Observing sparrows,
drab and puffed, pecking
at my homemade cakes of
suet and seed.

A squirrel climbs the feeder post
but will not touch the food itself
thanks to red pepper flakes
in the seed mix.

Squirrel skips about 
below the feeders, nipping up
bits of neutral, unseasoned
feed fallen from above.

The sparrows 
seem unbothered. Maybe
they even like the small fires
in their food. 

I should be
putting my talent into
saving the world,
unless this

does save the world;
perhaps I fret needlessly
that there is so much more
to be done. This is such 

a small thing, this feeding
and saving and replenishing
while not harming as I go.
I do not like thinking

it’s all I can do, but it might be.
I do not like thinking I am reduced
to rendering fat and making poetry;
would rather imagine myself gunning

and shouting, slicing and 
leading a charge. Instead
I wince at my pains, stay off my feet,
nurse my confusion and memorialize

all I once was
while the sparrows
eat, the squirrels eat, the cold
settles in

and the world 
goes on without me 
to stand and bar
its crushing way.

They asked me
to be more
impish and sweet.

They looked me
in the eye
and asked this.

I could not,
did not understand,
couldn’t. I’m just

too serious, too
stolidly sour, too
resistant to change

but also: they
knew me, why
ask me this?

They said nothing.
A head shake,
then turning away.

Impish and sweet
seemed easy, I
guess. They seemed

disappointed in my
unwillingness to shift
all I was

into that mode 
for them. Could
not accept it,

so I was
rejected, dismissed, and
forgotten at once.

And yes, it
stung. Of course.
It always does.

Yet, in being
stubbornly myself I
cooled that pain

eventually. They did
what they did, 
I moved on,

and those words
slipped off me
like beads of

sweat, like mistakes
left unfixed, like
rain on glass.

Impish, sweet: I
may have missed
out, I guess,

could have sunken
into their perceptions
and drowned there

happy enough. But
today, though I
may never be 

be sweet, impish,
or connected to
them again, somehow

this is fine,
this is better
than dying there

in the arms
of one who
asked for falsehood

to become my
costume, my daily
garb, my mask

worn all day
and night and
never to be

taken off again.
They asked me
to slay myself

for favor of
their dimpled smile.
I said no

and though I
spoke it to
the air alone,

spoke it loud
with stony tongue
I owned, with

salt I’d ground
to flavor all,
I did endure.

You don’t want to admit it
but lately you have been thinking
that your big moments 
have all passed. 

You abhor the sentiment 
but truth is, you do sit around
thinking that you’re in stasis
and therefore decline.

Man, it’s like
you’re a damn walnut — hard-shelled,
long-fallen, full of potential,
sunken into the ground.

Maybe you’ll get out 
and grow.  Maybe you’ll rot.
Maybe you’ll be uncovered
by a squirrel and be consumed

by a being with a more urgent need
than any of your own and that will be
your biggest moment, your greatest
contribution. It ain’t over yet,

is what I’m trying to say.

we the most precious
examples of how the spin of flesh
makes vessels of each of us

sets us whirling in place
our parts and bits end up
precisely where they should be

their placement in our lives
perfection — all of us exactly 
where we are meant to be

even if it leaves us in despair
or rage to be present
with our moment personal and global

even if it leaves us wanting
difference and upheaval 
we the agents of the disruption

this is no false peace
we were neither meant for peace
nor holy acceptance

of bend and bow and scrape 
we are the warriors and medics
of today’s mayhem and failure

we must look each other 
in the eyes and say
you are perfect not broken

worthy not deficient
honored not disgraced
no time for shaming or discarding

as we the mass are
one last chance for miracles 
vectors for hope

From 1999.

there’s that ghost in your face —
the ghost of your mother

beloved ice mist peeking
from underneath the skin so clearly

in one frozen second
your father sees it and gasps

covers his face
before your twin images

as light plays into
the planes along your nose

a shadow covers
your own face

her face seeps through
before everything goes finally dark

you carry so much of her inside you
it’s no wonder he refuses to speak with you

at certain times when he is lonely for her
the heart can only take so much

there can only be so many reminders
before it breaks completely

There is a light
that never fails

in a safe house
somewhere,

one that lights
the way home

for those who seek it
from dark places; as dim

as it might be from 
some places on the path

it always comes through
the trees eventually,

is glimpsed from 
the ship on the rocks,

shimmers on the edge
of sight when seen from 

a distant ridge; it blinks
of home and safety

to the long absent
traveller. At least that’s

what I’ve
been told.

When running up
to a finish line
you will feel 
swords
in your chest

You must decide then
whether to ignore them
or stop to draw them forth
to either die there
or recover and finish

or even win

No choice is wrong

but what happens
to your swords
after you choose

That’s a puzzle
with its own sword hanging over it

Leave them in 
and push through and perhaps
you die or turn cold
and twisted in pain

Pull them out and contaminate all
with your blood as you fail
or finish or win
without them

but leave them behind
so others flay themselves
as they approach you

standing there
laurel-decked and
whistling from
all your holes

Aftermath is where
right and wrong
come out to play

Aftermath
is everything
in this race