…congratulations,
you’ve done it,
expanding, blowing out
your walls, creating space,
going higher. Cresting
above your previous
high water mark. 
A new pinnacle,
a renewed sense of
what’s possible. Listen
to what might be a fanfare
over there, a crowd
barely seeing you from
where they stand apart
on a small hill to your left,
eye level to you; the band’s
not playing for you, you ask
how that’s possible
when you’ve just risen
so far? How far down
were you that you are just now
leveling up to the yawns
and shrugs tier? Turn back
to your right and see 
that where you’ve been
looks exactly like
where you are now.
From here you see it was dark,
it’s still dark, you seem to be
on the edge of a valley
and so once again
you slip and slide 
down, down… 

There is little
to love here:

wreck of a house,
rotten driveway,
neglected garden laden
with young vegetables
that will not ripen in time
to beat this fall’s killing frost;

everyone who lives here
pushed to residency,
thread hangers holding
skin of the teeth tenancy;
the worst house on the street,
the neighbors always say —
though the kids from the first floor
seem happy enough,
greeting everyone out walking
from the driveway where they play,
bouncing a dirty ball between them
in spite of the uneven pavement

that too often sends it
off into the wilderness
by the failed tomatoes

and sends them giggling
after it. 

Let’s get on down to the Liquor Mart
before we start our good old
American Halloween. Paint our faces
red from inside with Fireball Whiskey. 
Prepare to dance the drunken stagger
of our barely-demon forebears
and fake evil till we make it. 
Lust for bodies naked underneath
their polyester shrouds. Taste
the solemn origins underneath
the blood on the stained receipts.
We can walk all hammered and commercial
through the rain falling thick as a screen.
It’s just the way it goes 
on American Halloween.

Then let’s head off to Walmart
to buy our way into
that good old American Halloween. Buy
matching costumes. Become
sexy pirates — no, let’s both be
Sexy Death and we can
split the workload. You take
the soft ones. I’ll take
the hard ones who don’t want to go,
the ones you have to tie up first.
We can split those who fall somewhere in between.
It’s just the kind of thing you do 
on American Halloween. 

At last let’s head off to the cemetery 
to close out this American Halloween. 
Stand among the stones
in smeared makeup giggling
at names we pretend we know. 
Recognizing some and avoiding those
because we are afraid of what they know.
Smashing our heads on the hard ground,
rousing the uncompromised ghosts 
and banshees who refuse to let us
off our blasphemous hooks. Saying not again
when the wind shakes the trees 
with a mocking rattle. We thought
we were pirates or two halves
of Sexy Death. What we are instead
are consumers in scenes tailored to
the falsehoods of American Halloween. 

First of all
in the best stories
there must be a dog,
a noble hound.

There must also be a cat —
scruffy and streetwise with
mystery surrounding it.
And in many there will be

a bird, often an owl,
that is perhaps
not as smart
as it looks.

You will
pick your familiar
from among them —
almost no one takes the owl,

more’s the pity,
unless they make an assumption 
that its apparently slow intelligence
hides something more profound; let it be

dog or cat for you if you wish.
There is not a wrong choice
if truth be told, as it always is
in the best stories.

Now that you’ve taken leave
of your prosaic self
for a while,
you can begin to quest

as a dog might quest – eager
to find the end of the trail
no matter how many distractions
tug you aside during your journey –

or as a cat might quest —
tiptoe prowler, sudden stopper,
sit down to contemplate
the whatever of the moment –

or, if by chance
you slipped into
the owl’s cloak
before the journey,

you will soar at night
above the others
and rest at dawn,
maybe calling to them

as they quest to suggest directions
or warn of hazards, using riddles
or ruses to test them, or perhaps
to clown them?

It’s in the telling
that the best stories
do their best work
but it’s hard to deny

the part each listener plays;
whatever form they choose
to take in the telling
has its own point of view

and in the best stories
the hero shifts among the listeners
until all are one or none,
until the tale is done.

The only dice I use
come in pairs, have six sides,
are cubes, and a bad roll
could get me killed.

The only dungeon I know
has no secret doors or prisoners
other than me and the only way out
is feet first. 

The only dragon I know
is the dragonfly that will come to you
one day with news I send
from the country of the dead. 

I have no time now
for any game in which
my life is not on 
the line. 

It is short
but intense.
A deep
prod lingering
just long enough 
to increase your wonder
at how little
you really know
about what
you are capable
of feeling. 
When it happens
the air you’ve
been breathing
all along suddenly
tastes like
animal spirit, 
cinnamon
ghost. You sit up
straight looking for
some explanation
or at least for some
elder to interpret
but they all vanished
long ago and you
will have to fashion
the meaning of this
into a framework
for the remainder
of your time
all on your own. 
Whatever the rules
are from this point on
you won’t know 
until you break them,
the taste in your mouth
growing stronger
with every breach
until a longing like
cinnamon swirling
inside is all, is
everything. 

I often spend my time here
in darkness because 
too often I am compelled
to it but then again 

I have never been good
at doing what I’m forced 
to do or tortured into
doing, so for a moment instead

I’ll celebrate how
that squirrel is eating
the hot suet in defiance
of the packaging

that swears they hate 
such flavors and even though
it means I’ll be refilling 
feeders more often 

than I should
and spending
money on
something I shouldn’t

if it makes me recognize a fellow contrarian
and offer them a bit of fat and seed
in solidarity, then I shall do so
and be, for one moment, content. 

See myself,

cup of congealed blood
in shaded hand,
clouded leopard behind
in twilight
under broad leaves.

As always

what it means 
is literal
in one phase
of this plane, 
metaphorical
or nonsensical 
in others. 

The growl

of the cat. 
Iron sour stink
of the cup. All the 
gray light, shadows
moving slightly. The same
in whatever place
this is. All there is to do
is choose
between them.

A complete rewrite of a twenty year old poem. 

She sits with her hands
twisting in her lap 
like kittens in a basket.

Her voice is just as furry
when she says, “I swear to God,
I can hear a piano

coming through the wall.” I hear nothing,
but try to soothe her by saying,
“Yes, it’s next door, they really like ragtime,”

and she clarifies, “NO, I MEAN A REAL PIANO
IS COMING THROUGH THE REAL WALL!
THE WHOLE DAMN THING IS BREAKING

ALL THE WAY THROUGH!”  I tell her she’s safe
and shake her noon pills from the sorter,
pour a glass of water.

She believes the walls exist
the same way I used to believe in God,
the same way she believes in the deadly piano.

I feel like I’m standing
watching a house burn
on the edge of a wilderness

as I rock her in my arms
amid the smell of smoke,
the soft meow she makes

in her sleep, 
the faint sound of music
from somewhere else.