Four Haiku for the Old Year

Footsteps already

fading beneath moving feet

remind us we move.

Latticework of trees

against pale December sky—

Spring will fill these holes.

Summer memories

already fading to white,

like my fading hair.

The heater kicks on,

and my eyes again open:

at least one more day!

One Week After the Solstice

So cold the air

across my skin,

vibrating strings

of harp frozen

beneath the snows

outside the town

the old mad king

dedicated

to a dead god

pagan, alone,

and forgotten,

empty and white

as Alaska,

or as tonight.

After a Movie, After Some Wine

In the corner, past the cobwebs,

the room’s angles ramble into focus

so sharp even you can see.

In that moment you’ll live forever,

all regrets and plans left behind

on those receding planes and lines.

You’ll melt, slowly begin to flow, like desire,

the way you once slid across her slick skin,

like sweat, like shadows, like goodbyes.

Vow

I close-to died in my arms tonight,

Choking on my barbed betrayal,

Wishing my tongue absent, ablaze,

Luminescent as the lie I told.

Stumbling on the clumsy curb,

I resolve to once again fall silent,

Go live amongst the fallen leaves

And other scattered, unsung heroes.

And Once Again: Advent

The last of the birthday cake

plunged into the trashcan

as the three pennies in my pocket

howled at the teapot moon.

Meanwhile,

my Shih Tzu fell back asleep,

my wife logged back on,

my daughter checked out,

and I found myself wandering,

as I’ve often always done,

up and down Escher’s stairs,

panting in ragged rhythm to

the spectacular deaths of the stars.

Last Night’s Dream, with Revisions

I rummaged through a ransacked house

which I somehow knew was mine

until I stopped to trim the lamp’s toenails.

It was then I noticed the duck’s half-head

glaring malice from its lonely eye.

I hoped the marauders had gone,

but the next moment hoped they hadn’t,

for the fear kept me blissfully sleeping,

clippers in hand, under the mallard’s gaze. 

Nine Non-Autobiographical Lines

The trumpeter blew madness

into the humid Houston night,

and over your padded shoulder

I saw pink flamingos flying

North toward Oklahoma.

At that exact, awkward moment,

I finally came to realize jazz

And ornithology really don’t mix

Anymore than love and memory do.

Lonely Haiku #9

After Thanksgiving

moon lurks in a clear, high sky,

my cold companion.

After looking at photos of old friends

You say you knew me when,

but when you say you knew me

that wasn’t quite me you knew,

nor for that matter were you you,

were you?

If we could travel time

as in certain confusing films

to moments when we intersected,

would we recognize one another?

I can’t say. 

Perhaps in the future

things will become clearer,

we’ll see each other more fully

and finally know some truth.

It could happen.

In the meantime,

why don’t you give me a call?

theology #9

so after dinner

we spoke of the saints

their poor yet smoldering eyes

eccentric habits

poor housekeeping

magnificent martyrdoms

general lack of humor

meditated on their miracles

possible roles as mediators

until the wine ran out

and the sun came up

and we beheld each other

in the early morning

across the table

table surrounded

by bleary saints

After Studying Apostolic Succession, I Go Outside and Look at the Stars

At one point,

The Catholics and the Orthodox

Mutually excommunicated

One another—

“You can’t fire me, I quit!”

The Crab Nebula was unworried,

Continued its perpetual dying.

The laying on of hands,

The slipping from one body to another

Of some ancient mystery,

Elusive responsibility

Moving from flesh into flesh

Under the distant, distracted eyes

Whose light is only now arriving.

The conventional image is a fire

In the form of a bird or a tongue

Falling from Heaven and through a man

And from there into another man.

And so on and so on and so.

My dog sniffs at some leaves.

I touch my head and something happens.

and a grace came upon me

thirteen pigeons

on the performing arts center roof

not performing yet centered

near the apex of the pyramid

dark against early november dusk

gracie rolls in the clover

outside the deserted library

leaves stick to her thick coat

bury themselves in her beard

but she smells momentarily sweet

the honor society inductees

and their smiling families

vacate the auditorium in clusters

across the campus their chatter

wafts on the warm, leafy breeze

the pigeons still stand guard

over the sleepy sunday afternoon

occasionally a wing flashes dull green

or one marches chaplinesque

down or back up the slanting

i release gracie from her leash and

lie down in the bright leaves

outside the english building, pile

them over and around me

no one’s found me yet

Prior to the Breakup

Two pair of shoes

Stare at opposite walls,

Tongues folded tightly away.

The First Happy Morning after Tragedy

Morning flutters

Over twitching eyelids,

Curtains dancing

An orange tango.

Not far beneath

But galaxies away

Thanatos and Eros

Kill and copulate

Amidst strangers

With quite plaid eyes,

While old friends and lovers

Negotiate the beauties

That keep blood young,

Stumbles at bay,

The dance—now a waltz—

Rippling the half moons.

Epiphany

Then everything layered like onions,

Levels pulling and peeling away,

Curling on the floor, feral fetal cats

Mustachioed with reality’s whiskers,

And by the prism-glow of my heavy watch

I see as I have seldom seen before

The slow steady breathing of the sky,

The trees stretching toward heaven,

The ground all falling down to meet me.

The Ever-Ending Mystery That is God

Put Him in a corner, turn your head, He’s gone.

