Link to a full explanation of what’s coming up…
Monthly Archives: February 2023
The Smaller Mugs, Etc.
As we approached the time
that had been announced
for the end of the world,
I packed away the large
coffee mugs and took out
the smaller ones, hoping
to reduce the chance
I’d be awake when it happened.
As we approached the time
that thad been suggested
would bring us the end of the world,
I took out my winter clothes
and and put them into
donation bins, hoping that
the next big species would find a use
for them. I wanted to be
as bare as possible when it came,
to sleep in comfort as it washed in.
As we approached the time
that had been foretold
for the end of the world,
I paid all the bills and emptied
all my accounts, canceled all my subscriptions
and memberships, sat back satisfied
that if it didn’t happen
I’d be in good shape upon waking, cool
and rested and solvent — and if it did happen
I’d perish knowing tha while it didn’t matter
I could die knowing I’d done my best
to leave little trace of myself in the ruins
of the mess I’d help to make of the world.
That’s A Shame
Think about
all the bodies you’ve seen,
human
and otherwise.
Think beyond the human bodies
in funeral homes
or hospitals, perhaps
on battlefields or in
car wrecks or other accidental carnage;
maybe in family homes if you grew up
in the right part of the world for folks
to die in their homes at peace or in war.
If that’s hard to grasp consider
that you must have seen
hundreds of flies and wasps on windowsills;
chickens laid out in stores;
roadkill of all species;
the neighbor’s cat
upon a sparrow
under your feeder;
your own cat
upon a mouse
under your
kitchen table.
Have you fished?
Have you hunted?
Those are lovely shoes you are wearing —
isn’t that fine Italian leather?
Isn’t this lovely, understanding at last
how death has surrounded you and kept you?
All life is sacred, some say.
Few of us say all death is too. It’s a shame;
we love to demonize it, saying we give
our killers the ultimate punishment
when we sentence them to the inevitable,
then sit down to a steak after the deed is done.
Rip it Up
Here’s an explanation of a special event happening next Thursday night. If you’d like to attend via Zoom, message me.
Regrets, I Have A Slew
come so far so hard upon
the trail of where
I went once without
care for how it would look
to others
damn it was easy
when I was young and
all I had for care was
residual longing
to belong
now that’s gone
to regret and guilt
but on the poor corner
I look like a king
to everyone but me
if I had a dollar for
every dollar I didn’t keep
when it was in my hand
I’d still be one broke bastard
looking for my confident used to be
with the take for granted hair
and the body that didn’t look like
this betrayal of a Creator’s fabled image
I used to be just beautiful enough
to believe in God
and now there’s a mistake in every pore
and the distance to travel has wrinkles
and mountains and mutant caverns
I wish I could catch up to the youth I was
spin him around kiss him and say don’t be a fool
you are going to die too soon
and it’s going to be your own fault
and people are going to wail over you
and dogs are gonna fight over your bones
and this is how will be forever
look me in the eye
and tell me
you are glad I exist
that I caught up to you
and you are fine with having made me
Once again, the Patreon/live performance info
On February 22 at 7:30 PM EST I’ll be doing a live via Zoom reading of a special set of poems. (You’ll have to be there to understand why it’s special.)
I’d planned this to be a Patrons-only event but am opening it to the general public on a pay per view basis.
It will be $10 USD for the performance, payable through one of the online functions. Message me here and we can work through the details. I’d love to have some of you attend.
Would also like to extend, once again, an offer to become a patron of the site, which in many months is my only reliable income source. The link provided above will get you to the site for more information.
Thanks,
T
The Mad King
There are very few clues to find
when exploring how
he became this narrow.
His permanent record
barely explains anything
as no one ever felt much need
to put notes in there.
His employment file
describes his mild job history,
annual satisfactory reviews,
merely adequate
bumps in pay year upon year.
Tax returns tell nothing
and there’s nothing of note
in the newspapers of record.
So how he got to
hollering about the “woke mob”
that’s killing him, is a puzzle
when there’s no sign of damage
from anyone in his history.
It all looks pretty clean.
Except for the bullshit
on his tongue, he could be anyone.
That may be the problem: perhaps
he thought he should be exalted
for being so much like
what he’d been told he should be
that when being ordinary and
bland and safe-pale was not enough
by itself to make him king,
he drew a sword on his face
and stepped up and out screaming
for his kingdom.
He makes it up
as he marches along
behind the bulls, feeding.
A performance online!
On February 23 at 7:30 PM EST I’ll be doing a live via Zoom reading (tomorrow night) of a special set of poems. No one has seen them; they will be printed, read once, and destroyed after the reading. Literally, a one time only event.
I’d planned this to be a Patrons-only event but am opening it to the general public on a pay per view basis.
It will be $10 USD for the performance, payable through either PayPal or Venmo. Message me here and we can work through the details. I’d love to have some of you attend.
Thanks,
T
East Palatine Newspaper Poem
It’s not Chernobyl.
What it is
is East Palatine,
Ohio and it’s big,
it’s as big as miles around.
