more or less
man?  

heart lifter or
tongue depressor?  

jalapeno or
bland little pat of white
butter on a restaurant
dinner roll?  

the machine
or the slick under its wheels? 

I have two hands: one left hand
and one right.  I can’t hold
my steering wheel steady
unless I use both.  I
overcorrect otherwise
and do that often.  that’s
my business, my job.
swerving.  I’m your
typical out of control
puzzler and your finger
thrown up at me
is top fuel.  

so, severe problem or
lovable scamp? big mess
or inner child haunting
the old frame? moth
or flame?  cheer
or riot rumble?

give me a place to stand
and I’ll move the earth
a bit, not much, not so much
that I’m in trouble with God
but a lot of folks will piss
moans in the dirt.  watch me
giggle.  watch me
point and laugh.  watch me
do a double turn and be
as upset as I can be
that I did this to them.

my name
or my game? rep
or tarnish? care
or foolish disregard?
ignorant
or calculated?  conscious
or mystified?
deliberate or bewildering?
set of pointless questions
or an answer? 

see if you can tell.

then
please,
do tell.

don’t we love to talk
about what explosions we were
how we flared rose and tumbled
leaving the grave earth
for our moments

then coming back hard into her
broken
the breath sheared out of us
unashamed
unapologetic

what fools we are
to think
those were our best days
common little shits
that we were

nothing we did
had never been done
nothing we did was anything more
than what millions
of other explosions were doing

all those craters look alike
from forty years out
and I’m not sure the earth forgives us
but we love to talk
about colors and sounds

though we never speak
of the shaking and breaking
of those who never came up from those holes
we’d put so proudly into
the landscape

(and refuse to admit
even to ourselves
and even today
that a lot of the music
sucked)

how many settled to earth
after their blasts
and did the expected
conforming
while pretending otherwise

how many settled to earth
as ash
dead enough to never trouble
anything again
except when we mention them

like tonight
when over Scotch and kind bud
their names came up
and we felt that sneaky envy
for those who never became — this

On the front step
missing you. 

I’ll know
when I’ve missed you enough:
a turtle
will sprint from the backyard
to the front and skid
to a stop in front of me.

Or there will be
pink lightning
in the far edge of the sky,
and the thunder will sound
a high C.

Or else
I’ll just stop missing you
and my air will vanish
from within me.

traveling
via black arts,
relying on

scraps
of spells
on small pages
in small notebooks
for my tickets
and transfers.

here we see
a spell to change
venue, here is one
to open tariffs,
here’s one
to spread plastic.

on the rails
toward
semblance of
goal and
peace,
carried on
evil’s dark back,
doing wicked things
for good reason.

traveling, living in fact
by black arts.
i’m as good as any
other american,
as bad, as 
speedbound.

At the Oak Room, at
the local function hall,
at the VFW, at the Dive Bar
named “The Dive Bar,” at
the church cookout, at
the corner store, at night
lying scared in bent beds and
drunk on rotten couches,

the people are hearing owls,

and always, someone present
recalls a myth that hearing owls
three nights in a row
portends the listener’s death…

what does it mean,
says the tribe,
that lately we all hear it
every night, no matter
where we are?

Maybe it means
we’re all going to die,
says one joker.  But such a thing
is absurd, so they
laugh and drink and watch
the darkness under the trees.

The owls know the truth.
It’s not just any owl
who carries bad news;
it’s one owl, a tired and rumpled
sage who’s been at this
a long time.  But they keep that
to themselves, let the myth
live on — it’s money
and protection and status
under their wings.  
When the right owl comes through
on his mission, they step back
and clam up while he works.  

So last night, when 
the mechanic heard that call
upon leaving the bar, third night
in a row, he heard one voice
speaking, and he knew

and so did not take the necessary
evasive maneuvers,
crashed around the tree,
and died at peace…
and everyone whispered
the next day that 
some old myths
must be true.  
And all the owls
were well satisfied,

as were the people
in their drunken beds,
on their rotten couches,
in their bars, at their cookouts,

at the VFW halls
full of men who knew something
of death, and of how it comes
unheralded mostly,
and who welcomed a change
from that.

A brook carves its way
by two methods:
flowing down,
never ceasing.
That’s the Law, the only Law.

You say no,
stop and regroup. Plan,
or let the path suggest itself
first.  The path springs eternal —
that’s the Law, the ony Law:

tap the spring first, then dig the channel.
You will tell the brook
how to flow, what
works, what’s tested, say 
that’s the Law, the only Law.

But there’s that brook.
Can’t argue with results —
it’s got banks to roll through.
You love to sit by its banks.
That’s the Law, the only Law.

You dig, it cuts.  You make it happen,
it allows it to happen.  You surge,
dawdle, surge;  it just keeps
going, is always a brook even as it changes.
That’s the Law, the only Law.

