what giving creature is this

something like a whispered song

mere touch

her meaning is like the texture of the perfect

my mother has escaped love

that love is no mere enthusiasm

savannah

how comes the muse to the latched-upon artist

swing

she wears galaxies of memorabilia

Thursday, February 18, 2021

no kiss

want for it wild,

the wind in your brow,

to send you ‘cross the waves

of your long-past stars.


i think i’ll not take that

kiss now, but rather run

back through the fields

of my youth,


to send on its way

this masked present,

this place in a

dank corner.


i seem to recall that

holding hands for the

first time was the best

innocent arousal;


that sensing something

in the smile, seeing something

in the web of the fingers, was

the finest mark of new destiny.


now is the time, i believe,

to raise the child in me 

back up, to breathe the heavens

of its collective cosmos 


that i once found

in first love, whatever 

that was when the 

earth had a better tilt.


it is that she is still 

there, really, having

never left the place where 

i first felt the crashing calm


that comes with a singular

moment seared into the

skin of one’s heart and brings 

tears to a boil when it’s lost.


that was life’s first lesson 

about love, if one is defining

love in the way of compounding,

crazed, green vibrations.


it was love of the kind

that put little kinks in

my walk when i knew she

would be where i was headed;


or salted my tongue dry

when i wanted to say a clever 

thing and had it all fall out

onto the ground like sawdust;


or made her enter my dreams in which 

she replaced Jodie Foster as the lead 

in that whatever-movie-Jodie-Foster-was-in 

that made me fall for her in the first place.


we only held hands, my first

lover and me. my first skin-

to-skin with the ethereal,

my first tumble into wonderland.


i thought i wanted to kiss her

because i saw kissing

on the television and believed 

that was the right gate into something.


that two people collided in some

violent, inviolate way which caused

the chemicals of reaction to induce their 

new collective atoms into a sort of dance.


but i am more endeared to us

having not kissed, having instead

enfolded fingers clumsily, for the

fact that it seems to have allowed


me to dream with a clearer view 

of what was something not

meant to be anything but a glimpse

into the heart of my later self as a star,


rather than the fading light that

flares off, to die away having first

burned, then waned, then cooled,

then disappeared altogether.


it was as if we knew what touch

meant, in some primal way; how

it transcended the mossy stump 

upon which we found ourselves sitting


and elevated us onto the same plane

of existence as the heroic ancients and the

departed souls of ancestors whose

passions seemed as pure as first thought.


we were bad at it that first time,

even though we negotiated the

moment beforehand by one saying

to the other that it would be ok


and the other agreeing with a nod

and a blush. and when the moment

came, it had to be alone (something we 

both ached to have happen spontaneously),


and it had to be quick (something

that neither said but both felt) because

holding hands for the first time could

not just go on forever, lest it


become too awkward, the way holding onto the 

pronunciation of a simple word so long that

it stops having a meaning and becomes

silly when you utter it to yourself, like “puddle.”


so one of us let go first, each hand 

vibrating from it after, and we did not look

at each other but i know it made her

dance home like it did for me.


what regard, then, do i give

my plight in winter days when

i long for this tenderness from

youth? not to go back for sure


but maybe to just let myself 

dream-recall, if only for a moment

before i get back to it,

before I return to here.


doing so affords me the chance

to not let it be spoiled by too

much sun and air, and therefore

remain fresh and eternally vivified.


i think i’ll not take that

kiss now, but rather run

back through the fields

of my youth,


because it’s better

knowing what it did

to my later knowing, what

it did for my later heart,


to have let love lead

me to this place of certain-always,

than to have led love

toward a stale perhaps-never.

Saturday, October 31, 2020

what if we were constellations instead?

