Dark Matter

Morning comes;
an indigo body,
a crimson message,
then it fades
to ordinary shades.

I wish I could see myself
in those shades all the time;
not be human, not be too
ordinary. Ordinary
means the dream is ended

and I want
to continue all day until
I turn improbable colors.
It would mean so much
to everyone who saw me

to know that I faded
as they had. To fade
as we all do past the point
of caring; to fade to a drab garden
and wash out to washed out colors.

But I did adore the crimson
and I did adore most of all the indigo
that rendered me damn near invisible
to those not willing to see past the bulk
of my shade. To peer into me

and see, really see
the center weight and heft I carried.
I did not know it until it was gone
and I was left strapped to a memory,
struggling to break free.

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

In a prosperous moment
between us
I slip a twenty into
your pocket

I feign ignorance
as to its origin
when I am asked
from where it came

and really I don’t know
It comes from a mint
It comes from my pocket
It comes from a complex

and is supported by one as well
I don’t know if it has value
It did this morning when I picked it
off the counter where it appeared

but now who knows
what vagaries of population
and control have a hand in it
and how soon it will disappear

how soon will it be replaced
or will its value vanish
until it becomes a bit of lining
stuffing in a loose threaded pocket

The money rolls in and also out
There is never enough to be selected
for meaning and God-hood and in the taverns of hell it will mean nothing

Less than nothing in fact
I slip it into your pocket
Cackling a bit in awareness
that in the long run we will die and

it will mean nothing

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

onward,
T

Listening…
the second floor has
a departure. A car
comes to life and leaves.
I look out the side window;
it’s the far car, the Mazda.
The little Honda remains.

Listening…
small cars and SUVs
go up and down the road
at irregular intervals.
My own driveway stays quiet.
No one comes to visit me
and I’m so happy with that.

Listen:
my heart’s full of blood and stars.
If I turn everything off you could hear
the pulse, forward and pushy but subtle
as if a wind had gone susurrant in my chest
and stirred outward once in a while.
It makes me want to die soon
and see where it goes. If it goes,
if it comes with me to the next place.

Listening…
meanwhile, the light grows outside
as it comes toward another inexorable day.
No more cars, no more thumping
in my chest. I’m alone again
with the radio and my crushing thoughts
and the hope for some return of the living:

the chatter of my chest, my heart
asking for more, my head filled with sand
as numerous as stars wish they could be.
Nothing more. I close my ruined eyes
on this splendid wreck of a world.
The Mazda is gone.
I wish I had gone with it.

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

Singing the blues
the folksinger allows a break
in the line to emphasize
its meaning for the listener.

Listening to the blues
the star singer recalls
her first time — all of them
from sex to music to knowing God.

Hearing the blues
the listener dawdles until
the song is done and decides
to leave it on just one more time.

Being blues
the music settles
into a groove, a notch,
finds something ancient within.

One more song
comes on and the blues
does not fail to envelope you.
You turn it off, close your eyes.

You would pray
for the blues
to come again
if you knew how.

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

First light. What
frequency is it, what waveform
is it; none of us here know.

It is a mystery, a puzzlement.
It leaves us breathless and wondering
and occasionally afraid. Then
we shrug it off and go back to
where we were moments
before first light.

Glorious moments — the darkness
infecting all with comfort before
the plunge into daylight.

A car comes by
and stabs us awake with headlights
and old guitars and drums, a piercing voice.
At first light it’s not enough to comfort us.

First light, not enough yet to calm us down.
Will now our bodies down, down; make now
a pallet on your floor for us. Make us
instruments of peace, peace in a time before
war begins.

We don’t know where that voice comes from.
Maybe it’s just dread pleading
for a tranquil moment.

All I know is that I need to get inside
where it’s temporarily warm; to sit down
and close my eyes and pretend I’ve seen nothing
again. Yet. Still. Pretend it’s nothing.
It was nothing before I went outside at first light.

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

A book of another’s poems
closed before me on the desktop.
Folk singers live on the radio, testing
three songs about love, dreams, and Alaska.
I am dressed for the day; got a lone
task to do later on; other than that
it yawns before me like a mouth,
and it’s not even six AM. This is life
now — a boring, thrilling sameness
to it all, and I am alone facing it. Partner,
sister, mother, friends — gone to their
own exercises. It is me and the cat
who doesn’t really care that much about me
as long as the food holds out.

Back now to the poems full of non sequiturs
that still somehow make some rational sense. The folk singers
did not say a word I could understand. The cat
gets disgusted again and goes out of the room
to lick herself and sleep. Or perhaps she is content
and this is how she shows it? I only know
I’m tired already and afraid of the day springing some surprise.
Maybe there will be a snake the size of Alaska.
Maybe my death will come quietly and I won’t notice.
Maybe the marvelous will come and startle me back to health.
This is my life, after all. I don’t have the first clue
about where it’s going. I just know it goes,
chugging along on a track I recognize now and then
and I am hoping for either a grand reveal
or a nearly silent moment where I say, “oh. Oh.”

