Category Archives: poetry
Something
It was
going to be something. Something you
expected to happen,
even if you didn’t know what
it would look like, sound like.
How it would be.
Something
that had rippled the lake lying still
just a moment before,
a monster or a nymph
under the surface,
just out of reach
of verification.
Something,
it was going to be
something.
There are nights now when you can’t sleep
and all you can do was stare at the pillow
and imagine it cooling as you left the room
to tend to —
something, something
wailing and wet
but exactly what you had desired
even though you had tried to picture it
and failed.
Something in you is breaking open —
it would have been something,
something worth having, a voice
asking for you and you alone. A face
not seen before. A potential
grown from your own possibilities.
Something that won’t happen, now.
A plan deferred for the moment or the ages.
Something, you keep telling yourself, something mine —
something tangible, real,
something as alive as you suspect
you won’t be again,
not for a while.
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News Of The World
A French plane crashes in the Atlantic.
Auto plants all over America prepare to close.
The last survivor of the Titanic dies.
A doctor is shot to death in his church,
presumably by another religious man.
It’s keeping us up at night.
Peaceful sleep is an endangered species.
Soon churches everywhere will be holding
round the clock services for bleary congregants
demanding that prayer and supplication start working again
at their usual job of keeping hope afloat —
because it’s sinking, isn’t it? What we knew
and counted on is disappearing under wave after wave
of unfamiliar tragedy. ( Or, rather, tragedy
once unfamiliar to us all here, in this place.
It’s not like people haven’t died before, or been killed,
it’s not like industries haven’t failed before.)
It hasn’t been the same since the Towers fell,
we keep telling each other.
We tell God that all the time too.
We beg Him to put them back up.
We keep reading the news to see if He’s been listening.
It’s hard to say.
Some of us,
supine and insomniac
in the lightless tent of our worst imagining,
are afraid that He is listening,
but to someone else this time.
Some of us believe He’s dead, or vacationing,
maybe in the south of France.
(Maybe He was on that plane?)
Once in a while,
someone points out how strange it is
that we should care so much about
the specifics of who is dying and what is failing.
People, they say, are dying and killing and destitute
and scared and angry and they always have been.
It’s always felt like hell to be alive for some.
It’s just been a while since it was our turn to feel it here.
We usually do something to the ones who say that —
nod at them before turning our backs on them,
or else we kill them. The difference, we tell them,
is that it isn’t supposed to be us. And when we say “us,”
we include everyone we like to think of as “us,”
the most mutable category in our world. “Us”
changes. It gets bigger, smaller, elongates,
closes in on itself late at night in our cold houses,
blows out its own walls when it’s sunny and warm and
all is going OK.
The news keeps reminding us of what “us” means.
It’s a plane full of people, maybe some Americans aboard.
It’s our very own auto industry coming back strong, maybe.
It’s the last link to the last iconic tragedy disappearing
and leaving us with mythology we’ll have to make ourselves.
It’s the doctor dying for his cause, the killer killing for his.
It’s saying that it’s all gonna be alright, and warm, and sunny,
once we get over this rough patch,
glimmers of hope out there,
it’s saying
shhhh…
go back to sleep…
but we can’t.
The sound of of that new tower
being built
is keeping us up.
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Night Running
Stumbling along in the twilight
still wet from the fear that
this path will end
in the same place the old one
ended, he understands
that it’s out of his hands now,
as this downhill trail
has become steep enough
to keep him from turning back.
Behind him were boulders the size
of mansions which he’d had to slide down
and cliffs just high enough to jump from
without dying, though the landing
had sent a shock up his legs to his chest.
He’d never get back up again.
Night-running now.
Here it flattens out a bit
but the roots of big pines
ridge the packed dirt underfoot.
Owl calls in the trees. The birds themselves
unseen. Twigs cracking twenty paces
off the path, in the moonless dark.
Ahead is the thunder of the river
cutting the bottom of the valley.
It’ll lead him out if it doesn’t kill him.
He strips off everything but the shoes
and runs faster. The plunge ahead
will freeze him but it’s all that’s left to do.
There will be no need for modesty if he comes out alive
and if he dies, he won’t care about how it looks
when they find his body. He’ll end up
as a story of folly
for the ones who might come after.
Only he will have known
how it feels
to hit the water running. To forget
failure and success. To fall
into the impersonal night and become
one small part of the Whole.
To chill down as he smashes
along in the current, the pain fading.
To see the stars as he goes blind.
To be alive at last.
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Memorial Day
Before the parade,
a veteran
lit a cigarette,
saying:
Some of us
that went to war,
we enjoyed it.
Some of us missed it after it was done.
Consider what it took for us
to resettle ourselves
among you folks. Keeping that
kind of fun quiet isn’t easy.
We wanted to tell someone
about it, just to get past it.
But no one wanted to hear,
so we tried to forget.
Ever since the Towers, though,
no one can get enough of us.
We’re smoking together now.
No one’s sitting near us
because to smoke, these days,
is to translate undesirable wisdom
from a language
only marginally less taboo
than the warrior tongue.