Bury Him under Nubian sands for generations,

And when you dig Him up, He’s equally gone.

Even the image we held of Him has flown—

No white-maned Jewish patriarch comes to mind.

Instead, we see Our Father, in baggy overalls,

Puttering around the messy, shadowed garage,

Fixing one thing while fouling up three,

Ranting about the Philistines and the Democrats.

When we weren’t looking, He slipped out the door.

We prowl the night lanes, shouting out His name,

Which returns an echo on the empty wind.

 

This Thing

I don’t yet know what this is.  It’s sat on my heart a long time.  One day I thought it had left, but when I came back it was still there.  Late at night, or early in the morning, I sometimes feel it stir.  I’m sorry, but I don’t know what to call it but “it.”  It scares me sometimes, with its formlessness, its ubiquity, its general disregard for convention.  It sometimes seems to mock me and to enjoy itself at my expense.  Once I considered cutting it out but all my knives are dull, I’m no kind of a real man, I’m no good with tools, I’d blame it on my father but instead I think I’ll blame it all on it.

Road Trip

Sometimes the road

runs in the wrong direction

and sometimes you do,

but you’re making good time,

listening to The Band

and Johnny Cash,

stopping only for beer and gas

in the last town before the border,

where the locals eyeball you

by the low sun’s fading beams,

turning away and spitting

into the impossibly red dust

when you threaten eye contact,

and you want to keep on moving

away from everything you know

but that’s always a feeble fantasy.

Even now, as night catches up,

you’re slowly turning around,

cruising back into the low black clouds

where your life lies, waiting to break.

One Sunday

Over the altar hovers

A shiver of holy light,

Captured in the tight corners

Of my dim, cynical eyes.

What did I see—blushing wings,

Feathers brushing Paradise?

At such moments the blood sings

Above the head’s wooden facts,

Pulsing until the heart stings.

Despite logic’s sullen pacts,

Beauty has taken wild flight

Into the soul’s sudden cracks.

After Armageddon

So no one would ever know
we had destroyed the world.
Raptured in our nano-sleeves,
we drifted to the very edge
of an obliterated reality,
dared—just once—peer over
upon the never-ending flames.
We were lonely then for God,
wished He could have been there.
But He had been the first to go
once we decided to offer
our vast and perfect sacrifice.

The First Night After the Freud Seminar Began

Sometimes when I dream of babies

They’re oozing pus from their pores.

And sometimes I arrive quite late,

Clad only in a ratty old swimsuit.

Some nights are just finally like that.

On other nights the slick big rigs

Fly slow circles over L.A.X.

And lovers on Santa Monica Pier

Smell diesel as it falls from the sky.

Such things, like God, can’t be explained.

Now I lay me down to sleep.

It’s a bit like playing Russian Roulette,

Bullet my brain, chamber the spinning night.

Late At Night and Early the Next Morning

In her mouth were marigolds

And all the promises of God.

They shone, polished teeth

Bright in the peasant light.

I wished then to be rent.

Later, after we’d awakened,

Drunk morning’s bitter light

Patterned through the blinds,

Cast hard, suspicious shadows

On her belly, on her thighs.

Scarcely a thought out of place,

We languished until quite noon,

Convicted in our ridiculous love.

After a Long Monday

Moon a light balloon
Straining against the dark strings
We hold in our hands.

Raw (The Last Poem?)

I’ll lie down in the dirt

If it will stop the hurt

Gasoline smell of hell

On my tired fingers

Waving like a madman

Drinking like a sad man

Lips numb toes and thumbs too

Only my heart feels

Fluttering in my fat chest

As my scalp floats

And I try so hard to remember

What the hell it was

I wanted to this day recall

Well, What Do You Know?

This bird’s about dead, I said,
As the damned raven raised
Its ruffled, tussled head
To stagger across the parking lot
Like a frat boy after a kegger.
Feathers blueblack
Like comic book heroes’ hair,
But paltry and perilously hanging
From an Ichabod Crane frame
That bounced in the Oklahoma breeze.
This bird’s defeated, I repeated,
And then the sad sucker flew,
Weak wings perhaps just enough
to prove a faithless poet wrong.

There Are No Monsters

Only

Waters cold as winter’s bones

Buses out of control

Rattlers on the roadways

Blending into the bloodstains

Knives with knowing edges

Gleaming in the headlights

Racks of loaded rifles, shotguns

Tiny tumors prowling the nodes

A loaded hypodermic

Nothing worse

After Philip Lamantia

When the day crawls over sleep’s slow-eroding edge,
And the night’s dragons have curled around their hoards,
Even the gods emerge groggily from the dreamworld,
Blinking at the eternal newness of all that they have made
During their eons of restless, surreal, and sublime visions.
So each morning, before I don my armor to face the day,
Only your eyes, your sudden kiss, bring me fully to life.

Wherever You Are, There You Go

Sometimes

I see things

No one else does,

Faces in places

No one else looks;

My mind’s gone

From one end

Of my memory

To the other,

Poor mad nomad

On a stick camel

Caught in a storm

Of tiny, shiny nows.

Things I’m Ashamed Of

Having made a few women cry.

Having cried in front of a few women.

Killing animals that weren’t threatening me,

Like that snake, and in front of my children.

Pledging a fraternity because my friends did

And then trying to get other friends to pledge.

Having briefly registered Republican

During a selfish Libertarian phase.

