when I die
it will be a cloudy day
no birds singing
everyone staying home
wondering what to do next

 exotic flowers
in hot houses
nights bloom


the key--
light within you
already


what I can't see
under her négligée...
new moon


dirty snow--
in display window
new wedding dress


little fish
hiding in the coral
I see you

The poem I tried to write

The mourning dove coos
as a freight train rumbles in the distance
Its insistent horn

blaring above the insouciant coos
I should be in bed dreaming
The train pushing to a place

I've never been
Its whistle running out of breath
These words an empty boxcar

A Trail of Bodies

I've always wondered if she survived.
It was dark. Thirty miles from town.
Maybe a rancher or two lived out there.

My brother and I had brought our rifles
to the mountains, hiking, half-heartedly
shooting at a coyote or antelope, chasing

the sounds of elk sharpening their antlers
against trees, never seeing one. We got
to the paved road not long after sunset.

There was no moon. The old Jeep's over-
sized tires thumped the pavement, caused
the cab to vibrate. The headlights poked

into the blackness, discovering the now
visible aerial world outside. From force
of impact, nylon insects sounded like two

pound creatures splattering the windshield.
Carroll and I sunk into the well-worn bucket
seats, exhausted, lulled by the drone of tires.

I saw her dark, startled eyes, big ears, black
nose, both of us moving so fast, the thud
on my side instantaneous with her image,

then the sound of the road and nothing else.
We stopped within fifty feet or so, examined
the damage: a broken mirror and the side

glass cracked. Arms dangling at our sides, we
stared into the scrub. A tumbleweed rolled
slowly past. The doe dazed, looking for her

family, hopefully, or dying in the juniper bushes.
Still, to this day, her bones crying in the wind,
lost in time, everyone I've ever left behind.

this is the best I could do but I'm happy

age has no substance
just a lengthening of pain
that was always there
waiting for the salt of experience

to send the dog scooting
across the floor
one dangling bulb in an attic
never changed

burning brightly the few times
a year it's needed
the laugh the same
to the same old jokes

the slow descent into meaningful
living without the life
of ten thousand new things
to make it worthwhile

in an open field

not knowing that the soil
still clings to them
that their bones
yearn to be found
before they've turned to dust
that the wind sings
through them
the endless song
of their former lives
that worms weave a space
for souls
the dead are convinced
will come to them
on a grey winter day
as sparrows
foraging in snowless patches
of last year's stubble

A Mist Covers The Earth
 
Waiting in the rain,
rivulets run down my face.
Steady all day.

The ground soft underfoot.
The earth turning green
right before my eyes.

I lick up the water,
almost a fish again.
New again.

Every puddle
a step into childhood,
a break from the rules.

I'm drunk with the fear
of thunder and lightning.
The rain is its own world.

Maybe Next Year

We stuck to each other
like mollusks to a rock
in high tide. Remember?
I don't think I could
get close again.
I haven't been able
to write that letter.
The wind blows here
year round.

The wheel is a round way home

like a ferris wheel.
I'm looking from the top
then the bottom.
From the top I see
the horizon
and the whole city.
Below me
people swinging,
dangling their feet,
screaming with fear
and joy.

It stops
when the carney
pulls the lever
and one-by-one
the gondolas
empty cargoes
of couples,
children, parents,
and the dizzy.

I get to stay on top
for a long time.
I feel like the hands
of a clock stopping
while the roar
of the fair goers below
continues madly on
without me.

A Myth To Be Told Only In Daylight

I

There was a lone night who called in a weary voice,
calling to all the other nights, from before and to come.
But they wouldn't listen in their darkness.
They whispered among themselves about the day
that never came. And even the stars believed, because
they wanted to, because to believe otherwise meant
their own demise. "But where did we come from?" asked
the nights among themselves. The stars wondered, too.

II

The baby came out of the night into the day.
And the woman pulled herself from the drowning
lake, sat on a naked boulder turning dark
from her wetness.The boulder moved, though
that's not possible; it wanted to see, though
it can't see, the darkness beneath it for thousands
of years, wearing away, particle by particle,
so the day would come when the woman sat on it.

Minor Surgery

Dark star
in the middle
of my forehead.

I cut it out
with a #11
disposable scalpel.

It will heal.
It does.

Several months later
it returns,
no longer a star.

