The most sacred place I’ve ever been
is a dirt floored
mission church
in Acoma, New Mexico.

The men who built it in 1709
carried the logs for the roof
for thirty five miles on their shoulders
and never let one of them touch the ground.

I am not
the only one
who cries
upon hearing this.

The churchyard and its audience of
blacktipped crosses
look into the doorway
from the August heat,

into the church that has only
three windows
and still holds more light
than all of the valley beyond.

I have been here before.
I have been here since the first time I came.
I may have been here before that.
I am surely here, now.

The pillars of the altar are red and white, like me.
The guide tells us that there’s no conflict here
between Christ and the corn.
I am beginning to believe…

so however I may speak
of God tomorrow,
I am kneeling under the cross
on this solid earth tonight.

I tell you, I barely
recall the Eighties,

so when “Vienna” came on the radio
it meant nothing to me at first, and I had to think
hard to remember that it was done by Ultravox,
and then I knew
I had been here before:

the way you smelled
in Lupo’s back corner
overpowered the beer on the floor

it didn’t feel
like Europe
it felt like the New World
in the arms of the Old

but then came Killing Joke
and then came Smithereens;

yes,
that seems about right.

Man, the things I find
every time I look for
something else!

I have a houseful
of children’s faces
and a blank easel

which appeared while I
was looking for truth
in a bottle of paint.

I own clothes
that don’t cover my shame
that were found in a box

where I had hoped to find
comfort and freedom. (The shame
came in a pocket I forgot to check.)

And those eyes! Where did I get those?
I don’t remember what I was seeking
when I picked up that pair of stones.

Amazing! Everything I am
was a discovery by default!
I turn my face away and reach out once again.

What comes into my hands this time
is the book of a lifetime
that was so not what I expected.

I put it away.
I take it out again and shake my head.
But I cannot toss it aside.

Is this a work
of fantasy,
or an inventory?

(NOTE: if I’m writing about it, i’m past it. ok?)

______________________________________

1.
Left exit only —
it’s all the way over there?
I shall turn the wheel
and drive across all the lanes
to reach it, brakes yelling,
wheel chattering, traffic
suspended around me.

That is the way I wanted to go,
in a fanfare of obvious; now,

I’d settle for an idling engine
in my grandmother’s garage, bottle beside me and
a notebook too, perhaps, drifting toward
far less eventual notice.

2.
Your admonition
to cheer up
just makes me want to
tell you to recall that
underneath every smile
one can see a skull.

3.
I think of the boy I knew
who died in the winter of 78
stuck head down in a snowdrift
not ten feet from his parents’ door.
They didn’t find him till spring.

He was ten. No one would ever believe
it was a suicide at that age
so it must have been an accident.
Right?

In 1978 I was 18.
I’d been thinking about it
since I was 9 and
I envied that frozen boy,
because I was also a frozen boy
and being head down in a snowdrift
sounded so warm.

give up the notion
that you are
dignified, sensible,
or smart.
even if you are any
or all of those,
you will surely
cease to be
as soon as you
notice it.

learn to obsess
until
you flake. soak yourself
in someone, something; emerge, then
let the rust
fall from you
in cascades as it
wears off.

smile more than you
breathe. breathe more than you
cry. cry more than you
care. care more than you
are.

caveat:
a casket is
a dream palace.
you would find it
confining and it does not afford
the public a good view
of the art.

stages, on the other hand,
allow you the opportunity
to be seen from a distance:
smiling, eloquent, far enough away
that the holding of breath is
indistinguishable from
natural movement — which,
of course, it is for you.

decay, display, and subterfuge, then;
romance becomes you.
you’ll be remembered for this.

When I was eighteen
I had one girlfriend
who wouldn’t put out
and another one
no one knew about
whose nickname was
“Jailbait.”

I was in a good college,
I drove an old Saab,
I tripped on weekends and holidays
and never did anything
obtrusive.

That’s how
I got by:
by practicing
two ways of seeing
need
and gaining
satisfaction;

and that’s how
the books got
cooked.