Having let myself get fat, lazy, and soft,

And deciding to just stay that way.

Having written too many checks

But raised too little hell.

Having idolized O.J. Simpson—

Having ever idolized any athlete.

For not speaking up when I should have,

And for speaking up when I shouldn’t have.

For quitting smoking marijuana

And drinking a lot more instead.

For reducing God to a failed religion,

Making it too easy to dismiss Her/It/Him.

For thinking I was anything special—

Believing my own quite-biased press.

For ever having hurt my Pam—

No woman’s deserved pain less.

For not staying in touch with friends,

And for making all those excuses.

Above all, for not paying attention

To each second of each blessed, blessed day.

Simple Physics

My beautiful world resists stasis
The way God resists being known.

No music without motion,
No passion without reach and thrust.

We trust all that undulates, shudders,
Breathes in the bounty, then exhales.

The faintest stirring at vision’s edge
Reassures—the world moves, so we live.

For Pam (Again)

Bright water erupting from a desert stone,
White sky descending upon an eager child,
Glance at a blue jay’s insolent, sudden wing,
As right as pure music in morning light.

These, and much else, my soul will miss.
These, and the worlds within your kiss.

The Poem I Almost Wrote Yesterday

Insolent cur, so callow and bent
Toward the hollow halo’s tawdry gleam,
Syllables singed, smeared with heavenly smoke.
The meter’s upside down, full of falling angel feet,
And had those conceits sweetened some pages,
Haughty Paris would have stalled and stayed paltry.

The Poem I Thought About Writing Yesterday

The left-handed sonnet, sodden and listless,
Limped toward the almost-late turning,
Swerving sweatily towards the distant ditch
At the nasty junction of eight and nine,
White lines lumbering where the lights died,
Killed by the crowd’s cunning, brutal shrug.

The Poem I Didn’t Write Yesterday

That glassy-eyed, litterbugged bastard,
Tossed as refuse on a toady Oklahoma roadway,
Rolled randomly into the east-leaning weeds
Which swallowed those awkward, swollen words,
Awarding the world with a sullen silence
Breathtaking in its broken invisibility.

Somewhere Between Pawhuska and Ponca City

Up all night, once again, morning gray
As all Hell, as my mind, as this day.

Stopped the pills, like I said—stopped them cold.
But I’m fine, I’m OK, I’m just old.

Go away. Leave me be. I’m no fun.
All I want, anymore? To be done.

Sight Seen On the Way to Work

Not broken and not battered,
This butterfly will not fly
Again this side of dark death.

The faintest rippling passes
Along these wee, fragile wings,
A shudder in the morning.

A quick breeze brings this pilgrim
To the edge of the steep steps—
It perches for the last time,

A last volitious action,
A sigh at the suddenness
Of sublime life, now blasted.

Once Upon a Time

The huge blue skies hung, skanky

With Lord Thor’s last thunderbolts

Flung godhot from Asgard’s heights.

The wine-dark oceans wandered

Dizzying depths, carved the coasts

With Neptune’s terrible tongue.

The misty mountains trembled

At deities’ deathless tread,

Peaks crumbling like crushed paper.

Now, we behold beliefless

Beauty, damned distant echoes

Of archangels in our ears.

And now for a sudden outpouring of banal prose...

I'm back, dear readers, after having bitch-slapped my wayward muse into submission.  I never meant to take such a long hiatus, but then I never "mean" lots of things that I do.  Thanks for checking in over the last month--please keep coming back, as new attempts at music will emerge.

On a Friday When I Don’t Want to Work

Above my head I hear the hammers sing

As roofers thwack the brand-new shingles down.

Our Shih-Tzu growls from her light slumbering,

Lids shivering in this construction zone.

The laughter of the Mexican workers

Falls like the ripped-up, hail-pounded shingles.

These men fight July’s heat like berserkers;

Though heavy and humid, the air tingles

With their languid, lunch-break-together joy,

And now I can hear the roofers singing

Some sad corrido where a border boy

Loses his life for love, and the ringing

Of the hammers on the heads of the nails

Falls into a rhythm that somehow lulls,

And the lazy dog’s light, raspy snore trails

The beat, and the Friday afternoon fills

With various musics, various love,

Various graces falling from above.

Wishing to See

My father-in-law proclaims

the local rabbits friendly,

so I suppose that this one

simply doesn’t recognize me

as a member of the clan.

He jumps through a fence-hole

and hides behind a crepe myrtle.

Perhaps it’s the barbecue fork in my hand,

or the smoke and smell of grilling meat.

Moving into the blazing July yard a bit,

I crane my neck around the flowering crepe,

and see him posing, staring across the creek

to where the tall grass swallows gazes.

Two robins land a few feet away,

tweet and twitter at him who never moves.

I look to where his eyes have gone

and all is yellow, orange, green,

all blade and brush and heat.

When I look back, he’s vanished.

I stand there for a long time,

my stupid fork hanging at my side,

while the meat turns black

and the night comes relentlessly on.

Driving to Pryor, Oklahoma, on a 100-degree Day

The steaming cattle lumber from the pond

toward the shifting shade beneath the cottonwood

where they lie, fly-tortured monoliths mechanically

chewing their cuds through the day’s long, liquid heat.

Do they miss spring, wish for fall as I do,

restless and depressed through endless July?