 


the fluid bearing of a
leisurely moon
lands a pulsing 
kiss when the atmosphere 
allows it, wants it.

what are your coordinates
when the current
sings through and the
tight ranks of an arduous
life are loosened by the lips?

for this moment, indulge in being
alone, finding infinite purity in gazing
at the phosphorous 
trails left by lingering
stars.

confront the restless flesh
with articulation and
faith and silently harbor fears in
the backwaters
so that they sink forever.

consider: what if we were constellations instead?
great, luminous, alchemic
heroes to the mortals
of Earth and our praises
were sung?

what would we show them,
what would they
spy in us, all the way
up there in our
dark, daunting expanse?

your name surely would be in
the mouths of those
you've not yet kissed,
and expeditions would be
mounted to seek your hidden eyes,

hoping that you would look
down upon them, that you
would cast on their colonies
some sign of incalculable 
hope and joy, salvation even.

age is full of mists and
the fleetly moving fog of time;
it levels the sands and
cracks the skin into unidentified
sacred stones.

the years go away and
come back unsalted.
yet they ratify love
with a beautiful virtue
that affords you nostalgic

aromas - like the
scent of rain or the
scent of a child's
flesh or the scent of
distant lover on a horizon.

what has happened
remains, quivering -
a ripple of the touch
by indomitable fingers
or a subtle breath.

what will happen
remains to be eaten,
devoured, and made into
dew or soil or atoms
that spread out beyond.

so long as you hold
it all on the tongue, let
it dissolve, and
swallow the sigh
of all that was, you will endure.

there is no conspiracy 
without you, no hands
on the clock that are not
your own, and the malignancy
of age is just a myth.

consider: what if we were constellations instead?
to be seen by them by looking
upward, outward, in
astonished reverence for what we
offer, and not what we fear,
for that is their best view and ours.

Thursday, August 20, 2020

i return to my dead

 


i return to my dead, disagreeable.
no cloud is the same
as it was, even though
i wish they would be.

or at least the best ones,
the flame-broiled ones
at dusk that hold
the gold gristle of the sun 'round

the edges and cottony down
in the belly, surrounded by a
going-to-die, waning-waning sky
of some industrial-strength hue.

it's all loose, liquid measures to
these eyes, my beloved departed.

are they what they were in the
end, or what they'd become at
the height of their lusty lives?

my mother nearly never
drank, my brother drank
all the time. i'm irritated
by both of these melodies equally.

my want for the one
bled into a wish for the other
and somewhere surf always
meets sand in biting violence.

over and over it clangs
like a struck second hand on a 
clock suspended in the back of
a choked classroom.

i return to my dead,
asking them to impress
upon my images some
semblance of truth,

that i might then sky them
for good like clouds
wheeling ahead of the
final storm.

my goodbyes were threadbare;
my chest ached for them
to finally be still as the air between
blades of summer grass;

that they just relent,
and release, so that i
could not be
selfish anymore.

the pain is an inexhaustible
water held in the
atmosphere; it is
the ion charge that

claps unexpectedly while
sleeping, or driving, or
making love, as if they, my dead,
are still hungry, still unfed.

what did i forget to do? what did 
my musty memory fuck up this
time that they still must 
whisper contempt into these bloodless ears?

i return to my dead,
who brought fermentation
to my life; who devoured the days
between ought and naught,

who offered me a lasting
instrument of secrets
when they moved on and
left me cloud-gazing.

my heart feels like a
plunging stone sometimes;
a breath held two seconds too long; a 
deposit of pearls in the pen.

the memories of those who were
is a memory gone the 
way of dew in the drought; i'm
turned to salt on the flat and i'm

running to them barefoot, scared,
when all i want is
for them to be as
pretty as sun-burnished clouds.

