Lead without title
Make change without credit

Push off
Push off
From that steady shore

Now is the twilight
Now is the dawn

Ours is the liminal space

The medium
The substance between

We define by our absence

Make whole in our separation

Embrace me
Embrace me
Embrace me

I will not fail you

The bowers of my house are hung with fog
droplets make a slow procession down the windowpane

like the opening of mass
priest easing down the aisle

But it is an August warmth outside
and humidity
like a hammer
hangs glistening at the doorstep

The air conditioning unit sputters and groans,
weary of summer

A great discrepancy grows between what I want
and who I am

Jagged and Knife-like as a mountainside
roaring through clouds afire

My tattered ends dragged into the thin air

The storm, unseen
slams, like a plane into the spine

and surges
like great waves upward, over crest
and ridge, past me,

to curl thousands of feet above
in a plume of hail and darkness

Soon

soon enough

shall the storm cross over

But in this one moment I can savor
in my all-panicked mind

Savor the breath as it moves
warming and cooling within me,
hold this blueness and blackness
and hail and rain and stone
like jewels in my eye, taste the salt and
the rust
of blood and wait,
wait for this darkening,
wait for this coming,
(almost pentecostal)
breath of God.

The back door to my house
has a second door inside it

A hole to the garage
Covered with a soft plastic flap
Which smacks when it closes
like a gum bubble
popping
in a second graders mouth

And we leave the garage partially open at night
for the cat to come and go as she pleases

But the possum
full and round
which I found
curled up and asleep
in our kitchen sink
this morning was an unwelcome surprise

This is how my house is
Full of doors
with holes

Second doors
for those that matter most

And the possums come in often
and rummage through my pantries

But I keep the second doors open

Covered only
in soft plastic
or a tattered hanging screen
or a sheet of paper with a faded crayon drawing

Open
For those that matter most

God,

I am a drunkard
in the morning.

The promises of night,
poured out
with the wine.

And now I shake –
palsy-like, sweating,
begging for another drink.

This is how you left me.

We come to things in strange ways
Perambulatory
Approaching from the side
These things that makes their nests in us
Where our sorrows and our joys hatch and grow

Sometimes
As an angel
Falling
Arms splayed out
Like a plane falling to earth
Wings extended
Pouring towards the truth
At screaming speeds

Then suddenly a bright snapping
Skin into place

Unpack the word love
And find a widow pouring
Handfuls of dirt upon the grave
Find her waking in the dark
Years from now
Alive
Between the seams

There is a stopper
In a bottle
Which I hid in a drawer
Many years ago
In a chest which
The adults in my life
As a child
Moved into a room
Unknown
In my house
While I read a book

They sat me down with
A tale of a man
With a wife and a house
In a place full of lights
The man was a man quite ordinary
Not extraordinary

Except there never was a book
Like this in my house
And these adults
Were never people
Never people whom I have known
My dad was there
And my mom
But not them
Someone else
In stolen skin
And smiles
And speeches
And judgements

Ah, we come to heart of it
Now in the quickness
The heart
Stays still
And beats
To the tune of the drummer next door

The well I drew my sadness from
was deeper than I knew

But further down,
further still,
there is cool, sweet running water

roaring
like the breath
of God

Go out
go out

From the last place you were

to the furthest hill
you can see,

Then, go further still

And when you have drunk your fill
of starlight

Come back to me again.

There is cricket song
in the night

a cat pounces
and the song lessens
by one

or does it change
this song?

move an octave

change chord and bridge

like some nimble gymnast
lithe and supple
overarching, stretching
belly-first to the sky

dissonance swells
in the ear towards harmony

Note follows note
movement chases movement

And the crunch
of shell and bone
mingles, strains and collapses
into harmony again

I sat down
At this table

Before

So long now I don’t remember

But the cup of coffee
Which started
Steaming,
Black
Without stars
Turbid and turbulent
And bitter and sweet in turns,

Is almost finished.

It has grown cold in my hands.

But lost none of its body.
The oily press against the tip of my tongue,
The pool of bitters in the bottom of my mouth,
The silk against my throat,

Cold
but satiating

I wish, I wish, I wish

There were another cup,
Beyond the hue and cry of this table,
Beyond this wind and this word and this flesh

But I can see the bottom of the cup
Through the smallness that remains.

One more drink and it is done.

I would wish to sit.
Soak hot sunlight into my bare feet.
Or open my nostrils wide to the frosts,
And breathe,
And breathe,
And breathe,
Till this last dram evaporates on its own.

But. That is not for this cup.

This cup,

Holds the last of it.

And the draught which stays in my hand

Sings sweet songs,
Night songs,
Parting songs.

Not a siren’s song.
Not a call upon the night.

Only songs from the deep stretches,
Of green cloud-skittered forest,
Where high on black volcanic soil
This coffee caught starlight,
And in some elemental dance
Of alchemical fire
Purged water and soil and sun
Becoming more than all.

And it comes across in this moment,
As a small voice,
A note half heard
Through the movement of breeze on late summer leaves

Singing to me.

Home
Away
Beyond

To a tune I do not know.

