I stopped to do the dishes
and suddenly knew I was powerless

I wiped up and cleaned up
and stood back for a second or two
and said six years ago
I would not have said that
Two years ago
I would not have said that
Two years ago
I would not have had the authority
or the grace to ask

There are sparrows outside
who know more than I do
about living their lives
with little fanfare
or thought of relapse
Eating or drinking allowed
Peace from hatch to falling gone
to the ground

I come back from the window
to what is left
Suddenly knew I was powerless
again

After the dishes are done
Fill the paper towel dispenser
and add toilet paper to the supplies

Six years ago
or six months ago
I would not have known the sparrows
and how they fill their space
with nothing except their living
without thought
or so I think

Six seconds ago
I stood in the center of the room
Envied the sparrows
Shrugged at them and moved on
without a thought except
mourning the power lost

then shrugging that off too
I ceased envying the sparrows
for six seconds
no more
no less

then began again

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

As if the puzzle of a book
could be solved without reading,

as if you could pick it up
and know the contents,

as if you could lift it
from the place where it was tossed

and casually leaf through
and gather its gist like a cloud

that passed overhead and everyone else
pointed and stared and said it looked like

a horse or a ship or some old head
of some old woman; as if

the horse neighed and bucked after that
or the ship heaved itself up over

an unseen wave or the old woman
grew long hair and became more lovely

to you; as if any of the changes mattered
more than that and you tossed the book aside

as if the puzzle inside did not matter, not at all,
as if clouds were just foam and mist after all

and clouds of foam and mist did not matter
and any book they resembled did not matter; as if

you had important things to do, more valuable
than transforming the clouds above, more crucial

than sticking your mind to a cloud and making it
matter, even for a second longer than a book.

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

Humble, modest;
no one could say such things
about me. Chaste, pure;
those are just as funny, those are
just as tragic.

Maybe I don’t cut
the same figure as those
we name as such; it’s possible,
it’s even probable, more than
just likely. Maybe I’m a disgusting
man, but more likely an ordinary
one — one whose evil comes
in increments, one who sleeps
with banality and wraps it around him
like a stole.

No matter — no. These days
I get up, do what is required
of an ordinary man — alone, retired
from the daily, peaceful by default
if not by choice; I go and sit
in my living room chair
and when I get a moment I think
of other ordinary men.
I try to decide
how to be like them, and I (every
once in a while) succeed, but
I (more often than not) fail
to hold it together and behave.

I sit in the dark room before dawn
and in spite of everything holy
I do not wish to be alive, or dead,
or anything at all.

I dreamed of
sandalwood scents
instead of waking up

to maple-wood, burned
to satisfy and heat, dried
until it crackled
after flame caught fast,
until it roared open and
prepared to fall apart —

dreamed of the patterns
on the outside
of the incense-stick box
and the foreign address there

instead of the bricks
that were clay-tinted
and were now blackening in feathers
around the edges where fire
tapped them and turned them
holy and nonetheless unscathed,
until they remained dark, caked
lightly and impervious
to being scrubbed clean.

Always I dream
of foreign
not domestic, dream of
plain but exotic

instead of exotic yet
common, dream of anywhere
except here, except the commonplace —

but instead of accepting
I will turn over
and shrug myself to sleep again
in the familiar place,
the cursed space of comfort
and familiarity, the blessed place
of homely peace and
giving up.

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

I am having a coffee first thing —
actually, second thing — in fact third
or fourth thing, maybe more things
than I can or should count —
but it’s a good cup of coffee
indeed

and the first thing I feel as a thing
unto itself, a primary thing beyond
dishwashing and blood checking and
worrying, always worrying — a good
cup of coffee, no sugar, a little milk,
feels like I’m home at last although
I never left and I’m still here in my chair
and wearing the same clothes, the same
silly glasses — still worrying about money
and how my body aches
though I don’t tell
a soul;

still I wonder how my dead friends
got through it when they died and do they
even know? Maybe none of them knows
they have passed. Maybe I don’t know
I’ve passed as well. The coffee tastes
remarkable and I am relaxed, after all —
far more relaxed than I was not five minutes
ago.

This is good coffee. I will have
another inexhaustible cup and then another
until I dissolve, unconcerned, into
the blue and black and sudden brightness
of the sweet day and sweeter
night.

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

Each morning I wake up and see
what last night brought me: a comment
on a post or perhaps a song I have never
known.

