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.

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

Pascal could never more than hedge
and Albert's hard eight
spooked the witnesses.
It's Dostoevski in the pits
confessing to the fallen,
Jack London counting cards,
Melville with his checkerboards
and Emily, tilting
like the woeful knight,
who lift me when the obvious
shoots daggers from the looking glass.

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.

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.

Still learning what I should have learned
In nursery school,  where hearts get broke
And mended at the first recess,
Where nothing's ever what it seems
And no one thinks the day will end,
Or Christmas will indeed arrive,
With boxes full of promises--
The star stuck on the inside tree.
Consider how long you've been gone--
I can't imagine time that long,
Or where the **** the future fled.
You may return.  We might unite.
The trees are tall in my backyard.
I've watched them grow, not seeing them.

A madam in her house breeds fear,
Long list from halls of government.
Wild music flowers night its ear,
Played rough enough blue words come bent
From queens and jesters, jack and jill,
Buck dancing Appalachian child,
A delta path that winds uphill,
To Corinth, where the rocks lay piled.
Black Jesus clogs at Nellie's house,
Trades in his sandals, blesses feet
That dance in air while lancers joust
On what were never quite white sheets.
Some unwashed sinner sheds her skin,
Makes men of boys and boys of men.

The world is God's own concubine,
Naked on this April morning
Cool enough to perk pink buds
Of a hundred billion roses,
Expectant of the yellow bees
Whose needs are close to mine.

Two more mass shootings overnight
Get scant reporting being less
Body count than the one last week
Or the ordinary bad beat.
Our heart goes out so much it's lost
The way back to it's own door.

I drop the beat, it's my own fault--
My mother bought the dimestore books
I wanted more than toys, and read them
Till I knew the words, correcting
Any one misspoke so I've got
Them now--will trade for your kisses.

My great teacher, Guy Davenport
Told of the time he put out Sartre,
On fire in Paris,
Set by his own tobacco pipe
Stuffed back in his jacket pocket
On a park bench.  Imagine that.

My own mistakes overshadow
Yours, and I'm running out of space
To sustain this unlikely conceit.
If verses ever did part lips,
I'd keep my pen in hand all night,
Exhausted lay beside it.

A taste I can't forget what sings
At your command--Oh how I love
The narrow path on which you glide,
The lies that only look like clues,
Discarded wrappers of long dreams
That I have slept through every way.

When paradise gets tedious,
I have it on God's word he'd trade
Eternity to hear your sighs.

some potion seller's dream
encouraged our acceptance
bitter fruit
brittle words
stored in old vessels concealed in ignorance with lines so well
rehearsed that freedom is
a foreign question
they ring almost as true

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

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.

What calling beckons long gone memories,
Those scattered prodigals, sad mother's son
And father's daughter, sailing troubled seas,
To fight upstream a washed out riverrun,
Convinced that something  not yet understood
Will recommend this fallen universe
Of wood and nails to shelter brotherhood,
Through mothers' tears and winter's harsh reverse,
Inspire another backwood symphony
Of blue and green?  Come over now and see.

I'll take more here, forego rewards
Backsided as incentive,
Sell out for music, books, T.V.,
Companionship, true love, good humor,
Sufficient food & Shelter.

Death grants humility and I
Could not be prouder of my love,
Whose legs have given way but by
Some christ like reckoning above
My understanding gives me life
While I attempt some lesser songs
That might or might not cover if
The judgement speaks of my worst wrongs,
Which counting up could take some time
(Which lately comes in short supply)
And reconstructions of the crime,
When I have no more taste for I,
And should be settled in for sleep.
The dreams I've promised, she will keep.

Your love dispels insanity,
When all the world's an angry ghost,
Invading sacred liberty,
Collecting bones along the coast,
And carving out the lungs of trees,
While more have less and some get most.
What can't be bought has value still.
Without your love, the world be ill.

Was I mistaken all this time,
Alive where nothing else could be?
Romantic lines that sometimes rhyme,
That almost tell me what I see,
A waste of paper, pen and ink,
Your love is more than I can think.

