I shift my position in bed
a little. One word or perhaps
a compound word drifts in:
“gear-friendly.” What the hell
that means is obscured
by a pressing need to get up
and piss;

I think of all the places
I need to be today, think of
all the places where I can’t go;
think of having to think about
shifting gears thoughtfully
to get there. I think, don’t
feel anymore. My feelings
are not mine to play with
anymore.

“Gear-friendly”
comes swimming back up
like a dying fish. Damned
if I understand it. I feel nothing
about it.

I pour myself
another cup of coffee. I think again
about everyone I know
who has died recently — shit, there
I go, thinking again. I will feel
someday, but not today; there
are too many thoughts
crowding in, all pleading,
“pick me! Pick me!”

as if it mattered in some way,
some fashion unknown to me;
as if it mattered at all
what a mind-cripple like me
thinks about first thing
in the morning instead of
just getting up and getting
to it; shifting those friendly gears
to back up
and then shifting up
to go forward;
forever shifting up and up;
shifting up
without thought.

Just go.

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

I listened to a recording
this morning

of ambient sound,
almost an hour’s worth.

Just sat with it; just let it
wash me with love and affirmation.

Afterward I turned back
to the world

and it felt much the same —
full of dread, fear, occasional

words of someone else
that seemed to take hold

of a moment; let it
wash over me with pain.

I’m untouched, I think,
by anything these days.

I’m a broken man,
I’m a whole one,

content to be shifted
from one pole to the other.

Now it’s time, I think,
to go outside

and see
what world I live in now:

the wash of peace,
the wash of war.

I can choose, I guess,
either one.

It excites me,
the freedom of choice.

It frightens me,
the slavery of choice.

It is no different
to me —

balance, equilibrium,
evenness of choosing — so

I open
the door.

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

Got a book coming out
There’s a film due for release
An album hitting the stores

and after all that
you will still have no idea
who I am

The universe stalled on me
long ago and left me here
with a head full of floating ideas

and no place to set them down
I am a near-sighted clown to the masses
good enough for entertainment

not good enough for action
You don’t know me as I struggle
with a poem and a movie and a song

all the time saying
not that not that not that
Like speaking in rabbit tongue

I’m frightened all the time
Mouthing platitudes till I can run
back to a hiding place

in plain sight
of the gates of the town folk
but under their superficial gaze

Far below I sit and make my work
I shake my head each time I finish one
A poem with no gut

A film without a brain
A song on an album full of air
You don’t know me at all

but you think you’ve got enough
Or maybe you do and I’m the fool
Or maybe none of us know a thing

but I got an album coming out
A movie waiting on the imminent shelf
A book ready for release

I am not in that straining and tenseness
Will likely die before any of it is clear
Will likely become a laugh before that

Not that Not that Not that
The chant goes out over fields
I close my eyes and smile and nod

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

I said I wouldn’t post a poem
today, and I lied;

said I would not say a bad thing about
the President, and
I lied;

did not complain about
a dearth of songbirds outside,
and I told the truth — at least I think so,
as the windows are all closed
but I don’t see them in their
accustomed places or hear
the songs and calls;

I said so much
about today, but it has not
come to pass at all.

I sit here in the moment
between a poem and the now
of realizing its wasted chance,
and I should weep for it
and the time I’ve wasted

but I’m listening for birds
and hating the President
and all the space
I could have used
for a poem
is lost to me.

Perhaps you could use it?

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

Cup of coffee.
Loose clothing.
Silent radio for once.
Old computer in my lap.
What am I doing?
Oh, not much:

stealing the sun’s fire.
Cradling a lost mother’s child.
Dancing in my head
for pennies thrown
at my feet by an old man
years after he did the same.

Making it up as I go along:
this poetry, this bald repetition
of words. This verse
unlike the last one, I hope.
This is what’s left to me
beyond coffee and praise;
beyond me and within me at once,
or part of some entity beyond me.

Now I can’t bear the itchiness
of my clothes or anything else
within my reach, so
I will drink my coffee
before it cools and get up,
slowly, putting down the computer
and then picking it up to return it
to its place after that
as I can’t rise with it
for fear of … what?
Dying with it in my hands?
How would that be any different from failing?
I don’t ask the right questions, I guess.
After the struggle when I return to my seat
I feel electric,
satisfied till the next morning comes
in the sweet time between summer and fall.

