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

This poem is ridiculous
in its intent
It presumes too much
as it dances around the truth
It doesn’t address
the source of it
It sings of its intent
without meaning a word of it
It deals in syllables and meter
without decision as to why
those matter
Shifts them from my hand
to your hands
And again doesn’t matter
in the slightest
Except for the truth
in its very marrow
That you need
to sort through
to get to
the back of the bone
This poem is ridiculous
except for all the others
I have written
that tried to do the same
and failed
like a butcher who failed to cut meat
like a child who forgot how to cry
like a man who looked at his hands
decried them as having failed
in their intent
in what he intended for them
to do
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

( for Deb B)

First thing I do every morning
is cover my head in the bed
so Miesha doesn’t come up
and lick my hair,
bathe me awake.

Next things: I piss, wash,
weigh my body, go back to my room
and measure my blood against norms
while Miesha screams bloody murder
for her treats.

After that cat is fed I go, pick up
this computer — and of course, I write.
Sometimes it’s good,
sometimes it’s shit, but either way
it gets done.

Then I sit still for a long,
long time. This is the way
my day begins: every day
the same with the exception
of the marvelous I try to create

on screen, on a paper, in the head
of a reader; in his chest, her chest,
anywhere between the shoulders
and the mountains or the sea
or the moons I can’t see but can feel.

Future is as future does —
can’t you see me now, unshaven, dressed
in ratty pants and rigor, sweating
the details on a mess of words? I’ll
be at this tomorrow unless I die

before then. A woman I know
will puzzle over some of them
before she goes to work the next day.
She will find them suddenly in their intended
ports, right between the chakras.

Future is as future does and that’s all
I can ask of it — that in the future
this poem, like a dart, will meet its mark.
I’ll likely be gone by then, somewhere
down a well-lit road. She will remain

with this ember, this needy glowing spark
of me and my escape from a cage
which she will likely think of now and then
in a different way entirely. Maybe with a cat
in her lap; purring and yawning, bored and content.

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

It is the type of thing
where there is fire in treetops
nests are burning
child birds are burnt as old ideas
shades come back as ashes only
eggs pop as
old fireworks in question as to whether
they will sizzle and pop or
thud softly as rain on dirt

It is the type of thing
where your mind slips softly off of mine
and I stand alone without it
where you are my mistake unforgiven
you cease existing
as soon as I speak
dissolving in a rain like the last one on dirt
but this time it is raw and undaunted
and burns through like magma
and now I don’t know if it is real or
what it means if anything

It is the type of thing
where I wish we’d gotten to Mars
or Venus or anywhere not here
where we would have set at once into
making beautiful industrial land
into some Himalayan factory
smoothing impossible mountains
into a roadside sign for what is made
by turning rock fire and liquid smoke into a plan
for future rotten games

It is the type of thing
where I will look into someone’s eyes
and ask all these questions
where I will look into your eyes
for some certainty as to a windfall
from this swarm of binding blinding insects
where I will look past your face into
an incipient world on a verge of coming forth
hoping for this against all hope
the type of thing
that does not come to us often
or ever at all in fact
but we may still hope
God knows
we will still hope

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

Sun burning
the right side of my face,
cold on the left.

I’m awake this morning
with furniture gotten from others
all around me —

nothing I bought, all of it either given
or lent; here after it served its purpose
for someone else.

I am here without
apparent purpose for another or myself;
a drifter, left behind.

Sitting now on a borrowed chair
and working on a twelve year old computer
while wondering if it will be enough.

Sitting on a borrowed chair; half burned,
half frozen; typing on an
old keyboard.

Until then, I tell myself. I must do
this work until then and someone else
will take it on.

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