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.

Light rain
All hallows day
An orange-faced angry man
Disintegrates
Tune in

It didn't matter what we did,
Together while the light lay down--
Eat something,  watch TV, get high
On every breath we shared before
The darkness called,  like memory,
Like a thing almost remembered,
So sure we were that time would leave--
Unwanted guest, unlikely song

The world's abandoned us and left
Us reeling from its own devices,
Separating smaller slices,
Cold servers calculating theft,
Corrupting every sacred craft.
Women punished for their choices.
Hungry children got no voices.
Let's have a war, without the draft.
What worth in words the poet wrote,
Old gods could show us how to live?
Bad questions linger, bodies float.
Who knew the earth could cease to give?
I leave this ragged, tortured note.
And from this pen, I'll forge a shiv.

it's what you find and some of it
get down, out of context maybe
yet still there like broken concrete
in a yard in Alabamee
where it might interrupt a blade
and you understand, could save a life,
could sift the fear out from afraid,
then paste it with a putty knife.
these flakes are not stories, they're stones,
eventually a cairn, and what's
allowed is all that sticks and bones
can divinate in passing shots.
assess the risk,  i won't advise--
existence has its way with lies.

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

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.

These awkward moments, in spite
           of ourselves,
When we see enough,
Surprise pops out, head
Of Jack, priapic toy
Held down by hinge and clasp
Until it's cranked again
With music or a spilling
Verse, some ***** minded
Woman's tongue complicit
With the subtil, chosen
Charmer of Arcadia, good and evil
Bifurcator, dancing in the grass.

Where this road leads, you might get lost.
When you've traveled it far enough
You recognize the signs, what's left
From target practice and the wind.
I'd give you more to go on if
I hadn't lost the thread and now
It's speculation mostly, though
A little moonlight still endures
And I'll be waiting if you need
A ride, or a place to walk by.

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

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

Bad news restocked too soon
For proper recognition,
Much less mourning.
The upper hand, with bullets
To spare,  mad
With opportunity,
Triggers the night,
Mocks The freedom of the day,
Shuts the mouths
Of wide-eyed children.

to label it absurd
does not deny
the pleasure of the nerves
that lie in wait
of overflowing presence
pushing words aside
for better witnesses

Unless these clouds move out tonight,
There'll come no moon to wish upon,
No drawing down Diana's light
By bacchanalian devil's spawn--
The only sound  a cat's footsteps,
And our quick breath, almost unseen--
No other watcher here except
The wolf that winters here between
This woods and that one, biding time,
As lovers shiver, called outside,
Through sacred oak and profane pine,
Against the forest's darker side,
Now slanted on a recent fall,
Unfettered as this lupine call.

Woman dancing in the rain,
I see you have replaced the sun.
The world revolves around you.

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.

Was this a predetermined thought,
Constructed in an unfree mind--
A trot line strung where fish are caught
Without a well cast lure to find.
Loose words sift through a poet's hand--
They scar the skin like god's own hooks,
As if there were a master plan
That could inspire a patchwork book
Begun with what was deadly banned,
Unknown within the naked world
Until the slanted word's command
Suggested sacrifice endured.
Some better line deserves this place,
Wedged tight in this most thoughtless
                                                              space

I have seen words leave their shelter,
Get confused in bitter weather,
Call for help and not be heard.
I wouldn't want to be a word.

I've got some pages left to fill,
To speculate upon free will,
Stumbling through philosophy,
I can't be sure that I am me.

Anxiety is evidence,
Strong fear of every consequence.
Perhaps you understand this pain,
I don't believe I've said a thing.

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.

She said I was an *******, and all due credit
Being given, I understand where
She was coming from.
She also said magnificent,
Which makes it better maybe--
Be good at what you are--
And I miss that kind of sass,
The price of fun, if you will,
Certainly kept me from getting
Overconfident
Because you know, when it looks easy
Someone has put in a lot of work.

The words fight back,  accusing me
of moving their broke syllables--
a painful attempt to prevent
their distortion of my language--
into patterns they have never
become comfortable exposing,
apprenticed to the bonesetter
with no time for anesthesia,
working from memory and not
expecting any gratitude
from the flesh now decomposing
as we speak at four in the night,
unconscious of the pending dawn
and what will get left in the dark.

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.

No words engraved in stone or spread on sheets
Can touch the simple sadness of your voice
This last day of December, bittersweet,
Remembering our kisses and your choice,
Conventional but not the love you need--
Too dry, too dry, for one whose lips are moist,
From conversation, sometimes poetry,
From thinking nothing when you lie with me.

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.

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