57/365: 4 in the morning (published in Phantom Kangaroo)

at 4 in the morning
it's just me and the truckers on the road

and the psycho killers in their minivans.

no one else is up and dressed,
pants on one leg at a time,
coffee sloshed.

there seem so many trucks but
it's really the same number as always -
just the lack of other cars
makes them look like Stonehenge
has decided to relocate.

there's the truck from Sysco
with its cargo of
Bloomin' Onions/Awesome Blossoms/Texas Roses.
there's the truck from Wal-Mart
with its cargo of
Chinese plastic wrapped electronics.
There's the BP truck
with its tanks full of black
paid for in blood.
there's the psycho killer's minivan
with its grim sacrifice
carefully wrapped -
a Chinese baker, perhaps
who had stopped to get gas
too late at night?

citizens with day jobs
and for-profit criminals
are all snoring -
it's still yesterday's night for them.

us,
we're all driving into the morning of their tomorrow
(except for the Chinese baker,
who will have no more tomorrows
or even today).

55/365: morning stories (published in Mindful Word)

the fall sun just over the trees
leans shadows that are long stories
from the fence posts
lining the road I am running on.

my own shadow stretches out to the west
broken by the rough of grass,
then granular with the asphalt -
this is suddenly the measure
of what is left, I realize.

the light has a metallic truth to it,
unavoidable hard realism,
not like the fairy twilight
that blends the worlds of waking and dream.

but the sweeping reach of the shadows
do not put me into the present
the way the noon sun will,
hanging overhead like an inquisitor's bulb -
undeniable and demanding of truth,
but only the truth of now.

instead this early morning light
forces reflection over what is yet to come.
one must wait until the evening
when the shadows trail into the past
to ponder what has been done.

 

54/365: walking on water

the downpour on the highway
is partly recycled, kicked back up
by the tires of the cars in front of me
and the 18-wheeler clinging to my left
as if we were Siamese twins.

the mist skirts each of us
and it seems as if we hover, tireless, on grey spray -
our taillights like afterburners.

indeed we are barely touching the ground,
the water coming between us and the earth
is as close to walking on water
as mortals come.

there is no secret to walking on water:
if we could only walk fast enough
the surface tension would never break,
and we would not sink
into the dark waves
but glide along,
the lights of our afterburners like shooting stars
along the firmament.

53/365: empty space (published in Mindful Word)

empty space

thinking of a bell, with it's great hollow -
the emptiness is where the tone happens,

tongue swinging from side to side
as a boy pulls a rope far below.

the difference between a hammering
of metal on metal
and a call to reflection and community

is but the shape of the empty space
and the tongue that occupies it.

52/365: running on old trails

running along the Brazos
in the twilight before dawn
there is a misting rain
and this is a moment
when the fairy world
blends with ours -

I can hear the earth
drawing in breath
as her sun cracked skin
is eased.

there is an old man
setting three fishing poles
in stands, their lines already cast
into the darkness

as I pass him I hear
"man is made for destruction
but not defeat."
it is in Cuban Spanish
which of course I can understand
because this is twilight
and the path I am on
runs between worlds

but I do not know if these
were the old man's words,
or if it was just the wind
and the rain
and the sound of my feet.

today when the sun is high
I will go to the house of a scholar named John
and we will speak of the past
and we will speak of the future

but I will be thinking of the fish
who were tempted.

of unearned gold (published in See Spot Run)

you must cross the river twice
to return home I am told
if you wish to gamble everything.

the first crossing is always easier
and is merely
          (as if this were in fact some small thing)
a matter of assertion.

when you return
the river is always drowning swift,
black deep,
and sky wide.
you cannot swim and must pay to cross.
I am afraid I will have no coin for the bargeman.

will you lend me enough for my fare?
he does not take coin of this realm
and I have made bad investments,
lived beyond my means,
and spent all my gifts.

press it beneath my tongue
so I don't forget it
when I set out on the journey, and
so I am quiet and thoughtful
with the taste of unearned gold in my mouth.

(published in Nov/Dec issue of "See Spot Run")

50/365: cutting (published in Mindful Word)

cutting

along the bank of the river
the water eddies
and minnows sparkle,
but this is not where the river
is about its secret business.

