I don’t want a cookie
or a roll.
I don’t want you thinking
I’m lost because
once I was sad enough
to write it down,
or because faces
make me cry
with the kindness
of their teeth.
It’s not for you to bear
the flaws in my voice
from a ghost I’m chewing,
when I’m more attentive
to the break in the threshold
than to your hips
in the doorway.
To the Ground
The truth is I’m envious
of your pain.
Numbness is not better.
I have become numb,
and here I am now
trying desperately to ache.
There is so much poetry out there,
and I sit here, saddled
with an unshaken heart,
knowing it’s here,
but nothing to point it at.
I’ve been forgetting how
to care about things.
I’ve been surrounding myself
with piles of the things
that I remember, things
that I was built from
when I was bursting
with sadness and love.
I’m going to have to start
falling in love with strangers
for the traits that I assign to them.
I’m going to have to break
my own heart.
But I’m sorry you hurt.
You’ll go through it, and then
you’ll go a little numb.
That’s what we really do.
Coming out on the other side
takes longer than we
want to believe at our age.
But you’re a poet, and you’ll turn
your heartbreak into beauty.
Your heart will break open
and grow flowers.
I think, sometimes,
that I can do anything,
but that can change on the way
to the elevator.
I prepare for outside.
Rain makes it easier,
bends my eye to the ground,
to the architecture;
turns everything to gold.
The new gravity holds me,
turns the voices into hums,
the walkers into clouds.
But outside my door,
there are voices already,
breaking through planks of wood
that should mean security,
and I’m in their path;
every word an arrow
tipped with poison.
They’re only voices.
They are not harsh;
they do not threaten.
They’re not aimed at me
at all. Yet I suspect,
hidden from me,
there are faces attached.
There’s another part, always,
that doesn’t want to go,
a shape more practiced
than my humble sincerities,
my tilted resolutions.
I forget to relax my knees,
that I should soften my jaw,
take lessons from the glass,
from the sidelong blurs,
and oblong silhouettes;
take in the everyday words
that clatter around my body.
I should brush against these threads,
learn their girth and texture.
This is how they move,
in great thrusts, driven
by asteroids and thunder.
This is how they talk,
in echos and gasps,
looking right at you.
Kicking rocks in a wind tunnel path
A path I never walk,
The domain of busboys with cigarettes
Of foggy file clerk windows.
Something wobbles in me.
It’s probably the heat.
I never am right for the weather.
Walking on Fifth I watched
The city buildings drifting
Over one another,
And I fell out of place,
Suddenly a child,
Pulled into the red and black boxes,
Shut away in the slanting light-
Having known only open fields-
To pine away for my boyhood,
Like it’s a place I can return to.
My youth is a railroad town;
I scrape my heels on a gravel road,
Shewing the droning insects,
Leap a shallow ditch
To swat aside the timber
And find a hidden pond
That maybe no one knew was there.
It’s surreal to see my father
behaving like an elderly man.
Even now he doesn’t look the part.
The grey is only just settling
into his proudly groomed-back hair.
But he feels closer to his end
than his strong jaw conveys.
He anticipates it eagerly, prefers it
over his rusting facade of life.
He bought a pistol some years ago,
for protection he said, but I think
he had only one target in mind.
I think a part of him thrills
at the turn his body has taken.
Finally a view to the end,
a release that won’t require
the mountain of courage needed
to draw back a small crescent of steel.
Heavy Rail
Don’t turn your eyes
You’re here to keep me safe
From the falls and breaks
And trains and wolves
I know will come
You’re invisible to me
But don’t be so bold
I can always tell
When the breadth of sky
And weight of the sun
Are meant just for me
I might as well talk about the rain.
I sat at the cafe, Amici,
Backed into the corner
By the backs of heads,
No more or less judgmental
Than any other surface.
A college-age girl sat
In the opposite corner,
Reading a book
In a black square of leather seats.
There’s nothing like the pink half-light
And a pretty Italian coffee
To bring out the colors in a woman.
I watched through the disused door
By the sidewalk tables,
As the rain-soaked streets slowly dried
In the pale cast of the cloudshine.
I’m a little disappointed
When the sun returns.
There’s something sad
About watching the deep brown
Of the rich anti-stone
Fade into the unembellished greys
Of every day.
So I sat watching the patchwork patterns
Rising to the blacktop,
Like a language,
Spelling out the fallen secrets
Of the dreaming motorists.
