red lights skewing
across the road
in the white darkness
and the visible wind.
we sleep through
someone’s near disaster,
ignorant for now of fear
of losing control
even as we are blown
in our dreams to vulture islands
as the cold beak of winter
tears at our rest.
we will face the morning
with crossed fingers
hoping the road under the snow
will hold us when it’s our turn.
In my hand is a hyoid bone,
staple reference of crime shows
for the way it breaks during strangulation —
It supports the tongue
and gives us
the offer of speech —
The person who once owned this one
is silent now,
choked for some reason —
You can tell by the cracks
along the horns how it was
seized from without —
crushed by some weight
as the person stared into
another’s eyes, perhaps familiar ones —
I can’t speak myself
of any one suspect, don’t know
how to explain —
I’m stuttering now, my breath
stalled inside, preventing me
from lying to you —
My brain’s gone down into a blue hole
swirling into quiet, the lights
failing as I rasp my distress —
How this bone was ripped and crushed
is a story for someone else to carry,
not a burden, really —
a small tale of suffocation
so mundane as to be
unremarkable —
It happens every day, the
free floating bone of language itself
a casualty of others’ desires.
Before I got here,
I wanted the poems
full of feral Siberian iris and
the sword leaves of cattails,
their cotton-bomb tops
coated in tan smoke;
now I have the poems
sticky with asphalt
and cigars, Saabs
broken down on Vermont
snow trails, starfruit
on a glass plate
in a downtown bistro.
If I seem to know the world
these days, it is because
I can still sense it distantly
through its cloak of tar
and screen of clever conversation over
well-constructed food —
but there was a time
when I could stalk the woods
alone, never speaking,
filled with One Word that was enough
until I became hungry
and then I could pull white tubers from the ground
and crawfish from the streams,
build a fire and eat well,
and still never say a thing.
This is why I will not write now
of the peregrine
on the museum eaves,
knowing how little I might have to say
is true to what I have become,
for it seems that everything
that grows or soars without speaking,
is born to be itself without being told,
is now just a symbol of something I’ve lost,
and a weekend trip to the forest spells nothing
worth repeating, and I am
starving, and noisy
with the need to speak of human things
to other humans.
I am discontented
and desire only
to be alone
with the memory of how
I could have been as animal,
as mineral, as green and dumb
with simple existence as these
better beings.
Some nights,
up here on the sixth floor
in the highest loft I can afford,
I can almost believe
it was real. My blood in my ears.
My pulse slow as constellations
turning. My eyes fooled
into thinking I am still
seeing things as they are.
On those nights, I sleep
soundly, and the city
fades behind the curtain
of unspeakable
divinity.
It does not last.
And I do not tell a soul
of how it is.
nothing shall be untitled!
do not refuse to name it!
it will be cagey and take a name
you don’t like
if you’re not quick!
eat it before it grows
self-aware
and does the job without you!
ABSORB it into yourself
then squeeze it out and admire it!
It’s you, leftover!
let it take your own
goddamned name
if that’s all you can think of!
make part of it into your elbow knob
or perhaps a bladder cell!
you’re a discarded stick in the mud
waiting to take root
and drop fruit all around you!
here’s the chance
you’ve been waiting for!
put a name on it!
it’s not roadkill!
it’s a kid! a pet!
an ancestor! a tractor
for your field work!
dig a trench of letters!
raise up a voice to the sky
and call it something!
anything! call it!
you’ll never get it to stay with you
otherwise!
What if
you allowed yourself
to be a fist
in the presence of
your enemies? Not to
raise a fist, but to be one:
carry your whole being
in a ball and
resist the blows while you hold tight
to yourself? And when
the conflict is over,
with no memory of violence
against another: the fist
you were is gone,
you’re an open hand again.
Once upon a time —
and even now —
people sought (and seek)
the ability to pronounce
the four letter
True Name
Of God.
It is alleged that to speak it
is to own this existence,
to become that which was spoken.
There’s no certainty
of how it is supposed to sound.
No one’s ever been able to prove
that they know the One True Name,
but that failure pales beside
the rich murmur of poetry
that blankets the earth every day
as we try to get it right.
If it never happens,
if the Word is never uttered
and no one ever lives
happily ever after,
it won’t be because
we never struggled
our way through beauty
while learning to speak.
These last few days,
this shrinking light —
the calendar promising
an end soon
to a year that seemed long
before it was near its end —
and the start of a new one.
I close my eyes
expecting no closure
from an arbitrary number
on a piece of paper,
weary of the trudging progress
that got me here.
No, I’m a bird tonight,
in accord with more certain rhythms
that will lead to renaissance,
planning to fly home
when the right moment finally comes
no matter the date,
expecting to soar
and circle, then begin the direct route
to a resting place,
a place I’ll know in my hollow bones
when I get there.
