up before monday at dawn,
then back down again;
I go staggering up
my front stairs because
I want a drink on
the other side of that
door.

sitting down
heavily — noticing
veins in my arms,
highways, tracing
blue routes. closing
my eyes and wonder
at my fragility, my
trembling before
a universal end.

still, I’ve got work
to do here — this mind
isn’t going to lift itself.
I pour another cup of
something black-brown,
another gulp;
I drink before I bend to it.

something inside me
refuses to die
until I’ve reached an
arbitrary point and
I’m not there yet,
although I’m close enough
to feel it sigh like a banshee
and then go back into hiding.

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

Almost
a blizzard; light following
dark, dark following light;
shadows after bright after
shadows. Interplay
of blinding then dimming
then nuanced then black,
and back to nuanced and then
to gray, to blinding.

A painter
growls at his canvas and flings
his brush away — cannot
get it right; it’s all too much.

Goes
to drinking, goes to
whoring in dark rooms and
closes his eyes, his false eyes,
against a woman’s touch.

Almost
a storm; light following dark
into nuance into blinding and back;
he loses himself in it. It is nearly
sacred. He cannot tell anyone.

If
it gets worse, if he fails at capturing
it, he might switch to music or poetry,
even. Why not — every art
has its problems, its great
obscurities. Maybe he will take up
politics or become a man
of consequence, once he gets
an interplay just right; once he understands
a meaning of it.

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

From your darker corners
comes a leading question —
what if you were wrong about her?

You walk to your mirror
and look for her face in there
but it stays hidden. It stays away.

You know she keeps her counsel elsewhere;
it must have risen from within her —
you can’t believe it came from you.

But it came out of you — no doubt.
You made it come out. You drew it from her
through you — it was a ghost being exorcised.

What if you were wrong?
You drew that one fact out and then left it there
like a twisting clown on a frayed rope.

Silent now as you should have been then
you bend your head under shame, below
heavy guilt. You can’t take it back

no matter what. She knows something now
about the two of you and you’ll likely never get it back.
It will hang between you for a long, long time.

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

You wouldn’t know it
to look at her
but on Sunday nights,
whenever the local TV station
put aside its day’s programming
and broadcast something light
and frothy and nearly, neatly
lightly blasphemous, she
would turn it off, turn
the radio off, turn the lights
off too, and she’d get down
on her knees and ask for
something — forgiveness
possibly, peace definitely;
the TV would have to wait
and her weary bones would
certainly needed that rest.

You wouldn’t know about
the next event, either;
how she would get up
from her knee stance
and go from wherever
she’d found herself
to the fridge; how
she’d pour herself a beer
and try to forget it all
for one minute or maybe ten
while drinking it down
slowly, steadily.

What she was trying to forget,
to let go into the dark,
she doesn’t recall — and that
is a blessing she created,
a hallelujah in the dark —
muted, almost nonexistent now,
but so vital to her being.
She would tell you about it,
if only she remembered.

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

It is just a small thing,
a remark made
a long time ago,
but friends remembered:
“No time like the present.”
They laughed, not unkindly;
in the laugh you see a door
and the door opens and
then, you recall it yourself:
the moment when you realized
that while at that time
the moment seemed unique,
it was not —
it was a time like all the others —
another day in the books,
another day, another dollar;
all the chestnuts of speech
and memory lying fallow
under your feet. Once again,
you close your eyes and
time passes to
the next moment which feels
like all the others.

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

What could be added to this?
If it isn’t already a perfect moment,
then nothing is — and that would be
perfect, wouldn’t it? And there you are.
If in speaking of perfection

you are trying to top yourself,
trying not to fall to a base level,
a sub-base level, it’s not working;
someone can always go one up on you —
say, “hold my beer” or “oh yeah…get this,”

and there you are, trivial and all alone.
So: what could you add and what could vanish?
It’s a perfect day for this type of exercise.
It’s a perfect day all around, except for
that nagging feeling that something’s not right.

Except — it never is? No matter the sunrise
and no matter the rain after dark, no matter
the single moment of perfection, the day is
spoiled and it’s probably your fault — and,
inevitably, the moment belongs to you.

What do you do next?

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