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

It’s hard to know
what’s right, what’s wrong;
I am just alone
and nothing seems to fit
as it should. It is as if
this world is a frame
for another picture. It is
as if there are lovely jewels
in a ring that are set…just…
off; they play against each other
incorrectly, emerald against
pearl, square ruby wedged
against opal with no fire.
Try as you might
this picture doesn’t frame
and you dig your fingers
into your cheeks, close
your eyes; scream very quietly
as if you could allow this
to take over your sensibility; but
outrage doesn’t work
and you settle for dullness,
for a dampening of all your
drenched senses.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tomorrow, the release of the new book.
Tomorrow, as well, a change in the policies of this page. (Ooooh…scary.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

onward,
T

You haven’t smiled
in weeks. You haven’t
been able to rest.
To imagine this
you would have to be
aligned with a terrifying,
growing sense
of aggravation;
to imagine this,
you’d have to be terminally
frightened of daylight.
You’d have to wake up
in the morning
and wonder why it had stopped
being night. You’d have to
dread the daylight and
when you got up, you would
have to wonder why you aren’t
still part of the bed, still
lying there in the diminishing
darkness until
you went through the motions
and got up.
To imagine otherwise
is not to scream out loud,
full chested, until your lungs
give up and you collapse,
at last, into the arms of
the Saint of Hollers.
She will say smile,
silly terrified man; smile,
and rest.

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

A sad morning song
the trumpet hasn’t begun
to play. I know them both
all too well.

My thumbs
twitch with knowledge
but I don’t know yet what
I should play — should I even use my thumbs?

Stare at them useless
as oiled meat hanging
on the rack at the Polish deli
I go to once on a blue moon morning,

generally after
playing my heart onto the floor.
I sing them in the car,
not weeping a little.

Driving home
having bought nothing
I waste a little time, then
a little more.

A Grateful Dead song
comes on the radio as I turn off
the stereo and step free of the car:
“till the morning comes…”

Now I wanna dance sprightly
up the stairs
and forget the song
I first heard at the market.

I wanted to hear
a trumpet.
I wanted to cry
for the sound.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Onward,
T