His fuel for today is
a short memory
of her hairbrush in motion
years ago.

Her hair silked in, stroke
upon stroke.
Her with back turned.
Her.
She’s how he goes around
and comes around today.
Not quite
inside, not quite out,
but moving.

A big dog woofing.
Chainsaws running all day.
Me?  I’m not smoking tonight,
too much to do in the morning.

God, sometimes a day
runs you over.  Sometimes
you’re killed almost by it.
That’s big dog’s fault;

gets loud and mean and then
chases the day right out of its yard
and into the street and over us.
Those chainsaws must rile him up —

right here in the city, all that northwoods noise.
Didn’t think there were that many trees here.
The big dog pissed on all of them
and now he can’t tell where his territory is

so he’s woofing and we’re all a little on edge.
Days like this you wanna curl up with a bowl
and fake dead for the daylight hours.  Can’t, 
though; too much to do, and the dog’ll be hunting

bright and early,
and that dog will hunt and bite,
and the day will crush us before he gets to us
if we don’t get a move on.

It had stopped being cool when I was a kid
and became cool again as soon as I was not.

The only thing I know for sure
is that as practiced now it is a kind of low flight.

I know that you can move by grinding
or by sliding.  That’s the same as when you’re an adult.

I think some trick is called “gleaming the cube.”
Or perhaps there isn’t.  Some things are meant to be

obscure or meaningless. and that’s the same
as when you’re an adult.

But to fly like that, to ride handrails and swoop
through bowls and off ramps and dry pools?

To be in love with the thick clack of deck
and truck on hard surfaces?

To fall, again and again, and still smile and see it all
as joy and fun and purpose despite the blood and fracture?

Somehow, the appeal of that last bit escapes me
as I sit here looking out the window

at them rocking out.  “Damn kids,” I say.
Damn them and their flying where all I can do is plod.

Ripple the age, dammit:
ripple it.  

Throw yourself in, not because you’ll be 
at the center of all those circles
for that instant, be a target, be a
bullseye; but because 
as others join you, the circles
will disappear, interlace,
turn to full disturbance,

and then what you’ll be
is all wet, immersed,
what you’ll be
is in it for the long swim,
part of the stream, the flow,
the flood. 

Sparse-framed, reticent, particular,
the old hippies come in to the market 
on odd weeks
for what they cannot grow
or raise.  

A friend sneers at them,
calls them un-American.

I hear they’ve got a sod roof on the house.
Life underground:
a few acres
and a 1978 Ford pickup.

Here on the grid we’ve got
fear, troubles,
and the grind.  We all 
talk too much.

Hey, hippie,
go hug a tree.  Go
bathe in the snow.
Get a job.  

Sparse,
quiet, 
don’t associate with us
unless they have to —

un-American
bastards, get in the trough with us
and bring some eggs or something else 
to eat.

Metallica’s “Blackened”
is playing: loud, loud…Then
the tree breaks out back,
louder even than that.

Half of a two hundred year old oak
comes down
across the whole yard
with snow-weighted limbs,
tears out cables,
and only gently grazes the house.

Barefoot in the wet
checking for damage,
and
other than the tree itself,
there’s none.  The power
has even stayed on.

Back into “Blackened”
once back inside.

“Callous frigid chill?”
Only outside.  Life doesn’t always
imitate art.  In here it’s warm,
blistering almost.  I lower the heat

and return to the music
of promised disaster.

“Blackened”
playing.  Then
the tree breaks out back,
louder than that. 

Half a two hundred year old oak
comes down,
fills the whole yard with snow-weighted limb,
tears out cables,
only gently grazes the house.

Barefoot in the wet
checking for damage,
and…
other than the tree itself,
there’s none.

Back to “Blackened”
because there’s nothing else to do.
“Callous frigid chill?”  Perhaps,
but only outside.  In here it’s warm,
blistering almost.  I lower the heat

and return to the music of promised disaster.

Isn’t it something when art, for once,
doesn’t imitate life? 

Santa Muerte
forgive us
for
on stone
reed paper 
vellum
parchment
in script 
by moveable type
in scrolls 
in heavy bound books
on fire-borne data streams
through keyboards and screens
we have cheated on you
our most faithful lover
Santa Muerte

You promised us everything
from within robes of white and red
Gave us what we wanted
The close access to the edge between life and death
and then we went about
seeking immortality
as if death was to be feared
and not honored

We pray you are patient
and as you know us all too well
and are well enamored of what we’ve given you

our peace of mind and free will
our ability to walk away
our strong tongues
our reverent approach to your realm

We pray you will wait for us
for as long as we stray 
(all the while stroking
the skull-pillowed head
of our dreaming child)

We will come home sooner or later
leaving behind
the words that we once hoped
would thrill us past you

Come home to our private altars
where you sit with the piddling heaps
of what we had promised you
and with a smile of suffering
and clean absolution
take us in again

Santa Muerte
whether we choose to acknowledge it or not
we are yours
Santa Muerte

He looked at me
and told me what I couldn’t be,
though I was that and had been that, 
always.  Said, “If you don’t look it,
you’re not.”  And for him, 
that was that.  And for me,
as well.  He was wrong, and so
I put him behind me, and that
was that.

Another told me that because
I didn’t sound right, I wasn’t that.
“It’s that simple, that’s how you win,”
and that was that.  And for him, 
that was that and for me too, so when
I put him behind me because what I called win
was for me a win, and so he was wrong,
that was that.

And then another, and then another,
and then another said I was not 
the one, and for them that was that;
and for me too, almost, because I’d given them
that and now I was no longer that.
“It’s not you, it’s me,” they said, and for a while
I disbelieved but then I changed my mind
and put them behind me, and told myself
that was that.

Now, all those naysayers behind me
have been talking, and they’ve gotten to know
each other, and they call “Fraud!” and “Phony!”
in unison whenever I am quiet for a minute.  
And that’s that.  That’s what it is.  A chorus
of shit-talkers I half-agree with.  I say, “That…”
and then cannot complete, cannot compete
with their dismissal; though I dismissed them myself
once I know that saying “that was that” meant nothing
at all.  I’m pale and flat and dull and wrong, and that,
I gather, I believe, and I know, is that.