Marina

Put your lonesome in a box for now and
open yourself to the day - a meeting with
Edgar Allen Crow, for example, who talks to people
and has a penchant for grape jelly.

Walk the sidewalks of a new town,
comfortable, marvel at the price of
boats and glimpse, from without, a life
you'll never know.

Your lonesome is in a box now like
a tamed house fire, and the smell of it
will cling always to your clothes and hair,
but there's still a lot of life happening out there.

Talizman

Last night I walked past a painting of a
winter Eastern Blue Bird mounted on a wall
and it twisted my heart, but then I
remembered the moment, undeniable.

Imagining what's happening for you now,
without allowing myself to go to deep,
seeing the results to come
made me smile.

Epidemic

Yesterday I thought heroin might eat us all

A hungry barracuda slashing through a school of

Hapless smaller fish, disappearing one by one

And in small groups.

It's Only 8:30.

This place smells of dust and the bathroom needs cleaning badly.
Your room should be a sanctuary, I've read. Not hardly.
Maybe my bed is, but once you climb up out of there
It's pretty grim.

Tried to sleep with thoughts of a young addicted mother in treatment
Visiting with her two very young children who didn't want to let her go
When it was time for them to leave with their grandparents
 "Don't leave us1", they cried. And she cried too. Rivers of tears.

And then a phone call that one of the staff, barely in her 20s, suddenly lost her
Father tonight. She is also crying. And then the other job calls
To say there are three people already waiting to be seen - heroin, no doubt
Having something to do with that.

People lose things, people break down - all so lonely and tied together.
I should at least vacuum in here, dust, unclog the drain in the sink.
I should drag everything outside and pile it high and,
With a gallon of accelerant, ignite a pire in memory of it all.

Apes Strong Together

The phone wakes me an hour after falling asleep
A cool wet night, and it's so quiet
That I wake lost again
She served as a point of reference
During moments like this, but that was before
And now, for me, the light is out.

There are no stars to steer by, so we drift
And make the best of the fact that we are afloat.
It's so quiet here.
I'm thinking of my boy watching
War For The Planet Of The Apes
And the empathy in the eyes of those monkeys.

Outing

Talked mostly with radios and birds
and people living cigarette break to cigarette
break last week, otherwise I was alone, and it
still hurts waking up remembering doing so
in love.

I know someday you'll have a beautiful life
I know you'll be a star
In somebody else's sky
Why, why, why, can't it be...
Can't it be, mine?

You're speaking my heart,  young Eddie.
I feel it open, swamp and sink again.
But I'm not blaming you, man,
It's just where my head goes.
You know?

Tattooed all we are indeed, Ed,
and I pick up this tasty Brazilian glass
with my bitter hand and sip the citrus-alcoholic power
through a straw, but it does nothing to keep me
from seeing her eyes.

I'll hold my course though, Eddie.
I ain't going down.
A lady is coming to tell me something tonight,
and I'm here to seep a little blood and listen
to the news.

Thanks, Bill.

Bill Withers sings from the jukebox and

four men who have never been introduced

begin to harmonize:

"When I look at you,

everything's alright with me..."

They all remember how it felt.

a lovely daaaaaaaaaaaaay

Still At It

I was in that parking lot again, at midnight and then at 3 AM.
Same bird atop the same light post singing continuously.
Not a call and response but a solo, a soliloquy, a filibuster
On and on without breaks and at first blush I think how lovely
And then I wonder what's really happening here
Are you beseeching someone to return to you through a sacrificial marathon?
Are you up there wild-eyed, manic and hoarse, speaking your delusion?
When will we know it's time to stop?

What a Pill

Woke in the car at dawn
serenaded by a very active solo night bird
the sounds of which took my dreams in all directions.
Got out and immediately a man is talking -
"I'm seeek - my troat! I just came from Ohio".
I keep walking slowly maintaining eye contact
in order to determine if I am really awake and if he is talking to me.
It's the parking lot of a community health center, and there's no one else
but his loose beagle mix sniffing around.
He must think I'm a doctor. I nod to him gravely, wave, shrug,
but I do nothing to help his throat. It's going to be hot today,
humid.

The Pursuit Of

Unfamiliar here but moving forward anyway
This world is not my home, I'm thinking, like the song says
But I am here none the less learning lessons like
What you want will certainly make you bleed
And evade you and if you manage to catch it,
It will only slip away or crumble in your grasping hands.
What you do not want is plentiful and ubiquitous though,
So you'll not go entirely without.

Can't

And so everything suddenly seems to be all
mother and baby related. It's like I'm dreaming
and I know it, hurting myself with it.