Only we raised crosses,
Gallows poles, ever spiked
The heads of enemies
Along the road to Rome,
Quartered our
Kind--horses being driven
Without understanding--
Ever made slaves a stock-in-trade,
Built cages for refugees
From places worse than here
In class distinction,
Worse leaders--imagine--
Than our own.
Breathe deeply and continue,
While in the place incomprehensible
Another slaughter,
Then another,
And who would give himself that
Name?  Reaper?  Personification
Of the inhumane, political.
A sleepless nation, terrorized
By lies and accusations,
Fear of swarthy siblings,
Ishmael, El Paso.
Pens and pencils, paper, crayons.
New shoes.  Notebooks.  Erasers
Left on the tile battlefield.

Out of the old myth
A seed spit in a melon
Contest while all the good
Kids mostly still (and some of the bad)
Believe in Jesus
Yet I imagine
The afterlife
As this bar my sister-in-law
Trolls, a good roadhouse once,
South of the state line,
Until the vote lifted
Prohibition and it moved
Into town and the Keno
Afternoon and cigarets
Until the vote
Against tobacco
& now the furtive hits
Off the newly legal dope vapes
From the neighbor state,
Slowly losing retirement funds
And the food--
It's not what it used to be.

The rain this morning falling strange,
Unheard for weeks while grasses browned,
At first unrecognized then changed
To gratitude that heaven frowned
And cried again on broken land,
Healed cracks and succoured trees and vines.
Would that were true of everyman
And woman born in these hard times,
Observant where the seed will drop,
Terrain that takes good faith to sow,
That generations may not stop,
That rain will come and ice will hold
Our struggling sons and daughters,
Who cleanse the heavens with their tears.

Memory, sweet Lorraine, has us
On her tongue straight up, your salty
Lips commanding the pleather couch
As Marie tasted, like yourself,
Delights between your churchly vows,
Bacchus teaching us, twice born, how
Gods know love is made, immortal
Dance from dusk till dawn, forgetting

She had fought with Dan and you had
Visitation scheduled with your
Prisoned man, forgetting all I
Ever knew of what we were and
Why we should be elsewhere soon.
Come, I'd like more exploration.

To love so well is rarely known--
Incomprehensible but true,
This thing that you and I have grown,
That everyday comes out for view.
Surviving while the others fell,
This linkage has the strength of steel,
And when there's nothing left to tell,
Still how we lived was oddly real--
No grand illusion in the sky,
No better place than by your side,
No understanding by and by,
No chariot or train to ride.
Yes, you comprise my paradise--
Let heaven weigh the sacrifice.

Half steps slide further in the dark,
When no one's watching anymore.
The band, four players in the park,
Slap out religion on the floor
As ladies circle round a fool
All night, and breakfast later on,
While giving up their Sunday school,
For one whose crown is cardboard cone.
All blues surround the passing time,
Wildflowers on a rotting stump,
Stark gestures of a tortured mime;
A hop, a skip, at last a jump.
Should I forswear my witless words,
Will motion follow, undisturbed?

Such elegance and opulence
Beneath this highway overpass,
Where rocks provide the sustenance,
As winter culls the underclass;
Gimcrackery of transients,
Guitars and spoons and mattresses.
Police come charged with striking tents.
You can't live here, the city says.
One level up, on 2nd Street,
Old cars and vans make living space
For down-and-outs who still compete,
And teach their kids to ask God's grace.
This kingdom come, of what's been done--
Earth daughter, mother, father, son.

I can't compose myself today,
Have no imagination left
That's worth the time it takes to say
What might reflect somehow what's felt.
This odd pursuit is no escape,
No recompense among the just--
If anyone could claim that shape,
Who rose and fell among the dust.
As morning scrolls to afternoon,
Long evening to outer dark,
The wailing heard, the gnashing soon--
The trinity of heads that bark,
Until the music stills their breast--
In dulcet tones, then sudden rest.

What she doesn't need, not again,
Is to be told by a lover,
Or a husband, where she went wrong
Before they met, or even since,
When apparently she's ******* up
Whatever great plan he had for
His life, which might have been a breeze
Without her siren's screech and moan.

