Rusty nail by rusty nail the floors come down. Floor by floor
the old men of the old town slip away, and leave old shells
like the stone bread of Pompey. We board these windows
and bolt these doors and slate them in the young sun
for the hungry cranes, but I return in the twilight
of going home traffic when five o'clock lets loose blue collars
to fumble through the ruined rooms of time gone by,

I kick through our broken bricks. Their red dust stains
my shoes and wears on my cuffs. A hopeless hearth,
discarded news, a crippled doll with matted hair
and I all share the crumbling of the day, but only I
shall not remain come compline. Neither can I
pack these walls with me. So this is adieu
to former strongholds. To our old fidelity, adieu.

It is not fit to go forth less than brave, for
they built seven cities over Troy, seven worlds
not knowing where they stood so long the first
could not be said to be. The docks of Caesarea sleep
in the sea, and tourists sit for lunch
on the prone pillars
of Jaffa.

The bloom of the cut rose
leaks into the water glass.
She fixes breakfast.
I sit thereabouts waiting.
I trouble my coffee with a spoon.
Her slippers scuff softly on the floor.
Her dreaming slowly leaves her eyes.
I rub my homely morning face.
The finger of a tree taps the glass.
It will not be admitted
with the pale, newborn light.
The world already goes its way.
It minds if we are slow to follow.
The street grumbles at my well-used robe.
Matins bells predict a running out.
We keep our peace
longer than we should.

Butterflies kiss the sage, where sun drips off primrose
into mute lily horns who know but cannot say:
This is the day. In yonder Sycamore a cardinal's question
is answered from afar: This is the day. Sleep no more
fields of green. Arise and be heard all who dwell within.
The night has been, has poured out all its darkness like water
onto parched earth that cannot be gathered up again.

When with eyes as good as closed we peered into the night
what stain had we beheld? Was it ink upon our canvass,
dripping from the trees, running on the lawns and fields,
the gardens deep in slumber, staining dark foreboding hills?
"Be thou, " we cried, "a lamp unto our feet, a light unto our eyes."
What then should we have seen who could not see,
or known who could not know, what has once been made,
once beheld, once loved, what was once our own continues still?

This is the day. Let all who have a sound to make proclaim.
From among the pines, from within the thickets come. Let each one
make his song. This is the day. We shall not sleep therein.
Arrogant and proud the night, let all the living cry.  Profound
the darkness. Grave the depth of night. Become a dew
for unction of the lilies who know but cannot say this:
This is the day. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

I am at the fire as I would likely be, come the chill
hours of inactivity, having gathered up the dead
detritus from the yard and put to match some old
wood rested on it. The lifeless pile took flame
with greed, as if surprised by need of it,
and gratefully gave itself to be consumed by fire.
For a time the world is all ablaze, all red
and yellow hot upon my face, flush with pregnant
sparks giving birth to ever greater iterations of fire.

Then I think let it all burn, all that is useless;
let it burn, all that is cast off and idle; in my mind
an eternal flame, even as the wood before my eyes
melts to ash and climbs to heaven on a pillar
of smoke. Ash settles down to earth with me,
ash in the air darting through shadows, bitter
on the tongue, gray in the hair. The universe
is cold; the space between the stars blank.
The bodies of the universe are all ash.

As long as there is flame I stay with it. I inch
closer as the cold elbows in, jealous of my place.
I stir. Chars catch a breath and come to light,
soon fading, embers weary of their work, blinking
heavy eyed, nodding off to sleep. When at length
all that can burn has burned, refined to its last
remains, glowing scarlet crystal, intensity wanting fuel
denied, I leave it to its vultures, satisfied
all becomes at last what does endure.

I am sitting on the surface of the stone faced moon
looking in through the gray above the green
hanging over the black shingle roof
of the room where I am sitting.
I can't see me resting here.

The streets of my youth are out my window
through a hole in the trees in the still autumn night.
I must rise to the call of the bread truck man,
to the whinny of the rag picker's horse,
to the distant clanking of a slow freight train.

So far away on the stone faced moon
how long my ears have thirsted
to drink the sounds they cannot drink again,
to sponge the voices from the streets of my youth
and squeeze them back a drop at a time.

Sitting on the surface of the stone faced moon
I can see the globe rolling cars upon it.
Outside my window into autumn is
the incessant din of transportation,
the percussion of outbound movement
toward the stone faced moon where I sit.

I can't play no saxophone
but I can hear it played.
Sometimes it's a lady sighin;
sometimes it's a workin man.
But when it is an orphan cryin
I wish I could hold that child
and play.

