she wanted more, then wanted less,
a finely tuned ambivalence--
great love songs written in her name,
crisp folded, flown inside the flame.
my inclination to persist
outweighed the wisdom to resist,
come hell, deep water and the past
(rearview the only looking glass)
still walking past the angels' steps,
a fool in nose deep long-legged depths,
uncertain of the punishment
for such a carnal,  tasty stunt.
she'll read this bittersweet as sin,
complaining at what's never been

That sound--that sound you hear
That makes you come alive,
That makes explosions + relief,
That blues broke down
In a  half-filled bar on Beale Street,
On an ordinary Wednesday night,
An ordinary woman
With dark curls and a small face,
Blue eyes, who walks in
Through the front door, past
Your table in a modest, patterned
Mid-length dress, pleasantly round,
Not tall and about your age
Or a little more
And you think maybe
She's come for the night shift,
Pouring drinks, serving
The occasional pizza, cheeseburger, wings
And steps instead onto the riser,
Nods to the band
And takes the microphone.


                        II

Old black guitar player Herman &
The trumpet player,
****** thin and white as flour,
Who accepts the occasional, ordinary
Hummer from your friend Jane--
Not Chet Baker but he's got
Chops--
An adequate sunburned drummer,
Double bass obscuring all but an Afro.


                         III

Smell of blue tobacco smoke,
With just a little ******
And in the dim light you reach out,
Put your hand on top of your lover's hand
As soon as you hear that sound,
Echoing Etta--Steal Away.
And then she parks the mic
Back on its stand and leaves,
And the glow of just lit
Cigarets
Is all the evidence
The evening needs.

If I could pray for something more
Each blessed day, it would be just
To always have the strength, endure
The arrows and the missing trust,
True potion from the mixing bowl
Of mine & yours and everyone's
Belief in any altered soul
That saves the nation's slaughtered sons
And daughters,  but that's not the world
We're here to see, and so this night,
As good as any, I lay curled
Inside the quickly passing light,
And praise the god who holds my hand,
She's always better than I am...

Smoky used to sell pills and write poems,
Had to make a living somehow, payments
For a disabled mind, combat ruined,
Being less than the cost of rent and food,
So he sold his prescriptions and then some,
A little bit of grass as well, and shrooms
He raised in a little closet, lived with
Two mutts that barked at every driveway tire.

He sold his El Camino, bought it back
Wrecked and hammered out the damage at night
In an old friend's shop on Bondo alley,
Turning down the **** observers offered,
Then lay down in its shallow bed, alone,
In a closed garage, with the motor on.

My thoughts should be
Arrested
But for lack
Of a reliable witness.
Forget memories,
However real they reconvene.
Dreams have no defense
In the morning
And I feel a difference,
Understanding love is mortal.

Am I the last man thinking words
Can overcome your hesitance,
May circumvent your maiden steel,
Too polished by your fingernails?
I'll drop your walls like Jericho,
If syllables can keep the beat,
And slide their music into you.
I'll wake your rhythm, legs askew.

Your skepticism's understood;
Good men are rare, a lot's been said,
So you go disappointment prone,
Distrusting things that you've been told,
Inhaling lines and downing wine,
Forgetting us, sublime--supine.

& would this or that have.made it better?

With eyes mistaking order for the truth,
Another generation
Scrubbed clean behind those eyes,
Teeth set on edge--
Should all the world be gained,
A poor exchange.
We gone these days, kingdom come again,
Dot arrives before the eye. Once more
The seeing could not convince.
You understand how
                            it is for anyone
Inconceivable
                                  to make a world
Of words
And yet
A paper-thin foundation
May be all
We have.

A pack of earnest individuals
Turned up at Tom's apartment for the wake;
Concupiscent philosophers intent
On explicating Wittgenstein and Kant,
And English post docs stuck somewhere in Joyce--
The river running through the lion's mouth--
A few of us on LSD, and Ron,
Blonde hair and chiseled, wistful midwest face,
Old granite in his rusted pickup bed,
Palimpsest still just traceable as Hall,
With d. and 18 something underneath,
Processing uphill in the cold dark night
To footsteps of the Hall of Languages,
Long climb of concrete steps, and parked his truck.
We clambered over sides and carried
That rock a little more than halfway up
Those daunting stairs that Delmore climbed in angst,
And Carver, breathing hard, in mourning for
America, romantic Reagan just
Elected president and my black dog,
As snow began to fall, just settling in.