Ok, I’m listening.
What was it like?
I ask him.
A blue fog rolls
from the old mouth.
Then:
Just like this,
and held up the cigarette.
I knew it was bad for me
but I did it anyway.
I started to do it
because
others did it.
I kept at it
because I couldn’t stop.
He looked
at
my shining eyes
and at
the butt
burning bright
in my own mouth.
You’d have done fine there,
he spat,
before
the band
drowned him out
while making my heart
float out of my chest
like a big
bad cloud
of Martian wind,
or delighted razors,
or something else
no one
could fully understand.
At The Last
At the last moment,
all he could see was his own face–
a little shady, gray bearded,
nearly devoid of affect
but for a slight sloppy smile betraying
a sense of relief.
No need, then,
to explain himself again.
The face in the mirror
was all he had to answer to now,
and it already knew what would be said.
No reason he ever had to listen to anyone else
tell him things he didn’t believe.
No evidence worth considering would be presented.
At any rate, the swelling of that reflected face — once dear to him
but now repugnant, marked with his mistakes and
so unutterably lonely from all his repelling
of myriad approaches — was taking up so much
of what he could see that it was obvious
what needed to be done to quiet the nagging voice
that kept saying, “There’s more out there…”
when he knew it would just be more of the same.
More of the same. So he stopped looking.
“Enough,” he said. Enough. And made it so.
Persona I
Part of me steps aside
and another part of me
steps forward
to make a name for itself.
It says:
I am the ocean,
I cover everything that is deep
and swallow everything
that dares me…no, wait:
I’m the harbor, the destination,
the notch in the edge of the ocean.
No, sorry:
I’m the slave ship arriving,
carrying stolen anguish. No,
that’s wrong: I’m the trader
waiting to sell the pain of others.
Again, sorry: I’m the new owner
of what shouldn’t be owned at all.
Ugh, wrong, wrong again: I’m
the cargo, the village of origin,
the buyer’s tag, the auction block,
the chain, the whip,
the eyes leaning on the crutch
of the North Star…
A part of me tosses in bed for hours
listening to this until
another part of me steps up
to elbow that first liar aside
and say:
I’m the feather on the plains,
the oil full of ghost trees,
blood on sand I’ve never seen,
the dirty songster in an alley
glimpsed once from a cab window
and then reimagined
to find room for my moral
at the end of his song.
No, says another part of me,
then tosses pennies at the others
to drive them back long enough
for a chance to say:
I am sponge enough
to have sopped up
everything all my lovers
ever told me.
I’m the mask
that gives me the freedom
to let them call themselves “cunt”
as I misquote them.
I am above reproach
when I put myself
in their mouths.
Closer,
says the sleeping part of me,
admitting that he’s indeed been listening
to all of this.
That part of me
becomes awake enough then
to say:
I’m stupid
and exhausted
from division.
I’m groggy
at this hour
but trying to figure out
who deputized me
to speak on behalf
of what has been screaming unheard
for eons. Why wasn’t it ever enough
that they could speak for themselves?
It’s like everyone and everything
is asleep and I’m an alarm clock
banging out “I, I, I, I, I, I, I…”
on behalf of full-on daylight
that ought to be enough but isn’t,
chattering
until I’m shut off
with a backhand slap
to the panic button.
Yes, that’s it,
that’s the answer,
I tell myself.
The part of me that has been
so fitfully drowsing
for so long
rolls back over,
while another part of me
smooths my hair, tucks me back in,
lullabies me into distant dreams.
When the breathing slows
and becomes regular,
that part of me looks up and says,
I am
the dummy on an insistent knee
with a hand up my back
and a substitute voice.
Look as close as you want,
you’ll never see those other lips move.
That part of me
will accept your applause
while the rest of me is put back in my box
to sleep.
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Roofers
when the roofers
start climbing all over your home
on a saturday morning,
rousing you from what may be
the last sleep you’ll ever have,
you will fight to hang on
to the good dream you were having.
you will roll over
and cast a protective arm upon
the one beside you, believing
(in spite of all that evidence to the contrary)
that it’s worthwhile to make the roof sound again
for you and yours alone,
worth
taking the time
to hang on.
the noise of destruction,
of shingles slapping the driveway,
will be promise enough
that you’ll make it
through the winter;
that you’ll live
to enjoy
warmer rooms
and to appreciate
the trouble you’ve taken
to fix what is broken.
