neurons on a train

 he wondered:

the equal opposite for hearts--

could love heal weird train people?--

rate affection's power, all-to-nothing--

when's heartbreak not worthwhile--

why do ugly men bother staring--

how to get permission--

then silence,

long note writing, fourth drafts,

a sigh, staring indistinctly right.

his head soldiers on:

how much before it's not innocent--

queen Boudicca in flamingo pink--

the invalidity of anguished judgement--

had he ever seen an old wife laugh,

really laugh, at her husband's humor--

would they refill the coffee for free--

june 2023 

just playing

i forgot a few things

"can you play dead

for a few days--"

i used to think i could stand

anything--like crucifixion:

bearable for a few hours

especially when you know 

you'll be dead after, so

there's nothing to preserve.

Mom on the phone, weeping

"there's so much better,"

with "for the kids" ringing.

Billy on the phone too,

"i'm all alone," in a sob

while i sip a drink in stupor.

i'm playing dead real good

but it's getting harder to tell.

june 2023

the Orbiter

earth must realize the vastness

its Sol-centric journey among other stars

circling the galactic drain of gravity

is nothing if not unfairly limited:

let me free! she must silently scream

curving back into her orbit

all of us blithely unaware

she longs for our demise

march 2023

view from the parking structure at midnight

nothing will happen, i tell myself

in a soothing self voice: accepting

nothing as reality, not disappointment

nor failure, but Just-What-Is. well,

i try. and underneath it all,

maybe it doesn't matter anyway:

disappointment is reality too, i say,

losing something inside myself

calming something inside myself

sad about nothing, inside myself.







dec 2022

Next time

For someone with one life
I too often think, "next time
when I'm paying more attention
I'll do this differently."
So, next life, I'll make sure
I don't do that so much.





June 2022

ruins

nine hundred years pass.

then: internet tourists in sneakers

desperate to imagine, to explain.

the silent stones keep your secrets well.

what was it, to which you maladjusted?

if the river by your palace dried--

why not rebuild anew? or, in famine--

where were your granaries? and so on.

we act surprised.  but then,

the muse dies, and still i linger

sitting in a desiccated river-bed

scraping poetry into the dust.

may 2020

the sleeper

Anyway
at 3 in the morning

I crawl into her bed

quietly lay down

pretending she will not notice;

we are both judging me

for doing nothing useful

being nothing more

than awake, at night,

wasting hours meant for sleep

wasting life meant to be lived,

meant to be doing,

creating, maintaining,

anything but--nothing.

I don't even remember what I did.

I pull the sheets around me

judged, judging,

making empty promises

to myself, in my head,

trying to whitewash

my inexcusable, apathetic lust

for consciousness.

April 2022

Known Present Joy

I guess we’ll sit in bubbles
waiting for the angel of death
to pass us by, or else
meet us alone—
I guess we’ll sit and wait
for the night clouds to drift past
tinting orange and pink in the morning,
then peek out from our curtained windows
to see who else survived the dark—
or others will: but I
will stand at the railing of my deck
like a passenger at the bow
sailing in this Earth ship through the stars
no worse for all the fear and waiting,
unscathed by time and the inevitable
joy and pain it brings; I will laugh
with the night, as with the morning
for every second is a gift
planned and given to us, as planned
by divine Intention from the start.
This, too, was known
those many days and centuries ago:
the present does not corrupt the past
as the future is not weighed down by Now.
We shall laugh in the morning
we shall be afraid of other things
and this present darkness is not all,
nor was it ever; only part of the whole.
The ship plunges through the waves
of time and celestial light before and after
and I will be here to feel the spray upon my face
for every moment until I’m not.








April 2020

sometimes

i.

life is a string
slipping through our hands.
i pull it close, sometimes:
examine each fiber with
dizzying microscopy;
squeeze my eyelids &
melt the scene
over my mind--
when movement burns my hand,
i release it to its slipping path.

ii.

i ponder death, sometimes
to anticipate grief.
so in darker times,
when precious souls depart
for better shores, or worse,
i'll have a friend i know.
"sweet grief," i'll say,
"how good of you to stay."




april 30, 2014

dead morning

someday we'll have to tell
of how i died and lay my arms
crossed & flaccid as an empty afternoon:
so void of life, my clammy oilskin flesh
two shades too gray. it's me!
but not. i'm peering up at you
through death-weary lids, creepy as a corpse.
no blood left in these veins,
no jump in these legs,
no spirit in this vacant smile--
i lie so still! it entertains
something carefree and curious in me,
the same that led me off in youth
to sneak in trees. Death is hiding,
is the best spot they will never find
nor want: a grotesque form
i find delicious & clever. you know it well;
what crawls in your spine when you snuggle
between blankets and bed, tight-shut eyes
happily imploring Sleep? you then pine for Death.
and all us bureaucrats, all of us! we
know this: bodies aren't the only things
to die.




1/21/09