Originally posted 1/19/2013.

On a physical search for God, angel,
devil, or some other entity
good or bad for us;

looking for transcendence
in an abandoned liquor store
behind the wasp-ruled chest cooler.  

Sitting behind it,
not caring for stings one bit, sucking
a pipe full of our last kind bud; 

searching for some guide
just as smooth and stony
as the pipeful.  

Seek and ye shall find —
was that the Bible or
our school librarian who said that?

We spark up another one. Need it 
to look for something deep
and certain in these ruins.

If TV alien hunters
are remotely not crazy
or greedhead hucksters 

when they
do the same 
among mounds and pyramids,

who would say
there’s no similar chance
of tracing the tracks

of extraordinary beings
here in the half-emptied rubble
of Sully’s Cash And Carry?

Maybe
these wasps are little
demigods.  

Maybe there’s a snake
in the cracked walk-in
the way there was in Eden,

the way there was in the vacant house
we hid out in last winter, the one
on Gutter Road.

God would so get
what we’re trying to do here.
I bet God’s a squatter too. In fact

I bet God and the Devil
both prefer ruins to churches
and sticky floors to clean holy beds.

Heaven is undervalued property and 
mostly abandoned, as is Hell; these days they mete out
paradise and punishment wherever they can.

I’m telling you, these days God’s likely
hiding in a pipe, and Satan
is probably hiding in a lighter

so let’s light up. Let’s seek them.
We’ll sit in the dust in the dark
and wait for the End Times to begin.

Originally posted 4/2/2011; original title, “Exile: Portraits.”

I live alone in the far woods,
among good words
in this house — air conditioned,
well-heated, smelling
of mountain spring
in the dead of winter,
wrapped in
a perfect shade of rose.

I like it here.
I like living alone
among words.

I like the muscles in words, like
how they move, 
how it’s not even work
when they move. I like
how different work is
from that.

Sometimes I talk to myself.  
I say, out loud,
that I don’t want my hands 
or my corn anymore.
I’ve held too many things
and been too well-fed. I’m trying 

to be leaner, a good citizen of the world,
though I’ve not left this home soil
in fifty years, though I was born here
as were all my genes. Lucky 

for me that I like it here. I like
being alone, 
living with words — 
I like the work they do
without appearing to work at all.

The only time I ever left 
was when I was sent to kill. 
I came home certain
that all the creation stories 
my little nation ever taught me
were literally true.  A coyote

indeed brought us fire, the snakes
indeed were postal carriers to the gods,
I indeed was fashioned
to wear the word “warrior,” and
someday, all will indeed be restored. 
It has to be true: every brown person I killed
in every country where I killed them
told me the same story
in different words,

and I like words. I like 
the way they move, the way
their muscles shift, the work
they do without appearing to work,
I like how well-scrubbed

they can make me feel.

Originally posted 8/11/2012.

In my lost year of seventeen,
I had my own blood on my hands.
Drugs heaved their song inside me
and I did as I pleased,
for I planned to die young.

In my lost year of twenty-one,
my hands cupped more blood.
Dead sex occurred to spite the loss of live love.
Anything was possible;
I was going away.

Lost years between twenty-four
and forty-four? I picked off the scaled, dried blood
and washed the flakes away. No itemized
seductions, untaxed by hope,
I just lived as a matter of fact.

Fifty-two and lost again, or found again, or just awake.
I sing with longing to feel blood in my hands again,
to revel in rage, sex, and passion, to roll myself in great drugs.
I sense again that I can either create my world
or destroy it; am energized by every choice being perhaps the worst.

Originally posted 7/27/2013.

For each guest,
a gift of honey in a small jar.  

Broad leaves for plates, laden
with sticky-starchy rice, a bed for 

cloud-white fish, steamed
and spiced. Tumblers

of cool juices, a good wine
of humble provenance

in a thick-walled carafe.
Unfamiliar fruits

placed within reach
to be eaten at leisure.  

Then I woke. This all became
a fading dream.

Ten minutes later, cannot recall
the perfect conversation

that accompanied the feast, do not know
the name of One who sat across from me

and made me feel small and
full of future as if I were a seed.

I remember no words, but dimly recall
the taste of that fruit,

how the honey in glass
glowed in the sunset, 

how much I wanted
to call that place home.