No birds circle in the pale sky, at least none visible from

here, the back seat of a Honda with my daughter at the wheel.

The trees and grasses along the road shimmer greenly

beneath the sun.  They reach heliophilic blades and limbs

upward through the heavy air. You can be better,

they whisper, turning their eyes suddenly into mine.

Haiku for Midnight

Rain falling, faster

Into the edge of the night,

Where tomorrow lies.

Emphysema Memories

Daddy’s coughing up that sputum again,

Hunched hacking into a red handkerchief,

His thin shoulders shaking like leaves

In the opening scenes of a thunderstorm.

When he raises his red eyes I see pain

And the kind of weariness that kills,

And the kind of very something else

I’ve tried to forget the look of for years.

A Reminder

The summer wind has kissed

The white hairs on your wrist

Under the July moon.

But you’ll be feeling soon

The paintbrush breath of fall

Stroking your cheek, the small

Orderly reminders

That it’s always finders

Keepers with Ma Nature.

No matter your fate, you’re

Destined for her embrace

At the end of your race.

The Jealous Angel’s Lament

One has to watch one’s wings when flying west—

The sudden storms can surge and buffet you

Before you see the lightning streak the clouds.

Next thing you know, you’re grounded, and you’re blue

Because that glib glory hound Gabriel

Has once again gotten to somewhere first.

Just look at him preening his white feathers!

I swear by Yahweh that I think I’m cursed.

Perhaps I’ll singe his sacred golden tips

Before the toff takes credit for the sun.

At any rate, the time has come to soar

Before ol’ Blondie ruins all my fun!

Once Upon a Time in the Future

I still remember stars, the wondrous way they flew

Suddenly towards me when the darkness arose

From the thin, distant horizon.  They clicked in view,

Holes in a mourner’s curtain the color of crows.

Floating in a pool—can you comprehend the waste?—

In a blue plastic tube, I’d watch them softly shine

High overhead, beyond my reach.  The wind I’d taste

As I’d taste the flavors of women, sweet and fine.

No bright stars arise now from this damn rancid black.

The last reported sighting’s been years.  In the east

No moon floats, sated and full.  Once it used to track

Time’s progress.  But progress—and yes, light--now has ceased.

A Dinner Conversation

The artist talked about her craft

Over a glass of Chardonnay.

Relentless in her repartee,

The woman neither smiled nor laughed,

But lectured us on discipline

And perfect use of line and light.

We thought she’d pause, and then we might

Have fled.  Had she presumed to then

Have asked me what I thought about

Her ideas concerning teaching

I’d have told her she was reaching,

And I’d have loved to see her pout!

The Truth Hurts

Our bodies fail, as all that’s flesh must do.

The fresh and supple frame soon falls, frail dust.

So we console ourselves, conspiring to

Content ourselves our minds have yet to rust.

But there’s the rub—our brains already fade,

And soon we can’t recall our bodies’ prime—

The gears get hung on all the plans we’ve made,

So we forget the reason and the rhyme!

Ah, but the Soul, we say—forever young!

Our Spirit’s white and bright as newborn eyes,

Eternal, taut, and keen.  Yet still we’re stung

By Truth’s uncouth response to all our lies—

Your Spirit’s sicker than your putrid blood;

Relinquish all vain hope, damned speck of mud!

A Kiss-Off

Sudden the savage comment, the cold sneer

That grinds the slow heart late in the evening

When all falls flat and low, and everywhere

The very air bears the smell of leaving.

Stunned by betrayal, you struggle to find

A reason, meaning behind the cruel words.

And somewhere in the corner of your mind

You see yourself dividing into thirds.

Someday, no doubt, you’ll once again be whole,

And all this anxiety forgotten.

Yes, surely you’ll find a suitable role

For one so black, so thoroughly rotten.

Heterogeneous

The microscope and the telescope

Ultimately peer at each other,

Lenses locked on the mystery

Seeded in our cells and the stars.

Electrons and galaxies whirl

Around hearts thick and dense

With dark illusions of stasis.

A nucleus splits, a sun supernovas,

And somehow we still go on,

Eyes clamped tight to the tubes

Tying us always to the questions

Our instruments strive to answer,

Face-to-face on the edge of forever.

Rainswim

The morning after Independence Day

Neither moon nor sun appears--

Heavy clouds the color of ambiguity

Hover like raised rapiers.

We sweep up the empty cans

From the swimming pool deck.

In the filter we find two dead frogs

Amid the bugs, leaves, and dreck.

The rain begins well before noon,

And soon the front road’s a river.

We drink the last of the warm beer,

And by two discover the lever

That opens our hearts to the day.

We laugh as we dive into its chill,

Plunging into the deep, deep end.

We remember that dark rebirth still.

Independence Day

The patriotic citizens of Tonkawa, Oklahoma,

Popped so many fireworks today that the air,

Wiped clean by unseasonal rain, was sulfurous

And rank by the clearing early evening.

My practical, construction-worker neighbor

Roars off in his wet, black pickup,

A huge American flag flapping from the bumper

In the midsummer light prairie wind.

On the far side of this tiny town, around 9 o’clock,

Chinese rockets rise into the darkening sky,

Shatter into patterns of brilliant color

Tracking bright paths to the damp ground.

Later, I stand beside my quiet backyard pool

And watch the air bubble through the blue water.

The wind rustles the surface like a wheat field,

My soul like a trumpet slowly sounding Taps.

