I ate the last of the strawberries
from a red bowl in the refrigerator.

Couldn’t have been more than
four teaspoons; unsweetened,

lumpy from improper processing
but still perfectly good, even without sugar.

I don’t remember doing this. I know
I did it — the evidence is there,

or rather is not there; it’s hard to recall this
action or string of actions. I don’t recall

the taste, just the record of tasting.
I don’t recall the washing of the bowl,

but it is back in the cupboard and clean
so I must have done so, though I have

no memory, not even a fragment.
It is like this now:

a moment is taken before an act;
blank time fills in the spaces;

I recall none of it, just
the clouds before the time,

and even that is uneven, irregular,
full of nothing. All I know

is that I ate the strawberries from the bowl
and washed the bowl after I was done

and it happened sometime in the morning
after something horrendous happened elsewhere

and I was part of neither occurrence,
was just present here and my memory

has let them both go. I’ll have to read
the news for the latter, if I choose to;

I will never recall the former even if
I try. I do try and try. And then I let it go.

But the bowl was red, I think.
The berries were red as well.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
T

Sitting very quietly at home
with reams of paper, with
insurance policies and
retirement requirements,
examining and judging
all the cheery pictures
of older folks looking happy
and serene with their choices.

I am also sitting
very quietly at home
in pain but not in pain, sad but
not sad, confused beyond it all
with a jumble of thought
in my surfeit of damaged brain.

All the time
the bushes out front
sit not as quietly
brushing against the windows
while a mockingbird across the road
tells her story over and over
like a mystery I need
to solve on this stunning day.

My eyes close, stroke-shuttered
and weary as the country,
demanding more from this land
than I have borne.

I am finally old and
realize
there’s something
in the voice of a bird
that I must listen to
from my own silence.

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

If it doesn’t matter
what I do or say,

then I can do anything
or nothing and they will

be the same, have the same
impact — either

the cataclysm
or the whimper;

doesn’t matter as
whether I do or not has

an enormous impact,
a furred beast crashing

into thoughts and dreams,
or little or nothing — either way

fastens me in knots,
binds me up either way —

I stand still watching breathessly
until it is chosen for me,

chosen by whim,
selected by cloud whether

storm or calm,
broken or whole.

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

There came a Friday
after a week of fatigue.
I longed bodily and spiritually;
it left me famished and
looking for a meal

from the poem I was offered.
I took what was given to me
as if it were all I would ever have
again — Friday came and went
and was left behind along with

this meager work,
all I have to take for nourishment —
eh, it is what I have been given.
I should be thankful for it.
Should take a morsel

and let it be a bountiful feast.
But still — I have a hunger
unsatisfied. I long to tear in
to a colossal portion. But
I take what I am offered,

though it is far from enough.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

The question
after the strokes
was how he would
learn to live like this:

each hand leaden
and his feet too; unable
to get up; deafened
by average sound
and his memory and sense
always a split behind.

To start out he learned
that he looked like a star,
all skinny, all fizzy,
all dangerous
to the touch.

To keep going
he imagined himself
a continuous
mistake, wire-haired and badly
groomed.

He knew he smelled
remarkably like
a shroom-covered problem
of mysterious physics.

He looked at the earth itself
as if it were a boil
waiting to burst all over
the nearest portions of the
cosmos, leaving the close-flung
dirt to sort itself out.

He came back thinking
his memory of a past life
when he was younger
had at least to be
imaginable.

To finish with that
he sat quietly in a disheveled room
and dreamed of something
different.

After all was said and done
there just had, dear Lord,
there had to be
something different.

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

I am listening to Johnny Cash,
again. I was listening to
Jesse Wells, Sierra Hull,
Ren before that. I seem
to listen again and again
to old music and then, restless
for new sounds, change it up
and find new music to hear,

and it all feels like one washes
over another, one hand cleansing
then the other. It all feels
the same to me; the same
essential thing.

I can almost
hear the changes before they
come — the lift from a sole guitar,
the fall from heights of a lyric
to a lilt, then a close.

I can almost hear them
but not quite. Waiting
for the moment I can
hear them perfectly, and
not in my mind’s ear.

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

It’s sad. I’m sad.
I can’t choose what there is
to be sad about,
but I am sad.

Sadness is
a form of this world,
one which folds itself
over you.

So, I choose
to embrace it, to be
fully sad. Birds sing
outside, sadly.

I am scratching
my parts sadly, itching
sadly, interpreting
everything sadly.

It only becomes
perfect, natural,
when I stand up
from this chair

and walk into
the kitchen from
the room where I
sit — the living room.

Close my eyes;
gonna die soon, I
just know it. I just
know it and am sad

considering it —
not mad, not even
a little. The birds
outside will still sing,

regardless of me
and my living or dying.
That’s the way of
this world, after all —

my sadness
is irrelevant to it;
it will wheel
and spin without

my happiness, my
despair, whatever I feel —
this world had millions
of years to get here,

millions more to get
somewhere else
with my sadness one
tiny piece of the

smallest piece of
time and place. Whatever
I feel today
might overwhelm me;

it doesn’t matter — doesn’t
help with the sadness
of course, not today.
But today is one day,

one instant of the whole
and none of it matters
at any rate. I might as well
put down my head,

cry for the moment,
then shake it off;
listen to the birds;
go back to being still.

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

A gentle but urgent folk song
on the radio.
Burning in the throat,
but not from an urge to sing along.
Closing my eyes to waste time —

I know I was supposed
to do something this morning
that would get me up
and mildly startle me, make me listen,
tug a shrug of surprise
from me; but

I lost it when I closed my eyes
and refused the sight of the living room
that looks so much like it always does —
if it would be different, even
a little, I could cry out — but it’s the same music
and the same sad scratchy throat
and me sitting heavily down again —

yes, here I am again, starting
the same day again for the
umpteenth time
to the same little angel dance,
nothing special; again,
my eyes are closing
and running over.

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