you know me as a stranger

Timber

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.

Falls

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

Language

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.

Safe

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.

Walnut Street

I’m walking on Walnut Street,

Where brick sidewalks

Back the office towers

Onto their foundations.

I’m squinting at the blue

So vast it tells the ocean

What color to be,

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.

Nomade

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.

Ritual

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.

Salvage

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.

World Music

An American sits at the base of a statue

In the light rain, pushing puffs of smoke

Over his drooping jaw. Others have gathered

In the dusky winter grey, clutching

Umbrellas and each other.

A child stands before them, delicate as frost,

In heavy clothes, a black watch cap

Belying a fluttering brown mane.

She holds a guitar much larger than she.

I lean against the nearest wall, watching

While she plays that instrument

As if she had been born with it,

Raising her voice in a bold

And gritty vibrato

That her years cannot account for.

She plays her soul through that guitar,

Casting it over the crowd

To be dissolved in the light rain

And soak into our clothes and our skin

And change us.

A kind of white aura rises from her,

Like a discharge of spiritual energy,

Cascading in all directions,

Waving rhythmically, like some

Opalescent blood-warm flame.

I’m not ashamed that I want to cry;

I want to let the dampness stream

Down my face to be dried by the cold wind

That is raining leaves and other bits

Of floral matter all over me,

Embedding them in my hair.

I love that little girl,

And all the people who stand around

Watching in nameless joy,

And all people across Asia

And across the oceans,

And I send out great pulses

Of love and oneness

That penetrate the Earth and spring up

As forgiveness and understanding

And radiate and scatter

In waves across the universe.

But before I can cry, a smile

Creeps to my eyes

And frustrates their plans.

Cry Me a Bridge

In the park I saw an average-looking angel,

And her eye was pointing at mine.

I mustered up all of my blood and said,

All the best people are foreign,

From the far side of somewhere else.

If I dig my own grave,

Will you dance with me?

There is no one around here I know.

She said, I’d rather not have my own opinions,

But I can’t stand the silence of stars,

And I can never get used to being born.

Finality just doesn’t sit well.

All I feel is this wind in my eyes.

So if I cry you a river,

Will you cry me a bridge?

I think everyone needs somewhere to go.

The Day My Brother Flew

The day my brother flew,
I prayed for the last time;
Asked for his acceptance,
A chance to say goodbye.
Stood inside the chapel,
Whispered through the motions,
Knowing in my chest
I did not believe.
Months gone from that day,
I stood inside a basement,
Staring out the window,
Chainlink in my eyes.
A host of white lights came,
Gathered right beside me,
Waited till I turned,
Slowly sank away.
I never told my folks.
They could not believe it.
I don’t know what I saw,
If I’m lying to myself.
The day my brother flew,
I sat down on a stairstep,
Fingers in my hair,
Asking why I breathe.
He lived and enjoyed life.
I don’t even like it.
That was ‘91;
The answer never came.

Storm Clouds Call Me Home

Grey clouds, pick me up.
It’s not safe here on the ground I think.
The sidewalk has its teeth in me;
I can’t walk straight anymore.
Pictures found in frames,
Growing crooked from forgotten earth,
Show off places I could never go
If I flew across the bay.

Red sky, raise me up.
The world burns and I’m standing here.
I don’t know how to be a friend;
Nothing’s easy anymore.
I gather all the blame,
Hold it loose inside my weaker hand.
Without looking up to meet the eyes,
I release it to the wind.

So storm clouds, call me home.
Freeze my bones above a mountaintop.
There’s a chance I’ll see the other side.
Hold my atoms to the sun.
I’m not afraid to fall.
I might crash into a stranger day
When the elemental truths are bare
And the seeker has a claim.

I’m tired of my voice.
There’s nothing here that’s meant for me.
Blot out the sky and then we’ll see.
Storm clouds, take me home.

Morning Glory

I don’t want to write about the world.

How could I write meaningful phrases

About a place I hardly know?

I’ve sailed across oceans, sure.

I’ve visited the greatest cities built.

But the world?

I see people who have been there.

They exit as I enter;

Their days begin at the end of mine.

They sit near me at the cafe, in groups,

With things to say.

They speak to others in the world;

That’s the difference.

They connect to each other with words,

Sentences stretching out like elastic strings,

Or gravitational membranes

Bending in space and drawing back pieces

That they can keep, suck in like smoke,

Then breathe into others they know.

Nothing I do is like that.

They have energy and memory.

They remember laughter

And the remembering revives it,

Renewed like morning glories.

I think that’s what the world is.

I think that’s what I mean.