They are all the same to me.
I don’t know where they come from.
I only know their senders as ghosts
or mistakes of memory. Close my eyes,
try to recall them for a few minutes; then
I slip them off to my fog banks,
heavy with recollections unmade like old beds.

I try to write poems about them
but I don’t know enough to do that well —
I must be a stone ghost myself holding
so little of each moment.

Flitting by the windows, flirting
with vanishing after a few seconds;
comments and songs
go with them, with me, go with
the wind and the rain into
the salt-scented earth.

I must also be
a ghost, sitting here unmoved
by anything I have been told.

Tomorrow, then; I will sing,
write, collect then. Until then
I just sit with my eyes closed,
unmoved, like a stone. A ghost.

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

To take the pills I’ve been asked to take
is to gobble up the words I never spoke
when I was still a good child
and had not yet given over my healing
for pink and blue and red answers
to the crucial questions
sitting in a cup.

To swallow those nuggets as if they were
golden apples or bites of the same
is to imagine them as beads
of nectar, crumbs of desires and appetites
unforced upon me but still longed-for;
to want them tender and pliable
and easy enough to swallow, even if false.

To eat my way toward satisfaction
is to fill up on unfamiliar foods and cravings
and then settle back with a burp until
the next meal and the next meal and
even the next, still wondering why
I am not filled in any way that matters
and still I can catch my hunger gnawing upon me
dimly in the dark hard center of day,
dimmer still in the core of the night.

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

I take the first pill
and wait. I don’t
feel anything — yet.

Take all the other drugs
too, right after. What difference
will it make?

I’ve got a host of reasons
to take them; most of them
boil down to this: trying

to postpone death so I take them
and wait for a result, and wait,
and wait. No feeling inside.

No feeling of any type,
in fact. Maybe that’s the ticket:
no feeling until the last moment

one can feel anything, and then
I say: oh marvelous, I can feel
again. And then, it’ll be over

and I will rest, amazed
that it took so long, or such
a short time. Meanwhile, I wait.

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

There is one thing I could do:
cry like a rough wind. It might be
enough. So why I can’t shake a feeling
that it will not do?

I don’t stop
from shivering, from my body
trembling like a figure from legend
or a television show.

There are times
I startle back to consciousness
and man, oh man, I want to sob
and rend my clothing.

But then I look at my self,
my piece in this game we play,
my worn form, my bumpy face
and scarred arms still holding on.

I buck up. I bite down
and hold on like a pit bull
until weary, then I let go
and slip back to dream-state.

Man, oh man, I wish there was
another way to go but there isn’t
any obvious, no easy passage. I buck up
instead, bite down, am silent. Don’t cry.

Little man, little ape: you won’t recall
much of this in a minute or two.
Leave it and those left behind with it
will deal; cursing you, no doubt.

Don’t worry about anything. There will be
sunshine, tears, rain, fire.
What you care about
is unimportant. Be well.

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

Suppose, for this one time,
you knew this was it — that this
was the last moment you would have
and the vision of the first shoots out front
was the last vision you’d have
and the radio scratching through
“Pancho and Lefty” was the last song
you’d hear and the scent of your sweatshirt
was the final scent of your whole life —

suppose this was it, that you’d leave
love and anger and shame behind you
as you moved down the road, getting
back in your fragile car after mailing
your regrets to the world, after sending
them out and collapsing
into the car with a penultimate sigh —

suppose this was it, that this represented
you as cosmic, dying soon with a whimper
on a whisper, slipping away saying
nothing, needing their prayers a little
but not much, not even wondering
which one cared the most because you knew
without asking deep in your bones and nerves —

suppose you took it there today,
suppose you went there today,
suppose you closed your eyes and soul
thinking of them, of her, suppose
you take it and leave it and wipe your hands
as you leave, shining in your way,
breathlessly striding upward and outward
into a grander world…

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

Sunday morning: listen to Godsmack
and Disturbed for too long
and you will be “enlightened”
by the tone. This will be offset

by listening to Lisa Lisa
and Al B. Sure for too long —
don’t you have better things
to do? Don’t you have

somewhere to go and not listen
to anything? Maybe the whine
of vehicle tires. Maybe the sound
of the engine.

You get to your destination. You
make your tired visit, say all right
things. You leave and sit in your car
in silence — waiting for some sound,

any sound other than dirt screaming
at you to turn on the radio and get going.
It isn’t dirt — it is earth. Screaming at you
to get going. To go home and scream some more

on a Sunday morning
that allegedly is a day
of rest. You can’t fool me
though. I’m tired before it begins.

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