Walking
among the hard and careless
without mentioning what I see
makes me soft.  There are
buddies, friends, and acquaintances
who do not see how things connect.
Can’t read between lines, can’t see
or hear the trembling in voices
afraid to be anything but soft.

Soft —
I long to remain in bed
all day, melt into the covers
and only think and speak
in cotton and down.  To be
legitimately soft and caring,
to slide into the pillows
comfortably with no desire
to rise; how can I remain so
when the world is hard
on the soft? 

Morning is the time
for the diamond tongue
that scratches truth into
the bathroom mirror.
I want to see those words
across my face.  Always
a reminder that hard
is necessary if soft
is to follow, and that soft
cannot be enjoyed
without knowing hard.

The older I get

the more gunshots sound like music,
the more a baby crying makes me want to say
“Ahhh…the kid’s learning something.”

And also,
the more often I am compelled to weep
at some song as it perfects
the air it rides on. 

The older I get

the less I believe
that what everybody says
is true, the more I want to look for
and proclaim
exceptions to rules.

And also,
how simple my understanding of God becomes
when I take concern for humanity
out of the definition of “God.” 

The older I get

the more amazed I become
that I am older, that I have survived,
and also
that it has not become easier
with experience…

such arrogance.
Such selfishness!

That this exists, all of it,
ought to humble me out of any desire
for more than this,
but I behave as if I am central
and my needs are central,
as if salvation
was ever any part of the Plan.

The older I get,
the more at ease I become
with the idea that I will pass
sooner than later, and also,
that I will be
forgotten sooner,
replaced, regrown,  
and God won’t even notice.

What’s up, you ask?

All the shades are down
and I’m afraid of the street
rising like a wave to crest
through the windows. 

I almost struck a man
in the store today
for cutting me off with his
cart.

Came home
with white knuckles
and a fiery imagination
full of apocalypse, hoping
the cat could calm me
and now he’s taken shelter
somewhere. 

I’m going
to kick something —

are you coming over?  Please
say yes, I’ll let you in.
I need someone here
who can see me
even when I have become
invisible.

It’s the kind of art
that makes you
contemplate its meaning
for hours
before taking a hammer to it

The kind of art
that boils water
and that’s all it’s good for

The kind of art
that flies avoid landing upon

The artist is a rube
who has stumbled into genius
once
and sparked
slapdash rebellion

It’s the kind of art
that prompts us to say

“everyone must be good at something
once”

Duration is beside the point
Talk of legacy is laughable

The kind of art
that shines when the right light hits it
and come closing time
doesn’t show up at all

but it’s working right now
and when that light gets itself lined up
just right on the piece

it’ll be like a drunk hobo is all over your lapels
spitting unintentionally foul aphorisms
and you’ll tell everyone about it the next day
and keep the story in your party repertoire
for a long time

Once he dared to think
he could be delivered from this,
but it has always pulled him back.

The neighbors stare at his car
all the way to the parking space out front.
One gives a perfunctory wave.

In his childhood home
the air is thick and sugary.  Old songs
cling to his new shoes.

His mother is still waving food
at him and Dad’s still
outside

waiting for the obligatory
visit to discuss the tractor and
the shed.

A quick sandwich to keep the peace,
then back to the car.  He waits
until the turn off from Main Street,

into the back roads leading back to the highway,
to roll down the window,
turn up the radio, and scream.

A woman sees a dragonfly.

She creates a dragonfly oracle
from it as it rises, hovers
where she can point at it.
Says, “It’s a sign.”

A child, bandaged
and slightly broken,
takes his crutch to be a sword
and slays the dragonfly,
acting as its name recommends he act.

A man sees the dead dragonfly
on the sand. Sees the beach as
a long gravel road heading south
and knows he will reach the end of it
one day, alone, no one by his side.

These three
will carry what they saw with them
for as long as they live,
dragonfly oracle, adversary,
and talisman each moving, flying,
carrying them forward.

The dragonflies see it differently.
In the Dragonflies’ Great Vision,
everything is broken out, held in a facet
and each facet shares its truth with the others.

A dead brother
is just scrap. Its brothers brush
its existence to one side
as just another moment that has ended.

And the woman, child,
and man are just moments who have ended.
What they mean is irrelevant
to the dragonflies.  Their wings
are always spread.  They already
know how to fly.

The apparently uncaring
Great Being
(named God by some)

is resting unconscious
among the peas
and the snails in the side garden,

never letting the trouble
of any one person
intrude.

All those books
and churches
that say we are important
mock
this divine sleep

which tells of a faith
that all will work out
without prayer or salvation
if it is allowed to continue.

The Great Being
wishes we’d shut up

so that the silent burst
of the leaves from the soil,
the patient searches outlined
in silver among them,

can testify to the perfection
of a totality
of all things taken
as they are.

If you are an animal
at night,

you are an animal.

Because that is
unacceptable,
you call yourself as animal
a dream.

But you had fur
or scales, you were beaked
and open-mouthed
hunting then,

or you were prey.

Enter the nature
of yourself, slipping
your ties to humanity,

and say it, honoring
the truth:

I was tiger
or turtle, pelican
or slug.  I am

not always separate.
There are times when I am whole.

Someone I know
always says
“the darkness is habitable.”

I don’t think we know
the same darkness,
or at least

his monsters
must be more tamable
than mine. 

My monsters
say that they love me,
but I think this is a statement

that is more like
my own lip smacking
at a good menu.

There are nights
when I can smell
the hunger, others

when I can feel
the teeth.  There are nights
when I feel masticated.

I think my friend’s darkness
is full of monsters
he doesn’t know.  He assumes

any of them might
turn from predator
to pal if he welcomes them.

He might be right.
When I try to see beyond
my circle of weak firelight,

I know everyone who’s waiting there.
They whisper, “Remember that time
when you…you know…and you liked it?

You wouldn’t tell a soul how much
it jazzed you, but we know.”  They
rip at the fringe of the shadow

with sweeping arms, as much
welcome as threat. I know
my darkness is terrible and

full of monsters, that no one
could possibly live there,
because if pressed, I could.