I can't hold that child
in these ***** hands of mine.
I can't stop his cryin.
I can hear it way down here
on the sidewalks of the streets he's a child of.
Why, Lord, can I hear that saxophone
but never play?

Quietly the shadows grew one into another as the day withdrew
softly from the hollows of the trees until at last it stood
far away. The night crept up the lawns and rested
on the porches and peered into the windows.

The night came through the screens with the easy Summer breeze
and made us idle with its foreign song, chords of gray,
melancholy dissonance, its song that makes an end of songs.
Then we wanted nothing of the stuff of life however dear.

Yes, it pried the pens and hammers from our hands and wrought
with them nothing. It took our many conquests and made
one of them, shared by great and small alike that one ambition -
sleep. We were turned like strings around our newel posts.

We climbed the stairs and darkness followed, and darkness waited
while we bared, and darkness swallowed our last light.
We lost possession of our world tonight, sold it for a song,
rid of it as long as we could sleep.

The houses of my Babylon lean upon each other.
They will not fall, not until the last hard hand
quits the last hammer, not until misfortune
loses prey, not until the least last child
is gently packed in wool and sent to play.
Sooner will you hear their see-saw hinges wail.
Will you then ask of them a song of home?

The windows of the houses of my Babylon
lay bear the walls around them. Who but gray
grandfathers marking time press their noses
to the glass? The visions of their lonely vigils
fade, half life unrecorded, shadows on parade,
whispered secrets kept secret. You will never know
with what intent they overlook your passing through.

Rain tears on the windows of the houses
of my Babylon, the bath of unattended panes
dropped free from heaven. They will not wash
clear. They will ever wear the haze of tainted air.
You think this stain the mark of unrepentant sin.
Who, then, gives the absolution of so many
brown-burned fingers that will not scrub up?

We were serene at a coffee house in the antebellum.
Vanilla latte plain dark roast art in pastel chalks
of little sense to me you drawn to impermanent faces
on the wall. Mix match tables of twos of easy people
odd numbers we fitted in conversation and caffeine.
That's all. You said in your breathless way more than I
ebb you flow a lyric of banal and small notes
where I place listening sounds looking in your eyes
without shame. Strange calculus by which memory is sad
sides of an inscrutable equation aspiration love
quiet hours loss longing I saw coming in your eyes
did not look away but went straight in.
Your car ran fine money was still the problem.
Never touch your hair. Just for me - long, wild, ebony.

Insincere December sun promised warmth
never given, the look of warmth cruel beauty,
the icy stare of soft hazel eyes, the cold touch
of clean hands. Light holding long nails of ice
dripped promised release too little to drink more
to move me out from under eaves by pokes and stings.
There I caught you in my arms a brief until when.
Your hand slid to my stretched finger tips and waved.
I looked you to your car off the lot up the street
you contacting even then the busy phone not meeting
eyes seeing me in bright light with no warmth.
Hands shoved in coat pockets denim hugged cold enough
to leave I stayed past your depart and why?
Something as if said the logic of December
is the folly of Spring. The art of glass imprisons
ghosts haunts possessed what is and is not real
desired both. The art of ice, the realization of thirst
cool captured drinks raised past reach.
Even then I knew, and sought you nonetheless.

the morning cries of birds awakening
where they stood nothing to say all the dark hours
say we crossed the midnight sea cowering in ink wells
rejoicing bravely on the red sands a danger passed
a peril unseen as birds in dead of night
I did not leave you or cover from the moon
or keep my words and all that I am in dead black
all that I am rattling in a cage straining against bars
I gave you in the darkest hour
not the world singing when it needs no song
not the world when it sees taking flight
but when you trembled I whispered in your ear
stay with me
we are our wings
or did you not hear and did another voice
teach fear by night and rancor all the day
call you out with morning birds to play
when I found the tender passion of unsafe hours
abandoned where you left it in a sunbeam on the floor

