eulogy

whatever beach
you find yourself on
waiting for the fishes
to stick their heads

out of the water
to turn their
attention shoreward

the beach
in that moment
will be yours alone

surely, they will listen
yours, a life spent
getting the eulogy just right
practiced on birds

ran by reptiles
even mammals not unlike
yourself, all blinking
without much
interest

the fish, they
who hold history of
every human
utterance thusfar

they, whose chronicles
are kept orderly
for others who
number less
than stars
seen at dawns breaking

they must care
it is, after all,
worded so beautifully

what I see no more

if I could
only keep you from drowning
you could
watch these sunrises with me
I would
hold your head above the tide
you could
tell me of their glory

two

dusk creeps
round shouldered
over the hills
dampening the valley
with it’s slow cold breath
as the man with
rucksack ( canvas and strapped )
heads for the cabin

inside the lamps trimmed
burning, cookstove warm
inside, he puts the pack by
the door
inside he kisses the forhead
of the woman
who never learned
how to stop being beautiful

he’d been gone three days
he’ll stay five
before leaving again
his bag of tools on his back
piecework in town for
the few dollars they need
but now he’s here

they eat
they talk they laugh
she reads him the letter
from her sister in Kentucky
long now a widow, who met
a merchant man who asked her
to move north to Cincinnati
to wed

it may do her good,he says,
she never got on well alone
near as I can tell
we have enough saved you can
take the train to
see her get hitched
if you want
maybe, she says, and puts the letter
on the sideboard

the lamps out
both of them knowing that
she won’t go
having not been more than
two miles apart from one another
for fifty three years
as dusk moved on and dark moved in
they slept
together apart
from the world beyond their valley

dessert – personal (of course)

a day made for manna
directionless, hunger setting in, on
any other day, I’d’ve not known
yearning, but this, this… a
morning darkmarked it would seem
a morning created specifically for
doing anything possible to
earn any favor the sky may offer, if
failing hours up the ante
or I am left, still stranded
remembering how easy life has been, a
memory risen as a lesson, a ram,
a pardon, a way
never doubt deliverence, this, a
new promise to be had
a day made for manna

observation: winter midnight away from city dissonance

the silence of it
harboring its own extrapolation of pi
each moment floats off,
stellar spirits come to
inhabit briefly a time
linear, measured by intrinsic
early extinguished sun
nocturnal excape
christen it ethereal
entering this, have i
order? secure perhaps
for this serene,
insular winter sigh
the silence of it

lily

I reached beneath
the brambles where
seeing me coming
she kind of
squatted down and 
stamped her feet
in defense
or defiance
or both
I reached in and lifted
her out, a squallering protest
as she took one last stab
at the few purple-red jewels
remaining, in the crook
of my arm from 
raspberry patch to
the enclosed coop
she felt like a
a bundle of thistles
her feathers thin and
wild and waiting for
the molt to reverse
the evidence of theivery
still on her beak
her head cocked so that
one yellow eye could take
in the curiosity that
was the beast that
carried her, admonishing her
in a cackle she didn’t understand

the measure of a reading

the measure of a reading

after conscious effort
to disregard all the
acedemics of writing
I get into it
throughout the reading
I always find
myself measuring its success
by counting how many
watch my lips as I speak
how many smile approvingly
how many lean in
as I deliberately notch
my delivery down
to a near whisper
I measure by
comparing that number
to the one of
how many shift
uncomfortably
in the folding chairs,
the ones sleeping,
or the ones almost imperceptively
shaking their heads at my
misuse of their golden language
the true measure of success
however, comes 
paired with an
exasperated grunt
from somewhere
in the sparse room
usually timed so wonderfully
at a break in a line
and he or she rises 
adjusts a fasion miscalculation
in the form of a tam
or hem of a very proper skirt
and tries to make as unquiet
an exit as their exalted
position allows
me, silently hoping
for a banged knee in the process
and escorting them away
with too much puncuation
uneven cadence
and a joyous
thank-you, come again

travelers

lumbering forward
toward transendence
each with thier carapace
balanced, a hard

slow slag, the context
catagorized of their days
( inglorious sameness )
the previous a twin of the next

Lech-Lecha, unswayed
each one went
forward always forward bent
having been told the way

collage

it is a distance
measured in
the unwelcomed
deflection of peace

that inevitable terrifying
abandonment of memory
that critcal measurement
of distance
from the form
and the substance of
ones being
calculated from a moment lost
then another
then another

until only sparks
of a life
come in
as comets
low and fast
turning in time
to ashes
and floating into
their proper places
a collage for
others to decipher

an hour at the slots

an hour at the slots

I found myself here
bored
looking to
fall ass backwards into
monetary salvation
not unlike
the group of red hatted
ladies scattered about
this room of irritating lights
with its putrid air
its chimes and its bells
all perfectly tuned
to the key of C
me with my hope
riding on about nineteen
bucks in loose change
them
pissing away their
social security
one nickle at a time