Wednesday, July 29, 2020

love-springing



at the lightest end
of that street
my childhood
was barefoot runnings
along the hallowed halls 
of pavements and
pebbles.

we had charming
intervals with
masculine suns
and mother
moons, along
fields of crickets
and hiddenmost ponds.

say this to me now:
my spacious life of
long leanings against
fragrant barks and 
layings-down upon mystery leaves
and the wet spots left
behind by odd nightly insects.

we conducted our
business before
other people's gods
who gave us their eyes
to see what a 
soul is supposed to
feel in time.

you have no time now,
and that is fine:
i love you for
saying you'd kiss
these lost lips with
the clarity and taste 
of the dew.

you smelled hot
to the tongue,
a tender touching 
of noble fruits
and waltzing with
limbs on fire that
took us outward.

before grave autumn
took us back to
the chalky spread
of empty tables
and barren lands
of naked truths exposed
in relief.

i loved our days
of confused talk
that was salty 
to the eyes and
made us blink
toward the sun
who swam with us.

we enjoyed the 
celebrated adult-
speak back
then and avoided
hitching rides just
before thunderstorms 
and backward winds.

i think if we'd
known more - known
better - we'd have
experimented with
our limbs and our
hearts, if only to be 
fast virgins in god's country.

we never stooped so low:
we circulated in the 
veins; we swam upstream
to save a life, which was
yours by the way,
i didn't want to tell you
back then.

when you captured the
head of the rose
you conquered this sadness,
you defined youth,
you made love to me
well before i eventually
made love for real.

i am under-defined now;
a far-reaching 
solitude that stretches
back into memory,
aching to ache this
better way, at least
for a moment.

i wish we'd had a
way, back then, 
to define certain
moments as being
important in the far
future, a term or expression
that made it crystal.

it would be 'love-springing'
maybe, or 'passion-coiling'
or, better yet,
...no, i won't
say it here,
to save this generation
from exactitude.

i have my music now
anyway, and good  poems 
from soft degrees of the sacred - 
i don't need definitions, not as
long as my dreams are still pointed 
to summer night skies that let me 
swim with you naked.

Tuesday, June 9, 2020

the whole of everything at once


what is he to be?
what is he now to be, here?
but not here with me?

maybe kingmaker,
reasonable whisperer
in the ears of fate?

maybe dragonfly,
the majestic surveyor
of all the ripe greens?

maybe a shepherd,
the stoic walking figure
among flocks of time?

a fragrant river,
the carrier of colors
cast by Mother sun?

some everlasting -
some ever-gold ray of good,
flung to all corners?

crescendo in dreams
of a mother left to weep
into her empty?

maybe the warm strum
of fingers on quiet strings,
the sound a cloud makes?

or darkness removed
from another boy's night dreams
when he's all alone?

in eternity
the white-naked flowering
on celestial shores?

or a separate tree,
my father's favorite lone birch,
now that Mum has gone?

what is he to be?
what is he now to be, here?
but not here with me?

the answers are warm,
when you cast your eyes outward
looking for questions.

no one understands
the sting of love lifted fast
and its harping pain.

but i choose to think
that we all abridge this age
to become ageless.

that we are scattered
among the finest of good,
and light many souls.

i suspect it's grand
whatever he chose he chose
and wonderfully went:

whole of everything,
whole of everything at once,
is what he shall be.

Sunday, May 24, 2020

hope from something strung


hope from something strung
  - thin lines laid between thin dreams
in a rectangle -

something not solid
but rather soft, forgiving,
for supple exits

and strong entrances
(my eyes only go so high)
to box in the green

but not to exclude,
because it all needs to breathe
if this is to work.

the line's middle sags,
frown-like from a good distance,
but up close, things blur

and the whole of it
expands to the best life parts
from which i have learned;

this piece of boxed earth
holds within its fragile scope
everything i need.

hope from something strung
  - thin lines laid between thin dreams
in a rectangle:

it is to be real
when real begins as a dream
and not left to sleep

Friday, May 8, 2020

a place kept

i'd been scolded by an
ancient-faced teacher:
how was it i was always
running around the playground
untied, i was apt to
trip and get hurt, didn't your
mother teach you?

so i went home terrified
'how was your day?' she asked
'it was good.'

vincent - was a year older
and had a dark scowl and
who hand-picked me as
his target, sitting next to me
on the long bus ride, shouldering
me into the window and whispering,
'i will punch you'

so i went home terrified
'how was your day?' she asked
'it was good.'

