In those days...
chestnuts wrapped in bacon,
cocktail parties— gin and tonics and blended scotch
all the cigarettes you ever wanted
an academic, old-fashioned after the war get together

We fought hard—realize
this was the rare enemy with whom
you couldn’t make peace
You don’t compromise with that type
You fight such people to death

You need real planners, real luck
The more you did the more he asked
If you didn’t measure up you were gone
He expected you to take on tough responsibilities
and backed you completely if you did

What you do now might taint everything you ever did...
Not one American soldier is going to die on that fucking beach,
not there—we go here, his strategy wasn’t always so good but ohh, his good luck
you could almost depend on it
He had though one terrible, one awfully bad temper

We skillfully maneuvered around his opposite
The tiresome buffoon—that old idiot wore all the uniform the law allowed,
affected a rhetorical style designed for future historians,
referred to himself in the third person and always missed
the best opportunities to keep his damn mouth shut

                2.

We didn’t care what he did or with whom discreetly
Don’t listen to that bloody narcissist—like so many
she’ll justify and forgive herself for just about anything
In that war we’d depend on each other
and no one was in anyone’s business

You don’t make a successful career on your own
You need help, lots of it
The seeker is never as popular as the sought
People always want what they can’t get
If you interfere you may have to regret it

“Losing my son so young
was the greatest grief and disappointment of my life
The one I have never been able to entirely forget
The keenest loss, it comes back to me now as I write this”
Later he’d become subtle, witty and daring

But then, after their son died
the marriage was clearly in danger...
Look it—two young people, the boy was just three,
like that drifting apart in their grief
with so little warmth between them

Comfort, blindness, wishful thoughts
jealously knows no logic
It doesn’t look for or expect reciprocity
She left—when they leave I forget them
I don’t dwell on the people who leave

                3.

Self-effacing steady, not like his flamboyant unpredictable friend
he became in old age subtle, brilliant, difficult
Freedom is always circumscribed by fate
Arbitrary fiats, the prices we pay
He was used to issuing orders and having them obeyed

He was not an original thinker but
he did think for himself
He had a great practical sense
Nor was he coarse like most military men
Assimilation, bourgeois success, political ambition...

“The man smiles too much and says too little
He uses many words and says nothing at all...”
He wasn’t lazy but was easily bored
When he led he led by indirection
Everyone he met thought his interest in them was firm, genuine

She sometimes tired of being his secret mistress
She spent so much of her time waiting for his calls
or for him to appear unannounced but the stakes were high,
the tension—behind enemy lines it was exile if you were lucky
or, for our kind, annihilation

The strategy sessions lasted deep into night
He didn’t expect perfection, of course, there was ambiguity
So much of what we did wouldn’t be right—people would die,
but we felt in those days a ragged pathway, an end—
the ultimate scent of victory

-May 6, 2012-

I didn’t do anything wrong
I didn’t drive her away—she left
You learn only from doing, from each
fight, a little bit from each
He was known as the “hit man” the “invincible”
You got to find the “tell” and when you’re antsy nervous
you’re ready—that doubtful, antsy fighter feeling

The stream is narrow and I can just lift my foot across
The mud crumbles on each bank, so I slip
My new white sneakers are wet or will be—the water seeps in
I feel nothing, no sensation and stare at the old stream from above
Small acts of kindness may be all that he can see or grant
If he steps inside, strategy wise, those long arms
with their violent reach won’t touch him

They objected all of them—didn’t think we really loved
As it turned out, they were right about you...
He was a little difficult at times, but affable a great deal of the time
He told his daughter how none of the great things in life
have anything to do with earning a living
The marker was on the ground where it lay untended
The name on the dilapidated stone hidden under brambles

Don’t put on airs, bitch, you’re a shoemaker’s daughter
and I’m a farmer’s son—every job after the farm seems good to me—
every new job beats the hell out of shoveling shit...
Honest as they had to be, dishonest as they dared to be
with a rage at the fortuity of life, all that dullness and greed
I might of meant that at one time she said, but I don’t mope about it or lash out
She smiles at him, “No one before you ever did that for me”

Real fighters don’t fight ‘cause they’re mad, they fight ‘cause they can
“Should we stop the fight?”
“Well, his tongue is hanging out of his mouth, he’s drooling and his eyes are white...”
She was nuts—every headache was a brain tumor, every upset stomach an ulcer,
every cold a rare case of pneumonia...
He didn’t hold it against her that she was always scared
He loved her anyway quite deeply

How, after he’s gone, does she know what to like, what to disdain?
Ill health and financial pressure would sometimes eat at his self-control
Don’t cast me aside, she said, don’t even try...
In his 20’s he fell off his horse and nearly died
It felt like sleep, death is like sleep, he’d say
He was a good man to have around in a tight spot, no fear...
Always calm when the shit hit hardest, then always calm, she told me