A blob now.
A black blob.

I regret
incising it.

A star
portends greatness.
I was chosen
by fate.

But a blob?
Nondescript.
Roundish.
Who doesn't have one?

For vanity
I sacrificed the mark
of my mystery
for a blob.

I Thought He Was Either A Devil Or A Saint from North Carolina

I met him on the night shift at the University of Iowa Hospitals.
We were housekeepers. I was a member of the reputed God Squad.
That's what the housekeepers called us, our little group of born-
agains, praying in the cafeteria, witnessing in the halls. I could never

witness to David. He was always smiling as if he knew something
I didn't. It was a mystery as to his sexual preference. The women
housekeepers were infatuated by his Southern charm. Thanksgiving
he asked co-workers to close their eyes, then put a cold, jumbo

turkey dog in their hands, greeting them with, "Happy Franksgiving."
He was able to pull off that kind of thing. The women giggled,
looked away embarrassed, but always searched his blue eyes again.
I found out he was a writer, came to Iowa to go to the Writer's

Workshop. He decided it wasn't for him and continued to party
and write his novel. I was regularly passing by his cleaning area
on the 2nd floor, not to witness, but to find myself, though I
didn't know it then. He told me his novel was about particle

physics, God, sex, and drugs. It wasn't long before he converted
me. He moved in when my quiet roommate couldn't deal with my
new persona any longer. David would drink a couple of six packs,
smoke a joint, while stroking the Selectra keys. I became an artist,

painted murals on the walls, pissed on the front porch in an old toilet
turned flower pot, stuck butcher knives in mirrors. In one year of living
together, we dropped sixty hits of blotter, ran naked from the cops,
burned our clothes to make torches wading the Iowa River at midnight,

slept with several women, together and separate, drove to Arizona
and back on a whim, went on a safari in our apartment hunting roaches
with Bic lighters, shit in the middle of our living room floor, walked
across the frozen Iowa River, drank more alcohol than six good

writers combined. We wrote spontaneous poetry together, me a line,
then him a line. The last time I saw David he pissed on my feet
smiling that inimitable smile. I didn't piss back. He was no longer devil
or saint; he was just David, a friend along the way to enlightenment.

Holding Up My Pants

I hold the light
between my thumb
and index finger
like holding up
my pants
that day in the woods.
You had a wildflower
between your teeth,
kept looking up
into the trees
and smiling.

i envy venus being so close

i leave for work
no different than any other night
open the back door

and there it is
the moon lounging on its back
a waxing crescent
rocking in the quiet of darkness

like a cradle
and I'm in it
a baby again
the whole sky
a womb

i drive slow
watching it
to the side of me
in front
to the back
all the way to the hospital

never caring if i get there
ready to do
whatever is needed
to see the moon like that
one more time

The Sunday Before The Week When Everything Turned Around

She waited for him at their spot, nothing special,
an old elm tree, the fourth one from the entrance.
There was a bench overlooking the lake. A crow
rifled around in the grass a few feet away, then
flew away cawing as if to tell her it's a lonely life
with meager pickings. Several geese flew over,
calling to her to follow. She put her fingers
through the gaps between the rails of the bench,
wiggled them, then squeezed until they turned
purple and yelled let go. She walked to the car,
looking behind several times, then not again.

In the Reliquary

Two faces on boulders slumber together, their stony
eyes four full moons orbiting an undiscovered planet.
What are their dreams? And where do they go without

running into each other? There are perceptible smiles
carved in the topography of their sleep. It's never-ending
and enviable, though they have no idea their existence

rests upon a larger rock that bears them upon a body
thousands of years older, orbiting another nameless
planet in a nameless universe in the middle of history.

