ephemeral morning,  page torn
from an open book
testing appearances, aurora
of a figurine fresh
from the latest carnival,
a salted composition
as the taffy and
the clowns

The things we have no use for anymore
line the sidewalk where chalk once marked hopscotch
for days before the rain washed it away.
Back then one night we listened all night long
to Joni Mitchell  and Charlie Mingus,
most likely Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong,
Jimi Hendrix.  Things led to things; we danced,
we drank red wine.  I've known no better time.

Sell the records, the sofa with my long impression.
Give away what doesn't sell.
What I dread is not the night but morning,
coffee in an empty room, black coffee scalding hot. Don't sell the coffee maker.
It's a good one, very hard to replace.

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.

Nothing changes
As the night burns
Into an unholy morning
Of despair,
A scream without translation.
American spring,
Killing season in Kentucky,
Minnesota, Carolina, Georgia,
New York.
Nothing changes but the names,
Mississippi, St. Louis, L.A.
Vigilantes and police,
Incendiary commentary by the chief
Executive
That fans the flames.
Nothing changes but the body counts,
God's sons' and daughters' stolen right
To breathe.
At least a fire gets seen.

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?

Then her impending nuptials
Were what derailed our love affair,
As often is the case with fools,
Who don't have sense enough to care
That locks on bars still have a key,
And sentences expire with time,
And locked up gackers get set free
At midnight when the towers chime.
Has time run swift beneath your feet,
Enough to turn your head again--
That sideways glance, the summer heat,
At last the fall come out within,
As you, my love, conspire with Puck,
Goodfellow with a slanted look.

On this cold afternoon,  T.V.
Has ****** & Daytona.  You
And I are close enough you could
Come over, yet I don't guess you
Think that's a good idea, nor
Do  I, but thinking isn't all
We do.  We've lost our instinct
And our earthly home, companion,
Lost the rhythm of the slow dance.
I'm not stopping, not this evening
Or tomorrow, will yet present
Myself, still so lightly adorned
That I have said nothing, nothing
At all by my scant appearance.
Things don't happen for a reason,
Not one we don't invent.  Free will
Is out of fashion.  All the new
Philosophers agree on that,
Though fundamentalists dispute
Among themselves such hardshell creed.
I long to taste your skin again.
Come give me time, bring everything.

When words could help I didn't say enough,
And when you needed silence I was loud.

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.

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.

A bag of food for Saturday,
And maybe Sunday if it lasts.
It shouldn't be this hard to stay
Alive and see beyond the past.
The dragon takes the mother's claw
And holds the flame that heats the tar,
Coal-colored death drawn through a straw
In West Virginia's town called War.

The sun comes late in mountain towns,
On roads that need a new repair,
Still dark when buses make their rounds,
To draw the children from their lair,
Who learn at school some poetry,
That won't alleve this poverty.

What comes from ashes, you would know.
I've seen you there, fire in your eyes.
Your modesty allows me slow
Pursuit, perhaps I should disguise
My tongue's intentions in a song,
Or dance my way inside your head
And bring you back where you belong--
Oak headboard,  my ancestral bed.
You may see me, firewalking fool--
Head topped with bells, a rubber soul--
Salute you with a burnished tool,
Your misused heart my certain goal.
Now close your eyes, imagine me
In your embrace, in ecstacy.

All morning & into the night,
Searching the universe for words
That might move you this way again;
Wishing they were available,
Or could be cobbled together.
Suggestions are welcome,  I'll pay
What I can--a nickel a word,
A sawbuck if you keep it short--
Maybe eternal devotion
For the time we got left,  enough
If we stretch it, to storm heaven.

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.

From the garden of Heaven a western breeze
Blows through the leaves of my garden of earth
                                             --Hafiz

Humility comes easier
And easier, accumulates
In the pockets of poverty,
The deep rivers of the heartland,
Where we're told by cashiers to have
A blessed day--sing, count your many--
And it's true as the western breeze,
Where leaves flutter, underrated.

