On this good night, love calls me home.
Unsure if I deserve so fine
A place, not knowing anywhere
That well compares, I'd call with eights,
Displaying Aces, Paradise
Still on the table.  Who needs God's
Mansions, I'll stay here, with leaky
Roof and broken window, cats, dogs,
Unkindness of ravens across
The street, with whom I've struck up a
Conversation.  Breviloquent,
As always, they only want us
To know, despite the harsh rumors,
They really do love their children.

Is it weak to say I don't know
What I am without you?  Can't think
How the sun will continue its
Illusion, or how the waters
Will divide for my safe passage?
How to make it through the minefield
Of memories, or the maze that
Starts sometime before the morning?
It's hard to wear an expression,
How to find one less unnerving
Than my own reflection.  I guess
That's why the followers of God
Make black the mirrors.  But I see
Nothing anywhere except you.

My friend John, who saw through
His preacher dad's Presbyterianism
By the time he was fifteen,
Still searches for unicorns,
Keeps his metal detector ready
By his underwear drawer
And last night dreamed
He was Marco Polo.
Imagine his surprise this morning,
This very morning,
Pulling out his favourite boxer's, black silk,
Extra large with the yellow
Batman logo,
And there behind them--
No idea how long it had been there--
A smiling rhinoceros.

There's nothing left to say tonight,
No words that aren't worn out or bruised
Beyond a useful harkening.
Still sirens cast their subtle spells,
Confusing sailors with a song
No more dependent on the verbs
Than parrots or chrysanthemums,
Seducing all that aren't tied fast
To wooden poles or ancient scrolls.
Jack Kennedy, Jack Kerouac,
Where are you when the road goes on?
Our country is no summerland.
Heat bakes dry ground and cuts off breath.
The earth receives its offering.

The rain cooled things down, what had been
Hot afternoon yielding to birds,
A squirrel on the wood border fence
And us, in still life on the porch.

This old contraption left behind,
Instructions lost or put away
In places not remembered now--
Our leaders having shuffled faith
Or folded it conveniently
Inside America's new cross
That ratchets dreamers off stage right-Still works.  A dab of lubricant
And here we go, chain links advanced,
Cranks jamming thumbs of volunteers.
Let's take it to the county seat
In broad daylight, democracy
In need of several days good work.
Old monuments don't move themselves.

We've been through Telemann and Talking Heads this morning,
Tubes and Zoso all archived and streaming--
Last year's peaches.
This afternoon I'm reading
Eliot, and after that some Ellison,
Invisible.
I miss the small town circus
Of the evening; sawdust, tents
And cheesy acts that sold
The tickets,
A high wire act escaped from
Someone's senior prom,
Sad clown who's done his act
Since Richard Nixon's second term.
Not the greatest show on earth but good
For a night out with the kids,
Who might rather be at a Kiss concert.
They've not come to this small town,
But Bob Dylan did
And everyone, almost, was
Disappointed when he didn't do
His greatest hits.