What he thinks about often
is a scene from a movie
he hasn’t seen that is not yet in 
release, but is nonetheless familiar:

the stone in his chest,
no larger than a heart,
holds him on his back
on the floor.

There was time once
to deal with the stone,
to unflutter the heart,
to clear the paths.

Time’s still a factor
but not a friend.  Now,
he’s feeling the stone
grow immense.

It has grown large enough
to compress the lungs,
shade the brain, and finally
to cover the light.  

He has to confess 
it’s a pretty good flick.
It has a certain sense
of justice. A certain sense

of preordainment
he recalls whenever
the pain cuts
into his left arm

for a second or two 
late after dinner, or while
he’s doing something
no one would call strenuous.

In the movie 
his character never goes
to the doctor
and neither does he —

that would be too much like 
fast forwarding to within
fifteen minutes of the end
and claiming to have watched it all.

Here’s a planet with
at least a million million
small Gods.  

New heartbeat begins in
a village in Bolivia;

now, estimate is a million million
and one.  

Not every inhabitant 
has a small God in attendance;
some just echo others.  Some
believe in none.  All are here together,
many thrive
and many starve
regardless of belief —

a thick strangler tree breaks through
the layers of a rain forest floor:
a million million two.  A rock, smoking 
on a Hawaii lava flow: four more, though
I don’t know how that’s possible —
I know only what we can see and I clearly see
the birth of four more Gods from the cleft
of a rock in Hawaii.

One species here kills each other often
arguing about God and associated artifacts.
They’ve gotten so much wrong about those things,
and about holy places which care not at all
about how they are honored
or even if they are honored at all.

A million million and forty-three.
They will never get their heads around that number
in a thousand thousand lifetimes — 

a million million fifty four.
It’s going to be the death of them all —

million million
sixty-eight.

Beyond the sunrise shine
of the meadow
we just passed

Beyond the hot tail
the sun’s dragging across
the gloss of the lake
we just passed

Beyond these
the whole world

The parallel rails
ahead of us
must be shining
until we cover them
as we pass

Sun to the left
and then to the right
then to the left again
as we curve and weave
as we pass

Behind me
my love’s getting ready to leave
for her own journey
to the south
to her work
the sun on her face
almost all the way
as she passes

So much adjusting to be done
ahead and behind
to the left
to the right
above and below

Beyond us
the whole world

I’m on a train
to Boston
a few days after Boston
blew up
and became
a darling victim
of the whole world

At the end of this line
there will surely be
guns
suspicion
defiance
sorrow
grief
anger
seized joy
hope
acceptance

There will be
children shouting at this train
and pointing

At the end of this line
the whole world 

You and I grew up
in complete agreement on one point:
we would, under no circumstances, stay here.

Then you did, and I did not,
though I didn’t move too far away.
But I did move.  There were times, therefore,

when I considered you a traitor.  You got stuck,
I suppose, but why didn’t you
struggle harder to free yourself?

Now, of course, I’m not far away
in body, and you’re still there both in body
and in spirit.  You’re fully wherever you happen 

to be, in fact.  I don’t seem to have all of me
with me ever.  How do you do that?
I swear, one day I’m gonna learn

how to be fully present and then
it won’t matter if I’m back in that little town
or not, really.  It won’t matter.

It might never have mattered.  If I’d learned
how to be complete wherever I am
I might never have been jealous of you.

Body?
Layer cake —
spoiled and fresh
alternating, meat
and sweet leaves,
rumble of bad memory,
whispered promise.

Mind?
Fondue —
swift cooks anything
forked into it, pieces falling in
and soaking through,
good for you only when
moderated.

Soul?
Escargot,
perhaps — glimpsed now and then
in a movie,  known but never
considered seriously; do you even go
to the kinds of places where they are
even acknowledged?

Now, what should we call
whatever this is that is talking
about the others
right now, that looks at them
and imagines their flavors?

Clearly it’s not any of these
to be able, so easily,
to stand aside
from them and see them…

for want of another term, we’ll
call it
manna, or
the Gift.

Spring
drives us most crazy
with its presence
when it’s least present.

Gorged buds,
scent of early flowers;
staying out later in nights at last
not so full on deathly cold;
enough is happening to leave us
gasping in frustration
for the pollen
when the late snow falls.

Brutal, treacherous season that it is,
we bend to it, almost breaking,
knowing it’s indeed here
without us being able
to enjoy it — 
knowing it’s here and 
it won’t completely show itself
until it’s almost time to become
summer.

I am most in awe
of my heart
after it’s been sick,

how it comes back to life
a little at a time, peeking around
corners into the rooms
it reenters before revealing itself again,

hoping no one notices
the slight changes it’s been through
that, slowly,
are adding up
to the great universally
human change:

the Full Stop.

I am most in awe of my heart then —
I don’t know how it keeps working,
how it keeps up appearances,
how it beats faithfully
when it should be
in the greatest despair. 

