Back in the day
when “facebook” meant
“when you are present,
I can read the pages in your eyes”
and “twitter” spoke only of
the prayers of birds,  when “myspace”
meant the aura of my under-rolling skin
expanding toward yours
and “the web” was only 
the net of attraction,

there was the long current
of our holding and our capture,
the way we laid animal
upon each other, turning
over and over, slain and reborn
over and over, again and again
refreshed, and 

the checking and rechecking,
seeking new messages of confirmation,
affirming that our hands talked well for us,
that our limbs had crossed strongly
into fantastic semaphores.

So far off, now, the intimate roar of all that;

yet when you rise unexpected
in avatar before me
in the odd spirit land 
of my screen, 

I can feel a tug in my grandma-purse heart
that holds all the rubble of real life;

a tug of surprise
that it is so full,
so full of my recall
of your actual touch.

Cars have been skidding this hill all night
but I’m home so no worries plus
our cars are in the driveway
and she’s sleeping
so we’re both safe from idiot drivers

I’ve been skidding
in and out of sleep
feeling that tightness in the seat 
that you get
before a crash

History says skid is always followed by crash
Those idiot drivers
are setting me up for a history lesson

but to hell with them
I’m going to bed soon
where she’s sleeping

reminding myself
that I’m home and safe

the cars are safely off the street

soon we may both be
safely asleep

Whatever heaviness
may come sliding out of control
toward us
I must remember that 

crash
doesn’t always follow
skid

Still not posting new poems, though I’ve been writing them;  I have also been revising some very old ones — this one dates back about 15 years or so.

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

when I speak to you of the way it is 
your eyes widen in surprise 

(or is that astonishment – 
the right word makes so much difference 
when one tries to describe the way it is)

how will I make you understand the way it is
when no right words exist 
to form my complete meaning

how will I shape my breath 
to swaddle you in a foil of dawn 
and seal you 
against denial and forgetting 

do you think I would still speak of love 
do you think I would speak of hearts or forever
and set atoms to move in anything 
remotely resembling those dry and familiar forms
if I had language that could make how I feel 
clearer

what I have for you is known and common
a few small words I may have offered too often 

but I promise you 
that if I had been alive in mythic times
I would have invented a language 
that would have the syllables in it I need

every word I built 
would have been a nail 
in the ark that saved all the couples of the world

the covenant bow that was revealed 
after the rain had dried 
would have colors only you 
would be able to see 

and I would have been clear enough
to have torn Babel down all on my own 

if I had the right tongue 
I would reform history 
with improbable, impossible words — 

if I had the tongue I need 
to speak my mind today
I swear I would remake the world 
in the corners of my mouth

and offer its fresh contours to you in a song of Magellan – 
the circumnavigator 
now just barely remembered
his name the leading edge of a legend
an arc of hope as we move
from known to unknown

if I could speak the words I need
I would conjure him
I would spell him into life this morning 
as we sink our toes into the cold Atlantic sand — 
look at all that horizon out there – 
its dark line the promise of unseen shores –

to reach it we will need a new vocabulary 

but this is all I can bring myself to say: 

come closer
closer
sunrise can’t be too far away

Any day can start a year,
and any day can end one.

If any day can be celebrated,
then any day can be regretted,
but you only need to to regret one day for one day
before the celebration of the next can begin.

My New Year’s wish:

just one with whom to celebrate,
just one with whom to commiserate,
every day.

Just one
with whom to share the New Year
of every single day.

Just one
with whom to straighten up after the labor,
one with whom to soothe and be soothed.

Just one to whom the calendar
is merely a suggestion,
and with whom I can start anew
on each daily New Year’s Day.

It’s love if it’s

a politics of
physics and
brutality, bitten skin
soothed by cool breath;

bruise and 
replay.

It’s love if it’s

one day continuous from free coffee
to turn-down service,
walking miles in mist
and fog;

charm and
side-glance.

It’s love when it’s

an arm thrown across
the passenger seat
when the car skids
before the near-crash;

hurry up
and explain.

It’s love: 

that big stone,
that cold wine,
the smoke in a mirror,
the smell of mushrooms
in a closet
wafting out. No one
willing to speak of it.
No one afraid
more than the other.

