ’23 is gonna be the same year
as ’22. It’s almost like the Who said years ago

in that obscure song from “Tommy”
except in the song they expected a good year,
and I’m not expecting anything anymore.

Not a nickname from a stranger.
Not a change in the view from this couch.
Not a chance in hell of avoiding a storm.

I once knew a man
who existed so completely 
within his own invisibility
he lived a lifetime
not as much in the shadows
as in the light which gave them birth.

He could go anywhere
and be anything. Often enough
that meant he’d be standing
in the halls of power, so to speak,
and being invisible he was able
to whisper into power-filled ears 
and make the ministers think
they had brilliant ideas
all on their own. 

Just as often he’d stroll about
among common folk
and listen to them, now and then
easing their minds with advice
and offering insight into their problems
which he’d gleaned from listening
to their loved ones complaining
about their foibles and faults. 

Now and then, 
he would push an evil one
into suicide. Called that
their due but never 
cheapened it with
pretending it came with 
glory for himself.

Acting as such a God
gave him a certain gravitas
he always tempered with wit
and a touch of sorrow.
“With great stealth 
comes great possibility,”
he’d intone.  And then
he’d vanish again
and I’d be left
to make sense of and act
on what I’d heard,
which was only a chore
if I forgot how easy it was
for him to be completely present
without being unduly seen,
and if I forgot
all he had ever taught me
about how to do the same. 

I got things to do
and I can’t get up and do them
It’s too late to begin in this time zone
Too early to begin in others 
and the places where it’s the right time
are too far away to get to in time 

I have many things to say
and the time I have left to say them
is running short
Some of them I need to find the words for
and some of them I need to invent words for 
but most of them are likely to remain unsaid
and people will wonder
for at least ten minutes after the end
what was so important that I died
from choking on those stiff syllables

I missed looking into eyes
as much as I should have
I missed listening to undertones in other voices
and distinguishing them from my own head-voice
I should have picked fewer pockets for love
and laid my own meager holdings out to more people
We would all have been the richer for it

But now I got things to do
It’s snowing nearby and getting closer
Warmer is better than freezing
I’m freezing though the house
is warm and there’s little threat
that anything about that will change
The shiver within is from knowing
what won’t get done and said
before I slowly come to a full stop
staring at a finish line no one else can see

The bones
were rolled for you at birth.
They chose your great adversary:
maggots, melancholy, militia…?

You decide
what’s next:
double down 
or bow and fold. 

How you come
to your war
once you’ve chosen
your battlefield

is the battle.
Is history’s gamble, not yours.
Listen: the house
is snickering.

cleaning out
an old apartment
(new to you)

unremarkable contents
of the cheap and shallow
medicine cabinet
include a straight razor
with one massive nick
in its rust-flecked blade

bottle of iodine
wood-shafted cotton swab
on the glass shelves lined
with folded paper towels

as stated
unremarkable
except
for a kid’s ring 
plastic shank
set with plastic gem
centered by itself
on one shelf

imagine that kid
now an adult wondering
where her ring had gone
although it’s more likely that 
she doesn’t remember
at all
her onetime treasure
left behind
for you to find
in an old apartment
(new to you)

you will
soon enough
toss those abandoned artifacts
into the trash
as you prepare  
the place where you
are going to live
to be your own

a new place
to leave your stuff
when you go

I think I could be
happily a worm

if I was not so terrified
of ending up drowned
on a concrete walk
after a storm

Forced to leave
dark soil
surrounded by roots
where I’d been
most grounded
or worse
desiccated upon
a blacktopped driveway

where even
the slightest sunlight
could take from me
my pink life
and leave behind
my dark leather corpse

Even the robins
will not take that

Will leave me instead
to disappear bit by bit
into a trail of ants
bearing me
down the hatch
into their small volcano
of a home
in the sand
along the fence

I could be happily a worm
if I knew I’d be 
remaining
forever or for at least a few seasons
away from all
grounded and blind
underground

A new tattoo on my mind.
Simple banner: “I Am A Bad Person.”

Placement yet to be decided. 
Naked body in the mirror:

across my chest, above my heart?
Others could easily see, and I would too.

Would the message sink in from there?
I look myself over again.

Down my dominant forearm
where it would remind all 

of my strength and weakness at once?
Ah, but then I could pull my sleeve down

and no one would know. So,
forehead instead? Maybe doubled

in reverse so that my mirror 
would tell me the tale, too? 

Do I want that level of 
awareness? Instead of that

perhaps two banners,
one on the bottom of each foot. 

I’d walk that message everywhere.
It would not be obvious to others

but I’d always know
what was haunting my steps.

Maybe I’ll just keep it quiet and run the banner
right across my lower gut, right above my privates.

Only those close enough to already know
would ever see. By that point

it might mean nothing to them
and might only bring a quick pang for me.