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

Used to smoke cigarettes
Now I choose not to

Still like a drink of whisky
Don’t touch anything else

I choose not to now
Too many ways to go numb

I can only decide a few
that feel right and true

It’s a narrow path to heaven
Or whatever comes next

It’s not attempting to feel less lost
More a case of attempting to connect

More about paring down this ruin
I’m a sandcastle after all

The waves are close enough to damage
the firm-appearing walls

that will crumble right away upon
one touch of the bitter ocean

Its waves laugh and laugh
at the ease of my ease with the paranoia

So I sit on the sand and linger a bit
A smoke in my hand still unlit

I will break the sandcastle down one day
Futile gesture with the tide coming in

Glory coming with it
on the sunset’s back

A horse for the eternal need
to trample something

I will get on its back and light the cigarette
Crouch over the good horse’s neck and whisper “now”

because it does not much matter if it is now
Now is forever

We leap
to the task at hand

“““““““““““““““““““““
onward,
T

Did not know what to write
so I went outside
and watched a pair of vultures
circling each other in the blue,
unsettled sky.

Did not know what to write
and I watched those two large birds
spinning lazily around each other
or a point between them
that I couldn’t see, though maybe
they could.

Did not know what to write
although they seemed certain
of a point between them,
invisible to any below (unless
of course it was not and something
saw it too and was cowering from it).

I have no idea what to write
except there are two birds
circling an unseen potential third
or perhaps a fearful possible meal
and I have no part in it and feel
full of abstraction and hypotheticals.

I’m lost — no map,
the printer left it blank —
I am supposed to fill in
places unseen until now,
wow the crowd waiting for
revelation.

I have no idea what to write;
I point up.

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

On my first cup of coffee.
I am changing.

I am girded with a copperhead.
I am scratching every itch I have.

I am fine. Fine
except for the song on the radio I don’t know.

It sounds familiar. A song from
two minutes ago.

A song
from younger days

although it is new. It is
not even five years old.

No song is old enough
to be remembered.

The copperhead
becomes a song. The copperhead

sings to me. The radio
sings to me. It all sings

to me. Sings to me from
two seconds back

and here I am
coming up to it, hurrying up

to catch up to where it has been.
It has been a thousand places

before reaching me. It is a song
from a snake’s gut.

Thin,
reedy, ready to change me.

Having my second cup of coffee now.
I am changing. Charging, perhaps.

The snake is nowhere to be seen. In place
inside me. I am calmer now

and feeling electricity within.
Coiled up. Every two minutes

I catch up with time.
It is not a good time.

Later I will go to the store. It won’t be
a good time. It will fill

with snake bites. A song I don’t know
sung by someone who feels

long ago old though she is not
and I will close my eyes,

let that poison flow through me
from the mouth of the copperhead.

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

In Richmond a man
wins a stock car race
by booting two competitors
out of contention —
one to the wall, the other
almost so — thousands watch it
and five million others
have an opinion, and are enraged
or delighted; in Paris
a woman clumsily break dances
and defends it, a crowd watches it
and is bemused
and five million others
have an opinion and are enraged
or delighted; and I

don’t care in the slightest,
I don’t care at all about opinions
or bemusement or rage when it comes
to these things.

What I care about
is the slighter things, the ease with which
the earth rotates and the wars
upon its surface; the kiss
of the dragonfly to the surface of the pond
and how a child responds to that
with the bullets whizzing about
and the sudden need to duck from
one or more; the end
of the world, in fact, combined
with the birth of the earth and indeed
how the cosmos surged into us —

how we still have wars
and still quibble about stock cars
and still fret about breakdancing
when the planet is a jewel
and all it is, in fact,
is a tale about God.

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