It having been decided, herein is pronounced.
Let them know the number of days; let them count the number of days
and the count shall be 180.
Day 1 let him strike his head with his fists and call it "stupid".
Day 5 let the vomiting begin without surcease.
Let him dress for work as if he can.
Let him park and never drive beyond Day 10.
Let him pass out at the toilet.
Let him shed 100 pounds and all his hair.
He shall suffer such indignities as appertain
until he is brought to tears before his eldest son
of whom he shall ask, "Do you believe in miracles?"
Let there be no reprieve, neither for the holidays.
Let him wander out into the snow without a coat
and utter, "So beautiful. So beautiful."
All this in due course to precede the final 3.
The son and he shall smoke a last cigarette on the porch.
He shall proceed to the gurney and not see home again.
Let them gather at the hospice room.
Let him suffer terminal rage
thus shall he be manhandled by the sons.
On that day he shall be bedridden by narcotic.
Let him fall into persistent incoherence.
They shall play the New World by Dvorak.  
He shall not hear.
They shall gather for the Rosary over him.
He shall not hear.
The eldest son shall vow to stay at his side
nor shall he sleep for 72 hours.
The son shall not permit the end to come.
The son shall take his hand and say
"Only God takes it away."
And when the room is empty but for them he shall sing softly
"Today While the Blossoms Still Cling to the Vine"
He shall not hear.
Let them all tell him it is okay to die.
Let the eldest son protest, "It is not okay to die."
In the final hours he shall struggle again
thus to be manhandled by the sons.
Then amid his incoherence he shall look the eldest in the eyes
and solemnly say
"I love you."
These shall be his last words.
Let them check his toes for signs of life.
Let the breathing come infrequently.
Let the breathing cease.
Let the son remain until they pull away the sheet
and display him in his nakedness at last.
All this to be accomplished January 15
in the year of Our Lord.

My heart for you most recently returned on a chill breeze
passed among old buildings of a former place
with a smell of Winter in early Spring.
A frosty sun bouncing jewels off ***** glass,
spilling diamonds on groaning cars, made a path
I followed to the moment of you and I, forgotten
at the confluence of things we know
lacking you or me. The moment waited in the street
where light caught my eye a certain way,
where breeze tossed my hair a certain way
and bore a chill with the faint smell of Winter
in early Spring. To fall is to fly for a time
that narrowly misses the wind
and gets in the way of birds, but freezes them in flight
and stops the upward curl of smoke.
Our trajectory became a destination,
to know the exhilaration of flight in the abandon of a fall.
My heart for you could never walk
the measured steps of latter days come to ground
so softly without a sign of what transpired,
but it comes to me in painful falls that seem to glide
a chill breeze that smells of Winter in early Spring.

I spoke to the sky today
a steel plate pressing me
I have not heard from her
something about the absence of sun
weighs too much
so I spoke to the sky today
I know all the reasons
the patterns and formations
and permutations
chaos theory
the science of highs and lows
explain to me
attraction to the sun
the way a leaf turns to it
by what will
she decides when she appears
I hugged my coat
by its pockets
I spoke to the sky today
and I told it to depart

I heard the sounds of locomotion
and a whistle's plaintive cry
of weakness, but the wheels were turning.
Steel on steel the sole reply.

The sounds of force accelerating
rhythmically as drums would play
recalled a light and tender time,
though made of steel the permanent way,

when near a depot long abandoned,
waiting for a passing train,
a child would sit alone for hours
just to hear the steel refrain.

I heard the sounds of locomotion
carrying a longing man
with freight and cargo to a place that
rails of steel alone could span.

Night's hours gathered slowly at my chair delayed to stare
as each conferred upon the next I was still.
The hour of doubt crept in a shroud for me fear
a storm to tremble in the hour of remorse so reticent to leave.
Memory gave Judas' kiss desire an empty cup to parted lips.
At the edge of dawn the morning stars do fade I saw
an amber line on distant hills weak before the vow of dawn was made.
In that final hour only you.
Before what light could prove
gathered round the hours of my days whispered hushes
rustling as crowds do in cinemas and concert halls.
Then only you
the one I fell on spent a scent breathed in
out object of my touch the parts of you
the wish to hide the night in you.

Tarry with me here.
Dangle by the pond
like fruit of vine near season's end.
No pain's too heavy to suspend
a while; no love so ripe to send
it down before the season's end.

When this time is gone,
I am but a road
with destinations picked by those
who use it. You are but a rose
beheld by them. This time will close
and we will go the way time goes.

Tarry with me here.
Drift beside the pond
like leaves afloat in Autumn air,
like birds, like things that share
the wind. No sorrow, pain, no care
can rise with them in Autumn air.

When this time is gone
I am but a house
to be resided in by those
who own it. You are but the bows
bedecking them. This time will close
and we will go the way time goes.

