suspense

the night before, we waited

hearts beating, working, stuffing

deciding on knick knacks and spaces

cooking something, fretting.




i breathe deep the air of it

as i would the first inhale at sea

only opposite: a last, a parting,

a familiar scent soon to be strange.




“what were you like as a child,”

she asked me just today—and i mourned,

a lot like this, see: always longing for

the ideal, and seeing it everywhere




yearning for a moment to be ages

feeling a wave of loss before it breaks

“i was a sad kid,” to put it simply

as a bright morning forces us beyond.





the night before does not remember itself

breathing deep last air as though the first

sad child longing for eternity to be now

liminal morning prowls just beyond

8/09/23

such great reuse

airborne on cloudy days

above the blanket hide winter scenes:
powder snow over frozen lakes
mountains hemming distance-dim—

i know this view: i was ten
my father drove the rental up
some summer California mountain;
past the tree line, climbing, climbing
to where the snowcap blocked the road.
we turned around; and there we
among the rumpled bright-iced valleys
discovered an enormous snowy field:
it went on forever, perfect flat.
only after did a map betray the water
hiding there like so much ground.

i’ve seen the universe reuse a face
but never only twice;
so now i’m looking everywhere for the third.

nobody from that mountain trip
survived: not the child playing me,
nor the funny firebrand cast as dad,
my innocent sister, promising cousin:
scattered from that mountain lake like seeds
we sprang from many poison soils—thus.

but airborne on cloudy days
above the blanket hides a forgotten joy:
summer children in unseasonal snow
a happy father, pleased with himself
watches like the mountains distance-dim—

8/04/23

dreadlust

dreadlust:

age's end staring us in the mouth

Arlington high rises as precursor

to Mumbai, to Rio;

dystopia, dystopia.

i lifted her onto my tongue like food.




the little animals will be alright;

Sudoku drowns me in disbelief

and i'll bet the party lights aren't lit

at Dogwood in this thundershow.




dreadlust--it fills us full

and then consumes.

i think about an algorithm i haven't written yet

same as books, as letters, as promises

before i fall asleep.

Some Dark Arc

here in the middle of my life it occurs to me

this would be a convenient time for it to end, the arc

has reached a nice conclusion: born, celebrated, fallen.

it would save the trouble of rebuilding anything

and only a few children, i suppose, would really notice

how this degenerate they did not know as such

no longer haunted earth. otherwise, i guess

a parent or two, some siblings, a few clueless friends

would sometimes pause and grieve a minute before

shrugging on. you could see a therapist, they’d say

if i explained the convenient situation to them: as if

reframing, as if tricking myself, were change.

no, maybe i should anyway. but laying things out

here on the table, as it were, like a surgeon’s tools

i sneer at the lack: of sex, of company, of community,

of purpose, of meaning, of plans, of hope.




“what the fuck,” he whispers and climbs

over the banister very conveniently




in an imagination, which perhaps counts

as suicidal ideation—you could see a therapist,

i tell myself, but instead i light a cigarette

and gird my loins. be a man, watch the kids,

laugh like none of this is starving or suffocating me

here in the middle of my life, which is the end

of some dark arc.

bar monologue

there’s nothing to say

at this bar—

well i’m just going to force it




it’s hard to pity someone

who’s doing such a good job of it themselves

i said once, about—

well, i realize now: myself.




do you (who? nobody would) remember—

never mind.







7/3/24