She's not close tethered to the truth,
Considering the bone-filled cage
That closes quickly after youth,
Without the service of a sage.
So offer me the opening,
Your mind, your heart,  your lips below,
And join the ****** in mortal sin
That makes the lower regions glow.
Hard knowing when the noose is slack
Who'd slice it at their peril or
Who cuts and runs,  who's got your back
When things are too much to endure.
Allow me when you need to live,
To offer all I have to give.

dance in bright daylight
dance in the dark winter night
dance, time disappears

Not all the world is word, you dare to say.
And i can only nod, so slow to see
The difference, who even prayed, when prayer
Seemed possible, in punctuated breath.

The darkness in a country spreads,
Collects more space and settles in,
Asphyxiating kith and kin--
Kids slogging through the latest meds.

We deserve some affirmation,
Brighter rhythms, smiling faces,
Love & peace among all races--
Make again a grateful nation.

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.

if I would move out of your way
small good things oddly would appear
as I have ever less to say
and you could quell the late night fear
this mortal blanket tossed aside
quick ending of the fever dream
collapsing all our foolish pride
that separates us at the seam
sing now what you remember well
an old song of Kalliope
who shares the stories poets tell
born crying out of memory
i've cleared the space now find my head
so something better may be said

All colors and their absence mourn--
White page, black pen design the mind.
Bare bodies blow Gabe's copper horn.
They leave a twisted trail behind.
What's left unwrit is lionspeak,
Transcripted worse than poetry
Encaged in shops that smell and creak
From correlated symmetry.
Unbending letters, cold steel rails
Truss up irrelevant decrees,
But broken grammar jams and flails
From supplicants on what were knees
Aa ee ii o u
Come hear what's lost, spit out in blue.

What seems important?  Now is not
The time nor here the place of sand--
Annealed, reconstituted thought--
Neck high, yet claiming one free hand,
Spent youth a mandala released
In ardent love songs and defeats,
Old sorrows that have scant decreased,
Poured out in lines with bagua beats.
Your frame and mine, the scarred remains,
Fragmented, somehow holding on,
Against the new, the older pains,
The resevoir turned now to stone.
Shanti, shanti, shanti my love,
Do not look back, don't glare above.

She's got a new coat, rabbit fur,
She found marked down in mid July
In a strip mall consignment store.
She's wearing it at work tonight.
A new layer, first to come off
As she dances in bright, hot lights.
Washingtons, Lincolns and Jackson
Collect on a string drunks tug on.

At home she's got a girl and boy,
Who wait with grandma while she works,
Expecting she'll arrive with toys,
And bar food served with plastic forks.
It's Friday night, no school tomorrow.
She packs them in and starts the car.

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

My losses don't add up to much,
The way that I remember them--
Money, a girlfriend who could ****
Like the devil, fight like a mink,
Still does with another old man.
The abyss lies most before me
And I'm eyeing it like a sailor
Who's seen storms before but not this.

so far--
and you may laugh
at the idea,
i wouldn't
blame you--
i've not
found lines
fine enough
said
to bring you
out again
without
one
look back.
forgive me
my
persistence.

I chose a place you might find me,
Settled in and opened a road
Without making it too easy
Traveled,  waiting like some misplaced
Monk, who hasn't vowed to give up
Anything, knowing it would all be gone
In the devil's time and we'd sure
Have less to show for it all than
A preacher's feast on Sunday when
The prodigal daughter needed
A rededication and spoke
Her mind instead, saying this place
Could be Calvary, you know it
Maybe is.  I wouldn't be shocked.

She's not available for love,
Can't seem to find the place or time.
Seductions hold a hidden past--
Abandonment, a missing man,
Not interested enough to stay
One year, first year, first word, first step.
She wouldn't like me saying this,
Who came as close as anyone,
And yet remained outside of love,
Uncertain where her heart had gone.

the little flaws in reckoning
have set the mortal coil adrift
and leaving not that much to sing
while listening fifteen times tonight,
the slanted needle in Betsy
Reed, Richard still remembering
& triple G with dreams to see,
cashed in with too much sobering
for even gypsies sharing leaves
and not to sentence anyone
to nailed up fixtures holding thieves
alongside someone else's son,
where tears and blood are fountaining--
perhaps there is some more to bring.

