Originally posted 1/26/2013.

You sit up in bed,
startled by the sound
of furniture breathing.
Cowering under 
a bunched up comforter,
your pink nose sticking out 
into danger from safety
while you try to decide 
what’s suddenly up 
in this big bad world

or worrying that
like so much else, this
may always be happening
but is rarely noticed
until all other distractions
are put aside. 

What if
it’s all alive, even
the brick wall 
in the kitchen? 
The moonlight might be feeling 
some kinda way 
about you; the floor might be fed up
with being untidy. 

Should you be worried
about the potential for revolution
by the dust bunnies?  
Where exactly
does one hide 
when the world is all lung and 
sentience?

Go back to sleep, 
little mouse; take comfort 
in knowing
you are dreaming
the right questions
at last.

Originally posted 8/13/2011.

Once inside,
I become
the bully bull, 
somehow having grown
horns for eyes — 
I gore what I observe — 
my friends
turn aside.
Alone now,
I watch my own 
steaming breath.

I did not want
to be inside 
the animal’s hide
completely — only
to wear a bit for show.
Now I’m stuck and
all the world’s 
an apocryphal red flag,
a cape in a killing hand — 
when I see it
I am compelled;
I charge.

Originally posted 12/30/2014.

Pretend there’s a fable
about a flamingo born
with one and only one leg.

Pretend this bird somehow survives
the vagaries of indifferent
and unrelenting nature
and becomes an adult.

Pretend few ever get close enough
to offer solace or support —
after all, from a distance
no one would be able to tell
the bird was born missing a leg.

Pretend a one-legged flamingo,
unable by definition to switch
to its other leg when
it grows tired of standing still,
must fly more often 
than its counterparts.

Pretend it’s not at all farfetched
that such a bird could truly survive. 

Pretend the fable has a moral:

to those from whom much is taken
much is also given,
or

unending fatigue in living may draw out
an urge and capacity to soar,
or

perspective and vision may come to one
as compensation for grievous wounds.

Pretend that it matters which words are used. 

Pretend like mad
that the chosen moral
is strong enough to keep
the flamingo from drowning
when one night it finally
is so exhausted from the cycle
of unsteady standing
and desperate flight

that it descends

though there are no
shallows in which to land.

Originally posted 11/29/2010 as a revision to a poem from 2006.

A cat has caught a squirrel,
left it wounded and choking
on the neighbor’s lawn,
and I have come outside 
to stop the noise.

I chase the cat away:
he does not go far, watches
as I bend over the small body
then step back; the squirrel rises,
tries to climb the big maple three times,

getting no farther up than four or five feet
before a clumsy tumble
into squirming among the exposed roots —
panting, squeaking softly
like a balloon
losing air.

This ends at once;
I am glad my knife is sharp.

The cat is still watching, 
waiting to attend to this kill
that once was his alone
and now must be shared;

back inside I wash the blade in the sink 
for ten minutes under
the hottest water I can stand, 

then do the same
with my hands

that believe they have just
done the right thing 
yet just as rightly
cannot stop shaking.

Originally posted 6/23/2010.

When we were in the cult
we didn’t get much sleep.
It was said we didn’t need it
so we learned how not to need it.

When we were in the cult
words had different meanings
that seemed a little off or wrong 
but we understood them soon enough.

When we were in the cult
we slept with everyone inside
and made a lot of noise about
how outside ought to do the same.

When we were in the cult
everything that went wrong
was caused by something we’d done.
There were no accidents or errors.

When we were in the cult
we didn’t call it cult.  We called it
“being there.”  We slept when we could.
We worked a lot. We fucked a little.

We tried not to mess it up
by thinking
or saying or doing
things we shouldn’t. 

When we were
in the cult,
it wasn’t hard
to be in the cult

as long as we didn’t think
we were in one at all.
As long as you keep saying it,
it isn’t bad at all.

Originally posted 4/23/2011.

Ragged lamb, 
high rock.  

False thunder —
perhaps guns far off, perhaps
a tin roof falling in close by,
somewhere I can’t see.  

