Wake up kissing
a gnat. Brush it
off your lips.
Stagger as always
to the bathroom,
weigh yourself.
Be sad or glad for
one moment, then
let it pass. Dress
yourself in warm clothes
and sit down, heavily,
with a coffee, always
a coffee.

Think about
that gnat you kissed —
did it survive the swat
or is it lost now, dead
somewhere in the bedclothes?

You don’t know
and won’t care
to go and look.
You have
more important things
to consider if you can
remember
what they are.
Not that you care —
you are passed by
all things that used
to care about your
perspective —
when you die,
they’ll do a retrospective
and wipe their hands clean
and move on. You
were a gnat to them.

Today tastes bitter,
tomorrow will likely taste
the same. Still,
you will do the day
the same way
except the gnat
will be a different
bug, looking for
something marvelous
to come from you
this time.

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

To sit
with a blank screen
and feel forced —

not exactly
of course but close enough —

to fill it with something
fanciful or profound or
just prosaic —

to present
this world, my world
as being worthy of consideration
to anyone who picks it up —

all I can do
is sit with it
and let it take
its sweet or sour time
until I am more or less satisfied
or else can sit with it
and say
until next time
or maybe
(if there is no next time to be had
since the sudden closing of the gate
is always a possibility) —

until I can sit here and say
it is finished

until then
I must wait and see
what spills out
what comes before I go

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

I could tear the heart out
of a fat old dog and eat it
raw, in front of you all,
just to prove I could do it.

Stand there stock still
once it’s done and stare
at you all. You’re scared,
are you not?

I could then drop to my knees
and pluck a bloom up, take it
to my mouth, and sniff it.
You would be torn: come on,

is he for real? Does he
know what he does to us
when he does this? And I say:
of course I do. That is why

I do these things. I don’t
do them for me, you should know;
I am forced to do them and in my chest
I weep; you should know I weep

for all my deeds, all my small falls
from grace and from my place in this
world. I seem like a glass half full
to half of you;

it seems that I am a glass
half full of a vile gas
to the rest. To me as well.
But who will I be

when those are gone?
Just a dumb man in a tomb.
Just a damn fool,
locked up in a box.

Just a code
not to be cracked.

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

Football and baseball
and racing are on TV.
I’m sleepy in the afternoon.
I have no motivation
for anything at all.

Dancing, moving;
those are nothing,
but poetry?
That’s something,
something to be damned;
poetry is something;
I can feel it and so
I have damnable motivation
for it.

I’m sleepy in
the afternoon
and if I were a god,
I’d give this afternoon away
to the highest achiever,
give them something to chew on.
Something like a poem
biting in back, the back of the head,
into the part that makes poems.

I don’t wish it on myself.
Rather stay here
in the vacant room
with the vacant games
and be sleepy all afternoon
and into tomorrow,
or beyond.

Poems seem like
a waste of my time.
I’m afraid of them;
feel them
wasting me away.

I’m no god;
that’s for certain,
for real,
and for true.
I’m just a shame of a poet
sleeping away
this wasted afternoon,
and the night, and tomorrow,
and every tomorrow
after that one. Better
that way, I think;
certainly, I’d like
to find out.

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

Nothing beats it —
sitting down
and trying on
a piece of work
as if it were a
stole, or stolen;

trying to puzzle through
toward a kind of
satisfaction — at least
to the point where
abandonment or
chucking it away
seems a failure;

if it had been stolen
like a shawl or a wrap
this would be the point
where it’s flung from
the shoulder to the wet earth;

where work begins and ends
with a drenching, steady
rain;

instead release comes —
wiping hands,
brushing old and new dirt
from older and creakier knees
is part of work — is in fact
all the Work
made concrete,
made visible;

as if flitting through the streets
after the Work is done
in rain — drenching rain,
steady rain — seems an option;

the knees may give out
and the body of course
will fall and fail but the Work
will be finished,
as much as it
ever was;

then may come
words like
this is mine,
this is me,
and you may lift
your scrawny neck
to the sky as it spills
a last full rain,
and be done.

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

I am not going to write a poem today because I have something more interesting to do than sit and wonder which of my useless thoughts ought to turn over a new leaf

I am not going to write a poem today because to write one takes time I don’t have to spare from the crushing weight of sameness that all my words carry these days

I don’t want to write a poem today because it will likely come true and that will hurt a little and then more until

there will be nothing left in me to write

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

onward, T

No poem today, I think.
I think it’s a non-issue,
think it’s a given considering
the circumstances. Considering
those, I think to write a poem —
or anything, really, save a grocery list
or a quick note to the furnace repair
man: it’s so cold I have to
run hot water in all the tubs and dishes
and keep running it until I am warm,
which appears to be never; can you
help me? do you know anyone
who could help?

No poem today, I think.
Instead I should be worrying my way
into total collapse or not quite;
maybe I hang my head in my hands
like I’m looking over
a simple rag fallen to the earth
from a clothesline, try to
drag it forward to a place
unimportant to my view and then
leave it there; maybe I look to see
if anyone’s watching and no one is,
no one is ever; maybe I put my hands down
and leave them there dangling.

