Longing to hear
the strain on the hibiscus
blossom, I sit out on the step
and listen hard and long
to the wind through the branches
that still hold the buds.

It’s too late now to hear them
though they still hold tight
to their slender limbs. They appear
as young and green as ever
although they know otherwise.
They know what’s coming. Somehow.

I sit and wait though I know
it’s of no value. Hoping for
a late burst of summer is pointless
now for me, as well as for those buds.
Those stunning buds of white, now and then
pink; it’s past time for all of it.

Past time for summer, heading
toward winter. I sit and wait
as does the hibiscus, its buds
on hold though it looks
like time for a glorious departure,
like the sudden frost that surely comes

is surely only a rumor.

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

Last post for everyone.

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

Just before dawn
a moment
of clarity.

I do not have to
get up. I can
stay here, in bed,

until the next night.
What nonsense
is out there

that tells me I have to
sleep at night,
wake up and go all day?

It’s only
the sore fact
of illness that goads me

into rising —
what will others say
about my staying in bed,

my delicious staying
in bed? They would too
if they could —

and I can so
I must be sick,
sick unto death

as the world spins
unceasing past where
I lie. The difference

between the end and
the continuation and of course
the beginning of this

is minor. It all is
minor. If I go
or if I stay is minor

at dawn, at dusk.
Everything is on fire
or cold as a carcass

inside me. Dawn
is nothing but the reverse
of dusk and I am

in reverse of both,
startling both into a knowledge
of ending, of beginning;

a moment of clarity
before I rise or stay;
before I choose

to go forward or backward
or just stand still
as time takes its course.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Still seeking folks willing to pony up a dollar a month to keep this going. TIA

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

Last night in bed
I was caught momentarily
as I always am
in a set of words
to put down to represent what
I’m feeling — and then
they were gone as I went to sleep
and they were still gone, as always,
in the early morning
with nothing to be said.

Every day I am asked to put down
what I dreamed about in a journal
and I don’t have one, don’t need one
if there is nothing to be said,
and there is nothing to be said.

Paucity is the name of this game
and it’s got a set of rules I don’t wish to play.
Scarcity leads to elimination, to making do
with small things; this is the way of
chop wood, carry water and honestly
it’s not my way. There is an abundance
I crave, a dawn to dusk craving,
a midnight to midnight longing
for the items I keep forgetting and discarding.
Keep saying I don’t need one, but
forgetting feels so final.

I shrug it off
saying there is nothing to be said
but God knows there is something to be said
and only I can say it, though it is not
my way to say it; there is nothing
to say, and my last act will be
to convince myself.

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

everything is an effort
the results seem
too thin
too spindly

work
seems stretched
as if it might fall over
from being so tired

except
on one half-shell
of an egg left over
from a full breakfast

lies a poem
or really a piece of a poem
ready to be inside
heart and brain

a yolk or part of a yolk
could with tremendous work
become a world
a thought could become whole

so with fat frozen fingers
and tottering will
I begin to work
as if I were not a child

but a sun rising over a landscape
I’d not seen before this
marveling before
its tiny beauty

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

What you show me
is, according to you,
the way to heaven. A stairway
to God; a path as difficult
as any I’ve known, one without
milestones or markers
to let you know how close
you came — but
it’s not heaven, anyway.

I take another road
that you warn me against:
a road to hell or something
like hell, a stairway past God
through a deep wood of old trees,
virgin forest; the milestones here
laugh at you until their sides ache
and you never get away from them,
you will never escape — this is not hell
anyway; it’s just another road.

You surrender to the fact
that you don’t know where you are going
and you never will until
you close your eyes and ears to what
people like me tell you. Maybe
it’s heaven, maybe it’s hell;
you won’t know until you get close.
You won’t know until you see the skyline
beyond. You won’t know till
laughter stops and the trees
thin out and all you can see
is stars, fading from view
as you close your ruined, blessed eyes.

