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.