Shut the Door

It's better now, our misfortune,
far better than a politics against
freedom and the poet under siege.
It's better now, our resistance
and dialectics of falling syntax,
better than the human agenda-driven
voices. Better now can we sense how
the heart is losing as if it isn't.

The lord of the clouds built
on a world of stray dogs
a mad, haunted life.
But children don't fear his art--
its magic and nameless intensity.
A child rotates sad tales,
and adults rotate old traps.
There's a keyhole they've forgotten,

and there's my story--
a mile down the wrong side
of half a memory stuck in the future.
I don't want to sing that song.
I want to dance, to drift
in brooding rectangles
where no one is waiting to be found.

Harsh Babies

It surprised no one--
the hang of feeling,
the medium of passion.

In the cold, those
harsh babies--bloated,
gaudy--claimed commitment.

With the bottle, the smell
of private love, lean,
drooping too large--
chemistry liberated.

After the war,
he did not speak. Life,

its routine tidiness,
stifled the peace.
His first love, old,
bought secondhand silver.

With some guilt,
no outward hostility,
he accepted affairs.

Exhausted, his forgiveness
lay propped up. He squeezed it.
There was nothing.

Makes me smile

Mary, did you know?

You Fall Here

You fall here soon enough.
In the middle of the night,
into the beat you labor--
draw rhythms and waves.
There's always space
for what you don't understand
to find an opening. Alone,
simple and sad, you can't go
backwards flaming bombs.

I tried

Folly

Quickly
the mind cuts
passages,
framing lines
with gaps.

Loss is an effort
I could resist,
but don't.

Along the tone
I write--
strong, cold,
skeptical
come to mind.

Amazing mystery,
the naked I.
What folly the critique.

Yeha Noha

a place for rubbernecked giraffes

Madness is a work of art

Madness is a work of art.
Fear and failure. Irritation.
Nothing becomes a voice--
a shout, a whisper, a scream.
It's a necessary waste of time.
These spaces must be filled.
I will call it music.

I'm happy. How 'bout you?

My Life I Sing

And more, I'm growing old.
Through it all, the odd
beauty in refusal remains.
Conviction's an awkward feast.
I haven't changed the world.
Risk sometimes is poetry.

Consolation

I suspect it's only
failure you expect.
The tree line takes me
through gentle country.

I lose you in the flow.
I have nothing. No song.
The silence uneasy--
it started like that.

Negative numbers
bother me.
I used to have hands
outstretched.

Those days are gone.
Stronger this time,
identity brings back
what connects.

Fast, oh, yeah

Dwight Yoakam
 
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Spit ghazal

Look there, on your car's hood: Spit!
So? Any dumb bug could spit.

His mouth's full of cherry pits.
He wonders if he should spit.

With Mountain Dew and Cheetos,
you can create some good spit.

Do you suppose anyone
who achieved sainthood spit?

Rabbit, beef, chicken or fish--
Don't forget: Soak a wood spit.

Organized religion sucks.
They say Jesus withstood spit.

If I just knew how to hawk,
I might fly, or I would spit.

Agnes, whatever you say,
you never understood spit.

That's a voice

What Happens Remains

Expect a flood
of lukewarm curiosity.
Between the blurs,
in the middle of the road,
people struggle with certainty.

I caught myself
becoming
conscious,
slowly slowly.

Listen to the dead babies
sing naked annihilation.
It's your thing--horror.
Get out your metaphors.
It's time to change the world.
Curse this postmodern life--
Obama, flarf, transmigration.
You should be laughing.

Whose business is it
a few souls hustle,
juggle, straddle
blah, blah, blah,
regurgitations.
Bullshit
stretches
epiphany.

The whistle's blowing
morning
light across our legs.
Time.

Why should we care?
No other has the power.

Pinned by an absent god,
I can have it both ways.
Hot and cold exist
because I don't belong here.

Summer Storm

Giddy, the wind chugs,
clatters the shutters,
then wolf-whistles wild
through the tiny crack

in the blackened pane.
Like a tornado,
white lace curtains wheel,
climb my naked flesh

to purr in my ear,
bringing strange comfort
from thick, August heat
and angry gods too.

Slow Burn

Big ol' Birdy, sturdy
as an iron skillet,
wakes before the kinfolk
stir, picks through the kindling
box, and stokes the wood stove.

Aluminum bucket
and half-bushel basket
in hand, she greets the sun
and the striped snake wriggling
in the dew by the spout.

Clucking, she sprinkles corn
and plows through milling hens
to raid the coop. Sixteen
big brown eggs this morning
means custard pie tonight.

Dang Me

This song has been stuck in my head for about a month now. Thought I'd share. I'm generous like that.

Well, isn't that special?