Somewhat Lunar

I’ve never been mesmerized by a blue moon,

Not even while under sinister influences

Such as that autumn pumpkin orb

Or that distant, cold December one

Yearning for a proper solstice celebration.

My moon adorns the wide prairie sky

Much like a brazen pagan amulet,

And you and I stand in that ancient shadow,

Legendary lovers from a half-forgotten tale.

Mona

Sometimes at night she lies by the pool until long after midnight,

Warm Merlot in a pink plastic tumbler her tawdry companion,

No IPod, no phone, no way to communicate, and no need

As the tiny stars and huge moon drop as the blackness rises

And the pale clouds curl and roll on the sky’s invisible winds.

On these sullen summer mornings, hours before sunrise,

She traces the names of old lovers across the darkness,

Remembers their kisses and rages, their inevitable sorrows,

The same way she remembers breakfast, tea, or a nap—

Sweet pleasures of the past now fading toward nostalgia.

She’s always stiff when she finally wobbles to her swollen feet

And tries—each night—to recall which door will lead her home.

No Zen

The first time I tried to meditate

I was tired and fell into sleep,

My beardless chin curling to my chest.

I don’t recall that long-ago dream,

But know still I awoke to joy

Despite my guilty embarrassment.

Next time, I knew, I’d touch Nirvana.

But the next time I was drunk,

My “OM” more of an “Oh shit,”
as I sought the quiet sacred place

Where rooms ceased spinning

Cross-legged beside the toilet.

Every few months now, for years,

I dust off my rusty lotus,

Focus my mind on a single point,

Try to think of absolute zero.

But my mind’s still not still,

I don’t want to lose myself

In some vast and cosmic One.

I already know I’m nothing.

Why, oh tell me why now

I’d want to feel that truth?

A Lonely Haiku

Random memory,

A maple leaf replacing

The touch of your hand.

The Greatest Country in the World

This legendary land lies, of course, quite far away,

Farther than the distance between now and then,

But when we finally enter its enchanted gates,

We’ll learn that the CEO knows the temp’s name,

And that the taxis pass right by the bigots

To pick up the trannies and the young black men

On their way to teach peace to the generals’ sons

Who by six have memorized the Tao Te Ching,

All the works of Whitman and Langston Hughes,

And the Cherokee songs of short love and tall corn.

The flying cars run on dandelions and desire,

And no one knows what “cancer” even means.

Everyone gets to be the president for a day

But no one ever needs be a judge.  All guns

Fire thick bread, fresh fruit, and sweet wine,

And never run out of their fine ammunition.

The children gleefully flock to their schools,

Gleaming gold on top of the highest hills,

Which of course overlook the cemeteries,

Which are spotless, revered, and joyous,

Filled as they are with music and dance

And the memories of such brief, bright lives. 

Best of all, not a single citizen has ever said,

“This is the greatest country in the world.”

Machete

How high were you that ancient night

You stumbled into the Burger King

And demanded a large order of French fries?

The clerk knew your natty dreads, your face

With all its naiveté and confusion,

Knew you well enough to call you a regular

And know you were always hustling, so

He probably wasn’t flabbergasted when

You pulled out those empty pockets

From those droopy gangster jeans, said,

“Come on now, brother, help me out”

And flashed that dopy golden grille.

But when you pulled out that machete,

That brush-chopping, pineapple lopping monster,

He got suddenly very silent, somewhat sad.

“I’m sorry, but I won’t give you the money,” he said,

And you knew through your Robitussin haze

That this stupid boy would die for whatever

Tiny amount of change was in the register, so

You settled for those salty, glorious fries,

Held them aloft as if you’d won a marathon,

And ran into the heavy, humid Tulsa night,

Already forgetting what you’d meant to do,

If—that is—you ever even knew.

One Magical Day in Tulsa

Waiting one day for the light to change,

They might instead decide it never will.

She might open the Lexus’ shiny door

And sashay away from Utica Square

Past the I-Hop, Wendy’s, and the hospital

Down 21^st street, past the park to Peoria,

Where she’d make a left toward Brookside.

Meanwhile, back at the frozen light,

He might reach across her empty seat

And pull to closed that dangling door,

Floor the pedal and race across

The after-all-vehicleless intersection,

Rubber screeching and peeling

Over the summermelt asphalt.

She’d have now walked 20 blocks

To sit in the Brookside Bar

At five o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon

And throw back shots of tequila

While telling anyone who’d listen

Lies about her life as a local actress

Who was an extra in The Outsiders.

He’d head north at a high rate of speed,

Take 244 east past the tiny airport,

Merge onto I-44, crowded with cars

Cruising to the Hard Rock Casino

The Cherokees run in Catoosa.

Soon he’d set the cruise on 78,

Follow the signs toward St. Louis.

She’d let some random handsome cad

Carry her to his pad and fuck her.

“Well, that’s done,” she’d think,

And she’d never drink tequila again.

She’d get a job teaching kindergarten,

And she’d join the Catholic Church,

And she’d live someone’s life, now hers.

He’d barely glance at the famous arch,

Take I-70 through Illinois, Indiana,

Stopping only for coffee and Red Bull,

Popping his last few ADD pills,

Leaving the car in lower Manhattan

Near the exit from the Holland Tunnel,

And walking north on Greenwich Street.

You might say this wouldn’t happen,

That people just don’t act in this way.

