a white powder day, the buzzards swarming in
circles above an inadequate dissonance
finding winter across bleak margin, and
a cross above frightened bushes huddled for warmth
it is a winter’s choice that must be made in every season:
to carry on, or be
carrion
The masters of the universe
The mistresses of pain
The fortunes of the other folks
Their houses down the lane
A passion for veracity
A cavalcade of fun
A phone call in the dead of night
To be the only one
An afternoon of pleasure spent
An instant on the way
An overarching sadness that
Engulfs the everyday
A word or two that hides its face
The comfort we don’t give
The space between infinities
Where we choose not-to-live
The music of the hidden heart
That keeps in how it feels
The whitewash on the sepulcher
The tomb of our ideals
The aftershock the ambulance
The cold and bloody dawn
The moment after of all of it
The tv goes
back on
he asked, but no one seemed to know the reasons
or hazarded so much as a small guess
why wasted time fills up the best of seasons
and leaves him to a life of emptiness
in roil dynamic or in static posing
a tag of nothing but diathermance
to radiate within secure enclosing
with only pallid nonsignificance
he asked, but no one gave him much to go on
he read, but found no clue to get him there
he knows that used or not, the days will flow on
a spinning wheel
that leaves him
in the air
inheritance of desolation sung
by invisible choirs of felons shown
clemency only by those victimized
by higher cost of living increases than
most could absorb with paper towels
She broke down a little ways from
Yesterday — her dreams so much, her hair
Not so, and you and I don’t
Own that mirror, do we? This is more like
Entropy than agony; to slowly lose
What she has not turned loose. So she
Turns up, turns out, turns down, but it
Never seems to be her turn; or was it
Always hard to walk in those shoes, hard
To see anything but the storm coming when
It feels like it never leaves? Never leaves —
The never-leaves blow slowly across the landscape
Of one too many days and too few nights of
When anything tasted like it’s supposed to;
And she closes her eyes on pictures she
Painted in the brightest colors she could
Find, turned dull with
Misapprehension
applied for grant
of clemency
or clementine
oh my darling
do you not know the test
you are about to perform?
that's about to be performed
on you?
all of you?
your breath has become the maelstrom
and the maelstrom has become your thoughts
which become you
and which don't become you at all
not
at
all
Cold woke and dream-rocked;
Knees creaking, shivering —
Finish the fruit while there’s yet time
(Eyes still mostly water, with some stone)
Love’s on a friendship never borne:
Thoughts slip and words linger —
Sleeping past Orion’s welcome.
When did these become my hands?
Tiny bell that signals message.
You are there and I am here —
Into the dark I have to go:
Into the sky that swallows up
My dark
What does he do, when,
Mixed-up in sunset, he staggers
Out to where all of those who
Never admit fault end up bringing
Glasses of old excuses and new cognac to
Life-changing chapters from novels by
Henry James, or even Balzac
Where does he go, when,
Beset by age and loneliness, he
Realizes his best tricks don’t work anymore, and
Flashing the old smile only makes them
Run away faster than he’s seen his
Money go into holes and slots and
Anyplace else money might fit
He looks for his own reflection in
The sky, but all he sees is
Emptiness
My love is water, every dream
Is sweaters worn on autumn hills,
The capable is palpable,
And they say “love don’t pay the bills”
But mine does.
My love is dreaming, every day
We run along the riverside,
I asked the wondering sky for help,
But she said “I have too much pride”
Like I do,
Like she does,
Like all of us —
Like water
