 |
anchorage 11-12-05
PUNCHLINE
funny
how the mind works
how a face will come at you
out of the blue recesses
of your memory
twenty years later
and you can’t
for the life of you
remember his name
though you’ve carried a thing
or two he said
the whole time.
man i worked for
in a shelter
in new orleans once
told me
‘you know
you can’t save these kids.
you’re not that big.
the best you can do
is a drop in the bucket
of their lives
hope there’s other drops
before the bucket spills.’
the other thing he said
one night in a bar
waxing wise
thinking about his lucky life
his love
his wife.
‘i’m just better at it now
in my forties
than i was in my twenties
this loving thing
this being a better
man at it.
i’m just lucky to
have such a good woman
now that i’m ready.’
why not your fifties?
why not fifty-two?
thinking about a good woman
thinking about how far you’ve come
thinking about some thing
a man told you
half a life ago
as you putz around your apartment
cleaning up the place.
and maybe that’s the joke of it
the punchline
the thing you figure out
the last thing you’re thinking about
when you take the trash
down to the bin
fifteen seconds before
another man
some raging fist of a man
comes bellowing at you
out of the alley
knocks you down in the dark
you hit your head
and the light goes out
you’re dead.
maybe that’s the punchline
maybe that’s the funny story
‘you know the last thing
i thought about when i was alive...
how long it takes
to know
a thing.
how good
to be
so ready...
anchorage 12/31/05
maybe a day
here’s what
i’m thinking
i’m thinking
at 7:59
in the a.m.
and again
at 8:32
though i have
to admit
i waffled a bit
at 9:45
when i looked
out my window
at that sliver
of a morning
moon
just a whisper
of white
against
the icy blue
it’s cold out there
i’m thinking
i’m thinking
and much
as i hate to be
such a weather wimp
and much
as i’d love to see
your face
hear your voice
at the same
time
in the same
room
your touch
i’m not even
gonna
talk about
it’s cold out there
i’m thinking
i’m thinking
and maybe not
such a bus stop
bliss
of a day
and maybe not
such a stolen
kiss
of a day
maybe a day
of domestic
detail
of make soup
and regroup
dust off
the tops
of my spice
jar lids
chop up
a little something
in the way
of a vegetable
chowder
get all steamy
and dreamy
in the trust
of another day
another time
maybe a day
of having
a little faith
in the moon
i’ll see you soon.
anchorage 11/26/05
alchemies
On a solid wooden table
in a tiny room in Anchorage
there sits a silken box
with evidence of life inside
some hundreds of thousands of years old.
Above, there floats a glowing globe
near ancient as the earth.
I use these touchpoints,
these talismans,
and tools of ether and ink,
alchemies older and younger than I am,
to hear a woman's heartbeat
from half a world away.
anchorage 10-27-05
one hundred monkeys
one hundred
monkeys
typing all night
in a dark room
with their eyes
closed
and their hands
in their pockets
might
come closer
to getting it right
about went wrong
between us
than the
one hundred
theories
tapping
in my head
alone
in my bed
a thousand
miles away
from you.
anchorage 9-21-05
the hardest working men in snow biz
It’s hard work
disassembling a nation
stopping the clock
on the progress
of human rights
this annoying
egalitarian nonsense
these cloying
environmentalists
that keep us from our dreams
of absolute power
of absolute profit
and living like kings.
It’s hard work
disassembling a nation
stopping the clock
turning it back
year by bloody year.
are you kidding me?
there are toadies
to assemble
districts to gerrymander
laws to break
or ignore
or re-write
ethics committees to subvert
or make impotent.
media to manipulate
checks and balances to
eliminate.
lying is the least of it.
if we appeal to their
nightmares
we can catch them
while they’re sleeping
by the year 2005
it’ll be 1950 again.
by 2010
we can have 1920 back.
are you kidding me?
we got a whole nation
of grumbling white men
want nothing more
than to get back
to the good ole days
when men were men
and women knew their
place.
we got a whole
christian coalition
out there
want nothing more
than to take it
back from science
take us back
to the monkey trials.
we got a whole nation
of sleepers
who’ll believe anything
they see
on a TV screen.
It’s hard work
disassembling a nation
but if we work real hard
if we stay up all night
we’ll be back in texas
counting our chips
before anyone’s
the wiser
before more than
a fraction
are awake.
anchorage 10/20/05
OLD DOGS LIKE ME (part 2)
amazing
how much forgiveness
there is
in a man like me
for a beautiful woman
at 7:23 in the a.m.
and i'm right on time.
for once,
early even.
i saw how tired
she was last night.
i've worked through
till dawn myself.
thought i'd treat the both of us
to an extension
of the prettiest 15-20 minutes
of my working day.
thought i'd send her home
(heroically)
a coupla minutes sooner
than expected.