And you’d be right, of course.  In fact,

They went home and watched TV,

Got up the next day and went to work.

Wait!  There’s one other possibility—

Perhaps they’re still sitting at the light.

Nodding Off Haiku

Now almost midnight

And now almost 12:30—

Brief sleep has fooled me!

Late June

This wind stormed in from the north tonight,

Caught all us summer people by surprise,

Filled our pools with fat maple leaves,

Pitched our tattered patio chairs against the fence.

We watched bat-like clouds fly over the moon

As rainless thunder rattled the windows,

And for this one mad, random evening

The too-familiar town grew sweetly strange,

A beautiful face glimpsed, then lost in a crowd.

How I Plan to Please My Woman

I’m poised to make you pancakes,

Very early tomorrow morning,

Before the dog’s fully awakened,

Before the phone’s rung even once.

Blueberries I’ll stir into the batter

Just until I stroke a purple streak.

I’ll pour a perfect pentagram

Of slowly spreading circles

Bubbling from the griddle’s heat,

And fry thin slices of bacon

In my mother’s battered skillet

While the coffee sings in my blood,

And I await your step on the stairs.

Once Upon a Time in San Francisco

The blonde dreadlocked boy

On the path to Golden Gate Park

Pounded the warm December air

And raged against the bland sky,

His eyes tight meteors streaking

From passersby to sidewalk

To whatever lost high shadow

Loomed over his tattered life.

I wanted to pick up his pieces,

Take his wild face in my hands,

Tell him he would come down

From whatever he had taken

And all would again be well,

But his Hell was perennial,

As much a part of the Haight

As the graying ponytailed men

Turning away from this bad scene

To make their way up the hill

To the endless circle of drummers

Raising their rhythmic praise

Up to whatever maddening God

Could possibly demand

Such a bloody damned sacrifice.

Pending Repairs

Maybe the basement holds water

While the pool cracks in the sun

And the hole in the kitchen ceiling

Leads to the burned-out chimney

and the window screens rip

and whip in the summer wind.

They say the hail ruined the roof,

Knocked the guttering askew,

Pitted and gouged the poor siding.

No doubt, I know, all this is true.

But no damages mean no living.

You and I limp together, battered

And broken in the ways of love.

The Blues Club at the End of the World

The sad music wasn’t on the radio, of course,

But somewhere at the back of the house,

Where a few blasted and saggy old men

Sat in rickety chairs of their own construction

And spoke in the shattered voices of the tribe.

A few people listened, their faces blue

And beautiful in the hot, smoky darkness.

The men’s long fingers and fat lips danced

like autumn’s dying leaves on the chill winds,

and the music went on until the sudden dawn

surprised them all with its wistful brilliance,

and the women collected their now-quiet men,

wincing into the way that it all continues.

Prey and Predator

The windows glare

At the July air

Like antelopes

Stare at the lion

Sleeping deadly

Under the lone tree

Casting no shadow

Upon the savannah

Rolling eternally.

Oh, You Must Remember That Morning

A sore neck, an empty wallet,

Stains of dubious origin—

A good time was had, and yet

Emptiness remains, lurking

In the milliseconds between

Memory and embarrassment.

With coffee, reality returns,

And the longing for a cigarette

Still, after 20 smokeless years.

You stub that dull urge out

On the blunt edge of your love,

This desire that feeds, keeps you.

Mornings have always chafed—

As a child you hid your head

Under the covers of your bed

And waited for the daylight

To settle in around you,

The way it’s still settling.

Rebellion at the Symposium

The story you want to tell

Takes us toward an edge—

Your edge, not ours.

When we peer over,

Nothingness peers back,

And we’ve enough of that.

Why do you think, oh bard,

We built such beautiful edges?

The Week Before the Solstice

Early summer storms—

The river flows out of bounds,

Washes spring away.

The Worm Dharma

Three days of warm, thin rain

Bring worms from nowhere

Into the small, marshy yard.

Some seem as big as snakes,

Wriggling between the drops

Drifting from a dull low sky.

I step between their dark curves

Like a cautious Buddhist monk,

Moving toward a distant sun

Crawling behind the clouds

Clotted thickly as the desires

Crowding the path to wisdom.

Déjà vu

Some times

Surprise us—

So different

From others

Our breath

Focuses us

On each

Stark moment,

Already somehow

Remembered whole

Since lived

Once before.

Cluck and Cackle (and Thanks to Albert Hoffman)

The night the chickens spoke

I was quite out of my mind

But not yet in another—

Stuck in a strange interstice

Of quiet and barnyard fowl.

I didn’t want to be inside

Our tiny rented trailer

With its tawdry Playboy pinups,

Its stinking, overflowing

Stubs of good intentions.

You hissed at me to come back in,

Your voice a frozen snake

In the thin October darkness.

I don’t recall a single thing

That those fat hens said,

But they were so beautiful

That I wanted to stroke

Their thick, complex feathers

And stare deeply in their eyes

‘til I discovered their secrets.

Oh, laugh if you will—and you will—

But everything has secrets,

A knowledge in the cells,

Some dangerous wisdom

That can change your forever,

Like full moon light on open beaks.

Advice from an Insomniac

In the neurotic early morning,

Awash in a blue-pixeled glow,

You may clumsily encounter

A brief, pain-filled epiphany

During those anxious bytes

Of stretched, stressed time

Lying between the breaths

Regular as your seasons.