What I recall of the Sixties is my toys and my terror
Vietnam on the news all the time
Spaceships on the news all the time 
Protests on the news all the time
Drugs on the news all the time
I had a lot of guns to play with

What I recall of the Seventies is my drugs and my terror
Electric guitars in my ears all the time
Blurs and bursts and trails in my eyes all the time
First grasp of the news in poems all the time
First surges and rages of sex all the time
I had a smeared streak of joy to play with

What I recall of the Eighties?  Terrible, terrible
Marriage and working and crazy and drink
I want no Eighties in my head all the time
I want no Ronnie, no Nancy, no guns, no roses
No reason at all to have lived through that
No reason at all to recall

What I recall of the Nineties and since
is the continuing terror of how it all feels like the present
Cannot distinguish much of now from then
It’s a short walk back to Kurt’s wounded head from here
It’s a short walk back to New York’s wounded heart from here
It’s a short walk back to the shock of war and awe from here
I feel like someone stuck me with a bill
Stuck me with a bill for all this time
I keep walking forward and away but
It never disappears

I don’t care how I may die
Don’t care if it’s from gun or blade or germ
Don’t suffer from the madness of believing in immortality
Don’t want it to happen too soon
But I know it will happen and accept it

I wish you could see it as I do
Wave of the star enveloping you, sick as you are
Wave of the earth encompassing you, wounded as you are
Wave of the wind embracing you, struck down as you are
The next instant it must be — not like this
All I want to know about that moment I cannot know in life

I sit here speaking of death with intense fingers tapping
Oh the damn notion of having to wait
You wait as you will
but I will be calm and resigned to it
Will call for it to be delivered unto me

How we die is trivia
Every death I see now is trivial
Every individual an inconsequential body gone
Except as wave of earthquake to those who love them
I am the broken acolyte of continuance
Death ate me out a long time ago

So neither do I care how any of us live
Live and let live is here practiced
as apathy not compassion
Does it look the same when it’s not about love
but instead about disinterest

AMERICA is the hall of just in time history
AMERICA is the holler the chorus the cadence
AMERICA is the fear of the gun in the hand of —
what is it today anyway
Indian over cowboy
Prisoner over soldier
Peon over boss 

Vigilante songs ring in the heart
of every American
but I think the truth is that 
we really don’t care how others die 
as long as the lettuce stays crisp 

A dirty quilt,
a darting cat.
A left handed Gibson,
a taped up baseball bat.

It takes nothing
to give you an impression
of a place.  

Open blind,
sagging old and shattered
in one grimy window
with dead flies and wasps
lined up
in the dust
on the sill.

You are already
making up a story:
what comes next?

Chocolate stains
on his T-shirt.  Salt
and pepper hair on his head.
He is calling the cat
with an open can
of high end pet food
held out at arm’s length
and she’s coming to see.

All your focus is on
what comes next and
what comes after that —

He puts the can down
and she goes in full face first.
He walks away, out of sight,
perhaps to change and dress
for work or something —
he’s certainly old enough
to not be working anymore.
Maybe he’ll change into work clothes
and start to clean the windows,
play the guitar,
beat the cat
with the taped up bat?

Or maybe nothing 
comes after that.  Maybe
you start to deal with stasis,
maybe you stay with it
hoping for a story, you
become the story, or 
maybe you and your anticipations
and your need to drive events
have been the story all along,
and now you have a chance
to learn how to let things be.

Spiral painting
on one wall,
another on another.
Bet I can find another
with luck and a little peek
inside my chest.
It’s not prophecy
to say that —

I know how
entropy
works. I know art 
in a room can’t stop it.
I know art in fact stops
nothing.

This rude muscle
of mine pumps
in a circular rhythm 
played out on paper
on the walls around me.
Sheet music for closure.

I love this room for its mirroring
of human finality; for the heart
twisting in, toward inevitability,
always ready.

His mind by rights
and geneology
should be a dirty old box 
sealed shut
for seventy years
in a family garage,
but it’s apparently not:

he barely blinks at the two men
holding hands across his street,
Main Street,
while having their picture taken
in front of their new home.

He looks at my raised eyebrow
and grunts,

“Don’t you have better things
to worry about
than how I’m gonna react
to the new neighbors?”

Evidently, I don’t.
Having my worst opinions
of my father disproved
is a hard thing —

my own dirty box
broken open.

I refuse to look inside.

What’s the point of standing on that ledge?
You’re incapable of falling fast enough
to die upon impact.  
There’s not enough to you.  You would waft
back and forth all the way,
featherweight.

Step back, don’t be stupid —
the world needs more like you, always thinking,
inventing machines that run on
the combustion of dusty artificial flowers,
developing new ways
to control traffic in Minas Tirith,
pissing on your own garden to keep it bare
and sterile and free of weeds.

You don’t have to be in control
of everything.  Let Death be Death,
coming to you unexpected
at an inconvenient time.  You can call out
your rage then.  You can cry all you want then.
Maybe you’ll gain enough substance by then
for people to note your passage
and not brush you off when you’re gone.