wooden matches in
cellophane-sealed packs
three boxes to a package

found when I pried open
a cabinet drawer on the back porch
unopened for years

wrenched it open
with brute force and
a big screwdriver

that was all
that was inside
how old could these be

as the fireplace was sealed 
decades ago and
the wood stove was removed

when my father
could no longer cut wood
and my mother didn’t want

to pay someone
to do it when the kids were too
far away to do it for free

this is why
the house has seemed so
cold for so long

they couldn’t get
to the matches
and there was nothing

and nowhere here
to set a safe fire
and make the home warmer

strike anywhere
printed on the boxes
but why test it when there’s

no reason and no hearth
when all you can do
after one test match is lit

is blow it out

“I always keep some whiskey handy in case I see a snake…which I also keep handy.”
― W. C. Fields

It’s a philosophy I can get behind —
carry the danger
and the defense from danger

with you in a deep pocket or 
sling bag, easy to access,
within reach at all times —

poison and counter poison, 
which is not to say poison
and antidote as that’s not quite

how it works.
Which comes first, the venom
or the liquor? No reason

to make a hard rule of it. Thirsty?
Peek into your bag
just to see the snake. 

Take a few belts
of whiskey and soon enough
all you taste is snake.

Does your snake have
a name? Is it Daddy?
Is it Mommy? 

Does your whiskey have
a name? Is it Money?
Is it Jesus?

…congratulations,
you’ve done it,
expanding, blowing out
your walls, creating space,
going higher. Cresting
above your previous
high water mark. 
A new pinnacle,
a renewed sense of
what’s possible. Listen
to what might be a fanfare
over there, a crowd
barely seeing you from
where they stand apart
on a small hill to your left,
eye level to you; the band’s
not playing for you, you ask
how that’s possible
when you’ve just risen
so far? How far down
were you that you are just now
leveling up to the yawns
and shrugs tier? Turn back
to your right and see 
that where you’ve been
looks exactly like
where you are now.
From here you see it was dark,
it’s still dark, you seem to be
on the edge of a valley
and so once again
you slip and slide 
down, down… 

There is little
to love here:

wreck of a house,
rotten driveway,
neglected garden laden
with young vegetables
that will not ripen in time
to beat this fall’s killing frost;

everyone who lives here
pushed to residency,
thread hangers holding
skin of the teeth tenancy;
the worst house on the street,
the neighbors always say —
though the kids from the first floor
seem happy enough,
greeting everyone out walking
from the driveway where they play,
bouncing a dirty ball between them
in spite of the uneven pavement

that too often sends it
off into the wilderness
by the failed tomatoes

and sends them giggling
after it. 

Let’s get on down to the Liquor Mart
before we start our good old
American Halloween. Paint our faces
red from inside with Fireball Whiskey. 
Prepare to dance the drunken stagger
of our barely-demon forebears
and fake evil till we make it. 
Lust for bodies naked underneath
their polyester shrouds. Taste
the solemn origins underneath
the blood on the stained receipts.
We can walk all hammered and commercial
through the rain falling thick as a screen.
It’s just the way it goes 
on American Halloween.

Then let’s head off to Walmart
to buy our way into
that good old American Halloween. Buy
matching costumes. Become
sexy pirates — no, let’s both be
Sexy Death and we can
split the workload. You take
the soft ones. I’ll take
the hard ones who don’t want to go,
the ones you have to tie up first.
We can split those who fall somewhere in between.
It’s just the kind of thing you do 
on American Halloween. 

At last let’s head off to the cemetery 
to close out this American Halloween. 
Stand among the stones
in smeared makeup giggling
at names we pretend we know. 
Recognizing some and avoiding those
because we are afraid of what they know.
Smashing our heads on the hard ground,
rousing the uncompromised ghosts 
and banshees who refuse to let us
off our blasphemous hooks. Saying not again
when the wind shakes the trees 
with a mocking rattle. We thought
we were pirates or two halves
of Sexy Death. What we are instead
are consumers in scenes tailored to
the falsehoods of American Halloween. 

First of all
in the best stories
there must be a dog,
a noble hound.

There must also be a cat —
scruffy and streetwise with
mystery surrounding it.
And in many there will be

a bird, often an owl,
that is perhaps
not as smart
as it looks.

You will
pick your familiar
from among them —
almost no one takes the owl,

more’s the pity,
unless they make an assumption 
that its apparently slow intelligence
hides something more profound; let it be

dog or cat for you if you wish.
There is not a wrong choice
if truth be told, as it always is
in the best stories.

Now that you’ve taken leave
of your prosaic self
for a while,
you can begin to quest

as a dog might quest – eager
to find the end of the trail
no matter how many distractions
tug you aside during your journey –

or as a cat might quest —
tiptoe prowler, sudden stopper,
sit down to contemplate
the whatever of the moment –

or, if by chance
you slipped into
the owl’s cloak
before the journey,

you will soar at night
above the others
and rest at dawn,
maybe calling to them

as they quest to suggest directions
or warn of hazards, using riddles
or ruses to test them, or perhaps
to clown them?

It’s in the telling
that the best stories
do their best work
but it’s hard to deny

the part each listener plays;
whatever form they choose
to take in the telling
has its own point of view

and in the best stories
the hero shifts among the listeners
until all are one or none,
until the tale is done.