Somewhere there must be
an archive that explains
all the mysteries that underpin
the truths we collectively accept
as bald and obvious
as sunrise coming
after or before sunset
depending
on where you stand
and how calm you are
about your beginning
either being forged in the dark
or germinating in the growing light
and your end either coming to you
in a dawn blaze
or the dimming
before night slides down
over all you are and
where are the tapes that explain
why you are one way
and others are another
why you are day
and others are night
and why when you meet
you cannot forge wholeness
from your separated selves

Poem from circa 1995. I believe this is the first time posted.

This night of stars that have tunneled through the dark

has kept me up so much later than I should have been up.

A cloud across the moon fills my eyes with tears.

Watching the sun vanish opened up a night of dread.

I sat by the river fearing the dead approach of

this night of stars that have tunneled though the dark

and thrown a wink of infinity against my hope for closure.

I wish I knew who to call. I wish I knew what to say.

A cloud across the moon fills my eyes with tears.

If there were any distance to travel that would take me past the lights

to places where I could not see the open sky, I could say less of

this night of stars that have tunneled through the dark

and kept me up so much later than I should have been up.

In an hour the sun will rise but it cannot dim the memory that, like

a cloud across the moon, fills my eyes with tears.

Night, day, the cycle repeats with no hope of a change

until the day the fist of God slams down upon

this night of stars that have tunneled through the dark.

A cloud across the moon fills my eyes with tears.

I bite the inside of my mouth. Tastes
like rust, like the inside of a long-uncleaned
tank —old blood, more iron than liquid.

Then I take a picture of my wounded face
and imagine who I’d be if I had better skin,
if I had better eyes and better hair —

you ask, who decides
what better means? If I had the face of another man,
is what I mean by it. A face born in another time,
better suited to another time.

You say I don’t know
what I mean by that, that I look like a man
at rest in his era, but you can’t taste
my antique blood. You can’t understand
how mournful, how wistful that I was not born
in a day unlike our own I can become. How broken
my own face makes me feel.

Lastly, I take a sip of water.
Shake off the messy moment.
Step back into these blowback days.

Uncle says he loves you.
Holds it together for you
in spite of his tornado brains.
Reaches out to pull you off
the diminishment track
ahead of the demolishing train.
Go to your dream space, he tells you. 
I can’t save you but you’ll be safe there.
I have to stay here by the track 
and play bait and bail out songs
to bring the train down to a crawl
that could still kill but you should be able
to get out of the way with only mangled limbs.
This is what Uncle does. He was
never father but was a son, a brother
of sorts at some point, knows
what he expected and never got. Can’t
do it all but has wrestled blue dragons, 
black dogs, and accountants in charge of 
finding you deficient; has beaten back fire,
thrust his arm into snapping jaws, paid debts
all for you. Uncle loves you,
asks nothing more in return than you
bring your own fullness to battle
and be what he wasn’t. Be one thing
he wasn’t and call the account square.
Be more than that and call it paid
with interest.  Be all you can
and take the overpay back,
slay new dragons, tame new dogs,
and even if you don’t
recall Uncle forever after
it will be more than enough.

1.
Inside a classically
tinfoil-windowed apartment

Armand sits and broods
over tangled news,

teasing out threads that lead
to other threads, pointing out 

omens that predict
future omens.

Armand, his family says,
has always had the gift and the curse.

Which is which from day to day
they never know.

There’s not much distance 
between the two.

2.
He’s two animals away
from having a full zoo,

is what the family
has always said about Erik

who can’t seem
to hold onto himself

for very long, thus
establishing a pattern

of strange footprints
left behind in an odd 

and broken path. It’s not
even clear that

Erik has always been alone
on the journey if you 

examine the tracks closely,
which the family thinks

is not at all
a good idea.

3.
If only there were
clear reasons for Daryl’s 

monosyllabic insistence
upon standing so close

to the table
at Sunday dinner

that it becomes hard
to set and serve. Almost as if

he thinks the family
eats too much or

that he must block
their formality or

that Sunday dinner itself
could still be as deadly

as it was when he was
a youth.

4.
At eight AM
a baby skunk runs by

my front windows
with a yogurt cup on its head.

I try to catch it and yank it free
but my fear keeps me

from investing too much
in that effort to care;

I think maybe it will bite or
I will end up stinking 

and blinded. It runs around
like madness itself trying

to get free
of what has happened

through no fault of its own
as it attempted to find

sweetness, sustenance;
as it attempted to live.

This sudden rest is
unexpected:

so used to being agitated
and unable to relax that 

the collapse, when it came,
was almost as welcome as it was

frightening. After all the wailing
from the floor, all the rolling

back and forth in anguish,
I’ve ended up feeling almost

as if I have been reprieved from 
the weight of living, though

my body’s a bruise journal 
from the hard surfaces

where I’ve flung myself
so many times. The pains,

reminders
of what has ended;

my scrapbook
of what I’ve survived.

I wouldn’t give them up 
if I could. I have tried.

Going
as a lifestyle
has its perks.
One needn’t 
be transfixed
on “home” if
you carry it 
everywhere.
One needn’t 
fret about
the changing
neighborhood
or how the
property has
depreciated
since, you know,
all these people
moved in. And
one needn’t worry
about all those
stationary problems —
sinks backing up
and the like. One
may just go and
buy something 
house-like on wheels
and go, go, go.
It’s historically 
healthy too to 
regain the pioneer
spirit — open road,
living off the land,
campgrounds, blue
skies, see this big 
country at last before
it’s overrun with
the Others. Maybe
one could outrun 
it all. Maybe one
could even
cross a border
the right way and 
keep going. No place,
after all, like home,
home with a range,
a pump out bathroom,
a pull out bed,
and all the gas
one can guzzle. 
Keep going until
the end and then
be burned and scattered
wherever the end is:
keep going a little while longer
on the wind,
end up soaking into 
the soil somewhere,
the green grass
of home or something 
like that recalled from
the past before
the call of the karmic wheel.

On rare days
I can still pretend
(as I always have)
that I am desirable
in the crass and crude sense
used in daily parlance,
although when I am more sensible
I recognize both
the falsehood
and the idiocy
of such pretense.

I understand
that such considerations
should be beneath me
and that my self-worth 
ought to be far less concerned
with conformity,
status quo, or conventional 
beauty; desirability
can ride any horse,
after all;

nonetheless, now and then
I try to pretend 
that from the corner of my eye
I see a head
snap back toward me
walking by; that I can hear
a swift horse being reined in
and turned around; 
that attention is being paid,
and it fills my pockets
with good warm gold.