Let’s suppose it was like
they say…let’s choose
to believe them when they say
it’s terrible in here.

Let’s assume
they were right — that
everything clumsy is real
and you will find no grace in here.

Let us choose to believe them
and to leave them unmocked
and untroubled as they walk away,
brushing off their hands, never looking back.

Your flights will go unseen by them.
Your rising up and up will go unseen by them.
You might have been clumsy — skinned knees
and hands as you picked yourself up and rose

for all time — you might have been awkward,
flailing as you nonetheless elevated yourself
from the earth to the air above it; no matter.
You flew and in less time than it has taken me

to tell this story, you were supported by the air.
You were lifted above and while they did not catch on,
they knew — they knew. They knew that the earth
seemed less bound. They felt it — they felt it.

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

The coffee? It’s good. The aftermath
of it, the flavor that stays with you? It’s
good. All of it is good, stays with you,
is satisfying — that’s enough. You can sit
for hours with it and it will be enough
to hold you. What is fair about this? Nothing
and everything — you could sit for hours
with it, immobile as you are, and rotted things
and intact items will rise up unchanging
before you; there will be roses of incredible
perishable loveliness and then the letter will come
with its tale of tax debt and ruin
and still you will sit with stolid loveliness intact
and you will say, shrug voiced, not solemn:
amen. This is good coffee. I think another cup
is in order for the good of my health and the world.

It is not much —

a shoelace’s distance
in fascination; no distance at all,
really.

It is not enough to stave off
the deep funk of second sight, of wondering
how much it will take to enter the room,
close the door, fall into the black mist of
whatever comes next…frankly
to die…

but the cat sleeps by the window
and doesn’t stir at all as I pet her.

If it’s not too much to ask
take the burden away
and leave me with a lesser load,
one that doesn’t break my back
or bend me for all time,
or even for a day.

If it’s not too much to ask
let me stand straight, straight
as a tree I would have cut down,
straight as a post I would have scoffed at
as an imposter and tried
to push aside.

Even as it resisted me
I would have sneered at it.
Even as it stood immobile
I would have stood aside
saying, “I’ll come back
for you later.”

If it’s not too much to ask,
let there be a later. Let there be
a time to come back and this time
let me hug the resistant tree,
let me grow close to the wood.
If I can bind myself to it I shall

with these words: nothing shall hold us.
Nothing but tears on my part
and slow growth on the tree’s part.
We two will stand, we two will grow
until the day comes
to cut us down.

what was the rule
that kept him going
long after wind had relented
long after it stopped

what was the time
he ignored and decided not to reply
between hours or minutes —
seconds it took to act then be gone

what was the honor
he crippled by refusing
what did he think he was
a worthwhile mind in service to a slave

instead he chose to honor
a lifetime’s regression to his moment
in the sun or a shady moment
in someone else’s sun

behind it lay peace
behind lay forgetting
his own lapse toward forgetful
a shrugging off then a release

Spread your arms wide.
Take it in, all of it. Open yourself
up to closing suddenly, even unexpectedly.

Then remove the doubt
you came with — yes,
even that doubt which kept you
closed to possibility. You lived
without it, after all; you gave up
hope, wonder both dark and wild-lit,
even fear — even fear,
that precursor to all else;
fear, the wide-eyed amazement.
You let it go.

You gave up so much
that you are afraid
of what will replace it.

You find yourself
having forgotten your name,
immersed deep in the indigo ocean
off a coast you don’t recognize;
it’s a night built upon stars.
Your boat’s getting away from you
and you are miles above the bottom.
You wouldn’t know the bottom if it rose
to greet you, and yet
there must be something down there
to shape this, to hold this.

You have forgotten your name…what a relief!
What ferocious joy is this now?
Who do you dare to become?

This isn’t the end. Only
a new origin, an ecstasy
foaming, fresh in the vast sea;
you are open to it
reforming and refashioning
above inky darkness.

You were born to this.

Will now the body down
until it breaks or
shatters with cosmic force
on the sidewalk.

Hold the mind intact until it happens then
let go the last participant
until it is parked and perfect
and there is little to say.

Sit there. Stabilize until the world ends
like a neighbor. Tell
it to people — tell them
an explosion doesn’t matter,

that it doesn’t matter how many die. But it does,
it does.  It is of utmost importance.
It stops mattering the moment
the last victim dies:

you see how peace comes to the face,
how it relaxes. You see
how it begins to manifest in the earth
and sky, are struck by it. 

You unwind, let it go.
Whatever cataclysm follows, you let it go
on and on.  It’s not yours to follow.
You were its engine — no more. Let go.

Let go and let God take it. You 
were always reluctant. Now let God
do its part. Whatever you end up
calling it.  However it answers.

I throw my hands at
the boxing shade before me.

If I were a rich man
I’d hire a champion
as it’s too large a challenge,
I tell myself.  

I am
far from rich, like most
just drifting  through,
and these hands
I used to depend on
don’t clench right
for that work — 
not anymore.  Not sure
they ever did.  

I swing on
the vaporous.  I am 
bound to lose, but not yet,
I tell myself;

that time
I connected  —
I felt its mist on my skin
as I passed through
and for once that was revival
more than icy warning.

Having flurried at the hands:

were they snow,
were they vapor,
were they something else?
I have lost touch
with what I’m assumed
I’ll connect with.

I’m comfortable for now,
but wait.  

Just wait.

The status was no longer
easy, a relaxed nervous pitch;
an eventual result could be
failure, could be catastrophe,
could be nothing much at all.

The status reached over the edge.
No one coaxed it to point in one way;
instead it demanded we go either direction,
urged us to choose a way and follow it,
then stepped aside and serenely refused to choose.

I sat by tingling with the status.
I say I sat and did not worry about who would respond.
I sat and did not respond to the storm of urgency
that followed the elevated status. It was my choice
and only mine. I chose, and there was distant thunder.

Observation: some of the writers
are stuck in the wake of an eclipse
that was contested a week ago
and moved on serene from the wreckage
to today or nearby, calm as churchgoers
in the leavings of damage and mayhem.
Afterwards they thanked their stars and
moved on.  Others held their breath
and remained stark and breathless
with the memory of near death, while some
exhaled and just moved on without seeming to care
about where they were or how they might
eventually place.  A whole world collapsed
and nothing came of it for me. Nothing
moved on. The world remained intact.