i was the size of a toddler
in kindergarten, so my
classmates trampled me while
heading back from recess, a
teacher scooping me up,
'you need to be more mindful,'
she said

so i went home terrified
'how was your day?' she asked
'it was good.'

i'd entered a halloween costume
contest and lost to Michael -
whose parents were both doctors
and in my sullen defeat he'd said
to me, 'you had no chance.'

so i went home terrified
'how was your day?' she asked
'it was good.'

i'd laced up my sister's
ice skates and wobbled
across a back-woods pond
alone when my legs flung
out beneath me and the impact
of my back on ice ejected the
wind from me

so i went home terrified
'how was your day?' she asked
'it was good.'

i'd fallen in love with a girl
who'd be what i believed was
forever, until she sheared us apart
for another boy and i grieved
in my parent's car alone on the
side of the road

so i went home terrified
'how was your day?' she asked
'it was good.'

at home, she sat at the kitchen
table reading alone and i
made slow loops, down hallways,
through the living room, the dining
room, and back to the kitchen

each time she was there,
reading; she was quiet there,
mouthing the words to what she
read, but she was there,
and she would look up and
she would smile, there,
because she knew

and the world outside
was a place kept

Wednesday, April 1, 2020

we can wing


we can wing,
you can bring your lover,
to hop across delicate
stones toward those restful
trees.

thoughtful walks
and quiet wantings
have the branches singing
and leaving us upon this
collapsing star.

you were soft when
i met you, darkness
thus removed and
the white dishonesty of it
all churned to foam.

what is the size of
air, or the length of loss
when you get right down
to it and people in life
crouch from fears?

we can wing,
you can bring your lover,
to wade across toward
the private sands of
happiness.

thoughtless ambling
and restless breathing
have it all blurry
and leaving us upon this
ecstasy moon.

you got harder after
i'd met you, lightness
thus shone and
the calcified honesty of it
all rose up.

what is the depth of love
and width of promises
when you get right down
to it and people in love
spring forth?

we can wing,
you can bring your lover,
to trip among
swords of grass that
scythe the heart.

aforethought living
and bleached memory
have these woods gay
and lifting us from this
soaked sun.

you got simpler after
we'd talked a bit, grayness
thus seeped in and
the broad revelations of it
flattened me.

what is the height of loss
and circumference of soul
when you get right down
to it and people in despair
smile anyway?

people ask this poet
if he walks in some
cloud of misery, to
which i respond,
the lover only knows.

Sunday, March 22, 2020

i am now, that i wasn't before


i am now, that i wasn't before,
in some minds,
unbinded to them,
peculiar in our new distances.

there was the chain,
fastened in black ways,
durable in the mystic,
proud as Man.

i learned my lesson,
don't think i didn't,
and now reap the
harvest of hubris.

i was perhaps unelegant,
perhaps working too
hard, perhaps full of one way
when their way went opposite.

it was a chain, regardless,
meant to forge some kind
of strange blessing among
us against outside demons.

but all it did was make me
lie to myself about truth,
blind me to the impostor
that is love.

they have wriggled free,
and are better for it,
and delight in the escape
while i stand cleaved.

nothing is thicker than water,
nothing stands the test of
time, except maybe the
composition that time writes.

i cannot wash my hands
of the stain from the grip
on those weathered,
plaited hopes.

but the blood is
gone, and the bandages are tossed,
so there is the finery of meekness
that comes from that.

Friday, February 28, 2020

leaping


leap from new cold life,
to land among new home trees,
and praise what's within.

bound and bound away
from the dead wood that wounds you;
that branch had passed on.

i've been getting high
on all the wrong oxygen,
my head hurts, i'm spent.

i thought that was you,
standing at the edge of fine,
within my green bounds,

come to prune the hurt,
come to burn the pile of pain
you found on the branch.

but you just stood there,
in your silhouette of hope,
not telling me things.

so when you jumped off,
hitting the harsh ground running,
my roots broke your fall.

this tree is not green,
the water drained from its soul,
frost-bit bark cracking.