If I were to write a poem today, I think
it would have to contain ecstasy
or some other sunshine drug;
I’d have to raise my eyes somehow
toward this damn near cloudless sky
and say it’s fine and dandy, it’s sweet as
raw honey poured over chocolate candy and left
out in a sunny place to get hot and get bugs —
I can’t let that happen, I swear.
Instead I’ll write a list of stuff
I have to pick up next time I’m out —
nails, lettuce, Cokes without sugar at all;
something to eat before bedtime,
something to ease my hunger,
something to get me to sleep.

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

Somewhere just within my sight
there is still one gleam

(covered in old dirt with
just a smidgen of the expected grime)

that tells me this:
my Work is not done; that pushing on it

(brushing it free or maybe
touching it with my tongue gingerly

so as not to taste
the imagined poison it might hold)

will yield one tiny fruit at full shine;
perhaps more, perhaps more grown,

perhaps a whole once-unseen star’s worth
of fiery growth; and that I will

be rejuvenated along with them, or rather
everyone will throng to it —

and I will
go along

with everyone else, secretly knowing
that this Work was not mine —

that it was just given to me to hold
and cradle in my shrunken arms

for as long as I have left here
in this sphere, this small world.

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

What to talk about?
We could discuss so many things:

the killing of gnats as they buzz by;
the longing for death for our President;

how many shots of whisky are needed before
we pass out, there on a warped pine floor;

the differences between whisky and whiskey
(one with no “e” and one with an “e”);

how one makes love when there is little enough
in the world, how one squeezes it out of the self

as if from a tube — frayed, crumpled,
cracked in spots even but still holding,

still holding on; marvelous spinning
of words and earth itself on an axis someone postulated

long, long ago; even the contemplation
of one’s aged and cold fingers attempting to type

these words, these dear fragile words
onto a screen. We could speak of these things —

or instead we could be silent; let them be still
and let them be noiselessly in our thoughts

as we sit and wonder about the nature of things;
we could sit and let them fall aside, by the wayside;

words like paper scraps, walked and trampled
quietly, underfoot for another to choose from.

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

I want to explain
why I put down the first word
and why I put the second word
after that, why I then carefully
and tenderly place each word
afterward in their places;
I want to tell you
but time being what it is
and earth being what it is
I choose not to; instead
I get up and move away
to a place with no sound
and let the words sit; let them
vibrate and dance in place
until they are silent. Then
I let them tumble together
into a new combination
and all meaning falls out
upon their feet
and starts recalculating,
churning into sentences
and all new meanings
and I can’t explain those anymore
than I could the first one.

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

One house.

One room —
a laugh riot, a chuckle,
a wry smile.

One room —
candles, weeping,
darkest night in its corners.

One room —
sunlight, so much of it!
Birds zing by windows.

One house.

Every room —
does not matter.
Each contains prayer.

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

Every day he sweats it out.
Each and every day he is more certain
that this will be a curtain
and there will be no callback
and he will have to walk off
into a dark corridor and then out
into a dark street
but the Work will remain behind him
and impartially have him judged.
He will be crumbled or hard of tooth
and either way will not matter much
as long as he has left enough behind
for the Work to gesture without caring
and say here, here:
this is what you were promised
and this is what is left.
Here, here: whatever that damn fool said
in a moment of clarity is true.
Here, here: he was an imperfect man
running with an open mouth, broken teeth,
sickening lust for whatever came his way
and still the Work found him
and still the Work used him
to write poems which he barely knew
were ascribed to his name, vast heaps
of them. The Work said of them
here, here: this is what you were promised
and this is what is left.
Here, here: do not listen to him
but listen to the Work which found him
and the Work which used him —
sobbing, malignant, open to lies
and treason and brief beauty
he never quite understood but jotted down
on what he called throwaway notes;
he was a mere tool and a remnant of mere tool
and knows nothing now of what he did
and still the Work found him
and still the Work used him —
a squeaking ghost about which
nothing is really known. When he goes
the Work will remain. Thank him
or toss a flower at him as he goes.
Praise him as he bows and vanishes
into the shadows. Then turn back
to what remains of him —
all you need now;
all you have ever needed, in fact…

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

I wouldn’t know enough
to tell you
what to do with one now
if one were to come to me
and sneak up on me
and snuggle in my pocket
only to bite and infect me
with its poison, its sweet venom,
the first time I reached for
my cigarettes…but in happier times
they would just spring themselves
upon me and I’d be forced to go
without smoking until
it was finished. I’d say,
“it is finished,” as if I
were writing the Bible,
last words of someone on a cross
somewhere; then I’d light one up
and sit back somewhat satisfied,
smoking one down, paying attention
to the curls of smoke, to the
thin crispy sound of the paper
burning around the tobacco.

Now? It is a smokeless marathon —
I stopped with the cigarettes
close to forty years ago; stopped
drinking close to three years now —
or is it more? It might be more.
Stopped drugs and alcohol
about the same time. The substances
frighten me, and now I am so close
to the final show…no matter.
I still have them
sneaking up on me.
I still have
the snuggles, the savage bites
and tears; I count them
like baseball cards or old coins;
I worry over them like iconic stones
on a pagan breastplate —
do they fit?
Are they good enough
to hold court? No matter;
they will find their own way,
I guess. And I will find myself in
one more cigarette, one glass
of good whisky at the end.

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