I dream of you again young and lithe
as early afternoon sun streams in
through these half-blinded windows
How well I know that dreaming does not mean
I will actually do, actually have, as I wish
But there is nothing else on my mind
but your body and your mind set on mine
By the grinding and clacking I can tell
my equipment breaks down, planned
obsolescence at its most insidious
Like a Dahlia in full bloom, a vibrant
bunch of flowers asking me when I might
be available sometime tomorrow
and I remain tentative – a fan of
one day at a time way back when
most were busy forgetting it all
My elder and now dead mentors
would advise that in love
there are no fools – rush in! always
Soon I’ll be older than their living
by even more years…and next spring
and summer such beauties do reprise
It’s a Tuesday and the forecast is rain till Sunday
which I can manage as long as Sunday gets here soon
I know the test is to see how human I can be
in these less than human situations
but I’m not sure I care that much
Lilies of the Valley a sight back in spring
sweet smelling like female flesh in the shower
now, nearing autumn, just plush green blades
turning brown, the front garden withering
Without the jazz of Mingus doing his east coast
winding thing tonight would be all ideas
no things in themselves daring to hit the mark
– dance steps across the past, into tomorrow
where all the what happened dissolves
like a story unpublished, like flounces
out of focus and too far off to consider
It’s another Tuesday night – a few hours to myself
with nothing to do and next to nothing done so far
I.
She’s only happy giving it away
The thing she’s making with all
the junk in the basement
keeps changing, getting busier
with details that don’t go
together but then make a lot
more sense than any intention
He’s only happy giving it away
even though he knows no soul
lasts forever – as untouchable as
those eighteen year old breasts
the words themselves but words
he’s only happy giving them away
II.
It’s one of those nights when friends
all gone out of town or off the earth
even those a phone call away
are not feeling all that well
One left alone with but oneself
conjures up stories that don’t need
to be either written or painted
lovely…so let’s find food to eat
III.
It’s the human condition
the windshield replacement
guy says to want to clean up
we reach right into the fire
we dirty the last clean pants
what fools we fools be
Seems a bunch of people
don’t want to care for the un-
fortunate – let ‘em die!
seems a bit harsh but so
goes democracy these days
no longer happy giving it away
1.
Why bother going solar
when the world’s on fire?
Rather than writing being a remnant of its past
it could be a composite of other disciplines
reuniting, reconfiguring, or new – you tell me
Grant me fair lady two nights
One to see how good I am
The other to love again
To your family and your father
I make no apology or threats
What was remains as true
2.
What value we give to truth
How to know what is and isn’t
How to explain? thereby refine
Walking together wooded paths
various sunlights blind green shades
running the grey-scale bright to shadow
we might’ve made sense – maybe in a better
world….or maybe we did and what was then
is surely something different now…maybe
even more. Let’s walk together and find out
3.
This summer started with great expectations
A number of projects were going to be tackled
brought to fruition and wrapped up and out
quickly tripped up by my father’s demise
Months handling business I detested
But did what had to be done – got a lawyer
Now I do as I’m told, then I wait and wait
4.
The near final phase of summer
approaches – birds go crazy at the feeder
light turns back from its sharpest angle
less of a shock on back deck littered
with early browned oak leaves – Still
crickets crank up as night rises a few nights
Morning arrives well-rested, eager for
coffee and news of the world but slowly,
first the crossword puzzle before the
puzzles of economy and war…let the brain
click in — do today’s medium Sudoku
5.
Liked my coffee cold – no sugar, no milk
just the bitter dregs of the brew that sat
as long as I liked coffee – forty-five years or so
A quiet afternoon moves into a late evening
Got stuff to do tomorrow but now I’m on my own
I still know most of the lyrics to the old songs
Great myths we middle-class believe in
6.