I only know the owl
because I have been told about the owl,
have been startled by the owl once or twice
and seen the owl through chicken wire,
heard the owl in a suburban grove
and been afraid of the owl then,
calling my name the way I’d been told it would
when I was being called to close my eyes
for the last time. But I do not
know the owl, have neither lived near it
nor seen it hunt or shit,
in fact can only call the owl “the owl”
as if there were only One Owl
worthy of the name, and all I can know
of The Owl is myth and shadow wings
and meaning assigned in a void of experience,
of education in hard fact and simple proximity,
when what I want most desperately now
is for an owl to live here, on the shelf,
demanding to be free to be itself,
and to acquiesce to that demand, to let it go
and follow it, hoping that I might understand
why it has moved so many, why its call
is considered the voice of the journey home,
why such a call is so compelling
that it must be followed and obeyed
until I starve beneath its tree,
covered in its droppings, its serene disdain
and caution in my live presence,
fearful of what we hang on it
as it goes, solitary, among the trees
on its way to an individual, real existence.
We speak often
of dawn, of dusk,
of the wee small hours,
of midnight.
Here is a call out
for 1:47 PM, the afternoon
in progress, hours before
work ends, school almost over,
the heat of the day even in winter;
one for 8:13 AM, out the door
and into the completed light of morning,
transition over, no question about
what the day will bring because it’s come;
one for 9:00 PM on the nose, still early evening
for some but for some it’s bedtime,
the hour of demarcation between
the night owl and the church mouse.
And a special nod of the head
to coming home to 00:00 flashing
on the stove clock,
cable box, microwave.
What time is it, anyway,
when you are in the middle
of resetting the clocks after the power’s
come back on?
Did you set them all ahead a few minutes
so you’ll never be late again?
Did you set them all to the same time,
accounting for the few seconds it takes
to walk from one to the other?
You use your watch, your phone, your computer
to be sure you did it right. Something is always off
by a minute. Do you say then, “close enough?”
and feel a bit reckless?
Is this
your
revolution?
From the kitchen,
I can hear the cop show’s score;
they’re playing the Music of the Sad Reveal
so it must be quarter past the hour.
There’s a creak from the front stairs,
two sets of feet clomping up in winter boots,
and it’s Tuesday, so it must be
half past by now.
If I close my eyes I can hear the heat coming on,
can feel the chill settling in on the windows.
No need to go outside to see
the streetlights coming on.
I have ancestors who must have read signs
in the wind, the water, the sky and the upturned leaves.
Nothing has changed. I live
the clock I’m given, call the hours as they come.
Bread and a block of cheese
and one small glass of absinthe.
Pout it all into my mouth and let me slide.
I’m not fussy about where I end up.
I’m not fussy about ending up on a slab.
Fat in the arteries, pain in the chest.
I don’t wish for it, but I’ll accept it
if it’s what comes my way
after a night with good bread, fresh
and warm, a block of cheese
and a solid, sharp knife to cut with.
And the green milk of the absinthe
sets me apart from the rest of the night owls:
all of them out there thinking pizza or chips
and a beer and a late night talk show. I’ve got
the knife, the cheddar, the white flesh
of the bread cut thick and soft,
the shot to warm me and steel me
against the winter night. I’ve got a pen
and a knife and a good meal.
I’ve got an eye on the slab where I’ll end up
and I’ll make myself comfortable in the mean time.
It’s a mean time out there in the dark
but I’m fed, I’m lit, and ready for what’s coming.
That line —
the one you’ve always told yourself
you’d never cross —
is right there
in front of your toes.
On the side you’re on
there’s nothing but shit
and sand. On the other,
food and water: no banquet
but there’s enough there to hold you together
once you’re back on your side,
and to give you the strength
to stay away from the line
in the future.
When you tell yourself
it’s ok to step over
as long as you don’t erase it,
you realize
you’ve already begun to erase it.
Perhaps the problem you’re having
is the line? Perhaps
it’s not so much that
there’s a line as it is
that there should be lines at all?
Maybe the truth is
that the problem is
not the line,
but your desire to wipe out
your footprints
so that you can tell yourself
it never happened, so you can tell yourself
no one will ever know you were here?
That’s really a question for the vultures
who are already circling
to answer. Ask them,
why don’t you? I think they’ll tell you
they’ll take you
wherever they find you.
what the hawk sees..
details
of hunger
simple need
a rupture
in human attention
balance
regret
the leading edge
of her own wing
the rumpled hair
of the worried lawyer
sustenance
regret, again
need, again
a snake unnoticed
near the cars
the bright fear of
what is above, below
below
the prettiest lights
wear my ring
all you have to do
is stay in the dark
and I’ll let you play with them
for as long as I want
so what if it makes you puke?
you know I only let my favorites
have them
what did you need your day for anyway?
what were you planning on doing
that could be more important
than just lying here in the dark
with your explosions
you need a slap upside the head
with a crowbar
to learn to shut down
shut up
and see what’s what, pal
you stubborn bastard
you need to slow down
and let it all get to you
once in a while
and doesn’t it feel good
to have an excuse to do so?
I’m no
walk-in closet.
More of a wardrobe.
Limited space
for stuff inside —
keep to a regimen
of work, sleep,
occasional fun
and don’t hold on
to many souvenirs
unless they fit into
the small drawers
I occasionally weed
to make slots for new
items. If I want larger
themes, I go outside
and feel no need to own
what I see. I’m not overfull
with passing fancy this way,
a thing I learned
through experience —
my walls
can’t take
too much weight
and a packed drawer
doesn’t open easily
when you’re in need
of what’s inside.