I came up the way that grew in shadow looked a tender shoot
but bent pushed through the freeze line in a killing frost
arisen first among its peers then hardened. Taught the way of walking
easy in bad men some can tell some left their teeth
on daddy’s knuckles. Knocked around until the eye is hard
moved unmoving like a gun recoils in a hand
even yet too small to sign a name.
I came up beside the tracks on stacks of plates
washing my way up riverboat stacks sleeping in the hulls
among dark men on plates of iron
in grimy weight pits torn down and built again.
Built again by Virgil in his tongue Cicero
the Caesar too of Gallic Wars blind Homer’s tongue
of Iliad and Odyssey. By Beethoven. By Bach.
By symphony of gun and pen bare knuckle brawls poverty
ghosts of the ****** murderers victims haunts of the poor
ways of the poor addicted captured by my sky my clouds
the mist and mystery of my own personal life.
In late hours dark skies clouds pass almost unseen
yet there the secret conundrum what have they wrought
where they have been? What are they coming to?

tired of keeping things alive
of water
of the color green
of what puts down roots and thirsts
and drinks what I can bring
and thirsts
or then the desiccation
the life that dried
awaiting me
tapped out
and where's the water
empty clouds huff and puff
the promise of rain that doesn't come
dance for the rain that doesn't come
but I will not bear the water
I will no longer keep things alive

the mind is not shelter
it is shadow and spotless light
a storm approaching
wind shaken rye
a mountain in the mist
a rolling sea at night
you do not rest in  my mind
you move through shadow and spotless light
the dark and distant vision
the intimate who breathes my breath
the body nearly touched
lost in flight
this I dare to see you
bare shadow and spotless light
the long sojourn in mystery
the crooked path
creatures of my mind
the blindness of its winter white

How far had I gone can't remember the day or the way
I met you a stone in my shoe shaking it out on a bench
of the benches I sat drifting the road to Never Will Be.
A crumpled paper bumping along stopping to no end
no purpose to arrive no wish to leave wind pushed
to Never Will Be. But I recall the spark your touch made
my hand uncomfortable taking your hand not letting go
not moving on detonating life all the little pieces of us blown
falling together shaky as rag dolls mends and stitches
beautiful disarray tender at the tears. But missing parts.
And if we did not become what we were when we blew
And if we were not to be as we were made
And if we were not fully functional
And if I only wanted you
And if you only wanted me
And if we walked awkwardly
And if we were beautiful only to each other
were we not beautiful as we were
following our dreams to Never Will Be?

Did you leave the footprints I found when I awoke?
I forgot the dream but coffee made me sad
at the table with the morning stars arousal of birds
in the hour I love was then I knew I had

dreamed. And I found discarded footprints awaiting
their departure for all must go. Retreating
seas return for every sign and if you touched me
while I slept it is soon as if it were not so.

Strange the proximity of sand to sea, the land
of footprints lying by its enemy and so my coffee
made me sad and I could not remember why
it must be every trace of you delivered to the deep.

The greatest are at Eddyville, the lesser at LaGrange
six hundred of no one at the jail on the hill
no windows, no bars, no name to do up to five nowhere
for nothing, or that's what they say.
Institutional white tones of gray
sealed concrete floors under light look like rivers at night
all so clean except the time, except the title
of the crime sounds so insipid.
Better robbery or ****** better yet
lining up on concrete rivers for a shave.
What is the essence of it?
No one's going to die.
Everyone will eat baloney on his food card and lie on his back.
Freedom begs the question of degree.
What is the essence of it?
Visiting baby mamma by TV?
The inability to conjugate the verbs of touch?
Freedom begs the question of degree.
What is the essence of it?
Never having lived a single day
beyond the shadow of the jail that has no name?

Death perched on a rotten fence clothed in Autumn colored quills
in the ancient pens that storied him in the colors of the fields
in the costume of a Cooper's Hawk slowly laid his eyes of stone
on me. Neither could I move nor stay an arm's reach
great and awful silence he commands living things gone
still as death itself is still. And this he deigned to show me
did not flinch fierce and fearless marked me with his eyes
of stone. This - a muscular stretch of wings untiring. This -
the sharp sure weaponry of death. This - endless curiosity
searching seeking sanctuaries never locked hides thrown open
shadows laid to rest. And this - an intellect uncaring cold
science mocked congeniality of birds societies lost
to appetite ceased by fear. Or is it better angels
gave the knowledge of prey to such as these what I
will not admit:
Hawks carry us away.
We will not return.

