you were not my prey
on this long hot day

though it seemed you
sensed you were

skittering in front of me
on the trail forever

or at least 1000 seconds--forever
in lizard time

perhaps you knew who I was, a reptile killer
since the dawn of man

or since my perverse pubescence, when I'd hunt
whiptails and rattlers  

and take prickly pride in how many of you
my .22 Ruger would slaughter

I have that time hidden in gray folds
beneath an old skull  

I don't carry the weapons of war,
anymore

but I can't deceive you, not in the naked
light of the sun

you were right to run; though I have concealed
my blood lust, you know it is still there

he moves the pace of the river,
his home a houseboat

he eschews dry land, for that is where
they are all buried:

a wife, his only son, the anonymous victims
of his rifle's rabid rattle

whatever ghostly litany lives in the lapping of waves
against his hull remains mystery to him

on the water he'll stay, drifting downstream
until he reaches the sea

where he hopes he'll have no memory
of hard earth and tormenting souls

he sees one on the branch of his oak,
the other on his picket fence

eight decades he's heard names
of these creatures

one that makes sad songs (though not
a song bird...)

the other known by its color
(not red robin...)

he opens the door and walks
toward them

as if removing distance will erase years
which purloined their names

they fly off, so many eons ahead of his species
which now lives long enough to forget its past

a breed of ape which worships words, and
dreads the loss of them

the mourning dove and cardinal need no
symbols to know to flee this beast

the mere sight of him evokes the
wisdom of the ages in them

wings flap, currents abide, they glide to
another spot to roost

while the old man curses himself for
unknowing their names--cursing and cursed
it seems, are not part of what is forgotten

Bobby's couch has a biography
of cigarette burns, food stains,
and cushion wear, all there, though
he doesn't know who wrote it

for $5 at the AmVets store
he bought a place to sit, and sleep
on nights when he was too wasted
to it make to the bedroom

where he has a mattress on
the floor; Bobby knows its life story, because
he filched it from a loading dock
at Sleep World

in five months,
it's had three women sleep
on it -- all hookers who gave
him a freebie

after they did copious lines
of coke on the glass topped coffee table
Bobby inherited from his brother, along
with a recliner he sold for ****

Bro's doing hard time at Huntsville;
he wanted Bobby to have a nice place
Bro gave his '73 Ford to their half sister
since Bobby's licence was suspended

when Bobby gets that oil field gig,
he's going to buy another Lazy Boy,
and a refrigerator to stock with beer...
maybe later a color TV

Sherman, Texas, 1978

sixty-one minutes ago, a stormy midnight;
I watched the clock hands join as lightning
struck my high pastures

only last month, a twister snatched a steer
and dropped it in my neighbor's stock tank--not a scratch
on its hide after a cylconic half mile ride

tonight I had no fear funnels would find my fields;
the distant thunder claps taunted me, reminding me
they have fierce fire, but don't always bring rain

I watched the clock, waiting for 13:02;
only last month, my wife hid with me
in our storm cellar, praying

I prayed with her, though I doubted
a god was listening, or cared; my entreaties
were not for refuge from the storm

instead, I begged the black sky
my woman would be saved from white
blood cancer--for a miracle

that was not to be--the almighty saw fit
to perform one for a dumb beast that very eve
but not for my wife of fifty years

she lasted until 1:01 AM yesterday
13:01 I strangely conceived; I had the lucky
steer slaughtered at high noon today

I'd let it rot in prairie grass, were it not
for her--she would not want it to be carrion
for buzzards, a profligate desecration

she would want its flesh to be
a feast for a family she did not know;
hands clasped, giving thanks

to the same god that saved it
but not her; I can't rest, I'll watch the clock,
waiting for 13:01 again and again

he poured the remaining Cheerios
into the bowl, then covered them with milk
he need not sniff to know was old,
stale, curdling

still he ate, for he knew without
this sour meal, he would tire on his
mile journey to the bus stop, and
not concentrate in school

his red brick haven, where there
was always running water, porcelain
toilets, adults who didn't reek of
of moonshine, **** and smoke

there he could read under electric
lights, watch movies about the moon
and strange rockets that would one day
blast a man all the way there

another cleaner world he imagined:
a sterile, silent white orb, pocked by boulders
bigger than mountains, craters with names
like Mare Serenitatis, a sea of serenity

that is where he wanted to be
on the dark side of the moon, where
grave gravity looses its reins a bit, hidden
from earth's billions of eyes

and when he dared reveal this
wish in the ears of his elders, they
would whisper among themselves,
saying he was an old soul

but barely double digits, he knew
this could not be so--for his body was only
tired from toil, and as far as his soul,
he knew it had no age, not in years

not here on this wretched third stone
from the sun, nor in a crater as old as time
waiting for him to escape the bounds of earth,
and the bitter milk of morning

