what he did when he young
was a secret to everyone.
he refused the trees’ offer
of consolation and stayed close
to the asphalt instead.
foot followed foot from here to
the next breakfast and he still
didn’t talk much about anything
even to strangers. his childhood was
forgotten. he made up stories
to spit out like an insect
that had flown into his mouth
and never been internalized.
he told people he’d been
born so salty his mother exploded
like an ant and his father ran
from the delivery room never to be seen
again. he recalled astonishing details
of fights and concerts so stunning
the listeners could hear the bands.
he fooled everyone, no one
bothered to check on anything
and he became successful. he was notorious
for blunt honesty. he learned to wear
suits on weekdays and plaid shorts on weekends.
he got bald and laid and stepped up.
he was a standup guy, a regular mensch,
a buddy and a pal. he filled in gaps.
stayed away from cliffs, kept a few close confidences
better than anyone the tellers knew. when he died
he left a headstone and a secret about a body
in the weeds somewhere faraway, casualty
of war or love he never said, never said a word
to anyone, no need to talk about it
since he’d become what the other guy
could have been and dead men tell no tales.

“friends don’t let friends vote republican”

“liberalism is a mental disease”

“vote this way and save the country
you sexist or racist pig
if you’re not one you’re the other
and no matter what you are
if you’re not saved
you’ll be forever cast into the pit –”

this is the gist of
our declarations of disgust
with each other

i, i, i
own
the answers and
i, i, i
am the medium and the massage
which loosens the muscles of thought
i, i, i
am flabby as a baby
and i, i, i could care less if
i, i, i
grow up if someone else keeps
taking my shit for me, me, me
in fact,
giving a shit
is the toughest thing
i, i, i
do all day
because it’s harder to care
than it is to just be

look outside, it’s a lovely day
with my car in the yard telling you
i thought this was a free country
and that i don’t equate corporate interest
with patriotism
meanwhile the tv’s on
and i pretend to care about the nba finals
so i can have a superficial conversation with someone
in case i actually talk to someone
who isn’t in my social circle
who has a different car
who wears a different baseball cap
who i hate on principle because
he isn’t a poet or an artist or a baker
of erotic cakes and candies
who gets uptight once he’s safely around the corner
from the gay couple
with whom he’s shared hedge clippers
for eight years

he and his
vote with their feet or asses
to make sure the right people
get properly screwed for improper screwing
because certainly
that’s all this is about
the whole country’s more concerned
with improper screwing of all kinds
literal and figurative
we improperly screw with so many things
punishing select examples of improper screwing is
penance for what we think we should really be beaten for

so watching sexual predators get screwed is fun
watching teen panties win cheerleading competitions is fun
watching obviously guilty people die virtually is fun
watching injustice become a pop song is fun
unless it becomes a hit
and then it’s just selling out
which feels great while it’s happening
which increases hybrid sales to celebrities
which becomes a rising tide that lifts all boats just above foundering
which pushes the train back to the platform empty
which leaves the trees gray as a confederate

and watching confederates get sauced on a comedy special tonight is fun
because that makes it easier to forget that we insulted a black customer yesterday
if we even recall that the customer was there at all
watching every dumbass on TV speak with a southern accent is fun
writing dumbass dialogue in ersatz southern accents is fun
because we get to pretend that particular war is over
and all the bad things that were there before it are over
and all the bad things that happened afterward
are well positioned for our edutainment
somewhere well south of here

and if those people
don’t stop distributing free
abortions to the children
someone’s gonna have to wax them
so we can pry those babies
from their cold dead fingers

there’s so much more to say
hell, you can’t say enough good or bad
about us
but i, i, i
bet
i, i, i
can fit it all on the ass end
of the biggest car i can buy
with my short money

it all comes down to this

even though
i, i, i
don’t even know what i’m talking about
over half the time
i know THEY hate me

i don’t know any of THEM
i just know their bumpers are watching me
and i’m scared of THEM because I know
i, i, i
would wreck them for my gospel if
i, i, i
could get away with it
and i, i, i
can see
THEY
feel the same

Catalyst
comes in
and things happen

Not her fault
Blame her parents
for giving her that name

Those were the days
eh? Hippies thought
a name could change the world

so kids were named
God and Peace and Rainbow
Catalyst

(Cat for short) comes in
on little catalyst feet
and what happens next?

A breach of contract
or an infidelity
Someone gets lost in her fog

and a chipped mind slides to one side
and falls into a dirty heap of shards
after she’s been there

There’s a bubbling wherever she goes
as stability becomes ferment
the substance of what she touches is changed

two become one
one becomes three
Catalyst is the same afterwards

always the same
Agile little Cat
with her hippie name

keeps her motility intact
as she turns her free spirit
to the next reaction

When the time comes
for me to ripple off this stage
(tremors
in my hands, eyes fluttering,
my body a mound of organs and tissues
taking their leave
according to their own music),
I fear that all I will recall
is the way the world has sounded
inside me.

I was never a visual man. My eyes
did their job but the sight of things
mattered less to me than their voices.
The stones whistled softly at dawn.
The ocean beat the shore, the trees
howled just below the human ear’s reach
every time the wind called them out
for daring to stand against it.

When I heard these things, they did not sound
the way they were intended to be heard,
I am sure: everything had a song, all the songs
were hymns, God was the subject of every song
and all praise of God was in all songs. Nothing
sang of devil or evil, the lace threads of each tune
were woven into patterns that made the word “beautiful”
a sad attempt at explanation, barely able to hold
a clip of each measure long enough for me
to understand what I was hearing. I only knew

that somewhere under the tide of sound
there was a rush of steel wings. I heard them
in my sleep and when I rose it continued
until every voice, every word from another human,
contained the undertone of the Hymns of the World
and it was a struggle to hear the meaning of the people
who spoke.

When you and I sat at table, or in planes and automobiles,
and I seemed distracted to you, it was because I was
hearing that sweep and thrum that had rolled over any chance I had
of listening to you. Forgive me, I was unhappy
that it became so hard to hear you, and it seemed to me
that nothing had prepared me for the pain of knowing
that human understanding was lost to me as long as I
could only hear the other voices of the world.

You would think it would be easy to hear
those same cathedral echoes in your voices, but
it was all failed song to me: I was so enslaved
to what I could hear in the floors below me
that what walked upon them was mute to me.

So when I roll off my bed at the end of my life,
when I shake myself into the last moments, be kind
to me. Lift my head to let me hear something
as lovely as all I’ve heard before, but something
I never understood: come close and whisper in my ear,
so close that nothing else can pass between us
and deafen me to you:

come close enough for me to hear
the hiss of feathers in your voice.
That way, when I am at last still,
it will be all I have to take with me.

rock river flows
up and over
the rough bed

follow the bumps in the surface
and it’s like seeing
“shave and a haircut” mapped

like seeing bo diddley’s sound

down farther along in its progress
the river has slowed
to
mud and crawl
these days

but up here
it’s still

“shave and a haircut”
driving
the stones ahead of it
carving the earth

you will dance to it

dance to it
shout to it

who do you love?
“bo diddley”
how much you love him?
“two bits”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

just a quick homage…