She sits alone, in fading light,
Rejecting pills prescribed to fix
A chemically imbalanced soul,
Neglecting how it got that way,
This  bitter world of reckoning,
At lonely ends of summer nights.

to slip in something obvious
with more than  thoughts might recognize
exchanged as if from loneliness
where nothing spoken will arise
uneasy with the atmosphere
descendant from a flaming sun
late celebrated praised and feared
as any light not yet outshone
a canvassing of glory land
impaired by blinded witnesses
reveals no greater hidden hand
than lately clawed from ancient seas
encountering the shifting sands
the questioning of all commands

It's what you make of Sunday when it comes.
It comes to this, unless you give up air-
Which isn't what I mean, we all need some-
To eyes that cover up with clouds and hair.

And if you could just get out of the deal,
How easily would happiness be found?
No logical connection spins the wheel-
No reason that the feeling comes around.

Of course you can pretend, or fake again,
When all you really feel is misery.
I've been there when it wasn't fun, and when
It could have been described as ecstasy.

A southern slant, a tricky smile, is all
I've got to get the things I want, a note
Of melancholy tasting skin in fall,
When green gives up it's shade to winter's coat.

The rain doesn't know it's falling,
Or that the night is warm enough
For us to sit out on the porch,
Discussing whether I should go,
Or if there's something still to do.

We used to make love in the rain.
We watch it fall like strangers now.

Christine reached Knoxville overnight,
Gone missing in a stolen car.
Her friend, a fifteen year-old boy,
Took turns along the interstate,
Warm night enhanced by felony.
Her mother gets the call. She's found.
Drives down with dad they've not seen much
Since things went bad a long way back,
A fractured family like all
The others underneath the smile.

For this place late comes early. Insurance
Men wait until they're told to go & then,
"To what?  Go home to what is what I want
To know."  A small thing changes when the bell
Rings, cracks open night's unholy rhythm,
Lit only by the SKY BLUE WATERS sign.

She's kept so many keys, cut long
Ago to doors and boxes, locks
On gates and diaries, on wrong
Or bad directions, wind-up clocks
Long stopped and not remembered well,
That maybe should be thrown away,
Though skeletons will sometimes sell
In sidewalk sales on judgement day.
Increasingly, the future's picked
From options found along the road--
Reaffirmation, habits kicked,
A heart that bears a heavy load.
Kind words prove yet her greatest spell,
Her keys cast in the wishing well.

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.

Considering the comical
Conception & the tragic fate,
Our clowning on a party night
Has shadings of a miracle
When even on all spirits' eve
We drink the wine that turns to blood,
Then spit it at the axe man's hood
And turn as if we meant to wave
Toward the setting evening sun
That calculates the time of day
And asks for change like errand boys
Who hold out *****, upturned hands,
Expecting less than what they need--
Repairs for broken bones and wings.

And will these pixilated snaps
Look dated as the Polaroids,
Half **** but wearing baseball caps
Long borrowed from the naughty boys
Who brought the **** & Mad Dog wine
And 8-tracks blasting rock & roll
In pull outs on the county line,
That back seat dancing we'd been told
Would cash a ticket down below,
With those outside the sacred fold,
Incapable of what they owe,
With prices raised on mortgaged souls,
The ancient myth still holding firm,
Anticipating some return.

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

We move the world with
Bold assumptions.
Without their breeze,
Would the time pass
Or do any of the things
That it does?

I am known by silence,
Unremarkable, necessary
If anything
Heard
Is recognized,
Is comprehended.

The parting gifts of lovers
Are the faces and the words,
Where I myself have overspoke,
If only for a minute,
While the flash
Of pain confused sin

With redemption,
The collected misunderstanding
Of the childhood need
For a tall and quiet man
Who answered the world
When needed.

So much of this song
And shuffle is giving
A dog a pill it doesn't want.
Experience helps,
And a love of dogs--
An easy reach for the Buddha

And if the universe--
This one--
Was the size of a baseball
Once, it must have come
Hard, like a high
And tight fastball

Out of the hand of Bob Gibson,
The year before
They cut down the mound.

