To think that all this
could be described as
what happens when
a stoned guitarist
plugs in every pedal available
stomps them all at once
and starts banging away
to create such glorious mud
that no one can hear
a song within this
so they invent one
like a boat on a sea of meaning
waiting to be brought to shore
and toward that end we stand around
looking for the Player so we can ask
for this profundity to be opened
and plumbed in public and help us
see the revelation therein
when in fact the meaning of it all
is that a stoned guitarist
just wanted to see
what happens
when everything
happens at once
in a bleeding cacophony and the illusion
of this being a song
is one imposed by those
hungry for the sound of
one clean line
buried under all
a boat seeking port
while a good old jazz standard
or ancient folk tune plays
somewhere under the storm
but in truth the guitarist
has struck one last blast chord
and walked away
across the water
to find another place
to play while
the crude wash of sustain
hangs on and on
and the feedback
is killing us
Tag Archives: poetry
The Search For Meaning In A Storm Of Guitar
No Mouse
Inside a box
where I am fated
to punch the walls
for this lifetime.
I can’t see through the walls I punch
because they’re walls
and I’m weak; been punching
so long and the holes I’ve made
look small. Like mouse holes
from old cartoons. Inside
the holes mice lived
comfortable lives till
they went outside
but then again
what was out there
was spacious and they had
plenty of room to run
from death by cat.
Outside these walls are more walls
I won’t punch through
in this lifetime, I’d bet.
I’m too weak to run
from anything if I did
break through. So
back to punching
weakly at the walls
before the walls.
It’s all I know
of all there is.
I’m no mouse;
there’s so little
in here
that comforts me.
Surge Capacity
There are some who claim
it’s all going to shit and others
who say everything’s
coming up little wings and
flowers full of life and tiny song
It’s September and in these parts
we look out the window and
pretend we aren’t terrified of
how bad what’s coming is going to be
so we watch for a few white wings
and black and orange patterns and we say
maybe some good’s going to come of
all this after all as nature
makes a comeback and we’ve all
learned our lessons except
we forget that nature is why we’re here now
and organisms we don’t romanticize are
turning our artifice to shit but
whoo hoo for the lessons we are learning
and blessings on the butterflies who are teaching
and meanwhile something is bubbling
in the thawing tundra and that’s nature too
and something is churning astride the Gulf Stream
and that’s nature too and who are we to separate
ourselves from the butterflies and viruses
and claim some lessons we are learning are more vital
than the ones we learn from the shit we are
leaving behind and no one asks the butterflies
or viruses what they think of us and
while we are rapidly going to shit
devoured and digested by overclocked
surge capacity
we never think of ourselves
as anything but geniuses who
will get it all straightened out in time
instead of being like the butterflies
sucking the last sweetness out of it all
before falling unthinking down
to decay somewhere unloved and unobserved
as everything does
as everything is
Whales Praying In Secret Places
There must be secret behavior
in the world of whales;
it cannot be otherwise;
traditions they carry on
that we either do not see
or do not understand
when we do see them;
perhaps a convention they follow
when they begin an ancient song,
similar to saying, “once
upon a time;” a convention that does not
shift from bowhead to gray to humpback;
do they all slow and stop
wherever they are in any ocean
upon hearing it, as if it were
a supplication to those who knew of
Better Times?
Think of whales praying
somewhere beyond the discernment
of humans. Other beings
suspending themselves in the deep
nearby, hoping the coming grace
will envelope them as well,
holding them
in a place we cannot see
or know.
Listening To Rain
I cannot describe
the sound of rain
without referring to rain.
So I can tell you nothing
about the sound of rain
you don’t already know
except that to me,
rain sounds
like Friday night
any time or day I hear it.
Rain feels like a prelude
to something expected,
centered and endless,
might be cleansing,
might be flooding,
might never end or
might depart leaving brightness
behind. But what it
sounds like? It sounds like
rain. Like the smell
of how a week ends
and another begins, even though
there is nothing primeval
about weeks or weekends.
We made those up long after
we learned to recognize
the sound of rain. We made
a lot of things up
once we couldn’t be bothered
to listen, really listen,
to the rain.