And it’s love if it’s
slippery and 
different and
always. And it’s love 
if it’s inconsistent.
And it’s love
if it feels like a rocking chair
at the instant it is
tipped too far back.

In the interest of better bonding
we’ve taken to making love
on panes of black glass.

Roiling the sheets,
on and on,
tumbling through a longing
for something to crack,
for stinging
cuts,
for lubricant
blood.  

So help us,
pain is that feeling
accessible when no others are;

what’s been severed
speaks loudest
just before
it dies.

Firepit
under the Cathedral Ledges.

Long awaited re-weaving
of parted threads.

Voices grown calm and untested
for the moment.

A full moon the size of
everything we’ve forgotten

about the genuine animal faces
under our routine human masks.

Here’s to the mammal dance
of honest escape and joy,

here’s to the winter
chasing up onto tonight’s autumnal heels.

is the motto 
for a warehouse store
selling lumber and spackle and lights
handyman that you are
you are always paying attention:
it’s time to go to work

rebuilding the shelves
in the bedroom
rebuilding the bedroom itself 
then improving the kiss
the response to the kiss
the response to the response to the kiss

let’s get to work
let’s improve something
this is all
too linear
too many
logical steps

let’s get to work
gapping the frame
inserting the chipped marble
stenciling eagles on the mantels
rotating the architecture
around the range of solutions

let’s improve something
settling the ape
into the new cornerstone
suspending the dove above
charming the octopus into singing
finishing the pain threshhold

never stop improving
long pauses
short breaths
driving of angel nails
let’s get to work
housewarming

You’re so pretty,
she said,
touching my cheek.

Because I knew it was
the last time we’d see each other
I did not try to correct her

by saying I was a man
and so could not be pretty —
I laid that bullshit aside

and let the sentiment
burn away the culture for once,
and damned if I didn’t feel pretty.

He
flows.  She
flows. They
— you know, they
flow.  

Not that
ripples
from drowned rocks
don’t shock
their surfaces,
or that
their faces
don’t show it.  
Not that, no. But
they flow, go
forward, those
slow them
only a little.

When
what is downstream’s
the driver, the dream
they work toward,
they flow — taking
the breaks of current
and banks in stride,
watching the river go
from narrow-swift to
slow-wide.

Nights
under silver-lit moonshine,
days baking bright and dry,
some days the river
nearly gone from view —
no matter, they flow,
they go, he flows
with her and she with him
and if you see them, 
follow as long as you can —
that how it’s done,
that’s how slow and present
cleans and carves through
trouble and pain —

flows
along, coupled, joined
in progress, aimed
with no effort at the end
where the flow
joins the ocean
and disappears into
what encircles all. 

Their hands
fold into one another
as do paper dolls:

not two separate but
one continuous; this
is not the love
of silk and
fire

but that of
welded breaks made
strong, stronger
than before,

steel
that may yet be defeated
but refuses to lose,
becomes plastic
under pressure,
reforms, sculpture
garden hands,
could be called
great art if it were not
natural for these two.

And their eyes!
Set into mapped
faces, clear
as seafront mornings
after fog’s burned away,

but they are so still,
so still…

Alive? Yes.
Whatever comes next
they are alive now
and no telling,
they may remain so
after what we call death.

Whatever you say
of this, however you
call out or disregard
the forged hands
and the still eyes,

old love is alive here.
And to prove it,

with his free hand
he
(trembling)
brushes a crumb
from her chin.

At home in the world,
I frequently sit down exhausted
with my head on the table. 

What’s nice about it
is that I can leave it there
and walk away
if I so desire
because in the next room,
there’s a person who won’t mind
my headless stumbling
and the constant
falling over.   

She’ll help me set it back
on my shoulders, sometimes
playfully spinning it like a basketball
before reattaching it.
I get so dizzy and rattled 
but it’s not all that bad
to be that way
after spending a day
pushing it through mud
and manure and
slop I won’t name. 

Love, they call it,
when there’s someone there
to do that for you —

I would call it that as well,
and will
as soon as I get right
and stop giggling.