It sits tall in the lobby
with curves like
a woman's hips
under a tight fitting
evening gown.

Blue as lapis lazuli,
streaked with white veins,
flecks of gold
and shot through with
jagged hairline cracks.

It's been broken,
perhaps more than once,
but someone
gathered the pieces,
and with patience
and trembling fingers,
glued every one
back into place.

Now it sits
reflecting the light again
in fragile wholeness.

They sing the blues
in shouting matches
with co workers,
with strangers at bars,
with family rarely seen
over Thanksgiving tables.

They play a sad tune
with guns under pillows
and flaming hatred
fanned every day
by radio chatter
and at night
by tv news.

Lonely vibrato from
a street corner guitar echoes
in 2 a.m. tumblers of scotch
as they pace hallways
imagining a country
that never quite was.

Beneath red faced yelling
and epithets
spit like venom,
beneath the scowls
and finger pointing
lie reservoirs of tears
behind locked spillways,
and children trembling,
cornered by the biggest
bully of them all.

If you train your ears,
you can hear
their song of lament
drifting across the land
like a funeral dirge.

covered with drywall dust
and shards of glass
one knuckle split
dripping red

some grains of sand
nestled inside
from a foggy grey
New England beach
where we once stood
gazing at our ship's torn sails
flapping in the wind

they'll find them
when they find me

they'll find them
spilling from the creases
of my still warm hand
as it opens
slowly

Sometimes I sit
staring into the night
thoughts wandering
like vagabonds,
wondering if the universe
has edges like flower petals
or a shell like an egg
and if so, then what’s outside it

wondering if dead stars stare
through human eyes
back at themselves
when they were children
filled with fiery light

remembering worlds
like this one
creatures like us
that clung to them
and then vanished

they wink at themselves, now
across a million light years
smiling through my lips

To dam the river’s flow
he sat in empty rooms
without books, TV, or radio
staring at silent walls.

Drove two lane
country roads
searching for
slow moving trucks
to get stuck behind.

Went to the bank
and the grocery store
at the busiest times
to spend hours
waiting in line.

Passed the time
with people he itched
to get away from,
and married a woman
he despised.

One day he peeked
behind the dam
to find that his reservoir
had evaporated
and a parched landscape
of cracked earth remained.

He knelt and grasped
a clump of dried mud,
held it up,
staring openmouthed
as it crumbled
in his hand.

Always pretended
at being a stone,
especially when crawling
on the floor yet again,
searching cracks
for broken pieces,
never quite finding them all.

But now here it is,
here it really is.
I've pretended it
into existence.

When I can't imagine
sitting across from you
(whoever you are)
at a little table
ever again,
and feeling the tickles
of tiny currents flowing
between us.

The invisible strands
that tug at me
as I lean closer
smiling, laughing,
and searching your eyes
for traces
of what I've lost.

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.

Dad and son
play video games together,
spraying their enemies
with bullets,
and chucking grenades,
grinning as the blood
and body parts fly.

They watch movies together too:
westerns with gunfights
and men bleeding,
dying in dusty streets.
Car chase action flicks
with crashes and explosions.

The kid's seven now,
got his own BB gun
he shoots at neighborhood cats,
even killed a few,
and that's all right.
Another year, Dad's
gonna teach him
to shoot the.22

But he got the belt
when Dad caught the boy
in his **** stash.
He squirmed, sitting
at the dinner table that night,
welts stinging his little behind.

He got the buckle end of it
when Dad caught him
and the neighbor boy
trying out some of those
things he'd seen
in the magazine photos.

"No son of mine
is gonna grow up
to be a ******!"

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.

After the yelling,
my fist through the sheetrock,
you emptying the loaded dish rack
onto the kitchen linoleum,

and how we glared
at each other, gladiators
breathing heavily,

you stopped me
at the door
carrying my suitcase
and teary eyed
asked,

“Do you still love me?”

I stared at you in silence,
then put down my bag,
and held you
with that unspoken “Yes”
burning in my chest.

Many times
I have felt the history
of fang and claw
written in my blood
rising to greet
the civilized world.

Triggered by
body language,
a certain look
or snicker,
a trespass
over an imaginary line.

It rises, a vibration
hovering in my chest,
gurgling low in my throat
like a bear growling.

And I am taken
out of my body
in a flash
to some psychic
killing field
where my hands
are around your throat
as I spit out the words,
“Laugh now!"

I breathe,
and return,
smiling at you
tight lipped
over what is left
of my canines,
devouring you
with my gaze instead.

I am human,
not animal.
I tell myself this.
I tell the vibrations
this truth,
hoping they’ll remember
next time.

But they have
a truth of their own,
and no ears
for mine.

Who am I to say?
Depending on the darkness
of this new age being born,
they may yet be a blessing.

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.

If talk is cheap
what are thoughts worth?
Or feelings?

An attic filled with stuffy air
dim light leaking in
through dusty vents
filtered through cobwebs
and falling on
unused tennis rackets
and jogging shoes
self help books
wrapped in plastic.

Or a damp basement
foot thick concrete
old coal furnace
black shards stuck
in widening cracks
in crumbling walls
a single incandescent bulb
shines on an old album
photos of former lovers
pages stuck together
from being spit on.

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.