things we nested here
have abandoned their warm nests
and flown to find you.

but that's not too bad,
i would hate to have to care
for them anymore.

leap from new cold life,
to land among new home trees,
and praise what's within.

there are many trees
standing in my broad orchard,
waiting to be climbed.

the leaping is it,
shoved from the shivering loss,
to find myself here,

renewed by the hit
upon the grounds of my roots,
heels sprung and bones bruised.

the turn comes once tripped,
once the spine straightens anew,
once the blood returns,

and i can recall
without looking bent backwards
how that old tree lived.

to reach behind me,
without the eyes of the sins,
without the red hues,

and see something there
of the possibility
of no probation,

no more lost feelings,
no more clung-to hopes of chance,
no more search for you.

the tree stands apart
but it won't go to mother,
standing as it should

as the place from which
great things grew from great things loved,
and leaping was right.

Sunday, February 23, 2020

i aim at love

i aim at love, like
the lot of you, which
is glimpsed side-to,
caught in those strange
impulses of light-in-time,
that pierce the eyes in
some moments and bathe
the feet in others. it is not
fully found but fondly,
fiercely pursued.

i don't mean love,
i mean Love: that
silent place that sits
beyond the threshold of
time and nature that
ends at the beginning of things
and begins at the end;
that high and low place at
once, that river within
us that gives us meaning.

i want to know what
i mean, to know
what purpose i have,
to know why i have given what,
to know why my bold breaths
into the wild hold any
importance whatsoever,
to know whether i am merely
a simple cell in the vast
expanse of the stupendous void.

so i aim at Love,
knowing that i will
not catch the uncatchable,
yet pursue it nevertheless,
because it is the chase -
and those golden glimpses
of it that i stitch, that i weave,
into some notion of memory,
some pretense of thought -
that shows me my Reason.

Wednesday, February 19, 2020

the walk


nothing so simple as a walk
among these souls, 
towered and adorned with
the shawls of life, 
letting what little sun
bask them and you
in some emergence of truth. 

their edges muted now
by different masks
as they reach up but
look downward upon
you through such
silly gauze, but 
that's the way of things. 

there is solemnity in
the quiet way in which
things change when we
shoulder the precipitations
of worries and evils, 
and just let her do
her alchemic work on us. 

the Bride is going softly, 
you know this;
she has to blood-knuckle mine
for thoughts the way one must
sift the waters to
extract those precious minerals
that are left to keep. 

a walk is a way, an
amble is a soft march
toward those rises 
you keep before you, and
the ice-snap of breaths you
take are reminders to
just keep plodding. 

nothing bad is behind us, 
really; maybe scattered
by breezes, or crushed
underfoot into peaceful particles
that feed our forest bed, 
waiting for the shawls
to be shed finally. 

then comes the fruits of all
that cold waiting and long walkings: 
a bloom, a greening of the eyes, 
a memory deposited as seeds that 
break the surface and the 
Bride is there, in full, one thousand
flowered considerations

Sunday, February 16, 2020

supper is ready


it only takes a second, 
maybe after asking them to
get ready for supper, 
which they'd rather not do, 
and they spike a radio to the
ground and toss their cds
across the room
and kick the table in front
of them and call you an asshole
and tell you to throw their
radio away for good this time
and begin to pound their fists
against their head and you
see in their eyes that they want
to do nothing short of destroy
everything in their path so
you have to act swiftly knowing
that just walking away is tantamount 
to pissing lighter fluid into the mouth
of a volcano and you approach
and have to remember your
training and words like restraint
and control cross your mind and
not wanting them to do something
that will be permanent and as
you approach they swing with an
open palm and catch your glasses
that fly 10 yards and the other
children are scattering to escape
the lightning strike and the 
thunder and you have to subdue
a 300-mile-per-hour hurricane and
in doing so recall how the people
who rushed this into your life 
did so to rush it out of their
caseloads for a reason and 
you've finally got them calm 
and you have a bite mark on your
shin and a pinch scar on your
bicep and you let them up and
they seem contrite until the next
time they hijack normal and toss
your life into a pit of vipers and
you check the mirror an hour 
later when your anxiety attack
is over and you can breathe without 
tasting blood and there on the 
bridge of your nose is a memento
and supper has gone 
cold