'go home. (sweet thing)
get some sleep.
and pleasant dreams... '
a stop en route
for my coffee of course.
sludge cup.
two shots.
with room.
only way
i will make it through
my working day
double shift indeed
and a coupla minutes more.
he say,
'you want the Verona?
the dark?
the coffee of romance?'
i say,
'that is
the coffee
for me.'
forty-five minutes later
and i'm out there in the rain
no answer to the doorbell
the office phone no help
throwing quarters at the window.
sipping coffee slow
imagining her asleep.
think about going home
and waiting for her call.
then click,
she hits the button
and i'm in.
'so sorry.' she say
in her sleepy eyed way.
'that's okay'
i like her voice
her breakfast voice
her just woke up voice
her wish she could roll over and just go back to sleep voice
she say,
'brian, you're my hero.'
that's how i like
my heroism, you know.
no bombs nor bullets, me.
no death-defying leaps
of bravado or faith.
easy. an effortless grace.
almost painless.
until she spills my coffee
in her sleepened state,
putting on her coat.
murky brown mud of love
seeping across the floor.
'so sorry.', she say.
'that's okay', i say.
'i've felt that way myself.
i'll get it.
you go home.
you get some rest (sweet thing).'
'you're my hero.'
she say.
i say nothing.
only smile.
what a noble old dog.
woman owes me a sludge cup
and she knows it.
anchorage 9-17-05
the science of love
the scien-
tists
tell me
if i
can on-
ly
re-allign
my
neuro-
trans-
mittor
connec-
tions
i can
keep
my love
neuro-
pep-
tides
from
bombarding
my
adren-
al glands
and
make
my feelings
for you
disa-
ppear.
like
you did,
my
dear.
on the
whole,
it makes me
rather
sad.
anchorage 9-07-05
i never know how to respond when my brother sends me poetry about his suicidal fantasies (?) or killing his wife and her lover
and yeah yeah yeah i get the part
about the raw power of poetry
written from the edge
of your darkest nightmare
and/or
the healing function of exorcizing your demons
by pulling them out into the light of day
and exposing them for the half-blind assholes
they usually are.
and i know of course
that it’s time to call or write my brother
and have a good talk about life.
find something in it that makes us both laugh
about the absurdities inherent
in staying alive
when it hurts so much
that all you really want to do
is go to sleep
and not wake up
to this shit.
again.
tomorrow.
but as far as poetry goes...
i just don’t know.
i’m always torn
between hoping
he gathers up all this bile
and burns it in a great ceremonial pyre
of letting go
and living on
long before his kids get a chance to find it
stuffed in a drawer somewhere,
like a loaded gun
pointed at their chances
for happiness and hope
in life or love.
long before my brother dies
of natural causes
sometime in his late eighties
and wondering if i should call 9-1-1.
anchorage 8-5-05
it may just be the sound of the sea itself
that makes californians crazy.
the constant noise of rush in flush away
rush in flush away
rush in...
too persistent a reminder of immortality.
some edge of eternity they hover on
with an unknown ocean in their foreground.
(on the east coast
at least you know
on the other side of the water
the buildings are made of bricks)
no wonder such a thirst
for intangible solutions.
invent (re-invent) new ages
formed of whisps and whispers.
like they needed new ways to relate to vegetables.
gurus to teach them to trust in a universe that flickers on and off.
your deepest dreams
your greatest fears
same same
wait
trust
do nothing
and it will be revealed to you.
the continuity of thought and history is suspect.
the accumulation of knowledge
the stacking of things is illusion.
leave the past behind
if you want to move forward.
in the midwest
the streams flow endlessly forward.
something breaks and you fix it.
the storm comes and you find a place to hide
til it goes away.
plant your crops.
build your cars.
work with things your fingers can touch.
get on with the thing.
you don’t know where you’re going
unless you know where you came from.
anchorage 7-19-05
SUNDAY
if you’re the first one up
in my building
on a sunday morning
you get to snag
the dead man’s paper.
what?
like he’s gonna use
the tv guide?
anchorage 7-17-05
Substitute Teacher
(as if)
kid looked up at me wondering
when he saw I didn’t have my hand on my chest
wasn’t mumbling along with the rest
but flags scare me this early in the morning
all gaudy flash and fluttering phrases
like the costume of the killer clown king
and all those innocents trusting
like lemmings unsuspecting
the weight of the body politic
and I’ve seen the downside
of the american scheme
empty promises and pretty propaganda
and I can’t lie like that to the little ones
so early in the morning look away
as I’ve seen the body bags returning
the profitable slaughter of innocents abroad
the hunger in our own streets
and I’ve seen the bloody rackets
the bulging pockets of the well-fed profiteers
all wrapped in red white and blue
what would you do
if you knew
that santa was a psychopath
and the easter bunny had razor sharp teeth
and an appetite that knew no bounds
would you send the children unaware
into that cruel dark night
would you act like nothing’s wrong
would you assume the position
would you mumble along
as if.
anchorage '05 ‘