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.

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

My father spoke with confidence. He knew
What he believed; while I, uncertain where
To step, could never feel at ease. The word,
The flesh, the force-fed faith, confused
My childish cares.  I wanted bodies more
Than souls, temptation more than prayers.  Why not
Accept the sacrifice, in case the book
Is true?  This hope of bursting from the earth
Proved more than I could do.  But why say this
To anyone who has my father's faith?
We all have stories that we make. We tell
Ourselves they're true.  The only way to live
This life, and let the mind be sound--
give all
The love you can; keep one ear to the ground.

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

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

Lee's dumbstruck seeing hung
Beneath the light
Her dress, a wig the color
Of her hair, her shoes--
The marionette he wanted.
He'd spent some time on this,
Had set the stage then texted
Please come get your ****,
Garage unlocked.

And  had he thought
Helena, by her now--too late
To shield her eyes--
Would understand such hate
At five years old?
"Is that you, mom?"
"I guess it is.  Your
Daddy's mad."

She held back tears, undressed
The doll except the hair,
Then cut it down while standing on
The set of steps he no doubt used
To raise it there
And dropped it in the trunk
Of her Toyota, unsure
What else to do with it,
Collected all the dross
She carried in for seven years,
Before and while things
Went to hell.

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

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.

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.

On cold mornings, before school,
And before the mill started,
I could earn two dollars
By shoveling down the top
Of the sawdust pile
As steam rose around me.
A drag chain brought bits of wood
From under the circular saw
That cut railroad ties,
Two by fours and tobacco sticks.
Twenty feet high, the view
An eagle's,  I had not read
Of Sisyphus, though when I did
It came with understanding gained
From those mornings,
The smell of fresh cut oak
And the need to rearrange that dust,
So it wouldn't throw the chain
Off its sprocket.

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.

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.

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.

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'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.

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

It does no good to argue with a dog.
God knows they have the patience of a stone,
Devotion to a feckless masquerade
The wordy breed has ****** upon us all,
While shouldering the burden of the world.

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

Got trouble again in Memphis
or she wouldn't be back
in her hometown
with a teething two year old
her mother tends to
when she picks up delivery work
or has a meeting
and she goes along
Sunday mornings
with more eyes on her than the preacher
not because of interest in salvation
so much as to mollify
her anxious mother
who believes she'll find
a better man
than the Tennessee hustlers
whose provinces are underserved
by streetlamps or revivals.

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.

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.

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.

What if I told you your secrets,
The ones you never tell--
lime green off the tree
at the edge of our
laughter, whispering words almost
abandoned.  Love is the way you hold my hand.

We are listeners, you and I, tracing
back the conversation, almost to its
beginning,  sharing the cost
of fear, if that's what it is, where it
begins, this knowledge of each other.

Do you look away afraid?
I do.  You live in the future,
of what might be my soul:  possible?
Give me your pleasure,
Permit me in your story, face to face.
Come, come to my bed.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

A path established long ago
Invites us boys to follow down,
Set up a new encampment here,
On this brown bank of Caster's creek,
And brown our bodies head to toe,
Pretend to be the other's girls,
In tents we've pitched as evening falls,
And constellations fill the sky.

Two brothers and the rest of us
Find arrowheads and smoke grapevines
The morning after we've entwined,
Throw sticks and rocks like savages--
A Saturday to be alive,
Unlike the sons on Asian hills.

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.

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 no doubt you see through this,
You might say an attempt
Ongoing at seduction,
As popular as
A lost art
Can ever
Be.
Your flesh inspires a raft of words;
Beseeching poetry,
Phone calls and texts--
No one writes letters anymore.

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.

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

Days without much news,
The ordinary pleasure
Of lovers,
Homecoming,
Dogs inside from the rain--
More the thunder,
Not understood.
No more than the time
That won't stand still
When the question of death
Cannot be quietly ignored,
The absent father shadowing
Eternity

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

These words will have no life,
Unless you take them in,
Revive them with your breath ,
Allow their lingering.
Abandoned letters
Have no aspiration,
No strength to move feathers,
Approach explanation,
Coerce your lips to move,
As one possessed or cursed--
Hell finds a way to shove
Its wages in your purse.
And when it's all been said,
Give praise for what you've heard.

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.

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.

Sunday evenings,  once a month,
Instead of going back to church
We drove to my grandparents' house,
Parked in two rows beside sedans
Belonging to my uncles--
A prison guard, two factory
Workers and a farmer.

Women brought food from the kitchen,
To men who put out cigarettes
To take a plate and a soft drink,
Then rounded up the kids outside.
Should I have been more than quiet,
When uncle told a racist joke?

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.

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

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

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.

How can I tell someone like you
That I need you?  You expect me
To lie, to say I'll be all right.
I never could avoid the truth;
You say it's easy, with practice.
Soon enough it's second nature.

I should be kissing your shoulders

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.

But then, when does it go,
This madness that could not
Have been expected
Or prepared for?
How to put it, in layman's terms,
Thin patchwork of a day
In need of much forgiveness,
Words that break apart from overuse,
Scattering syllables
Like a convict's rock,
A monk's waterfall,
The seed of some neglected question.

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.