I call it quits to a day reading articles on teaching
and learning, and put the notes away reaching for
a book mark for the journal entry I failed to make
Someone for sure is making tons of money today
chipping away at our little nest-egg stashes
We’ll have to work till the hospital or nursing home
where we’ll ride ice floes toward tropical isles
That stretching feels great – like painting strokes
across a sky neither day nor night – arms around
the world, embracing and embraced…seconds ago
7.
If this spread had a dinner bell, it’d be clanging
Partners in the production, we’d put away our vices
and get with the program ‘fore next weekend arrives
(The usual means of secret communication will
continue as per the third month’s recommendations.
We’ll talk later on our secure line. XXOOX)
As I chuff these halls and batter any walls put up
to get though to you as the ice cream truck chimes by
that only the phonies want to hear what happens next
and even their interests quickly wander
in a place like this
All the bad things, magnets, and vices still work for me
even-though I refuse to go shopping for a fedora
listen to this though
the timbers come down through out the great house
dust accumulates back into bone, skeleton voices whisper
like wind from the north, like death’s steed huffing this way
and I think how like a story life goes, how slow then quick
then quicker than say the shift to a new chapter, each story
takes on the life and death of itself from beginning to end
almost every time in a place like this
able to picture disaster before it happens
There’re drawbacks but we can get into them later
How sure are we that we should go up against any one
being so sure of things being what they are tends to be
not so sure – or might the cure have something to do
with the methods and manners as well as the intentions
despite all the resultant debate about a question mark or not
After my father dies I stop lying to myself
and go to the doctor about my kidneys
or at least I plan to go but get side-tracked
Approaching trains whiz by. I realize I’ve been saved
once again by the forces of you lucky mother f*cker
Weeks later I no-show a visit to the urine tester
unsure that all the creatine’s out of my system yet
sure that destiny has a plan that ignores any of mine
and anything I might do just puts off the inevitable
I’m not prepped for my exit – the lights’re too bright
Besides the ever changing bodies, their short flowers
the way the music fades in and out as the images blur
I’m dancing inside myself – you glance a shoulder
at arm’s length melding into an immoral crowd
I’m stuck on a dancer whom I’ve only seen dance
one evening, but I know her face and spirit and her moves
somewhere deep inside a past I’ve no doubt long forgotten
I watch for announcements of her upcoming shows
But, as of yet, I do not go…I’m still working on what I’d say
when I get to meet her and let her know how I feel:
I saw you in Philadelphia and in your videos on youtube
always dancing barefoot and saying something
about being a woman — and I like to watch you dance
You do special things with balance, humor and motion
Today I put weight on my knee while planting flowers
in the front bed alongside the walk to the driveway
for but a short moment, yet that knee hurt into evening
I think that dancer can help me, can cure me
Okay here comes years of pain, confusion and ridiculous rage
All that stuff left untold – nothing about me, all true as fact
Lucky to be alive after the mess of getting out of suburbia
Even the little stories say something about life on this planet
You want disjunction because it’s all that makes sense
but there’s more than one sense by which to comprehend
God’s a weird idea. Love remains ambi-drogynous
The neighbors done twisted the story up all around
Music still has its moments. Feminine-bodies still amaze
Periodic cleanings needed in whatever the space allotted
chores, expectations, workweek and time off painting, writing
For a couple of days ego lives this life as if an artist
Back to work tomorrow morning early on the road riding
playing that middle-class game called endless, apparently
God she’s too beautiful for one as animal as me
Little that can be managed offers any release
The soul is a prison as well as the mind-body
Today the snow starts melting again – the drive
way wider, the pathways lined with pale brown
Distinct changes in the neighborhood landscape
The sky seeming to get bigger as well
But let’s look to lift up our debasements
clear the air of intellectual humility for a sec
All my adult life spent writing what I see, hear
and mix with odd settings, time zones and warps:
The things in one’s life lived among others
their strings loose or taut, waving their things
about making music the whiskey of dancing
Then the continuing of such leading us to think
eternity’s right around the corner. It all makes
sense until we examine the particulars and
learn to learn about bacteria and viral molds
The beat does go on, but it’s not always my
heart or your heart
doing the beating
