When it is this dark, there’s no point
in leaving the house.  You’re hidden
from the world.  The blinds
are down and the lights
in here are on; what reason,
really, to go outside and face
a cold November night
looking for safety or peace?
Here, there’s coffee, chocolate,
sandwich makings — everything,
really, four dim walls can contain
to sustain an existence. 

The only thing
that might be out there is
a balm to the gnawing
inside you — the rat chewing
at your core with his perfect,
slide along the bone bites
that take so little, really,
only a small shred at a time,
and how do you measure that against
the cold outside? 

Maybe he’ll stop,
sometime soon;
maybe you will
get used to it
and him and the hole you can feel
even if it doesn’t show up
on any X-ray. 

Against the possibility
of freezing in the open air,
losing your way, running out of gas
in a lonelier place, ending dirty
and stiff in an alley or a grove
north of town somewhere close
to the long woods that stretch
into Canada,
the rat and the close walls
and the light that spills weakly
from the hand me down lamp
seem downright friendly. 

Your life
is contained so perfectly in this tight space
that the open arms of the night
can’t possibly compete.

Tags: poetry, poems, meditations

Willingly
suspended
on the pole

Blood-flushed
faux-sweet
like we all have
all the time
in the world

I was born with everything I need
for this Work

of putting self
in abeyance
Of body presented
as message and not
presence or identity

Letting myself
be seen
without betrayal
of who I am

I can be anything I want
in this place where they demand
that I be whatever works

I chose the name I use
for its clowning value

Not all of us have done this
the way I have
but some of us
know very well
what we’ve stripped off
and what remains intact

The money isn’t bad
as a way of keeping score
but it’s not great all the time

On the nights
when it’s bad
I play harder

What I offer
under the guise of sex
is a tug of war
between their power
and mine

where who’s winning is secondary
to the push and pull joy
of this Work

Tags: poems, poetry, meditations

Once upon a time

there was a stalk of wheat
that could speak. 
It had a story to tell.
It grew up whispering
of its future as bread,
and when it fell
before the reaper,
before the winnower
and the miller,
it carried its whisper
into the flour and the dough
and the bread
that was soon eaten
by a hungry child. 
The child grew up
with that spare voice inside,
listened to it whisper,
but never let anyone else know.

The child grew
to be an adult, aged,
then one day fell silent
before the gray press of age.

It so happened in those days
that a traveler stopped by the roadside
near where the wheat had once grown
and the once-child had just died.

The traveler
sat down to rest
beneath a tree. 

He grew hungry
for bread,
and approached a small house nearby
to offer a few coins for whatever
might be offered.

The house was abandoned,
but on a table in the kitchen
was a loaf of golden bread. A knife
lay beside it, and the traveler
took up the knife to slice the bread.

A thin voice spoke and said,
“Name this bread Isaac
before you cut.”

The traveler was not unlearned
and knew that voice, knew its story;
also knew that while there was a reprieve
at the end of the tale,
one could not count on that happening
twice. 

He picked up the knife
and shouted, “Isaac, I adore you!”
as he cut deep through the crust.

As he ate,
in a field
many miles away
a new stalk of wheat began
to whisper and grow,
and a weaning child
began to cry for bread.

Moral:

Stories have a way
of finding the thread
they most desire,
and someone will always arrive
at the right moment
to complete it, to change it
and carry it forward,
even when it seems
that the tale will be lost forever.

It may seem foreign to those who stay at home
and practice their bliss behind closed doors,
but not to you.  The Anaconda Priesthood welcomes you
behind its curtain of jewels and whole cloth

to the church of fascination and deceit
and imminent if not certain death. 
You may stare at each of them (it’s
expected, of course) but not for long,

and do not lock eyes with any one of them
for any length of time, as that will be seen
as an offer of self-sacrifice.  You’re used to that
of course, thinking that time spent

in your bargain basement occult gatherings
has been preparation enough.  Not even close,
novice — those teenagers didn’t have a clue as to
the nature of true menace.  These snakes

mean business, longing for meat
as fresh as they can get it, and you’re
looking sweet and fat.  But that’s what you
came for, of course; here’s the good danger

that you’ve only sniffed at from afar.
There before you, in sharp suits
and big, big bloodlust, sit the serpents
you’ve always wanted to be: their eyes,

their supple lies, their mechanical
calm and unhinging jaws. 
You think you’re ready?  You might be
if you can cool your blood and head

and keep them cold.  Look at them,
fat and ripe and old.  You believe
in every hiss and slither, and your own eyes
are narrowing as you smile back.

