Lion-flavored flatgrass
for a last mattress:
I don’t care.
I have named half the vultures
I can see above me:
it’s all I’ve got to do.
I don’t even have
pockets to empty:
I’ve fine tuned my poverty
from want
to lack of want.
It’s slimming.
The more of me I surrender
to a disregard for preservation,
the more of me there is to love.
I love this lying about.
I am hoping
to name all the vultures
before the lion
comes home
to rob me of that game.
In this dreary moment,
feeling stung by things undone,
by unwrapped and unused time
left behind by circumstance
or neglect, or perhaps through ignorance
of its importance, I will myself
off of my wrecked couch
to salvage something of it —
and find nothing’s left. So instead,
though I suspect it will not matter, I sit
and write about it. Maybe
that will redeem me, make it
worthwhile. Maybe I can convince myself
of my own industry through that
all-too-easy effort. Maybe I’m not
as useless as I feel, after all.
Maybe I’m not a liar, either.
this is the here
at the end of the road
from there to here
the here of here with no regrets
for the time spent there or in between
I wash my hands
of the dirt and the dust
absorbed between there and here
there were pale children on the road
between me there and me here
there were filthy men and women
rod-hard dogs ravenning
cats as quick as bats
to put their fangs upon our necks
from hunger or pain
I do not regret how many I trampled
or pushed past to get to here
every angel is terrible
I do not regret the dogs and cats I slew
every angel is terrible
now that I am here
I open my blood-tipped wings
this is a heaven I’ve earned
here is where I choose to make
the gates of pearl
they may call me what they will
I walked the road I was meant to walk
and put my feet where they were meant to step
and now I am here
the here of my heel in the clotted earth
made to stand
made to stand firm
made
not born
to be here
The whisky master says,
“I suck the tongue of truth
in every glass.”
The wine master says,
“This sweet burning
puts my eye on Heaven.”
The pot smoker
sits on his hands but he’s praying,
grinning at the answers.
Whatever we stone ourselves with
revives in us the kick
we last used in the womb —
fighting toward what’s out there,
though we have never seen it; still, we’re
surely getting there.
1. about the name
We got the name
from drunk-thin air,
told everyone it was
the name
of a ghost-witch girl.
It’s fine with me
that you’ve forgotten,
or never knew,
that it was meant to be
the name of the band.
2. pretties for you
The smeared makeup,
the witch-derived moniker,
and our darkside noise that
cleared rooms — looking back,
I can see we were
the flipside of Stevie Nicks,
a few years early.
3. easy action
Pull tab,
place can to lips,
tip head back,
rock out.
Repeat.
No one was listening anyway:
with the album not charting,
the gigs stopped coming, so
pull tab, discard tab (we could
in those days,) suck it down,
crawl to bed alone or not,
rock out, repeat,
repeat, repeat…
4. love it to death
…repeat. And then, no more.
We were different. We were
the same and different at once —
like it, love it, like it, love it.
But the best thing was
the last track, the last chant on side two
about the rising sun, the one
we didn’t write —
creepy and comforting
at once.
Exactly.
5. killer
They’d better love this snake.
They’d better love this face.
They’d better love these things we’ve pulled
out of death and sick disgrace.
Under the wheels,
the last vestiges of love and peace.
Things that fight, bleed, and decay
ought to hold their eyes and ears.
6. school’s out
We’ve got the kiddies now
and all the gory money
that comes our way
along with the vicious stares
of every parent in America —
who miss the point entirely.
We’re the perfect treat
for the perpetual Halloween
that every kid desires.
And to top it off,
flammable panties
in the album packaging!
What could we possibly do
to top that?
Anyone?
7. billion dollar babies
Rock out, repeat, repeat, repeat…
but damn, such a fine,
marketable cover on the thing. And
the hits kept coming, even though
we’d said it all before:
the main message of it:
“Please love the dead.”
8. muscle of love
We’ve shot the wad, burnt out the fuse,
we grossly pushed for the movie theme
and failed to get it in. Hell,
we dragged in Liza Minelli
for a cameo.
That stain on the cover
says it all: waterlogged and
trying to stay afloat.
9. looking back
A little rock, a little roll,
a lot of golf in the Arizona sun.
Boomer’s dream retirement,
and only one regret,
one comment to be made:
fuck you,
David Bowie,
for taking the smirk out of us,
for taking the mascara
somewhere I’d never imagined.
Brand new to the charts
Number 15 with a bullet
Nice beat, you can dance to it
I give it an 85
It’s the perfect length for the radio
The perfect summer single
Perfect prom song
Perfect driving anthem
Perfect club banger
Perfect navel gazer
Perfect for throwing the horns
Soundtrack for dorm room philosophizing
Soundtrack to fall in love by
Soundtrack for your next party
Soundtrack for a breakup
A song to get crazy with
Song to rage with
Song to slit your wrists by
Song to beg for one more chance by
Song to conjure memories with
Song to conceive a baby by
Music for boning
Music for running
Music for revolution
Music for a wedding
Something to day dream on
Something to set your toes tapping
A little something to brighten your day
Something you might remember
Here’s a blast from the past
Here’s one from the “where are they now” file
Here’s one from the vaults
Here’s one to get you thinking
What were you doing when this was all over the airwaves
What were you doing the first time you heard this
This was their biggest hit
Rising to Number 3 on the charts
Here’s a remake of their biggest hit
Here’s a remix of their biggest hit
Here’s a sample of their biggest hit
They just don’t make them like that anymore
Cars have been skidding this hill all night
but I’m home so no worries plus
our cars are in the driveway
and she’s sleeping
so we’re both safe from idiot drivers
I’ve been skidding
in and out of sleep
feeling that tightness in the seat
that you get
before a crash
History says skid is always followed by crash
Those idiot drivers
are setting me up for a history lesson
but to hell with them
I’m going to bed soon
where she’s sleeping
reminding myself
that I’m home and safe
the cars are safely off the street
soon we may both be
safely asleep
Whatever heaviness
may come sliding out of control
toward us
I must remember that
crash
doesn’t always follow
skid
Bones
of a possibly popular song
are bleaching in my hand.
