YOU'RE IT

experts say poetry is
either 'x' or 'y'
while i maintain it
is neither
'z' nor even 'pi.'

poetry is about telling
the truth through
words arranged
however you see
fit.

there is nothing to

it.

EXCUSE ME

i know my shadow is behind
all these dark conversations
taking place in my mind.

like: how

could she wear that,
the fat cow, or

he is not really that
sick, the lazy
prick. i am not

nearly so mean as
my shadow makes me
seem; the key is in

not believing

the discussion belongs to me.

STASIS

always swearing i will
change and then another
night's merry-

go-round
of more
of the same.

never caring but still
masquerading, as if
promising new steps will

lead to feet someday
marching in place.

MEMOIR

when in our minds we
step back from what seems to be
going on

sometimes we think we see
patterns in our history.

we have the illusion
that, "hey,"
if we could somehow

interject

our will here or there
maybe we could author the future
rather than simply living
like passengers encased
in some unfolding
memoir.

but this thinking
like all life is
folly; we are never
stepping back
just as there is never past
or future, only...

present and presence.
we are always
here and nowhere.

and the truth is
we are not

writing our lives, nor will we
ever be given the idle opportunity
to read it from a repose;

we are more
like the typing, we are

symbols of letters
reconstructed into symbols
as words, struck to paper --

the embossed, upraised
outlines soaked in black
ink, propelled to the page

by one unseen
hand or the other, the dull flesh and
blood-filled appendages of some
illusion that imagines itself
whole, but is more like --

hole.

STRATEGY

you want it all and this
makes no sense
but try it

now: pretend

you want
nothing.

you're on to something.

THE RIGHT AMOUNT

there is in the right amount
of beer or other godly byproduct
a kind of quietude
that meditates you.

so that when
walking home from some
BYOB you
stop thinking so perfectly
it is as if
you finally thought

something just right
for the first time ever.

an entirely empty brand
of slack-brained clever.

BIRDS WITHOUT

these days everywhere
you go
it's a whole
world of phone

peacocks
squawking,
preening,
flocking --

birds without
feathers

alone together.

LIFE

we are
probably

not going to make it.

and were it not
for that "probably"

i don't know how
anyone could take it.

DEATH IS NOTHING

is life only
what is

between death
and death?

we know: death

is what comes
after life.

so what
comes before?

and if it is
not death --

maybe death is nothing
after all.

CAN'T MAKE ME

there's always the urge to let the lines run
wild.

but your poet is like an old type-
writer

with an itchy carriage-return
finger

always looking for some new excuse to
break.

POEM FOR KATHY STARBUCK

you find yourself

perched on a flimsy seat
over a dunk tank of roiling recent
cold deaths –-

your husband’s the last dead-
center shot in the bull’s-eye,
his departure your welcome

into the world of suffocating
grief –- and you
do not bother

treading water

choosing
sinking

over
swimming;

no air anywhere
for the living.

and in holding your last breaths
inside your now
hollow heartless chest

you discover there
still is poetry
left.

it won’t keep you
alive
but it’s good company
until you
lose yourself and
die, too.

MIRROR MIRROR

you always want something great out
of the gate, you put
your best foot
right in your mouth.

you can't anticipate
all the mistakes you'll make and
how those stains might
never fade.

your fumbling is a message
that gets mumbled
with precision; you are will-
ful in your indecision.

you wear wonder like a neck
beard tucked in
just below your perfect chin.

you are the perfect
project, a wreck-
less lover, a kind of human
fixer-upper.

TALKING (TO MYSELF)

you
have no idea

what makes me
happy.

BYGONE

don't, he said,
you know (that)
you are my son?

i won't, i said,
let go (of)
what you've done.

RETURN TO ME (with a nod to Matthew Ryan)

alone i long to be
with people;

in a crowd i only seek
my own company.

alive i ponder my
mortality;

when i die will i
return to me?

UNCLE

oh god
it hurts
too much
this

life.

BUT IT'S THE TRUTH

they had a boy
baby all dark around
the eyes, heavy hooded
lids, shoulders drawn
up around the ears
like a vulture
in repose, and
somebody said,
"kinda looks a little
like nixon," that kid will
get kicked around.

POETRY IS GAY (for John Wieners)

i write poetry because i am
an idiot and a malcontent,
not that there’s anything wrong with that.

THE POET DOES NOT DIE

the poet does not die
for lack of readers. he dies
for lack of hope, which is
to say, "love."

for love is nothing
if not wishful and silly; and
poems are nothing but songs
whose only instrument is

the breath, that frail
involuntary whispering
that keeps us, for the moment,
from death.

THIN LINE

poetry is the answer
to: what

to make

of all
this?

but a poem is

no solution, just
artifice
upon which

to drape a flimsy
premise; the better
to dry it
out for safe-

keeping

or burning.

RELEASE

oh for the love
of
god would you

please just
take hold
of some part of me and never

let go. there
now
please

do it again.

THOUGHTS FROM THE FLU

only the sick can see
the arrogance that afflicts
the healthy;

doomed as they are,
inevitably, the sick await
death's murky reverie

while the healthy
pretend they might,
eventually,
outrun the end.

neither endures.
life has no cure.

GHOSTS BARELY

maybe you are seeing
something we're not

seeing: what redeems
anything?

we are all still
reeling
from the news
of your decaying;

and yet
you go on

hoping

while we become
ghosts barely capable
of coping.

GIRLS RULE

if i want to
start something

it takes days
and words
and you
feeling good
about you.

if you ever want to
start anything
it takes place

because you
maybe
only
on accident

touched me.

SHELTERED

someday you will
be old -- don't
think about it;

you won't

remember what you were

told; and you'll know

we loved you not
by what you were

taught; but by what you
never knew or even gave
a thought to.

