you told me once when i was
at the younger side of the ten
years between us that sorrow
was so familiar to you it ran
daily through your (nervous)
system. a tragic blood type,
you said. be grateful that you
are neither donor nor receiver
and your inertia will carry
you through.
  
                               tonight you
sat in the living room and tried
to explain the mystery of who
he is to your father. his first
love died in his arms as a
teenager. he went to military
school, reform school, but he
could never escape his tragic
fate.

         know this now: your
father will not understand. he
will nod and nod but his
tragedies were penned by
sophocles, your own
shakespearean; they belong
to different times. he will not
understand.

                       your father thinks
your blood type is the one
printed on the laminated card
in your wallet. your father finds
the man you love neurotic. your
father is a great man but his
veins are built for fire and steel

and yours are made for sorrow.

i have
many flaws
this i
have always
known i
snap my
gum i
eat too
much my
accent is
far too
heavy for
this midwestern
town and
i stand
too close
to the
street while
waiting for
the light
to change

today i
waited in
the bus
lane and
didn't realize
until the
girl beside
me screamed
as the
bus sped
past inches
from my
face i

guess i
forgot that
not everyone
wants to
cease existing
so badly
they subconsciously
hope for
a bus
to flatten
them on
their commute

today the marsh
had a viking
funeral
              all the
trees and all
the brush floated
along in their
frozen beds of
ice
      the birds
sang in memoriam
and even from
behind the glass
we turned
                   our
heads away
                      i
wonder where you
are and whose
funeral you're
                          watching

you are not stardust
and you are not iron
you are not an element on the periodic
table and you are not
a being crafted for perfection

you are blood and flesh you
are skin and bone you are
all of these clichés and far
more but you are nothing besides
what you make yourself

not forged from iron not hardened
by fire but wonderfully fallible and beautifully
human

i wonder if you took
all the untitled poems and laid
them out
end to end
how many times they
would span the globe and how
many hearts
could finally rest

furious aesthetic and empty grace
like broken glass, like shattered inertia

holy roman emperors born and raised
in missouri gunned down, target practice

furious grace and empty aesthetic
like tear gas canisters, like shattered bone

hidden by roses laid down the highway
now ashen, red from embers, red from blood

the furious world watches empty screens
there is no aesthetic, no grace, in ******

with what
cleanness
are wife hands
whole

in whose
joining
are the bodies
of my children

And

my wife’s body
in who slept
my children

whose breath
were
their breath

whose blood
were
their blood

carrying
the crumbs
of a little life
through
biggest
Death

Beast surfacing, the geyser blows
sea-spume that sudden, broaching, slows
to blue, then falls, no prim fountain
or ticking clock, Leviathan counting
decades at formal intervals.
On benches over rising thermals
that reach to roast us, faithful, waiting,
we cheer the act of hesitation
before the final curtain -- though, see,
the trick's just heat, just gravity.
Almost enough, I hear you say --
this tidal flame, this awe-filled day,
as mists dissolve and quick steam clears
and cools and sinks, for years, years.

While I still breathe, I write to save my life
in compact form; mistakes, the lessons learned,
triumphant days and nights of needless strife
brought on by willful dreams and bridges burned.
One day too soon, a final page will turn,
the book will close. My fine and fragile chain
to life will break.  A loneliness unearned
will mark your passing days in ink of pain.  
Then if you wish to hear my voice again
one silent morning when you wake alone,
I leave you songs and poems.  Each refrain
will resurrect the soul you've always known.
So when my fated moment shall arrive,
my words are here; come read me back alive.

When offered the gift
of myself, I no longer
seek the return desk.