When I died my life became
Nothing but a reel-to-reel
Of all the dreams I’d ever had.
Nightmares, wet ones, lucidity and flying.
But when I got through with those, my afterlife
Was nothing but the dreams within the dreams.
And now, with that tape flickering
In the empty silence of a classroom,
I’m wishing I’d had at least one dream
Of a dream about a dream.
Night as hard as
The table we sit at.
Once wood the
Table grew old,
Became a table.
Night, pressed,
Becomes morning.
1Hello at the margins.Hello Inuit suntan.That feels very dense to me, water.Grilling heat, goon of history.The ceiling fills with iceBut falls as rain.Oil is the new old gold; again. 2My legs acheWith the memory of beerThis time last night.Altocirrus when I close my eyes.In October it's still too hotFor a comforter. 3Man has changed the … Continue reading Icebergs
I could’ve gone
to see Pound while he was
still in the hospital.
But my mother-in-law hates him
and it would’ve killed her.
So I just let
the crazyman be;
him & Fords,
Jags, Land Rovers, etc.
One of the
must-read poets
said he couldn’t write
with stubble on his chin;
called for
a holiday for writing.
In other words,
a good time
to swear off coffee,
not to get too gassed.
Ezra Brooks
bourbon you say you
were drinking.
But why then
do I smell lime
on your breath—
I am not a teetotaller,
not a prohibitionist. I know
there is no cuba libre
for whiskey,
none for fascists
the world around.
A fish jumped and
I remembered
what it was like
jumping off
the low-dive and
landing on my belly.
Over yonder a tree
on its side
that the beaver hauled down.
A bird.
Until it drops,
until it alights silently
in the extended arms
of the willow.
A thousand lightning bugs
once invisible sting the
twilight like branding irons.
Soon it will be dark,
though the moon
(I’m sure)
grows brighter.
Here I am hanging onto your wretchedly wonderful world.
I fell asleep this
afternoon watching
the Senate on C-SPAN2.
When I woke up
Dick Durbin
was talking about
trains & Illinois
and about how lately
the trains have
been passing on through
without even stopping
for water.
There is a fifty-two watt bulbin Indiana.It has nothing to dowith Eastern standard time.In Louisville for New Year’s the ball dropped one hour ahead of time.Honestly, I never even knewthere was a mountain timeuntil Colorado joined baseball.An act of aging is nicotineso don’t talk about what’s opposite the International Dateline.Just fire it in there,let ‘em … Continue reading Prime Meridian
When he shook
the once-sand bottle
what was left made the sound
of a maple leaf growing
It is not possible, he thought,
and it would not be appropriate
for me to shake hands
with a leaf’s three jagged hands
Who needs leaves anyway?
Nothing but the fruited conspiracy
of seed and soil repetitive, hogwash
But the aging leaf in the bottle
interrupted him saying,
Leaves run their veins in all directions
hoping to report most sun
They are green when they need to be,
and red in their rest allegiant to none
but the season
When he finished drinking the leaf
he searched for a sunrise, any sunrise,
his head tilted back,
in sun-loving obeisance
let me check my e-mail
real quick
an eclipse of time & temperature
—you’re right.
It was in
Graham Greene,
Our Man in Havana.
If you don’t think I love you,
then I don’t
