They’d found him, emaciated and tick-ridden,
Down near the docks on Smith Boulevard,
Surrounded by several fellow tabbies
Possessed of the apparent inclination to disregard any taboo
Enjoining them from enjoying one of their own as a hors d’oeuvre.
He’d weighed no more than eight pounds or so,
Closer to six if you scraped off the mats and vermin,
But he’d gotten over that in short order,
As his diet consisted of fried chicken livers
And any bits of tuna sandwich his owner might leave lying about
(Though Jerry Kiley was not a small man himself,
And philosophically opposed to the notion of leftovers as well)
So before long he became utterly Falstaffian
(As Father Maguire from Sacred Heart tut-tutted,
Why, that tom is three stone if he’s an ounce;
He gets any larger, and I’ll have to insist
You kick another two bits into the plate)
And Kiley had to fashion him a bed from a milk crate
Buttressed with sheet metal
Taken from a vat at the old Beverwyck Brewery.

He’d lived well (Better ‘n me, Jerry often lamented)
Though too well, perhaps,
And he’d fallen prey to the maladies of the leisure classes:
Gout, diabetes, a wheezing which sounded for all the world
Like distant cows lowing in a fairly stiff breeze.
The vet had given him any number of pills and potions,
But it all was no match for his appetite,
And he’d ended up taking the gas before he turned five.

It was decided, in the course of conversation and consolation
At the North Albany legion post bar,
That such a kind and devoted soul
Deserved a send off befitting a noble gent.
A collection was scraped together in short order,
And a viewing-***-wake took place at Jack’s Lunch
(Just up Broadway from Jerry’s place.)
Vittles Tuomi made a jerry-built coffin
Fashioned from the now-vacant cat bad,
And John Itzo snagged some fake flowers and a crepe-paper bird
From the brim of his wife’s old hat
(They being perched on a can of tuna soldered to the box
With the intent of nourishing him on his trip to the afterlife,
Jes’ like the pharaohs, according to Vittles.)
As the services progressed, some of the boys floated the notion
That the guest of honor should (under the cover of darkness, natch)
Be interred at St. Patricks, but Father Maguire,
Attending the do as the feline’s ex officio spiritual advisor,
Gently reminded the prospective pallbearers
That His Grace the Bishop had denied burial in consecrated ground
For lesser offenses, and it was finally decided that burial
(It was assumed that he’d been responsible
For an unknown number of progeny, and it was also rumored
That he had a brother or twelve up in Watervliet)
Would be private and at the convenience of the family.

He is unsure at this point if the soft pings and dings
Which inflict themselves upon his ears
Are courtesy of the wired-up grotesqueries
Stuffed cheek-to-jowl by his bedside
Or from the ubiquitous phone perched forlornly next to him
(Even at this stage, he has his inevitable newsfeed,
And he imagines he will be tagged in Facebook posts
Long after he has been exorcised
From the concerns of this workaday world)
Chronicled nattering of people
Tethered to him in the most tenuous of manners,
Or the fifteen or so seconds of flashing come-ons
Purveyed to capture what passes for our attention
On those three-inch billboards
Without which our very existence
Would have only the most speculative of meanings.

As he totters toward the final reckoning,
Remaining breaths perhaps few enough
To be counted upon his desiccated fingers,
He would, though he has nothing left to pawn,
No collateral left to barter upon,
Give all for just one more trip around the sun,
Even though he remains nonplussed by the notion
That we leave as we arrive,
Bereft of clues or whys and wherefores,
Not unlike those came before us,
Whose weathered and indecipherable stones
Stand as mute sentinels as some staid convoy
Brings our pitiable refrain to a full stop.

It's like trying
to see lightning.
I sat long enough
this Tuesday twilight,
brave enough watching
the twilight sky,
brave enough to forgoe
a glance to the right
to make sure a racoon
hadn't stumbled upon me,
and it and I, startled,
would scrap, resulting
with my hand bitten -
embarrassing cowardice.

Brave enough I watched
and the lightning climbed
a height! It etched itself
round the top of the thunderhead
that towered above and above
other domes that I assumed were the height,
but higher even, the lightning climbed,
and I wondered if it knew I watched,
cause it took its time- not a blink,
but a scrawl up the round height of the dome
at a height that I dared not know existed.

Could not be more unremarkable, me,
on the stoop, on a Tuesday twilight,
but the height, and the height,
and the lightning will be there, good-
good as my mother's skin under
her thin, summer top, good as the
first girl fervent enough to undress
with me, good as my wife inviting
me to come through all the boredom
and distress, good as the end,
when I'll know the lightning
sees me, cause I'll see the lightning.

I was normal
until the story of love
thoroughly confused me.

So now I have to chose
from a selection of hopes-
none of them attractive.

I can let the dogs dissect
my limbs, so my new body
can heal you all,

but then my weariness
will not be curable
even by eternal sleep.

If nothing else, I've learned this.

          The only words to fear
          are the deathless words.
          Keep them out of touch,

          but not out of sight
          as the gazelles glance and
          bounce round the lion.

Some days are gone before they leave...
that taste in my mouth
Why do I care?
What is this air?
going in by itself?

I should drink coffee black
take chocolate bitter
My wine turned to vinegar
Acerbic
so next to
spit-
out
the ferments of rage

There are words
there is nothing
there are words
there is nothing
there are words
there is nothing
as abandoned

as a vacant page

Tonight Hunraqan
roams the night
lifting the shroud
of dark clouds
so the moon can peek
down  on my long dreams
of water, and the mystery
of sleep; I am tranquil
one eye open, thankful
for the respite of brief light
while somewhere a plank
floats east to the Atlantic
carrying a forgotten book
of the K'iche' Maya language
with my name inscribed
just inside, I sigh, oh why
heart of my sky, why?