Let’s assume the position,
lay hands on the hoods of our cars,
bless the steel with our fear. 
They’re coming
for us. 
Always the sound of the bees in the air. 
Always the crack of batons
and the hiss of the tear gas. 
Close your eyes
and get right back to the bright red world
full of vigilance we thought we left
on the savanna. 
Hunters are coming,
they’ve got traps and laws, we’re animals
they love to stalk. 
Lay hands on the ground
and listen for the tumbling of their wheel
from miles off. 
Why are we waiting from them
to arrive?
Lay tracks for the distance,
there be giants coming for us,
god-henchmen
as we thought we’d outrun in the past,
we’ve got to run again. 
We’ve got to be smart.
We learned how to make spears
the last time this happened. 
We learned fire
and song
and how to shout directions to each other.
Those ancients had no more smarts than we do,
they just knew a bad thing when they saw it
and believed they could defeat it. 
They created everything there is today
to get away from the crush and the curse. 
Lay your hands on something,
fashion it into defense. 
They’re coming, new hides,
new weapons, new uniforms,
still the same old saber-tooths,
the same old giant bears
who thought we were made
for their survival needs, and
we’re still the same old prey that got away,
so pick your hands
up off your cars,
turn off the deadening TV
that keeps you from hearing,
talk to the neighbors,
talk to each other,
talk to me,
talk yourselves into the battle,
they’re coming,
it’s nothing new
and nothing we haven’t defeated
a thousand times
a thousand times,
get up, fight, remember
you’re still the One
who got up
off all fours
and looked the Hunters
in the eyes
and made
the first ever Political Statement:

“No, not this time.”

When the suck
envelops the evening,
suck back your breath
and hold on. 

If you fall
under the weight of suck,
suck in your gut
and hold still.

In the whistle
of the suck, listen
for the song
behind it.  Suck

lasts a long time
but at some point,
it will end.  Suck
is one end of a total breath.

There’s a legend
of a ghost that lived
in a pill bottle
found by a young child
under the leaves
at the edge of his driveway.

The name on the bottle
had leaked off in the rain
long ago, the pills
had crusted and fused
inside, a thick crumb cover
of white holding them in place;
the boy stuck a pencil in
and pried them loose,
shook them out onto the ground.
All he wanted was the bottle
to hold something else he’d found.

The ghost of the bottle
slipped into the air, moved
out into the world, barely rustling
a leaf as it rose through the thin
October trees to seek its original owner
who had died or gone missing
and left it behind. 

It would have fastened on the boy,
but it chose to wait.  At seven,
the boy could not have held the ghost;s interest
for long; he would need more age and pain
for the ghost to cling to.

But the ghost would remember
this boy, his poking at the leftover pills,
how he stripped the label off
and made the bottle his own.

Genies serve the masters who find them;
ghosts master the moments in which they’re found,
and this ghost had all the time in the world
to wait for the boy to grow into his moment.

You and your damn crows
and vultures, Time.
Always they’re out there:
in trees in threes for crows,
soaring solo or in posses
for buzzards.  It’s like
you can’t not remind me
of your inevitable
last grin down upon me,

and don’t get me started
on how scared I become
in the moment after I’ve congratulated myself
for sweeping a worm off the front walk,
or each time I chase down and slay a fly.

That sinking feeling of knowing
it’s all a holding action.
That moment of wondering
when you, Time, will throw me
to your pets.

I’m sick of you and your insistence.
Friends say it’s just coincidence,
that there’s no definite presage of death
in these things…
but I know what they all eat.
I know their hunger.  I know
I’m fat, soft,
and an easy pick with this head of mine
that won’t shut up about making it easier
for them…

ah, Time, I get it now:
it’s just your way to tease me
with the death-eaters
in the midst of my living.
It’s what you are best at:
using the little things,
the obvious things,
to reveal yourself as an arrow
pointing inexorably
one way.