Originally posted on 7/28/2013.

You see yourself
as a mere trajectory, a clear arc

from yesterday to now, a line in mid-air
revealing origin, predicting destination.

What about now? Are the lines
around your mouth right now just a residue?

Face yourself for once. That arc behind you
is smoke. Are you really still on fire?

Originally posted 7/12/2010.  Original title, “Gentrifying Worcester.”

Where I live
they’re opening cute bars for the cute,
sprucing up streets ahead of the cute,
renaming old squares for the cute.

This city was never built for cute.
We’re the city that either
swallowed cute whole or spit it out.
Now our throats 

are so clogged with glitter
we can’t breathe,
yet we squabble over 
how to swallow even more.  

Downtown frets 
over how to paint itself more cute
while up here on the hills 
we’re hoping cute washes off

before we can’t recognize ourselves
in what’s left of our sturdy old mirrors — 
hell, this city is my sturdy old mirror.
There I am in its empty red-brick

monuments to old machines, 
its neighborhood dives,
its warehouse squats, its 
half-eaten streets, its good dirty diners.

This was the town where we used to depend
on the knowledge that cute always fades
like a Saturday night drunk
propped in the corner of a diner booth;

it kept us from envying cute too much.
We’ve forgotten that too often, when cute sobers up
it either runs out on the check or leaves a bad tip
and anyone left has to figure out how to get by.

Underneath this city is a river
no one alive has ever seen. Downtown
they’re talking about cutting it open 
and making it cute. Cut it open,

I say. Cut it open —
see what’s collected in the dark,
but don’t count on finding cute down there.
Don’t count on finding water flowing there;

we’ve sweated, bled and cried here for years.
All of that has to have gone somewhere;
if you listen, you can hear it still bubbling
and it doesn’t sound cute to me.

Originally posted on 3/3/2010.  My 50th birthday, by the way.

Watching “The Real Old West” on
the History Channel:
blued barrels
hanging off leather belts
as always; but it seems
that the rotgut was mixed with fruit juice,
if this is to be believed
over the mythology 
of bad gin and whiskey
shot from dirty glasses,
burning neat all the way down.

I trust this.
It’s more like
who we are,

telling ourselves
we’re tough old cowboys
but too scared of pain
to dare to toss
our poisons back
straight,
no chaser.

Originally posted 11/12/2011.

St. Teflon, patron saint
of bullet dodgers; St. Tango,

source of comfort against
unwanted outcomes; St. Bullhorn,

defender against the wealthy; St. Lifter,
guardian of the doomed.

St. Angelcake strokes
the heads of the robbed.
St. Watchfob picks fruit
and cleans the poisons from the flesh. 

St. Linger, warrior with no hard weapons.
St. Rollie Of The Bones,
bringer of square deals and luck.

The old saints are retired and disinclined to help.  
“Not our world,”
says Michael. 
“Not our Gospel,” 
says Francis. 
“Not our problem,”
says St. Gabriel. 

For this you want
The Blessed Version, 
The Sherman On The Mount,
The Irascible Conception, a new Bible written
by scribes drunk on the manic milk
of modern circumstance.  
For this, you need

St. Rattler of the found quarter,
St. Lobster of the century reboot,
St. Jack (whose feast day is the Festival of Unicorn Meat).
Depend on The Long Shot Testament 
and take a number. 

There will be a saint for you
someday. Maybe
it’ll even be in time.

Originally posted 3/31/2011.

talk about walnuts dammit
speak of bananas or plywood
maybe there’s a door to consider
or typewriters so sexy and willing
to be closely observed

talk about bricks dammit
spend an hour staring at one
until you live and breathe red dust and pitting
until the brick’s soaked up into you
and you’re ready to be wrung out

there’s the pavement — kiss it
here’s the cobweb — swallow it
there’s a key — stuff it up your nose
remember that brass
smells of dirty fingers and ozone
tell the story of how you know

first time you noticed it was when your mother died
the keys were in your hand
you bunched them up to your face
you could smell and taste them mingled
with tears and dust and polish from the oak table 
where you had laid your head to weep

talk about something real
conceptual rage has no flavor
neither does slogan-born love

but bodies do
and objects do
and so does your blood
say what you know of those
if you must speak of rage and love