I want to go down to the cutting bottom
where the same water that plays along the shore
cleared away the bones of the dead,
pushed aside settled sand and silt
millenia before Christ was conceived

where the same water that laps tentatively
by my shoes
has been chiseling at rock
with jackhammer inevitability,
making its deep way.

with the time I have
I will leave my mark on the world
until my waters run dry
and the fire consumes us all.

which of us said that? I wonder
turning away from the fish
and back up the worn trail

**

audio: 

49/365: invocation

take me to the place
I cannot go alone

(who am I invoking?)
(where am I ask you to take me?)

48/365: demon - Prius

commuting in by myself this morning,
I was startled to look into the opposing lane
and see my demon
driving the other way
in a shiny new Prius

her round face
and knuckle mouth fixed
on the road ahead.

I couldn't help but rubberneck
as she moved slowly along, eyes focused
on some other target.

what is this

to be filled with longing
for recognition
from a thing which sucks life from you,
like lips on your cracked femur,
tongue lapping
and slurping.

my cell phone rings as I turn into the parking lot -
"Did you see me?  Wasn't I good?" she slickers.
"I was totally like 'I don't see you?'
and you were totally like
'I hate you - I think - no wait...'
LOL!"

The Prius was red.

47/365: demon - deserts

"I hope you get what you deserve", I told my demon this morning.

We were carpooling together.

"Only people who deserve something terrible say things like that," she replied, sipping coffee from her skull-travel mug.

The mug looked at me, one lidless flesh eye still in place.

"Oh, drop me here," she added suddenly, when we passed a cop who had some tatted out, fat, truck-driving skinhead pulled over.  "I have work to do."

45/365: driving to work (published in Vine Leaves)

on the street where the grass grows tall

next to the wooden fences that have drank
the sun's whiskey heat too many days

I see an old man walking

as scarecrows walk in dreams:
his body rail tall and rail thin,
he leans on a drug store cane -
an adjustable aluminum tube with a grey handle
like a dusty Christmas decoration.

this is a sound bite of a life
out of context.

just as I pass him, he pauses in the path
using the stopper foot of the cane
to sweep up and aside
a curled page of newspaper.
it does not belong on the path
of the sidewalk-less shoulder.
this is a statement he wishes to make.

42/365: I used to sing

I used to sing
I tell them -

twice.

once
when I was young
for quartets, and concerts
with parts
and cryptic figures on a page

once
when not so much older
for long marches
feeling the rhythm in my feet and hands -
sweat in heat or
hand clapping for cold.

now there are songs

(this is my song
I find myself saying)
I sing myself,
but I have fewer illusions
that
what I assume you shall assume.

41/365: to not know

so this
is what it is to be old

really -

to know you are telling stories
to your children
but not to know if they think
"quaint"

when the wind from their lips makes a sound like
"that's so cool".

40/365: is anyone else's demon a joyce fan

my demon woke me last night
to talk about The Dubliners.

her voice is Marylin Monroe breathy -
except for the occasional squeak -
but this sound is the accumulation
of all the midwives smothering infants
for the crime of being born girls
     at that moment.

"so," she says
"I'm just all ambivalent about this epiphany thing"

and she has perfect teeth inside a kewpie-doll mouth.
this is a mouth that does not stretch like a snake.
she takes small bites, a knuckle or toe at a time.
cracking now a child's femur
and up-ending it like a pixie stick
to suck the marrow
she waits for my reply.

she has hair which is the color of fire and blood
and is also blood
and is also fire.
she is covered in black feathers -
a woman-bird,
though sometimes the dark edges blur
and she wears a preacher's robes.

her tail is a stub, like a docked boxer
or an above the elbow amputation.
she has spoken of the unfairness of life -
all the popular demons have long, spiked tails -
some even have poison stingers.
this so I don't become too self-pitying and self-righteous.

"The exquisite moment
when self-deception is ripped away
and the soul's arrogance laid naked -
you just can't have too few of those.
But all this implied change afterwards -
that's so disappointing.
What's a girl to do?"