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

not sleeping after too much *****,
coffee & bad news & lines
of questionable length
and meter
pushing to spill something
on the sheets
as if i were the arbiter
or at least a voice recognized.
this is our wilderness

My heart delights in your embrace,
Your cover for the multitude--
Insistence on a sacred place,
Where souls resurge in gratitude,
Accepting my outrageous mind
As easily as picture shows
That light the night as they unwind,
Amid the settling of crows.

I do not like you,  Donald Trump,
You're what they also call a ****.
Your life of crime is such a  shame.
You should go back to where you came.
Except they wouldn't have you there,
Not even if you comb your hair.
Disguise yourself as Putin's clown.
Sell out your country going down.

young suicides have spoken out
an echo from the lower rocks
bruised souls uncertain how to shout
or even listen to the clocks
celestial or most terrene
that ridicule the future past
armed crosses planted in between
young werthers with their futures cast
corrupted out of innocence
too soon to have the stoic eyes
unblinking into providence
rejecting even death's disguise
in words like these that slant the truth
poor folks palavering like brutes

The night Chet Baker died,
Dropping from a second floor balcony
Of the Prins Hendrick Hotel
In Amsterdam, we spent the night
In lover's arms,  a brief menage
Unstable as ozone
Or a note held
Past the point of breathing
And she, the young one entranced
By jazz and rock and blues,
Even poetry,
Wine & **** & wrinkled sheets
Said I must be
The happiest man in Kentucky
And briefly I was

What can be ever sung, a fraction of
The pain that's splintered on the sun & moon,
Ignoring Venus with her clouded cuff,
Swift Mercury in retrograde till June.
Red god of war, the ******, marches through
The stations of the terroristic cross,
As body counts become the evening news.
And Jove, enormous father,  albatross--
The rings that sing of sky & earth devoured
High sons of water & the underworld,
Anticipating wearily the hour,
The tenor of the unrelenting sword.
Should love be born again, how would we know?
The ocean offers secrets for the crow.

look close, the old world moldering,
unsightly damage year by year,
the yellow sun yet billowing,
indifferent to all we fear--
the sacred disappearing,  god
reduced to holding seances
behind an aging, thin facade
of emperors and witnesses,
whose outer dark is just the street
gaslit by hawkers selling shade
half guaranteed to stand the heat
on sidewalks chalked where children played,
as life gets marked down, sold by lots,
and mothers visit mounded plots

That scream of thought holds damaged wits
Responsible for absences
Long overlooked or spiked in fits
Of badly scattered witnesses,
Yourself the more exemplary--
If such sweet modesty allows--
For having landed here with me,
While others mouth consuming vows.
A useful god would not condemn
Such pecking at the heels of thought,
Unbowing to the seraphim,
Or even him the shepherds sought.
Tonight that child has much to grieve,
Whose mind has nothing left to leave.

All that can be said
                             is how unlikely
another word or two could change        
                       places underneath
all that has been said,
not counting evenings when
the same thing said did not
mean what it did
                            the night before.
I could be too certain.
             You could be too certain.
If we wanted the same thing,
                    how would we know?

i quicken, not for the ghostyard
but its house, whose monotheist
message,  the missionary's charge,
has long eclipsed the sacred mist
that birthed my sacrilegious soul,
which worships wood unscarred by nails-
cascading birch, midsummer pole--
a rotted stump the missing grail.
i've seen the sun come through the leaves
to wake the boys who stayed up late,
young satyrs with their lust relieved,
imagining the girls they'd date.
we had no parson preaching sin,
no other world to lose or win.

I like it here, between your ears,
Safe distance from the sin-packed world,
The careless way that words get heard,
If heard at all--not merely sold.
And why not celebrate the day,
Remainder of the speechless night,
Whose music gives cacophony,
Some slighter version of the void.
When all appearances be lost,
You have the nerve to listen still,
As I go searching for my voice,
Like stealing from a wishing well.
You mend my words like fractured bones
That pierce the silence coming home.

