She is mathematics,
bare necessity in numbers

Curvature and roundness,
symmetrical circumference
lies in the rise of her hips

A tanned half moon,
a breast

A pose

The fall equinox begins
in the shadow
of the small of her back

Night looms beyond, below
connecting beauty's dots

Her body reclines,
hand resting between waist
and hip, an impasse

Head at rest
held by soft hand.

I'm going to pour me a drink
and wait for the Dark Night
to lace his boots

That old bushwhacker has 7 wives
2 trucks with good tires
1 with a flatbed for hauling

In the morning I know
I'll find crumbs on my table
and mud on the floor

And that pint by my bed
that's mostly full right now
will be a big swig short

Nothing is going right
these days except that low-
down you know who I mean
and he's moving right fast.

I found an old homesite
in the woods,
next to a church, or at least
what looked
like the remains of one

Rocks overgrown with weeds
and vines, a doorway
leading nowhere
in either direction, and

I think
I thought
I was maybe Christ

I think there were birds taking flight
from my open hands

The laughter of children
buried like bones
beneath
the terrible blue sky.

Someone I once knew

and cared for long ago

took the slow ****** train home


a friend arrived alive

home from Iraq

broken, full of static


my father's trail

of caring drew the pancreatic

hound from hell


sadly, but

for the life of me,

I can’t load all that ****


into a broken boat

to shove away

out onto a moonlit sea.

What can I say
about changing places
and the weary night song
piled outside every window?

It can weigh you down
like happiness, like rain,
like the notion of destiny
or an obligatory farewell
that you carry strapped
to your shoulders.

Believe me, if it would help
you see things in a different light
I would only write poems
about love and dream gardens.

The sun and the fresh air
would do you a world of good,
and I would make it rain just enough
to spruce up the flowers.

I would read these in a French dialect
and part my hair accordingly
like a slight, wry smile.

But the truth is
I could never understand
why a single language is not enough.

Breath blown into an empty bottle
and tossed into the nearest stream.

This human need for a philosophy
of words when a howl would do
much better; after all, we are only dogs wearing a fancy leash and a collar
of home we sometimes call a house.

Places change because with the years
we change even less. We’ve spent
too much time in the dirt
and now everything is relative
because it is under our fingernails.

Scrape away rinse and repeat and still
the hounding memory of nights
under the stars, backs to the chill
of dry ground and nothing but a long sigh
for a sheet to pull up to the neck.

How many sighs does it take to make
a death? Just open your eyes
when the night peaks at its most
exotic and serious black.

We’ve been here before, you and I.
Heard sounds that would never
make sense out of context.

But there was no need to ever
translate what the crickets said.
Was there? For us, once, never a need.

Notes of rain
on a tin roof
mystify me

I try to put words
to its meaning

As if it is a calling
I listen to its tune

There, sometimes
like a scent of remorse,
a violet storm

Or a flash of a smile
so brilliant it pains

Night stirs the colors
about me with its ladle

But I can’t paint fables
or the whispers that follow

Dreams of love seem so real
for such a short time

I mean to imply something
larger, more inclusive,
grounded and wild

Something that reaches back
into stories we can never tell

Because we are the arc of them,
we are their breathing

Beaching ourselves on lonely shores
wanting only to be saved.

Whitewashed fences mark
the division of shallow lines
of demarcation marring a bitter plain

Truth that too can be seen
as a balance with bruised knees
whispering prayers of bent supplication

Looking for a smile seen in clouds
of judgment and blurred hazes

The drum beats of life and echoes still,
in cracked addicted alleys of fairness
gone awry with a broken wheel
spinning on a loom of time

Native pains and naive indiscretions inexcusable, earth telling a compelling
tale if you can dig your hand in the dirt

Seeking through the mire for truth
and tales long since buried in the sands
of time, which whisk away history,
books burned with lies full of distaste

Imprinted on impressionable minds
like miscreant clones sprung
from fanatical factories

Indoctrinated with false education
and breeding still more hate, echoing,
listening to the heartstrings playing
a concerto of truth, an aria of sad realism

A beating of a drum
that has long since been silenced
by an oppressive, regressive hand

These times give me fear when courage
is what is needed most, post haste

Hate seems to be in such a fury
hurrying at a madman's pace.