In the midst
of a storm, blue
and cold
and wet,

I waited
to see what
forthcoming
weather would bring;

when it lessened
and came near an end
I left my home
properly bundled

and walked the streets
and came back home
and sighed
over the nature

of what I had done.
I’d gone a mile or two
without stopping
then turned around.

Went home. Made
myself a cup of tea.
Sat down in
my usual chair,

watched the sky
lighten up, took
my drink in casual sips,
closed my eyes to think.

This is my life,
now. This is
what I do, what
I have. Tomorrow

doesn’t seem worth it
but I’ll likely
do this all again:
maybe a walk, maybe

another cup of tea.
I may close my eyes
again. Maybe
the rain will stop,

and maybe I will too.
Such thinking should
be forbidden, I know.
But it’s a lovely thought

to think; ending on
a day of vast sunshine
as tomorrow promises?
I will close my eyes

at some point in the future,
maybe tomorrow or maybe
one minute from now.
It’s not up to me

which time is chosen.
All I can do until then
is keep walking, keep thinking,
and keep sipping this good tea.

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

These people, these
beloved people;

maddening; otherworldly;
devoted to their crafts
and clueless endeavors
on behalf of unnamed
other people buried
in the fog of time and
rumor;

these people
come into my home
and space
and tug me unwilling
into battles and struggles
as if they needed to be told
not to bother with me;

these people peering through
the windows of my home
waiting for me to have some
profound moment, some
perfect thought to pass
through the window and into
their outthrust hands;

please, let me go
into the sun’s fire alone,
going as ordinary men do —

lying down when
my work, my subtle doing,
is finished.

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

playing the guitar
i stumble on everything
from shaking a single string
to playing simple chords
in one place on the neck

so it is with my thinking as well

tripping over my thinking
in its terms of words and phrases
to wondering why I stood up
and walked to the kitchen
and then wondered again
why I came there

stumbling on everything

close my eyes and think that
back when i could do this with
seamless continuity around the thoughts
no divisions no borders
nothing to say this means this
and that means that

i was an actual man

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

Suppose you find yourself as dark
as a winter ocean: gray and
threatening and ready to be wild,
wilder than you really ever tried
to be; suppose you gave up at last
on calm and steady. What would you do
to prove it to those who have known you
only one way, and not another?

Suppose the pills you take to keep you alive
killed you instead: tired as hell
by the late afternoon, unable to talk
straight; suppose you talked a good game
and then spoiled it with despair, with
anger. What would you take from them —
forgetting the complexity they smoothed away,
would you pat your hands like a grandmother
and offer soothing, listless advice?

Suppose none of this matters
to your own stern self: judging yourself
by the rules, letting others take you
for granted and by the way and a leftover
and all that. What would it take from you
to pull yourself together one last time —
to write that; to play that; to summon
what you were from what you’ve become
and to be that?

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

To sit once again in my leather chair;
all I want is to sit in my leather chair.

It was modern, squared off on all sides;
sat in the living room, surrounded
by piles of junk.

I got it for a song
at a local furniture store.

Sat in it for years
then abandoned it when I fled
the piles of junk, ashamed of
what it had become:

a throne of sorts,
chocolate brown, cushions crushed by
my heavy, desperate weight.

Went back for it and threw it away
years later, threw it away with a pang,
threw it away in a filthy dumpster
and wiped my hands of it and thought
no more about it until
today.

Now I’m sitting
in a different chair, in a distant house;
one hundred and fifteen pounds lighter;
numbed to my legs, almost but not quite
paralyzed; still the same person
nonetheless.

I wish I had
my leather chair back —

and you know, this time I’d cherish it
so much more than I used to
back when it was surrounded by trash
and falling apart, stained and ruined
by my heavy, desperate weight.

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

What did you think
it was going to be like —
all roses? All French
perfume? All the cliches
you could think of?
Whatever.
Now you know it is
none of those things.

It is having to think
to change levels — from
sitting still to standing, from
walking on to sitting down.

You don’t lie down without
thinking about it. Far be it from me
you get on the floor
to seek your shoes — getting up
is an award winning accomplishment —
they ought to pin a medal on you
for doing so without puking.

What it did to you in terms of thought
is another matter, or the same matter.
You don’t think much of anything.
You don’t say much, either; less and less
as the day goes on, and dear God —
it always does. You think you are straight
and then you are thrown a curve and you
lose the thread entirely and fall into
your hole and nothing happens there
except blankness and blackness and dirt.

What did you expect — some beautiful
realness? This is what’s real. “Reality Bites.”
That was a movie you saw once.
You don’t recall a thing about it
except the name, and that’s as it should be;
it bites hard, it bites slowly and grinds
its jaws exceedingly fine and twice as slowly.