I can’t do anything
with this now.
It was alive once,
a tale of a perfect moment:
surely it might have been
as perfect a moment
for someone else
as it was for me
but I did nothing with it
and after a while it died
though I kept it close.
I sing what it was a little
now and then,
though it’s not right.
I never thought it was right
and so I never let it go,
and now it cracks
in my impotent fist
like old crackers
no one could dream
of choking down.
I’ve never changed my name,
but there was a day
when a new me blew past the old
as fast as “Dylan” flew by “Zimmerman.”
I sat back from a page
and said to myself, “It took a year
but at last it’s right,” and then that poem
reached up out of the paper and slapped
a difference on me I could not deny.
Mark of Cain, secret superhero status,
witness protection mask,
luchador camouflage — no.
Nothing like that.
I looked the same to all but me,
but that poem raised a battle flag
behind my eyes,
that only I could see,
that prodded me then
and prods me still to be
something more than slapdash,
someone who digs,
someone I was not born to be.
Someone once drafted
under his own name, and then
told he was another man entirely,
so as if in spite of whatever man I truly am,
I live and love and work and fight
as if I was indeed that man.
Balance,
not always as peaceful
and serene as predicted,
sometimes barks “Buy me! Buy me!”
from a store shelf, the cries
of a gadget or doo-dad
that you know will fill a hole
and now and then it does
for a bit or even longer.
Sometimes it works forever.
Why not? Even a shaman
has fetishes for the focusing
of power, an altar holds
fragments of spirit made solid,
and when smothered in
the clutter of living,
you can hardly be blamed
for reaching toward
what calls to you,
can you?
Their bodies
bled dry,
carved out, then
smothered in salt.
Not a scrap of soft
left in there.
You too
can create such things
without so much
as a paring knife.
You have to start
while they’re
very young.
Your tongue’s
quite enough
to start the job
and your
averted eyes
can finish it.
They are not likely
to love you
for your efforts
but at least
they’ll forever be
your little mummies.
When your people love other people
who have treated you badly
you sit back and eat
a bowl of knives. Sugar it
with dead bees. Wash it down
with dishwater.
When your people love other people
who have treated you badly
you run the other way
right into the walls of the Lascaux caves
and sit dazed asking the paintings
for a chance to start all the way over.
When your people love other people
who have treated you badly
you go to bed under a chain comforter.
Your ribs snap. You can’t move.
You steer the pain toward a good dream.
When your people love other people
who have treated you badly
you should just tell yourself
it’s your fault. You must have been
one bad pony to have no herd anymore
but maybe no one in the herd has to know
that you don’t belong.
Shhh…
this is how you get along.
Still not posting new poems, though I’ve been writing them; I have also been revising some very old ones — this one dates back about 15 years or so.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
when I speak to you of the way it is
your eyes widen in surprise
(or is that astonishment –
the right word makes so much difference
when one tries to describe the way it is)
how will I make you understand the way it is
when no right words exist
to form my complete meaning
how will I shape my breath
to swaddle you in a foil of dawn
and seal you
against denial and forgetting
do you think I would still speak of love
do you think I would speak of hearts or forever
and set atoms to move in anything
remotely resembling those dry and familiar forms
if I had language that could make how I feel
clearer
what I have for you is known and common
a few small words I may have offered too often
but I promise you
that if I had been alive in mythic times
I would have invented a language
that would have the syllables in it I need
every word I built
would have been a nail
in the ark that saved all the couples of the world
the covenant bow that was revealed
after the rain had dried
would have colors only you
would be able to see
and I would have been clear enough
to have torn Babel down all on my own
if I had the right tongue
I would reform history
with improbable, impossible words —
if I had the tongue I need
to speak my mind today
I swear I would remake the world
in the corners of my mouth
and offer its fresh contours to you in a song of Magellan –
the circumnavigator
now just barely remembered
his name the leading edge of a legend
an arc of hope as we move
from known to unknown
if I could speak the words I need
I would conjure him
I would spell him into life this morning
as we sink our toes into the cold Atlantic sand —
look at all that horizon out there –
its dark line the promise of unseen shores –
to reach it we will need a new vocabulary
but this is all I can bring myself to say:
come closer
closer
sunrise can’t be too far away
Amethyst Arsenic was generous enough to publish my poem “Awake” in their current issue. Here’s a link to the issue, and specifically to a video of yours truly reading the poem at the release reading at the Cantab, Cambridge MA, on Dec. 21, 2011.
Make sure you go on to read the rest of the issue, which has much fine work in it and other videos from that night.
Voices, all inside;
division, all inside;
conflict, war, struggle, impatience —
all inside. Nothing to see
here.
Admit it, man;
you’re not fighting
anything except
the lies you tell
to keep yourself
from seeing how you really are.
Your whole belief
of the sounds of your enemies
has never been anything
but the sound
of your own garden growing —
roots breaking stones,
leaves pushing into the light.
Stay still and you can hear it all
Now it won’t sound like you’re not whole
if you’re quiet enough —
yet, who, in fact,
are you talking to now?
Can’t you ever shut up long enough
to tend what you’ve grown?
Dark Matter 