-April 22, 2012-

-April 8, 2012-

This isn’t what was supposed to be
See you again sometime, ducky, perhaps— goodbye
I don’t know why I thought I could ever be happy here
How fast does this river go?
I can never tell how fast

Racing is death—
the horses always die
Injustices here, there and powerless—
it wears at him
He starts to perform, then looks to escape

All that remains of their former lives
are here within these eggy walls
with their dullish, dirty off-white glow
A life, so far, of compromises and small victories
encased in this stylish, finely, shined armor

He’s here with the blood-suckers,
the crucifiers, carnivores, and swindlers
Defeat after the daring, costly, ruinous campaign
brings his well wrought verbal resignation
But almost getting it done only heightens his longing to stay

This guy, he’s got a high threshold for pain
You should be cautious here because
he won’t feel anything then, no regrets...
Just to see the things he goes through everyday—
even his most spiritless friends are anxious

                2.

Fog in the morning, a little
before first light, blurry
astonishes, distorts the full moon view
Even the smartest of us
continually make significant mistakes

The plumbing’s old, leaky
The skylight’s uneven, wrongly placed
There are still some lines he holds dear and
stands behind—progress is his lie,
his tomorrow is no better than today

She was disappointed as she watched him shave
She never envisioned him that way
The woman he loved thinks less of him again
Hard wired to believe something, anything
they say they know everything about him

They spoke of their illnesses and the illnesses
of others like a couple of old men
When the work’s complete it’s complete
The foolish wish continues
like some old-fashioned, overused algorithm

She really loved funerals, this woman
He didn’t like people much
He was always welcome, always went through the club
He spoke to everyone but you never made
a real friend of him, let’s put it that way

                3.

When she wants to charm she smiles
When nervous she pulls at her hair
They wanted what they wanted and didn’t care
about each other’s complex motives or their consequences
He didn’t get back for the first crack but then he went halfway back

He has close friends or no friends
He loved a good story but wouldn’t tell one
His old teacher’s teacher told him “You kids don’t
enjoy sex the way we did—you don’t think it’s a sin”
Sometimes the wise also failed him

Helpless doctors, tests and crisis, exhaustion, emotions large
too large to bear, determination, confusion, anger – her caustic desperations
Alone, deep within, hidden, overlooked among millions, forgotten
Rationally it’s false, but emotionally—that’s different
Discomfort and depression were among her constants

He could entrance you but only if he meant to
He wasn’t a briefcase, take home the work kind of guy
He was very good at his particular line
Very good at a narrow, complex field
with huge sums of money at risk

If he didn’t want to do other things we understood
That was his privilege
He wanted wealth, social position, servants, travel but only incidentally
That’s a beautiful rug, I said to him just to talk
Look at it, that’s fine, but don’t walk on it, he told me

-March 25, 2012-

She grants you grace—
   the self experienced
   the self remembered
   aren’t the same
He’s an error prone witness
   with a vocabulary of volatile liquids
We lose people—
   that fucking rusty door clangs shut

He works late at night
   on a bench at Waterloo station
   where the commuting crowds
   ease his loneliness
Your wayward disposition,
   your smugness
The less I think of it
   the more I see of it

I like to swim my pain away,
   just to keep moving
   No time to cry or stop
   We can cry later
The intensity of the peak
   The gravitas of the end
My experiences are strangers
   My memories sharp slivers

This never ends—
   From nowhere to nowhere
   we come, we go
   like a flash in the insect night
like the warm white breath
   of a collie in wintertime
like shadows
   on star streaked grass

I try to hear her quiescent, still voice
   She spends the night in my arms
   I don’t hear “control”
   I hear “request”
She tells me the next morning
   how she doesn’t really like to cuddle
or touch, and I think what an odd gift she just gave,
   what a strange, sad gift she gives

                2.

I won’t worry about it
   I don’t care what they think
   When it ends, it ends
   and if it ends well that’s good
If it ends badly so be it
   I still hear her voice from way in there
She thinks she can make it all ugly
   as long as it’s intense

In youth, love is all about romance
   In middle age it’s all about sex
   In old age, if you don’t feel it anymore
   you go your separate ways
Old, you’ll lose your power, respect and status
   You’ll be released to the universe
Here’s what’s left after the dear one departs
   and it’s not okay

The statistics just don’t say—
   Every path seems wrong
   every turn seems wrong, but is it?
   I never had a woman to be weak with
No, no, you don’t understand...
   I have no one left to hold
How dare I think that I should—
   her grief over him is pitiless

