I feel fine, now
that stoical ice
grows within me
like a tangled vine
wrapping around
inside, and outside
I'm a laughing smiling
clown upside down
on my house, and
my life, you see
this frown painted
by Courbet, realistic
as Pushkin's finest
piece of poetry.

Must we only dream
   of wise kings who know
that rivers must flow
   peacefully
so a woman can sing
   her children to sleep
and fathers not weep
   holding them
in grief too heartbroken
   to rage
at the violence men bring
    in this age
that should be long left
   behind us?

Some nights you still
cast your shadow like
dice, always coming up
snake eyes, and I dream
I am watching you stare
at the camp fire, the moon
parting your hair, high
in the mountains growing
silent and thirsty not saying
a word until a bird comes
from nowhere, and lighting  
on your wrist to drink from
your palm while you stroked
its throat; I could have sworn
your finger was on a trigger.

I've wiped the coffee table
Down with windex
At least three times.

But here I sit.

Watching them wander
Trying to remember
To breathe.

And waiting for details
Of my brother's suicide.

It is almost summer
and the hot night
seems so quiet
as the wind on the water
lifts the sails on that ship
sailing west like smoke
from the fire I lit
to burn the driftwood
of my dreams and desires
until morning comes like
that sad-eyed Moriah
I've admired from afar.