Monthly Archives: July 2026

Happily Ever After

the scum who run this world
do it for
biology they inherited
from some strange animal

they breathe a different kind of air
than we do
they suckled at different tits
or grew up casually fat or lean but

they grew up and now we are
stuck with them
or so we like to imagine in fairy tales
myths retired once and now recycled

we are not alone but god we are broke and
we are lonely
we stare out old windows at their new work
at their new planet now they assume

but in ten hundred years or ten thousand
more than likely
what we know of them
and their evil work will drown us if we let it

and what we will tell our kids and their kids about
their simple cruelty
is that there were bad people walking
on this old rock and while they did

we let them walk or even fly through the sky
until one day
we recall how bravely they were vanquished
by heroes in shining armor

that will likely be a lie as they are just venal men
they always were
they will die as we do before them like sheep
poisoned or slaughtered or just of old age

coughing up bile and blood
as they die
losing memory of why it was done
and bleating softly a whine of how they’d earned it

maybe they did earn it while they were here
as they were
industrious and scheming over every last centavo
because we did not see that what we needed to do

was not wait ten hundred years
or ten thousand
we should have hurried up and stepped to them
with swords or guns and brought them down

we should rise up strike them in their palaces
in their beds
in their places of cheap gaudy nature and sneers
we should take them as they bleat for their futures

the scum who run this world
should take heed
of what they are creating from this one
and of the people who simmer below

waiting to seethe up and then live somewhat
happily ever after
looking for magic beans in dead men’s pockets
disillusioned but nonetheless somehow better off

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




Playing The Guitar After A Stroke

My third finger stretches past its pain
as I pick out a simple melody.
I used to be better at this;
I used to be better than this.

After a few moments, I put it away;
move my finger till it snaps again
just as it used to, just as it had stopped
for a while as I played. It used to be better than this.

I used to be better than this –just closed my eyes
whenever the greasy notes of the chords
sang out and it sounded as if someone else
were playing. Never happens now —

I used to know better than this,
I used to be better than this.

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


Seems To Have Been Enough

There is not a lot to speak of:
first, my skin is a problem —
of sorts; there’s more of it,
it seems, than there used to be;
my body grows weary
of carrying it in sagging bags
around, but in the long span
of time I’ve had with it,
it seems to have been just enough.

There is not a lot to speak of,
once again: my mind is a problem —
it seems not to behave as I wish,
pushes things to the back that ought
to be upfront and makes room for them
by discarding thoughts and concepts
and actual emotions wholesale; still,
what is left carries me through a day
and a week and the years without much
in the realm of lasting complaint;
it seems to have been just enough.

So there’s not a lot to speak of
here; my existence seems to be a problem
for others who keep expecting
me to improve, to get back, to fall back
into some line they’ve conjured
from a rigid book —
if that book has ever been published;
I doubt its proclaimed author even knows of
its rumored existence and would laugh and laugh
at the story — but what do I know?
I’m just here for the course of study, as it were;
just here for the final exam, such as it is;
just here at last for the last warmth
of the last light of the last day,
and that’s going to have to be enough.

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


A Confused Man Thinks For Two Seconds

1.
A slight but vital twist
on recalling what I’ve seen;
stopping in the middle
of a thought —

did I say that evil or kind thing
to a woman, a girl, a boy,
a man? Did I, could I,
differentiate? Or

maybe I didn’t say it
at all, merely thought it
or most devastating —
I’m thinking of it now

for the first time, the
only time?

2.
I could sit with this,
I could; instead I sigh
out loud. I could tear out
what little hair

I have left — I’ve tried
to grow it to a stage
where I could tear it out,
after all, rage and grief

are important to me
as emotions I can support
having — but damn,
hair takes so long to be graspable —

instead, I sit, or stand, or shuffle off into the gap.
My brain stays. This is my way now.

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


He’s Our President

You might have guessed it with a shaken look
and a white knuckled shudder;
this man ( such as he is ) is our President.

This fat man
who claims he’s trim
is our President.

This aged man who claims
the viability of a vigorous sun
is our President.

This feeble crab
of a man
is our President.

This crusty
grouch of terror
is our President.

This golf buddy, toady-lover,
this cheater and grub?
That’s the President,

that frog right there.
That too stupid to know otherwise
animal-thing, except

no animal kingdom claims him
and no thing of the rest of the world
claims him. We keep shaking our heads

but then eat him up
like a sad gas station meal —
hey, he’s the President,

don’t you know?
There are people
who seem to like him

but then again
there are people who
fuck their cousins.

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


Eleni’s

Dear Jacob — asking us
what poem he should read
and then saying (when he got
to the stage), “This is by request…”
every time, every time.