Here is where I have to stay until
tomorrow, until the next time
I have a need to progress —
although I don’t know what progress
I have to make toward anything.

I wil turn up the radio and sing
tunelessly along with
whoever the singer is
when I get back, make some headway
toward another time;
think about stealing more fire
from the sun, I guess.
Cradle another child
in my burnt arms.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

Lord, yes —

we have been remiss
in our duties;

have believed in
cheats and follies;

Lord, yes —

we clung to our falsehoods,
did ritual, rote things;

we followed in the footsteps
of our fathers until we reached
the end of their road.

When all was said,
when all was done,
we turned around in our tracks
and looked back and said
what we thought, and
what we said was nothing,
and what we said meant nothing.

Then we saw the earth as a jewel,
as an entire gem;
and we stopped believing and began,
again, to move into it
as if it had a door
and we had become unbound
once again, and we were free.

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

In the morning
many feathers, clotted
together with blood,
sitting on a sidewalk;

mixture of brown-black
and dirty white,
dry enough;
clasping each other
for now until rain
separates them
and they blow off and away.

Earth moves on;
a church across
Main Street, gray station
in eastward light;
local drunk lonely on
steep granite stairs that lead
to locked doors.

A single feather
broken free —
drifts up, touches
a single door.

It is Wednesday,
a day like any other;
doors that do not open,
doors that promise salvation
to those who enter,
doors shut tight against
blood, feathers,
drunks, me.

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

Each time I awake
with a swarm of questions
no one answers, or
can answer, or they
can’t be bothered by them;

I can’t even hold on to one
for more than a second.
Each one forms and vanishes
into the grey fog of me.
It renders them unknowable:

answer and question; certainty
and probe; raised eyebrow
and pounded fist on a table.
I let them go, get up from bed
and tend to the needs of living.

First to the bathroom; setting up
on the scale to worry or rejoice;
next, the bedroom to take my blood pressure
and my blood sugar and write it all down.
After that I wash the dishes,

if there are any. I make
a cup of coffee and then
I sit and read little bits that
vanish again into grey. Then
I sit some more —

all around are bits and pieces
of thought, divorced from anything
solid; I let them go as I let myself go
into a void, a vacuum. Each day
I go through the same routine;

endlessly tedious,
all vibrance drained off to a pool
of iridescence somewhere else, far
beyond me. I would ask different questions
if I knew or remembered them.

I would give up every bit of them
to go back and start over within this body.
I sit wondering about a way to get back
and nothing comes to me. Nothing
is what I’m made for. So I sit

alone and sit some more and
sit some more. Closed eyes,
terror at bay for now, for this moment;
I sit a while longer and think. And
occasionally, I write a poem.

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

I don’t know. That’s
the phrase I utter
most often;

I don’t know what to do
with stray feeling, with
random thinking. Sometimes
it perplexes me; sometimes
it maddens me; most of the time
I let it flow over me until
it’s gone.

I don’t know if I should be
bothered by any of it: the
odd musing, the terrible
sweetness of wondering
what I would do if it ever
reached into me and seized hold
and compelled me to swift action
which I would regret for ages
and ages hence.

I don’t know where it comes from.
I don’t know where it goes
when it has run through me —
does it pour out of my feet
into the earth, does it rise from me,
does it wrap itself around me
like a stole? All I know

is that I sit here bewildered
for a long time after, thinking
about self-immolation, thinking
about how I am cold in its wake
and I don’t know how to get warm
again, if I ever was truly
comfortable in this skin.

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

Did you know there is a seam
opposed to our lives?

It lumps up,
a joint compressed.

It doesn’t matter,
does it?

Did you lie about it,
or accept it as the truth?

Whatever you do
is all you can do,

you decide. It it autumn,
after all. The season

of fires, of smoke,
of falling leaves and hope.

You never once felt
the pain of it,

never felt the seam give
an inch.

It sits ruptured on the junction
between what was yours

and what is not assigned
to anyone, and

the weather lends itself
to surprise.

Do you feel that?
Do you know the truth of it?

Whatever. Whatever.
Pay it no mind

until it forces itself
forward into space.

Until you find yourself
in it, and lose.

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