Prologue:
Hours linger on the patio
like a tired old dog;
the sky is under no obligation,
the wind is conserving its energy,
the neighborhood waits quietly
for nothing in particular.
The curtain of evening drops
and I say, it is beginning.
1. Threnody
My love, wherever you may be,
I wonder if you think of me;
way out beyond the deepest blue,
I hope that I occur to you.
I often find you in my dreams,
you echo from the ceiling beams,
I hear you in a certain song,
I see your face amid the throng,
or in the middle of the day,
while walking down some random way
I see a cardinal on a post –
that’s when your absence haunts me most.
If there’s a hope that we shall meet
in Heaven, on some golden street,
this grief I’d patiently endure.
I wish, I wish, that I were sure.
My love, wherever you may be,
I wonder if you think of me;
way out beyond the deepest blue,
I hope that I occur to you.
(For My Father)
2. American Dream
I am a slow motion kamikaze
in a vessel I don’t own
in clothing that isn’t mine
on someone else’s clock;
I crash into questions.
3. For An Absent Friend
The years have gathered dust
I sometimes wipe away,
but all that’s left are angels
I’m afraid to entertain
and your old house
full of invisible strangers.
4. A Letter To The Stars
I heard we are both dust and fire.
Some people ponder our distance,
believe one of us is no longer present,
that a phantom writes to a phantom.
No one sees us in real time,
if they happen to notice us at all
in our respective galaxies.
Others claim we are bright,
but with a backdrop of darkness,
and some of us are prone to falling.
So begins a long, slow burnout –
but here is where we differ:
my end will not be spectacular
as your burst of gamma rays,
and no one will write poems about it.
5. Morning Train
This is a poem about
a train passing at midnight.
It won’t mention death,
it won’t touch on politics,
because trains carry
the needs of the living,
needs common to all.
This poem is simply about
the rumbling, the distant horn,
the comfort of predictability.
Not everything is a metaphor.
We know the world is fallen —
but it continues by grace.
Just listen to that train.
6. D Day
The sea did not know their names,
its tide erased their footprints;
boys dressed like soldiers
carrying photographs of their mothers
or neatly folded letters from sweethearts
defied the cold math of war.
7. Skyview
The night unfolds
like some ancient map
of a cosmic neighborhood,
but I am still struggling
to navigate my own
little patch of earth.
8. Monday Verses
Some people do what’s easy,
some people do what’s right,
and others what’s expedient
to get them through the night.
Everyone’s got poison,
and everyone’s got needs,
and everyone’s got joys and sorrows,
everyone plants seeds.
Everyone’s a mover,
and everyone’s a cause,
and yet the world proves every day
we’re subject to its laws.
9. Tables Have Turned
Like turntables
but where is the music?
Like tables in the temple
turned over by Jesus.
Like a times table
but what is the product?
Like the periodic table,
but where is the stardust
of which I am allegedly made?
I feel like ordinary dust
on a patio table
but where is my turn of phrase?
10. Leaving Sonora
Good night Desert,
long mistaken for the promised land;
good night Phoenix,
rising from the embers of eleven summers,
making one more stab at being cosmopolitan;
good night low sky
that seemed accessible at first;
good night high sun
that scarred me with endorphins and vitamin d;
good night monsoon
that teased me when it wasn’t drowning me;
good night dust storm
that let me scrawl fresh new elegies;
good night transplants
who cheer for other teams;
good night snowbirds
who leave behind a ring of golden smog
before returning to Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee;
buenas noches, Español –
he leído tantos carteles.
Esto es lo mejor que puedo hacer;
good night gridded map
that gains more lines as time passes;
good night fan palms
whose swaying fronds
bring arias of long forgotten oceans;
good night saguaro
sporting an imaginary six gun
and ten gallon hat;
good night little hummingbird
who evaded my lens for so long,
then finally hovered in front of me;
good night russian thistle,
fabled tumbleweed with shallow roots;
good night blue peaks
surrounding me like folded arms.
11. Touch
An intimate wind
meets me outside the door,
hands learn my geography
under the low patio light;
the moon watches silently,
knowing that I know,
that my secrets are nothing
compared to what she’s seen.
12. Night
My finger traces dark shapes
like a pencil on carbon paper.
Every lit window is
a floating square of light.
I look at the stars and wonder
which ones are really there.
13. Returning Home
Upon my arrival
the day handed me a blank business card.
I stashed it in my wallet,
and every time I looked at it
a few more letters were present.
14. Cartography
I found a universe
where everyone else saw a puddle.
Morning carried the scent of future harvests
and I acknowledged it with awe and gratitude.
