We have made the mistake

of inviting the dog

into the bedroom

to cuddle with us

for hours

during the day.

Now at night,

after our walk,

she stands at the bottom of the stairs

outside the gate

(trying to grab my shoes

if she can reach them)

and whines,

her voice a sweet sad song.

““How did she learn how to bark cute?”

my partner asks.

It reminds me

of all the gates

I have had to stand behind,

not because of healthy boundaries though.

But rather

not being holy enough

or attractive enough

or popular enough,

not being trans enough

or being too trans,

not being gay enough

or being too gay,

not being bi enough

or being too bi,

trying to turn my howls of pain

into poetry

while waiting for invitations

that had never been written.

Clouds laze along

I’m from
Pieces of tin foil, folded for reuse
Fels Naphtha soap,
Used on shirt collars and sassy mouths

I’m from
camelias, white, pink and variegated
A prolific Meyer lemon bush and an ancient apricot tree,
Whose abundance became pies, jam and canned fruit

I’m from
An RCA Victor record player in a special kitchen cabinet,
Fats Waller, show tunes, Mitch Miller, and big band,
Parental spins around the kitchen

I‘m from
The cigarette butts squished out in egg yolks,
Sky-high, from-scratch waffles, bread and angel food cake,
Warm summer evenings of barbeque smoke

I’m from
“Watch your tone, young lady”
“You’ll remember this discussion longer than you’ll remember a beating”
“Lift up your head, square your shoulders, take responsibility, and move on”

I’m from
Irony, sarcasm, love
Laughing out loud at yourself
And above all,
Grit.

i

Here’s a poet
who hates to see
self in a mirror
Too much gray
Too many lines

Not as fine
as a clock
or calendar
though all three remind
of the finitude
of time
time
time

ii

Who says 
poeming is careering
how does it trump (no pun)
a job

I used to write truths for print (and was good [not great]) 
Now I only write to learn
and every lesson burns
with kindling left unlearned
 
iii

Frost
or Warren
or Heaney
or Thomas
(not I)

It’s not my place
to poem of place 
my roots so rotted as the suburbs

my diction
so much fiction
or just plain tired

(((Truth)))

Then what
and how
is this
careering 

 iv

Back to that blasted mirror
reflecting more than gray & lines

so little time
to change the endgame

(or    with the endgame just the same    unfinish
the finished)

rewrite the rhyme
however little the final verse
may rhyme

Damn time 

Time stirs like sunrise, 

I dream of not planning it in time 
birthday parties the-day-of wake me
sweat slick in my bed, humid covers
sticking to my back where terror digs
her breath in my ears, sighs, it’s too late 
chairs sit empty, but I still arrive 
with confetti in my ice cold hands 

one

I wore the uniform, proudly.

Don’t really like war, peace

being so much better for all,

but they attacked us, they

had no intention of stopping.

You can’t just lie down and die.

two

I did terrible things. Terrible.

No surprise, and no complaining,

if I pass straight from Life to Hell.

My only defense is wondering:

When the choices are do or die

isn’t the whole thing a mortal sin?

three

Close to forty years have gone,

and my uniform still fits comfortable.

That doesn’t surprise me at all,

given how I work as hard as ever.

You asked me why I keep it around.

Why not? I still have the nightmares.

four

You flatter me. These aren’t my girls.

They’re my son’s, my pride and joy,

the future I likely won’t live to see.

I pray it will be a good one for them.

I’ve tried to be a good man, to live

the Sermon on the Mount each day

and to every living soul I meet,

an example for those who recall me.

I’m a Christian man, I believe in God,

but I know each other is all we have

to come through the trials we’ll face

down all the years, down the long path.

(after the circa 1900 photograph “Unidentified African American Civil War veteran in Grand Army of the Republic uniform with two children,” attributed to “Goodman and Springer, Mt. Pleasant, Pa,” from the Library of Congress collection at https://www.loc.gov/item/2018652209/)

Enjoining good acts;
a feeling or moral obligation to do right or do good;
Blameworthiness of one’s own conduct –
all fine definitions of our collective conscience.
Someone recently told me to vote with my conscience.
I definitely will come Election Day.
A man who opposes all my perceptions of 
kindness,
goodness,
decency,
morality,
empathy
cannot and will not 
be my choice.

(With apologies to Pete Townshend)

This month is over
Excepting one poem, not so easy
Playing so free with verse, not for me  

Writing poetic has yet to free me
Harangues and taunts still haunt me
Voices inside that tell me to ride
Fast and far away  

Will I ever play so free,
like a breath rippling by
Or haunted forever, will I doubt til I die

The eyes, the ears
are of no benefit

if the mind is
blind and deaf.