Used to smoke cigarettes
Now I choose not to

Still like a drink of whisky
Don’t touch anything else

I choose not to now
Too many ways to go numb

I can only decide a few
that feel right and true

It’s a narrow path to heaven
Or whatever comes next

It’s not attempting to feel less lost
More a case of attempting to connect

More about paring down this ruin
I’m a sandcastle after all

The waves are close enough to damage
the firm-appearing walls

that will crumble right away upon
one touch of the bitter ocean

Its waves laugh and laugh
at the ease of my ease with the paranoia

So I sit on the sand and linger a bit
A smoke in my hand still unlit

I will break the sandcastle down one day
Futile gesture with the tide coming in

Glory coming with it
on the sunset’s back

A horse for the eternal need
to trample something

I will get on its back and light the cigarette
Crouch over the good horse’s neck and whisper “now”

because it does not much matter if it is now
Now is forever

We leap
to the task at hand

“““““““““““““““““““““
onward,
T

Did not know what to write
so I went outside
and watched a pair of vultures
circling each other in the blue,
unsettled sky.

Did not know what to write
and I watched those two large birds
spinning lazily around each other
or a point between them
that I couldn’t see, though maybe
they could.

Did not know what to write
although they seemed certain
of a point between them,
invisible to any below (unless
of course it was not and something
saw it too and was cowering from it).

I have no idea what to write
except there are two birds
circling an unseen potential third
or perhaps a fearful possible meal
and I have no part in it and feel
full of abstraction and hypotheticals.

I’m lost — no map,
the printer left it blank —
I am supposed to fill in
places unseen until now,
wow the crowd waiting for
revelation.

I have no idea what to write;
I point up.

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

On my first cup of coffee.
I am changing.

I am girded with a copperhead.
I am scratching every itch I have.

I am fine. Fine
except for the song on the radio I don’t know.

It sounds familiar. A song from
two minutes ago.

A song
from younger days

although it is new. It is
not even five years old.

No song is old enough
to be remembered.

The copperhead
becomes a song. The copperhead

sings to me. The radio
sings to me. It all sings

to me. Sings to me from
two seconds back

and here I am
coming up to it, hurrying up

to catch up to where it has been.
It has been a thousand places

before reaching me. It is a song
from a snake’s gut.

Thin,
reedy, ready to change me.

Having my second cup of coffee now.
I am changing. Charging, perhaps.

The snake is nowhere to be seen. In place
inside me. I am calmer now

and feeling electricity within.
Coiled up. Every two minutes

I catch up with time.
It is not a good time.

Later I will go to the store. It won’t be
a good time. It will fill

with snake bites. A song I don’t know
sung by someone who feels

long ago old though she is not
and I will close my eyes,

let that poison flow through me
from the mouth of the copperhead.

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

In Richmond a man
wins a stock car race
by booting two competitors
out of contention —
one to the wall, the other
almost so — thousands watch it
and five million others
have an opinion, and are enraged
or delighted; in Paris
a woman clumsily break dances
and defends it, a crowd watches it
and is bemused
and five million others
have an opinion and are enraged
or delighted; and I

don’t care in the slightest,
I don’t care at all about opinions
or bemusement or rage when it comes
to these things.

What I care about
is the slighter things, the ease with which
the earth rotates and the wars
upon its surface; the kiss
of the dragonfly to the surface of the pond
and how a child responds to that
with the bullets whizzing about
and the sudden need to duck from
one or more; the end
of the world, in fact, combined
with the birth of the earth and indeed
how the cosmos surged into us —

how we still have wars
and still quibble about stock cars
and still fret about breakdancing
when the planet is a jewel
and all it is, in fact,
is a tale about God.

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

It’s hard to know
what’s right, what’s wrong;
I am just alone
and nothing seems to fit
as it should. It is as if
this world is a frame
for another picture. It is
as if there are lovely jewels
in a ring that are set…just…
off; they play against each other
incorrectly, emerald against
pearl, square ruby wedged
against opal with no fire.
Try as you might
this picture doesn’t frame
and you dig your fingers
into your cheeks, close
your eyes; scream very quietly
as if you could allow this
to take over your sensibility; but
outrage doesn’t work
and you settle for dullness,
for a dampening of all your
drenched senses.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tomorrow, the release of the new book.
Tomorrow, as well, a change in the policies of this page. (Ooooh…scary.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

onward,
T

You haven’t smiled
in weeks. You haven’t
been able to rest.
To imagine this
you would have to be
aligned with a terrifying,
growing sense
of aggravation;
to imagine this,
you’d have to be terminally
frightened of daylight.
You’d have to wake up
in the morning
and wonder why it had stopped
being night. You’d have to
dread the daylight and
when you got up, you would
have to wonder why you aren’t
still part of the bed, still
lying there in the diminishing
darkness until
you went through the motions
and got up.
To imagine otherwise
is not to scream out loud,
full chested, until your lungs
give up and you collapse,
at last, into the arms of
the Saint of Hollers.
She will say smile,
silly terrified man; smile,
and rest.

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

A sad morning song
the trumpet hasn’t begun
to play. I know them both
all too well.

My thumbs
twitch with knowledge
but I don’t know yet what
I should play — should I even use my thumbs?