I'm ugly

where it counts
where you can’t see

you tell me I’m beautiful
in your ignorance

pointing to my small ears
to my hair

you wish was yours
to my eyes

that look out
from a deep well

where so many empty pails
were lowered

and never made a sound

 this is the best I could do but I'm happy

age has no substance
just a lengthening of pain
that was always there
waiting for the salt of experience

to send the dog scooting
across the floor
one dangling bulb in an attic
never changed

burning brightly the few times
a year it's needed
the laugh the same
to the same old jokes

the slow descent into meaningful
living without the life
of ten thousand new things
to make it worthwhile

Heartland

In the middle
sitting on a fence surrounding
an open field
alfalfa between my teeth

the moo of my heart
the rolling hills
tucked away in my memory

a need to compromise
to say yes
yes for the suffering
of all the missing people
on milk cartons
drowning in my cereal
and forgotten

yes to the easy slide of life
nothing at the bottom
after a careful climb

yes to rivers and lakes
and ponds with docks
and no boats
fish no one can eat

yes to uncles and aunts
as plump as their cows
as dependable as the shade
of the trees in their back yards
on a hot July day

when the corn has yet to decide
whether it's a good
or bad year.

on my way

this gypsy
that can't claim
a father or a mother
they were known once
to themselves
and a few others
all that gone now
I will be remembered
a line here
a word there
the color of pants
they put on me
the part in my hair
that was never there
they have their fancies
that will live on
but no one will ever ask
and that one will never tell
about the night
that lasted for years
and the day that finally came
and I missed it
that's the way I lived  

The Sunday Before The Week When Everything Turned Around

She waited for him at their spot, nothing special,
an old elm tree, the fourth one from the entrance.
There was a bench overlooking the lake. A crow
rifled around in the grass a few feet away, then
flew away cawing as if to tell her it's a lonely life
with meager pickings. Several geese flew over,
calling to her to follow. She put her fingers
through the gaps between the rails of the bench,
wiggled them, then squeezed until they turned
purple and yelled let go. She walked to the car,
looking behind several times, then not again.

The Forecast Was For Sun No Clouds

"Do you love me?"
The water from the faucet
so hot it nearly burns him.

"Well, do you?"
Through the kitchen window
the clouds rush by like a movie
when you want to get
to the good part
or you wind back
because you couldn't hear
what they said.

"I love you," he says.
He's been scrubbing
the same dish,
drops it, shattering.
He hurriedly sweeps
the fragments
into a corner of the sink
to scoop up and throw
in the garbage,

blood drips on everything
from a cut to his hand.
He mutters, "I love you."

Whatever's Behind The Shadows

It has been raining 

all day somewhere 

but not here.

I stumble over a dry mouth

spit out 

soundless pebbles.

A lantern burns 

into morning

then days weeks and years.
Its flickering 

shadows play fingerless charades. 

I've guessed
the end before the beginning. 

A black smoke 

smells of phosphorus 

spills an endless skid mark 

across the sky.
The wind spreads it. 

A shrunken head attached
to a skeleton key 

and a bag 

of gold teeth in my pocket
are the only possessions I've robbed 

from the earth.

The Secret Place

"This is a secret between you and me,
not between my legs," she said, "I'm
just skin and bones. My organs are
missing. Do you want my money?

Why do you call me Celise? She's
dead. Ask her parents." She points
to the television, "They know me.
I'm Jesus. Give me chocolate.

Did you bring me here?" She waves 

at the TV, laughing and jumping. "I'm 

jiggling inside. Look, feel it." She grabs
his hand, puts it between her legs.

The Castaways, Miami Beach, 1960

Sun bleached hair,
drinking a Roy Rogers,
the umbrella
a cool parachute.
The hotel photographer
took a photo of us.
For five bucks
he put it in a souvenir frame.
I smiled naturally then.

My older brother looked
and dressed like a movie star,
his hair dark and wavy,
wrap-around sunglasses.
He hadn’t married Miss Florida
or opened the restaurant yet.
Tax people hadn't chained
the doors to the restaurant.
She hadn’t scrawled good-bye
with lipstick on the bedroom mirror.

He moved back after the divorce.
Our parent’s home a nightclub,
we lived in the back half.
He waited tables, supervised
the waiters and waitresses.

One night, after hours,
I heard him fucking the fat dishwasher
on one of the tables.
She was a former XXX-size stripper.
He came to bed, thought I was asleep,
sobbed for who knows how long.

A month or so later, he didn’t come home.
I fell asleep but was awakened
by the phone in my parent’s room.
I heard dad say, "Where?", get up and leave.
Mom was screaming and crying.
I couldn’t cry then.

Looking at this old photo,
I remember how he used to tease me
and make me cry.
I wish I could now,
but I’m beginning to smile
naturally again.

When I Make It Home At Night

Buzz of an electric bug killer
outside the motel room. Dead
dropping out of the air. I can
hear their freefall after the sizzle.

