Inside this wilderness I wait,
Temptation having ample time
To waste suggesting miracles
That my misguided mind should want--
Delight consumes my will, my thoughts
No longer innocent at hint
Of your return, your lips that part
Expectantly, so long ignored.
Your errant latitude so long
Endured, I  promise nothing more
As evidence than things you know
Already to be true, your steps
Adjusting to the dark where I
Have stumbled lacking even words.

Quiet Saturday in April,
Sliced inbetween the sacred days--
Black eyes of the cave dwellers son,
Stone sealed and no longer breathing.
Reerection of the temple,
A barn raising, takes its sure course
Among the sunburnt carpenters
Whose hammers were inherited.
Should anyone be left behind,
As everyone is leaving soon?
Not even leaving--remaining.
Such useless information should
Perhaps be left untrumpeted,
Old news just mentioned in passing.

As if an illness
Long endured
Lost its grip,
You have that feeling--
Seeing your own self clearly--
Of new life,
Not looking back.

She raised good vegetables,
Named the barn cat Bluebell,
But never let it come inside,
Swept her husband's shoulders clean
Of sawdust every weekday evening,
And Saturdays at noon.

He always called her mubber,
With obvious delight
That she had been persuaded
To choose him eventually
To father my father,
When times were lean.

She passed out chewing gum at church
To restless children,
Planted flowers and discouraged weeds,
And showed my father's only son
The way to stitch a toy horse--
Blue scrap cloth, foot-pedaled machine.

Smell of woodsmoke winter evenings
Makes me smile through tears,
As Peterson's piano
Knocks out C Jam Blues,
And that old horse
Sits sideways on the mantle.

March saw yellow flowers grow
And I transplanted them
Beneath the pines that lined the drive,
Amid advice they might not grow,
Which would have been the case,
Had she not watered them.

When someone leaves, their feet go first,
And she was there to see him go
Beside those flowers inbetween
Knotty pines and stacked firewood,
To lie in wait, outside of time,
Outside of spoken words.

The melting snow, the most in years,
Gives way now to those flowers,
Or the children of those flowers.

poor white out walking
too much beer and crystal
do cellphones flash like handguns
in the afternoon sun?
five bullets in his neck
grand jury understood
the deputy's decision
knew what the DA wanted
or didn't
the promotion to detective
came sooner
than might have been expected

the world has been held back
to see the shadows cast
where we might find something
unexpected and yet
useful a dropped gas cap
the thin plank from a fence
a couple of red rocks
to accent the flowers
planted by a lost friend

if freedom could be earned
then i might see the one
who brought me here
as someone i have loved
almost well enough
to recognize
in evenings when the stars and moon
are less apparent than the rain

dark goddess lover of the night
chaotic daughter even god
has feared give me the strength tonight
where wings of uriel may love
my undeserving tongue with song
releasing some new variant
to lodge beside what's lasted long
as any earthly supplicant
two boys beneath your slanted arms
bring mischief from the crescent moon
the dreamer and the end of dreams
let play long light in fecund june
late dark content to wait its turn
while chiseling upon the stone

some hidden cause breaks
fever soaking early afternoons
of still cold sun
days in the lovers' month

where seeing isn't quite
come past believing
would you ever or would i
find pitch dark path
so close the smell still moves

concealing all the consequence
of singularities spaced
where too easy crossfire
has no wheels
no combination
and no pleasure that's remembered

you no longer name this world
spent casings loosely scattered
guarantee no evidence
that i was ever in your eyes
imagining the sliding time
when snow fell on the wall
the street the lovely hill

buckled concrete rooted up
by           and
      oaks           elms
impassable in a chair
despite the full battery
she turns
retraces
finds steps this time
so it's into the street
the only way
to reach the square
to protest
the marble statue
now she's passed
by the pickups
with the flags
whose drivers
on their way
to guard the monument
guessing she is not on their side
hurl epithets
call her a lover
of that which they
in their ignorance
despise

white skin of winter
on my not quite old man legs
tells me i never
understand my brother's pain

instead of any other place
i'll take this one we've stumbled on
through our mistakes and what we've done
this cluttered sacred space
unscared to face the universe
or even time's misgiven hell
as come and go long winters' chill
rehearsal of the obvious
your unrepentant love is all
the paradise i apprehend
though do not say i understand
how spirit cares to make its call
wake up these old but willing bones
i'll sing your praise in quarter tones