Dear man who wrote the book,
“I cry a gentleman’s issue” (whose name
I don’t remember, though I’m trying like mad) —
folded arms holding your cane,
your voice like maybe a god’s voice
saying, “I am the wolf and I am
HUNGRY, ahhh…”

Dear Marcel in French (who was
Belgian, if I’m not mistaken) and indeed
all the dear other nameless women,
dear forgotten nameless men;
you are all a part of me and my poems.
I sit here and imagine you with a divine voice
behind my closed eyes.

What would I not give up
to return to Eleni’s at night,
some rainy Sunday night, across from
the Brown Square Social Club,
careful not to park on their side of
the lot?

Well,
I wouldn’t quit my day job.
I wouldn’t quit my money or my
suffering for it or the machinations
of petty workforces to get me fired,
to get me gone.

But
I would give up
my tenderest moments there
at Eleni’s and elsewhere — surrender
those movements toward ecstasy
as well as my downward spirals —
I’d give up their words I took to mean
so much so long ago, surrender them
to smoke and fog and other miasma,
other distractions in memory’s cave.

I’d close my eyes to them, to Marcel
and Jacob and the guy I can’t name;
I’d imagine them gone, or not imagine them
at all.

After all
it’s not likely that I am
in their heads either.

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


An Open Course

Set an open course from where you are
and if your mind is right you’ll make it
though you closed your eyes
and let rogue wind and currents decide.
Set an open course from this spot you’re in.
You will get there in time.

You will choose to have people see you off
or you will meet them later, surprisingly so,
in a small dark bar that will remind you
of some other place you met them once,
or perhaps you won’t recall that at all —
whatever works, you tell yourself;
you are delighted to see them at any rate.

Set an open course from where you are then.
You leave them alone after a bit — your shyness
comes out and chases you down — or maybe
it’s just an urge to let things be? Maybe
you are done with all that. No more
socializing, no more small talk. It’s time
for a road in twilight, maybe in night rain,
getting on a bus with no one aboard to speak with
except you, of course; there’s nothing to be said.

You close your eyes now.
Nothing more needs to be said.
You go to Chicago, to Albuquerque, to Atlanta;
back, back to homes and hotels of your youth
to see what, if anything, has changed.
That driver will nod when you sigh and get back on
after a long look around.

Take me home, driver, you whisper.
He sets an open course
that takes you somewhere comfortable;
it is not home.

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




“Lawless And Godless”

She said it only that one time but
forcefully,
pushing it home into us; the words
were sheets of metal slammed together
and pounded unto melding —
said it allegedly within earshot, not to
our faces, our bewildered faces;
said it in response to our yawning,
our whining about doing it —
we never went to church so why was it
suddenly so important this time? She erupted
with it. She said we were growing up
lawless and Godless, and
then she stormed out to the car and
was gone.

We stood there for hours — maybe;
it seemed like a long time but
was likely only ten minutes or so and then
she came home and we went about the day
with her angry, sullen as a dark church;
the two of us, just kids;
bewildered, uninvited,
ragged and confused infidels outside;

no one addressing the words
or the issue or anything at all except
eating the meat on our plates and
drinking the milk from our glasses.

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


Happy

Up early, playing
guitar, trying to get my fourth finger
to unfreeze and stop the
clicking for even
a few minutes. I’m happy,
for what that’s worth.

I get up to go and check on
the cat who’s sleeping on the kitchen
counter, since she’s eaten already.
I am unsteady on my feet, my
left foot in particular, but then it
catches hold and here I go. I’m happy;
it seems to be worth little.

I’m done and I limp and fall back
into my easy chair here in
the living room, a controlled fall,
whatever that means. Sigh
softly, decide to sit very still
for a bit or longer; much to do
today or nothing at all. I’m happy,
if you can call this that.

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


Disappearing Into The Woods

To sit without entertainment
or reason beforehand
and then to turn away
and go elsewhere,

to go to a spring in a surprising ledge and drink
ice-cold water and not care about
origins or what it might be bringing
into you.

There are reasons to go
into nearby woods as if there was
nothing to worry about: after all,
there isn’t.

Anyone could pass there
and not be found until too late
for anyone to care more than
a little bit;

other than wringing their hands
over your disappearance, other than
searching for you and then
abandoning that search

and letting you be, leaving you
to be a sweet pang of sadness;
other than that, why not
let you be? It won’t matter,

after all, to you; it won’t matter
after a small time to those
who knew you. In a crisp
New England summer,

in a not unexpected twist,
you’ll be gone. Your loved ones
will turn away after a bit
and leave you there, as you wished.

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