Bell County, Kentucky, 1964

two of them
to my naked, simian eye
are identical twins

though one, a mere millennium
of light years away, performs its
magical fusion yet today

the other disappeared before
dinosaurs devolved; its phantom
photons now without a source

but both poke pinholes
in the blanket of night, gifting
what some call divine light

not I, for if gods were igniting
those gaseous masses, they would both
yet be furious and fiery white

and not tricking my meager sight,
deceiving me into believing, there is
eternity in an eternally dying sky

left her standing at the altar
though 'twas not his fault

his ship was to arrive the day before
but a U-boat sunk it off Iceland

prompting louts to make
light of his dark fate

saying he failed to make it to this chapel,
because he got cold feet

Londonderry Port, Ireland, 1917

in plain print, he tells me it's a hawk
with a broken wing

I close my eyes...all I see is a black,
greasy bird, barely bigger than a sparrow

not even worthy of Poe-itizing into a raven;
certainly not a fierce falcon

why can't I see thee, red tailed hunter?
you hiding in clouds adrift behind my eyes?

no, the crow's there, shining in a gold sun; seems
I'm not destined to imagine grander birds of prey

at least not today, reading your words of broken things,
the dark clouds of your dreams

a yellow flower
or two,

ones I can't name,

survived June's arid,
brutal assault

ant mounds abound; scorpions
aren't despondent

Timothy grasses, weeds
don't complain

always there are
mesquites

stubborn adolescents
unaware steer dung left
their ancestors here

this is not a place one
can walk barefoot

not even the Comanche
had such soles

I tried, but you
lashed out

leaving goatheads
and other burrs
in my heels

perhaps to
remind me

I bought you,

but I own
nothing

you found me
in a second hand store
on Lincoln Avenue

you bought me
for nine dollars and tax because
you thought I was a mandolin

you told Tryone, the clerk
who would sell me into slavery, your
wife always wanted one

you took me home to your
twelfth story apartment; I discovered
your wife was gone many years

but her photo on the living
room wall got to see me, and hear
your lament:

you wished you would have
found me seasons sooner--but my
strings were rusted even then

my last song played at a bar mitzvah
before your hair turned white, before
your wife's many colored regrets

you played me but once and didn't
like what I had to say--you tossed me
from your balcony to the street

I made the same flight your wife did,
landed in the same spot; yes, I suspect she was  
more a disappointed music lover than you

when the shining glass looks back at us
like a stalled rerun of our personal opera
of soap, and the technicolor turns to charcoal gray
we know we are coming to the end of our day

and we look to other faces,
and their “windows to the soul,”
for a reflection of who we are, or
were; they cast an obligatory glance
or do an avoidance dance, when
we give an imploring stare
to see if they know,
we are still there

each day fewer shine bright
or glitter with glee and we wonder
what happened to me, the me they saw
and sought after in the colored world
of before

others disappear into their own dark night
having long endured their inevitable plight
of the cold mirror’s still, shattering view
and disappearing eyes of all but a few
who see us yet faintly in the light
that remains

why do blackbirds
leave so many brown droppings
on my white mailbox, riveted
to a red painted post, planted
in green Bermuda grass, by
a gray asphalt road, under
a baby blue eye sky

Dylan is dead.
no, not Bob, you Philistine,
Dylan Thomas who implored us
to rage against the night;
so are a passel of poets
and penners, but not I

Emily heard her fly buzz,
well before her eyes shut; she
was a wee bit obsessed
with the reaper

Hemingway's also a goner;
guts enough to shove a shotgun
in his mouth--mostly I wonder if
he tasted blue gunmetal like I did,
and who cleaned his brains
off the wall?

nobody had to clean a red dollop
of mine, for the firing pin was askew
and all I got was a click, and a sense of shame,
and impotence more flaccid than
the one which put the barrel
in my mouth

hell, how hard is it
to **** yourself--I guess harder
than I thought, since I never bought
another rifle

so Dylan is dead
Em and Hem too, but you
are reading these lines without
contemplating your own demise
I suspect

after all, it's early spring
and a time of new things
clawing their way into the light
thinking nothing of the terminal
night -- but it's just a sun dip away:
ask Dylan or Hemingway, or even JFK
but I wouldn't bother the Belle
of Amherst

she would make parting
sweeter than sorrow, and she
never tasted the cold lead, or spoke
with fear or dread of the dumb
and the dead

she never murdered
men in black pajamas  
in a forest primeval...