Right Place Right Time
When music is right I say that whether
it lands upon us as hammer or feather
in right place at right time
music is life and is no crime
Soca calypso punk polka country
Metal reminder that wrecked hearts still beat
Right song at right time
Music itself is never a crime
Musicians may scrap and murder and steal
but music they make may yet save and heal
Right note at right time
Music itself is never a crime
Police drive up saying music’s too loud
Hands on their guns eyes on this crowd
Wrong place friends in a rebel time
It isn’t our music they see as a crime
Ancestors knew this and said it through drum
Children know this and cry when it’s done
Right place and no wrong time
Music is how we stay sure we’re alive
Woof
Americans
love to play
with the full abandon
of pugs let loose
in a dog park
under the watchful eyes
of owners who amuse themselves
by watching lapdogs
pretending they are wolves
while believing they are free
Americans
love riding with our heads out the window
in a big pickup truck
big enough to kill any witch
any fresh storm might drop them on
with a high grill for clearing the streets
and fat wheels for the rough roads
that bounce us around so much
make us so vomit-torn
that we cry for the paving
of as many as we can
so we can ride through the “wilderness”
and pretend we’re the ones driving
into the “frontier”
Americans
love getting home
and trotting around gargantuan kennels
with never enough closet space
in which to keep
songs
land
slang
and all the rest of the loot
we’ve been collecting
for so many years
we can’t see any longer
how stolen it is
Americans
love digging holes
in our backyards
in which to bury bones
we’ll claim we never saw
then digging them up later
to chew on
once no one’s looking
and the passing years
have turned them
so they taste more like
survivor guilt
than evidence of crime
Americans
love to wag our tails
whenever we hear “good dog”
right up to the very minute
we get the needle
Cat Food Piracy
Little Kitty
eats almost all
of Big Kitty’s food
before I have a chance
to fill and put down her own plate
which I always do first
and not with my back turned
to the two of them
except for this morning
when I forgot.
Big Kitty
sits there staring at me
while the piracy
is taking place.
I always cringe
when my soft brain fails me,
ashamed of what I see as
my cruelty,
intended or not.
“I’m sorry, so sorry,”
I say as I put Little Kitty’s
plate full of her preferred
mush before Big Kitty,
which she tucks into
as if nothing much
has happened.
I feel
more upset than is warranted,
I guess. My forgetfulness,
more and more common these days,
leads to these small harms
no one much cares about,
but I gather them and
hoard them in secret places
until I am rich with self-blame.
The cats make do.
I make mistakes, then coffee.
Mistakes
before coffee,
no one as bothered
by my failures as I am,
and me piling up words
about all of it:
a pirate stealing meaning
from a sinking ship.
The Troll
with all his unearned confidence
glistening through the screen
like flop sweat perfumed
with privilege —
although that seems
like such a sloganeer way to describe
a shiny little fraud with his
dog-hungry smile and his cheap
mistake of a professional demeanor
crossed with body armor —
best foot sticking out of his mouth
then put forward like a movie-cool
cigarette —
he drops
the ultimate weapon of his army
“LOL” at the end of the post
and his back up “j/k” right after —
it makes me want to eat his heart
and make it into better shit
than he thinks he slings —
roach of a man feeding in shadows
and dragging disgust behind him
as if a trail of slime could ever
come to a point —
the danger
of a thing like this is that
it thrives on notice and those trails
shine so that at the right angle
you might think it’s pissing pure silver
Ghost
Revised, from 2005.
Ghost, you call me. Not the ghost, but
“Ghost”, making that my proper name, not (of course)
my Christian name, but the older kind: one
that tells something about you
that remains true. There’s nothing new
about me being a ghost,
only that I’m called
by that name now, and I’m finally
comfortable with it.
Back when I was just a guy,
long before I leaped off
that bridge to get here,
I used to daydream about flying
and walking through walls.
I used to wish for the power
to blow through a window
so everyone knows you’re there
and you don’t even have to show up.
I never had impact, and didn’t want risk,
so my fantasy became impact without risk:
that would be the life, I thought. A good joke:
I’ve got the life I wanted,
now that I don’t
have a life.
As a kid I cringed when they told
scary stories at summer camp.
I remember that later on I laughed
at horror films, pretending bravery.
Once you’re here, you find
it’s nothing like the movies. It’s all so – routine.
You show up at regular times,
whistle a little in a dark hallway,
provide a moment of clarity
to someone who’s used to being
safe and warm. You become a lesson
no one needs until after it’s been learned.
But it’s not all bad.
This is a beautiful world
when you can’t really feel it.
It takes your breath away sometimes
to see the way it moves.
I spend years just standing
in front of the strangest things:
not sunsets, not rainbows,
but garbage trucks and fires
and drive-by victims.
It’s all so beautiful, the way
disposal has become an art form.
So, Ghost is what you call me, and I’ll take it now
the way I’ve always taken it:
with a bowed head.
Before, I would always
come when called
because I had no place to be
other than the place I was called to.