Tuesday, February 4, 2020

faith outside the faults


i'm not a friend of his language,
although his mother and i
fought for control of the 
tongue of it when he first
came to us;

he knew a few words,
and he looped the lips
to craft something of a
conversation with us and
members of his new family and 
we learned to be interpreters.

he stole people's
keys, poaching them
the way a boy fists
pebbles into pockets;
we scolded him out of it.

he takes a half dozen
medications as a bulwark 
against the onslaught of
invisible enemies 
launched against him at birth.

the names of his meds
are tiresome, long,
and too difficult for 
our own tongues to curl
into any sort of intelligent
noise; we sound stupid.

his mother and i have
had to pin him to the ground,
his arms above his head, his
legs crossed beneath the
weight until he calmed down.

this happens when he is
struck sideways by some
atom-quick crashing of 
competing impulses, the
origin of which we never intuit.

he has flipped me off with a 
deviated finger and told me he hated 
me; he has said i am not his father;
he has thrown a chair at his 
mother and it has ravaged drywall.

he keeps the same song on
repeat and drones the lyrics,
the sound of which is like 
a finger on the record that
drags the music down into a bog.

he clamors to succeed, but crashes
against walls and floors, into
his own fists; he bites his arms
and curses under his breath; his 
chemical imbalances tip over trees.

what he was born into we've gotten
only in meager reports, like a
fitful radio sending us dispatches
of the battlefield casualties
before going silent.

we have been called before juries
to stand and answer questions
by fools wearing the wigs of
remonstrate; our defense falling
as flat as a deflated lung.

we have slept with unease, one
ear cocked to the dead sounds of 
night to hear if the boy is up
and getting into things;
our sleep is trench-warfare sleep.

what we hoped for we dreamed
about, what we dreamed about
we cast out in a net made of
thin glass that shone in a
gorgeous flash before shattering.

we have wanted to give up,
exhausted from the pulse of
the blast that radiated outward
from the detonation of one
hundred thousand collapsing suns.

we have wept into each other's
eyes in anguish over how we failed,
wondering if the hands of the clock
cannot, in fact, be unwound and
take us back to the greenery of
more pleasant fields.

but then he will rejoin us;
but then he will ask for a hug;
but then he will kiss us when
he has never kissed us before;
but then his cloudy eyes will clear

and we will find in them - in him -
what we dreamed of dreaming,
what we dared of daring,
what we hoped to hope for:
some simple light, some affirmation

that he was where he was destined
to be, for the good of what is good,
for a life worth living, for the
purity of excellence that he deserves in the
face of all founded and unfounded obstacles.

we who venture into such denuded
land, deforested by acid chaos,
do so from some calling,
from some urge, knowing not
what is meant to be found.

the creatures discovered here (that they call 
special) dance for us to the rhythms
of deeper wells within the earth,
beneath our feet, and in tune with
lesser graces.

and we - the boy's mother and father - find
faith outside the faults of our visit here,
recognizing the vulnerability of a child's
love and how it comes with the 
expectation that we are there,
regardless of where they are and have been.

regardless.

Thursday, January 16, 2020

spun



i took my daughter when
she was two years old
to the old newspaper
in damariscotta where
i worked

when it was just her,
and i was twenty five
and wore a mustache
and was a terrible journalist.

she was make-believe
back then, a minor character
in a story i worked on
in my head.

i didn't know anything,
more so than today, but
not by much, and she
had beautifully pudgy hands.

i planted her in an office
chair and began to spin her
slowly, a father's
insouciance.

she gripped the sides of
the seat of the chair
and said nothing,
because my first-born

is the spirit of deep water
and flows in the depths of
living in a soundless purl;
she's felt before heard.

