Going
as a lifestyle
has its perks.
One needn’t 
be transfixed
on “home” if
you carry it 
everywhere.
One needn’t 
fret about
the changing
neighborhood
or how the
property has
depreciated
since, you know,
all these people
moved in. And
one needn’t worry
about all those
stationary problems —
sinks backing up
and the like. One
may just go and
buy something 
house-like on wheels
and go, go, go.
It’s historically 
healthy too to 
regain the pioneer
spirit — open road,
living off the land,
campgrounds, blue
skies, see this big 
country at last before
it’s overrun with
the Others. Maybe
one could outrun 
it all. Maybe one
could even
cross a border
the right way and 
keep going. No place,
after all, like home,
home with a range,
a pump out bathroom,
a pull out bed,
and all the gas
one can guzzle. 
Keep going until
the end and then
be burned and scattered
wherever the end is:
keep going a little while longer
on the wind,
end up soaking into 
the soil somewhere,
the green grass
of home or something 
like that recalled from
the past before
the call of the karmic wheel.

On rare days
I can still pretend
(as I always have)
that I am desirable
in the crass and crude sense
used in daily parlance,
although when I am more sensible
I recognize both
the falsehood
and the idiocy
of such pretense.

I understand
that such considerations
should be beneath me
and that my self-worth 
ought to be far less concerned
with conformity,
status quo, or conventional 
beauty; desirability
can ride any horse,
after all;

nonetheless, now and then
I try to pretend 
that from the corner of my eye
I see a head
snap back toward me
walking by; that I can hear
a swift horse being reined in
and turned around; 
that attention is being paid,
and it fills my pockets
with good warm gold.

Underfoot,
past stories
still being ground into dirt
to grow 
a new narrative.

Today’s news
sounds like old news
but reads faster, looser,
chaotic, derailed.
We still call it new.

We have
a luxury
of hindsight
we don’t engage
until it suits us,

choosing our speed of 
recognition.
As for learning
from history?
Forget it, we’re told.

Everything new
is new
and what is old
is cherry picked
to keep us rushing forward.

Be afraid of that, say
those pushing us to run.
It might catch you
if you look at it.
You could turn into a pillar

of worse than salt — now, there’s
a piece of legend worth 
picking up. Never look back.
Never give up. Never stop,
or risk turning into dust.

At night, though, stars. 
A curtain
of ancient light
flung sky-wide.
All you see there is past.

Some of those stars
are gone
and we
will never know it.
They remind us

of how much we owe
to our past. It’s all you can see
of heaven. It’s all heaven
can see of any of us.
It’s in this dust underfoot.

Had I been
more attractive
in a conventional sense
I would have meant 
so much more to me,
I’m sure.

But as I was not
I had to fall back upon
my broken brain
and its sad companions
my torn-up heart and soul.

I did what I could
with these and somehow
was lovable enough to some
but if I could have been
more lovable to me?
Who knows
what might have happened?

This is less complaint
than a field note,
something to leave for 
a researcher to ponder.

But it would have
been something
if I’d felt
that I’d turned a head
just casually, if I’d felt
a glance burn in
a touch longer than usual —

petty longings,
trivial regrets,
a notion I’ll shake off
the second I’m gone.

The fence along the downhill side of the house
is white and old with ragged points
on some of the slats but it holds up well enough
to prop up cucumber vines and shield
tomato plants from too-strong wind and sun.

For years now I’ve lined up
containers — scavenged totes long without tops
and pickle bucket from behind a fast-food joint — 
and made a garden along this fence 
that runs along the sidewalk that runs
from street to the back stoop. Eggplants,
tomatoes large and small, squash and beans,
cukes and sometimes herbs and more; 

I have somehow become my grandfather,
who died inside for the most part
when he could no longer get outside
to plant and grow and tend.
I do not yet walk with his bent frame
and my knees still move fairly well 
though the stairs slow me down
and my hands are stiffer than they once were,
stiffer than I ever thought they’d be. 

I thought I’d die before I got this old.
When I was young there was a song
that wished for that to happen
and I understand it now —

each day I wake up filled
with the fear of death
for these plants;

each day spent warding off bottom rot and vine borers,
losing patience with the weather, growing anxious
about that just glimpsed ground hog and where he went
after running through the front yard 
like some portly reaper of the fruits
of my hard work —

it’s all anxiety now: disease and theft,
my body not strong enough
to match my will, and will I have the resources
to make any of this work until harvest time?
I stand up from the couch to go outside and try;
creaking like Papa did, I go out to try while I still can.

You are planning a murder
when you are interrupted by sunlight.

Predawn, post-sleep had been devoted to 
a revenge fantasy; it’s gone now.

It would have been so sweet,
and so cold.  A true plum

of an execution, a person
richly deserving, someone whose absence

would make your presence whole.
Your fingers are still itching to think of it.

But there you were mid-plot
and the sun rose above the house next door

and came in through the window
like a damned angel, and you woke fully up

and there you were, fat old snoozer
emerging from your avenger dreams;

your old nemeses long dead
or as infirm as you are now;

you’ve had a pretty good life
so far as well and as searing as

the old days were, doing this would be 
either a crown or a crash; no guarantees.

Anyway, with your hands and body 
you’d likely couldn’t handle the work.

So: here’s the sunlight. Remember how
you’ve always been a good boy, a very good boy.

You’ll be a very good boy today,
all the way to dusk. All the way through

to the night and the bed. Tomorrow
is another day and between now and then

there will be more fantasy of opportunity and motive;
after all, even a very good boy can dream.