Poetry is sometimes easy like the wind rushing
to where there is not much wind, caressing in waves,
invisible and pliant like the air, as effortless as
breathing it. Poetry is sometimes impossible,
like turning the tumbler of a lock with your fingertip,
like climbing a mountain barefoot in a blizzard
of screaming, sliding sleet, like a tearing cry
that dies into a whimper in your throat as you
realize the futility of that which you do,
the implacability of the beast you fight.

Sometimes, there are no words that can describe
the machinations and the subtle ticking of a clock
that beats in time to the human soul. Not hearing
the rhythm, you forget the music until your heart
sings again and you dance free like a young ballerina
cutting ballet. No poem is a picture that captures
the fluttering, soaring and sinking in the heart’s chambers.
You choose a word that fits, discard ten of its brothers,
yet feel surprise when your sentences have no answers
for the questions in your chest. You mourn every phrase
you have lost as you fell asleep. Knowing not
what you forgot, you move on to new questions.

You cannot miss what you’ve never felt, but you can yearn for
something you’ve forgotten. What is the difference to you
if you cannot remember the difference? The embryos of
the heart and mind are fragile. Your heart sings of a country
it cannot see anymore now that your back is turned,
you cast fishing nets behind you into the past blindly.
You remember that you have forgotten, and you forget
what bears remembering. You remember a day long past
not as the day that passed but as the memory of its passing,
yet feel surprise when years later and many forgettings hence,
it happened to someone else altogether.

And thou wert sad—yet I was not with thee!
And thou wert sick, and yet I was not near;
Methought that joy and health alone could be
Where I was not—and pain and sorrow here.
And is it thus?—it is as I foretold,
And shall be more so; for the mind recoils
Upon itself, and the wrecked heart lies cold,
While heaviness collects the shattered spoils.
It is not in the storm nor in the strife
We feel benumbed, and wish to be no more,
But in the after-silence on the shore,
When all is lost, except a little life.

I am too well avenged!—but ’twas my right;
Whate’er my sins might be, thou wert not sent
To be the Nemesis who should requite—
Nor did heaven choose so near an instrument.
Mercy is for the merciful!—if thou
Hast been of such, ’twill be accorded now.
Thy nights are banished from the realms of sleep!—
Yes! they may flatter thee, but thou shalt feel
A hollow agony which will not heal,
For thou art pillowed on a curse too deep;
Thou hast sown in my sorrow, and must reap
The bitter harvest in a woe as real!
I have had many foes, but none like thee;
For ‘gainst the rest myself I could defend,
And be avenged, or turn them into friend;
But thou in safe implacability
Hadst nought to dread—in thy own weakness shielded,
And in my love which hath but too much yielded,
And spared, for thy sake, some I should not spare—
And thus upon the world—trust in thy truth—
And the wild fame of my ungoverned youth—
On things that were not, and on things that are—
Even upon such a basis hast thou built
A monument whose cement hath been guilt!
The moral Clytemnestra of thy lord,
And hewed down, with an unsuspected sword,
Fame, peace, and hope—and all the better life
Which, but for this cold treason of thy heart,
Might still have risen from out the grave of strife,
And found a nobler duty than to part.
But of thy virtues didst thou make a vice,
Trafficking with them in a purpose cold,
For present anger, and for future gold—
And buying other’s grief at any price.
And thus once entered into crooked ways,
The early truth, which was thy proper praise,
Did not still walk beside thee—but at times,
And with a breast unknowing its own crimes,
Deceit, averments incompatible,
Equivocations, and the thoughts which dwell
In Janus-spirits—the significant eye
Which learns to lie with silence—the pretext
Of Prudence, with advantages annexed—
The acquiescence in all things which tend,
No matter how, to the desired end—
All found a place in thy philosophy.
The means were worthy, and the end is won—
I would not do by thee as thou hast done!

I cling to him,
Mascara stains his shirt
Like ink blotches on a left wrist.
Oh, how deeply, deeply
Sweetly –
Completely I feel this pain
Burrowed in the most hidden corner of my soul
Patched like cancer on the walls of my lungs
And Oh, how deeply, deeply
Sweetly –
Complete and utterly
Did we weep and wail through the darkness of that night
Tears cried by dull-ember fireside
This hurts more than we ever thought it could
Crocodile eyes ooze wet and hot
Figures entangle themselves in desperation
Words are few yet heart-wrenching
The strongest among us are bulldozed into flat implacability
Sorrow inhabits the cracks in my soul
Like chalk smeared across concrete.
Weep dear children,
Not ready to grow up
Weep dear friends,
For the depth of your love
Weep dear graduates
When morning comes you’ll have to leave
Weep for this country, that stained you and changed you
Weep for the institution, that burned you and bettered you
Weep for the people, who loved and supported you
Weep for your childhood, that carried you from birth to here
Weep, sweet alumni for all that you’re losing
For all the departure
For all the uncertainty
For all the promises that will be broken
And friendships that will not be kept up
Weep over the map
And curse the dividing waters
Weep my beloveds,
Deny yourselves no tears
Weep deeply
Weep deeply
Weep sweetly
Weep completely
Weep utterly and totally and whole-heartedly
Weep because this matters more than anything ever has
Weep because this has been the most beautiful and devine gift
Weep because you’ve been pierced to the core,
Debilitated by the most far-reaching love imaginable
And weep because
The world is expansive,
The oceans are deep and the lands are wide
The people are numerous and the cultures are diverse
The opportunities are endless
The combinations are infinite
Your life is long
And your future is full of immense possibility
But you will never have this again,
So weep.

