So this is how it ends in a small church in New Jersey in a draped coffin
Here’s how it ends—
in a sad small ceremony
in front of grieving colleagues,
close family, friends
Driving home from the doctor to tell your two children not to worry about their mother
You collapsed, instead, in the driveway
a vein ruptured in your head
“the children” you said then
“the children”
-Revised September 4, 2009-
Planning is essential
If it wasn’t for the money
she wouldn’t like me much
Plans are useless
With the money
she likes me well enough
She tingles my pleasures and goes
It isn’t what I want
She leaves me
This isn’t what I wanted
We can’t exist for the sake of suffering alone
and it’s lonely
The facts change again
the glosses come off
The names are written in salty wet wakes
This universe
The names flare like iron in sand
is simple, beautiful, and elegant
-August 16, 2009-
Some things...
Injury every time you reach—
like love,
for paradise.
Betrayed again in that dark place…
if you have to ask for them…
where freaks play shiny black cards.
A deep sad need to believe—
are not...
in lies.
Angels play with our tears like toys—
are not...
—they terrify.
worth...
But this is hot, bleak, windless sleep.
having.
-July 5, 2009-
The flag is unfurled carefully, in sturdy white gloved hands…slowly a ritual, a presentation, sacred
Three shots in the air
Arduous, indefinite
Self-contained narrative bubbles stare sadly ... no paradise, no corruptions
No success without failures, perseverance, without edge
Memory intertwined with history Now, we can’t tell the difference
He stands silent—his back to the actors beats time to his lines with the first two fingers and thumb of his right hand
-June 14, 2009-
Something dies beneath
and gets left behind
What made you play the black card?
Bitterness—aftertaste of the void—
that nothing can efface
Our little taste of happiness…
it should help break the distance—the in-between—
that’s always between
The bitter needs came first
Why must compassion fail,
your empathy fail
your love for me...?
Don’t deface your hope or yearning here
It fastens onto him like a worm that does him neither good nor harm
It may be simpler to hurt
He still yearns for love
Neither the good nor the bad will last
He spends the rest of the night in the garden asleep on the grass
Tonight there’s no card left to play
We cautiously look where others avert their gaze
-May 31, 2009-
Spider spins webs of delight from her body
grateful for these crispy, crazy apples he eats them to the core
These glaring ghosts unstitch our hearts
So much joy in a pocketful of dust
She wants to be understood
Deceiver, fickle, ungrateful…blind
You weren’t then and shall not be
Stitch patiently… she lives the good hours
The familiar is stranger than that
Her breath like footsteps on broken glass
This life has no end this vision no limits
He changes his shirt twice a night and hates being photographed
Our ghosts hover and laugh between the troubles
Sunlight so bright it’s darkness
-May 31, 2009-
He retreats to that place between awake and sleep wave under churned wave sand constellations, light green and grey he nearly drowns, he was under 13 years old, that day a thousand meanings, none of them meant where your loss even, hurts less
Early morning, around 6 a.m., I guess— I get to the club No one is at the front desk so I couldn’t check in and just went ahead to the locker room, a few others were there they can tell you I change into my gym clothes lift weights for an hour pump the elliptical trainer for another for the heart That’s where I was that day at that hour I swear
I wish I could touch you again… Because a light green, grey butterfly flew a thousand years ago graceful on perfect wings the few lines of happiness between us sever
The lifeguard pulls me out—save me— would it have been better to drown? That didn’t happen and because A sweet green butterfly flew I was at the club and did nothing wrong that day
-March 29, 2009-
Presently wolfish always untamed never truly us— Better to have a dog on your team with, say, an edgy wolfish face for the tinge of false danger, safe— for the rock & roll thrills
He sees the world flash present like the wolves— runs in the hard night terrains What made me think I could ever do this alone?
He would change the flashes in his head their violent loops full of revenge…
I can tell by the way you sigh you’re just human like me
He loves the primitive birdsongs at dawn
-March 8, 2009-
Querulous, discontented days…no tears, too late
The lines of joy on his face are sharper, shorter, deeper
This is his zest... more valuable than he thought... but not there yet
No more tears... too late
An old muscled wolf carefully climbs this forest hill its bristly grey hair stiff and wet in the moonlight
If you always ask the same questions what do you hear?
Stops, stares, sniffs...
How will you ever trust anyone again?
-February 15, 2009-
After the cold cruelty
his hulk is a poisonous house
on a stringent narrow street
where longing, aside frivolous talk,
is never forgiven
A lifetime of missed, lost and broken connections… Darkness his cushion Pain in the light characteristic restraint hidden beneath vicious stings The unknown visitor who no one is obliged to know
If you nod and forgive it’s only because you too have gone through it But when I think about that my heart crashes into blank stone
-January 18, 2009-