Years have passed.
But it hasn’t gotten easier
To say what it was
That I couldn’t reach.
You were too beautiful
To walk alone.
So I kept you safe
On the brown city streets
That threatened to absorb you,
A colorful drop
Of windblown frailty.
I knelt beside you
And held up your hands
To explain their beauty.
It was the first time I touched you,
And you smiled
As if you shouldn’t.
I’m walking on Walnut Street,
And I bump into strangers,
Who remind me of friends
I never bump into.
I’d much rather be sad
Than depressed.
Sadness has a heart.
There’s no drug for it.
You can feel good about that.
But I forget sometimes
To just be lonely
And call it by its name.
This isn’t what I meant to say.
It was like this,
But the words were meant to be better,
And the motivations purer.
This is not the day to say it at all,
But I’m prone to oversleep.
I am the Nomade.
I’m a man made of letters;
The potential for every great word
And every combination thereof,
Faceless and fearless,
Surrounded by princes and brides,
Rulers of their nationless kingdoms.
The absentee sun arrives
And bears down on my folded knees,
Dispersing my shadow
In a membrane of verse.
People pass like drifting flowers,
Casting off pollen
And other bits of their lives.
I am the Nomade,
A man of iron and irony.
I never leave this place.
My brethren scatter to the corners
Break off more corners
And scatter again.
I have no use for locomotion.
Everything that does not come from me
Comes to me.
I am anticipation of all knowing.
I am the great driving force
Of lesser creation.
I am the Nomade.
Step too close and I surround you.
I glitter in your sight forever.
I am the house of all wanting.
I am the tower of doubt and wonder.
I am the cosmic spectrum of learning.
I am the center of gravitating awe.
I am the Nomade.
I was never going to say this;
I was promised rain.
Everyone does this sometime.
Everyone like me
Sits in the hippest cafe
And leans over his notepad,
Believing inspiration will come
To choke poetry from the glistening
Channel of creation
In his twitching pen hand.
The coffee is good,
But that is not important.
If it were a bitter brew,
I would pretend not to object,
In case someone is looking.
Is that mocha too hip for you?
I can handle it.
I mean it’s fine.
I don’t dare look around,
Raise my eyes to meet
What might be other eyes,
What might be the harsh scrutiny
Of youthful self-assurance,
Pierced lips chuckling into the chai.
I just lean over my notepad,
Silver pen twitching in my hand,
And listen to the invisible clicking
Of the amplifiers;
Music I wouldn’t listen to elsewhere,
But that’s how good it is.
I came here believing
The channel was blocked,
Afraid to uncap my pen knowing
Nothing would happen next.
But I wonder if there are eyes
On my table, on this shimmering quill,
The eyes of a young hopeful,
Who came here to uncap his pen
And see what wisdom his moleskine
Would soak up from the core,
Only to watch the ink dry on the nib;
Wordless bedroom poets
Looking on and thinking,
I wish I had that,
That flow.
The coffee is good,
Not that it matters.
I was going to buy an old crate for $50.
It said DYNAMITE on the side
And I was going to put it in my bathroom
To hold magazines.
But a minute later I forgot why it was a good idea.
The chairs were better to look at.
They winced and complained when sat on,
As if it were your idea.
But everything was beautiful because it was old,
Because the paint had long since abandoned its claim
And the handles had yielded their shape
To the intruding fingers;
The table tops polished and scarred and polished
By the same wandering hands,
By dishes, books, pocket change.
A great mottled cabinet stood sturdy and proud,
But whined and grunted as I opened it,
As if I had woken it from much-needed sleep
And called on it to perform.
I know, cabinet, I thought.
We’re not so different.
I’m not as strong as I look either.
You’ll stand unmolested in my kitchen.
We’ll get along; we’ll lie for each other.
I looked at the price and walked away,
Forgetting it needed me.
I can’t afford that much history.
It’s all better anyway, because it’s old,
All differently, separately old.
I wanted to remain,
To volunteer my atoms into the dust,
Submit my consciousness to other times
And try pieces of them all.
It’s not right that we can remember just one.
I could enroll my own history in this school,
Brush off the unpracticed lessons
Under lamps that wait tangled in corners.
In the end I bought a narrow cabinet, mostly green,
Pretending to be ancient and feigning purpose.
It leans away from my window, ashamed.
