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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Read More

latch, part ii

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

Read More

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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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. 

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cherish

i cherish the leaf

who's fall was of a design

not in her control,

and that she let go,

floating in an aimless twirl,

descending toward,

descending without,

abandoning resistance,

embracing her fate,

coming to full rest

upon a watery bed

joyful in the dance.

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fallen

she the dispossessed,
having dropped from her green perch,
is the way of life.

a long walk alone
finds me mulling her new state
in a chancy world:

a fruit of some tree,
cloying as the grace of eve,
is among new friends.

everything falls here;
faith, love, hope, time, are all braced
for good of the Truth.

i am the apple,
the searching leaf, the pine bough,
the draining waters.

all is returning,
all is hearty abundance,
all is what it is.

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red dust

i.

i love the pockets-full
of red dust
that you are:

a collector's
worth of archaeological
meteor-shower atoms.

that through my fingers
i might sift you
for a thousand years,

feeling the soft-soft
sigh of your breath
on my closed eyes.

ii.

you are of the uncommon
fires found in the
outest backs of the
wilderness of common men.

there, in the distance,
the shape of you is
bisected by the
cross-hairs of branches.

something to puzzle
toward, to be in
search of, to be too
far flung to catch.

that's a father's
prayer, of course; or a poet's,
whose pursuit is of the blood-stone
souls of far-flung words.

iii.

i'm tired of grace
and of words and
of the faith of men
and of time.

but i'm not tired
of you.

because one cannot tire
of watching the way
the moon commands the sea
from across the vastness of dark.

iv.

it is october, and things
have changed, but i
still go for walks and
talk to myself, mostly.

the maple is giving
up again; the ash and
the beech and the elm,
they're spending what they have.

it will be again soon
that i walk and can see
a better view of the moon
at night.

but it will be colder then,
and i will need to make haste
and go chasing my
breath toward the heat of home.

v.

when you look back,
be it toward something.

when you reach,
be it far beyond them at least.

when you take pride,
kiss it on the lips.

when you discover
joy, be it.

when you find that
place, remember how.

vi.

this man, full of
failed words,
and propped toward
pity more than he should,
loves you, pockets-full
of red dust that you are.

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true

with this audience
of bent tree and leafy ground,
love's never dismissed

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frost on the tire

something comes from nothing
and the morning sprites, how
they light upon life with the
aplomb of kings to their thrones.

a child's bike laid on its side,
and within morning's reaches,
recumbent and receiving
her blessings of life-loss.

something comes from something
and the child who left the
bike upon the grass is asleep,
dreaming of something blue or green.

i have left a lot upon
the table, and allowed it to
speak to me from its history
to the point of distraction.

i have seen left things and
have mourned the loss of them,
only to realize later that they
gave to me what they should.

i walked around the bike
to gain a higher perspective,
to change from the lower view,
and perhaps change myself from me,

but came back around to the
lower, to inspect the frost on
the tire, to marvel with opened eyes
at the spectacle of descent.

how the autumn augers in,
strips the colors, makes way
for the princes of winter
and the crawl of demise.

something comes from itself and
the child who let go of the bike will awake
wiser, and will be something of a mystery
in how she looks to these eyes.

frost on the tire
this early in the morning says
to this father, 'Be unto the world
less wicked to oneself.

'love the evolution of the
child and let go the emulsions
that separate you from you.'

frost on the tire
will scatter with the rising sun
the way crickets dance from
my feet when out for a walk,

and the child will gather up
her bicycle and ride it
for a time before snow flies
in from the west with

winter on its hurried heals,
and things will wait 'til spring,
things will wait,
and i will be older

and so will she
but better so, for me.

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