Stare at them useless
as oiled meat hanging
on the rack at the Polish deli
I go to once on a blue moon morning,

generally after
playing my heart onto the floor.
I sing them in the car,
not weeping a little.

Driving home
having bought nothing
I waste a little time, then
a little more.

A Grateful Dead song
comes on the radio as I turn off
the stereo and step free of the car:
“till the morning comes…”

Now I wanna dance sprightly
up the stairs
and forget the song
I first heard at the market.

I wanted to hear
a trumpet.
I wanted to cry
for the sound.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Onward,
T

On Tuesday morning
the sun flashed purple for
a second or less but
I saw it transform the world
around it, and it was good.

A simple moment, almost
easy in its derivation
from the complexity I’d grown
to believe was inherent
in the nature of things,
but it was good. Almost

a lie, almost a fib even
told straightforwardly enough
you could honestly swear by it
though you had not seen it yourself;
you would find a way to agree
with it. It was good.

After all, the sun does not change
every day and on the days it does
I know I have to believe in it;
even for a fraction of a second,
the sun turned the world purple
and you and I were bound to it
even though you did not see it
directly.

Marvelous sun —
for a piece of holy time this was
a violet world, no matter
how you saw it, no matter
your experience of it and it
was good. 

““““““““““““““““““““`
onward,
T

Puissant means
powerful.

Someone’s made an offer
of a word to choose
in place of a more common
word. Someone’s
got it in for the speaker
in a high-test way
and now he or she’s
gonna get it.

Now
I have to choose.

It’s such a minute thing, choosing
these choice words. Puissant.
Powerful. I am neither.
Living among the islands
I don’t get to talk much.
I get to think, and honestly
there’s not much talking involved
in that.

So I don’t say much.
Smile, nod, move on. Keep
thinking, though. Tap my cane
to the cadence. Wait
my turn.

It may not come again but
it may, and I will be ready —
puissant, powerful.
Ready.

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

I try to add a thought here
whenever I have one,
which is seldom;

most of the time I confess
I prefer to think of ordinary life
and its discontents;

most of the time
I can’t spell right and I end up
replacing words and such —

sometimes for
clarity, other times to
startle readers into

whatever I feel at the moment
regarding truth and lies and
their musical notes

as if I were at the helm
of a grand symphony,
or an intimate and profound

chamber ensemble; it is not
fitting to startle readers into
music in place of truth,

say the elders of the music world
or the elders of the poetry and
truth worlds, any worlds beyond

this one, really. At any rate
I know so little and when I die
or at least go, go beyond this

mundane world of trash at the curb
and sitting still, trying to decide
how it’s going to work, I will have

ghosts of music and poetry
to hold me in their supple arms
and no matter how disrupted

they appear, no matter how
damaged or re-formed they
have changed themselves to be,

I will have my moment — and that
will be all, will be enough to go on.
You will turn to your affairs soon enough.

It will not hurt, I promise.
It will only prompt you to say,
as I did, “how it all — the music,

the poetry — how
it all shines.” Then,
as I did, you will turn away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward.
T

It doesn’t matter what you choose
or how you frame it. In the end
they will still look at you funny
and after a sigh or two dismiss you.
Shake their heads, one or two of them,
and let you go.

It doesn’t matter how you dress
or how you say the things you say.
You will still be the cause
for their shaking heads, their
worried hands trembling
when they reach out for you,
and then (reluctantly at first
but with relief at the close)
let you go.

Be well, and let me go
without a qualm or care
in the world. You should recognize me:

I’m a chipmunk
you never chased deeply enough into the earth
to understand. You should recognize me:
I’m a bird of indeterminate plumage
you thought you knew in your bones
but were never certain that you did,
not after I’d flown.

You should recognize me:
I’m you before the fire, after the flood,
sunset on your beloved lake before night falls
all the way down like a perfect blanket.

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

Call her by name.

She doesn’t answer
for more than a minute.

You pretend to care a little
because it matters a little.
Outside, the world shatters
more than a little — you
are a little shaken; more
than shaken — meanwhile
she carries you on the wave
left behind by the occurrence
of your name on anyone’s
mouth.

When she finally
uses your name again,
you have forgotten it and
shake your head like a bag
left over from a long shopping
trip. Who you are
doesn’t matter. You are
hips and toes and only
a little of you is in your head
waiting to respond to her.

Call her by name again

and you won’t forget it
though you don’t know her
at all. She is a wave in your head
and that’s what counts. She
is perfect for the cause
and that is final. Until
you forget again, she
is all you can imagine.

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

I woke up
and played Joni Mitchell
on the radio, she sang “Summertime”
with a cheering raft of friends.

Then came the Dead and “Scarlet
Begonias” –50 years today
since it was released — and then someone
did a version of a Nirvana song

and I knew I was old,
old enough
for the tears that came up
for the live and the dead.

Last night I went to sleep
thinking it would soon be
too much to mourn for me
and only those who knew me

would mourn for my departure
from the solid world,
the world of
contracts and hibiscus.

Their hands
would be clean of the holy dirt
as soon as they wiped it off
and walked away.

Like a song
they might recall it — a snatch
of it, perhaps — later,
and it would bring up a tear or two

for scarlet flowers,
for crimson blues,
for lithium marks on a bottle,
for days when living was easy.

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

onward,
T