It’s not nuclear but
it is a big-ass gas burst
with a lot of dead chickens
underneath and maybe dogs
and maybe people but
we don’t know because
what it is,
is embarrassingly
lethal. There’s a lot of
mouths to be sewn shut,
but it is not as silent as capitalism
which right now is busy
selling gas masks and
burial plots and refusing
to look anyone in the eye —
after all it’s not Fukushima;
what it is won’t be washed away
with the next tsunami or
“natural disaster.” As it is
it’s not all that famous yet
and we really don’t know enough
to do anything but ignore it.
It’s not a spy balloon, not a UFO
falling from on high. Just a train
off the rails and a death plume.
Not anything
like a football game.
It won’t be in the headlines
tomorrow. Cross your fingers
and hope it isn’t what it is.
The Mythology Of Scorched Earth
Last night
I dreamed
that there
in my hand
I had conjured
a gnome
in a red hat,
something
from a book
I’d read long ago.
He began to spin
there on my palm
and when he at last
spun away it was as
a dervish born
in a handful
of fire.
Last night
I remembered writing
this poem once before
when I was no more than
18. Back then I thought
I was something,
didn’t I — back then I thought
I too had been
formed in a hand
to be a dervish
in a handful
of fire and that I had
a fire hand of my own making
and I spawned poems in it,
fast red, and long burning hot,
and I spun them into the world
to ignite anything
other than myself, but still
I burned, almost, to ash.
I soak my wounds these days
in any running stream
I find
and think of how
I am no longer what I was,
am I — no dervish,
no wick, no kindling
in this poor hand,
and I am grateful
for how final and good
it feels to stop short of a full life
of poems romancing the mythology
of scorched earth.
Blessing/Fatigue
It’s a blessing,
this fatigue
that has come so easily
after a day of twisting
in hard country wind.
Soon enough I hope
I’ll drop into sleep
and settle myself below
the hammering gusts
of day to day
and minute to minute,
hoping that when I rise
I’ll be rested and ready
for tomorrow’s buffeting.
Trash Day
First I take out the trash
and then I sit down to write.
I hold off on coffee until after
I’ve done something poetic.
I have friends who swear
the coffee must come first
but the coffee comes second around here,
or even third on a Wednesday trash day.
My friends understand why
the trash comes first, but how is poetry
something to get past and not
at least in part something I owe
to downing at least one delicious cup?
They don’t understand: I have to have
something to look forward to
so I hold the first cup in reserve. It’s
the Blue Mountain on the end
of the stick before me. Writing the poem,
on the other hand, is less a pleasure
than a — not a pain, no; more
of a requirement. More of a
“take your pills” practice, a glucose test
of what pushes your blood through you.
Not so much medically required as
now so much a part of the rituals
that to do so on some days hurts, on others
sings within, but is each day ignored at my peril.
So first the trash on Wednesdays, then
the poem, then the coffee. Today
it’s all tasting pretty much OK:
trash out half an hour early, and listen
to this — not great, not terrible, but when the body
holds it up for inspection, it says
all is in balance for now; I pour a cup
with a splash of milk and nothing else.
I don’t know what else I’ll be doing today
but at least I’ve done this and if today I pass away,
when they find me they can say they found me at rest.
Patreon — seeking patrons…
A reminder that my Patreon site is a major source of my monthly income, and I try to offer live readings, eBooks, workshops, and more through the site to Patrons at all levels.
Would love to have some of you there.
Thanks,
T
Lifelong Learning
Mom asks,
who is Beyonce?
She’s a singer,
I tell her.
Would I
know anything she sings?
No, I don’t
think so.
Oh, okay then.
Goes back to dozing
in front of the game show
where she heard the name.
Beyonce was the answer to
a question. That was
all she needed to know.
All is well. Enough.
Do you think you will ever
know when to say Enough?
To look out the window
and say Enough. To see the news
and say Enough.
To close your eyes
and say Oh, okay then,
plunging deeper into Enough.
Bring Us The Flood
In some part of The Land
there’s been more rain
than they can handle
but not here, where we long
for rain and pray for The Land
to come back into Balance.
What if this is Balance?
Some say it is and the Land
is behaving as it should.
We are the Fulcrum
upon which the Balance
has come to rest.
Some say, it is what it is. Some say
those words are themselves
the blunt tip upon which
the Fulcrum has come to rest
and the reason the Balance
wobbles like a weak priest
in a confessional, shaking
as he listens to sins in a voice
he knows so well.Too well.
All I know is that the rain
is elsewhere, not here. We
do what we can to maintain
Balance. We shiver or we burn
and tell each other to take hold
and hang on. It is what it is:
the Balance is not in our favor
and unlikely to come to us now.
That’s the nature of Balance:
it settles, eventually, come rain
or come shine. There’s a reason
some say it that way: it is
what it is,
come rain or come shine,
easy come, easy go.
It’s been years now since
we’ve seen rain. Listen to
The Land. Bring us now the Flood.
Dark Matter 