I didn't see their spirits
ascending, in ribbons of light,
only rivers of their red blood
soaking the green ground,
yet today ravenous
for more it seems

why would she rage
against the good night, when
her carriage waited patiently for her,
and immortality, her vessel bound
for a light Dylan and I
will never see

always in the fog, the klaxon sounded,
announcing another round of shelling

Tuck was terrified, for he
thought this was a hound
from hell, and it was

telling London to head
to the underworld--dank cellars
or shelters built for survival,
or mass burial

depending on where Gerry's
bombs decided to land

the lasses knew well the drill:
grab their favorite doll and say a
prayer,
             going
                        down
                                   the
                                         stairs

Mum would grab Tuck--his shivering body
not soothed by her warm embrace

for when the hounds stopped their menacing moan
deeper doomed demons would begin their call;
the beast sensed this, and he had no god
to beg for salvation

he could only feel the rumbling of the ground
and not close his ears to the sound, which riveted
stakes through his bones

he stares
he covets
he loves
he hates

not only the elixir,
its anesthetizing allure,
but also its vessel

in which he can see
reflected, his hands,
his mouth

though not his eyes;
they reveal too much:

his last human touch
lambs on blood red fields of war
his mother gasping her last breath
his stillborn son

in this parley
his eyes cannot belie  
he hears screaming voices
in an empty, stone
quiet room    

the glass, then, will win;
‘tis an unfair balance; its perfect
symmetry, its solemn silence
the almighty alchemy it holds  

against him--his ghosts,
his hands, his mouth, all ready
to concede defeat

perhaps
we were not meant to take this trail alone
perhaps we were

a few inches too far right
on the ledge--half the width of my foot
and I suppose I fell

and here I am, fine,
though I can't move my left leg or right arm
blood is in both my eyes

gravity's curse carried me here
and is channeling this scarlet stream,
from wherever it began,
into my field of vision

which, though red clouded,
holds the base of a pine, boulders
as big as buffalo, and a black bird

a crow I suspect, soon
to be joined by his brethren--to enjoy
the feast of me

my pain wanes, as do thoughts
someone will find me in this steep ravine
a hundred meters below the trail
two long miles from the road

perhaps
we weren't meant to do this alone
but I did, and I am here,
alone

save for the crow
and I can't help but wonder
if my eyes will be open when the birds
begin their work

or if greedy buzzards
will join them, to take my
flesh from bone

the pain wanes
I am sleepy, the lone crow
now a ******

their eyes are open
mine feel heavy--perhaps
I have the answer

closed

I wrote about you last night
when there were supposed to be
a million falling stars

clouds got in the way
but hell, those weren't really suns
falling to their death

would have been fitting
if they were, for the cliche is apt:
you being my light of day

and you did fall from the sky,
though not through the firmament at night
with others tracing your trails

you jumped solo from the
GW Bridge, on a clear Thursday
at a low high noon

your obit was politically polite, not
describing your terse flight, or the bones
the Hudson's waters crushed

so I wrote about you last night
a missive to me--I asked what the Times did not,
what was your final thought

when you stepped from the rail:
did you see your whole life fly before your eyes
or just sky, water and the helpless bridge

cracked an elbow making a tackle,
ruptured a kidney throwing a body block;
my less than illustrious football
career curtailed

so I chose to run:
an active verb--organs, bones,
are nouns, things to be damaged,
broken, frozen in almighty time

which slowed my sprint to a
jog, then my jog to a hurried hike
on my arid prairies and around
my wooded lane

where the young neighbors eye
me zipping by, deep in thought--who
is that old man pondering parts of speech?
don't let the children listen to him

for I know they have their own bones
yet to break, their own journey to make,
from fanciful fields of fame, to cruel knowledge
nothing remains the same--nouns decay