39/365: evening gods (published in Vine Leaves)

there are evenings
     when I look out across the stockade fences
     dissecting my subdivision's backyards and
the moon meets the street lamps
     and the ambient glow of the city
     not so far away
that I can almost transform
      contractor grade siding
      into white stucco walls

and you will have to forgive me, my friend
     for saying that I am in Greece
     and not some tract housing
     no one will want to remember in 50 years,
     let alone a millennium or two.

pass me the ouzo,
the gods are about tonight -
     do you not see Hermes slouching there
     by the mailboxes?
     (he's the one with the skate board).
     the one with the Mad Dog 20/20 -
     that's Dionysus, of course.

if you can't see them just yet,
sit and wait awhile -
    they aren't going anywhere

unlike us.

36/365: ice does not bend

ice does not bend.
it is hard,
until it is not.

this is a way of being.
hard,
and then flowing.

you cannot bend,
you who are made of ice.

and then you are gone,
soaked up
in the sand -
not more than a smudge.

35/365: fine

what I said -
that isn't what I meant.

I've been hammering on the phrase,
dipped it in the flickering flames
of simplicity
until it was white hot
in the tongs of my tongue

are your ears
as finely wrought as this?

I think I shall save it now
for someone else

after all.

34/365: incomplete nightmare

an incomplete nightmare
leaves a sense of being cheated -

as if we wanted the boogie man
to make it back into the closet with our mother,
the pursuing vampire
to lay cold lip against our necks,
the more pedestrian pursuit by police
to catch us as we run from some vague crime of
being.

the dog barks,
a daughter announces in your ear she can't sleep,
your wife turns on the bathroom light

and closure, terrible and absurd as it is,
fails
and the world of dreams is left awry

aslant
adrift
amiss

positively akimbo

too much like the waking time.

33/365: wholly white

not content to be pasted to your fingers
the flour gets on your shirt
   in your hair
   behind the canisters
   in your ears

you go to wipe it from your lobes
and it says
by what right do you remove me from my home
where I have been since before time began

you shake your head in disbelief
but the flour makes its case:
you seem to think that you exist only for yourself
but you are part of a greater recipe
   part of the great loaf
   the great cake
   the great pasta
(what was it you were making?)

we are all baked at the holy temperature
(375 degrees, mid oven)
and come together as one dish

we should respect each other -
even if you lack a sufficiently powdery essence
to understand the sift the finer Truth.

31/365: empty classroom

after hours the classroom feels like a cave -
I never bother turning on all the lights
and so in the dimness I take account
like an anthropologist
of the artifacts the students leave
to mark their territory:
name plates, jars of candy,
an exercise ball rolled under the desk instead of a chair.
Some books, papers - pictures of their kids,
pictures by their kids.

yesterday they graduated - today I pass through
and all these things are gone -
like a primitive band of hunters
they have pulled up stakes
and all that is left are empty chairs.

I want to call them back -
wait - there was something else I wanted to tell you
it's the good part -
the punch line -
one final analogy that will bring it all together for you.

but I am already history -
part of a finished story.
it dawns on me that I am kin
with the painting of the cave bear.
I was never the teller at all.

30/365: heading west

I'd like to head west -
on foot -

I'd like to walk amongst the sunsets
and canyons
and mysterious Indians -
all full of shamanic wisdom -
not one selling genuine artifacts made in China.

I'd like to leave the past behind,
so wet and mildewed,
and head out into the dryness
of the desert
with the possibility of a hundred
cloudless future days.

29/365: a breather

I had to take a breather
so many rain drops were falling
during that last storm -
keeping track of them all
is a job I realized was best left
to the angels
to whom it had been assigned -
I have to admit I have other things
to do.

27/365: beware the loose reality of pop-up toasters (published in Star*Line)

beware the loose reality of pop-up toasters

reality is carelessly knit together
in the pre-dawn twilight -
words and the things they mean
are pulled and stretched
like an old sweater -
the moonlight shines through the gaps.

reason rules the day,
but its grip on the pommel of knowing loosens
once the sun unhitches his chariot
and stables his horses
and sits down at his great marble table
to dine on wine and figs.

in the night there is no one god
from whom truth radiates -
there is a cacophony of order,
a cornucopia of law.

take your pick, if you can -
find that you can leap comets and
exchange research notes with dolphins.

however, I hope that pop-up toasters
and other household appliances
do not pursue you
in a house without doors - but if they do,
just keep running until you hear

the snort of horses

and the clop of hooves
against the sky.

