I no longer take
half breaths
say
half words
get
half-dressed
I wake up
make coffee
water plants
write
I enjoy the silence of
large
empty
rooms
open windows
children playing
beneath artificial rainbows
There is no sun
just thick layers of lavender clouds
Periodically,
the AC kicks on
and the hum from my laptop
demands I take notice
of the machine that wonders
why it’s the only one working
so goddamn hard
Home, amongst the stars
seals slept on white-sand beaches
as spiral arms spun
A night sky portrait
above Cadillacs grey cliffs
while white pines swayed her
Echo lake called forth
illustrious galaxies
to shine in our eyes
See? I told ya
but you weren’t listening
cept my friend Jim
and I’m not sure he likes me
Three o’clock and I’m just now gathering
my dirty laundry together in a basket,
literally the only thing that needs doing today
yet half the day has already slipped by
and I barely have my contacts in.
Of course, after gathering the laundry,
I then have to collect the quarters.
I have to carry the awkward basket to the car,
to the laundromat, through an hour of waiting,
then back home to fold and put away the clothes.
And while the basket is heavy, uncomfortable to carry,
so are all those unanswered text messages
swimming around in my brain, the most of which
could be answered at the laundromat or in the hours before
when laying in unmotivated restlessness in bed.
But that requires talking to people, and I don’t want
to open the door to the rigmarole
of pretending I’m okay while no one is listening.
Those same friends always share social media posts saying
days like this are perfectly fine, so what’s another month?
Nothing changes, but not from a lack of desire to improve.
It just feels like nothing I do makes a difference,
it’s hard to keep moving when no one’s walking beside you,
It gets tougher to try when the problems always come back
to reclaim the progress that was made yesterday.
Yet still I choose to put on that happy face and smile
for the people like me living out days in this state
and for the man still living under my mountainous misfortune.
Someday I’ll find the art and the meaning to dig him out
but as for today, I really just want some clean clothes.
For whatever reason,
some mangled and mismanaged chemicals, no doubt,
I’m afraid of the mailman.
I’m pretty sure he’s seen me in my most vulenrable state,
and I know he’s heard me napping
through the open window.
He’s easily the kindest mailman
I’ve ever had,
and that’s precisely what makes all this
so difficult.
He even stopped to help
clear a downed tree
from the storm.
I wish I could tell him:
“It’s not you, It’s me…
It’s not you, mailman,
lugger of letters,
passer-out of packages,
it’s me.
I’m a deeply flawed human being.”
I wake up and remember the world still burns.
Deep in its core, the molten pit boils
as we spiral further into the void.
I ask Where are the workers to demolish the dam–
to set the water free and quench the earth’s painful thirst?–
Nobody answers.
News reports float along pristine blue waves
interrupted by snippets of sacchrine song and feigned concern.
It’s tough to de-tangle the rope they give us to hang ourselves,
but I still try.
It’s a welcome challenge.
I peer at my empty glass shining in the late-afternoon sun.
Rainbow prisms bounce through its cylindrical shape,
and bury themselves beneath dry soil.
I say a quick prayer and mourn the loss
because I know they won’t return;
not even in spirit.
I imagine parched, fuming mouths spitting combustible matter on unmarked graves,
and illuminating the night with tongues of keresene-drenched torches.
What will become of the sun-bleached brush
that nods its head in sorrow whenever the wind blows?
Who will invoke Νέφθυς to bury us with bricks made from present ashes?
I’ll drink to that.
as i layed breathless
on the moss-covered trail,
i was approached
by two wolves.
you, the first one
of course, were here
when i first wandered
inside.
he, however,
trailed a few steps
behind after
watching from
afar.
you both lapped
me up until
i opened my eyes
to see
that though he
is a wolf, he didn’t
look at me
as prey.
it was you,
you were the wolf
in sheep’s clothes
Calendar-makers of early Japan
Parsed the year with delicate attention,
Discerning not just four seasons,
But twenty-four, the sekki.
In each sekki, three pentads, the ko.
Seventy-two seasons,
An exquisite almanac
Of nature’s quickenings and fadings,
In the exact latitudes of Nihon,
The origin of the sun.
For five days every February,
Came Fish Emerge from Ice season,
Then, First Peach Blossoms, in March.
In May, Swallows Return,
And Rotten Grass Brings Fireflies.
On and on, until Bears Hibernate,
Deer Shed Antlers, Streams Freeze,
And the cycle began anew.
Here, a world and many centuries away,
Four seasons pass, barely noticed.
The crass world’s calendar makes no room
For acknowledging seventy-two.
So I will make them for myself,
An idiosyncratic calendar
For my own latitudes,
With seventy-two tiny celebrations,
To mark and praise my year.
Here, today, is also Rotten Grass Brings Fireflies,
Before, there was Swallows Swoop at my Tractor.
Soon will come Buying Hay for Horses,
Then, The Cat Comes in for Winter
And Takes My Chair.
I might not even mind so much
Leaving this glorious earth
In a proper season called
Old Women Vanish on the Wind.
Body Landguage
(on viewing the “Connections” show
at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts)
They stand, mono- arches her arm
chromatic, alone upward, sweeping
in the room of white it around, symetri-
blending in shades cally following each
of cream, almond, cursive stroke of the
honey, pausing brush: her body
before the long the ink
panels of broad, alone in space.
black brushstrokes — He watches her,
tall scrolls of calli- head turned
graphy, matted only slightly,
side by side. then stares intently
She, intense, rises at the symbols
on her toes, before him.