I'll keep walking wild as long as I can;
I recall making the last tackle, that final
fated block--those nouns now long gone, and no
adjectives can bring them back

that afternoon,
the boy fried an egg on the sidewalk,
sunny side up

Mother said to waste food was sin,
though she had no qualms about dumping
Daddy's rot gut and gin

while Daddy was comatose
with drink, down the sink she would pour it;
the son knew the ritual well  

tonight was the same, Daddy ******
and couched, Mother cleaning his puke
before the dinner dishes

Daddy wouldn't recall a thing tomorrow,
another day which held mother's silence from fear,
shame--Daddy's from ethanol's eager eraser

Daddy would never know a transformer
blew but a block from their house, leaving
unsettled scores in the dark

or that for once Mother and son
wouldn't have to look at Daddy's hangdog face,
the incandescent haze which bathed it absent,
thanks to a blessing from a blackout
of another sort

with moonlight, he travels mostly
at night, past snoring hikers and embers
of fires that cooked their food, kept darkness
at bay, and heard what they had to say

if the coals could only speak, perhaps
he would find the right circle of stones,
a black heap of carbon that once glowed
red and gold, and her tale would be told

at least he would know the last words
she spoke in this wilderness--whether she
chose to vanish into the deep wood, fodder
for the scavengers

or was the prey of evil men,
who lurk at every turn--in bustling city
and quiet forest as well--vipers who strike
without warning, without curse or cause

when the moon's light wanes, he moves yet
in darkness, feeling his way, a nocturnal detective,
hoping to find what the others have given up
for lost and registered among the dead:

sign or scent of her--black coals or white bones,
a piece of tattered clothing, the canvas backpack
with her name, the hiking boots he laced for her
which left tracks he forever yearns to find...

my old street,  
a perfect bicycle drag strip,
needed no gutters--all rains drained
into the bay  

but today,
the lane where
I learned to drive, is a place gulls dance
and killdeer prance

this river
is a dozen inches deep
at street’s end, but a yard and growing at the bay
where the hot dog stand once steamed  

the melting monsters
were a million miles from us, you know;
a threat to a Titanic, though  surely inconsequential
to the Atlantic, or so it seemed

all the hype about heat, carbon emissions,
ozone’s demise, and other gassy notions, we thought
belonged in tomorrow’s world of worry  

but tomorrow became today,
and now it’s commonplace to say,
"the shoreline receded--that neighborhood’s gone."    

a continent constricted,
a lowly inch a year, by greed or divine design?
retribution from an earth that never forgets?
or a fickle force we cannot fathom?  

I am ancient now, though I recall those admonitions,
ambiguities that fueled futile debate, until it was too late
and here I be, watching waters at low tide, lapping
against my feet on a once dry and driven street

the lamb's lame leg, its death sentence
the rest of the herd headed up the hill, dog
driven; the shepherd, home in his hovel

they wait, the vultures; they
know no haste, though hunger pulls
them closer to the babe

abandoned by its mother, and whatever
god watches over such beasts, its breathing slows,
the carrion eaters tighten their circle

the babe kicks its three good legs
in defiance or desperation--neither the buzzards
nor I know, even though, I created her

to be devoured soon in this new grass
while the other sheep chomp the sweet swards
close to the earth, oblivious to her fate

the circle grows smaller; the creature
kicks no longer; her eyes yet blink, slower, until
the first talon tears into the left or the right

the choice matters not

for I ate all my peas,
minded my masters at school,
then learned to march manly,
and straight

to these trenches
that surely are maps of hell;
if there be such a place
beyond here

in this dead, grey pasture,
pocked by shells, and body parts
strewn about like pieces of a puzzle
that don't fit

Father said go, make England
proud, but I know you would not wish
this fate for me, or any of the children hiding
in these pits, waiting for the command

to become fodder for the Gatling gun,
the cannon; you would shed cataracts
of tears for all of us, if ghosts above
yet weep for the living

the ****** who will soon join you,
though none know when; surely you
will hear me cry your name, the way I have
seen them all do, with their last breath

three miscarriages: God's
abortions her curse, the third time
not a charm, though with a marriage
of joy and alarm, she feels a flutter

more wings than feet
taking flight amniotic;
she lies still and waits for another,
the expectant mother

she is not
disappointed;
it moves again
to her delight

climbing closer
to the light, wet wings
flapping slowly

this web fingered,
big-brained swimmer-flyer
son-daughter-carrier
of the eternal flame

who will be to blame
if its eyes never see the sun?
what God would will
such a denial?

