the most common side effect
is nickels in your blood

other side effects may include
eagles overhead

metallic responses to stimuli
wooden responses to the scratch of dug-in heels

the most common side effect
is a darkness flavored dance step

other side effects may include
nausea and irrational amusement

thudding banging on love locked doors
creaking banging on basement couches

the most common side effect
is an inability to love as you once did

other common side effects may include
uncommon scents blowing through the neighborhood

thoughts of kissing a leaf or knife
thoughts of how to resuscitate a Sphinx

I wish I could get back to San Diego
where the breeze is full of distant danger
as it comes in off the waves and warships
sit forever ready, but for the moment I was there
all was at peace and all I had to do was sit and watch
the light and the water and the bright promises
of what was ahead, and put what was behind
out of my mind.

I wish I could get back to Seattle
where I slept on a hotel roof and raised hell
with all my friends on streets in the shadow
of the Space Needle. It pointed up, I lay there
looking up, it barely rained that week, but I had my cot
under an overhang so what if it did? They say
it’s all gone, all I learned to love in a week, all the dirt
that made it lovely, all the night that made it brighter
in the safe corners of the hotel roof. 

I wish I could get back to a carnival I loved
as it was when I was eighteen — 
to any of them, really; terrifying workers
in the booths, terrifying rides in the midway,
a field full of games built to seduce and rob us
of our last dollars under the bright lights —

then I wish I could get back to how it was
in the dark field behind the carnival,
beyond the last slat fence; the field where I lay
on my back, her long hair framing my face from above,
the moon visible behind her and above us both,
as our hearts at last began to slow down. 

Five-thirty AM, a couple of days after Christmas. 
The street is grinding awake again as always,
as it did every day before the holiday pause.

Across from us the neighbor we call
“Jeep Lady” (to distinguish her
from “Escalady”) is trying to figure out

how best to pull her Grand Cherokee 
out of its tight spot into the road.
Her wheels grumble in the gravel

left by the sanders and salters
as she twists them back and forth
until she can pull out and drive away.

The black Escalade won’t be moving 
until later on when “Escalady” comes out
to take her baby to daycare before work.

Next door the cabbie on the first floor
gets his motor running long before he leaves
for the long day ahead. We don’t have

a nickname for him yet. They just moved in
in early December and there’s been no storm
thick enough for the bonding ritual

of pissing and moaning to each other
while shoveling out
our driveways. 

The junkie who lives upstairs from us
(who we unaffectionately call “Shithead”)
has already gone and come back from the clinic

as he does every day before dawn. His rotten 
Hyundai makes a sound when it turns over
like the slide whistle from a circus act. 

Here I am, at work before any of them,
my old but solid Subaru cold in the driveway,
my love’s Beetle parked until its repair appointment

next Monday. And nothing is moving here
but my fingers. What do the neighbors
call me? A bum? A writer? How would they know?

That fat guy with the fallow container garden along the fence
and the frozen solid compost tumbler?
I doubt that they think much of me at all,

as I don’t think much of me — one of those
who sits and observes and then talks about
sitting and observing and doing it again tomorrow.

New Year’s Day soon. 2023 looming ahead.
Gotta feeling ’23 is gonna be the same year
as ’22. It’s almost like the Who said years ago

in that obscure song from “Tommy”
except in the song they expected a good year,
and I’m not expecting anything anymore.

Not a nickname from a stranger.
Not a change in the view from this couch.
Not a chance in hell of avoiding a storm.

I once knew a man
who existed so completely 
within his own invisibility
he lived a lifetime
not as much in the shadows
as in the light which gave them birth.

He could go anywhere
and be anything. Often enough
that meant he’d be standing
in the halls of power, so to speak,
and being invisible he was able
to whisper into power-filled ears 
and make the ministers think
they had brilliant ideas
all on their own. 

Just as often he’d stroll about
among common folk
and listen to them, now and then
easing their minds with advice
and offering insight into their problems
which he’d gleaned from listening
to their loved ones complaining
about their foibles and faults. 

Now and then, 
he would push an evil one
into suicide. Called that
their due but never 
cheapened it with
pretending it came with 
glory for himself.

Acting as such a God
gave him a certain gravitas
he always tempered with wit
and a touch of sorrow.
“With great stealth 
comes great possibility,”
he’d intone.  And then
he’d vanish again
and I’d be left
to make sense of and act
on what I’d heard,
which was only a chore
if I forgot how easy it was
for him to be completely present
without being unduly seen,
and if I forgot
all he had ever taught me
about how to do the same. 

I got things to do
and I can’t get up and do them
It’s too late to begin in this time zone
Too early to begin in others 
and the places where it’s the right time
are too far away to get to in time 

I have many things to say
and the time I have left to say them
is running short
Some of them I need to find the words for
and some of them I need to invent words for 
but most of them are likely to remain unsaid
and people will wonder
for at least ten minutes after the end
what was so important that I died
from choking on those stiff syllables

I missed looking into eyes
as much as I should have
I missed listening to undertones in other voices
and distinguishing them from my own head-voice
I should have picked fewer pockets for love
and laid my own meager holdings out to more people
We would all have been the richer for it

But now I got things to do
It’s snowing nearby and getting closer
Warmer is better than freezing
I’m freezing though the house
is warm and there’s little threat
that anything about that will change
The shiver within is from knowing
what won’t get done and said
before I slowly come to a full stop
staring at a finish line no one else can see