Tomorrow, when people check out,
the maid empties the metal cage.
A grey cloud of wings and legs
tumbles into a cardboard box.

The butter on my body hairs salty
and sweet after last nights feast.
I run along the rail of the staircase,
unseen. In the hall is a fuchsia

carpet, the last dangerous crossing
before I reach the crack I call a home.

Song Under My Breath

Horizon moon. I'm more and less
than yesterday. The old man
saw to that. Flurries in his eyes.

Winter morning, I look out window.
Someone has shaken a snow globe.
I let my heart fly with the geese.

A few white hairs in my beard. Crows
burst into flight. A last breath. Geese
overhead, he talks about the weather.

kiss

open-mouthed
or softly etching the cornices
of the body

a long goodbye
that says it would be impossible
without some ripping

entreaties like classroom love notes
open to a future
surrendering to now

one in mid air destined
to touch without self-consciousness
no names attached

Walking Past Midnight

He runs ahead into the night.
The bodiless phosphorescence--
reflection of countless tiny stars
falling--covers the ground in light.

I follow dark stars in the snow
to an open field beyond trees;
we two, the only living beings
in sight. The unlit houses bare
faceless mirrors staring back.

Reluctantly, I yell for him, afraid 
I will awaken sleepers. We run,

instinctively, to the back door,
shaking the snow from our bodies.
Foot and paw prints disappearing,
a moment's presence buried.

in this mourning of the afternoon

still shining today

the stars of last night

traces on my hands

i am what has gone 

before the first storm

the thought in love

with itself

all the little things of love i never told her

in the kitchen   i'm still a boy   listening to women
lipstick scrawled on the bedroom     mirror
cigarettes burning in ashtrays      unanswered 

phone
he sings a love song            to no one
a sickle moon cuts through           the dark to the other side

for each forgotten "thing" a crow screams 
dead black leaves fall into my pacing   piling up
full moon         so much to be said in the silence

deer licking a salt block in slow fat strokes
sullen stranger at my back door you take my yellow breath 
away      low tide            all my sins revealed

left-handed i write upside down scuttling across the sea floor
footprints still trying to get there       long after I've gone
he talks about the weather     geese overheard

cutting my white hair in a hospital room 
snow            drifting on the widowsill
a single red leaf follows me everywhere

it wants to tell me more about autumn   he says i must
fall asleep on the ground as long as it takes 
the cold will give me answers 

dearest me

the story's getting around
there's no stopping it
a cicada is telling it all night long
in thousands of trees

just when you think it couldn't get any worse
there's more
the candles are in puddles
their wicks dead flies
cold and hard like the last dinner of a dying man

dead dead dead his mantra from the grave
something no one can know
when silence can be found in lint
from the crevices of souls

The Bridge My Brother Crossed

My father drove across the bridge

many times, back and forth, stopped,

stood in the middle of the highway

at the foot of black skid marks

trailing into a weed-filled ditch.
Cars passed with staring drivers

slowing for a crazy man.

snow flurries in the old man's eyes

 
black on the inside pumpkin's shriveled smile

 
horizon moon I'm more and less than yesterday

squirrels
chase each other
up a tree...
remembering our first
years together

my poems
seen through her eyes
plum blossoms
this spring of my life
appearing in autumn

awkward
what we didn't know
together
we learned that night
her first flowers

Reading the Japanese Poet Issa (1762–1826)

      by Czesław Miłosz

        A good world—

        dew drops fall

        by ones, by twos

A few strokes of ink and there it is.

Great stillness of white fog,

waking up in the mountains,

geese calling,

a well hoist creaking,

and the droplets forming on the eaves.

Or perhaps that other house.

The invisible ocean,

fog until noon

dripping in a heavy rain from the boughs of the redwoods,

sirens droning below on the bay.

Poetry can do that much and no more.

For we cannot really know the man who speaks,

what his bones and sinews are like,

the porosity of his skin,

how he feels inside.

And whether this is the village of Szlembark

above which we used to find salamanders,

garishly colored like the dresses of Teresa Roszkowska,

or another continent and different names.

Kotarbinski, Zawada, Erin, Melanie.

No people in this poem. As if it subsisted

by the very disappearence of places and people.

