In order to form
a more perfect union
of form and function
a decision has been niade
to release meaning from actions

so you don’t have to mean it
when you say you love someone,
you only have to pay attention
to the shape of your words
and the placement of your eyes.

It makes it easier for some,
harder for others.
It makes it damn near
impossible for others
and makes it improbable for all,

as it should be.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

What would it take —
tripping, laughing,
falling out of clothes
into bed or even to the floor —
smashing your head
on the hardwood, then
recovering enough
to get your ass up and
truly rest wherever
you end up — alone
or accompanied, naked
again, wordless again,
listening to the birds outside
though you can’t name a one —
what would it take for you
to give up your
pleasure of the moment,
to aim for the heart, aim
for the filthy politics;
what would it take for you
to remove a chunk of soil
from your innermost part
and fling it at the monkeys —
what will you offer them
in place of all the things
that granted you purity, that
got you into bed feeling clean
and serene, that sent you
to bed in the first place
without caring that without you
there might be an offer of nothing
to the Machine and
the moment of crisis?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

Tomorrow is a violet day
when the collapse
of the earth as we know it
comes true.

It will
implode with a rush
of music and someone will speak
on it, say it’s reggae
or rock music or something
else again and we will be left
wondering about it, arguing
about it as the silence comes
louder and louder, or quieter
and quieter.

Meanwhile
the earth (or planet or
whatever term we agree upon
if any) will fall in upon itself
while politicians natter about
and terrorist push their bombs
on us and the ocean comes by
to swallow whatever is left.

We will watch a television show
and argue about meaning and
cry ourselves to sleep and maybe,
if we are lucky, make love one last
satisfactory time and wake up
in a new world that looks uncommonly
like this one —

tinged with violet
and trending toward black, but
more or less the same except
it will take less time and just
as small, if not smaller, a presage
to tell us why it has slowed so little
that it feels the same
as all the other days before the earth
turned violet, then darkened
just a little bit more.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

Spent a lot of time
just looking — had
one rheumy eye, the
left one; had crusties
in the right; they looked
just fine when they were open
and you were far enough back
to not see them; face had
patches of dry skin, red skin,
potato skin, tomato skin; always
one day away from a shave
and the beard though neat
didn’t say much. Didn’t
say anything — a Van Dyke,
nothing special. Didn’t smile
much. Didn’t talk much.
Up until the day he went
violently away, he kept
to himself as expected.
He never told anything
surprising or vile about
anyone, really. Cipher,
I guess, would be a word
you could use. Fragment;
a shrug of leftover man.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

I try to read a friend’s work
but it’s too hard. The majesty
and flavor of the poem is too much
to tackle. I long to cross the bridge
between the islands of verse,
to connect through a path between
sandy hillocks and the rising sea.
Make it make sense, I whisper
to each island before I stumble
toward it over the cartoon-colored water;
it never works and instead I find myself
in tears, in wails before it — from murmuring
to screams and back again. I am left
with the tottering of meaning on a fulcrum;
trying one more time to balance
long enough to calculate what is being said,
what should be inferred, what is left behind
in the level of the rising threat from the ocean.
I fail, again and again. Having choices
such as this — surrender and let it go
or try to tangle my fingers deeper in
hair and clothing of the work…I sigh,
then bend to it. Bending low to the struggle
though I may lose. I tangle up, tear up.
I go.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

A woman sings “God Bless The Child”
— one guitar, soft perfect voice arranged
differently than you might expect it
from hearing Billie Holiday, from hearing
Blood Sweat and Tears —
and it is good, is what we needed. Somewhere
out there is another person who needed it
this way and the earth spins toward them
as well as toward you, all in the same direction,
all at the same melancholy speed.

“Homeward,” sings another person,
a man this time, rhythmic percussion
behind the voice, almost spoken —
it is a different song indeed but tells
the same story of longing for respite
and peace at the road’s close — and
it is good too, is what we needed. Somewhere
out there is another person who needed it
this startling way and wonder at how
this earth carries them too toward you,
toward you at the same melancholy pace.

And you — what song did you hear
beyond their songs transmitted thus?
Nothing at all, perhaps, once they were done.
Was it good? Did you need it and get it?
Or did nothing come your way except
these two songs — second hand perhaps
but both good and solid as the earth itself,
meeting you in melancholy?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

Hypnotic barrel of laughter
from outside on the corner
where the crowd is talking
and interchanging information
before the rain begins.

Before the storm starts
a flurry of worry from a few
who worry congenitally:
will it be too wet to
maintain a civil face?

Maintaining a civil face
seems unimportant in a new way,
like it won’t matter when the news drops.
Like it won’t matter out on the corner.
Like the laughter running out seems desperate.

