If you thought
about something at one time
then let it go, coming back to it
some years
or even decades later, found yourself
wandering about between poles
as if they were real,

then find yourself thinking
about it again
trying to decide
how much of what you were told
is fact, how much is a lie — or perhaps
truth and falsehood depend
on where you stand —

listen, you don’t even know
what I am speaking of, do you?
It could be about anything.

Go then into the world just as you are;
go into the world confused
and uncertain of anything;
delight in being right and wrong
and subject to conditions as it may be.
Take it
as it comes to you. Don’t decide.

Sit quietly (for example) and feast
on the native grasses of the planet
and fill up upon them, fill yourself
to bursting upon them, then lie down
quietly and end up as a grass-bed
on the face of the earth; imagine
yourself as a complex human
reduced to peace.

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

Quiet now on this side of it.
You knew, of course, that this would be so,
that all noises would cease; you’d be left here
in a cocoon of sorts, a shell.

Quiet now on this side.
Inside we find you, of course;
curled up, small for once; not as large
as you once thought you’d be.

Quiet now on this side.
Your visions and fantasies did not come with you;
we sit and stare a while hoping for just one
but hope has no wings and is unfledged.

Quiet now on this side.
All your songs, muted now, are just snatches of recall.
Marry one verse to another’s bridge to a chorus
from yet another; none of it makes much sense to us.

Quiet now on this side.
We turn back to living. You might be fabulous
some day, but whoever has time to await you
has to leave with us.

Quiet now on this side.
We don’t have time to wait any longer.
Write if you get work, if you find yourself moving
at all, though we promise nothing.

Then — comes slap of water on an ancient boat;
comes antiqued voice of an unexpected ferryman;
comes muted sound of his pole sliding you along;
come voices, perhaps singing, on a nearing shore.

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

You think you know so much about your self
but you only know your thoughts
about it — your emotions,
your rages, your boil of soiled
lusts, your just-before-sleep plans
on what you plan to say and do
when you wake up;
meanwhile, your feet ache, independently
of your mind; your hands tingle separately
from your feet; your hair — pardon, your scalp —
itches right there, behind your left ear; your eyes
glaze over, crusted with tears and goo;
you don’t know anything. You are
feeling without knowing.
Somewhere among these parts
there’s a stone,
a white stone the size of a small ruby
but white as in
alabaster, milk-fed marble;
the essence everyone knows
and no one can name.
It shakes its head.
But — what is it?

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

Sitting alone, contemplating
an end to this world.

If it is meant to burn,
it shall burn.

If it is meant to drown,
it shall drown.

God is in tears
trying to decide.

I don’t care, not at all.
If I am to go with it, I shall.

Either way, or some way
I haven’t thought of — yet.

I know at the end I will say,
“is that all?”

With that in mind,
I keep my eyes open for it.

It will come one beautiful day
or some years from now.

Someday I shall close my eyes
to it while I am saying magic words.

Is that all? Such relief.
Such a release from all this weight.

Is that all? An old cabaret song
in the last air.

Is that all? Two bodies dance
a tango in twilight.

Is that all? I shall close my eyes,
since my ears are doing the last work.

Notes fade, fire burns out, floods recede.
I wipe God’s face in my last moment.

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

Would it have mattered to anyone at all
if you had seen an angel or a fairy?

I doubt it. They would have called you
crazy or looked at you funny

at the very least.
But coming down from a dream

or possibly in daily life — maybe
washing clothes or leaving the bathroom —

you caught something in your corner;
you saw a peripheral view of a being

of light and depending on whether
you were raised secular or in religion

you knew what it was. You decided
it was safest to keep quiet about it

but you knew you were being blessed
and even if it looked like crazy to the world

you were ordained in secret
to its mysteries, and if you kept quiet

you could smile secretly and hold it,
like a stone, in your pocket

till an end
came about.

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

in old parlance from
the west,
lakota called you
heyoka
and apache called you
libaye;
nowadays
people don’t call you
anything but
you’ve always known
your spot and
sometimes you whisper
a name for it
and then forget it
right away;
you haven’t slept a
comfortable wink since.
you toss and turn all night;
the gods, as always,
wait to delight in you —
that is, if you are quiet
and respectful
around them —
sadly, you can’t be that.
maybe it’s too much
or not enough.
either way,
you feel messy while you
wait to learn your name
from whatever
comes along.

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

I didn’t know there were monkeys
in the maples on the street
until I saw one — at least,
I thought I did — swinging
gently among its branches,
hooting softly at cars below,
first light of morning, no one
but me watching them;

didn’t understand these
marvelous birds — ostriches! —
moving flightless over asphalt
and manicured lawns — rubbed
my eyes and they vanished;

turned back to the living room
and from beyond its thin-paneled walls
I heard — something; a ticking,
a rumbling of drums, promise of
some new awful life or decent living —
then it faded off into a vast nothing
and I was alone in the ordinary;

I said, this is my life now. This
is where I live, having an ordinary life
among full beings
of impossible existence
who fade
into wraiths
and then into nothing;

I poured myself a coffee
with a little two percent milk —
it will do, I guess —
and try to settle in.

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

Suppose the fat guy outside the house
with the brown bag on his hip sagging
down past his ass, swinging
and bumping it as he walks
slowly, almost dejectedly by —
suppose he’s God? Suppose,
just for a moment, that instead of
expected flowing raiments
of gold and purple — suppose
this is everyday wear for the Deity?

You consider it for a few seconds
and then dismiss it, as you do
every odd thought that comes up
these days; settle back into
your new routine — thoughts
come up, thoughts make you angry,
thoughts make you sad, then they disappear.
You don’t know what to say about them
except that you had them once,
and now they are gone.

