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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Read More

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.

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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

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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

Read More

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.

Read More

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.

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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.

Read More

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.

Read More

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

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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

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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.

Read More

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.

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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.

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latch, part ii

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

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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.

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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.

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