When you
have been held
as tightly by illusion
as you have been
for so long,

tearing free
must leave behind
so much blood
you might
find yourself overcome
with longing

to turn back and dive in
to that red pool, one so deep
you can’t find a bottom
to touch and rebound up
to free air again;

but I beg you, do so:

bounce back up 
if you go back down,
break surface through 
your own lost blood and 
once the red has drained 
from your eyes
and you open them
in full spectrum light
you will see all of what’s here
as it should be seen, tinged
with what is natural,
inherent, normal — 

sooner or later 
your lost blood will refill
and you will keep it inside
where it belongs
and the old illusions
to which you were chained
will fade into a darkness
kept forever at bay
by the light into which
you’ve emerged.  

This is the time
when I am
most full.

No expectations
other than those I find
in the first word
of the day, or
in the decision to leave
this space intentionally blank
and tell myself it is fine;
to say out loud
to the empty room
that I’ve already
done enough,
considering how long
I’ve been at this.

This is not a poem
about poetry but
instead one about
the incomplete nature
of any completion.
It is about leaving things
awash in anticipation;
about tomorrow,
always tomorrow.  

Missed the train,
went home, lay down
miserable at having to wait
until tomorrow for the next one;
your hair kept growing,
nails too; it wasn’t
the end of the world.

You just became a bigger person;
then again, you would have
gotten bigger anyway
if you’d been able to go. 

Missed the train, missed
the colors of leaves
and and shapes
of stations along the way,
the scent of the man
seated across the aisle; 
trickles of conversation
now and then leaking by;
your nose would
have opened up, maybe
your eyes might have startled 
into new visions, maybe
an overheard word would have
cut you or stitched you;

then again, nothing
can stop you from being
all that while you are parked here
in your bed or on your couch
while waiting out the day
and evening and night
waiting for the next train.

You’ll be OK; maybe
bigger, maybe your glucose levels
will change for the worse;
maybe you’ll be the next obituary
someone learns about through
social media. Maybe not.

It’s the next day
of the rest of your life as
the asshole prognosticators
like to call it. Or it’s Tuesday,
the day after you missed the train
you were counting on
to change everything, and nothing’s
changed.

No matter
to any of that. You are OK
right now. Stand close
to yourself as you are.
Let it wash you clean. 

While overthinking
how it’s going,
you lose
the moment.

Is this sunrise,
or sunset?
Without understanding
directions, all at once

you find yourself
uncertain. It’s just
a pretty sky. Your memory
refuses to help; you can’t tell

if it’s cooling
or warming up;
whether those distant cars
are coming or going.

Which way 
you are supposed to face
to decide what’s coming
or going is uncertain.

You close your eyes,
still unclear as to what
is going on but 
it’s dark enough now 

to pretend it’s going
the way you want — 
toward dark, toward light.
All you have now

is the moment. 
It is empty.
You are there.
Otherwise, nothing.

What else is there to do
but overthink everything
from here — past,
present, future if there is one.

Make it all up. Keep
your eyes closed. It is
neither warming nor cooling.
It is, instead, everything at once.

That ripple
up your left arm.  That
awful sense of
something crawling.

Nothing there, though.
No bug, no mouse,
no unseen being to be tossed
aside in spite of its
invisibility; you can’t 
get a hand around it
so it must not be there…
correct?

Of course, unless this part of you
has slipped into a secret world.
Unless you are lying on the bank
of a long vanished pond,
your arm immersed in ghost water,
spectral critters there
foraging upon 
your forearm.

You wake up shuddering,
thinking…
but is this thinking?
Isn’t this
an entirely different way
of knowing?
You can’t be sure of that — 
all you are sure of
is that you won’t be soon
falling back to sleep. 

It begins in quiet
at just predawn
while seated with 
back straight, pressed
against the couch,
my hands folded in my lap.

It seems I should be
doing something
since I am awake.
Early to bed, etc.; so
the saying goes. But
I’m surely not healthy,
laughably unwealthy;
wisdom slipped away
when it sank back
into a dark dream river
as I opened my eyes.

A breeze rising in my backbone
blows through from there
to sternum and is swirling 
around my cooling heart.
I hear a ticking from somewhere
from a clock I don’t own. 

My father died not long ago; died old.
My mother will die older; likely soon.
Everyone I know
is on that same clock.

It seems I should be doing something
since I am awake — early to bed,
etc. Of course. It’s a proverb.
It’s wisdom. Apparently
it’s mine now. But what is it
I am supposed to do next
in this remaining life
when all this wind is in my chest 
and a hidden clock is growing louder
in my ear?

Standing in the weeds
behind the bus stop,
waiting. Hope
I do not catch a tick 
and Lyme disease or Babeosis
or have some larger
unknown something
sneak up behind me.

I of course could step out
into the shelter of
the glass box provided, or
get all the way onto 
the sidewalk to wait,
certainly — but that’s how
you become a target.

Let’s be clear that the bus
holds its own threats,
the destination as well is
dangerous, and the ride home
when all is done? A doubling down,
a repetition; a breeding Ground Zero
for the fear in just being alive
in these days.

I could just ride the bus
with my eyes closed
and headphones on, 
I suppose, as so many do
because there seems to be
so few options;

can’t help thinking
that somewhere out in these weeds
may be an Answer disguised
as a threat
and I’m just too conditioned 
to believing in the danger 
of this world to turn around
and face it down and 
draw it close and
see what it truly wants
from me,
from the frightened world
we’ve made.

Dirt under your fingernails
when you get ready for bed;
that’s enough
for today. You did the work
and the evidence is upon you
and clear.

Outside
weeds lie drying
on the pavement where
you left them. Tomorrow
you will pick them up
and take then to the pile
along the fence out back.

Once they’re dried and brittle
some will be used
to spark the firepit
as kindling for an August
night’s party flame. 

It will be a lovely night — 
you’ll have vegetables 
grilled fresh from the vines
you’ve carefully saved 
from the weeds you burn
ceremoniously as you feast.

Look down at those nails
before you scrub them clean — 

take a moment to savor 
the deaths you caused today
to bring forth the most abundant life
for you and yours,
you beautiful man; you,
provider. 

Fell out of bed into
indifferent space. I’m sure

I didn’t know anyone
there, but there were faces

that seemed familiar.
I cried out, I’m falling, falling,

falling out of bed, and I was
pushed back up from below

and pulled back up from 
above. Then, found myself

awake, trying to figure out
what was pillow, what was

mattress, who was below
and who was above and how

was it any of their business
that they should all be awake

at the right time to assist
in that recovery? I’m still

trying to recall those faces
I saw in the liminal world

between falling
and settling back into bed. 

Who cared enough to move me
back into this world? 

May I please know all their names
before I fall again, that I may

greet them one by one and love them
wherever I land next time.