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

I seize you by the neck
politely but firmly and whisper:
I don’t know if I will see you again

and you pshaw me in
a gently disbelieving voice, scoffing
uneasily at the words.

Later that night comes the vision
of a lab assistant, mine though I am
without a lab; on fire, vividly

on fire; his name is Michael,
but he seems all right, says:
what of it? We will see each other again.

Later yet again I see upon midnight waking
a manticore screaming, a gryphon howling,
a phoenix squabbling then singing

in a stunning voice that melts
the very rocks upon which we are cast.
Later still I pull thin covers over my head

and am enveloped in a form of quiet
broken only by a random pop from
a kitchen radiator. The cat

licks me
fully awake…
what of it?

I will see this again.
I don’t see how
I will see it, but I shall —

I shall hear the song of the phoenix,
improbably sweet; you shall hear me backing
into a distance both next to you and distant;

I will hover like dew above long grass
before dawn; you shall hear me speaking as if
I could forget. I will see every thing again.

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

I don’t think I add much to this world;
in fact, I don’t think much at all. I do obsess
about the wrongness of it. Don’t think much
about what goes right; instead I think much
about people, their sadness, their depression;
how to stop them from becoming endemic.

So I don’t add much to the world. What with my health failed,
my being slipping off the table of bounty;
my being feeling ripped off and then violated.
Don’t think much or add much; when I do
it’s in trespass on the meaning of humanity.

In fact, I am not of this world; at the least,
not much of me is. These days I instead am seated
angrily in my corner chair, wanting to rage
at something, anything; then the seconds tick by
and I grow calm, calmer, waiting for something
to happen that will ease my anxiety. Nothing comes

and it dawns on me that I don’t in fact belong here; rather,
I am from the present moment somewhere else,
somewhere which exists only moments away
but is a footstep closer than anyone can go
without an escort or a fellow traveler
to guide them. I am the escort, the fellow traveler;

in that role I have become seamlessly hungry
for experience, am dancing light among the clouds
of worry and pain. A split second away
is my home, exactly like this one but
newer, fresher, filled with bones and blooms.
I don’t think much of it. Instead I feel it,

I stick it to my own bones, I sit with it
until it fades and is gone into a different world.
I cannot follow. I cannot go there
for a long time yet, say the shadows.
I stay here, not thinking much;
I stay here with you, and we are fading away.

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

The yammering on the radio
frets on me in spite of
my strained work at not listening.

Two people are talking about
how not to trust anything you read
or hear.

It’s seven thirty in the morning
and I don’t trust them to know
a damn thing about anything.

I force myself to say it:
I don’t
believe them. I don’t know
who they are,
I can’t trust them,
I will not believe them.

Now one quotes
National Geographic.
I don’t believe them.
The other quotes the Bible.
I can’t believe them.

Do you believe them?
I don’t believe you.

Meanwhile, there’s a dog barking upstairs
at a car driving slowly by.
My cat sleeps on the couch,
her back to me. I hear a bird above the radio
chatter and I strain to tell myself
its name — a mockingbird, a sparrow?
Perhaps something more exotic, like
a ruby throated grosbeak, immature,
wounded in the wing, damaged but
still chirping? The cat continues
to sleep and the dog shuts up
and the bird does too.

Soon enough,
full silence will come. You won’t
believe anything except your own
breath. Even that you won’t trust
entirely, until you sink into the depths
of it.

When you come back to this life
you will be redeemed and carry
that silence within you
through the noise, through the lies,
through everything you face.
Like a crystal. Like a
formless fire, a single
belief without name,
lighting the world.

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

Think about when to pull back
the window shades. Step to it:

using the cords, level the blades of the shades
just so. It’s grey outside, no sun yet.

The lavender flowers, the white flowers,
some with pistils just as bright

and others, stamens brown to black,
sitting side by side, waiting for the bees

to come. Step to it: go outside,
it’s just about dawn and there’s nothing indoors

that you need to do. In fact, why you’d ever thought
there was something you’d need to do indoors

is a mystery. Today, there’s no
mystic crystal revelation here;

the old songs, chestnuts of your youth,
vanish in perfect silence. You turn off

the radio and shut your imperfect eyes.
The flowers await your presence, or they don’t.

But you love them, or something like that.
You blink once, hoping it will mean

something to them, but it’s unknown
for now if it does. You blink a second time.

This is the second time.
Has anything happened?

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