For Want Of A True Companion

You know, I think the male hummingbird is on his own this year after all
Thought I spotted the female once last month but haven't seen her since
Haven't heard the buzzing of their aerial antics outside my slider either
A ruby throated man alone - feeding, moving frenetically - to what end?

Not all that different from two calls last week from human males
Who no longer share feeders with their former mates, asking about having a beer
We are not buzzing so well in our respective territories
They talk about other females with little relish, about how anyone can be replaced

Another Step

Humid
No particular distress
But without going to that place
There is nothing to write about either
I'll take it

Price of a Ticket

Direct Experience

Spent a good part of yesterday
realizing how frequently in the course of
a day I check out of my life in avoidance
of direct experience.

There are reasons for this, maybe justifications
I could make, but I sure do it a lot. Where I go is
into this loop, and there is no hope to be found there,
so I tried to avoid flying off and just sat in the inane.

Empty words and stage laughter to fill space and time.
If I stay, I feel assaulted and confined, want to respond with aggression -
parry, slash, thrust, vertical butt stroke - bleeding, they might take pause
next time. Let's not talk just for the noise, ok?

Brick

I'd like to be able to form this kind of sleep into bricks
And store them for dry spells, leave them on pillows as gifts,
Sell a few on E-Bay, or at crunchy
Farmer's Markets.

Rest or remission?
Dormancy or depression?
Exhaustion or acceptance?
My memories have worn me out.

Step

Sleep's been better
that counts for something.
Now, the rest of it. 

Cruel Dream

5:45 AM
He is showing me how she moves.
They are very much in love.
The line repeats until I wake up.
The latest physical sensation in my heart
Is one of being pressed
Flat. 

Some Found Items Of Note

Let go of what I can't control.
Fireflies.
Cool night.
Bright moon.

Spirit Radio

He said I had spirits about me to keep me from despairing,
but there are moments when that feeling comes on,
the way events arrange themselves, when you believe
he's right

The car radio this morning,
a new leaf having been turned,
experiencing post-acute withdrawal
symptoms in mind and body...

{When you resist the unwanted thoughts (craving not wanting), you are attending to them - feeding them, making them stronger. This makes them come harder, as they do now.}

... Don't you cry cuz she is gone
She is only moving on
Chasing mirrors through the haze...

Start the car, try to exhale the distress,
try the approach of welcoming them in, letting them pass through
even if they smash the furniture. But if you just stand here staring,
remembering, feeling their vibrating wings - they will sting you to death.

Don't stay here. Push forward off this well worn track. This place is no longer habitable.
Driving the same route, familiar sights represent moments in time, cueing the same memories, evoking the same rush of blood from my heart (how can there be any left?) and the same pain.
This has got to change. Take another route home. make another way, build a different home.

I need a graceful, proud way to let go
Says the Spirit Radio five minutes out from work.
You're either talking to me, or there's an awful lot of us
down here who could use your help.

Properly Relieved

A year of waiting and looking inward
writing about a heart and its fixation
waiting without hope or reason
carving a deep canal in my brain's neural pathways
an easy access super highway
built on a roadbed of repetition
a chant, a mantra, until it became
muscle memory, habit, addiction
my brain has been trained - think of it in those terms -
moving on means thinking differently, more
time in the wasteland, or building another highway.

You can begin that work any time,
but you must begin it now.
Today marks a year.
I am standing down.

The Last One About That

After she told me, I know I talked but don't know what I said
I couldn't open the door,  then out on the street, I walked to the right
Then changed direction, and then crossed the street blindly.
I saw my car, something familiar, and walked toward it.
Inside, I turned on the radio, gagged, and the song said
Love drives everyone crazy.

And How Gracefully You Let Go Of Things Not Meant For You

Not delusional at all.

The connection remains

And remains unexplained.

News arrived today of your new life,

And although I might have looked like

I died when I heard it, I didn't.

Didn't I already know?

I lay this heart down tonight for good with only love

and a small but greater understanding, wishing
you and yours love and beauty together.

I hope she looks like you
and that you love her

with all that you are.

She will expand your heart.

And you will be all to her. 

Fifty-One

Another birthday coming
I guess I've learned to celebrate things
Like a full night of sleep, no physical pain, having some hair,
And my body sometimes working something like it did when I had
Fewer birthdays to my credit. I'm employed.
My kids are healthy and in my life.

The past year was for losing things and trying not to drown.
I didn't, but I still spend more time in the cemetery than anywhere else and
Seem tattooed with the idea that you never looked back, that it meant so little to you.
I kept the vigil anyway, not because I am more faithful, but because I had to somehow.
When hope died, I folded her hands upon her breast - her last breath was white and thin.
You can still wait without hope, no ticket for the bus, no service in this town.

Today, my heart is still the dog at the window.
Tomorrow, I will allow it to become something else.