study these maps
and atlases

find aerial views of
our current herds
of obscurantists

lose the shock and awe
and welcome to what passes
for us:

a faked enthusiasm
for intelligence
that skips over intersecting complexities
and human behavioral understanding
in favor of  belief in
Illuminati

when did we get so scared

when did we surrender
the spirit of Chautauqua

to rutting and beating our way
across information
toward specious theories
simply to excuse ourselves
from actual thought
from being pressed to action

what was in our hands once
we handed away to high and mighty
heirs apparent and
we lose and lose and are lost

maps and atlases
only help so much
the GPS device dumbs us

no more spoonfeeding
look up hard words
and then we have to talk to one another again
learn to read a landscape
strip myth from our eyes
start walking

with a glint and a purpose
and pitchforks
always pitchforks
if we can find them

if we can even recognize them

look it up

Quick-draw heart,
an ever-overwrought gun
set to rock and roll
when triggered.

Small thermonuclear
mouth, hardwired to blow
when coupled with
strategic command ears.

Hands, not as deadly
but as willing to bash and bang
as the rest.  Eyes, tossers
of darts and daggers.

I’m an armory waiting
to be raided.  Waiting
to be looted and then have
my weapons turned against me.

With one last favorite potion 
downed in a gulp, he’s out.
There will be
nothing more to say
about him today.

When he awakes he will 
be, or will claim to be, “a new man.”
Fresh page, clean start,
new leaf turned.  There’s
a theory for your consideration —

that anyone of that age
as dark and crusty as he is
could be new in any way
after one hard brown drink
and one hard night’s sleep. 

But his eyes are wide open now, he says,
he’s apologizing for all he’s worth,
for last night, for yesterday,
for every day before this morning.
His face is bright, his voice is sad.

You still bear his bruises, but they are fading.
He has been asleep for a very long time
and is awake, contrite, seems ready to be better.
It’s not like you can’t go along with this, hoping
against history. You can, certainly.

“After all is said and done, much more
is said than done.” Your mother
used to say that, often.  
Not sure where she got it
except through experience.

He says his eyes 
are wide open now.  He says
baby, please, I’m sorry, I’ll never, 
I’m a changed man. It’s all been said.
It’s all been done.  It’s done. Done.

Whenever I say
“finally,”
or
“glad that’s over,”

I know myself
to be a liar, somehow;
nothing has ever been
over, “finally” 
has never been true.

I live in a circle
with childhood
biting my tail always,
with yesterday seeking
to tear at my belly.

I ought to learn to nod
at apparent closure
more subtly
and never
commit a word to it.
I ought to know
by now
the only true way
it’s going to end
is by it all ending at once.

Compulsively
telling people about
a death in the family
about which I feel little,
it dawns upon me
that we somehow
miss village life,

even those of us
who were born and grew up
in the Megalopolis;
behind our need to reach
for the keyboard or touchscreen
and proclaim everything

is the stark truth
that in our bones
we miss
and strive to replace
the Town Crier
we have never had.

A sudden sense of 
the breadth of night.

A scale
vast enough
to take its true measure
would encompass
all the possible
that is possible.

I have seen this 
before. I swear
my eyes held it
forever when I was 
two, when I was three,
before I was schooled away
from belief, vagaries,
and wonder.

Now
I don’t know
what to call it.
Then
it did not need to be called,

it simply was there,
and I was small before it,
and had no voice, and was
consumed, and content.

As kids our noses bled on winter’s dry indoor heat
and then ran with snot in the overpowering cold.
As teens, we couldn’t find a good place for our hands.
They flapped in public; in private we stuck them
into our pants until we were caught and shamed
for that too.  As adults we hold our tongues and minds
tightly, feeling free to loose them only when we lose them.
There’s a prohibition against us being ourselves
in every place we are.  No wonder we’re sneaky
with our bodies, knowing that too many disappear
completely into the folds of this smothering world.

sharp toothed cold
biting into your lungs
when you step outside
on the way to the funeral
of your last remaining uncle

who you hadn’t seen in years
who once gave you a trumpet
you did not ever play
not even once

whatever happened to it
is it at the bottom of some closet
some river
some trash heap
did you sell it
in a moment of need or frustration
over how much space it took
in a corner of your room
after having trucked it around with you
for a long time swearing
one day you’d learn to play

you know he always liked you
you suspect you were a favorite
you used to shovel his walk
after winter storms
the hair freezing in your nose
sometimes so cold it hurt to breathe
he always had hot chocolate after
played glenn miller while you drank
and fidgeted

where is the trumpet now
that your uncle used to play 
where is the shovel now
you used to use for him
where did your uncle used to play
was he any good
what bands was he in
or did he just play solos in his basement
when no one was there to hear
who was your uncle
who’s going to be your uncle now
or ever again
in this sharp tooth everyday cold
that never seems to lift