When my hands retired,
I learned to lift things
with my mouth. 

Why bother, said
my friends?  You know
you’ll drop them, leave them
lying around, and give up entirely
after a while.

It’s good for me, for all of us,
I replied — I let my hands
work hard all my life
and let my mouth run free
and lazy, talking up stupid things
and adding nothing to society.

Now I have to think — how to bite
and hold, how to raise weight,
how not to break teeth and tear lips
and gums…and of course,
far less needs to be said,
or even can be.

I’m committed to this, I continued.
I’ll give my hands a rest, they deserve it,
I’ve abused them so, and as for the dropping
and eventually giving up —
well, that would have happened
anyway, someday; and isn’t it
nice to have the quiet?

reflecting upon myself
in the puddle that always spans
the bottom of the street
after a storm

according to this
I’m unstable

but my feet seem to be
holding the ground

here comes a car to stir the waters
and wipe me out

my feet hold their ground
as I’m drenched with the spray

I don’t care enough to move away

feet on the ground
soaked through
it’s tuesday
rain’s over
car’s gone by

still here

the snow gum trees
in the backyard

continue to tremble
though the wind has stopped

they know
their time is coming

the bare time
when their blanched limbs will blend

into the white that covers the ground
that will then sleep for months

a reflection of what they maintain
all year long

seasonal tribute they consider their due
for holding up against a world

that does not love their steadiness
preferring inconstant green

Tags: poetry, poems, meditations

No matter;
none at all.
All light,
waves of light.
Hostas along the walk,
light; cat sleeping on the couch,
light.  Every last particle of this house,
light.  Even the dark
releases light the longer
I stare into it, and though
I’m no beacon myself
I am light still, dim at times,
blazing at others.  Every matter
I’ve lent weight and mass and density to
is light, only light turning
back into the light I am,
and while I may forget this,
I do not cease shining.

the remarkable thing
about the national moaning
is its reach — soft as it is
it has been heard in North Dakota
as clearly as it has in Boston

it’s been cleaning skeletons
with its gentle scrubbing
they skip and shine
it’s a beautiful dance

we don’t want to know where it sits
or
who is moaning
don’t want to dance the dance

we just want to be told
the minute it’s OK to moan along
we have dead bones of our own
that we’ve never been able to clean

Yeah,
we got some bullshit in here.

All kindsa bullshit.
Someone painted it pink and blue
so it’s pretty, but it’s still bullshit,

and oh, shit, it’s that QUIET bullshit
that kinda lays there, don’t say much,
stinks up the place.

No one’s got the sense to clean it up.

Bullshit, they say,
is good for the garden, good for the lawn.
Makes it grow, makes it green.

Grass needs sun to grow
and it’s goddamn dark in here, so right now,
this bullshit’s not growing shit.

Except for mushrooms.  The good kind of mushrooms,
and that’s OK I guess
but when you’re tired of mushrooms
and cant’t take any more,

you still got bullshit.
And that, my friend, is bullshit.

Throw a bullshit party, someone says;
we can party, and bullshit,  and party, and bullshit…

That’s bullshit too.
Can’t party all the time
and when you’re done
you still have…

uh-huh.

So what are we gonna do about this?
Ankle deep, stink on our shoes and in our noses
a lot deeper than ankle deep,
knee deep,
neck deep. 
Too deep, it seems, to ever get out.

That’s some bullshit, too.
Only way to get rid of bullshit’s
to dig, and we’re gonna get dirty
(which is, in and of itself, some bullshit)
but I don’t know another way.

Here’s one shovel, here’s two —
one for me, one for you,
work’ll get done faster
if both dig through.

And that’s not bullshit,
first thing in here that’s not
been bullshit for a long time
from the look of this place…

Bullshit, you say?  You didn’t make it
this way and you’re not gonna be the one
to dig with me? 

OK…

get out of my way,
I got two hands, two shovels,
I might break and fall face first in it
but I’m gonna dig, first the stuff
I dumped and then yours if you won’t,

which is some bullshit,

but it’s not gonna stop me
from finding some place to put it
where it’ll do its part
in making something good grow.

That’s not bullshit,
that’s just

the shit.

They lay in distress,
crying

what has happened?

faces down, palms up,
ready to receive an answer.

It would not come that way,
but later, when they’d risen
and brushed dust
from their good clothes,
they turned back to see
and understood.

There was silence at first
as dust continued to swirl and settle
into crevices and throats,
stifling and muffling
and changing how they spoke,
what words they used,
the words themselves.

It is filthy, some said.  No,
it is impolite, said others.  It is
relegation. No, it is
stagger unbroken though bare trees
to the clearing and build a bonfire.
It’s hit you, hit them, hit there, there,
there and sign there.  Flag here,
scar there, bridge here, bomb there.

They resume the position — face down,
but palms down this time to grab the earth
like loose carpet and say again:

what has happened?

Take what you get,
the guru said, but never explained
how to take the swift rills of crazy
that roll though my head’s dark plain
after forty-five minutes
of lying awake
and trying to sleep.

It is what it is,
the guru said, but never demonstrated
how “is” or even “it” could be defined
when neither appears to be solid enough
to hold a shape for more than a second
as I’m trying to be OK with whatever
it is; if I can’t grasp it, is it anything?

Be here now,
the guru said, but never stated
how to get past the perpetual state
of feeling that wherever I am feels less now than replay
of yesterday, gummed up film on a bent reel,
a projection of burning film against a hot light;
I’m more moth on a dive bomb run than centered acolyte.

Sage advice put aside now, I shall take
two pills tonight to ease myself
into the skin of opossum familiar
and hang around upside down for a few moments
before playing dead.  Watch me, sensei,
master, as I find my own way.  This is how
I kill you on the path.  This is how I sit zazen.