she smiled - i do remember
this distinctly - because
i always knew she felt jubilation
by the raised corners of her mouth.

i spun her faster and the ends
of her hair lifted up like
a ride at a fair and the prose
of my heart sang.

until she fell,
having loosed her
grip, toppling sideways
and onto the floor.

she bellowed into
my breastbone,
her tears doused my
collar and i sat on

the floor with her.
a co-worker tsk'd
and i soothed my
daughter in a grip.

when she'd been
consoled, she returned to
her solace, her place
of quiet, and we ate lunch.

i did not spin her in chairs
ever again, but i am finding
it hard to believe that
entirely.

the trees at night
hold in their arms the
moon, at least for awhile,
before she descends,

only to be held again,
so i hold to a belief
that age defies the pull
of the turn in some fashion,

that being a father is a
series of good intentions
meant to figure that story out,
to round out those characters.

i have some clue as
to what the spin has done,
hoping against hope
that she loved the motion

and hated the fall,
but knowing that
the cause of either
was my own innocence.

she has her own
minor character now,
who clings and smiles,
twirls and cries.

she does well in
that role; so much
better than i, with so
much more quietude.

all of that to say
that i think it was
i who got spun back then
and fell,

and that she, by simply
being, propped this old
moon back up, with the
strength of her quiet arms.

Friday, January 10, 2020

wolf moon


my greedy boy,
my lupus irascatur,
how you howled at us all.

and the wolf moon rose in
the wintry sky not
too long ago and reigned.

we all stood beneath
you, did we not, and
listened to your yawp,

your bellicose bray,
when your teeth
hurt you and you wept.

Neil Peart died recently,
my brother, so to hell
with it all, frankly.

did i tell you i walk
every day and i see your
canines carving the flesh?

that i still hear the songs,
i still witness the musculature of
the mayhem you flexed

into my life, that when i
feel like shit the first person
i want to call is you?

you're in the sky tonight,
my pulchra animalis,
my agent of native skies.

someone could have told me
how much this sucks;
someone could have warned me.

you show up in my night
skies, my days of dreams,
and perch on all fours.

you breathe on me and
remind me how much
light you shed.

you make me cry abandoned,
and you leave me standing
like you did years before.

i went to a meeting this
week, did i tell you?
where they talked about you.

and on my ride home
afterwards, it pissed me
off that i never told you.

get out of my sky,
wolf moon. stop following
me into my abyss.

i love you, and i
miss what i missed,
and what i didn't.

my anima mea,
my bad memory,
my great hope.

tell me a dirty joke,
read to me again from
Tolkien, then leave me.

alone.

Sunday, December 29, 2019

latch, part ii



the door is nothing,
the latch a make-believer;
fear is a cold ghost

Tuesday, December 3, 2019

primul fiu, luna mea



the best thing, really,
is to live in someone else's
hours,

which is often quite easy
for this man to do when
it comes to his children.

i tinker with their
clocks a bit,
play in their minutes

like some threshing
child too bored to
remain inside.

it snowed today here,
son, and the schools
canceled their classes

and i lay inside of
a kind of warm imposture,
thinking about time.

how i've a lover who
lingered along a longitude
of upper hope and lower despair.

how i've a lover who
spoke her truth into the
ears of a denying child.

how i've a lover who
carried me across the threshold
from passion to friendship.

and i am ok with this,
good with where i am at,
primul fiu, luna mea.

but that is my life,
and need not seep into
yours. it shouldn't work that way.

you know very little
of any of that part of
my extant journey,

any more than i truly know
many of the moments that
brought you to your station.

i was not there, except as
a spectator looking through
a long glass made of the

particles of hope and joy,
frank expectation, and
prayerful reverence.

well...i was there, of course,
inside the cells of that
beating soul-heart,

the muscle of your
prairie spirit and
mountainous vigor.

you've done so well,
primul fiu, luna mea,
you've climbed out of

youth with the resolve
of gravity and the
balance of goodness.