     A cuckoo calls

for me, for the mountain,

      for me, for the mountain

Sitting under his lean-to on a rocky ledge

listening to a waterfall hum in the gorge,

he had before him the folds of a wooded mountain

and the setting sun which touched it

and he thought: how is it that the voice of the cuckoo

always turns either here or there?

This could as well not be in the order of things.

     In this world

we walk on the roof of Hell

        gazing at flowers                                                                                 +

To know and not to speak.

In that way one forgets.

What is pronounced strengthens itself.

What is not pronounced tends to nonexistence.

The tongue is sold out to the sense of touch.

Our human kind persists by warmth and softness:

my little rabbit, my little bear, my kitten.

Anything but a shiver in the freezing dawn

and fear of oncoming day

and the overseer’s whip.

Anything but winter streets

and nobody on the whole earth

and the penalty of consciousness.

Anything but.

Hot Springs County Cemetery

Those happy days tending the dead.

Mountains embraced me. The gate

closed. No one wanting in or out.

Perfecting the width and depth

of death, I circled granite testaments,
recreated their lives from clues:

middle names, dates, places of birth,
last words etched with acids for all

eternity. I called them by first names.

At home in bed, into the morning, 

I told my wife their stories. The lie 

as good as the truth in this world.

Waving Goodbye 

By Gerald Stern

I wanted to know what it was like before we 
had voices and before we had bare fingers and before we 
had minds to move us through our actions 
and tears to help us over our feelings, 
so I drove my daughter through the snow to meet her friend 
and filled her car with suitcases and hugged her 
as an animal would, pressing my forehead against her, 
walking in circles, moaning, touching her cheek, 
and turned my head after them as an animal would, 
watching helplessly as they drove over the ruts, 
her smiling face and her small hand just visible 
over the giant pillows and coat hangers 
as they made their turn into the empty highway.

January

He walks in the door like the biggest guy in the bar.
We sit by the fire gripping our hot toddies. He drinks 

from a frosted mug, sends chills through the room 
with a stare as immovable as the block of ice 

in his chest, his meat locker breath on our necks 
though he's in a corner booth. He'll drink the bar dry, 

ask for more with a grin frozen on his deathly countenance. 
Icicles hang from eaves until Spring, a last minute reprieve.

cup of tea
gone cold--
writer's block

Ceremony in the Park

The poet in a sweat suit, scraggly beard,
jogging in the park. Spring. The bride
hacking and coughing, running late.
The day undecided
between rain and sunshine.
Mauricio, the groom's friend, serenades
on the clarinet.
His niece jilted the groom a year ago.
He feigned insanity, wrote poems to her
from the psych ward.
He loved the bruise on her neck
made by her viola.
It's raining again.
Everyone running for the trees.
The groom looks at his watch,
talks with the poet,
tells him how fortuitous it is
that he happened by.
The vagabond poet
whose first chapbook
the groom had read in high school,
A Thousand Smiling Cretins.
He bought it at his hometown's first head shop.
The sun appears, so does the bride,
with an entourage
of soggy daughters drying out.
The poet straddles a park bench, scribbles
something in a notebook during the ceremony.
The groom considers this a blessing.

The Dead Canary

The gut holds a secret

a stranger knows. 

Through a peephole

the pilot light still burning.

I go about my life again,

little nudges 

that turn to bruises
in places no one can see.

The yellow heaven

that can never be filled. 

By the Bend in the River

Cove thick with tall reeds,
leaping frogs. Many Horses
and I scythe juicy blades

for beds, sun blinking
through the willows.
Dusk rolls in by boxcar

on a slow moving train.
The long, low whistle

like a hobo's lullaby

sounds the close of our day.

Our talk sparse, thoughtful,
trailing into the dark.

So Many Things Forgotten That Don't Seem To Matter Now

The moon slipped past him.
The day came and went
before the question returned.

He held himself in his hands
in a photo they had said was
him, but he couldn't believe.

At night there were no stars.
An owl flew by him twice.
The wind blew to open a gate.

Afterward We Drink Cup After Cup of Mint Tea

I wander narrow streets.

An old vendor's delicate hands

winnow spices in burlap bags. 

A turquoise arch above a dark stairway.

Veils hide nothing that can't be said 

with the eyes. I have to look away.