Poem for Chris Branch
I met him
on a bus full of poets
in Baltimore
Funny guy, long
fellow always trying
to stretch out and sleep
in those cramped seats
with his cowboy hat pulled down
as low as it would go
Knew him for
five whole days
before the night
we argued about medications
outside a Boston club
Leaning against the wall
he told me he’d never agree
to take them
if it meant losing his poetry
I told him I’d rather
lose the poetry and keep
him alive
My bracelet matched his tattoo
I gave it to him
He hugged me and tugged
a woven silver ring
from his finger
and set it on mine
It was too big
I wore it
on my thumb
Several years later
while scouring the Web
I came across the news
that he’d hanged himself
a few months before
I dug out the ring
that now fit my fatter hand
I wear it still
on the nights
when I’m on stage
and feeling a rope
might fit me better
I wear your ring, Chris
I did not know you well enough
to bear your legacy
just well enough to remember it
Weary of its weight tonight
I remember
you had a son
One of these days I’ll find him
Give back the ring
Tell him the little I knew of his father
How you wore your hat
How you wore your ring
How you snored for miles and miles
Gentle on stage
Played a wooden flute
Hugged a stranger when it seemed right
I did not know you well
but I still have your ring
When I take it off for the last time
and hand it to your son
I will tell him of my promise to myself
that I will never learn your final secret
of how it feels
to let the man go
and leave the poetry behind
Spiritus Mundi
bronze-green face of confucius
on the bedroom wall,
pictures of hendrix and lester young,
a gold rabbit frame and a gargoyle figurine,
a bali dragon and an ireland whistle.
this is the desk where i’m supposed to work.
it’s so crowded nothing happens here —
so i go to the porch
because on the porch there’s an ashtray
dumped once every couple of days
and a pair of chairs set up knee to knee
where the laptop can sit, where the notebook can sit
while the work goes on and on.
these days
it’s all about the nosiness
and the neighbors and the trees
and whiffs of dope from downstairs
and the ghost in the kitchen
that never comes out here
but is audible from every other
place in the apartment.
who was the ghost before
it was a ghost? the ashtray
is full of them, the face on the wall
might be one, the neighbors
don’t stay around long enough
to prove whether or not
they’re ghosts themselves.
this ghost rattles the pans
and runs across the linoleum to tattle
on something that happened a long time ago,
and the doors swing open and shut without any of us
touching them. the neighbors swing open and shut
without anyone touching them, either,
or so it seems from the porch
where the ghost never comes, where the things
that ought to get done never get done, where the smoking
is good and the sitting is easy. i’d let the ghost open and shut
my notebook if that was possible. let the ghost worry about
the clutter in the room. let the ghost make sense
of the miscues and odd placements. let the ghost
take over my life, put it in better hands,
the type of hands
that can pass though walls.
Praise God I’m Satisfied
if there is something more intimidating
than a guitar played well,
i’d like to see it. long lines of twang
catch and hang me up like nobody’s
business. it’s like religion — i sit before
someone praying and i understand
the words, even admire them,
but i still wish those were my answers
coming down in response.
take the song on the radio right now:
some guy i don’t know is making some old Martin
sit up and beg, and i’m puzzling my way around
how it would feel to play that way, even though
at the same time i’m imagining his hands broken
and the club owner turning frantically my way
gesturing to get my ass on stage.
all this is by way of saying
that when you touch my arm, it’s like
Blind Willie Johnson is saying “Praise God
I’m satisfied” while blowing the slide up and down
the twelve rough strings of his old Stella,
and i’m not feeling holy enough to receive that grace,
even as i am wishing
that you would tremble this way
when i put my hand upon yours
in turn.
Song For Shootings
1.
One could say, such things
just happen; or
one could say
that the way
the boy crumpled
leaking onto the floor of
the stairwell was irrelevant,
or that
the cop’s statement
that he thought he saw
a gun was relevant.
If one could find the CD
the boy was said
to be holding when he was shot,
one could see if the subject matter
of said CD
included guns,
or shooting,
and thus was relevant.
If one could be objective about
shit like this,
one could make up
a simple song
to commemorate the event.
It would have
a short verse and
the chorus would be over
in a heartbeat:
He was alive and
Then he was gone;
Such a smart kid who
Did nothing wrong.
That wasn’t enough.
So he fell down the stairs
With a bullet inside him
While everyone stared.
A gun or a wallet,
A smile or a knife.
What could he have used
To hold on to life?
If one could just get the facts elegantly straight,
if one could just learn
to sing
correctly,
this would be a different world.
2.
Do you recall
Maggie Apple lying in the street
with her eggshell nails
and her skinny legs with
the calves that looked
as if they’d been attached to her bones
as an afterthought;
or old Ronald Wrong
whose house smelled of wine but
looked like a glove full of bees, so when they
banged down the door and a host of trouble flew out
of its ramshackle fingers they
shot him as if he were
a queen, a danger queen;
or any one of those salty throated
boys and girls
who put their breath
in just the wrong place at the wrong
time so that magic stopped working,
and they died ahead of the rest of the pack?
The same lights flashing, the same crowd
gathered, tonight feels the same:
the names must be changed to protect
the names alone, because
the innocent are never saved.
3.
I want these days
to be over. I want sleep
to come back,
the shocked faces to stop staring,
and all the color to drain up from the roof
into the sky again, where it belongs.
4.
If he had known what was going to happen,
he would never have gone up to the roof
at all. It was just a quick way to the next building.
It was never meant to be a destination.
5.
The single worst part of all of this
is that anyone could have told you
this was going to happen.
