No matter the bitter,
I’ll not deny the sweet

that polishes the bitter
to a high, taut sheen

so that when I take it in
(as I am inclined to do)

I still may see reflected in it
the sweet which touched it once

and left its subtle tinge
upon the sting of bitter.

No matter the bitter
and its effect upon my face

and core, I will never deny
that sweet and bitter fall equally well

upon my tongue; though sweet
may not be common, though bitter

somehow fills me more, sweet is present
somewhere and even as I twist

my cheeks and pout my lips,
even as I cough my praise

of bitter and its bracing charm,
sweet holds its firm and distant sway

if only because it sets me free
from too much bitter to think

and dream of sweet as
a possibly different way to be.

Blue bottled,
bushy-tailed,
windburnt
and ready.
Sleeked by
darkness into
menace on track.
Removed,
relegated,
remonstrated
and shunned but
the party’s not the same
without me lurking,
is it? So keep
some portion of an eye out,
whisper of my absences
and sudden arrivals —
God, it feels good
to be a god. To be
Mars or maybe
Loki or maybe one
unknown yet, blue-
tailed, bushyfaced,
glimmering clean
and sharp enough to cut
silk.  Here comes someone
jumping toward you from shadow
to murk to ink —
is it still me
or am I nearby
laughing in the light
at what you have created
from my being forbidden
and cast into the night?

Alive in this encrusted moment
of tasting, feeling,
seeing, listening to
the air.

Loud pressure, always,
to speed up, get loud,
rock out.

No.

Rip a hole in that noise
and crawl through
to where
depths
are transcended through
details.

What to bring back
through the hole —
nothing.
Don’t speak of it.
Leave it for
revisiting, as ancient pottery
should be left in place
when found in
the forest.
One day, someone will ask
if there is still a forest
beyond the noise,
and then you will be able to
show them the hole and
they’ll hear you say
yes.

In a moment we’ll get back 
to our regularly scheduled nonsense
but for now, let’s break for a wintry trance
as the wind cuts and swoops
across the bare skin of our faces.
Let’s face nature threatening
with a knife in her hand
and us standing there
shivering but not budging.
In a moment we can go back inside
but we ought to be able to walk and not run
when we do.  We ought to be able to say
that we’re barely connected enough
back to the days of hide and fur
to be able to stand up to something
that comes every year and never relents.
In a moment we can forget this
before the fire or the radiator
but right now let’s act like original humans
and be glad we remember how,
even for a moment.

Ate a mountain this morning.
All of it, base to peak.

I sat around fat as a dam
waiting to burst.

Lightning and fog
gathered around my head.

I was huge; if you’d been there
and tried to scale me, you’d have perished.

“I’m geographical!” I exclaimed.
“I’m on the map!”

Then someone tried to rename me.
I resisted that successfully

but damned if then I didn’t start wondering
who I was.

When and if I push this rock out of me
will I be the same person?

Can anyone take in that much of the world
and be unchanged?

All that I can say is that a mountain
presented itself, I took it in,

and now I’m staring down from a cliff
whenever I look in the mirror.

Woke beautifully alert
from midday nap
to Grace Jones’ take
on “La Vie En Rose”

Thought of you at once
and said it out loud
“I’ll bet he’s dead”
Still don’t know for sure

but I’ll bet you still like Grace Jones 
whether you are dead or not
The two of you were as scary
as Paris is beautiful, dear

Your beauty
was long-limbed and capable
of anything short of murder
when it was hungry enough 

capable of chilling the blood
at first touch or sight
I cannot imagine that’s changed
I cannot imagine a different you

Are you in Dublin
are you in Dubai
Are you somewhere in the States
Under or aboveground

I’m so well rested 
This afternoon is perfect
without you being anywhere close by
except in speculation

There are two ways
to chill the blood
a good way and a bad way
I have to say you were good at both

even with my rose-colored glasses on
and I hope you stay lost in time
with Edith Piaf
and Grace Jones

After your fall,
you’re free to examine
the customs of slumming
in the name of a new life.

You’re free to move about
the dark places of the country,
the shady shelters, the half-secure
shared apartments, the dank
holes of forgotten neighborhoods.
Enjoy it and make a brag of it,
buddy; someone will agree with you
out of necessity and praise it as
a lifestyle choice, a simplification.  

You’re free to self-medicate,
embalm yourself early, break open
the husks of imaginary taboos
in a world where everything’s permitted
and less is not more.  Laugh and barf
on the corner, bucko; no one need hold
your hair when you’ve shaved your head
that shiny. 

Maybe, though, you’re happy.
Maybe you’re glad things
aren’t better, more comfortable,
closer to what you once had —

but friend, you claim too much
for the way you live and too loudly
and for all the proclamations,
those keno slips in your pocket
flag a willingness to leave it behind. 

Really, you’re free as this worm
in this puddle and as
pale.  He’s wriggling
because that’s what worms
do.  It’s what you’re
gonna do too.  Snicker
and wriggle, pal; all yours
your low pride in low places,
even your wet pride of a pending
wet death in public, with not even
the utility of the fishhook
offered to you
to help you salvage a scrap.

east of where we settled
was a bleached tree, spear-ended,
open-seamed.  on the nights
the full moon hung upon its top,
we built fires along the beach
and danced from one to the other,
all the while staring up.

later, when we’d grown too large
for the original camp, we spread out
and someone took down the tree
in the dark of the month, possibly
to burn, possibly to build with.
we did not seek the thief,
preferring instead to imagine
a better solution: that some god
had lifted it from us to free the moon.

nevertheless, we still build fires
and dance, having the good sense
to decide that while the moon is no longer ours,
we still belong to the moon.  we have that amazing
capacity: to imagine a change and interpret it
when in fact there has been no change.
all that’s changed is the rationale we use
to hold onto our past.  that, and this:
we do not sweat as much joy as we once did.