YOU WON'T FIND IT IN BOOKS

books rot and
writing divides,
requiring us to
take sides --

interpretation
versus
meditation --

declaring "what is"
where once
wonder was
enough,
as in
"is what?"

life is
harder than
we thought.

PRESSURE POINTS

when my wife sleeps
she leaves

all her pressure points

exposed.

i know holds
from self-defense
to make an enemy
or a wife
relent.

laying there spent,
my wife has already submitted,

if not to me then to some other
force, equally dim-witted.
her mouth leaks when

she speaks in dreams,
and her hair
drapes her face and
channels her tears
into streams of wet ache;

and I guard her
borders
like an occupying army,
present
and waiting for something
impossible to arrive.

METAFESTO

locked in tiny verse,
my words are like kids
or worse:

better seen
than heard.

(talk about old-
fashioned.)

in this age of slams and self-
confessing, this way seems so --

funny
there's no shorter way
to say --

minimalist.

but this life has switched me
into the younger
brother: tough.
keep your hands off
my stuff.

my words
are like the paralyzed
army men i placed
all around the room,
prepared for doom.

here's how it is
also the same:
the battle never came.

CLEARCUT

your friend means
well, she says
"i really love

your poems,
you should

try to get them

published."

you write back:
"thanks, maybe
you are dead

right, except
the part about getting

published."

she wonders if a poem is
a question in the form
of a statement,
making that old riddle
all the more relevant:

if a poem is
published
in the woods yet
nobody reads it,
you can't tell her
it ever
made a sound.

you, on the other hand, find
a poem is like the roots
left behind

underground
as the tree is

on the way
down.

INSOMNIA

there is nothing
that truly holds
us; not the world
or our lovers, not
gravity or even mortality.

loosed we are
born and returned
to the infinity of death's dark
and silent mystery.

PEACE

it matters so
little, we know

better, we still
flounder.

the soul is restless,
it flaunts
and feeds
and we

forget the difference

between
wants and needs.

THREE LIES TIMES TWO

i think
i am
the world's

greatest
living
poet.

REALLY NOTHING IS

really nothing is
finished. things go

on not to
mention on

and...

(rinse/repeat)

...until we no longer
perceive any-
thing, not

because nothing
exists any-
more, no it's

because we never
really were

anything

to begin
with.

SAME THING

face it:
you are
mottled
reckless
awkward
and angry.

in other words
perfect
for me.

DISTRACTION

what we want
desperately: to be
somebody

who is an expert at
something, who knows
even a little bit
about anything --

who knows

the right questions or god
forbid, the answers.

(either suffices.)

and so we turn
to hobbies and vices --
where shared compulsion
stands in for purpose
and engagement postpones
identity crisis.

TO BE A PARENT IS TO JOIN A CONTINUUM OF FORGIVENESS

family vacation?
really
more like

family
vacation

or just

family.

FROZEN

i like to think
some of the early moves
were only empty
gestures:

the hair, the clothes,
squinting and the not
caring were all
poses.

thing is after a while
your parents were right:
your face
and your soul
are frozen

like that.

LIFE IS PAIN

from the body rock
to the body rots --

chest pains
could be my heart
or maybe the feeling as youth
departs.

my friend the doctor,
he says:

stay calm,

pain comes
and pain goes
away.

you are not going to
die today.

NO QUESTION

an audience of one or
more
here for
me
is a luxury.

an audience of none or
less is more
a prayer
said here
by me for
me.

if solitary
is more holy
why does it feel so god-

damn lonely.

NAUGHT

i've thought myself
dead enough
and been rebuffed
by doctors and loved ones
not ready to find
foreboding in each bump or spot

that i almost forgot

one of these days
will be the last
i've got.

BOXED

monday comes the demolition:

destruction always pre-
cedes creativity,
at least

that's what
the contractor told me.

and so here
i am boxing up
rooms too full
of boxes left over
from the last time.

after all
what is
worth saving?

already
memory and poetry
have carved symmetry
where once was
just life
lived, boxed
energy
into words
never meant to be heard.

color my labors
absurd, but
monday comes the demolition.

GET A HOBBY

you want to
save your life
or preserve what is
left of your sanity

don't meditate
on your humanity.

REALLY HERE

that nothing
i do or am
will
persist

begs questions:

how do i
know i
exist

and will i
be missed?

FREE ADVICE

you say
you are lonely,
why bother
with poetry?

i understand
if you want a shortcut
to hard luck
and depravity.

i get it
if you're sick
in your head
or your heart
and can't start
a real job.

because poetry is
solitary and poor
and meandering and bad
for your head and your heart,
you'll be better
off dead.

don't
start!

LOST

my sons are
default
joyful.

if only
they knew.

if only
i could
remember.

WHEN REALLY THE END

you wonder what is
the point: we pace
ourselves as if
guaranteed
our years, use
terms like midlife
when really the end
is here
and here
and here
and...

WHAT'S LEFT NOW

you used to look
like some
come-hither
spectre,

washing his car
in your bikini

only one
block from me;
I kept
driving past
too fast
to see
intentionally.

what's left now
is the ghost
of desire dragged through
the suds of what never was.

A WARNING

follow this
connected age
to the ends
of your acquaintances
and you will
really discover
how dreadfully
alone
we are together.

AND WHAT IF IT DID

all this
seeking
something transcendent

reveals nothing

transcends.

WHAT CAN NEVER FADE

your father's memory
is not what
it was.

you drove him to
the alzheimer's
specialist.

"your father has
the wrong day,"
the doctor says.

"maybe you have
the wrong day,"
you say.

you must
really
love your father.