One day, you’re going to die
and what they do with the remains
won’t matter to you. You’re already there,
after all. Bury you or burn you, chop you up
for science or for donation to — who?
The less fortunate? The more wealthy
to cover the cost? It’s a laugh. You
won’t care. What matters is that
for a time you lived and you got to a point
where you don’t recall living.
What did you expect? Angels or devils
or coming wearily back to do all this shit again?
What, exactly, do you expect?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward?
T

Somewhere in the sparkling
of your memory — or perhaps
below that, below the barrier
the last light to reach an impossible depth
makes — you may find
you may have made a mistake
when, after looking all day for something,
looking four or five times for something,
you shrug it off and let it go
only to find it on first search
the next day and then you shrug that off —

yes; then you say, no matter,
it was bound to turn up somewhere eventually,
and now the day is free
and you feel lighter
and as if coming up for air from that depth
into the sunlight and breaking open
and wet and and not quite that cold
from that experience —
and then you have
another,
and another,
and another —

another loss
to accept, another loss
to face and let go;
one more in a series of losses;

you then say no matter
once again
and this is the way
your day breaks and
one day you find yourself
wet, not quite cold, captured
by the sparkling water, tugged at
to let it go, let what you found
on this trip down into
those depths hold you and
take you back into
something more final,
an ending, more like
a peace that passes over you
like a calm, cool river;
and you find that
you will accept it, and
move with it,
and become
one with the tide.

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

There is not a lot to speak of:
first, my skin is a problem —
of sorts; there’s more of it,
it seems, than there used to be;
my body grows weary
of carrying it in sagging bags
around, but in the long span
of time I’ve had with it,
it seems to have been just enough.

There is not a lot to speak of,
once again: my mind is a problem —
it seems not to behave as I wish,
pushes things to the back that ought
to be upfront and makes room for them
by discarding thoughts and concepts
and actual emotions wholesale; still,
what is left carries me through a day
and a week and the years without much
in the realm of lasting complaint;
it seems to have been just enough.

So there’s not a lot to speak of
here; my existence seems to be a problem
for others who keep expecting
me to improve, to get back, to fall back
into some line they’ve conjured
from a rigid book —
if that book has ever been published;
I doubt its proclaimed author even knows of
its rumored existence and would laugh and laugh
at the story — but what do I know?
I’m just here for the course of study, as it were;
just here for the final exam, such as it is;
just here at last for the last warmth
of the last light of the last day,
and that’s going to have to be enough.

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

She said it only that one time but
forcefully,
pushing it home into us; the words
were sheets of metal slammed together
and pounded unto melding —
said it allegedly within earshot, not to
our faces, our bewildered faces;
said it in response to our yawning,
our whining about doing it —
we never went to church so why was it
suddenly so important this time? She erupted
with it. She said we were growing up
lawless and Godless, and
then she stormed out to the car and
was gone.

We stood there for hours — maybe;
it seemed like a long time but
was likely only ten minutes or so and then
she came home and we went about the day
with her angry, sullen as a dark church;
the two of us, just kids;
bewildered, uninvited,
ragged and confused infidels outside;

no one addressing the words
or the issue or anything at all except
eating the meat on our plates and
drinking the milk from our glasses.

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

At a wake, a chipper older woman
tells me about her friends — how one
had a stroke and died when she was
sixty-two, and another had a stroke and died
at sixty-three, while a third’s husband had one
and he died at just sixty —

there I sit having had two strokes —
well, three but who’s counting —
and I’m sixty-six and I just smile and nod,
and I keep nodding and smiling
and all the time I’m thinking about how
here I am, alive and sitting at a wake; how

everyone here seems older and even
the young ones carry themselves
with some age; how the old ones are falling asleep
in their chairs; and yet, here I am —
awake, not displeased with anything,
really; my clothes fit small upon me and

my eyes hurt like the dickens but
when it comes to it, I am happy enough
to be sitting here still after sixty-six years
of ruining the fabric my life’s been made of —
and if I were to mend it, I’d be a good story
for someone to tell at a wake.

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

It does not matter what you wanted
or did not want.
It does not matter
how built this city became
or how it was left to become a forest.
It does not matter
how birds sang at all hours of today
or how they fell silent for all of it.
It all matters or it does not.
None of it matters at all.

You carefully looked over your poems and songs
and then threw them all aside.
They were garbage to you or
perfect gems already cut and waiting.
You did not falter
or became a poster child for indecision.
You lost your balance
or walked a tightrope perfectly well.

You woke up angry and sad.
You woke up delirious with cheer.
You got things done early or did nothing.
You sat a long time immobile
or could not stop dancing.
You believed in God the father
or stopped your belief in a central being
and worshipped all or none
or preferred to drift among them.

Damnation and hellfire with pitchforks and laughing
or clouds of glory with angels’ wings beating to harps
You are a goddamn blessed human aging as all age
into their final chapter.
Embrace it or die now.
It does not matter
or it does. You will learn
soon enough.

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

Doesn’t take much. Doesn’t take
anything at all, in fact. I believe
I’m doing well, everything
is copacetic as the saying goes

when some little thing —
say, trying
to navigate the distance
between two familiar points

or maybe something as small
as recalling my credit card number
when distracted by the imagined flight
of a bird over my head;

maybe I’m intimidated into madness
by a snatch of a song I remember
from when I weighed less, much less;
can’t get past the chorus

so I sing it incessantly
inside my skull — then
I am transported into the soup
and stewing garbage of my soul

these days — hell, can you call
this a soul? Can you dignify it
with a word as potent as that?
Well, I call it that. I’m likely wrong

to call it that. I sit down
and try to calm myself, stop calling it
anything except — memory, I guess?
What it is, is freedom from the march

of time. I sit for a while.
“When what you need is what you want
then scream out for underground radio…”
Those aren’t the words but they will do;

a thin organ riff burns them
into me. I shrug off the credit card.
Follow that bird across the sky though
I can’t identify it. I sit with it till I am calm.

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