Meanwhile, the fat guy is gone
and is replaced by the woman who walks
her old basset hound daily. You have never
lived in a place where everyone walks
their dog daily, sometimes even twice
a day; then they keep to themselves
and you don’t see them or know
where they live.

Maybe they are all
God? You don’t have a sacred clue.
Maybe there isn’t one at all, in fact.
Someday you’ll get to find out, maybe.
Until then, though, you just sit there quietly
and watch
and feel
and forget, right up to the end.

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

Set an open course from where you are
and if your mind is right you’ll make it
though you closed your eyes
and let rogue wind and currents decide.
Set an open course from this spot you’re in.
You will get there in time.

You will choose to have people see you off
or you will meet them later, surprisingly so,
in a small dark bar that will remind you
of some other place you met them once,
or perhaps you won’t recall that at all —
whatever works, you tell yourself;
you are delighted to see them at any rate.

Set an open course from where you are then.
You leave them alone after a bit — your shyness
comes out and chases you down — or maybe
it’s just an urge to let things be? Maybe
you are done with all that. No more
socializing, no more small talk. It’s time
for a road in twilight, maybe in night rain,
getting on a bus with no one aboard to speak with
except you, of course; there’s nothing to be said.

You close your eyes now.
Nothing more needs to be said.
You go to Chicago, to Albuquerque, to Atlanta;
back, back to homes and hotels of your youth
to see what, if anything, has changed.
That driver will nod when you sigh and get back on
after a long look around.

Take me home, driver, you whisper.
He sets an open course
that takes you somewhere comfortable;
it is not home.

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

Equally empty.
Equally to be loved.
Equally a coming Buddha.

On deep muddy banks
of a river I do not think
of these;

I let them go,
shake them each off,
move like water over stones;

water in sunlight
or dry light or night dim rain —
it’s all the same, yes?

I shake them off, as I said.
I take one deep breath
then continue forever:

equally empty;
equally to be loved;
equally a coming Buddha.

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

Put out the trash this AM

It took all my strength to do it
as it stunk and required two bags
plus a recycling bucket to be emptied
and the cat’s litter bucket to be emptied

I did it in light rain and felt OK at the end
though I’m two pounds lighter this AM
and feeling every ounce of my
(disability? sickness? chronic issue? curse?
what should I call this that won’t go away?)
I felt OK at the end

Put out the trash this AM

I am sitting now with a computer in my lap
trying to write down whatever I feel
trying to hone it down to perfect words
trying to ruthlessly weed out imperfect words
to weed out feelings I feel but won’t talk about
to rip out a blessing
to massage forth a curse
to put into correct terms
a concretion to be seen

after I stumble through that dark door to my apartment
after I collapse into a chair opposite the door
sit there for the longest time
am discovered shrieked over put away
released

as if that is similar to putting out the trash

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

In a moment
you will understand
how this world moves:
you will see that
it neither conspires against you
nor does it collaborate with you;
instead this world moves
serenely along, a canoe
on a dark lake of stars, a tree
minutely moving in
a microcosm stirred barely
by wind — and you
move with it, upset
or at peace depending
on the moment you feel it
and letting it pass over
is hard until you are older,
until you understand
those stars are elsewhere,
rippled briefly then made still
again or nearly so —
moving slowly, slowly,
more slowly thankfully
than you can move,
than you even
want to move.

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

let this be called
my mistake, my
error — that I lived
too long in a shadow
and only observed this
perfect world as an entity
coming out of a shadow.

there were roses, I know
that now; there were fires
that took their light from blooms,
I know that now; all on earth
were bathed in light that made
high fear or little note.
I know that now

and now I live here, well-lit,
unaffected by anything dark
or gray or even shaded a touch
or more. I know that now.
every day I pause
when I am touched by it;
acknowledge it, note how it comes
from light bouncing free
and turn toward it, move on;
it means little except briefly
and only in its moment, and
I know that now.

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

At the beginning of every word
comes a choice: do I
believe this, or do I not?

If I choose to believe it
then I move blissfully onward
into living, into life

as I understand it.
Had I chosen to strike against it
I would bet against myself;

ever truly understanding it
would have meant being stuck
in fear or longing or a sense of

loss…inside.
But you wouldn’t know.
My eyes and ears would open

so vast and wide that
this would all move past
my impressions, crowding

them out, blinding me
to their meaning. I’d be
compelled to deference,

would end up saying, “You!
“Look…listen!” and little else.
So I tell myself, anyway. But —

a secret? I don’t believe
in anything either way, really.
I just practice like mad.

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

they say you cannot choose
what poems you intend to write
before you do

but there are poets who choose
all the time — their poems
bear their choices and bare them

to the world for everyone
to see but
I’m afraid I’m not with them

for as much as I intend to
knuckle down and seize the moment
for a specific picture of life

every time I end up
elsewhere as if there are indeed
muses or a muse seizing me

as I would have seized the moment
and I sit back and wonder when it is done
about who I was writing it for

as if there is an audience
for this — as if somewhere
there is a population looking

for this one — maybe
a population of one
maybe unborn or maybe dead

already from not having had this
so I bear down myself and write
what I am told to write

you will tell me otherwise and
I hope and pray for you
against the depredations of a muse

or muses who tend to go cosmic
or micro or just speak to you
about the violet energy in a room

while instead I speak of rocks
and dirt and the earth turning
like a mystery or something else

or something else
or something else
or even another thing entirely

for I don’t know that I will write
anything at all — to be truth itself
if I am to be sure of anything

it will be in a moment
after sleep and
there are never dreams in my sleep

only rivers and their fish
only stones eaten by the rivers
only an entire world in a single poem

as small as a coin to flip — heads
to go on to the poem and tails
to go on restlessly back to sleep

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

onward,
T