tonight we have good wine good song
no talk of any old remorse
no judgment of the the things gone wrong
just life encouraged on its course
such courage as siddhartha shared
outside the gates on any road
that anyone could take who cared
to ease a pilgrim's heavy load
eavesdropping on the universe
sad echo by the waterside
whose pleasure falls denied and cursed
you come to me another's bride
unsatisfied and passionate
your trembling lips so delicate

slide down impulsive lover spring
give succor to my ailing soul
i'll not repent the imaging
of soft mayflowers round the pole
some sweet & innocent warm air
you make where my recovery
in seasons that do not despair
remaking ground from aspen tree
mercuric goddess come again
that i may find that hidden song
discover what should long have been
pure joy which comes where you belong
reclaim slick pleasure summers bring
accept my ardent reckoning

you wouldnt know why would you know
to see him wearing cardigans
from pampered lambs and leather shoes
exported by italians
her eyes disguised by powdered base
and shimmer that accentuates
unbruised remainders of her face
that they had argued very late
designer shades pulled forward strands
a matte upon discolored neck
conceals the pattern of his hands
white hat long earrings misdirect
our short attention from the fact
that silence speaks repeated act

straight up this middle of the night
awakening and jotting course
its pull a pattern not much worse
than habits said to risk good sight
long hours with our sin displaced
responsibility in dreams
dealt more than winking jack's and queens
by some grim counter of the days
this steady need to find a lost
connection to the human cant
leaves games hard played with thinking bent
against all necessary cost
slip out your unrepenting tongue
by which dark mysteries get sung

should i in love expose my heart
as you decline to recognize
this stiff endurance is an art
such long consideration lies
in measures laid out on the sheets
in melancholic midnight trysts
in black and white in crooked beats
in my misgivings mortal lists
be in this day a flowering
of all that's sown before the sun
a wager on the coming spring
where coverings are all undone
what slithers through your southern lips
it's own hard way finds heaven's slips

at loneliness the edge defies
a gentle passage i no more
than you can bear the silent core
of what accepts and what denies
disintegration through cold space
a meeting on no other side
no ticket for another ride
no place to taste much less embrace
so think of less than death tonight
hubristic thief of borrowed time
think more by our edenic crime
swept loose in this romantic light
your lips can speak the truth or lies
to say much more would not be wise

pray tell me all your plans tonight
that I may live in them again
past president future running tight
as i most fortunate of men
rehearse this eve of your return
with staggering redemptive lust
for what we still have need to learn
before the ashes and the dust
i'll count the days i'll sing love songs
just let me know i hold your heart
the sun itself no more belongs
in mornings where we're left apart
imagine my insane embrace
when you return to haunt this place

This passage will not steer you sane
Or mend the dread insomnia
Won't dull the existential pain

Or promise heaven hears you call
A comforter no just these streets
Whose long acquaintance seeing all

The butts tossed down the crooked beats
That question every soul tonight
Who takes a step and then repeats

The essence of some second sight
Of mortal blood that cleans the stain
Of what is measured wrong or right

With blue ink borrowed you remain
As white frost settles in the lane

While we're here, come in,
Keep talking.  I can listen,
If nothing else
Explain what you want
I'll keep the music down
If I close my eyes it doesn't mean I'm not
Hearing you
Help yourself to anything--
I'd check the expirations
If you want to slip out during the night
Just pull the door closed
I don't worry that much about it being locked
Anymore, but while you're here
Tell me all about yourself

The blue bear lying on its side
In the dumpster, atop the trash
Was meant for Kevin, apartment
Seven on the second storey,
Whose father came by but was not
Let in because an argument
Developed over missed payments
He admitted he should have made,
And wished he could have made, eight bucks
An hour and staying clean not
Being enough to pay his rent,
Restitution on the damaged
Trailer where he used to cook ****,
And avoid the repossession
Of his pickup truck.  Later he
Calls her, his baby mom, and asks
About Kevin, and if he can
Come back around, now that they've both
Had time to calm down, with the cash
He got for Christmas from his own
Dad, a little less than half what
He owes, but enough to help out,
And also, if she doesn't mind,
Since he'll be a minute getting
Back, will she go downstairs and check
The dumpster to see if the bear
Might yet be rescued and restored.

If we were less impermanent,
We'd forge our nails as hard as god,
Whose only child had kinder skin,
And veins cascading mortal blood.
The straightened line must have an end,
Entropic and irreverent
As any long expected wind,
Ill-suited to the penitent,
And those alike, whose stoic gaze
Accepts the loss of thought and dream--
All aenema a passing phase--
A balanced crossing on a beam.
Forgive me if I say again,
Come touch the wound, come taste the skin.

