WHAT IT FEELS LIKE

these days the suffering surrounds us
like a biker gang, cloudy thoughts
hanging like exhaust over the roar
of our pain. punches rain down

from toothless fools, fueled
by our actual sins, yet caught up in the false
violence that arises from the fear
of loss, an accumulation of tragedy

and the mounting burdens
of old age and empathy.

LESS

 

don’t apologize

for silence, that blank non-

space where the brain takes

a break to circumnavigate

the detritus of so much

stimulus. and don't say sorry

for being alone sometimes.

we go away to get 

sane again. solitude and silence

save us, the absence of pain

in the form of people and ideas,

a place full of less
where we can really listen

to all of the nothingness.

AROUND AGAIN

most of those vain
vagabond bombshells i chased in

youth wanted nothing to do

with my abstruse poetry,

its pimpled pain. now older,

shelled by the abuse

of less sensitive men, here 

they come around again.

ANIMAL NATURE

the first people you made out with

were defined almost wholly

by willingness – their hungry mouths and yours,

blessed, holy “whores” who pulled your

sexuality loose from its moorings, attacked

the mysteries of the body

and the boredom of religion.

you feared them then, for sure,

until years later you thanked God

they accosted you first, helped you over-

come your worst fears

and regain your lost,

innocent animal

nature.

(image courtesy of Ryan McGuire)

COLLEGE

i had no use

for knowledge.

i ran wild then curled into

the protective ball of the gifted child.

i preferred to under-

play my true potential,

rather than prove it

was illusion. hiding, everything

seemed so binary.

everything. i craved

grayness. i confess

i wanted to stay

in between

kid and adult,

dabbler and professional.

i wasn't ready to practice

a vocation. i was so young.

it was

awful.

it was

wonderful.

it was

college.

BORN (for Stuart Paul)

you wake up in a soapbox
derby car released

on life’s steep slope,

picking up speed

hurtling downhill,

no steering wheel,

for god’s sake

keep your head down
and be very still.

VACATION

what passes for work these days has us
up in the air too often, getting high
enough to hurry better, wi-fi minds
keeping us tethered to whatever
priorities can be pursued most
profitably. wanna get away?

EXPOSED

we call it business because
it really is just an abun-
dance of busy. keep moving, you,
musing isn't performance,
we do do-ing here, not
intellectual indulgence!

how badly all of us wish
we could drop the whole charade,
this seemingly real hand-
wringing parade past meaning-
less numbers and goals.

nobody needs any
more of those. tell you what,
only on this sale, we'll throw
in a brand new
garden hose. how naked
must ambition become
before it gets exposed?

START RUNNING AWAY

for years i was a squirrel
whose nut was engagement;
i would send your mixtape back
with track-by-track reactions. not that

you asked. i would dedicate this poem to you
to force you to read it. i would not give up
until you did, and then i would

blame you for your will-
ful refusal to parry.

i was a content
machine always chasing
the world, begging it
to marry me while burying it

beneath my neediness. mean-
while, over time, i unearthed
a better way: if you want someone
to run to you, better to
start running away.

LASSITUDE

i hate spoken word
poetry -- i prefer you

crack these puzzles,
sculptures standing in

for meaning. make your own
head music through your eyes.

i'd rather leave your ears
alone for now.

REMAINS

i have awaited my un-
expected death since the first
night i woke up to it.

i found myself giving up god
like a loose band-aid, stuck
in vain over a blister of doubt.

i chose pain over impossible
stories, inherited a prayer-
ful longing, and now

i cling to the kingdom
of worry that remains.

DOWN THERE

let go your dead-
lines, your expectations
and good intentions. be
as bad as happenstance
and wayward plans can
make you. and lo,

so shall you grow, your head
straining upwards toward pure
air, the better to escape
all the accidental manure
that always seems to accumulate
down there.

KITE

i am growing fear-
less as i get older.

all that i consume
eats away at me:

music, drink, the fucked-
up friction of attraction, chasing

satisfaction, everything becoming
fertilizer for the next

generation, sucked in
by mortality's churning,

relentless anonymizer.
try this: let go

your memories, your babies,
your wives and your wise ideas, go

fly a kite while there's still time
and wind and trivial string

to hold us aloft, tethered
to life, dragged up by love.

THE PAIN OF PARENTING

the pain of parenting isn't so much
personal, physical suffering. it's more
referred ache -- a blurry, persistent
stress that puts us on
sea-legs, makes us feel

like we awoke on deck
in a nightmare, a drunken ship-
wreck imminent, a portent of falling
that never comes true. our children
don't really grow up. they move in
and out of clarity, of being
able to answer what exactly

is wrong with you? with me?
and so finally together we
reconcile ourselves with this sad
fact: quite often it hurts
simply to be. life itself is
a queasy shared malady.

