I don’t understand
why sometimes
I run and hide
in motel rooms
with women and bottles.

Or why the sound of laughter
makes me cringe,
or why my head throbs
listening to small talk.

Or why I dream
of sitting on telephone wires
or crawling through dark tunnels
with no light on the other side.

Or hug the ground
feeling with fingertips
for the birth pangs
of a mountain
on the Earth’s dark side.

Or listen to the static
between radio stations
listening for the music
in the white noise.

Or look for tomorrow’s cliches
among the mad scrawls
of yesterday’s castaways.

Or leave good women and jobs
because I cannot breathe,
only to run off
and hold my breath
somewhere else.

I hate this restlessness,
but isn’t that
what life is?

The restless itch
of the cosmos
******* itself,
and we the blood flowing
from the fingernail marks
on its back.

“I’m a loner.”
You say, but the TV’s on,
people there, living their lives.
Your favorite family, perhaps.
You wish you were part of it,
laughing, crying with them.

“I’m a loner.”
With the radio on,
someone sings to you,
or talks about politics, religion
and you agree, or yell at them.

“I’m a loner.”
On the computer,
social media, or chatting
with an old friend from high school
or a woman you just met.

Go to some deserted place,
a mountaintop,
some lonely, rocky shore.
Stay there for an hour,
a day, or a year.
What, or who
did you think about?
Then return, and say again
who and what you are.
Or better yet,
say nothing.

In the silence
beneath the static,
in the grasping hand
that comes up empty,
in the searching mind
that finds no answer,
in the child’s last “Why?”
and the parent’s exasperated
“Because I said so!”
In all of these things,
there is truth
not to be found
in a thousand sacred scriptures.

In their lust
for a truth grasped
only in their minds
they sacrifice life
and become evil.
I do not want
to be a revolutionary.
Or maybe just a quiet one:
doing less than others,
living more simply,
doing without
certain things they say
I must desire
to be fully human.
People do too much anyway.
And the more they try
to fix things
the worse it becomes.
Imagine the consequences
of an ethos of laziness!
Could it possibly be worse
than the path we’ve chosen?

I must apologize, for
when I see you
I do not see you
but only my own shadow
cast across your face.

And when you speak,
I cannot hear you
but only the winds
howling through my mind
carrying your voice far from me.

As it is with us
so is it with nations,
like hungry dogs barking at
their own long shadows.
The sun of civilization
low on the horizon.
The hatred perfect, complete
as only self-hatred can be.

Sitting outside, mid morning
warm sun, light breeze
on bare skin.  
Sparrow song,
and the hunting hawk’s cry
that silences it.
Blue sky,
white wisp of cloud,
pull of the Earth
weight of the heavens,
and I see in this moment
that this is really it.  
All of it right here.
And it does not seem
like a trap.
Or if it is,
it’s one big enough
to roam endlessly inside.

A love song
still brings goosebumps
like tiny fingers.
Even my skin
wants to reach out.
We meet, and I know this feeling:
the spark, the currents flowing
between us.
Do I trust it now,
as I have before?  
Or am I too tired
for this, anymore?

I remember being young
watching TV romances
bloom and wither
and wondering why
adults complicate things so.
It must be an act,
they must be pretending,
I thought...

And aren’t we?
Maybe it’s that
I’m tired of,
and not merely
another lost love.

I am old enough now
to remember
staying in my apartment for hours
afraid of missing your call,
my insides knotted, burning
as I wore the carpet down
with pacing,
smoking each cigarette
down to the filter.

Now I'd just
grab my cell
head out
do whatever.
Progress, but somehow
I only see
what’s been lost.

Awakened to
about four inches
on the ground, finally.
Sun just rising,
birds celebrating
a little warmth,
everything white
and gleaming.
Life of a snowflake:
evaporate, condensate
crystallize into
a million beautiful forms,
melt and begin again.
Never destroyed.
Aren’t we all
just like this
no matter our opinions.

It happened again
the other day.
I awoke from a nap
and as I often sleep
with my head on my arm
my hand was numb.  
Is this it?
Am I having a stroke?
A heart attack?
I shook my hand furiously
until the feeling returned
to my panicky fingers.
My heart slowed,
I breathed, and lay still.
Mid forties, now,
my awareness of it
no longer merely conceptual.
You really can’t remind yourself
often enough:
You’ll be gone
before you know it.
You’re going back
to what you were.
To fertilize the grass,
feed insects and birds,
fly, and fall as rain,
and be breathed and drank
by those who come after.
All the money and power,
hopes and fears,
memories, identities
and cherished accomplishments
once clenched in tight fists
passing as effortlessly on
as your last breath.
Remember all this,
then choose how to live.
But we don’t.

Someday, we will be astonished to find
that the time we worked so hard to save
with our rushing ahead to the next,
and the next, and the next....
is not there for us
like an old cigar box full of cash
buried in the backyard.
It’s gone, gone, gone
and no thief in sight.
It can’t be saved, or spent
and it’s never there
but always here
if it’s anywhere at all.

“I have no life.”
These words, spoken ruefully
or in jest, matters little.
The meaning is the same:
my life, as it is,
not important enough,
not exciting enough,
not good enough,
not enough.

Thousands of messages
in a lifetime,
telling us this.
It’s good for business
after all.
Buy the car,
make a statement,
people will notice you.
Join our church
you’re separate from God,
a sinner, we can help.
You need this, and that,
see what others are saying,
dont want to be left out.
Can’t get laid without the cologne,
won’t be loved without the diamond ring.

Our souls crucified
on all these lies,
we go insane,
and wonder why.
“You’re not enough,
go buy more stuff.”
I’d love to see
an ad like that.

If you can reclaim yourself
from beneath the rubble
of all the shoulds, and musts,
you will have achieved something.
As for the rest:
**** it.
All of it.

A friend asked me
to a concert last night.  
I like music, but then
I thought about parking,
long lines, crowds,
and obnoxious drunks
and declined.

This morning I awoke
to snow on the ground.
I stepped outside
a purple flower poking up
through the whiteness
shivered along with me.
A neighbor was packing
skis in the car,
hurrying to get
up the mountain
before everyone else.

I wish I wanted
to go skiing,
I thought.
It’s been awhile
since I did that.
But again, I thought about
parking, and long lines,
and hundred plus dollar
lift tickets....

I am getting older.
I have done many things
in my life, enough to know
what things I don’t need
to do anymore.
And honestly, the list
of things I don’t want to do,
is longer than the other list,
the “bucket list”, I guess.

Here is a good place.
I think I’ll sit here
in the sunshine
watch the snow melt,
listen to it drip
from the roof.

Both in the baking Sun,
one says “Slow,”
the other “Please Help.”
But one is a hard worker,
well paid, respectable.
The other seen as a loafer,
a scam artist, a loser.
His paychecks tarnished coins,
straight ahead stares,
and the occasional, “Get a job!”

If, as you say, such a life
is easier than working for a living,
why not give it a try?
You have already invented
that man’s story
before you laid eyes on him.
You wear it like armor
against grey truth.

Perhaps one is more valuable
than the other...
We usually have the sense
to slow down in work zones,
but without such a mirror
our true face
remains hidden from us.