I wish, I wish, I wish

But wishing moves nothing

One drink is left, then all is done
And nothing shall make it differently
In this world where so much bends to our will
This last holdout remains.

So soon I will raise this cold cup to my lips,
And savor
What remains.
Till I flood with blackness,
And the stars shimmer apart,
Break free from the orbit where my eyes fixed them
And spin up beyond and out
To the points they belong.

Sometimes, deep in the night, I hear the wind outside my room,
and I begin to think of age, of geology and the ancientness of matter,
then I become very sad because of the temporariness of us, because
of the impermanence of all of us, Yes it is beautiful and horrific and sad
all at once,

Sometimes, deep in the night, I find my nightmares coming quickly with
bared teeth, slinking through my drowsy defenses, and I become afraid of
what could be truly inside me,

Sometimes, deep in the night, I feel the sorrow of it all, the deep
rich sorrow, like midnight waters under a new moon, like living oil
in the bowels of the earth I feel it as my bones resonate it in unison
with the low pulse of the stars,

Sometimes, deep in the night, I know I am slipping into mediocrity,
and I fear the day I forget that there ever was marrow to be had,

Sometimes, deep in the night, there is no poetry in my words, there
is only a specter of a shadow disappearing into the night, black
is only black, and the rain will never come,

Sometimes, deep in the night, I know the truth, and it is the void,
and it nothing, and yet it is everything, there are separate truths
I think between night and day, one of shadow, one of night,

Sometimes, deep in the night I can hear my children crying from some
distant time, and I wonder when I will meet them,

Sometimes, deep in the night, I know, eventually, I will die,

But most times, deep in the night, I am only flesh and
my god died young, though I still pray for the dawn

There is reason here,
Behind this fence.

And outside,
The world is wide
And wild.

The blood and the Clock
Mingled

And we were all
There ever would be

“Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani”

I
walked
Down the rain-blackened asphalt of Monte Cassino,
In the ashen grayness of dawn
Watching black bellies of pregnant clouds
Give birth to the Sunday storm.

And knelt
on the damp cool earth
floor of the coarse granite grotto
and prayed

to the stone idol of the Virgin,
the God of my fathers,
the Lord of the Rock,

Prayed that I was not alone…

But stone is deaf,
and statues mute.

So I stretched out
to kiss the earth,
my pagan Mother of old,

but the soil
remained soil
on my lips,

as the voiceless thunder shook my bones,
and the rain fell,
fell down,
down upon damp dirt
and maple leaves
cold statues
and dead weeds.

So
I rose.

Empty idols of statue and storm
Silent beneath the rain.

And walked
Through gray dawn
Alone.

She asked me for a gift.

and I gave her a memory.

A blinding swift rush of wind across a winter-bleached field at sunrise
when the breath comes sharp and crisp,
like the virgin breath of a newborn into now air-filled lungs,
and the frost like jewels in the waxen hair of the earth,
and the skeleton forest of oak and ash a black shadow sprouting details
as the sun crests the hill,
and her eyes shining like emeralds in the morning light.

This I gave to her,
to hold through age and night.

And the day became a candle in the cave of her mind,
While her story continued

word
pen
paper

tongue
teeth
bone

stain
blood
strain

spread
stain
spread

strain

blood on
paper

staining
straining
calling
towards a god

of language
who can

speak
me
alive

and dying
die

but in living
truly
truly

live

a man came calling late one night
no hat, no coat
no car
down the long drive of my house
in the late hours
he knocked as no intruder would

I felt no fear
no trepidation
when glancing through
the window pane
I found him there

tis time I thought, tis time
no visitors have I this long winter had
alone beneath the bowers
making merry in the meager twilight
sipping strong drink
and eating of my stored summer harvests

the stars are out
the moon but a sliver
the air so clear it seems to overfill my eyes
and spill inside
cascading down my airways and through my breast
like jumping with wild abandon
as in youth
into the depths of a lake
the water swallows and embraces
and your legs swing and swing and find no bottom
the wild exuberance of being alive.

my family, friends and beloved pets are all asleep
only I remain awake
waiting for this caller
this man upon my stoop
unannounced, but not unexpected

tis time, I thought, tis time
I have learned to dance again
and sing
in words and movements all my own
which was all I ever wanted to do
so now
come in, come in
and bring the starlight with you

let me sing you my song and
dance a step or two
to share, to share
before we both
go out
amongst this glorious night
and walk the long path home

To reach between here and there
seems such a simple thing
as I stand at the window and look out
upon the grey wet rooftops of February
with the glass cold against my cheek

To stretch out my arm,
to touch you through
the haze of days
and feel your skin’s
warm glaze against my fingers

To leap across this chasm
this gulf between
then and now

and find that death
only exists

at the end

and we are in between
in the middle
in the eternal present

together

But the glass smokes over
with my exhalation

and the breath is cold coming back in.

Eagle or Sun
They are mixed now
It seems

Both streaming down from on high
In glistening tones of words and wind
both deadly in anticipation

Sun and Son most sacred

the crusades never ended
only postponed
a century

or nine
till the annointed
could with banner
and baptism
and oil
and drum
soil the sand
with blood
again

to feed on bones

and eat the world
again