I like long walks on the beach,
Total enlightenment,
Licorice, and whisky
I am one with the universe
In tossing the old bocce ball
Through the long stretch of crab grass
Knocked the kingpin off its hinges
The horse shoe head landing in the dirt
A sign of the times, reducing earth and god
And us to
Everything

Scotch Plains, New Jersey
Scotch indeed! Or was it wine
That spilled over and into the street
Like rain rattling and trailing in residual little
Momentary lines through leaf and dirt and
Into the gutters gurgling and glistening and

Crying out to the long-dead lights,
“I am here! I am here now!”
The stars, they say, hear even the muffled
Screams of water and earth and man and
Time, even the mean tabby cat that glides along
The carpet in the twilight

We played horseshoes and bocce and sometimes chess
We watched old family tapes
And walked on the beach, and I hated licorice
Never had whisky

But **** me if it’s no different now
Between the times and signs and then
Sitting in the crab grass, drinking and dying and seeing and
Being and living and lying and I
Imagine the fine engraving
Left by a horse shoe head