Our way of life stops—
   Did you know that the photographing
   of corpses was a common practice
   in late 19th and early 20th century America?
He didn’t give a damn about success,
   fame or fortune
Nothing needs to be done
   to help this tough old man

Grandma was the earthy one
   Brother H was covered in hair—
   I hear it and must sing it
   I can’t help or do a damn thing about it
He still gets their respect—
   All those star players
they remember how good he was, fantastic
   He was quick, fast and furious

-March 10, 2012-

An empty metal supermarket cart
on the sidewalk,
glistens wet under street lights,
this night, in the rain

Her confidence then, is meaningless
“Hey baby” “Don’t call me baby!
I ain’t no baby—I got a baby
of my own”

If grandma can do it, I can do it,
live to 83 on pure resentment, bile and vanity
May god save us all from the rank preachiness
of vile, pitiful, beaten old men

In that situation, you shouldn’t believe
what you see, but you will believe it...
Run, run, running— nothing gets to you, nothing
You’ll never catch me

                2.

There’s substitution for you
He accepts the privacy of her dreams
“Of course I know you (looking at her daughter)
you’re my sister...”

It used to be that booze alone
let her sleep, but death is there
Threats count more than opportunity,
that rare, unappreciated success

She has a sense of the good, mostly tribal
A strong-seated negligent disregard
for the horrors of life...
For his repeated, multiple failures

I can’t answer your question
I can only answer mine instead
“You know, you boys needn’t hang around
here anymore—I can die alone”

                3.

After awhile, you won’t hear it
It won’t go away, that resolute buzz
always there, but you won’t hear it
He thought he knew the boundary of her skills

Dazzled in his own brilliance,
what an ass…our flimsy memories
all of them true, these accounts are all true
The darkness won’t swallow him now

This isn’t a game of skill—
it’s a weirdly, ragged game of chance
In this luck-addled world
a tiny, slight prescience is brilliance

Cover all of the equipment, this factory’s dead
No one’s coming back here
The pledge of allegiance, the worship of the flag,
the cult of the war dead—he loved all that

                4.

It would be unwise to pet it—it’s vicious...
Her latest foray in dicey morals and bad style
She calls out for him, reaches for him and then...
she changes her mind

“His car was struck by a semi-trailer truck
after he lost control on a snow covered road near Elmira”
If only you could just by looking at a person
see them whole

It’s a kind of self-colonization—
you exploit yourself and all your friends
It’s like listening to a bunch of drunken salesmen
(we quietly exempt ourselves)

He told me he was just trying to do right,
to get it all right...
It’s all there—everything, dice, drugs, prostitution
all of it—you get caught in there, you might never get out

-February 26, 2012-

First the mast broke—
  driven 300 miles off course
Then the engine overheated
   and a makeshift mast blew away
in the dark

                2.

I can’t tell you anything
   about the course of the sun
or the depths of the moon
   the release of hidden springs
or the earth’s best illuminations

I can’t dispel the night
   or find your cold hands
Ask me to be silent
   I have lived through troubles and toil
Through sorrow I have aged too soon

No clothes, no robes, hide my changes—
  no girdle or wreath
A gentle breeze goes
  from orange, gold groves
marble figures gaze at me

A mule seeks passage through clouds
  The cliff rocks plunge beneath
and lemon blossoms glow
   He loves her for her color
as she fades into white leaves

Silver scissors like a beak
  that flies with the crows
My lover is a thief
  Her tears, whatever their bitterness,
were never so bitter as mine

                3.

Crystals of time—
  For all this suffering
you might as well be wise
  Some cats are friends,
some cats are killing machines

Much of what we see is random
  I’ve said it once
I won’t say it again
  We sat up half the night
swapping yarns

In the middle of a comedy—
  but you’re not very funny
The indifference of the universe
  to humans and other dumb animals—
ugly, unhappy, degenerate

He didn’t know or care
  if they listened
He knew no one much would listen
  She finds lots of lovers
but they don’t love her

No defense was needed...
  I’ll sleep on the train
The motion sways, lulls me
  This was her madness—
inappropriate pauses, unrelenting sadness

-February 12, 2012-

“Go ahead then—tell it
If you think it’s so funny
It’s your story; you started to tell it—
so tell it”

Thrilled by pomp and power,
uninterested in any inner life
Enraged, moralistic, harsh and desperate
her excess wasn’t about their happiness

Custom, privilege, injustice
that single-minded suffering, resistance, redemption
Highly educated, earnestly well-meaning,
her high self-regard, stuck in these sad, antiseptic American prisons

Relentless indoor winter heat
They’re like parasites—dangerous too, like predators
Blind to her own blindness,
moralistic, overconfident, dismissive

                2.