And in the new world, were you whole?
Or was it just another day
Of innuendo, particles rearranged
And your feet on different sidewalks
As you made your way each morning
To the new job, came home at night
To the new man, new inside jokes
And less accumulated pain?
Steve was a good man but he broke
Your girlish heart beyond repair
By losing interest in your touch,
And everything is touch, is tongues
And grooves and pieces of puzzles
That once seemed almost together.

Long conversations are in order now,
This unrelenting season of decline,
Spent rearranging petals on the bough,
As pound for pound you always held your wine.
So come again and sit outside with me,
Beside the fire or under falling leaves.
I've never stopped imagining us free
To well regard the spider as she weaves,
Or god theirself though seldom ever pleased
By sacrificial gestures brought halfway,
Sick flowers you might save from their disease.
Eventually of course we've hell to pay.
So never mind the words I fail to say.
We'll find some comely mortal way to pray.

She always needed cigarets.
I'd put on shoes and start the truck,
Allow the heater time to warm,
Then she'd get in, barefoot and drunk.
I didn't care what argument
They'd had, just that she'd come again.
Some nights we only talked, or watched
Some cheesy movie, rom coms or
One night I put in Annie Hall,
Because she'd never seen it and
We made love.  She  missed the  lobster scene,
So I  switched it back once I could
Move and she stayed till morning, not
Sure if she could go back again.

Something resists understanding
The early exit of a friend.
I do believe in accidents,
The unpopular opinions
Of poets, children and lost dogs,
Finding anything but false hope
A good reason to continue,
Without the promise of success.
Her beautiful smile and the dog
She loved gave up life together.
Now you and I sleep fitfully,
Foresworn to secret shatterings.
No use to speak of mercy, God's
Own grim partner rakes the land.

Her kindness outshines all the words
I've ever heard, makes mockery
Of all the efforts and rewards
Of soporific poetry,
Or even inspiration's spawn.
I'd give up language casually,
To lie beside her on that lawn
Believers reckon victory.
But this is not the world's release,
The dust that Genesis laid down,
When all our toils and sorrows cease.
So I'll forsake the starry crown,
For life's uncertain pilgrim's lease,
Renewed each time I see her face.

When I awaken, inevitably,
In the middle of the night, the black cat,
His slender, aged frame beneath my feet,
Accompanies me to the Frigidaire
Where his food sets waiting in a tin can
Outside of time and space and just beside
My next stop, the modest lavatory,
So good to have inside at three a.m.
On a winter's night, then comes to my chair,
Found outside on the sidewalk, improvement
On the one before, and sits on its arm,
My partner sleeping on the other side,
Stretched out on the sofa, infirm but loved,
As I graft another line on St. James.

You may be patient but the dream
has little need of time tonight,
collapsing any measure deemed
sufficient for the tempter's height,
slow leaving questions in its wake,
crisp flavors of the early frost
on carvings that the children make
in stone & fruit or newel post,
abrupt cessation of the slide
down slanted stairs at harvest time,
when color has no place to hide
and reason sees no need to rhyme.
We'll soon enough lay down the dream,
releasing it to what it means.

I just want to be here by you,
On brisk October evenings,
A glass half full of dry red wine,
Good records playing Miles Ahead
And some extended rhapsody
Laid down by bodhisattvas who,
In studios or concert halls,
Or even football stadiums,
Found paradise and brought some back,
So we could share this lovers' gaze
And spell these words that someone else
Not here tonight might read as if
The world has loved us all somehow,
In stories & in tones of blue.

If words could transport, you'd be here,
Come south again romantically,
With Amorous Particulars,
To whisper most emphatically,
Your quil gon penetrate the veil.
Good English words cannot define
The love you sing, the way you wail
This canted language of the vine.
I'll wet your lips with syllables
Your other wouldn't understand.
Come taste new pleasures, break some rules,
And move until you come undone.
These bits well moisten underthings,
Come be my love, unsheath your wings.

The almost perfect story chose
A lamb for innocence of blood,
A dogwood post for martyr's pose,
Survivors from an ancient flood.
God's daughter would have questioned him,
Regarding some original
Temptation hanging from a limb,
That led to such a horrid fall.
What makes you think you're always right?
Who gave you birth? You honor her?
Have you no doubt on Friday night
A miracle will soon occur?
Your son's obedience is fine,
But he got his & I got mine.