With no more thought than lovers give
To morning or the rising tide,
The future of the universe,
Or what it takes to tell the time,
The spectre covers all our bets--
The coins unseen, cash for the boat.
I'll not insist on innocence,
The taste of something not foretold.
Your wilderness has my regard,
Less charted than the deepest floor
Of any ocean riverfed,
Where rain is born again, again.
The beautiful need not delay
Such unrepentant leaves and wind.

sun slanting as the trail begins
a first rate region of the mind
this month of bringing harvest in,
of leaving summer days behind
occurs to me not unlikely
that the dog outside is a real
dog, tugging at the leash of she
who must be obeyed as the deal,
a shepherd mix and woman soft
of skin, dark hair, white leather shoes--
a third my age just old enough
to buy a cigarette & *****,
as if the magdalene had come
again and this world is my home

almost you know who you could be
aside from words with blue shavings,
scraps really,  importunately
curling through dark cool evenings
when i could never reach your full
attention,  nevermind affect
your wandering feet, constant pull
through fathomless,  sullen aspect,
humility my wooden tool--
by now quite nearly petrified,
as if you might embrace a fool
whose words were never qualified
for verses with steady beat,
pray yet you somehow love the heat

I call on Blake for energy,
And Dickinson for everything.
And you my dark and distant muse
For new directions, founding stones,
The resurrection of a shrine,
Where I, an idler, hear your song--
Asleep and dreaming or awake,
Imagining your warm return.
White feathers of the world descend
On you, clear-hearted child of Jove
And memory.  I made you smile
Once through the night.  I'll try again,
If you're inclined, if you recall
Just how it worked as we reclined.

Come back from darkness, find a light.
To anger show forgiveness, and
To accusation self control.
Surprise the world with honesty,
And clean the air, the earth of spite.
Give touch the holy place it needs,
And calm despair with love and hope.
Seek wisdom with the suffering,
Give truth a chance, don't hurry it,
And leave all hatred as you go.

when you were in my arms, I had
no thought, that rare condition sought
by mystics, dervishes and mad
and hungry painters staring off
at other suns' forsaken light
as if it held salvation keys,
rededicating one more night
to supplication, bended knees.
now time has moved your innocence,
ticked off the things you've never done,
and narrowed down your penitence--
some things still worth the price of fun.
this world is world enough but time
makes hesitation mortal crime.

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

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

If I were the man in my dreams,
Your feet would be back on my floor,
Or up in the air once again,
With nothing much said for an hour.
Such truth in the night is released
That morning seems all but sincere,
Your absence like abstinence preached--
A sermon I don't wish to hear.
Long afternoon offers its legs,
And shadows of telephone poles,
That slant like a man of ripe age.
Forgive me my various goals--
Your pleasure was always the plan,
The dream of a wide awake man.

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.

Two-thirds through the suicidal winter,
It's a full night tonight at the shelter--
Two rooms, two tables, two televisions,
A scattering of chairs, four couches, cots.
This February ice and cold
Has brought in families from their cars,
Tent dwellers from the bridge,
Holdouts from the sidewalk doors.
And somebody says, like it's news,
You hear about Steve and Carrie?
Shot her in the head then hisself.
On the front porch. Found froze solid.
Can't figure why he would do that.
Don't make no sense. They had a house.

I didn't get much done today,
Just cooked a meal & washed some clothes.
You somehow ate some fish and kept
It down and wore the clothes outside
While snow accumulated on
The ground and back inside we laid
A fire and turned out all the lights
And you were beautiful and I
Became a strong young man again.

It's academic, as they say,
These evocations lingering,
As I and I remold the clay,
A bold offensive, stolen ring
Of Adam, Eve and human vice,
Exposed in rhythm on the grass.
Cascading willows, wind and spice,
The reaper makes his steady pass.
Cassandra sang, Ophelia too--
Good words are always hard to find,
Yet somewhere must remain a clue,
A still, small voice that says be kind.
Our final words go etched in stone,
And in the end we sing alone.

could this be all you need to see
my misdirected feet turned late
in reassessment of the need
that someone banging on the gate
must have for human consequence
for breath that moves the dust again
the spirit no less hesitant
beneath this inconsistent skin
long parched by lack of festive nights
rough sanded by the loss of time
that somehow wasn't added right
with all results disqualified
we should be keeping this discrete
well knowing it must not repeat

Of course it's three a.m. again--
Time long encircled in the blues--
And grateful for the company
I pull out old shellacs;
Dinah, Eartha, Big Maybelle,
Then Tina, early blues with Ike
On a long playing record, songs by
Little Walter, Blues Boy King,
Songs Ginny used to sing
At juke joints in northwest Tennessee,
Before she made her way out west,
Vegas and L.A., when cheap scotch at midnight was enough.
And now, somehow, pure grain and Percocet
Have stopped her, some say accidentally.
Man trouble too,
Horn players with habits,
Car dealers and one evangelist,
Backslidden but believing,
Tapped now to speak well,
Ignore vices and regrets.