The Law says what’s right for a brook
isn’t right for you, or for you, or perhaps
for anyone who’s not a brook.  If the brook
carves, why do you care how it carves
if it follows the Law, the only Law,

the Law that says downhill
draws out the flow, that constancy
gets things done, that the intention
is found in the flow?
That’s the Law, the only Law.

stop rejecting
the flowering of dissent
in your mouth
if you are critical
criticize
don’t let Pollyanna
“if you can’t say something nice
say nothing”
rule your teeth or
break your bite
express what is real
if it is bitter
better that
than swallowing
the disturbance

my own mouth having been
a nettle patch for years
I know how it hurts
to hold thorns inside
they were meant to sting others
so let them sting

someone’s going to tell you
I suck for speaking of this
in truth
I do suck
blood from wounds
but only to stay alive
and know how 
blood tastes so I
may know my own flavor
in the juice of another

if you’re made for this
evolution is at play
deny the species your adaptation
and it dies a little
who are you to judge
the cosmos
if something pains you
offends
kills
call it painful offensive
killer

call it dumb if it’s dumb
oversmart if it’s oversmart

call it out
and see it in sunlight
twitching
you’ll be hated for it
but that’s 
your job

Nothing is happening,
thank God.  Stasis
rules for once.  That lawnmower
has finally stopped chucking rocks
and now it’s all
hands thrown up and
“so what?” outside. 
Maybe God got hurt
and the Zeitgeist is holding its breath
until the outcome is known.  
It works for me; truthfully, I don’t even care.
Suffice it to say
if we’ve all become set in acrylic
and this is how it’s going to be
from now on, I’m ready
to suspend indefinitely
my need to be
entertained, excited
and creative.  I’ll sit
with this bemused face
till time ends
if that’s what’s required 
in the new world,
if you can call this still-life
a new world, or a world at all —

ah, hell,
the air conditioner 
just kicked on, and
the buzz seems to have
started things up again.
I was so happy there for a moment
and now, I suppose
I’ll have to finish this poem
and maybe do dishes
or pay a bill if that’s
really necessary. 

I am
packaging.  I was
all the wrapping
my Inside needed,
and now that it’s gone,
I’m trash.  

If you pick me
up I’ll mutely honor you
for putting me in 
a proper receptacle — either
a recycling bin or
a garbage can.
Your decision
will be
the right one; no matter
which one you pick
I’ll lie inside it 
shiny and empty
until the time comes
for me to move on,
perhaps to recycling
and flame and reshaping,
perhaps to burial 
in dark, polluted earth.

Either way, you’ll have made
the right choice  —
for I was made 
only to contain
and not to have my own path.

I live, and have lived always
in the service
of another,
and see no reason
to stop now. 

A big blue cheer goes up
over the town when they find
the body of Joey the town drunk
lying on the common at dawn.

“We always knew
it’d end this way,” they hoot.
It’s always grim around here,
so everyone laughs

over such a public death.
They don’t happen often —
the kid cut apart on the North End tracks,
the frozen corpse uncovered

after the snows finally melt.
This one’s no less funny
for having been
so long anticipated.

No more, then, the lopsided mouth
and the ever present crusted briar pipe.
No more the mumbled nosiness
if you were out on the street

too late for his sensibilities.
“Where you going? Too young
for this late, too young,”
and he’d brandish a bottle

of ginger brandy in admonishment.  Irony
was unknown when we were kids
and we’d stay away until we knew
how easy he was to tweak

into incoherent anger.
How easy it was to steal that bottle
and toss it into the bushes
behind the library, and run.

When the word spread that he’d died
sleeping rough, we felt a twinge
of guilt that passed.  The town
wouldn’t be the same without him;

we bent then our seemingly immortal selves
to the task of replacing him.
How could we continue to live here
if there was no unfortunate to jeer,

if there was no Joey to laugh at?
We stared at each other as we passed
the bag, the joint, the mirror,
visualizing briar pipes in each other’s mouths,

wondering to whom
would fall the honor
of being
the butt of the traditional joke.

If you don’t do
what you’re told
as a matter of course,

if you know you heard
the antithesis come out of their mouths
a minute ago,

if you see where
their cards are hidden,
come sit by me.

If saying the right thing
is hemlock on your lips
when the wrong thing is true,

if they’re naked
but pretending to preen
their vaporwear,

if you know the gutpunch
of being self-destructively aware,
come sit by me.

Been there, done that,
bought the hairshirt.
I’ve seen the palms of too many hands

turned toward me, used to rage
at that,  finally said:
someone needs to do this,

it might as well be me
and the few I find
with the stomach for the blow.

We don’t live happy, we don’t
live well or long, but we live
stung and awake all the time.

There’s not much room
on this hard little bench I’ve made,
but it’s got a killer view.

There’s not much to drink
but water and nothing to eat
but hard bread; ah, well.

So if the ones you love most
offend you the most with this crap
because you thought they knew better,

if they spit and kick at you
and call you spare dog, old junk,
ripper of social fabric,

if you look at your hands all day
and wonder why they’re empty
and no one is shaking them anymore,

if you can see clear across the river
to the hallows on the other side
and know that no boat is gonna come for you

with balloons and ponies and a banner
saying “WE MISSED YOU,” and no band
will be playing when you get to the dock,

if you know all this and also know
that nothing’s able to still your disbelief
in the things that are not true,

or your anger at those
who would blind Mercy for others
to save their own righteousness

(even as you have from time to time,
you admit that, you know
you’re as bad as the rest

but you at least take a beat
to consider that before digging
into such tender eyes), if

you are alone right now
and ready to sink from it,
come sit by me.