That poor lamb,
matted and filthy, bleating
in fear and pain, scared perhaps
by thunder in a blue sky. 

I scramble
to catch her before she falls off the edge 
into the ravine below, but I fail
and she falls — but doesn’t.  

Instead she hovers in mid-tumble
as if held up on a thermal,
as if she is no lamb
but a falcon.  

She is in fact now a falcon,
her claws extended toward me
as if to keep me
from attempting the rescue
that’s no longer needed.

To hell with finding music to speak of this; 
to hell with perfect rhyme
and set meter in the telling.
I’m no singer of mystery.  

That ragged lamb
fell, did not die, 
became a falcon
threatening to tear me up.  
There is thunder 
that is not thunder, 
a miracle that feels foul to me, 
feels unbelievable — but damn, 

it was a real lamb,
is a real falcon, 
a real cliff,
a moment
that feels real

here on the edge
as I wonder 
which article of faith 
in my narrow world
I should risk losing next.

Originally posted 11/12/2011.

Call upon any old saints, any old books;
you’ll find them retired, find them out of print.

Instead, call upon St. Teflon, patron saint of bullet dodgers;
St. Tango, source of comfort against blind divergent storms;

St. Bullwhip, defender against the wealthy;
St. Lifter, overseer of the doomed in all cases. Seek the favor of 

St. Angelcake, who strokes the heads of the raped;
St. Watchfob, who picks fruit and cleans the poisons from the flesh; 

St. Linger, warrior with no hard weapons;
St. Rollie Of The Bones, bringer of square deals and luck. 

Call for inspiration from The Blessed Version,
The Sherman On The Mount, The Irascible Conception;

proclaim them from a new Bible written by scribes drunk
on the manic milk of modern circumstance.  Raise a banner for

St. Rattler of the found quarter, pray to
St. Lobster of the century reboot, celebrate

St. Jack at the feast of unicorn meat, open your heart to
St. Liminal of body cameras fashioned

from broken teeth and old lies.
Open the long shot gospel and say it, sing it,

give it all your voice: our saviors appear
on no altars, grace no chapel marquees — 

hang on a while longer
to see if a saint may rise

to assuage this sharp bone, this death rattle moment,
in time to save us all.

Originally posted 1-12-2011; originally titled “Snowstorm.”

If you ever become 
an estranged middle aged son 
of still living old people,
ever become an estranged brother
to middle aged siblings,
ever develop a middle aged
heart, lungs, and back,
you will one day reach a point
when the shovel and the snow
will defeat you, body and soul,
right in the middle of digging out
from another snowstorm
as in a new moment of despair
you realize there is no place left
to put it all; when you realize

that although you long ago
abandoned the swagger of
the over the shoulder shovelful toss
in favor of the carry, tip, and dump method,
there will come a moment 
when your back will nevertheless
feel broken,
your chest will be
caving and exploding,
and you will cough
each time you move.

You will have
a moment of thought about 
how far you are
from your still living old parents
and your middle aged siblings
who are likely standing helpless
in the same storm.

You are going to look up and see
families on your street
digging more vigorously
than you are,
see their children laughing,
see their cars beginning to move.

You are going to think of
your aged parents and
your unhealthy siblings
in the same storm,
struggling as you are to dig out
but doing it together,

and you are going to be 
ashamed.

Originally posted 10-21-2007.

Understands that it isn’t enough to be beautiful.
Knows that it’s not enough to be smart.
Has a regret or two every minute.
Allows them in then forgets them.
Able to move when it’s threatened.
Knows how to run.
Models itself on great mistakes of history corrected.
Has a motto it will not make into merchandise.
Ought to have been born later.
Should have spent more time outdoors.
Should have been aware of its unlimited scope.
Chews as much as it can before it swallows.
Longs for more teeth.
Makes do.
Learns incrementally.
Is at peace with what it has become.
Is ready for a new flag.
Is ready for a new book.
Is tired of being ready.
Is ready to jump.