Hold that tiny revelation,

With all its tight agonies,

Close as a constant lover,

Reveling in the sensations

As they burn you to sleep.

The Endless Campaign

So just what did you say

To make them hate you so?

You were programmed

So as to avoid offense,

Keep the focus positive,

The questions innocuous—

About the kids, mostly.

But now they’re wild,

Ripping up the seats

To make quaint spears,

Classic caveman clubs.

I’ve told you over and over—

Just read the teleprompter

And take the oily money.

Stick it in that fat gash

Where we only recently

Discovered your head.

A Brief Review

Reading your memoir,

For the very last time,

I’m yet again amazed

At your brutal honesty

Concerning vegetables,

Various and sundry kin

Wearing ankle bracelets

And too-stoned smiles

During huge breakfasts

Bought with barter

From your safaris

Deep into the heart

Of savage memory.

Vision at the End of a Longish Day

The light globes

Look like jellyfish

Floating above us

And my sore feet

Suddenly seek

To become fins

As we’re swimming

Within tight circles

Scales and gills

Silver as sunlight’s

Morning shower

Stretching toward

Our deep places

Omega Point

All our roads ultimately converge

Into a tunnel whose end cannot be seen.

No one has ever reached that end,

As the tunnel extends with every breath,

With every death, into a future

Where we may not know each other

As human, or even remember

Exactly what that used to mean.

Our linked minds may briefly ponder

The splendor of our gleaming bodies,

Washed in starshine and time,

Moving slowly forward together

To whatever’s beyond the end.

Northern Oklahoma, June

Wheat fields singing in the wind

Wearing a cougar’s sanguine color,

Sky high as distant memory

Or a promise long since broken,

And of course that lucky ol’ sun

Pale lemon, bright revelation

Demanding our immediate attention—

What can any of us do save

Prepare our gold souls for harvest?

A Summer Day in Montmartre

The rain sparkling all the way down that day,

A man skipping on stilts between the showers,

Two tumblers in the artist’s square, the hours

We spent in the galleries and the way

The sun surprised the rain and blinded us

Briefly with its colliding molecules.

But soon the afternoon again was pools

Under a high, bright blaze, and all that was

Was once again after all what had been,

What we saw once again what we had seen.

Truthfully?  Even before the rain came,

We knew that nothing would ever be the same.

Warrior Widow

Drowsy after a morning with the old masters

And a late lunch of fat crepes and flat, cold cider,

She lingers in the public park, where disasters

Conveniently stay away, and she can nap and bide her

Time until dusk pushes her from her usual bench,

And she reenters the world with a violent wrench,

And—brave, lonely old woman—doesn’t even flinch.

The Lake Where No One Goes

If the Holy Spirit exists, persists

Within this busy world of tangled woes,

That Ghost dwells soundlessly within the mists

Rising at dawn from the shores where no one goes.

The sensitive mind scans the horizon

For signs that all is not metal and meat—

A reason compels the elision

Of tragicomedy’s bitter and sweet. 

But that lake is hidden so far away,

And life, both short and long, so distracting,

The mind ignores the lake for one more day,

Mists where spirit slowly keeps retracting.

Minds trudge one, down the well-worn, rutted road,

Holding that nothing that’s such a heavy load.

Reading “Four Quartets” in a Paris Hotel

Outside, traffic, the occasional trill of horns,

Punctuated by construction hammers next door.

Inside, where the action is, the wayward mind yearns

To move among the noises, as the mind’s a bore.

In this city the Anglo soul has room to work, to breathe,

Isolated by language, by bias, by more time

To fill with some sort of meaning which will wreath

This tiny rented room with some perfect rhyme

That pulls the tired workers from the construction crew,

The weary drivers from their speeding, angry cars,

And solders them with burning words the way that you

Weld together the mind with lines of metered bars.

On the Beach, May 2010

A pelican died today,

Its ridiculous wingspan

As black as a car’s oil pan,

Its feathers slick from the bay.

The reporter reassured

Only a few dozen died.

That’s small comfort to the bird,

Or the beaches washed by tide

The crude rides like a pony.

The BP spokesman’s a pro,

Some might even say phony,

Though why should we even go

Into the valley of blame,

Since we all drove here to see

The latest calamity,

Another dark sort of game?

The Macbeths in the Studio

So much blood had the old king

That his killers soaked their feet

In what they’d labored to bring

Screaming from his veins, the beat

Of the tyrant’s dying heart

Fading drop by drop to sweet

Eternal silence.  The art

Involved in violence inspired

This black study, with red part.

Another Summer Night Somewhere in England

The silence after the storm

Lengthens into the dark night,

And so the lovers, so warm,

So unaware of their plight,

Refuse the routine of speech,

Knowing they’ll never get right

The words that belong to each.

Instead, they stare at the clouds,

Eternity out of reach.

The Pedophile Priest's Haiku

Father, forgive me…

For I have been called “father.”

In Your place I sinned.

If Only

Somewhere there’s a reason

Waiting for a question

With anxious, long-held breath,

Hiding in the apathetic shadows

Cast by the flickering images

On all those primal screens.

No one ever asks.

Still, the reason feels fear.

Anything is still possible.