the one who gifts all
things life, yet has been
but a fickle teaser
with her

she lies very still,
holding the breath of life, hoping
its exhalation will be the current
on which new wings take flight

he imagines
he has carpal tunnel
from channel surfing;
reruns,
his greatest
weapon against
insomnia

the ficus, the
philodendron
she left
(with half
the wedding
china)
are taking
an eternity
to die

a fortnight
without a teaspoon
of water would
wilt the most
hardy specimens
of their kingdom

perhaps she
bequeathed him
cacti in
disguise

he asks
if they are
what they
appear to be:
leafy indoor
greenery

or prickly
survivors
that grow
only where
all things
are venomous
or have thorns

they swear
they are not
botanical
imposters

liars

he turns up
the volume
on his flat screen
to drown out
the mendacity
of flora

the fauna,  
after all,
were not
to be trusted
either

she sits by her window to write,
ever fond of the morning light;
not a day passes when she fails
to pen an epistle to him

she envisions him pulling
the missives from his saddle bags
perusing them a second time, a third,
admiring her chancery cursive

a year now since she saw him:
steady on his steed, his regiment
waiting, eager to join the fray, to ride
north under his proud command

perhaps at eventide, she will
write another letter, in case she
forgot anything she intended to say
this morn, or just to reach out again
before the setting of the sun

a cloud passes as she signs
her name, another as she folds
the paper; soon it seems, a gathering
storm--she places the letter in the
envelope, its traveling home

she turns the candle to pour
the wax, then presses the seal;
another story from her to him
ready for its long journey

the stroll from her room
to the mantel in the parlor
to the pile of paper that grows
higher above the hearth

a cold cavern of late, for
without him, she eschews all
things warm--for she knows
he must be freezing in the
cruel ground where he fell

(Spartanburg, South Carolina, Winter, 1863)

I looked into his eyes
not knowing if he had
a reciprocal vision

no doubt he smelled me; his
sense of scent more developed than
we sluggish two legged beasts

for each step I took
back, he took one forward, our
synchronized death dance

if by chance, I survived
my feckless faith would not
be revived

after all, I had a shotgun
pointed at his noble chest; without
my terrible tool of modernity
I would be his feral feast

when my deed was done
and this creature was supine,
desecrated by the fearful squeeze
of my finger

which God would I thank?
the one man wrote into existence
to allay all mortal fears

or the one I believe carved
canyons from stone, the one who
knew river life was flowing in
every newborn raven's heart

from which one should I dread
retribution for such a profane act?
which would punish me for the slaughter,
the scarlet blood in the pure white snow?

both--both would have seen,
both would have known, the tyranny
of evil men--me, all my brothers cast from
Eden--such a ******* of stardust

on the trail today,
I thought of something
I wanted to say

I told myself
I would remember, but
nothing's there

perhaps I wanted
to mention I had seen
a dozen bikes

peddlers whizzing by under 
cloudless sky, with no whipping
winds to ****** them

where the prairie's rude
riding gusts were hiding,
I do not claim to know

wherever they chose to go
their sabbatical left surface
waters calm, blue

but that's not what I had to
tell you--tales of cyclists unperturbed
by a stiff breeze

i said i wouldn't forget
and yet, here I am rambling,
scrambling to recall

what inspired me most
of all: not nascent blossoms or
butterfly wings, of all things

but the absence of an invisible
symphony, a silenced howling from
the sky's spectral lungs

i said i wouldn't forget; tomorrow
surely the winds will blow, and I will
catch whatever they meant to say

***** and he
make their way
across the stretch
of sand

behind them,
the hard rock land
of memory

the crustaceans
will return--the tides
their clock

not he;
this march
is his last,
waves will
swallow him
gag him

while he briefly
forgets his purpose  
and clings to
this world;

soon though,
his lungs with fill
he will sink
to depths:

a blue burial,
a seaweed symphony
his dirge

the ***** return,
but not he--the ebb and flood
of waters no longer
his province

(poem's image: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1174175556043500&set;=a.102525519875181.1742.100003531994461&type;=3&theater;¬if;t=like¬if;id=14914495906541620

gold, round
it has felt a thousand hands
in sixty years

tomorrow it will be
replaced, the dead door
along with it

the old brass globe
knows nothing of gentrification;
its desecration of memory:

the carpenter who bore its hole
the first child to turn the **** to play;
the last man to yank it in anger

when he felt the bowels of defeat,
the bane of bankruptcy--the effluent epiphany
of eviction

