you let yourself fall on rocks
even if yet-unknown hands
are not there
to catch you
and when they do not
you honestly rise
and honestly fall again,
honestly expecting
to be caught
and when you are not
you get up again
and do not lie about your fear
but fall again
this time expecting
to be caught
and when you are not
you do it again
and when you are not
you do it again
and when you are not
you get up again
and fall
eventually you break the rocks
Bored with the couch
and the desktop,
bored with this particular
slant of light
this particular
winter morning,
I decide to work today
from the locally owned
coffeehouse.
This morning,
reassuringly,
there is obscure
electronic
music
in the air here.
I don’t know dubstep
from dimbulb,
but I do know
this means
I won’t need to
think past something
I will be compelled to analyze,
like a folk song’s picking pattern
or a well turned lyric,
just to get work done.
Instead
there’s a completely reasonable
amount of squealing and skronking
and screwy rhythms,
stuff I don’t care enough about
to dissect and be distracted by.
Hustle myself to a table
past two poets,
five bloggers, a rare G+
user of undetermined utility,
and one old cat
surfing for info on bedbugs.
As is the tribe’s custom,
the badge of the white Apple
glows everywhere.
I crack open the laptop
and begin —
a perfunctory spreadsheet
for my perfunctory consulting business,
a half-done poem,
a training manual in progress —
all on the screen at once.
I plunge in
to all of it at once
(so really, I plunge all the way
into nothing at all)
but not before noting
(internally of course,
as none of the staff here
will care)
how much I love my locally owned coffee shop
and its dedication to not being
a pleasant place to get work done.
It’s good for my work ethic.
It’s good for training my focus.
It’s good for not distracting me
with eclectic atmosphere
or customers: here there are
nothing but the semi-employed
hoping the furious typing and surfing
gets them somewhere
else.
It’s almost the same
as having an actual office
to go to once again.
distraught parents
don’t know what to do
their children
have fallen in love
with dust storms
they reach for a bible story
god
is coming soon
come in out of the grit
the kids are otherwise enthralled
they aren’t waiting for that late god
instead they start a faith
borne up by watching the wind
bore holes in rock
for their parents’ faith
has bred in them the need
for something to judge
go tell it:
warn this buff fuck
on the corner
something’s coming,
gonna brush him back,
brush him up,
don’t matter how big he is,
he’s gone if he don’t
move;
tell that python-thighed lady
she has no good hold
on her step, no matter how
she clings she’s gonna be
taken;
gather every still-happy kid
and get them inside, away from
the windows, back in the back
away from the war side of the house
and put them on the floor
down low, low as they can
go.
and now, as for you:
right now, just stand
in the shadows for the moment,
just the way we always hung back
among the trees, watching for steel
and fire, listening for dog-hungry
men to come up the street pounding
doors, smashing walls, licking the ground
to get a taste of what they
seek.
only a fool
can’t see what’s coming.
you’re no fool.
get a grip on something hard, and stand
until the moment comes
to swing it.
go tell it:
it’s coming.
again.
To let your own blood with a straight razor
(whether by accident or not)
is to understand how easy separation
can become when you are not thinking
You say, is that ink
The line is so straight
Then it blurs
or perhaps you touch it
One side of the wound
leans away from the other
The brilliance spills over
as if from a jostled cup
Your heart speaks in drumline
as faster comes the flood
If it were not so terrifying
it would be such a danceable beat
You would dance
partnerless in the center of the splatter
as if that first scarlet line
marked the end of a page of music
There above it was the instruction
da capo al fine
take it from the top
all the way to the end
If it wasn’t so terrifying
at once it might be exactly
what you’d most
want to do
It’s a new world out there
and while I’m glad to be alive in it
a lot of folks have left me behind
to see how far it spreads
so
sometimes I’m as lonely
as a drop of piss
left behind
in that proverbial boot
that’s been turned upside down
by an idiot reading the directions
on “pouring piss out of a boot”
that are written on the heel
it’s an old sad joke
but the idiot doesn’t get it
and apparently neither do I
since I can’t seem to fall free
it explains a lot
A memory of fire,
stone axe,
and tears
wants your arm
to extend itself
in a sweeping blow
from time to time.
Something
about the sight of tears
hinting red in the firelight
on another’s face
still makes some part of you
sing, and you could swear
there’s a flake of stone
in your shoe that cuts you
at every step.
Pain, war, grief, anger:
with all this killer memory
loose in you,
tearing you,
wounding you,
I wonder if you’ll still be alive
when it finally comes time
for you to die.
They strut their fur
on our streets,
tails rolling and breaking
in proud waves as if they believe
our homes, sidewalks, cables and poles
were built for them.
That said, they scatter
when we come out;
apparitions of alien intent
walking among them, beings so unfamiliar
that no accommodation
can ever be made for us.
Deep down,
we know
they’re in the right.
“What was the name of that poem
about the raven?”
she asks.
“It’s called
‘The Raven,’ ”
I say.
“No, not that one.
The one about the raven
picking at a body.”
“I don’t know that one, Mom,”
I shrug. “I don’t know the name
of every poem ever written
about a raven.”
She’s convinced me
to come back here
where I haven’t been for years —
back among the marred wood
on every piece of furniture
in the family room,
a dent
in the unpainted drywall,
perfectly placed at the level
of a ten year old’s
head.
