Life Boat

I like this song,
because the gentle brushes on the drum
sound like a smooth wash of rain
on the roof of a beach house
looking out on the stormy Atlantic.

And out in the water,
paddling into shallow waves?
A white rowboat with a blue stripe,
sinking into the soft gray sand
as you drop the oars and stand.

Stepping out into ankle-deep surf,
as water drips stormily from your wide-brimmed straw hat
(the one with the red silk ribbon)
I watch from the porch
as you hug your shoulders and run across the green lawn
in your rain-soaked dress and dirty slippers
smiling as bright as a lit candle,
skin pale from the cold rain, pale as the moon,
but your cheeks flushed pink with laughter.

The next song, i also like.

Unsent letter #4

Not even that lonely blue planet
separated from the pull of its yellow sun
sweeping its arc across some golden nebula in the vast emptiness of space
in the huge infinity of coldness and darkness
drifting alone,
yes,
I am sure I miss you more
than that iced-over planet misses
its own bright star.

What we are

Life is a river,
and we are a raft on this river.
We are also the boy on this raft
(and his friend in blue overalls
barefoot
straw hat pulled down over his eyes
feet dangling off the edge
we are this boy as well)

In fact, we are also the big stick
in this boy’s hands
finding purchase in the muddy bottom on some rock
with which to push the raft downstream
and perhaps that rock is someone we love
and perhaps the floating detritus
that wraps around the stick
is a mortal enemy, maybe even an eternal antagonist
who pursues us across various lives as we live them
persistently annoying the momentum of this stick, and this raft,
(which are both us, remember,)
and the boy, who simply lifts the stick from the floor of the river
and gives it one, two, three hard shakes,
he is still us as well.

And this rolling black water beneath us?
It is the world and it is time
and it is born high up in the mountains
as white snow, pure blinding white snow
and it trickles down through trees and dirt
it collects in small streams
and passes underneath bridges
eventually joining together here
dark and huge and unslowing
then empties out into the warm sea
(and that sailboat, passing by the mouth of the river
i would like to think we become that graceful white vessel
with its sails unfurled, yes,
just like an angel’s wings)

That high lonesome sound

Please write another song
in the dusty desert
of new mexico
where the morning comes with such effort
in deep purple sorrow
And among the dark cacti–
just a silhouette of you
holding a guitar
with your head down
singing your lonesome song
as the sun rises,
bringing clarity

You != Me

I guess that’s why
you see the English majors
reclining on benches,
while the engineers are easily spotted
by the way they race across campus,
head down against the sun,
using the momentum of their books
to catapult upstairs,
legs swinging like the unlatched arm of a trebuchet.

Moon bird does think only of the moon

As she side-steps westward,
Never turning away from
her namesake, her adoration.

Not once blinking her glossy black eyes.
The moon, pale as a skull,
sits reflected on each surface
otherwise as deep and dark as the wild night.

Tonight,
no cool light appears to give me reference
or to cast its peculiar shade on this scene–
the crooked fence,
the scattered leaves,
and myself,
barefoot on the dewy grass.

I also consider
my lover, the late hour,
and mother-morning, always-pending.
The moon bird, however–
does think only of the moon.

Like a Metaphor:

What is a poem but a captured thought–
a pointed gun, a barrel smoking,
here it lies in front of us, and presently
we decide to not prolong its suffering.

Why interrupt these flying things?

Why read, why write, why take out gaudy yellow pens
and highlight for the sake of erudition?
Why paraphrase that which has been doted on
already? Afraid, are we,
to lose sight of the fleeing bodies?
So comb the field and hear only:
a humble squeak, a flapping wing,
and find after a somber search–
feathers, drops of blood.

“Why so many questions?”
you might ask.
“Inquiries,” I point out,
owning the sentimental idea
that language is a bouquet,
and we shall not sample
just anything
for its own sake.

Star-crossed lovers

Explain this to me, before I explain it to you:
a little brown cricket jumped under my shoe

as a flower fell from a tree outside–
was it suicide?

On eating candy corn, and the coming of Autumn

Orange and white candy corn, where have you been?
Autumn was waiting for summer to leave,
and then it just dropped in. So here you are,
spilling off shelves in wal-mart
and piling up on the scuffed white floors.

I can taste you and your honey-soaked,
saccharine flavor before I drop the first
kernel in my mouth. I can smell the sugar
even as I tear open the bag,
letting air rush in to meet you
the dry, tree bark heat of autumn
being soaked into your yellow base,
your orange torso,
your dull white tooth.

I find it a little disturbing that
one of my cherished traditions is contained entirely
in the act of eating candy,
little shapes of sugar with no nutritional value,
nothing that can subsist you.

Somewhere in the world, people are putting on traditional costume,
picking up their esoteric stringed instruments and
tuning the compliant strings while their grandparents nod approvingly–
recalling how they did the same for their nodding,
compliant grandparents every year;
Before the festival that winds its way down
through the stone streets
as it does each autumn,
past the store which bears their fading hand-painted name
on its fascia.
Such a collection of cultural paraphernalia is a living thing,
and should you be its adopted child,
take heart and be glad.

Be glad that your tradition does not consist entirely
of gaudy bits of candy, which are compulsively
and even guiltily consumed,
regretted,
and quickly forgotten.
And then all that’s left is a clear plastic bag
blowing across the freeway,
and two men smoking outside of a machine shop
are watching this bag
as it leaps skyward and catches the sunlight, somehow brilliantly,
for an instant.

At your book signing

We shuffled forward inch by inch,
until I was alongside the antique wagon wheel
with its rotting spokes and rusted iron straps
Inch by inch,
until I was level with the front doors of the book store
which had been pulled from their hinges and set aside
Inch by inch,
until I could just glimpse your wiry hand gripping a pen
signing your looping name across books, cd’s, and loose leafs of paper

And closer, until I could make out the print of your shirt
and the sameness of our eyes.

Later,
I was speeding home at several hundred inches per second
your new book riding shotgun in the passenger seat
slowly reading itself as wind from the ripped convertible top
came in and turned the pages one by one,
and on,
until the very last page was turned
and your book closed itself
with the small humble sound of paper touching paper