GROUND STOP

running through life and airports

we dream of nothing
more than a moment
to pause, an instant

to reflect on every other  
harried happenstance
that has left us

bereft of perspective, cut off

from our souls; we are like

tops staggering as we near

the end of all this

spinning, still straining to go

round, willing these final

revolutions before everything
stops and we go

to the ground.

OH YOUTH

oh youth, you ill-fitting
clothing, so quick to go
out of style. would I could
return to you to linger
an uncomfortable while.

OTHER DAYS (for Dave Wilber)

some days i happily put on
the sad sweater, play old

songs that have me  
staring out the window like a dog 

longing to be owned. other days
i feel the itch of despair

around my neck like a funeral procession, a receiving line of fleas
 

parading past the deceased and nothing,

not even music, eases the grip

of this melancholy; all sounds

become dull tones of surrender,

like the baying of a dreaming stray who's

had enough of waking up alone

legs flailing vainly to find whoever

and wherever once was home.

WIDE OPEN

that five pounds, your
leaky tires, the drinking, more
fiber. why bother? everything

is breaking now,
breaking down. you
get older, faster, see things
clearly; all that you love and have

loved dearly is receding,
your friends are gone, some dead,
others dying soon, and you finally
accept you are breaking, too.

you make big plans
through funeral tears, promise
to make amends, run errands,
fix years of neglect, to write
the end of that manuscript you've kept

in some drawer somewhere; life feels more
dire, bereft, and unspoken, and all
you want is to half-live like this

forever, torn,
imperfect and broken.

STILL ILL

the bled-out wine bottles and the stained
glasses stand like witnesses
to the accident that happened hours
before, stuck to the scene

as they wait to tell their tired stories
again. you don't mind, and
in time you'll learn pain
happens to all good men.

and the stereo reminds you
of what's true in the end:

"i'll probably
never see
you again."

AGAIN

we are dying,
friends, running
up the down
escalator, exercise
on top of exercise,
and for what? hands

never fully grasping
each other, railings
of incomprehension, "why

are we here,
why are we,
why?"; craving

the dull happy ache
of affection, slowing down,
suspending satisfaction until
we are standing before
our downfall. this ride is all,
and these lives lead directly
to temptation, and deliver us
to evil. amen. and can we
do it again?

BUT DON'T GIVE YOURSELF AWAY

today is the day

i give up. i don't

expect to be

fully happy

ever again. a year ago

i would have stuck

my arm in the sideways blink

of the elevator doors expecting

some form of human

or mechanical pity.

today is the day i started to think

those doors are probably gonna close 
on me.

R.I.P. P.S.H.

the way you wore your kind face
makes this more painful for the rest
of us, all broken souls alike, all

wanting to find nothing
more than feeling whole. your play
-acting was more real than most

people's living. in every role your humanity
stole the scene, and you left us
admiring everyone you have ever been.

PLAINTIVE

tell me what is
smaller or more

worthy of pity
than my own

tiny rhymed religion,
this plaintive poetry

that pacifies me
and makes life

feel a touch
less random.

OUTSIDE THE BAR

that moment when the old
drunk guy talking to himself

outside the bar is
barely older and drunker

and he's talking to you

begs so many questions:
what is life about,

and what exactly do you love,
and why, and whom?

ON MY BEST DAYS I AM

oh life i had

so many questions for you

in my youth: emphatic

queries intent on pulling

out the truth. i wanted to 

know that suffering was

in service of some

higher purpose, and also 

how to feel, on the whole,

somewhat less nervous and sad.

now older i am suffering more

and caring less

whether life is really “worth it.” 

on my best days i am 

content simply to live it.

UNSAID (for Jeffrey P. McManus)

i live my life on the edge
of tears, a salty soup
of joy stirred with dread.

any moment i might end
up dead or worse: heart-
broken instead. i tease

my hungry soul with art
that mimics how it feels
to be fed. i no longer expect

this universe to release me
from its wonder, at least not yet,
but in your honor i'm leaving 

fewer things
unsaid.

POETS EVEN LESS

most days i want to grab

you by your art-

work and give you

positive reviews until you

lose your sense of self-

worthlessness. it’s true

nobody likes poetry, and

poets even less. which begs

the question for both of us:

instead of verse why not try

making some other kind of mess?