you have astounded
and astonished me,
you have migrated.

you have sculpted with
delicate pupils a masterpiece
of impossible marble.

you have drawn a greater
horizon and marked it with
vitality and ferocity.

you have demolished the
tombs of fear and in their place
erected great, airy halls.

but that is past, and all history is sold
to time the way things
are bartered between enemies.

which is to say,
the way of the was
dwells in bad scriptures,

and the way of the
soon-to-be plays in
the ether of hope.

so i am most interested
in where you will be
after tomorrow's tomorrow.

to reside in your every second,
awash. to linger in your
minutes, quieted.

to await your return
with stories about
the hours,

primul fiu, luna mea,
so that i can know
you even better.

Saturday, November 30, 2019

how to make basic homemade love


in a large bowl, dissolve yeast and
1/2 teaspoon sugar in warm water; let
stand until bubbles form on surface.

infinite dreams begin in a
transparent solitude of diffused
light and agile essence, so

begin with your eyes closed
and pray to aphrodite in her
suckling sweet-wander.

whisk together remaining 3
tablespoons sugar, salt, and 3 cups flour.
stir oil into yeast mixture;

she may answer with a sigh
and move the crowns of three
skies upon your head,

that you may entwine and commune
with her and your lover altogether,
and thrice be enchorused.

pour into flour mixture and
beat until smooth. stir in enough remaining
flour, 1/2 cup at a time, to form a soft dough.

you will soon discover the apt ratifying
that comes of heart-fiber and soul-fate when
your lover and you,

foam-covered and now
so engaged, make a natural
peace among the enemies.

turn onto a floured surface; knead
until smooth and
elastic, 8-10 minutes.

the syllables upon your tongues
will engage in something green
and drowsy, as when dreams come,

and the melodies of the moon
will harp, and the hum of the
seas will float you.

place in a greased bowl, turning once to
grease the top. cover and let rise in a
warm place until doubled, about 1-1/2 to 2 hours.

growth comes with the agitation
of your blended existence and
from that an inclination

and desire to say, in a quivering
voice at night, when entwined,
something secret.

punch dough down. turn onto a lightly
floured surface; divide dough in half
shape each into a loaf.

hands on the flesh of hungry
hands, fingers within the
fingers of uninhibited dawn,

legs lapping legs and
lips licking at lips
until the earth trembles.

place in 2 greased 9x5-in. loaf pans.
cover and let rise until
doubled, about 1 to 1-1/2 hours.

time is perforated by time,
and set to the time-keepers
who keep it all hidden,

because we are not ready
for love, ever, and we are
not ready for life.

bake at 375° until golden brown and bread sounds
hollow when tapped or has reached an internal
temperature of 200°, 30-35 minutes.

silence bleeds us out, but
the sounds of love are varied
and primal

and mark us for whatever
destinies she can afford,
lessly dressed and naked by half.

remove from pans to wire racks to cool.

let love sit and rest and
let love be love and linger
in the shadows of our hearts

so that, when it is time,
we break bread - without the burn
of lost loves - but with the lovers who rise.

Tuesday, November 26, 2019

inclination


is it what's hidden
or upon the surface
of life where my
eyes are deceived?

all the damaged
collateral lives inside
the vaults of exalted
memory

and that long
whip that strikes
with the wet tongue
lashes the flesh. 

ever at the
ready, i see things
in echoes, dormant
seeds, Gothic light. 

i have put things
in places, or i have
not, but together 
they float in

colonies of
debris within
fine excuses and
apologies. 

what i see is what
i can: ruminanting
fossils of stories
i have penned, 

to the point
of distracting
myself from the 
beauty of my heart. 

what i love 
about nature
is what she can
give: particles

and viscera of
the departed and
downcast, shot through 
with ancient grains of light. 

it's all closer to
twilight with each
day and i have no
answers, 

just the flavor of
the skies above
and the hope of
elevation. 

what is here
is right there;
my eyes need look
no further. 

i won't know any
better anyway. 
so i will let life
incline toward life.