In the corner a mahogany Victrola,

the needle bobbing on the surface 

of a black sea. Scheherazade.

She takes oils from a scrolled box,
jangles follow her movements,

faint tremors across my skin.

A donkey brays in the street.

I will remain lost here

for as long as it takes.

rain

and sunshine

a bridge
to an open field

still married

winter morning--
I look out window, someone
shook the snow globe

mistletoe
he carries
his own

each sunny wish
thrown to the wind...
thousands more

winter morning--
I let my heart fly
with the geese

lost in worry--
geese charge across the sky
honking, then gone

turtle

agoraphobic
either in your shell
or deadheading
for nearest secluded pond
plodding fortress 

of introversion

wild fruit the need to sacrifice all

humid slow enough to speak with the dead

driftwood this world is not my home

rip tide--
letting it take me
to another shore

for each forgotten thing a crow caws

autumn forgotten things piling up

poor wolf--
the redhead's
a cougar

crows
burst into flight--
last breath

mother--
distant moon
in my eyes

twilight--
carrying away the sun
slow moving train

cold rain no one wants to fight

I am not the instrument
the instrument is not me
I am flesh
it is wood
I want to touch
it wants to be touched
I come to it helplessly
it waits for me
in silence
pregnant with music

tattoo
on his shoulder blade--
a haiku

autumn--
shadows linger
in the leaves

in the end
such joyful colors--
turning leaves

in the kitchen still a boy listening to women

spray paint can
in the Buddha's lap--
empty

lipstick scrawled
on the bedroom mirror--
breaking up

torn silk negligee back to the mirror

cigarette burning in ashtray unanswered phone

 hotel room by the week keeps to himself

when it's gone everybody's a stranger...fool

each fallen leaf
returning to earth--
my sins

autumn--
a little closer
in bed

cigarette burning--
he sings a love song
to no one

kissing
in the rain--
rainbow

pole star--
at the end of the day
back to myself

lightning--
cancer a shadow
on the negative

sickle moon--
cutting through the dark
to the other side

cat curled
in the Buddha's lap--
purr

moon in the leaves--
my hand drifting
through her hair

a scarlet letter
sears his white collar
last kiss

noon
I stand in all
shadows

rabbit wind
trail into bramble
patch of fur

light bulb
glass chrysalis

thirteen ducks
cross the street--
the only thing moving



*last line from Wallace Steven's poem, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

work ends
the sky stretches before me
all the way home

winter morning--
an abacus of sparrows
on power lines

first snow--
a few white hairs
in my beard

all I want
under the sky--
this moment

blue sky
swallowed by the sea
spitting out clouds

want
the fire inside
turns to ashes

footprints--
still trying to get there
long after I've gone

a single leaf
soaring above me--
wanderlust

honey
do you know where...
on your head

doctor's office
getting sick watching
Fox News

the cousins
I never see anymore--
old elm stump

New Year's Eve
past and future meet
in a kiss

waning moon
she sits in the corner
waiting to be asked

writer's block
building up
to a poem

a dozen roses
blush when I
think of you

autumn the bee's buzz an octave lower

morning fog
last night's dream
in the clearing

cloudy day
under my breath
a song

white clover
all the young girls
in summer

full moon 

so much said 

in silence

full moon
deer licking
a salt block

low tide
my darkest secrets
revealed

my mother's nutcracker
a woodcarving from Africa
of a bare-breasted woman
my wife makes me hide it in the closet
she cracks nuts between her legs

sullen stranger
looming at my back door
filling me with awe
O yellow moon
you take my breath away

left-handed
I write upside-down
a claw
scuttling the sea floor
my name indecipherable


 * a nod to T.S. Eliot

resting against you
I felt the hardness
of old age...
your bare branches
enduring until spring

a pumpkin
on the neighbor's lawn
moon gazing
wishing for a light
within

ghost moon
at the cusp of morning
I drive home
after the graveyard shift
fading in sunlight


from a bridge
I watch you leave
on the riverboat...
a wisp of morning moon adrift
in a crowd of bamboo


he would lift me up
to sit on his shoulder
arms raised
to balance and protect me
the grandpa I never had

to my mother's
mother whose hand I held
while my brother cut
her white hair in a hospital bed
snow drifting on the window ledge

he talks
about the weather
geese overhead