A center stripe on such a road would be no more than affectation,
The prospect of two vehicles on the same stretch of this blacktop
Which ambles from nowhere to nowhere, old logging path
Morphed into a convenience for fishermen or bird watchers
Heading to the odd bits of Adirondack Park land
Scattered higgeldy-piggeldy in its path
All but a mathematical impossibility.
Indeed, the fog lines are barely visible, a series of dots and dashes
Along the crumbling berm of the shoulders,
And the signs testifying to the calamitous curves ahead
Are faded and pock-marked
In testament to generations of pellet-gun marksmanship
And twelve-ounce projectiles.
There remain the odd traces of the byway’s former usefulness:
Rusted blades or unevenly-spoked wheels
Left behind by ancient logging outfits,
The odd abandoned hunting camp, and here and there,
Visible through gaps in thick, ancient stands of pine
(Having outlasted the original settlers and logging concerns
Through the sheer stubborn implacability of biology),
You might see an anomalous abandoned bus up on blocks,
And there are those who have sworn they have seen them
Adorned with curtains in the windows,
But that is most certainly a trick of the light,
A mis-apprehension of something half-glimpsed
By the drivers as they sped by.

He’d been away for any number of years,
Days cascading over the spillway of time
Into pools of weeks, oxbows of months,
And though the town was much as he remembered it
(Though a little more tattered and careworn:
Another broken windowpane here,
A wall in grave need of paint there,
One or two more storefronts gone to plywood)
The cemetery was all but labyrinth to him,
A corn maze of granite and narrow drives,
The plots having metastasized, the stones having spread
Like so much crownvetch overpowering the simple grass,
But he’d been able, after any number of false-starts,
Uncounted instances of double-backs and do-overs
To locate his father’s marker
(The man gone some forty years now,
Taken by…well, who knows what
His mother, stunned by the prospect
Of having to step into the dual role
As nurturer and breadwinner,
Too stunned to even think of requesting an autopsy.)
He’d come, ostensibly, to make his peace
(Whatever that hackneyed phrase entailed)
But he’d ended up, if not as mute as the stone he faced,
No more than a cow-country Caliban,
Haltingly sputtering bits and bobs of half-phrases
Concerning the implacability of accidents, the vagaries of chance
The coffin-lid limits on mere men and women.
He’d given up the ghost, finally,
And as the daylight slipped away on the bumpy old horizon
He’d simply brushed some dried bird guano from the gravestone,
Then picked the dead bits from the flowers
Doing their level best to hold on
In the urn he’d wrestled from his mother’s ancient station wagon
Two, perhaps  three, days ago
Before settling back into the car to try to divine the way
Back to the main road
(He’d found it in surprisingly short order,
And perhaps a quarter-mile or so down the road,
He’d come upon a small rabbit,
Frozen mid-lane by his headlights,
Finding himself in a world not of his making
Not knowing whether to flip or fly;
He’d missed it by mere chance, nothing more,
And he wondered if the poor thing
Would be so lucky with the cars behind him.)

Desecrated in cold stares not beyond ones sight to be unheard
Involved with actions of screenplay
Fought so slightly with means to run away
Not scared, just irritated
Heaves implacability to be disrespected
Lounged from so far to be seen as an outcast

A Bigger Threat

Incompetence…
  much more dangerous than corruption
    —when skillfully applied

(Note To The President-October, 2013)


    A Greater Wrong

Within a lesser right
there is a greater wrong
   —begging to get out

(Villanova Pennsylvania:  Watching the 60 Minutes
Episode on Benghazi - October 27th, 2013)


          Implacability

As our resolve hardened
  —the viewing platform changed

  (Villanova Pennsylvania: October 28th, 2013)

A fainting heart full of pain
Deep beneath, quench by rain.
A heart full of solidarity,
Now full of implacability.

I feel the numbness on my skin,
Numbness made by the cause of pain.
Tormented by memories of you,
It lingers in my heart so blue.

Immersed on deepest memories you made,
Reminiscing the happy times we shared.
Now gone and all left is doubt,
Ruthless and torpid heart.

There will never be a single tear,
From my lips you will no longer hear
The words that I used to say,
For you I’m just another wraith,
And nothing but a worthy bait.