Autumn Leaves

Raining now and too warm
for the last day of Autumn
at least the way I view the calendar
in four equal three month seasons
which is pretty much how it goes down
here in New England but it's
still warm enough now for moths
to collect around the outside light
and a lone and hardy mosquito
cruised me a couple of days ago too
meanwhile the South is dry and burning
while the President isn't at all presidential
and the world, from this vantage,
seems to have suddenly tilted sharply
like the stern of the Titanic high in the air
as the bow plunges asunder.

Some will say this is necessary,
even part of the plan, while I,
myself, have no idea.

Image

A heavy anchor on a very long chain
The links of the chain are small
Bolt cutters would do the trick
Do you realize that?

The One Left...

Not Much Has Changed

Morning fog and too warm for the season
Got out of work late last night
That familiar hollow buzz signaling the need for sleep
Rain and fog and the sound of a distant train horn
The one that used to make me feel saintly
Broke, hungry, thin and going without
Walking through night, fog, stiff wind
Some unrequited love weighing on me
Generally compressed, not crushed flat
Walking

I have a car these days, no longer thin, still broke,
Closer to flat

She Said I'd Lost My Brilliance

Thanksgiving morning
I'm hungry for peanut butter and raspberry jam toast
The squirrels are ransacking the bird feeder
For whatever remains of the black sunflower seeds
I slept in this morning and, waking, felt less bad
The tank is half full of heating oil, and the place is warm
I'm going to see family today,  bringing eggnog and red wine

Thought about plugging in the string of Christmas lights
Hung there to make this place a little less stark for her
Back when she used to come here, and to make the joy
And warm magic visible, but looking at them now
Kind of stabbed me so I just let them go on sleeping
Keeping their secret 

Dark Spanish Symphony

Well Meant

If asked, I would tell someone else that he or she is already doing all that is required - taking regular forward steps, doing ordinary things, living the life that's right in front of one. It doesn't matter if one does it alone or with other people. Just keep going like that. Keep going, and what's now distant will become close, and what's now close will become distant. In this way, we get over it.

I would hope the other person wouldn't ask about that chasm inside with pain around its edges, about what to fill it with or if it ever goes away.

Location

Taiwan, China, San Diego...
Was that you?
I'm pretending now that it was.

I want to see your eyes
To feel your heart again
To share my love with you

Through this sad world

I Don't Like Tuesday Either

The moon woke me at 3 AM bright enough to cast shadows. I read a text message from someone who said that all her psychiatric patients were trying to hook up. The moon means romance to many. I stood in the sliding door, looking out, wondering who you were underneath it with now, sick within. I did the loving kindness meditation, for us both, but there was no getting back to sleep.

Another Moon Story

There was an historic appearance of the moon last night. She was closer to us and brighter than she will be for a long time to come. I would have shown it to her as it rose over the trees and felt that deep satisfaction I used to feel, like I'd given her a gift that really meant something and she understood its significance. 

Religious Observance

A few Lazarus hours spent
with the light and new air hurting you,
lying there sleepless, ashamed of your body,
brought a kind of pleasure, but remotely,
feeling less of it from a greater distance
without the flying of your heart
ashamed for breaking the vigil,
for drawing breath, but your life
should be used for more than marking
the grave of something once beautiful.

You tell yourself this then
slow motion wriggle your body
partially free of rigor mortis,
assisted by rum warm in your throat,
into something resembling dancing.

She kindly doesn't, but the mirror judges
you.

I hope the Lover in you has found now its Beloved.

Fleeting

A heavy footed dancer
Santeria priestess
Her head is out the window
At two o'clock in the morning

One hundred charms of protection
Action figures covered in ash
Cigar stubs burning slowly
Sharp featured Indio

Don't forget to vote, she tells him
Then, later, on the highway
A shooting star, a flying arrow
Shows him the way East

Answer if you can...

Won't Somebody Tell Me

He's almost careless now
fresh from the warm embrace
of a whiskey drink
caught talking to himself
by a young couple on their way in.

It's much warmer tonight
than seasonal, and he's slit a little
by the scimitar edge
of the waxing moon and
starts bleeding some

Coping with four situations
that put him in the high risk for suicide category
all at once, he flips the bird at the golden
glow of the sword's edge remembering
the brown waitress and his
own natural time winding down knowing
that Death takes good care of itself already

Drives himself home with Tom Waits on the radio
for a few minutes asking about the soul of a man,
speculating that a man ain't nothing but his mind,
covering Blind Willy Somebody.

Pulling into the drive way
he hopes to see her car there
remembers what that felt like
smells the fallen leaves in the
warm autumn night air