**

Audio: https://anchor.fm/honest-chaos/episodes/Beware-The-Loose-Reality-Of-Pop-Up-Toasters-erm2k3

  

25/365

more tree poems.  I'm a little obsessed because I planted four of them yesterday.

***

what I wanted to say
about planting a tree
is that it is different than planting basil.
you know, because it's not.
basil.
I mean.

It's a tree, even if it's fruit bearing
you don't expect the yield and upshot
in a few weeks -
planting a tree is a setting down,
a setting in -
it takes time for roots to grow.
much must happen below
and out of sight
before anything meaningful can be
seen.

putting a tree into the earth
is putting branching dreams into the air.

you can like basil,
you can plant basil,
but you cannot dream basil.

19/365: Globalization and the Labor Plight of Elves

Globalization and the Labor Plight of Elves

You think I'm joking again
when I return from late night shopping,
so I shrug and we drop it,

but the elves do come out after eleven
at the grocery store.

They work the late shift, stocking shelves
in their curly toed slippers and floppy hats.
I stared the first time I saw a pair of them
stiff arming the mysterious double hinged deli doors,
going on about the Red Sox's chances this year.
Now I just nod and keep pushing my carriage.
I think they appreciate that.

No, they don't make shoes anymore -
the Chinese do that.
These are German, or maybe Austrian elves -
they haven't worked the trades in centuries.

I don't joke about the labor plight of elves.
Bill, the one with the long black beard and the green beanie
says he'd like to get back to shoe making one day -
maybe when he retires -
but what, with the way his 401K is,
he doesn't have time to worry about beautiful things.

18/365: my rosemary

my rosemary, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

my Rosemary speaks with her scent
of ancient days.
she and the sun are companions
and he does not intimidate her.

I can take the dead gray desert
and make it mine,
she says.
and she does.

rain is good she says.
or not - it's ok. all things in

their time.

16/365: heaven on earth

the flea is an admirable fellow -
hanging from the summer's grass
with family and friends.
he smells us thundering by
like an air craft carrier-sized Thanksgiving Dinner.

he and his peers spring forth heroically
(who cannot admire this feat)
bounding heights of tall buildings -
hundreds of body lengths -
only to discover the whole meal is covered
by impenetrable canvas. and so they crawl
miles over wrinkles and sometimes into pockets
never to be seen again until
perhaps they find a belt line or a collar and
Sweet Jesus! it's tender flesh
without the steel follicles of a dog or mountain lion.

we are a feast worthy of such a creature.
he takes a bite here, then moves on
creating a line of revelry and joy
having found heaven
on the moving earth.

15/365: correspondence from caring strangers

the king of some African nation wrote again
to inform me that I have unclaimed wealth
in his land - all I need to do to make it mine
is send a very reasonable deposit -

immediately -

preferably by Western Union.

this after I received very special offers
for various enlargement emoluments,
and another message in Chinese - no doubt
from someone else who has my best interests
at heart,
but has yet to learn my language.

11/365: native sounds

the shush of a passing car is just one
of the native sounds of the suburban night.
listen now to the chick-chick-chuck
of a wayward sprinkler kicking off,
and
don't call the HOA about that damn dog barking -
you can't fight Nature.

instead,
sit on your deck and contemplate
the flare of the streetlight shining
over your six-foot privacy fence -
it's like a personal star
the gods of public works,
circling the earth in their white pickup trucks,
have hung
                     
just for you.

***

This one inspired loosely by Carl Dennis's writing - particularly Practical Gods.Excellent, readable collection, by the way.

this is a make-up

this is a make-up -
missed time that can no more be recaptured
than the water that ran down the river yesterday.
where is that water that went by
when we weren't looking,
like your daughter's 4th year
or the third weekend after you were married
and you had to wash the floors
and do laundry.

**

Published in the Nov/Dec issue of See Spot Run

1/365

For a father to feel, he
must
hear the mother's grief.

bent and twisted

you remember
bent and twisted
in a shape that is a priori

true.

bent and twisted
bent and twisted

bent and twisted.

I would like you to know

a thing I would like you to know
is that I put the cream and sugar
in my mug
before I pour in the coffee
when I am at work -
it's so much more efficient.

you wouldn't know this about me
and never will because
I won't bother telling you
amidst all the other things
you won't know about where you
came from.