Someone once told me
everything that ever existed still exists,
and whatever will be
is already present in some form –
but I kept insisting
it’s either memory or anticipation.
By evening, shadows had learned metaphors,
becaming like water on the ground,
while news of stars forming and dying
had not yet reached our eyes, our lenses.
I nearly forgot about miracles,
then silence collected itself
like leftover loaves and fishes
which appeared out of nowhere,
spoken into existence by an impossible man
who is, always was, always will be.
15. Trek
On weeknights
the world retreats early;
unknown people draw their blinds
against the darkness,
this road without lamp posts
settles into anonymity.
Only a doe and her fawns
might be stirring;
I watch for them
as I make my way home,
leaving no evidence.
16. Anniversary
You don’t need flowers to vouch for me,
I don’t need any grand gestures;
our vows are woven into the small hours,
the sacred spaces between milestones,
the silent choirs, the meeting of hands.
Love, we know, has learned our names.
17. The Weight
Every day
the world leaps onto my back
like a needy child
naive enough to think
I’m invincible.
Every day
I hunch over a little more;
eventually it will move on,
indifferent to me,
and find a new body to ride.
18. A Dry Well
I need new descriptors,
a more astute muse,
to help me make sense of
the state of the news.
To find better words
is becoming quite tough
when broken and fallen
are not good enough.
19. Yes,
my mind wanders,
but it always leaves ribbons
on the trees.
20. My Turn In The Rotation
Once it was his hands and his mind
that kept the engine of our world running;
now I notice those arthritic fingers
unconsciously playing an invisible piano.
Ordinary things have become events, ordeals;
he says he is ready to “go”, whatever that means,
and I pretend it doesn’t bother me.
I remember when he was still himself,
before he recalled things that didn’t happen,
before he forgot the name he gave me.
Between us, now, is the silence of idle machinery
that all my rage and terror cannot restart.
If I could return one long-passed day to him,
I would answer his call, clear my schedule,
knowing one day I’d stand beside him
and grapple with the misdirection of love.
21. Solstice
On the longest day
the top half of the world
leans into its star.
I try to decipher
this calligraphy of shadows
before the ink disappears.
22. The Sky Is Liquid (A Song)
You are drops of blue
Falling at my feet
Dissolving in the heat
The sky is liquid
You are beads of fire
Writhing on the ground
Dying without a sound
The sky is liquid
You are a storm of pearls
I catch you in my hands
You disappear like sand
The sky is liquid
I don’t know what it means
It came to me in a dream
I don’t know if it’s wrong
I heard it in a song
You are the space between stars
You soak me in the night
You’re gone by morning light
The sky is liquid
The sky is liquid
23. Better Than The Alternative
Each morning features its own pain –
my right ear plays its minor chord on cue,
joints and muscles keep their appointments,
the ground gets lower, the shelves higher,
I run out of air sooner, I wake up later
and think of my Dad’s old mantra:
Getting old sucks,
but it’s better than the alternative.
Still, I am upright and above ground,
and before this day is over, I believe
this body will somehow make me proud.
24. Jamaica, Queens
Here they pronounce my name correctly –
is it education, or dumb luck?
Every door opens inward
to a room full of ghosts.
The wind blows in every direction,
fluent in every language but mine.
Even my shadow is tentative,
a shy tagalong without a choice.
By evening, the stars hide in the light
and this strange place
seems just as unsure about me.
25. Waiting
This chair has held many others before me –
I am just another, with more coming after.
The door has swung open countless times,
the light has moved in a similar way,
the clock has torn at its own clothing,
this lobby has held galaxies of faces.
Outside, another car pulls up.
No one exits, and it moves on.
Hope has become a habit.
I rehearse your arrival.
26. The Irony Of Shadows
They are darkness
that can only exist
when there is light.
27. From The 17th Floor
The roofs of buses,
each with its own number,
and AC unit;
an American flag on a rooftop,
stretched by the wind;
a dirty puddle on a flat roof;
the roofs of identical trains,
moving like an aluminum snake;
Pigeons on rooftops and sidewalks,
mingling with a constant flow of people
wearing backpacks, each one a small universe.
28. Oleander Tea
There’s beauty and there’s terror
in her flower, leaf, and stem;
you’ll make a fatal error
should you interact with them.
It’s safe to have a gander,
but she’ll kill you through and through;
her name is Oleander –
you should never drink her brew!
29. Kintsugi
I swept away the shattered myth of you –
it wasn’t worth the gold to reconstruct it.
30. My Nightly Walk
The moon
poses for a picture.
Epilogue:
The halfway point of the year
brings no marching band, no fanfare,
only the same memory and anticipation,
the same canopy and understory,
the same horizon behind and before,
and the same goal not to reach the end.