She runs her hand
over the depression.
“You knew the name once,”
she says, as her hand flutters away from the wall.
“It was a good poem. You knew a lot
of good poems, and all their names.”
“I know. I used to have a memory for things,
Ma.
I used to have a mind like a trap. Now..”
There’s a table
at which no one has ever sat,
an ingenious table of sliding parts
built of zebrawood. Turn its top
and the top expands
to take in leaves and turn
from table for six
to table for twelve.
The table sits in a museum
longing for a feast. It longs
for a warm room
and earthenware plates
heaped with good hearty food,
rough woven napkins
and thick silverware and wine,
so much wine.
It longs to be spread open
in a hurry as the hosts call out
to the hungry outside,
“Come in, of course there’s
plenty for all, and
of course we’ll make room for you.”
What such a table wants from us
is function. It wants to hold
and groan under the weight
of that blessed holding. It cannot bear
to be admired as idea, as concept —
such a table needs to be full.
Lion-flavored flatgrass
for a last mattress:
I don’t care.
I have named half the vultures
I can see above me:
it’s all I’ve got to do.
I don’t even have
pockets to empty:
I’ve fine tuned my poverty
from want
to lack of want.
It’s slimming.
The more of me I surrender
to a disregard for preservation,
the more of me there is to love.
I love this lying about.
I am hoping
to name all the vultures
before the lion
comes home
to rob me of that game.
In this dreary moment,
feeling stung by things undone,
by unwrapped and unused time
left behind by circumstance
or neglect, or perhaps through ignorance
of its importance, I will myself
off of my wrecked couch
to salvage something of it —
and find nothing’s left. So instead,
though I suspect it will not matter, I sit
and write about it. Maybe
that will redeem me, make it
worthwhile. Maybe I can convince myself
of my own industry through that
all-too-easy effort. Maybe I’m not
as useless as I feel, after all.
Maybe I’m not a liar, either.
this is the here
at the end of the road
from there to here
the here of here with no regrets
for the time spent there or in between
I wash my hands
of the dirt and the dust
absorbed between there and here
there were pale children on the road
between me there and me here
there were filthy men and women
rod-hard dogs ravenning
cats as quick as bats
to put their fangs upon our necks
from hunger or pain
I do not regret how many I trampled
or pushed past to get to here
every angel is terrible
I do not regret the dogs and cats I slew
every angel is terrible
now that I am here
I open my blood-tipped wings
this is a heaven I’ve earned
here is where I choose to make
the gates of pearl
they may call me what they will
I walked the road I was meant to walk
and put my feet where they were meant to step
and now I am here
the here of my heel in the clotted earth
made to stand
made to stand firm
made
not born
to be here
The whisky master says,
“I suck the tongue of truth
in every glass.”
The wine master says,
“This sweet burning
puts my eye on Heaven.”
The pot smoker
sits on his hands but he’s praying,
grinning at the answers.
Whatever we stone ourselves with
revives in us the kick
we last used in the womb —
fighting toward what’s out there,
though we have never seen it; still, we’re
surely getting there.
1. about the name
We got the name
from drunk-thin air,
told everyone it was
the name
of a ghost-witch girl.
It’s fine with me
that you’ve forgotten,
or never knew,
that it was meant to be
the name of the band.
2. pretties for you
The smeared makeup,
the witch-derived moniker,
and our darkside noise that
cleared rooms — looking back,
I can see we were
the flipside of Stevie Nicks,
a few years early.
3. easy action
Pull tab,
place can to lips,
tip head back,
rock out.
Repeat.
No one was listening anyway:
with the album not charting,
the gigs stopped coming, so
pull tab, discard tab (we could
in those days,) suck it down,
crawl to bed alone or not,
rock out, repeat,
repeat, repeat…
4. love it to death
…repeat. And then, no more.
We were different. We were
the same and different at once —
like it, love it, like it, love it.
But the best thing was
the last track, the last chant on side two
about the rising sun, the one
we didn’t write —
creepy and comforting
at once.
Exactly.
5. killer
They’d better love this snake.
They’d better love this face.
They’d better love these things we’ve pulled
out of death and sick disgrace.
Under the wheels,
the last vestiges of love and peace.
Things that fight, bleed, and decay
ought to hold their eyes and ears.
6. school’s out
We’ve got the kiddies now
and all the gory money
that comes our way
along with the vicious stares
of every parent in America —
who miss the point entirely.
We’re the perfect treat
for the perpetual Halloween
that every kid desires.
And to top it off,
flammable panties
in the album packaging!
What could we possibly do
to top that?
Anyone?
7. billion dollar babies
Rock out, repeat, repeat, repeat…
but damn, such a fine,
marketable cover on the thing. And
the hits kept coming, even though
we’d said it all before:
the main message of it:
“Please love the dead.”
8. muscle of love
We’ve shot the wad, burnt out the fuse,
we grossly pushed for the movie theme
and failed to get it in. Hell,
we dragged in Liza Minelli
for a cameo.
That stain on the cover
says it all: waterlogged and
trying to stay afloat.
9. looking back
A little rock, a little roll,
a lot of golf in the Arizona sun.
Boomer’s dream retirement,
and only one regret,
one comment to be made:
fuck you,
David Bowie,
for taking the smirk out of us,
for taking the mascara
somewhere I’d never imagined.
Dark Matter 