The seagull
on the parking lot fence:
laughing, angry, or neither;
commenting on your face,
stature, speech; or worse
on none of that; on 
something unseen in the air
around you. As if 
air around you is the problem;
as if you are the air’s problem. 
You feel you’re suddenly
an exposed shipwreck:
treated as a mockery
not a tragedy;
opened to scrutiny
by the scouring
of a storm; the seagull,
laughing over
your once waterlogged bones,
knows more than you want to 
acknowledge, is
threatening to tell,
is perching on you,
refusing to leave.

Some memories
fall on you 

then stick hard,
burn like napalm.

Others slide down,
make happy gas puddles

where you splash
until the napalm

you already wear
ignites them.

You in flames forever, 
no matter

the pool or river where
you fling yourself,

seems to be what’s been
allotted for you.

You in flames no matter which
Bible verse, contrived or authentic,

you turn to 
for comfort.

You tell yourself
others will see better

in your agony light,
sustain themselves over your fire,

stay warm in darkness.
You tell yourself it’s enough

to be this and dry out within
until all you are is fuel.

Wake and bake kinda morning
as I’ve tried everything else
I can’t stand the thought
of walking into dawn
unguarded within

Sweethearts of the Internet
see love messages in their oatmeal
and tarot callouts in the way the storm
has tossed my bird feeders to the ground
strewn around for the picking

like a Tarot card
like the Five Of Swords

Wake and bake this morning
as I’ve tried religion and atheism
in equal measures overnight
and I still can’t understand
the dark gifts I carry to my day

Sages on the Internet
claim everything’s so obvious
it barely needs explanation
If the windows don’t hold up in this gale
the shards will surely open me

make me readable
make of me a pigeon’s innards to scry

Wake and bake this morning
as I have nowhere to be
that requires patience and balance
neither of which I have in any amount
worthy of calling upon today

Tricksters on the Internet
will tell you what you want to hear
I want to hear shovelfuls of earth
trenches and moats being dug against
whatever may swarm up from within

the horde liberated and seeking to feed
the horde with opened mouths and here they come

Wake and bake so
I will feel less of it
when I fall

Low enough today
to be unable
to reach my guitar
even though it’s 
right there hung just
above eye level 
on the wall. 
Forget about the amp,
I’m carrying enough
already. It’s not like
I have any place to go
and play tonight
so I’ll sit and think about
how I’ve got
nothing going on
and even if I did
I’d have no reason
to stretch out my hand.

Put that
existential moan
on lockdown

and admit that your well-being
is a salesman
clapping and hooting

for attention. Monkey
toy causing a ruckus
and not even a real ape —

automaton, cheap
screwed together
simulacrum and 

a bad one at that.
You reached an accord long ago
with it. Let it

holler your praises
and you’d agree
to stay alive for it

because you don’t do it
for yourself. Instead
you made up the clanging beast

who percussively masks
the real you and damned
if it hasn’t worked and now

any time you feel
the need for quiet
you have to contend

with everyone who thinks
you are lying. Big noise
huckster. Are you in there

still? Stifle that real answer.
We know what we want to hear
and you better give it up.

If. That’s all, really:
if.  It all comes from 
if, comes down to if.

Go sit outside
and look at one last
good sunset.
If you had never
seen one before,
would you feel this same sadness,
would you still ache with its loveliness
and say to yourself,
that’s enough?

There’s your sleeping child.
What if they’d never been born?
If that spot where they sprawl 
on the couch were unfilled,
would you turn so quickly away 
as you do now and go forward
with…with…

You can’t even say
what’s on your mind.
If you could…
would you dare to?
Will you dare to?

Look at the pile of work, the poems
and essays and wrong-directed
manuscripts you long claimed
would be your legacy
if anyone were to find it. Now
that you are afraid they will find it —
if you burned it in the fire pit
out back, if you then drenched 
and stirred the ashes until they were 
dense black mud, if you did all that
would you exist for long afterward
in the minds of the few
who knew your work?

If there were only
a wooden match in the house,
if there were gasoline in the garage,
if only the house was emptier,
if only the night were noisier to hide 
the sound of, the sound of…

In the dark at last, the sunset over,
the child asleep, the firepit full,
you wonder: 

what was the first “if”
that sent you here? What choice
did you make that created 
this moment? 

There isn’t a moment to spare.

Overhead the stars whirl slowly by,
a machine without choice. It is all
as it should be so if you go ahead
and follow through, that will be
the last if, and isn’t that perfect?

Fill your hand with certainty,
and go.

How to walk into the light
with no effort.  How to 
stay lit as you fade. They say
glory waits for you 
somewhere. You say you
want a touch of glory now.
You wanted one yesterday.
You longed for one 
the day before yesterday.

How to walk into the light
silently. How to stay lit
as you slip into such a
good warm glow.
They say the strong are always
ready to speak up. You say
you spoke and spoke
your whole life and yet
you were weakened with every word.
You used one word yesterday and
sank to your knees. You used
one word the day before and
it staggered you. 

If only there had been a way
for you to walk screaming
through all your darkness
and come through it into a light
that was warm and not final. 
A light of growth and healing.
A light you could have borne 
on your stooped shoulders. 
A light that kept you steady
and quieted you down to live
in peace. 

How you walk on now
with the light on you burning
so much it hurts.  How you
disappear into it. How you
curse it in counterbalance
to aphorisms and proverbs.
How you go down talking
with people either listening
or not.  How you can
vanish without a care.