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

My upstairs neighbor
turns on the car for six
in the morning. I’ve been up
for two hours so far. She’s
going to work, and I’m going
to sit still, very still.

My retirement came early
thanks to this illness. She goes
to work just as I would have gone
to work without the sickness.
I sit very still, so still;
I am wondering if I will rise again.

New England, southern New England,
is waiting for its first snowfall. I’m waiting
for the snow, the rain; been up for two hours
so far, sitting quite still. The neighbor
goes to work with her exhaust billowing
behind her. I’m not remotely OK.

I’m not even remotely OK, not
extremely all right. The day is still
the night until the sunrise. It’s coming.
Of course. Meanwhile I wil sit very,
very still, and pray the neighbor does well
at her job as I will be here. Not OK.

Wait for sunrise to come. I wait.
I can only sit and wait for it to crack
the sky, the light of the ground,
this shell I am growing around myself.
What the neighbor sees I can only guess.
I’m sitting very still. It’s what fright looks like.

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

Lilt — the melody
of a sweet song — now,
the violin comes in
to make it melancholy.
A woman’s voice joins
in harmony. Song
ends suspended, yet
perfected:

the opposite of my life.

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

I recall a person — no matter
their gender, don’t sweat their body type —
with messy hair and porcelain voice
that broke in the upper registers
at precisely the same places it always did,
each time they spoke or unnervingly sang.
I hated listening to them but found it
required that I did so whenever they spoke
of what they knew, what they’d seen.
Damnation to them for the force they tried
and tested on me. I just wanted to sleep
very still in my own bed and blankets
and pretend I had nothing to do just because
they told me to do it. Eventually I’d get up
cursing their fragile way of speaking
that nonetheless smashed rock hard upon me
and forced me to rise. Rise I did, a half second
behind their beat as if knowing the smoke was coming
but trying to stay clear. I recall knowing them
but forgetting them, falling back into
the stagnant flow of daily life — where is the milk
for the coffee, where is the coffee cup?
Half a second, maybe longer,
maybe a full second. Maybe the messy hair
distracted me. Maybe I couldn’t get free
of the voice. Porcelain, the voice,
cracked porcelain. I recall it
as being part of a person. I don’t recall
anything beside sadness
that I cannot know them.

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

Second floor —
the girl
with the broken leg
and her roommate
who is never there.

Third floor, the woman
witb the brain illness
who hasn’t changed
her inspection sticker
since 2023.

On the first floor?
Me, with two strokes, a partner,
and a cat, but let’s not
dwell on that. Let’s instead
dwell on how dark

it’s getting out there
in the world, the nation,
the tents of the unhoused,
the darkening nights closing in
on Thanksgiving.

Anything other than
my ruined life. Anything
other than the destroyed Earth.
My heart skips its uniform beats
often — I try not to dwell here

in the brimful parade
of souls who don’t yet know
they are discarded and have been found
wanting. I’m waiting for the right moment
to tumble into the fire —

except, it may not come. It may instead
drag itself past this holiday
into Christmas, then past that
into a new year. Second floor may heal
and third floor may heal; I might heal myself

or figure out a way ahead.
None of us know. Meanwhile the stars
continue turning slowly, slowly above.
They don’t care above us. They just turn:
oblivious to pain, to holidays, to the setting

and the rising of the sun;
glorious to see the uncaring nature
of things. Of things invisible
to us all. The cat yawns and stretches
in my spare room where she sleeps.

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

Forgotten men,
forgotten women, everyone
in between, sitting lonely
in homes and not-quite homes,
in rooms paid for weekly, shut in
and alone, sitting
unaccompanied in dark and naked rooms
and waiting to die or for something else
to happen suddenly and take them
off or out of the silence of the earth;
forgotten men and women and everyone
in between sit and stare lonely in their
shabby clothes and think of those gone first,
those lucky few and then many who went earlier
as a trickle and then a flood of relief and sorrow
and wonder that their own lot is to stay —
old homes becoming new or being knocked down
as they are, as they are; old bodies becoming
fragile as destroyed leaves on a sidewalk
with their bones showing through and them saying
they were younger once, they were stronger once,
they were handsome and strode strongly once
across their stages; and now
they sit weakly alone in rooms and wait for
the knock on the door, the hand on their shoulder,
the sheet being lifted and resting gently
over their faces before they are taken away.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

outside the front door,
hibiscus — last summer’s buds
cling to faint brown limbs
as if they have more to give,
as if they are not browned themselves.

still they promise life
as if they have more to live —
lying little pods.
they have come from nowhere else;
sit like birds, eggless.

dead buds hang, inert
on hibernating limbs — some
will fall off by spring.
some will hold on till they can’t.
spring will come when all have gone.

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