Compassion, in the garden of
Heaven, God's country, flown over
Aside from quick stops to mine votes,
Cannot be regained in this land
By anything less than human,
By any houses not holy.

on that brief afternoon
we saw
across the campus lawn
the rain approach us
as a gift containing more
than we could ever
understand

glad night
this mortal joy
                        so long
    uncertain and
                ridiculous,
                         sublime

     need i remind you
     love is best
not understood,
                practiced
     constantly
                                beyond belief

death and doubt
set looking
for a weakness
you deny
i think you must know
                     something now

i mean
i should tell you
my heart depends
on madness just
as the ragpicker
on litter and the breeze

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.

The mind is rough, a place
Where time gets lost.
The future wears a sad look in its eye
And I  cannot remember it as well
As it seems I should, for drawing closer
Than the past, so dutifully recalled,
Awake, asleep, ever borrowed and spent--
Overdue bills, coffee-stained reminders
That I'm still alive in someone's judgement,
Represented in a row of crosses.

Erase it all, imagine everything
Untold,
No story spoken, nothing
Overheard,
An unstrung voice--rose petals Dropped
At dawn,
Beneath what tree olives or green
Apples
Issac's lot. The question having not been
Answered. Music, though essential, tells us
Nothing.

Each new crowning, where Peter upside down
Betrayed no longer any human god
Alone somehow connected  until now
The empty skull accepts a tuning held
Across so many faces whose sorrow,
Unbelievable as truth so often
Takes on its characteristic pallor,
Insisting we are none of us forever.

The poor are big tent acrobats,
Not looking down at broken nets,
Expecting angels, miracles--
Some meaning in the universe--
Believing freedom, other myths,
Regurgitating Bible school,
While makeshift morgues have openings
For politicians promises.
Red novel death, unmasked to see
God's children, faithful, crucified,
Hard praying we can't understand
The ways of God, just being man.
Enlightened rogues--forgive me Gregg-
Know this is not, this is not right.

No sight without the sun, which blinds
The close observer, melts the wings
Of anyone whose father finds
His labyrinth has need of strings
For sons and daughters sacrificed
On city streets and gravel roads,
Where pills & guns & powder's priced.
America the great reloads.
No mother's child can satisfy
This ancient need for blood and bones.
Beguiling lies that justify
This everlasting, cratered jones--
Give way to truth, in slanted rays,
Declaring beauty through this haze.

Your movement to an upper latitude
Has tilted earth a smidgen.  Gravity,
A badly weakened force, reciprocates,
Just strong enough to hold a world in place
But not to stay your drifting. Mountains green,
So far from Tennessee you're orbiting,
While I in place beside my jar, uncorked
And **** near gone, must ride this wobbled wheel.

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.

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.

What's worth remembering
Is hard to say,
Words being less than innocent,
Harder to  avoid than
Disappointment
Or the boneyard
And seldom adequate,
Even when arranged
Carefully,
Like a fresh cut spray
On the remains
Of what was once
Alive.

Put coin in mouth, not on my eyes,
That I may see the underworld
As I arrive, and hear the cries,
In Charon's bark, uniquely burled,
Fierce brilliance, goddess of the night
Released from khaos, sails unfurled,
Anchor weighed from the morning light,
Old sailors bent and fetal curled.
Come back as J.C., looking close,
Surviving cocksure helmsmanship--
Dismissive of the lethal dose--
Chests pilfered long before the trip.
If this prove false , and I the liar,
No mangod soul shall quench this fire.

A broken heart doesn't stop.
It's like she told me;
Some things are worse than death. Yes

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

Got room for your good time, pushing
Love like a street corner prophet
Needin' a place to lay his head
With an hour left before dark
And the wind picking up.  Why you
Would listen is the world,  innit?
The mystery of a woman's ears
When I can only mouth the words.
Some flowers get along as weeds,
Not needing cultivation or
Much more than a few drops of rain,
Dirt of course,  but it's still had cheap
If you don't mind the location,
So I'll be here where you're needed.

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.

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.