There are always things to criticize
but there was nothing that so frightened or embarrassed her
Her denials would never stop in any case
It might be better that way, he thinks,

but it will no longer be as good
Conclusions drawn, proclamations made
Every statement somewhat wrong, somewhat premature
she flees to the safety of darkness, shadier storms

Dismayed by his appearance he always avoids mirrors
It makes her uncomfortable to see herself in him
He sat there drinking beer after beer in front of the children
That was restraint—he would have preferred vodka or gin

Hatred alone couldn’t sustain him
After the explosion the company determined
the kid’s life was worth a cool 150,000
So they sent the family a check

                3.

They dance in the streets of Paris and Berlin
rush to enlist before the whole thing’s over
Three months later—300,000 dead, 600,000 wounded
1914 and the war had four more years to run

He loses a bit of himself each time he goes down there
His intuition could easily fail him again
She’s not dead—the rumors were wrong
She didn’t kill herself—she’s alive and lives

in a small, closed-in suburb just outside of Dallas
“I do have problems with my eyes and if I fall
I generally break something”
Powerful people often enjoy taking risks

The politics were sharp, self-serving, Machiavellian,
petty and sometimes very stupid
He’s 68 and walks on shattered knees—he remembers the glory,
the victory then and that she wasn’t there to share it

                4.

Views desperately imperfect,
his knowledge always partial
He flatters, kicks, and kisses
to get what he wants

Too talented to do what ordinary people do,
we bust up those we dislike no matter what they do or say
We glorify the people like us—
like clench-fisted members of some small, feral gang

Conflict, anxiety, boredom, fear
envelop them in this fog
If only she could forget some of it—
if only in mitigation

They always felt superior, she knows, but she can barely believe
it happened—she couldn’t know what those people might do
Not that it mattered all that much to finally fail—
her last story ended with nothing to gain and everything left was for sale

-January 28, 2012-

Always enthralled by the original, the profound, the difficult,
she cared alone for what was true and right
She ignored the analysis until the blood got deep
The cost has been incurred and now it’s too late

She couldn’t relive the pleasure of that mistake
This inner debate, this scar
The causes of her hidden, deep anguish
If she felt it now she must feel it again

There was nothing to be gained by talking about it
It was neither salient nor shameful; only pain
Her inner world obscured by parasites who sound
like the idle, terrified chatter of old men 

The smarter you are the more likely you’ll lie
The less conscious lies are the most effective
You don’t know what time will be the last time;
but there’s always a last time

                2.

Her confidence grounded in ignorance;
it was by no means certain that she’d win
Her lies do best when rare and
poorly as they become more frequent

But what about the deeper view?
That huge bore, that fraud:
the more she treasures her honest ways,
the more frequently she lies

Her father was always best at those fun occasions:
a splendid host, bright and jolly as a boy
It’s always sad, awfully sad, to look back upon those days
When it comes to making attachments, she refrains

A simple, grotesque game played at the highest level:
It’s not the few traces of life in the corpse that scares
her and fills her regrets; she’s most scarred and damaged
by the shrill, mordant traces she missed in his life before death

-January 7, 2012-

If it’s true, Chloris, that you love me
(and I understand that you love me well)
then the ecstasy of kings
couldn’t rival my happiness
and even the joys of heaven in death
would be unwelcome
Paradise couldn’t surpass the sweet ambrosia,
the fiery nectar of love in our veins
or how your favor for me reflects against eternity
and the love I see in your eyes

The Riffs

                 1.

She hated solitude and wouldn’t retreat
He wasn’t interested in his illness
and wouldn’t discuss it
Mom was always smiling at people
she didn’t want to smile at—she did it for you
He remained in his tent that morning
and sobbed like some broken hearted woman
All felt for him and pitied him
The loss of the orange trees still lingers here
Not one of us will ever come back

                2.

Happiness is insensitivity—
he relies on suggestions, rituals, lightly held beliefs
Nature is wider than her obtuse, anxious, speculations
His loneliness for her is self-imposed
It’s time to leave her now...
They didn’t live together, not right away
May the universe obliterate her lies, or save her
This failure’s so severe, so human
There were no revelations in this ardent, anxious, violence— not for us
She pretends to love but he just can’t see her

                3.

She followed the hearse to the church
but didn’t attend the funeral
out of deference to the family
We’re all bad detectives, bad at discovery
It wasn’t a moral failure
It was a failure of fellowship and good feeling
She looked so small standing alone in that doorway...
Admiration or aversion— you praise, desire, blame or despise
She was attracted to swindlers and was a deep seated grifter herself—
he looked at her then with such love in his eyes

-December 20, 2011-