how many tales began with
the spinning of the circle, the opening
of the door, letting in the light

tomorrow, and tomorrow, the door,
the handle, will rest in the landfill, the
graveyard of myriad doorknobs

all with their own stories of auspicious
beginnings, mysterious twists and turns--
plots thickened by the hands of time

coyote yelping helps;
the winds, too, distract him
from the now

the Comanche who
put the arrow in his back
lays beside him

gone before him;
that is condign comfort
to him

he cannot speak, nor move
his tongue, but he smells the
*****, the creosote

he sees the clouds,
stingy white whiffs in a hot
summer sky

as good a day to die
as any he reckons, and
he feels no pain

again the yelping,
closer now -- are they talking
about him?

will they beat the buzzards
to his body? would they begin their
feast while his eyes are yet open?

he closes them; the flapping of
the wings does not arouse him--he
knows they are on the Comanche

beaks and talons at work
he lets himself drift, content the
vultures are choosing the dead

but they fly off; the coyote pack
approaches--the pads of their paws
patter on the hard caliche

he lets himself sleep
dreaming now of sweet green grass
and good water

and the coyotes begin their work:
the ***** and he now a solitary offering
for the ravenous dogs

Teresa climbs on the bus
before the sun, if she has
the fare

to get there, where she
makes the bread; she's been at this
two of her nineteen years  

yet she has fears, they will
come for her--green card or not;
though they like her rolls

she kneads the big *****, pulls,
pinches, a sculpting of dough, a laying
of trays, one after another

then, from the Iglesias,
they come, decked in their finery
though she does not see

she only hears the litany
of language she can't comprehend,
a clanging of trays, laughter

the urging of the jefe to work
faster, bake the bread; the communion
wafers did not fill them

now they are here, breaking fast,
forgetting the words they just heard
the songs they sang

Teresa does not complain; she
is glad to feed the worshipers, though
they will never know her name

nor will they stop for
her in the pouring rain,
the blistering sun

Teresa never wavers
next Sabbath will be the same:
dawn, the dough, the oven

it is the work--her hands
which make the bread others break,
the grace granted to serve

holy, holy, holy...

Langston* said what happens
when dreams don't come true:
they fester, stink, or explode

but hell, hear what I say
colored girls ain't got no dreams,
what we got is schemes to make it
from here 'til tomorrow

and we don't drown saggin'
sorrow in gin, or the big H--least ways
not all of us do

it's true, the man done piled
on ****, high as it can be stacked on us
but we don't all ride no pity bus

the streets don't weep for the weak
or those of us who spread our legs to get us
a baby--a toy all our own

cause when he's all grown, he ain't
goin' be there to fill our empty bellies
or make us proud

so go on say it loud:
black girls don't need nobody
show 'em the way

and one day, we goin'
take what's ours--we just don't expect
to reach for no stars

we be fine with settlin'
for someone callin' us by name
and not feelin' no **** shame

Covenant Avenue, Harlem, 1968

fine Furhman's Funeral Home
used the best alchemy money could
buy, to keep her flesh fresh

and a master seamstress
sewed her wicked wounds so not
a single soul could see

she was stabbed forty times
from her rubicund cheeks to her
pedicured toes

Furhman's was the best, above
the mediocre rest, in gifting mourners
with a pleasant view

when I got their bill in the mail
it had an itemized list, which included
a charge I had to contest

not because of penury or pettiness
for I am a wealthy weeping father, but
I couldn't see spending a red dime

for crimson polish they painted
on dead toes, slid in slick hose, and
hid in patent leather shoes

my wife said write a check for the
full amount, crying this was not about
what we the living could yet see

Baton Rouge, April, 1989

I see black ones, white ones,
tall ones, short ones

the stops have no benches;
only signs, saying:

we stop here, to ****** you peasants
from the mean streets

some lean on the poles, weary
of waiting for their ride

or the winning lottery ticket
they dream of buying

others hunker, if their knees
still allow such a stance

or by chance, pride doesn't
keep them upright

the last one I saw was curled
in fetal repose

dead or just resting, preparing
for a new beginning?