A monsoon is coming,
and no one seems to care.
Outside is too damp, inside
is too dry, in-between
and above the clouds it does not matter.

The laughter is desperate.
It’s a given. It holds the rain,
is a diamond above the clouds.
As hard as one. As unfeeling as one.
Laughter eating the words as one.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

Seems a little obvious
to start a poem with “I”
as if it were a reference
to the being writing it.
Truth is, the writing
is removed from the being
and the poem exists on its own
as if it were cosmic dust —
blown in and then it exists
independently. The being goes back
to an entity full of cereal and doubt
and other matters of trying to exist
while the poem floats out over all that
and develops its own timeline
for existing. I don’t know
if that makes any sense; it is all
I have of it; the poems
live their own lives and serenely
care not at all about making sense.
Whatever. There is too much
I depend on in each poem
to worry about their making standard sense.
Whatever —
I let them stand before you
and let you judge and marvel and
dismiss them. They move according
to their own destiny. I have little
to do with it, when all is said.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

Let me go to the small town woods
where I was made; let me go
to the small town woods that
I grew into.

The woods that made me
were unkempt and filled with gravel pits
and prickly bushes; the woods where
I grew up were clean and the paths
were raked and pine-needled, and
the trees were tall and silent near dusk.
I learned to clumsy-walk and stumble
in the first, alone, daylight everywhere
filtered by thin leaves; I learned
more sinister walking in the second;
mostly at night, and mostly not alone.

Walking the first on hard soil packed flat;
walking the second on hard soil packed
just as flat between the roots that stuck up
everywhere. On moon-drenched nights,
I would reach back and hold a hand out
to the girl behind me, my heart beating
so fast and so loud I could feel it
tearing out of me as we approached
something, anything that was distant
from the campground…

and now that I am
sixty-four, now that I am alone with my thoughts
and my regrets, let me go
to the woods I’ve been to before: the
woods of my small town likely bulldozed
and compartmentalized; the manicured woods
where the paths are still kept clean
though I’m afraid to walk them for fear
of the dark beyond them.

A boy comes out of the woods alone in either case,
afraid and embarrassed and confused
from his soles to his pores. I know him
well, though we’ve not met. Not
in this life, at any rate; my own life
nearly done, I smile at the level
where he finds himself. I’ve been there,
after all. Let me go to the next place,
the next path, the next woods.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

Don’t touch that.

He keeps the kids
away from his stuff — his guitar,
his writing desk.

Don’t be part of me.

How would he handle it
if the kids turned out better
than he was, better than he’d imagined?

Don’t upstage me.

If the kids upstage him, if they
sing better, play better? He’d have
to get really, really quiet.

He would have to choose between
being better or being himself
and finding some peace in here.

But if the kids — even one kid —
wrote better, wrote one poem
or a hundred or more better?

He’d whisper against them
and beam proudly while
wishing for poison;

praying to whatever evil
there was to offer a drink
to them — no. He wouldn’t.

But it would be tough. He
would double down on his own work
and pat them on the head.

Pat them on their little head
before it got as big as his own;
curse the gods who made them both.

Don’t go in there, or out there.

Afraid of his kids getting older,
afraid of his kids being better. Afraid
of not being able to measure it —

long side of this world
he’d never seen. They could.
They did. What a joke, he thought,

if they ended up better than him
at the thing that he held most dear.
Double down, then. He smiled, ate poison,

doubled down. Fuck
the guitar, the singing voice.
Do what he could till he dies in relief.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

A phone call done
and I’m sleepy in the remainder
of the morning. My nose
is running, my skin’s
an itchy mess and
I’m sleepy for the remainder
of the morning. Outside
a dog is barking stereotypically:
“woof, woof;” in particular
this dog does this all the time
throughout the time when
I’m sleepy in the remainder
of the morning, makes it hard
to sleep, though not to weep.
I do that anyway, no matter how long
the barking goes on or if
it stops and I stop weeping
for the remainder of the morning.
Lie there like a lump of clay
awaiting reshaping into a vessel
to hold my own tears. The dog
shuts up. The phone call
took so little time it didn’t seem
to matter. My nose dried up.
My skin dried up. I have tears
that won’t pour out.
I don’t know what I’m expected
to do now except sleep,
and I’m not sleepy any more.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

Dark chocolate: view
of the stained bark-covered side
of the coffee table. High relief,
everything dark, dark. Stained
damn near black except for
spots here and there that shine

like I do: balded spots almost blonded
through, but still dark. Still light enough
someone might think otherwise
of the table that sits smack in the middle
of the sky-blue rug — but still
dark as the night. Still
cold as the ground.

I have no ambition for these songs
beyond being as they are:
portrait of a long, gone, strong man
possessed of a few small bright pieces
that give hope, tiny hope,
for a few minutes and then,
like dark chocolate, go away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T