If all desire is paradox,
Explain to me this history
Hard taught with combination locks,
Their tumblers still a mystery
That won't be picked till victory
Of rolling stone & empty box,
A complicated armory
Of spinning tops and winding clocks.
Your scaffolding is quite sincere,
And yet I choose some other way
To steal a message not quite clear
From thoughts I find no way to say.
As three a.m. comes round again,
I don't know why, or where I've been.

I

It's true I volunteered tonight
To be the village Idiot,
The competition--not that swift--
Left me the darkness as a gift,
While I accepted as a fool
Who couldn't quite be tamed by school,
Or taught what others seem to get--
A prayer book full of lineament.
Lines coming off the crescent moon
Slant in this open-windowed room
The light that finds its way to me
Has burned already, coming lean.
A soldier kneels and scoops the stream.
I've brought along this old canteen.

                               II

Start again woman, again go up
With your sacrifice
And say the longer truth
Of what it means
To be conceived with sin
Or close in its shadow.
Whose right to summon the old demons
Of hysteria and bleached rags?
I'll meet you when we've lost our way,
And can't make sense of words we've brought
Down from the mountainous moon.


                                III

You could not have known how
My mistakes and yours were good
Enough as decisions go,
Or why we could endure
The minstrel path that's come
Upon us, unclear if it's
A back road  or a boulevard
Until a destination
Approaches.


                           IV

The  notebook of the imbecile,
With its pages missing,
Is scripturally infused.

Come into the moonlight prepared
To be dressed down
By its innocence.


                              V

May I  ask if it's different--
Really, oddly not the same--
When you find yourself
So far north that your accent
Is a definition?


                              VI


How much light does it take
To distinguish the way
You've put yourself together?
I recognize you miles away,
In total darkness
Do you understand?
I didn't even know.


                             VII

This frightened fool well
Versed but lacking comprehension
Could live beneath your scorn
Until you grant reprieve.
Forgive my patient lingering,
If secretly you're glad I'm here,
In contrast to your misplaced bed.


                             VIII

Perplexed by the fright
Of your return,
What if what you needed
Wasn't love
Or it wasn't enough
And you were more aware of it than I?


                             IX

The spot we made for landing
Wasn't clear.  You somehow
Understood this while I
Jumbled the exit,
Calling you a mythical creation.


                               X

I love to come from this smiling
In your beautiful teeth,
Between your lips a flower
Not even knowing you were here
And then so long confused
At who you are--pent.
It frightens me in ways I shall
Never describe
Outside my dreams to see you again.

a couple times i've been too drunk
to appreciate anything
more than hugging a toilet bowl
and let me say the whisky no
matter how it's been aged tastes bad
in the wrong direction woman
and a love gone backwards cuts worse
than cheap scotch coming up again
yet i love those wasted evenings
even screaming stupid curses
and the sail boat runs and hot tubs
in the snow when no one knew the
future any more than we could
step up ladders to a distant star

supposing there's a group house or
mansions, cabins, possibly tents
I'm sure my dad would pass those up
for timber and a good toolbox
a Husqvarna° power saw
what we called chainsaws and a Skil°
saw, also known as power saw
down here where dinner's had at noon
myself in syncopating spurts,
small deaths & dancing verbs likewise
would choose to build some sheltering
of flesh transcribed, raw hewn with tools
inadequate to make a stand,
but you know what i mean again

Those nights when I lost consciousness
Embracing wayward women who
Would soon be somewhere else are blessed
Among the things I chose to do.
I don't repent my so-called sins,
The hours spent on wine stained sheets,
Long nights and mornings that transcend
Departures & ****** up defeats,
Still set  my tongue on paradise,
Yeah you got yours & I got mine,
& fools rush in right past the wise--
But oh how those dark evenings shine.
I'd go through hell and back again
To taste those lips, spring wide those shins.

The fat white man on the court square
Calls out at the white college girls
Who have joined the demonstrators
Gathered around Robert E. Lee,
Rock image of hero/traitor
While a black man passionately
Speaks of the need to move the stone
To a more appropriate place.
The elegance of the moment
Is shattered by the white man's words,
Born of fear but nevertheless
Shameful, emblematic, obscene.
These daughters of the commonwealth,
"You ******, n- loving ******."

stop measuring success by suicides,
imparting accidents with intentions
as if we had 2 choices to decide
or could on whim correct all convictions,
a double-edged word if there ever was one
my letters left unanswered w/yr prayers--
both treading water til dark evening's done,
with all its implications and affairs.
i couldn't be more honest if i tried,
while you, your dark and obfuscating eyes
come back with all the reasons you have lied
and i, of course, have given up surprise.
it doesn't matter lately who's on top.
your screaming has a most delightful stop.

when im thinking what i want to do next
wednesday, when i have enough pills put back
to make an honest effort at repeal
i remember all the suicidal
sick poets I keep reading every night
or listening in the case of  musicians
with a 6 pack & a 1/5 of whiskey
or whisky that won't last the night
good morning, or at least good day, i try
to remind myself--what the **** is that?
but anyhow, got some inspiration
from the sound of yr voice on the cell phone
come lie again beside me here my love
can't help recalling you fit like...
.

