Dark Matter

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

Grab the ladle from
the server and chug it down
despite the burning of your throat
and the protests of the people
who just came down to help.

Your clothes are ragged, your clothes
are dirty, your clothes are
mismatched and of odd sizes;
you don’t care, you don’t give
a server’s sense of ownership
of what they are
or how long they’ve toiled for you.
You just want soup, hot and thin
and enough to hold you still overnight.

Out to the day you go
and a server blesses you, tentatively
as if they aren’t sure you deserve it.
You aren’t sure either if you do
but you shrug and take it.

It’s cold out here. Wait to see
what comes for you, what mercy
might fall to you. Maybe
a bhangra song of lost love
in a snatch overheard, maybe
nothing but car horns and curses.

Tomorrow
might be different. In fact,
it might not come at all.

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

The angels — Rilke’s gang
of upstarts — called me. I refused
to go; after a while they went
and I was alone.

Corruption seizes the night
in the hours before sun comes up.
I wait for the tender shade of the morning,
the lighting of the blinds. I’m alone.

Cat, or a being like one, in the spare room
prowling, skulking about. In dawn’s breaking
the cat will turn into an angel like Rilke’s,
or maybe more like one of Blake’s. Either way

I will be alone. It doesn’t matter
which way they turn — into terror or war,
into beauty or inscrutable meaning. I will not
turn; I will face the day squarely. Again — I will not turn.

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

I am terrible at certain things
which I should be good at
by now — all the years
in a heap strive to make me
at least competent and I should be
a master or so you would think —

but the list grows and grows
and I fail so often, even recalling them
imperfectly, even recalling them
incompletely or not at all; in fact
when I try to

I am remarkably bliss-filled, let them
go, let them fall from my head like feathers
from a bird, sometimes a drab robin,
rarely a vibrant cardinal, and once
there was a hawk feather  — this is
where my dreams have brought me:

years heaped up and up but dissolving
like castles, crude or elaborate in the waves
that lap this shore until my competence
or mastery do not matter anymore

and an hour from now in the sunset
it will be gone, all of it will be gone
and I will sit back, a neophyte,
marveling that memories do not matter
while the sun still is winter-brilliant
and I have time, short time to make more.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward.
T

I take a piece of butter bread
and spread it thick with butter again
and also honey — not thick with it
but thick enough — and turn it loose
upon my tongue where it stops
me for a minute, less really
unless I close my eyes after a bite
and think: is this enough?
Is this enough to stop hunger,
end war, give me peace and allow me
to harmonize with silence for one moment
after, until I take another bite?

It isn’t. So I take
another bite, feel honey
in my beard-hairs, chew slowly
around butter — a big chunk
if you can call it a chunk when
it is so soft and when bread
melds swiftly to it until
they are one —

and I close
my eyes, alone again
for a second time this morning
when it is morning here,
night elsewhere, cusp of a day
when anything could happen,
even a piece of butter bread
coming together with honey
and extraneous butter until
you close your eyes one final time.

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

Stars, all of them it seems,
laid out in a perfect grid
across the night sky. It’s not
supposed to be thus. Supposed instead
to fling itself in a chaos of disorderly
mythological meaning, the stories
not resolving, just — there. Instead
it seems that a mechanic has organized it
with pre-greasy hands, the way he preferred
it to be– easy to apprehend, to comprehend.
I know they are just beyond my memory
and I strain and rub hard at my failing eyes
to try and see. Just now, one flickered.
I almost cried for the flaw.
I do not care if it was real. I care
for the mistake, imaginary though it may be.
We learn from our mistakes, or so I’ve been told.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

Quincy Jones died; Bob Dylan
lives; Phil Lesh died, Bruce Springsteen
lives; my father is gone, my mother
almost gone, and me, almost
almost almost gone…or so I almost
almost believe. I am almost
certain of it and almost don’t fear
the uncertainty — what will it be like
on the other side, if there is one?
Will I get to speak to the famous
and will I be part of the welcoming crew
for the ones yet to come? Or will I stop
caring as much about them; will I fail to
even notice them as I stare into…what?
I don’t know and that makes the difference
between peace and struggle. Famous
and infamous, ordinary
and extraordinary alike will stare
into the bark of old trees hoping for
insight. Or perhaps not. Perhaps
the old trees won’t be visible,
perhaps I won’t see anything
and neither will the famous. Quincy
and I won’t know each other. We will be
young and luminous and anonymous
in the void.

`~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward.
T