sharp toothed cold
biting into your lungs
when you step outside
on the way to the funeral
of your last remaining uncle

who you hadn’t seen in years
who once gave you a trumpet
you did not ever play
not even once

whatever happened to it
is it at the bottom of some closet
some river
some trash heap
did you sell it
in a moment of need or frustration
over how much space it took
in a corner of your room
after having trucked it around with you
for a long time swearing
one day you’d learn to play

you know he always liked you
you suspect you were a favorite
you used to shovel his walk
after winter storms
the hair freezing in your nose
sometimes so cold it hurt to breathe
he always had hot chocolate after
played glenn miller while you drank
and fidgeted

where is the trumpet now
that your uncle used to play 
where is the shovel now
you used to use for him
where did your uncle used to play
was he any good
what bands was he in
or did he just play solos in his basement
when no one was there to hear
who was your uncle
who’s going to be your uncle now
or ever again
in this sharp tooth everyday cold
that never seems to lift

I broke the chain
which held my medal of 
my patron, Ganesha,
lord of learning, letters, 
success, of taking it all in —
I broke that chain.  

Now I’m lying here, turning blue;
I have worked hard to earn that hue.
I’ve become a fat
gap-toothed man like him.
I don’t need to carry myself
everywhere, and no one
would mistake me for him
but still, I took heed of concerns
for over-identifying with him,
and broke that chain.

When they find me, when they
rescue me, surrounded by books
and past due notices,
the last thing they’ll think of
as they trundle me off for repair
is Ganesha.  I’ve broken that chain

and if at the hospital they ask me
what spiritual path I follow, I will tell them
nothing at all.  If they can’t tell it by looking
at me (gap toothed, blue skinned, long nosed,
fat necked and full of useless books)
then it’s nothing they should know.  I broke that chain
anyway, like an elephant gone rogue.
They ought to do me like that,
and shoot me.

While dining with assorted friends
and near friends
at a private dinner party,
Professor Alternate Jones,
“Al” for short,
announces to those of us
by nature or profession inclined
to listen to such things
that “upon reflection
on the things of this world,
the only right, righteous thing to do
is for me to spit, hard and often;
the taste otherwise is too rich
and I am so easily overwhelmed.”

Several at the table laughed
and offered similar cavalier thoughts,

but I stood up and sought and found
the view over the salt marsh, looked out
at a marsh hawk hovering, so still
over the tips of the yellow
shore grasses; saw it

taking everything in,
waiting for prey, waiting for
a sign of weakness, a flash
of motion arrested just long enough
for it to drop and rise
fulfilled, with a victory
in its talons.

I turned from the window
back to my friends and near friends,
back to the learned professor still talking,
my mouth drying up as I did so,
feeling the sharps so strongly
I had nothing to say.

No. 

Great timesaver,
good regulator, 
mediocre philosophical stance,
bad bottom nature

except for those born 
to it,

those for whom 

yes

is just the counterbalance
to their weight, the froth
on their darkness.

Two halves of an ecosystem.
Neither complete
unless matched
to the other;  lovers

cloaked
as warriors.

A slice
of pink Milford granite
serving as a coaster

on a small dark desk
several decades old at the least
which serves as an end table

next to a ratty couch
that serves sometimes
as a bed

A man
who serves sometimes
as a pain in the ass

a scapegoat and
a glory hound
sits on the couch

He is half-listening to
a huge television which serves
as teat and manacle

A question remains
as to whether or not
he will ever emerge full grown

from this apartment
he claims is serving
as his cocoon

to serve
as the thing
he was meant to be

some kind of man
uniquely his own being
resistant

to being repurposed
by anyone except
himself

An unwrapped man
serving as
object lesson

by being of total service
to others
without bending his knee

A wave inside says
punch
maybe even stab
so often that 
each fresh anger’s become
just another cobweb
to brush aside

They’re piling up into
quite a gray heap
in a corner
You recall hearing 
that if applied swiftly
they can clot a wound

You start looking
for a wound to stanch
Finding none
you make one
and toss your rage onto it
like a dirty blanket

Your last thought is
that you must be
doing it wrong

When she protests,
they kick their sand at her
till her mouth is full.

When he protests,
they bury him in their old rags
till he’s smothered.

When people gather to protest,
flood gates open
and they are swept out to sea.

No protest goes
unchoked.  No word
gets out ungagged.

A cry rises from
all these closed throats:
“listen, just listen.”

No one’s going to though.
Too busy crying their own cause,
drowning those inconvenient messengers.

That unexpected but familiar sound
of glass bottles breaking 
on the street that dead ends behind my house.

Someone owns a paintball gun
and shoots from inside some apartment
at empty forties set up on a junk car

which at one time was blue
but now is mottled pink and red
on one side.

I have watched and been unable to decide
which floor of which three decker 
he or she is shooting from.  

At this point, I’ve lost most interest.
The firing range is over there.  I’m
over here.  I don’t like being awakened.

That’s about it.  Not my land,
not that fearful a firearm, not my car.
Not my business.  Welcome 

to the city of picking your battles,
closing your eyes, covering your ears,
getting by.

When they find our fossils
(if someone is alive and seeking
those parts of us we will have left)
scattered among the bones
as telling as flint points
or Venus totems

will be checklists,
thousands of
fragmented checklists
asking:

have I eaten
the right breakfast,
taken the right pills, 
done the proper number
of reps, laps, poses,
eaten the right portion sizes,
slept the right amount,
breathed through 
correct nostril, played
with the right literary forms,
assumed the right positions,
smiled and kissed and 
hugged enough,
shat the right shits,
pissed the right color,
hit my marks, 
saved enough to die on,
lived the right amount of years,
died well and peacefully
with a minimum of trouble
to others?

They will speak of us
as a people
who lived long lives,
though it will be hard to say
whether or not
we lived well  — as hard for them
to determine
as it is, apparently,
for us.