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

****** afternoon.
I have no imagination.
My fantasies are memories,
Of women, mainly, though it varies
Now and then.
I learned confession as a child,
So I'm used to it now,
Don't see it as a way to paradise
Anymore, instead have always found it
Lovingly exposed, if only
For the night, occasional
Morning, or sometimes
Afternoon.

Five-thirty has its own regard
For my reflection in a flat,
Tripartite looking glass above
The shaving sink where a trick of
Light removes it from the middle
Panel as I carelessly leave
It slightly unclosed so that my
Face is displaced, the mirror not
Returning recognizable
Information concerning my
Disappearance, which is no more
Amazing in the early light
Than the evening carnival with
It's unrelenting fun house view.

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

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.

These letters bid you come again,
Not just in dreams but in my arms.
Let pleasure find its best way in,
Set off the devil's own alarms.
I'll play the fool, an old one now,
Who yet believes your batting eyes
Outspeak the misdirected vow
That soon enough proved bad disguise.
Long living takes a need,  give leave
I offer my sincere repeats--
My pen and ink, my sacristy,
Another round of wrinkled sheets.
Unless your heart bends otherwise,
Our foolish pleasures soon seem wise.

assurance isn't evident this year
our lord not keeping time
but speeding up
an amateur ill
fitted for an old folks band
whipping the skins
like there's no tomorrow

Fall mornings, he believes, will show
The way back, stretched from afternoon
Above midday, an hour now
And then another, three more soon,
Arrested from the night and laid
Upon his plate with nothing more
Than coffee, toast and marmalade.
Resisting what he used to score.
The afternoon could use a source,
Some meditative carousel
To mitigate the old remorse
Of what has not worked out too well,
And what will come, familiar fright,
His long acquaintance with the night.

Things for which there are no words are good things
To consider.  Words that proved imperfect--
Though we never did know why--can't make us
Understand the cause for separation,
As if disorder needed reason, no
Explaining it's the other way around.
And where once I wore a reasonable
Face, now you get around it with a smile.

dilapidated old motel
wide potholes in the asphalt lot
where we stood talking in the rain
so many years ago it seems
like someone else's history
no matter what we said
the opportunity
not lost on you to stand
beside me closer than
your friend my date that night
as your companion talked
in flashing lights about
the evening's accident

when this soul doesn't rise or fall,
no other places to be found
aside from dust and ash and all
the senses come at last unbound,
entangled in a glass of time,
that ever-present chimera
as silent as a painted mime
posed briefly for the camera
that shutters light and snaps like some
outrageous hound convinced that clowns
share nothing of the cumbersome
disrobing from their vested gowns
when all is taken, stones returned
unearthed and more than ever burned

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

The shadow of a cross lies flat
Against the ceiling seen above,
As i lie flat upon my back
Beneath the fan that hasn't worked
In centuries. It's five A.M.
I'm trading sleep for poetry.
I've traded it for other things,
So why not scribble? why not sing?

This second stanza needs a push.
I must confess i've used up love,
Though loathe to tell you just how much.
I've let it flow and let it go.
We're running out of time it seems.
Grey doves find branches in the trees.

Set here, between the sky & earth
We filled each other's greatest need,
To change this small world casually
To Canaan's land or tacitly
Some semblance of the living word,
A narrow path of flesh and fruit,
Foundation of the universe,
Disguised as just a music show.
The need to move the air tonight,
With screams and pleasant fingerings,
Marks made on pages as the mind
Wants more, wants sin and salvation,
A comfortable bed and a chance
To understand a simple day.

Ignore me if you will,  I've tried.
I think the thinkers may be wrong
About this thing free agency,
Hardball being better since Curt Flood
And who are the owners anyway
To tell us where our interests lie
As if some overbearing deity
Got jealous of the lesser gods,
Or even me, with my
Great Pleasure in the flesh,
Disputing life and destiny,
Not waiting on a starry crown
When thorns will make a fitting laurel.

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.