Who knows, as the evening coughs and starts,
What thing will call attention to itself--
Some poem or the fire, or the window
That breaks in shards as Randy collapses
Through it, having held his whisky as well
As a groundskeeper can be expected
On a fall evening to hold whisky,
Finding himself inadvertently now
Bleeding on the bedroom floor of Nora,
Beside the bed where she lies *******
Sam and another guy whose name he can't
Remember but has seen somewhere before
As parties tend to run together more.
He lets himself outside the bedroom door.

The green leaves fluttering against the blue sky
Where the moon has lately been,
Unapproachable beauty
On slanted branches
                         synergistically arranged,
My cranial nerves reflecting
What has been shot forth
In such profusion
As to lift
A humble soul.

no way to pay the city bills
and not much reason anymore
the turn of the key the lock's click
step back inside her mother's house
who'd tried hard to wait up but slept
instead in the small recliner
the television left on low
with food still warm in the oven
next morning unpacking her truck
she speaks to the neighbors next door
says it just didn't work out well
she saves the long story for me
brings pizza and knows i'll have beer
enough to go back twenty years

America, these unconventional
Blues got bags and stretchers
For the blue light special,
Chalk for the teachers
Of the wrong kind of freedom
My old co-worker from
The sawmill days
Steers a riverrun now,
Tugs barges through
The stations of the
Mississippi bridges,
Writes on FB
These protesters should
Get a job
So we don't pay
For their cell phones and health care,
Bullet wounds and bad decisions
Like the color of
Their parents
And the shape
Of their skulls
Phrenologically
Speaking.
He's got no ear for the music,
America's Blues,
Just get off the street
Son, it's yr own
Fault if yr head
Gets Kracked
Or yr shot in the back
By the Blues.
He'll vote for law,
Pardon vigilantes
And fire those *******
Millionaires that dare
To take a knee
Or fail to play the game.

when she begins to tell me this
im sure ive known it all along
four tours as a tank commander
could be to blame for how he  changed
from someone who respected her
and taught two boys to say their prayers
to fists and angry eyes night moves
and never any more desire
she packed and left the army base
in a years old car with rusted
rear quarters and one headlight gone
victim to an aluminum
bat that once knocked two ***** over
the outfield fence as they looked on

The first thing we moved in, west coast
Or Mississippi, was speakers,
Then the amp and turntable.
That way we had music
As we pushed in the couch and chairs,
The kitchen table and sometimes
A television.  Magical
Evenings filled with despair followed,
Like cold on rain, and we shivered
As the inexperienced do.
I remember the train station
Floor in Monterey, Mexico,
My apologies
Among the vendors with their carts,
And good advice I got that night.
You like that watch?  Put it in your
Pocket.  But we were only young and dumb
Enough to leave home with traveler's
Checks and a taste for tequila,
Not like the families waiting now
For how long it takes the sheriff
To show up after the notice.

Because the morning has easier
Decisions, the old rise early,
Coming to our coffee and eggs
In bowed appreciation
Of the harvesters and hens,
Opening the paper
With bent fingers
And lowered expectations
Of good news, prepared
To see familiar departures
And a history of marriages
That have somehow survived.

If I  could do some other thing,
I'd take it up, unhesitant,
Give up this self defeating game
Of rugged words that finish slant,
Rip off the face of wind and sun,
Renounce expectant casuistry,
As if we'd really just begun--
No sacrificial history.
Whose will can ever be defined?
Forsaking words for altered skin,
Stretched tight enough to bend the lines,
Where like a thief the blues come in.
Such thinking born of hollow bones,
Whose yard collects a set of stones.

These blues ain't made their mind up yet,
If whiskey gets the night or pills.
Both call you on a sucker's bet,
That knocks you down before it kills.
Try standing in your lover's room,
The night she packed and left for good.
You ****** up one last time & Boom,
There ain't no woman where she stood.
Apologies wear out and ****
You used to get away with knocks
Your words outta your mouth and yet
There's no need now to lock the locks.
Who cares if someone robs you blind?
You got no life to leave behind.