Summer 1983

You worshipped the sun

As I did the darkness,

You with your sailboat,

Swims at frigid Spring Creek,

Obsession with tanning,

I with my Morrison mania

For leather, whiskey, and sin,

Weaving under the blurry stars

I knew were constantly falling.

By September no “us” existed,

And you said you wished

That I had died instead of her--

The last thing we agreed on.

   

Wordshop #1

Something unpredictable

Is in the air tonight—

A tang of delirium and danger,

Spontaneous rage.

Perhaps three days of rain

And three nights of booze

Have led us to this point,

But who can really say?

I’m not talking about us.

“Us” is a construct.

Like air.  Like rage.

Like rain and booze.

Like what you just read.

The Invention of Time Travel

That day the shore will break on the waves

And the clouds will be filled with sky.

Rain will rise from the soggy soil,

Which will slowly begin to dry.

Tears will climb jilted lovers’ cheeks,

Carrying betrayals on their silver backs,

And the aged will rise from their chairs

And run outside to watch the falling sun.

Smoke will vanish into the stacks,

As all cars back into their garages.

Passion will decelerate from orgasm,

The spasm easing into the foreplay,

Bodies slowly pulling themselves apart.

Two-Step

The blinking cursor, e-twitch,

Reminder of responsibility,

Relentless drive to utterance—

Blank canvas, silence,

The stillness before dance,

Actors frozen on stage

Before the lights come up—

The moment our eyes meet

From across the busy bar.

Spring in Oklahoma

Rain whispers on the shingles,

Trickles down the windows,

While a radio in another room

Offers static and Loretta Lynn.

We tiptoe around the edges

Of the loneliest of nights

Fantasizing a morning full

Of sun and winning numbers,

Warmth, kept promises,

Tiny green tendrils clawing

Their ways into this world.

Simulacrum

The real question

Is seldom asked

In polite company

For fear of panic,

Foolish stampedes

Toward certainty.

Like faithless monks,

We look away

From the accusation

In each other’s eyes,

The shared scorn

At our cowardice,

Terror at the answer.

Tornado Alley

Green’s a bad color for a sky

On a day when everything sticks

And suddenly nothing’s moving,

You realize the birds are mute

And the squirrels unseen,

The TV screen ablaze with red

Radar tracks of pure turmoil

And they’re heading your way,

Where everything lies, waiting.

Claw Hammer

Like a crane
With the snout of a shark,
One long, rubbery leg
Longing to be held, hefted,
While the silver head,
Flat and merciless as prairie,
Pounces upon the quaint nail,
Pounds it out of existence,
Or at least out of visibility,
The body entire arcing
As an extension of the arm
Of this wielder, this worker,
Maker of fragile monuments.

Heretic

Restless imbiber,

Bastard child of randomness

And purest, cleanest spite,

Your white silk shirt, wrinkled

From countless altercations

With authorities local and state,

Is ripped from collar to tail,

Covered with ashes and stains,

Reeking of freedom and death.

Rhetorical Question

Fire by day.  Fire by night.

And the bright light of today

Burns away the memories

Lying in the depths of the bone.

Pay attention.  Take notes.

You’ll be asked—inevitably—

To give some sort of account

Of your various actions.

And what—oh, sinner—shall you say?

The Pain of Theology

Oh great and gracious God,

Whether figment or firmament,

Fiction or fundamental,

You seek me as I seek You,

In the deepening darkness

Where all lies and all truth

Turn out to be the same

Fatally flawed translations

Of all we meant to say.

The Voices

And some are so nearly round

They roll in all directions

And won’t be stacked,

But chortle with chaotic glee.

Others are so perfectly flat

They pile atop one another,

Layer after layer of sound,

Multitracked slices

Of prairie monotone.

A few congregate in the corners,

Smoking themselves raspy,

Whispering like lovers sure

No one will ever, ever listen.

Star-Gazing

I never saw a sky so full of stars,

The shining bright as teardrops.

I sat for hours and stared

At messages from millennia ago,

Last-gasp flickers, supernovas

Sad but necessary as the silence

Hiding between the clouds,

The moments between the hours.

Older

Stones standing watch

Over the fields of nothing

Stretching beyond the eyes

That are too tired to see.

In the dim distances

Of this fading moment,

We finally realize

We’ve no destination.

Why Ask Why?

When everything is obvious

Nothing is extremely clear—

Tentative answers don their gauzy cloaks,

And saunter down an endless, ill-lit hall

Through a succession of half-open doors

Through which tantalizing tableaux

Never quite click into focus. 

Something’s on the tip of your tongue,

Sweet and salty at the same time,

Familiar yet wholly strange,

So you turn to the face in the mirror

And could swear you’d seen it before.

The Wisdom of Owls

This is where you’re quiet,

And this is where you’re not.

In this way you remember,

Except when you forget.

The stars are not to be trusted—

Even they drift like stellar snow.

The very earth beneath you

Is unstable as the economy.

The hobos digging in the dirt

May be coyotes in disguise.

Late at night after much wine

You can sometimes see the gods

Perched in the branches of the sky.

April Haiku

Two straight gusty days,

Two nights of sleepless clanging—

God’s restless breathing.

I Heard You Killed Yourself

So who do you

Believe in now,

Disillusioned

And oh so hard?

Gritty, granite,

Skeptical, sharp

As a needle

Teasing the flesh

Along the white

Trace of your arm,

The place you cut

When you were young

To drain bad faith.