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

I did not know
the fact, simple as toast
or indeed a slice of bread
uncooked — I did not know
that a pitch headed for the head
could possibly maim or kill
but more likely could simply cause
a headache more or less severe —
which, if given a chance,
would gradually, eventually bring about
bleeding that might cause a death
suddenly unbidden:
a piece of toast or bread
of one sort or another
that would someday do
itself proud —
a slice of gentle food
rendered poisonous which started
innocently like a casual ball
tossed, one that started its progress
years ago and made all watching
shake their heads and wonder
at the long grinding spectacle
of dying at the end
of a shortened life.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

Go to sleep thinking
I have more to read before,
before…more to write before,
before…
wake up to read Holderlin,
to read Novalis…
listen to “”Pure and Easy”
by Townsend…

I can’t sleep yet, not before
I do my part but what is it?
Today it’s nothing,
it’s just sitting with my failings.
Today I am made aware
of all the feelings, complex
and simple, that I feel.
I can’t think, can’t eat but for
simple things with no flavor,
can’t write or read for any money
or fame or nearly ineffable
sense of understanding.

A child
passes me, riding on a star;
man is the sun; all fruit cooked
turns to snakes…
I don’t know
a word to make this all work
as it should. As it should
if I am whole and intact.

My head is full of islands
and the water between them
to swim; I sit like a vegetable…
before my time comes
I want life to connect them again…
but the chance is fat, is gross,
is unimaginable.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward?
T

As if there is enough time
to waste and fritter on small things
I am watching a bug, an indefinite bug,
crawling down the wall.
I’ve been at it for an hour now.
It seems to know where it’s going.
Perhaps I should
get up and follow it
except this chair is so comfortable
and in the long sport of things
I shouldn’t move much, if at all.
I think this is where I should be found
when I am found. As if in that moment
I will know, or even care,
how far I’ve fallen from the need
to do things, feel things, see things
other that this bug and its path
to everywhere. Maybe
it will be different when I go;
maybe it will be
as if I will have started a new life,
a quiet sort of existence in a quieter place
so like this one, yet utterly unlike this place
where the hiss of the pipes is enough
to seem like uiellann pipes,
held beneath the arm,
sweeter and more haunted
as if they were the perfect song for a bug,
an indiscriminate bug wandering
and catching all
my vanishing attention.
“““““““““““““““““““““““““`

onward,
T

Don’t. Just don’t.
That is all
that needs saying.

Let the music of the oak bark soothe you;
let the sound of you stroking it, as rough as it is,
come in and ease your mind;

just don’t fret at all.
Don’t worry about the past, or wring your hands
about the future.

You were born into the mistake
of trying to mold the present
into what you wanted it to be.

Stop now; listen up.
The oak and its denizens know better than you.
They whisper incessantly of what is here

now, under your ear to begin, then
inside you. A universe comes to life
when you listen for it.

Stop with the nonsense, the quarreling
over the heads of pins, the nagging
of the viewpoints aiming to succeed,

the long war-arc of your mindless chatter
trying to interpret the meaning of you
as you flit between interpretations.

Stop, stop
and hear the business inside the oak.
Do little. Do nothing. Do it all, do enough.

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

On an abandoned field
decrepit stock cars sit —
their painted numbers peeling,
their tires rotting to ground level,
children warned away as if from bees,
adults standing far, far back — fearful
of the fever again, afraid
of noise and hot wind.

You don’t understand
how it was for them, how it would have been
for you — the flow of cars
ratcheting by you so fast you
couldn’t catch up to them — not thinking
about anything except going fast
and holding your own fear in abeyance
long enough to relax when it was over.

Instead — you are an adult now, almost
an old man — you feel it all at once.
The pedal, the steering wheel, the sound
of tires on dirt. These kids don’t know.
You long to show them but it’s getting
late. Come on, you growl — it’s time
to get out of here. Above their protests
you indeed hear the faint roar of engines,
but you shake it off as if it were poison.

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