Originally posted 4/25/2010.

According to my doctor
I’ve become
a limousine — 

I carry passengers,
and not necessarily
ones I’d choose on my own.

When first I heard I begged the doctor
for a uniform
or a very special hat.

“I’m afraid not,” he said.
“You aren’t the limousine driver,
you are the limousine.”

It was hard to accept at first
that I was no longer a vehicle
for my own journey

but I’ve gotten used to it.
It’s still a life
most of the time.

When the noise in the back
gets to be too much,
I raise the glass and forget it.

Once in a while
a voice will catch me right
and I’ll listen longer than usual,

maybe repeat
what it says
to myself when I’m alone.

These riders don’t care about me
as long as they get where they’re going
and the ride has some style all the way to the end.

I’m a limousine today but I don’t know 
what I’ll call myself
after I’ve worn out at last — 

a box, a rustbucket,
a shadow parked for good
in an unlit space.

Originally posted 6/20/2009.

From the street,
the dense chunk 
of a slammed car door.

A hard, confident summons:

“Hey pendejo –“

Two men speaking.
I can’t hear the words.

Then,
the first big voice again —

“You never know.
When it comes,
it comes.”

After that,
nothing more —

no car door,
no house door,
no words.

I turn off my lights, 
climb into bed,
waiting for something
that never happens.

Whenever it comes,
it seems
it won’t be
tonight.

Originally posted 10/18/2011.

You! You
tower of smart dirt, 
intelligent water,
column of excited minerals, whirling
storm of atoms, chattering prophecy
of the pure light
hidden in the darkest crevices — 
how is it possible
that all you want to talk about
is stopping the end of the world?

Get serious, you.
This world is not going to end.
Our species may shuffle off at some point,
other species will fall with us,
there will be suffering, it’s all a big mess — 
all true, all of
no consequence.

Your atoms are going to keep talking.
In a thousand years
they will come upon better truth
than you ever conceived,
or on to the same truth
you won’t acknowledge now:
we’re an extension of
the pure thoughts of stones.
Nothing’s ever going to stop them
from thinking, no matter how hard
we try to deny them the pleasure.

You! Get serious — 
yes, ease suffering,
redistribute wealth,
play fair,
establish guidelines, even
salvage as much of the planet
as there is in our remaining time
as you can
but do it because

it is in our shared calling
to do it
even though there is in fact
nothing ever lost
and therefore 
nothing to save.

Originally posted 5/31/2011.

Face up in bed,
wide awake,
waiting again to be impaled
like a bug on a pin
upon the memory
of the time I mercy-killed the squirrel
on the front lawn after its mauling
by the neighborhood stray
we all hated.

I pulled a strong knife
and slashed once, then twice,
over its tooth-mashed throat;
saw the spurt, saw it relax at once.
Then I reached for a stone
and nailed that dog in the ribs.

and it took off howling with me howling
after it, running it off, its shallow flanks
pumping ahead of me too fast
to catch.

I do not fear the memory for its horror,
but for its delights —

its promise of deus ex machina,
its flavor of massacres, camps,
and gallows blessed by others — 

its tang of permission.

Originally posted on 3/5/2014.

Stop
calling
what I do 
therapy.

Stop calling therapy
what exists to spite disorder,
what persists after breakdowns and
attempts.

Stop calling therapy
what I would do more of
if I were less 
a mess.

Stop calling therapy
what I call breathing.
Stop calling therapy what I call 
my self, spread on paper.

Stop calling triggers on guns
material.  Stop calling
triggers on others’ lips
material. 

Stop calling too-blunt knives
and weak pills and slender ropes
and bed restraints and hours
of paying to talk around agony

“the dark timber of my art.”

Stop calling.  
Stop insisting,
stop speaking
of therapy.  

Stop in fact your fantasy of why
and what and how;
for me this is no pressure valve
and verse is not surgery.

I’ve written
hundreds of thousands
of words
or more;

if it worked,
if it was
as you say,
I’d be fine.

Originally posted 2/22/2012.

Ever hear
that crack about
being cracked
that says
that’s how
the light gets in? 

I was fractured early
You’d think I’d be full
of sunshine but

thank Hell
a good flow
seeped in
Dark syrup
no light
no filler
It crusted thick
It sealed my fate within

That badly broken
That closed up that early
I could only become one
of three things

Artist
who makes it shine

Criminal
who makes it pay

Amateur actor
who makes it disappear

I was two of those by nature already

So onto fraud
Of thee I sling 
garbage in
and prophecy out
(or vicey reversa )

I said as much as I could
never stopping to breathe 

Still at it
Still grinning

There is an analgesic effect
to wordslinging 
You can forget a lot
by writing it down

If you want more
Buy the book when it comes out
This is the short con
You’re going to want the long game
for the full payoff
Trust me on that

Nod your head
Set the hook 
You’ll call it art 

I will too
if you’re still listening 

Originally posted 8/30/2013.

The last hawk in this town
just lifted off from the Town Hall roof

and flapped straight over the river,
rising as she went.

I know somehow she won’t be back.
I know somehow we’re somewhat doomed.

I get an itch in my limbs just thinking of it.
It’s not going to be the same here without the hawks. 

I’ve been trying to empower myself
with other animals’ symbolic value

but they all insist on living their lives.
How dare they! They really ought to be

useful.  The hawks
have never understood that well.

Far beyond the river, a dim sighting
of many hawks plunging and soaring.

Such teases.  What are they telling us?
How should we respond? 

Originally posted 5/18/2012.

Stupid you, cold drunk crashing
right through the knee-high fence
in your own front yard
and planting your face
among the weed-strangled old tulips.

Through the old weak fence
right on your old weak face 
in the front yard where the neighbors can see,
and you don’t seem to care enough
to run and hide in shame this time;
you seem content
to lie there ass up
for all of us neighbors to see.

You’ve been stupid since you were a kid,
a drunk since you were just past that,
and none of us can count how often
you’ve tripped over that fence stupid drunk.  
Stupid drunk, that’s what you are —
our object lesson, our signal disaster;
face down in the dead tulips with ass sticking up.

You’ve been in that position for a bit now,
at least an hour, and we’re all still laughing because
it’s likely the best job you’ve had, the perfect job for you —
no real effort required: just lie there,
let the neighbors point and laugh
and say things to their kids
about being drunk and stupid
and a public spectacle.

Now a crow, a real live crow,
has landed next to you and is inspecting you
up close and personal.  

Never gonna let you live
this one down, asshole.  
Priceless.  I’m gonna see
if I can get close 
and snap a picture —
if you can’t get up on your own,
you deserve this.

Originally posted 2/27/2014. 

Caught napping, nebulous, infirm,
soft edged, cloud-conscious.
You snap back to semi-solid — 
did someone knock?  

Jump to that door and pull it wide open. 
No one’s there but a wisp, bowing near invisibly.
You can see it only because you’re still
waking up, mostly wisp yourself right now,
so it’s kin.

It straightens up, slides
past you to the couch, and takes
your spot.  

You step out into the hall.
The door locks behind you —
what now?

Everyone for miles is sleeping.  

Start knocking on doors and bow
when one opens for you,
even if the occupant can’t see you;
slip by, take their place on the couch,
and begin again.

You are learning to be comfortable
as one of the cloud-caught,
as more thought than flesh.

When you jump from that couch
and are in the cold again,
you go out to the street and recognize
that the spirits out there with you
have the same indistinct and tender face
you now wear and you lose any desire
to ever knock on a door and change places
with the sad life of flesh ever again.