Go.  
Just go.
Go do laundry, shopping,
banking errands.  Pay the bills
and visit the folks.
See if there’s anyone
at the coffee shop, the bar,
the library. Make
some conversation.
At the least, pretend
that movement is valuable
in this case.

Go.
Just go.
Take a job, a volunteer
position, a role 
in a community play.
Play a unicorn, a pirate,
a fur-clad king or queen.
Take on the control and mystery
the house doesn’t afford you.

Go.
Just go.
Get out the door
and unravel your hermitage,
following its threads
to the world 
outside your house. 
Let the slam of the door behind you
be your fanfare.
Let the anthem of reverse wail
as you get out of the driveway.
You’re an American, 
royalty among nomads,
shining as you roll across the world.

Go.
Just go.
Go big, large, gargantuan, grandiose,
universal in your journey.
Make a virtue of pretending to tear
your roots from the ground, 
even if just for a little while —
for the afternoon, the morning, the day —
your car radio on roar, your home behind you
laid open and wasted as Jericho from the sound. 
Take comfort, though — 
magically, it will be reborn when you come home
and rest.  You can tear it down again
the next time you need to go.

Breaking your story
right down the middle
into perfect half-shells;

I see fruit left standing on end —
to rot?
to sprout?
to be consumed?

Did that truly come out of what you’ve been claiming
was yours?  I can’t see
impressions on it at all;

it’s lovely, soft, so ripe —
how is this possible?
How can you be?
How might this, so unguarded now, grow?

acknowledging
that war
can make my blood
sing a little

means only
that I know myself
and the animal somewhere
within

if I pet him
the right rough way
now and then
he stays quiet mostly

I’m at peace
with the bloodsong
I do not deem it necessary
to pretend I cannot hear it

and will not deny
that I know how war
is a part of me
settled on my hands

as tightly
as skin
snuggled cozily in my mouth
sharp as teeth

and why else does my blood
burst scarlet from my wounds
as if it were the chorus
of a grand opera 

as red as all other blood
from all other wounds
blazing the aria
of the common nature of all 

who refuses us
entrance
calling foul
on us
saying
the door is closed

we should say
pfffft
we’re too wide for that door
and far too stubborn
to turn sideways
and try to get inside
on his command alone

who then turns away from us
to hide his stuff

pity him and not ourselves
for we can make our own
as anyone can
and as countless anyones have
for as long as there’s been
breath

Overheard these words
on a Philadelphia street
a toothless woman
a rusty gun 

They’ve had me quivering
for two full days now
as I’ve tried to decide
how to steal and reuse them
in a context 
of my own choosing —

how to create
a suitable conversation
not slanted
toward redneck imagery

Perhaps I’m quivering
because I can’t decide
why that was the first
context I imagined
would fit those words

Perhaps that’s why
I’m working so hard
to ensure that you know 
that I’m putting
someone else’s words
to work for me

Perhaps because
I myself have grown
toothless
and rusty
and making
the original conversation
an evil to rail against 
makes me feel
smiley and shiny again

Whatever the words are caught on
they landed in my ear
are trying to leave my mouth
are having a hell of time doing it

I don’t know where they want to go

I never even looked up to see
who in Philadelphia
was using them

He repeals
a law he has lived by
for a long time,

contemplates
how the first word
he thought of
set the path
for the ones to follow,

how choosing
“repeals” created
the notion of “law,”
how “law” led to
“rules to live by,”
how that opened the door
to “a change of life and
law.”  And so

by repealing a law
he’s held sacred for
most of his life, and then
considering the process
as a function of choosing
the right words and their
intent, he put on fresh clothes,
cinched his belt tight,
and walked out into the sunlight

as the same man who’d lived
arbitrarily locked down
for so long, one who 
having freed himself
at once prepared himself
for the next binding
he’d impose upon himself,

but far more aware,
at least at first,
of his freedom of choice.

A blind woman
accosts me
after the reading breaks up,
refuses to allow me
my convictions, challenges
my view of my own humanity —
seizes me by the arm,
insists I listen —
and all because she didn’t like
the last line of my poem.

“You don’t believe that,”
she implores.  “All the rest of your work
says you don’t believe that.”

Maybe she heard something
in my voice
that I didn’t intend to leak, maybe 
something only she could hear,
because I’ve questioned that line
a million times before deciding
to let it stand
because it has always made me so uneasy
that I suspect it is in fact
a core truth
that I want to reject
before I have to live with it.

She won’t let go of my arm
but I’m at ease.  “We’re going to have to
disagree,” I say, pulling loose.
“I know that’s true — I’m sure
of it.”

“No, no…you can’t!” she says,
louder and louder, over and over.

I step away,
telling myself
that only those most unsure
of their convictions
are this vocal —

but then again,
I chose
to read that poem
and I always read
that poem.