In one hundred years...
These snows will have melted
will have washed the Appalachian stones clean.
These living waters will have journeyed downward through the pines
downward from the heights
their secret labor hidden in the grasses and the vines
will have released them.
These snows will have sought their rest
by rivulet and stream in crystal ponds the light of sky.
You and I
will too have slipped away
as lovers sometimes do from gatherings
sought perhaps at first then not among the festive crowd
forgetting those they wished to please each other more.
We will have traced a silver stream
beyond the things we have to say our quiet minds
each given to the other and on to where the waters run
with careless steps regarding more our love than time
to where the waters rush together as do broken lovers
joined at once and not to part again.
We will have come at length upon a crystal pond the light of sky.
You and I
will have reclined in tender grasses water's edge
the very same that coursed the heights and leaped.

Life has no score. The song of life
is on the lips of an aged woman bent
upon a bus stop bench, its street light notes
on telephone wire ledger lines;
is in the rugged shuffle of a janitor's shoes
on descending steps, its clef a weary mop
propped against a stairway rail; is in the whistle
of a little boy sitting cross legged
on a railway siding, its sheet the earth
itself erased by his gritty palm.

Life has no score. The song of life
is handed down from sun to sun
to rest behind a cardboard will work sign
on an exit ramp, is buckled in a top coat
chasing a late to work bus, is put out
on the curb sitting on clothes, is holding
an old man's finger where the cars speed by,
is boxing shadows outside a cafe.
The song of life is mourning still a loss
too great to bear borne still each day.

Life has no score. The song of life
has yet to be composed, its author
not yet known, its horns contending
in concrete echoes of a city's sprawl,
its winds sweeping in on freeway veins
from distant furrowed fields, its strings
hanging from the sky onto high rise crowns,
all assembling still. A curtain will
roll back, a stick will rap, the instruments
will breathe the great breath before the song is played.

God why do you shake me can't you let it be
the way wild geese are wild birds of prey **** mourning doves
only weep but what am I God and you will not let it be.
God you made these holes it all leaks peace drips out
loves depart a constant stream of guests by day
when late it's only you and I just let it be.
God my eyes are full of loveliness I cannot touch the ugliness
of what is done is done fills my eyes with nothing else to see
but you the one unseen could simply let it be.
God my heart's desire pain my great ambition end of all
my labor come to this achievement prostrate hours praying let it be.
God in the narrows of my life
God in the shadows of my deeds
God the earth I trouble bears me less today
words pierce me faces turn away yet even now
God in the shallows of my thought
God in the depths of my despair
God in lonely hours come again at last to this one prayer
I pray you will once simply let it be...okay.

New snow has dressed the dawn in white and veiled as if a maiden
bride this one light. The wind as if a voice whispers unto the dawn,
"Beloved." Beckons, "Beloved." "Beloved," breathes, sighs unto the dawn.
This one light falls upon the naked tree, flush and warm upon its
trembling limbs. Branches as if hands concealing shame implore,
"Look not upon my nakedness. Look not upon the wounds of my nakedness."
Yet this one light moves among the branches, curls upon the limbs,
its restive body soft as grace on tender scars and draws
its veil with its embrace.

Once a stalwart tree arose, forged
in war, opposed before it stood grasping at the earth, tearing at the hem
of heaven's gown. Years etched somber verses on its back, years pleased
to twist and bend what would not break, to let stand this reading of the leaves:
Behold the fate of the last thing. Once a stalwart tree became as if the truth
in ugly nakedness, in stripes and scars, as if the truth in branches frozen open
to absent light to the shame of its members in the horror of plain sight.
Then dreamed a tale and knew the truth no more.

Come one light upon the naked tree, closer still, closer still, until within
its branches then its limbs light as fire upon its naked wounds blushes
crimson white beneath a snowy veil. The wind as if a voice pleads,
"Hush. Hush." A secret union mocks the work of years finding there
an ageless will to be at peace with fire, to become what lies within
suddenly awake by touch of what is wholly other. What is seen,
dawn dressed as if a maiden rises and departs, a scourged tree bears
its sorrows to the light, cold grace, cruel denial, need - or unseen,
the two will always be as one, beloved -

We have not spoken since the long, long days,
the lazy days grew indolent and fell. Somewhere
in the piles of days the wind collected our words
rested too. If I thought of you
hour by hour and fell beneath the weight of thought
in the piles of days and words
what you are to me you will not know
you are still when we are out of words.
If a cold light now lays on the windows,
caught my breath in crystal my silent breath
exhausted night's labor must contain my thoughts of you
every part of you drawn in escaped unseen.
If today we spoke, I would not say this is you
this every breath sustains me past the hour
longing wakes but the empty things we say,
the glib and empty things I try to fill
a single word, a single solitary word.

Less is more.
Less is
Less