She hears herself
When no one else is there, rehearsing
What sustains, intransitive
Awareness of an ancient ground, words
Lined and ploughed, bloodwatered,  humble sown
And harvested, now swallowed and recast,
Choked I am (one a.m.) bic pen,
Tam o' Shanter working through the darkness
Still surrounding mother earth.

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.

With that sure reckon of a horse
Returning to its stable, I
Am in your arms again, strong force
The fiery pit could not deny.
Where words have no place left to hide,
You offer much that's not been said
And I, a prisoner of pride,
Lie famished, begging more than bread.
And should we find a stone removed,
Would this replace mere words with flesh
That time itself shall not improve--
Wine lately vinted from a wish.
Should I give notice of my tongue
Inside the cave where gods are hung?

Nobody's heard much more than what's
In the paper and that's only
That Hill got killed by an off duty
Officer when somebody called in
Suspicious behavior and he was only
Half  a mile from his house, along
Hill road in the woods
And his sister said sure,
He was gacking,
But he didn't have no gun,
They didn't have to **** him.
I guess they're used to this
In Nashville, St. Louis, Cincinnati,
But here we know each other some,
And his sister says he wanted
To get straight but ****'s
A disease and Hill had it bad,
Had it from high school,
Through two tours in Iraq
And five years now since he came back,
Couldn't seem to hold a steady job
And started dealing it to pay the rent,
Sold grams and eight *****,
Coke or Ice,
Not smack and never packed
More than a knife since his felony,
Because he gave it to me, she says,
I've got his 9 and that's it,
He didn't have no gun.
So I tell her it isn't right
What happened and would like to say
Justice, etc., but
Seeing that's unlikely
And she knows it, I hold her head
On my shoulder
Because last night
They killed her brother.

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

We should have harrowed paradise,
To slake the disenfranchised souls.
The powers say it's otherwise,
There's not enough for all of those.
My thoughts are weak and compromised,
An eremetic son sunk low,
Whose mind and body lust to rise
Against the everlasting foe.

Creation and equality,
Long separated by the sword,
Don't trickle very equally,
While politicians scheme and hoard,
Then toast the weekly homily,
Beside the chairmen of the board.

Nineteen nights in a bed with rails
gave me time to reconsider,
with nothing left to interrupt,
my own unnecessary place
beside you.  Do you understand
why a bad actor like myself
would give it up, get out for good?
Dying is a sinner's haven.

Life will be the difficulty.
Teach me when I'm ready for it
if you have the patience and the
time.  Don't give up when I tell you
lies. I am not brave enough.  Who
is?  We need each honest hour.

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.

Waiting for nothing,
Impatiently,
In the absurd morning
Where the news reports
Assess chaos, statistically,
Amazed by the grace
Of the essential,
Who work
Through the night
That has come.

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.

Cold night spent needing
Something more than scribbled thoughts
Regarding April.

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.

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.

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

it comes in late, at the witching hour,
at the time reserved for drunks waking up
and losing sleep,  the road outside slower
and the light from the street lamps just enough
to slant the shadows of the shuffling
raccoons that scavenge what has not been picked
already in the busy afternoon,
it comes in strange and strong, it comes in thick
as hoarded ink that must be spent before
it's wasted, dry as a salvaged headstone
from the old yard give way to new pasture,
roses fusing, vining out ancient bones
as i--awake now--wrestle with the fear
of reckless words i hesitate to share.

What I have learned to do is place one thing
Beside another, using nothing more
Than sharpened sticks to guide them into place,
Where they never fit quite perfectly. You
And I were perfect once, or as close as
Apples side by side on an old canvas,
Unthinkable that one should decompose--
An accidental knowledge of the fall.

Astonish me again with those green eyes,
That see me for the fool I've always been.
One passing taste beneath the lonely sky,
A coupling held against the night
Where lovers have no need of hungry words,
And I no more than breath have need of you.

Karl's been drinking since yesterday,
when she came back for her clothes
and the dog he bought her
five or six years ago,
an Irish sitter
that never seemed to trust him,
even though he'd fed it well
and brushed its coat
for the two weeks she'd been gone,
suspecting perhaps
that the whole affair
was more his fault
than the other man's
and surely more than hers.

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.