Nothing’s really changed:
I blow through, bother you,
maybe I’ll be remembered
in your children’s stories.
Maybe we’ll see each other one night
on the landing, where you might call me Ghost,
or you might call me imaginary.
No matter. I’ve always answered to either one.
Sun After Rain
Sun after rain,
they say, is inevitable.
Why should we believe that?
The trend of history,
they say, is forever upward.
Why should we believe that?
Trust in the system,
they say, it will right itself.
Why should we believe that?
We’ll get them next time,
they say, if you stick with us.
Why should I believe that?
Because I can see
I believe there are fewer birds here
other than settler sparrows and starlings.
Because I can hear
I believe there are more people
screaming than singing.
Because I can touch
I believe there are waves coming
that will soon swallow entire mythologies.
Because I can smell
I believe in fire and how warm
the perfume from the Arctic’s become.
Because I can taste
I believe there is blood in our food,
on my tongue, in my distended belly.
We’ve got a plan,
they say, but it will take time.
Why should I believe there is time?
Because we decay and have decayed.
Because I am not alone in what I sense.
Because I have seen how little of what they say
ever comes true.
Sun after rain begets rain begets
weariness, history drowns, the system is just
a way of praying
that I do not believe
was built to do this work.
Only A Fool Could Be You
Only a fool would say that:
a fool, or a writer trying
to make you notice them.
To make you think
they were deep,
or at least that the work
was deep. Something
the writer could claim was
channeled from a deep source,
not entirely their own.
That it was nonsense,
but contrary nonsense,
something the world
had forgotten. Selling
bullshit as wisdom is
the perfect skill, after all.
Anyone can go far in any field
with that, not just writers.
You can eat and drink for free
damn near forever on one
foolish bit everyone thinks
is brilliant. That you longed
for brilliance is immaterial.
That you struggled and failed
for brilliance is of no consequence
to anyone but you, if you are
so inclined to care, once you are done
eating and drinking off your failure.
Are you done?
I Am Here
Some people actually are serene;
self actualized, purely aligned.
They are legends of contentment,
sit daily with their pain well in hand,
and are still.
I am glad for their existence.
Their stories give off such hope
and if they feel such hope themselves,
then truly, I am at peace with these stories
and what can they do for others.
I sit too, on and among bricks
rubbled up in bone-breaking piles,
blackened by a long fire that started
before I was born and continues
to flare from time to time, but I do not move.
Tell me where I am supposed to go,
I ask the ones at peace. They say I need
go nowhere, that peace is found within
or nowhere. This is nowhere, I respond.
Come sit with me where I live. They do not come.
All life is suffering, they chide and chant
from a safe distance while the fire
I live with is licking at their walls. I could teach them
how to stand the coming days of sitting in rubble
while alternating screams and shrugs,
but they won’t come over here and I can’t
get there, no matter how I try, no matter
how I try to rebuild this house to look like theirs
it burns again. So I sit here. All life is suffering.
Easy to say from over there, but I am here.
The Lilac Bear
Let the great bear of my history
come seeking me by intuition
once I have put enough into the world
that my trace is pure, strong, and available.
Let the great bear of my history
come to me some August night
as I sit on my porch and imagine
the scent of next spring’s lilacs.
Let the great bear of my history
stand before me, stinking of my past
mingled with the past of the world
beyond this one until all smells of the future.
Let the great bear of my history
raise me in its arms and crush me
into the void, and let my body
be buried and forgotten soon after.
Let the great bear of my history
grant me the gift of the scent of lilacs
as a final memory, sparking the desire
to return by spring.
Let me come back as a bear
foraging for history since that moment,
running up and down hills
in rejection of myths, flavoring the air.
Let me be the bear for another,
a wonder-filled being on a porch,
thinking of some good thing yet to come;
let me become the Bear, the Lilac Bear.
Not All Boomers Love The Beatles, Man
Regretting time spent considering my teenage years
when I was compiling
banks of music, art, and literature
the world could use to define me.
Unlike so many boomer peers
I’m mostly no longer
in love with all that. Instead
I’m somewhere I’m not
supposed to be, forever chasing the new.
I’m a bad example of my peers —
nostalgia is for the easy
to please and I’m not that,
never have been. But
there are times when by chance
something from ages ago
stirs a new feeling, or someone
from long ago stirs a new pot,
and instead of disdain I feel
small hope that I might have
a final twist in me too,
or will at last be able to unlock
my one true thing, my one
best offering, and all the rest
of why I ever loved those artifacts
might make sense and I’ll at last
be unafraid to reclaim all of it
without looking down on the love I felt
as a relic to be left behind.
Dark Matter 