While I was lifting weights one morning, silently a little blue bird with flecks of black on her feathers flew to my window and happily watched for awhile
My blithe, buoyant, companion finally flitted away and, so it seemed, my heaviest burdens lifted with her into the heavens and back again
Worry is a kind of prayer Deep secret hopes silently strain Life isn’t always unfair
Little bird
-June 21, 2008-
Things happened before life— liquids boiled boulders toppled volcanoes erupted twirling waters fell
Panic shocked his mind alive like being punished
My vision’s cold the earth’s so old I’ll soon be gone
As short and irrepressible as life
There’s serenity in austerity No joy without intensity
Summer again— the seasons flare and go like lightning
Even in sleep pain which can’t forget falls drop by drop upon his heart until, against his will, a tender wisdom soothes him in its grace
-June 8, 2008-
Time rips all masks—
you joker, you twister, you addled
teller of tales…
No one waits for me by the train No one cares when I get home
Sweetly the waves stroke the shore Serenely the moon tugs the waves
She looks so longingly into my eyes and still can’t see me
In this way the gash may heal
But look at that goofy wrinkled face accentuated ears, and sorry, thin nose
Vile pink flowers in a room full of laughter
So many wrong turns and false steps along the way
Where do we go?
I don’t see everything but I see the birds in the trees and, as I ascend, the light gets stronger
-May 21, 2008-
She appears, disappears focuses, blurs irrepressible, violent like a root shoves boulders it breaks through the crusty earth and lives
serenity—for billions and billions of years peace—for billions of years to come all those who crave oblivion will get their wish
That marvelous day on the beach—remember? we took your kids and mine I really loved you then and thought perhaps our fractured families could come together and heal
Lashed on all sides a face that crumbles like a block of stone This is a room you leave in sadness
But you didn’t want that our kids didn’t want it that little glimpse of happiness was mine alone
-May 3, 2008-
The toxic Spring sky hovers over poisonous blue leaves
You’ve been warned
The tears stream down from granite deadened eyes
Beware
I go on a tight knife’s glint over glassy blue ice
Hands free
When I hide this impenetrable fear no one sees
Betrayed
Some trees grow straight they reach for the sky with ease
By chance
Some are cracked and knobby in the Spring
-April 20, 2008-
She wants to drive her motorcycle really fast She wants to dance
I buckle in this solitude and wish again I knock, but the answer’s plain
Little sparrow sings “my ruined, ravaged heart” Spring is back
Radiant, laconic, disciplined No one else sings like that
-April 5. 2008-
“Move on”
You say it with a smirk but can’t say it straight because it hurts
“Move on”
The little one with his bubbly enthusiasms, where’s he?
“Move on”
With an edge of anger or the sharpness of hate
“Move on”
When the last spark leaves him and the buildings come down
We’re just a blip here we hardly mean
Then the sister had a baby and the brother-in-law remarried and the uncle was promoted…
“Move on”
As a girl, her dad took her fishing She’s fishing with him still
There’s dad’s boat as it leaves trailed by its raw, sure, buoyant, bubbly stream
-March 24, 2008-
Only through the deepest, dank dark Only through despair’s ripe core
On the wrong side of this evil, stark river at the beginning, by the blistering cascades too dangerous to cross
The touch of a whore feels about the same as the one you adored close your eyes and it’s even true I know all about loss and the wound that won’t heal
With a weary defiance I met every blow and fiercely returned the same
I don’t yet find a safe place to cross If, as you say, I’m really a fish I’d swim beneath the churning dank grey I’d even forgive
I’ll follow this damn river ‘til it’s gone to the wine dark sea if I must Rage, foul river, rage
An old religion teaches a way to enlightenment through suffering It’s not the road I’d pick but it’s the road I’m on
-March 8, 2008-
What gets you through the night? Whatever it is, it’s okay The nights are long, cold and lonely
If it’s prayer, pray for me If it’s drink, drink to me When you dream, dream of me
I still look for luck charms everywhere— I haven’t given up
An enormous tough beast in a roiling constellation its muscular arms tightly clenched
You can’t just wish yourself past this and thinking doesn’t help Slowly the old clenched arms release
What is it?
If it’s prayer, pray for me If it’s drink, drink to me When you dream, dream of me
If it’s song sing to me, when you can, sing to me
-February 24, 2008-
An old black door swings back and forth no reason, just the breezes open and shut
She found her other in him deep in the netherworld of self so sweet so complete
Now she knows: “what was flesh is now sand what was blood is dust”
The doctor said: “If he’s still alive after the weekend give us a call”
Somewhere in a place
between waking and sleep
she’d retreat
I hope, in those moments,
with him
back and forth here again though his lips have changed they are the same lips though his eyes have changed they are the same eyes
open and shut without reason the way two old lovers long parted, still feel a tug whenever they cross
Tell his boys, he said this last thing:
“We had a lot of fun here we had a lot of fun in New York”
-February 9, 2008-