Listening to old music,
wearing old clothes, thinking
old thoughts…enveloped in
a sort of sorrow that’s more like
dread, more like the flowers
on the orchid that have been
outrageous for weeks, show no sign
of fading and falling but
you expect them to go soon;

you are surprised
to find yourself licking your lips
knowing you’ll go outside soon
to the disasters that await —
the unfamiliar car, the new horror times
with your mother and sister,
the long, knuckle-driving drag
back and forth;

listening to old music, your old
clothes, your old thoughts —
but this, right now, is good, is nice;
is only troubled by anticipation
of dealing when you don’t want to
and can’t really; still, you hum along
and sing where you remember the words
and pick at your clothes, thinking
of how you will change them soon.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

Opposed to the river
as it meanders through
Worcester before going south
to the sea; disregarding the passage
I stay focused on the downstrokes
of the paddle, smooth
through the water; I begrudge
the earth that has put me here
in this place, in this time.

What the Blackstone does
is wander south. All I do
is sit and wonder
where I could be
that would reward me
for going anywhere except
south, to the sea.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

Libraries and museums
hold scraps of death and life
brought into them by living souls
and left to them by the dead.

I sit with this for a long time.
Weakening rays of sunlight
come in at a slant and fail,
one by one, along these long halls.

Stepping out at the end of the day.
I wonder: which relics tell which story
better; which stories are of life,
which of death?

Relics don’t tell their stories easily but
I turn on my heel and leave them to burn.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

Me and the cat,
the cat and me,
I and the cat,
the cat and I
wait in front of the television
for things to happen.
You can put us in any order
you like; we will wait together
like this for fifteen minutes
or five hours; I’ll wait for
the hammer to fall, she will wait
for food or treats or perhaps
nothing at all. Lucky being
that she is, she waits for
whatever comes. I wait for
things I know are coming
and that I fear. Two things,
three things; my own death,
two more, maybe ten or more;
maybe hers will hit me hard,
maybe harder than the others would.
I do not know. I do know
mine would bother her; she’d meow
louder than normal, become listless,
lost in her own miasma
of not understanding it.
I won’t understand it either. Instead
I try to predict the upcoming news
and events, such as they can be.
Of course I’ll get it mostly right,
a few of the important things wrong.
It’s the way of things.
It will not matter if I got it right
once it happens. The cat and me,
me and the cat, I and the cat,
the cat and I will be calm
in the occurrence,
no matter how it’s framed,
no matter how it seems to happen.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

Sitting
seems to be
all that’s left to do.

I’m waiting for coffee
and listening to the radio;
what else is there to do?

I’m worrying about
my partner leaving
for a month;

worrying on behalf of the cat;
worrying about my mother, my sister;
what else is there to do?

I can get up and check on
the coffee, get up and take
a shower, get up and push

my fists into my eyes, get up
and run ragged into the street,
get up and plead with God for

forgiveness
or better: a sort of fail-safe status.
What else is there to do?

I’m planning to be alone,
planning my options
to see people, planning

to dance in a quiet room
thirteen stories above this one,
planning a murder, a suicide,

a quiet death all by myself in my bed;
what else is there to do?
Instead I sit and sip coffee.

Well, this is good coffee. I’ll have to
get more soon. Have to be
ready, alert, scheming results;

thinking, always thinking of the future;
instead I just sit here.
What else is there to do?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

Still sitting, not
moving, equally
forthcoming and
shy, equally bold
and leftover as if I am
lukewarm food
hovering between
edible and distasteful;

still losing weight
as if I am beautiful;
sill dropping skin
as if I had some left to give;
not beat, prepared
to spark a fit in those
watching me though
I know it will not happen;
resolved to take
long nights coming
at face value, nights
stretching into days
into yawning nights;

but I am still here, by God;

still here for this moment
and any others that
decide among themselves
that this is their moment
and not mine.

I will be beaten for certain
and I will likely be destroyed
by this world,

but
by God,
I will remain
laughing behind it,
laughing till I am gone;
laughing until
I lie down on the stony earth
and seek my final comfort
from these hard places —
ones I lie on,
ones I made for myself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

People die. Everyone does.
Every last one of us
will take that final
step. No matter if
you dread it or welcome it
or just face it or not, you
will do it same as me, same
as a Tuscan peasant woman or
an old-timey soldier or
an ersatz self-important
man. So:

take me as you find me, Death;
you as pretty smooth girl, as
a wolf with golden eyes, as nothing
at all in fact. Take me

whole and happy, serene with you
and your grace, or as violent rager
in the moment of crash and burn;
take me and let them wail for me
and gnash their teeth over me
or sniff, after some time has passed,
at the mention of my name,
or forget me entirely.
I won’t quibble even if I am aware
of these dismissals and histrionics.
They won’t matter.

What will matter
is me sitting by a window
on a balcony in a small city, my words
on paper before me, a cup of good coffee
before me.

What will matter
is me there at peace
for once in my messy life, for once
content amid all the chances to mourn
myself and the tangle I’ve faced and
run from;

me saying it is finished
and meaning it; me turning back
to the pages of the book writing itself
before me and wondering, marveling
that it came out this way; surprised

at the detail, moved to tears
by the turns of events, surprised
really and truly that it took me so long
to see it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

it’s winter, nearly.
his days indoors
feel like that’s a lie
but it is not.

cold dawn
stretches into cold morning
then into cold darkness
with only a bit of sunlight
warming the in between time.

in his front yard
two hibiscus bushes,
one under each window,
are done for this year
with their business of blooming
and pulling in bees
to stumble clumsily in and out,
in and out.

in his front yard
trash piles up a little now
on rare occasions beneath
branches now almost denuded
with leaves still hanging on
amid a rising number
of brown, tough
seed pods that only come off
unwillingly
when one
tugs at them.

he calls himself a boy
but he knows he isn’t. calls himself
a man but he’s not even sure
of that.

one thing he does know:
there is a gap between
being adult
and being old and he
sits puzzled in that gap
much as trees hold onto
leaves, cling tough
to seed pods — unwilling
to let go and see them fall
into the rubbished earth.

winter comes on
inexorably enough
that he can’t debate it.
instead he’ll try
to let the trees stand alone with
wind in the thinness of their
branches, the density
of their futures
held so tightly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

Daylight. Lack of
interest. Lack of
desire to see it
through.

Sit here and think
of not-thinking. Think
of little. It’s not thinking
of a void; more like

each thought is broken
willfully off of the previous
one, or the subsequent
one; sit here with

evil, impartial daylight. You know
you are supposed to feel uplifted — not so;
you aren’t; are adrift
or stationary in a river of thought.

Do you have what you need,
all of it, every scrap of it? Doubtful;
daylight ought to be complete
in itself and it isn’t

that. An occasion for
mourning, perhaps, at the close
of dawn. Thus beginning the ordinary
lit hours, you bend your head and moan.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T