_____________________________________________________

you’ll find
that it does not matter

that you are brilliant
and talented with your tongue

what will matter
in that last moment

is how well you put all that aside
to be present with this person before you

chances are you’ll be found wanting
and you’ll be left that way too

__________________________________________________

beloved, do not believe in me
just because i captivate you
with the story written
on my wrists

i only appear genuine
because this amazing portable mouth
can fly through my broken life
find just the right fragment
and turn it into the perfect
parable for you

any story i ever tell you
of what i’ve been
should be taken
with a pillar of salt

think of my history as
deceit’s address
this is where my lying comes to roost
this is where its best furniture is
this is where the lawn is green
and the bed is soft and wide
but no matter how comfortable i look here
a house is not a home

beloved
this mouth is arrogant
twisted with its own heat
while it dances on the pyre
of its own myth-making

it doesn’t believe it can do
anything to save its life

but kiss me anyway beloved
hold my damn mouth still
for once
make me tell the truth

all those things
I have lost —
the left side of me,
the right path, and
all the pieces in between —

if I were better versed
at my own construction, I’d be
scrambling up and down myself
looking for those pegs
and fitting them to my holes.

and I think about you
and wonder where you fit.
you’re a part of me
that I’ve never understood,
or taken the time to understand.

some night when I’m not so sore,
some night when my flesh is stronger,
I will look for you in the hollow of my bones.
some night I’ll find you, then put you where I need you,
in some place I dearly need to fill.

The theme for SPEAK tonight is “steam.” I’ve been trying to come up with something, to no avail.

Then, I was dozing off and this came to me. Promise — I’m going to sleep immediately after I get it down. 😉

Come On In My Kitchen

There’s nothing in the pantry.

It’s too late to go out
to the store,
and the teakettle
is almost boiled out,
the whistle just
starting to sputter,
it’s fogging up
the windows
so no one can see in
for the steam.

I’m sitting
in the middle of the kitchen
with the blues on the radio
and I’m hungry enough
to eat someone.

Outside, it’s one of them hot damn nights
when everyone says it’s too hot to cook
and ice tea is the only thing
keeping them from tearing their clothes off.
They talk like they know something about the heat,
but it’s all just talk.

In here, it’s hot.
It’s summer in here,
summer enough to cloud your sight. No faking it,
no airconditioning, no fans to make you think
of spring; it’s just — hot.

If I was in the Mississippi Delta
it’d be a long red night
with the thunderstorms reeling toward us
west to east. I might go outside then
and watch them come in,
run a little steel upside the strings
of a Sears and Sawbuck guitar.

But up here in Massachusetts
we only think we know what summer is.
We only think we know what hunger is,
and we don’t know half of anything
about what the blues are.

I think I’ve got a clue or two tonight.
I can hear something rumbling in the far clouds.

You come up to the back door and ask how I am.

I tell you, there’s nothing in the pantry
and I am just about hungry enough
to eat someone.

You push the door open. You take
the teakettle off the burner.
You set a place at the table,

but
you let them foggy windows be.

there are elements
that are not on
the periodic table

I built a world from these
but their properties
were impossible
to reconcile

the atoms loosened
and my world fell apart
beneath my feet

I was the wrong scientist
for the job
I was as foolish
as an alchemist who doesn’t know
that there’s no gold to be had
that doesn’t start with gold

and now I’ve become unstable
what spins off of me
leaves me charged
I am glowing in the dark
a poison candle

decay
half-life
every term of this art
tells my story

if I had been more careful
I would have started with carbon
and tin

but the elements I chose to use
were so
impossible
they were crying out
to be treated as real

so I did
and I did not succeed
but what came after

was a kind of success
as a scientist can always claim
that every failure teaches
something

begin rejecting

sleep
face time
regular meals
alcohol
real sex
business calls
the scent of the inside of your own nose

study Bartleby the Scrivener obsessively
burn your CDs
play cards with your credit

hump the mattress
while pretending you are a silent film star
hope to God no one catches you
and that you will never have to speak again

plan on a short career as a wolf
(there’s no future in it of course)
strategize about blowing down the walls
of the homes of the local pigs
then do nothing
over and over

cut your hair

stop showing up so much
reject the need to be anything

give it up
there is no it
and if there was
you would not be

The last good thing
I will ever do
will be done on a Thursday,
in summer or perhaps
late spring;
it won’t be a weekend gesture,
or one made at the beginning
of a workweek, compelled
by pressure and dread;
it won’t be an autumn deed,
drawn from me by dead drifting leaves,
or a winter’s impulse urged out of me
by too much grey and white.

No, the last good thing I will ever do
will happen when I finally tell myself the truth
in the middle of the week
on a warm green day
and admit I have not done nearly enough
to deserve my
existence.

Once I say it,
I will kick off my sneakers
and walk barefoot on the hot road
from where I am then
to as far away from there as I can go,

but none of these things are the last good thing I’ll do.
No.

The last good thing I do will be when
I look back at all of you, the whole village, and refuse to
wave. Better still: the last good thing I do
will be to not look back at all.
The last good thing I do will be a sin of omission.

A man who never
did a thing
will become an object lesson,
and for years after they’ll say,

the only thing
he ever really did
was fuck up a perfectly great summer Thursday
for the rest of us.

I guess
some good came of it,
after all.