I will never know, for I didn't
stop, at the bus stop

but I'm with them, traveling hope's
haggard, hapless highway

from the bank
I see the ghost of a pier
old posts standing solitaire
a ramp rotted, long gone

moored to one stubborn beam,
a bass boat, tethered to time, rocking
with the whims of the waters
fickle, but steady

storms upriver may hasten
the current, bloat the stream
though the flow never ends,
lapping against the hull

hiding inside are more ghosts:
phantom footfalls of fishermen,
odors as old as Eden, sounds
which once made songs

by those who cranked the motor,
manned the rudder and cast the lines
into the depths, seeking a tug--a pull
that meant dinner, a small success

a simple surrender of one species
to another, from beneath the surface
into the sun, a sublime suffocation,
then stillness before the gutting

many a day ended this way
the boat buoyed again to the dock
bellies then filled from the sacrifice,
the waters licking long the wood

he shoulders shame
carrying the weight of the dead,
slung over him

partnering with gravity,
these memory moguls slow him down
though he keeps trudging

when one drops, another
takes his place -- first his father, then
a brother, stillborn

not half the weight of a stone,
yet his carcass bends his back
like any full grown beast

for he did not weep
with his mother when its blue soul
was yanked from her womb

nor did he shed a tear
when his father's heart gave out
a billion beats too soon

when he forgets his sins as son  
he recalls another one--the boy he
slew on a brown river's bank;

floating still in the Mekong, riddled
with the rifle's rabid rounds, he often catches
a ride in memory's stream

leading a relay team of shame shifters
he carries with him every step, though
the world sees him walk alone

in black sky above us, the shreiks
of the shells cut the air, sharp, until
the dreaded booms which tell us
how close

how close the rounds landed
to our trench, where we hunker, drenched
in dreck, mud and blood, an unwilling
audience to this martial symphony

screams stream skyward
and comingle with the next volley,
a cacophonous courtship of vibrations,
invisible, but we know it's there

a miserable marriage of metal
and flesh--monkeys made into men
who ****** their own; who are determined
to sing these sour songs

when the lobbies stop, the only sounds
are the winds, the ones which will gently carry
the sounds of men moaning, crying,
praying for silence

through her window, she watched
sun shafts through the trees, a transient
tapestry on her potholed lane

a half dozen eggs sat beside her bowl
ready to be beat for the scramble; a half dozen
hours after her street was alight with noise

first the pernicious pop of the zip guns
then the cops '38s; then the howling of the
sirens, the howling of the survivors

mostly Chico's mama and sister
who watched him gunned down, and tried to plug
his half dozen holes with their hands

the street doesn't remember, she thought,
even with a biography of black blood dried
in its cracks and crevices

if it did, surely it would protest, or
make a solemn sound when the dawn shed
all that honest light on dark death

she cracked the eggs, put them
in the hot lard, not bothering with the bowl
breaking yolks blindly in the black skillet

two standing on the prairie,
shovels in hand--a third at their feet;
he knows no haste, but the diggers do,
for the sun is rising higher, hotter

the herd, the other hands
are plodding north, only their dust
left in the morning sky; the caliche
is baked hard, waiting

for the shovels to dig
a shallow grave, unmarked,
though there is a lone flower,
yellow against a gray plain

the blossom will be his headstone, until
its roots take their last drink, its stem withers,
its petals fall to the earth, and a wild
wind song becomes their dirge

for John, it came with
the raucous roar of crowds when he scored
the winning touchdown; for Willie,
when he drove in the final run

for Paul, it came when he charged
a *** bunker on a chunk of rock from hell
he heard no applause--only the rat-tat-tat
of the gun that mowed him down

for Anna, it came with no
sound and fury; only a gentle thank you kiss
from her girl who told her she had been
the best mother in the world

for Rafael, his final hurrah was humble:
a smile from the lady who handed him his last check
after he mopped his last floor, cleaned his final
porcelain bowl, after a patient half century

for me, I don't know when it will be...
perhaps it occurred long ago, in an arena
or on a field I didn't recognize as a place of honor
or perchance tomorrow, when I learn to die

that's the road trip
the boy wanted, once he discovered
the universe was that big

he asked Dad, the closest
god he could find, what was outside
that 93 billion light years

the father did not know
but was open to the notion vast space
was but a bubble

one the lad saw in his bath water
the night before; a mystic mass the boy tried to grasp
but vanished with a finger's touch

the curs keep on coming
the crowds keep on chanting

the arena is not grand
emperors do not watch

as blood sprays the plywood
walls thrown up to pen these pits

in their epic struggle to
keep blackness from overcoming them

the spitting spectators
long ago lost their souls

now there is only survival
of the meanest bull in the ring

and the resentful surrender
of a few bucks, if their dog loses

and the removal of the dead  
while the blood dries, and the next beasts snarl

spikes on graph paper
a biography of the earth's
distracted driving

masses merging with another:
hostile takeovers of stone; skyscrapers crumble,
choking apocalyptic dust in their wake

then tsunamis soar,
a fierce baptismal; my mountain home
spared the deluge though

inside, the family's china escaped
from its cabinet, only to be gravity's meal
and shatter in shards myriad

one serving dish survived,
flesh from the lamb filled it, steaming
only a fortnight ago

we'll buy new plates, ones
that will remain in silent stacks, until
another festive event

or until the seismograph records
another jagged jump, scribing one more tale
of earth's lamentable tensions released

he sat bedside with his great grandmother
stroking a hand laced with what he saw as
tiny blue rivers, flowing from a thin wrist
dammed by ancient knuckles

boulders chiseled by eighty-four years

he read from his book while Mommy
dozed in the chair, and nurses squeaked
in and out, all with half smiles he could
not decipher, for Grammy was sick

and when his mother was awake, she cried

he hadn't seen her tears before;
he tried not to look, preferring his book
with its pictures of the sun, orbiting
planets and mazy moons

and spaces in between where heaven might hide

he understood most of its words,
and none were of heavens--unless noxious gasses
and swirling clouds of dust were the winds which
whipped through the pearly gates

but his seven wise years knew that was not so

when he turned to the page of the
penultimate planet from the sun,YOU-ruh-nuss
he discovered it took four score and four years
to orbit our star once

math's mystery may have eluded him

though coincidence was not yet
in his lexicon, and now he knew Grammy
had her times around the sun, her eighty four
equaling one for the great tilting Uranus

a refugee from Yale, and the stale stench
of old money, he took a job with the park service

where he maintained outhouses,
and got high in the cover of cottonwoods

this crap crew job gave him no
deferment from the draft, so he landed in Can Tho

he didn't clean outhouses there--little people did,
stirring his dreck in burning diesel for 75 cents a day

when his Huey was shot down in the
Mekong, only he and his door gunner survived

they hid, submerged in paddies until dark
hearing faint but ferocious voices of the VC

who never found them--and they made the
miracle mile back to base camp, covered in muck

that smelled like dung; a scent that stuck
with him in dreams, no matter how much he bathed

when he came home, he again labored
for the forest service, and asked for ******* duty

fearing if he lost the smell,
he would lose himself as well






.

at the first Missouri rest stop
on I-44, I stopped to ***, to walk
and to listen to strangers

this had been my habit of late
of late being the last ten years, since
I lost her, and sojourned solo

on the move, I would catch snippets:
a "this potato salad is stale," complaint
or a "I don't want to drive" protest

on this June day--summer solstice
I got lucky, for a couple spoke loudly
and I was hidden behind a fat oak

"I'm not going to have this child."
"You don't get to decide alone. It's --"
"No, it's not and it's my body!"

then he jumped up from the table
and marched mad steps to his Mercedes;
it was a royal red

and the hue matters not
to most of you, but it figures
clearly in my rear view

headed east again after I heard
what I was not intended to hear, I could
yet see them just behind my eyes

he, trying in vain to explain
that a few cells mattered--her muscularly
clinging to a convenient cleansing

their words echoing in my head
and in the blood red coach that carried
them east, to uncharted malaise

flung in the back of the '55
Chevy like another suitcase
the child knew not where they were going
only that they had been there before

more than once, when Daddy's
drink turned to anger, and anger
turned to fists pounding a boss
and another job was lost

and the child would again see
the lights of the town vanish: he, the car,
his preternaturally silent momma, his hung over
father would become part of the night

another flight, this time from Gallup
New Mexico, where Daddy had tried
to out drink every Navajo in every bar
and almost did

on these nocturnal hegiras, the child
would lie and stare at the headliner--the round
dome light a faint moon against
a mysterious sky

beams from passing cars
would roll across his otherwise
empty constellation, transforming dark
matter into fleeting nebulae

this, his wide world, while a slow
clock spun, and tires hummed, eternally,
until his father announced where they
were going this time

Iowa, a place the child
conflated with Ohio, vowel sounds
similar, soft and more meaningful than
marks on maps--Cedar something...

Cedar Rapids, and the child knew rapid
and rapid meant fast and fast meant soon, only
a few more saturnine stars around his dome
light moon, soon