Animals at the Door

I can't untangle my daughter’s necklace, so I stand
Hidden in the hall
Before the door,
While they wait for me,
The honking of the horn imminent as a charge of bulls

First I must wrestle it from my headphones
Like a huntsman prying open the mouth of a bear

A small bear, but bear is bear
And the hunter is flooded with frustration that flags his agile fingers:
He wasn’t expecting anything but a bright orange sunrise on his way to the day’s work

It’s not urgent; I could just lay it down ‘til evening
But as I think of my daughter’s face
It just seems like such an important catch
A fisherman hauling in the day’s first big prize

A Birthday Poem, For My Wife

Words are such wonderful things
Winging all around us
Giving us shapes to play in
To put our thoughts and hearts in
To make worlds that spin in infinity

How strange then
They can fail so fast
Falling, utterly helpless
Shrugging and sighing
Dropping the box they were carrying
And calling it a day

They’ve seen the writing on the wall,
Poor things
Set such a labor
They have no friends or well-dressed cousins
Could describe your air
The sunlight on your hair
The way you hold those you love
The way you grieve and weep and care
And return, always, with such hope

No, I can’t blame them
I join with them
I sit with them and sigh
And watch the long, slow slant of sunlight
Catch your silhouette
And marvel at how apt the silence lays
So still across the yard

To Sit Like a God and Create III

On the way here, to this mountain
I stopped and snapped photos
Like a poet feeling the frustration of words that can never capture
The perfect frustration of heart
The lens is a pitiful genie
Granting not even half a wish

But soon I will sit in the afternoon light,
Like a god,
I will read and take in knowledge
Like sipping from an ocean
And I will put into some symmetry a thought on paper
And marvel
At how so much longing can be commanded into shape

That we can create worlds
Before the long night comes
Can unpack and order a suitcase
Can order the spaces between letters
To make words
To try to shape into form
The love inside us
So that everything finds its place
Before it slips away
Wondering how it is that the night can silence the bird’s warble
Wondering how such feeble gods hold such longing
While the horizon looks for a lantern moving through the woods
Feet coming through a dark forest with good news
And light that says all is well
And all will be very well

To Sit Like a God and Create II

In this rented room
Fifty miles from the chaos and consuming consternation
That I call my life
My life on fire
My life on fire, free-wheeling like a drunk gypsy,
Careening like a careless comet
There is such soothing comfort in:

The sorting of wayward papers
Receipts and notes and numbers
Stuffed into my pocket
Now thrown away
Or filed into my wallet

The slow unzipping of my suitcase
Clothes unrolled
From neat corners, tight folds
Placed at perfect angles

The finding of a place for everything
Until I can sigh contentedly
That everything goes where it’s meant to go

I stand a triumphant creator
Ex nihilo
Ordo Ab Chao
Over three feet square of carpet
Which is just enough

In the hurricane, an eye
Through which, I know
Everything will be alright

To Sit Like a God and Create I

I will sit like a god and create, all afternoon
Drinking a cocktail, sitting in the silence that is never silent
The warble of the bird
The bend of grass
The slow sliding of glass
Within the window frame

Through which light will pour
Soundless
Telling me
The holy hour is come
And I will feel, like God must,
That whatever violence there is
And pain and lust in this dark world
There is still something we must judge fair
And too lovely for words

The breeze pushing the curtains
Scraping the room soundlessly
Remains such a perfection
I’d blush with joy
Were I not a fool
And tired
Drunk with sorrow and confused
Staring down at a blank piece of paper
Wondering how worlds are made

The Heart Makes Its Own Heavy

The heart makes its own heavy
Doesn’t matter how deep you’re cut
It’s enough
It’s all enough

And if some small squall comes
The heart makes of it a hurricane
It needs some storm to see through
To make sense of life and pain

So it doesn’t matter where you’ve come from
Or the weight you’ve had to hold
The heart makes it’s own heavy
Until you’re old

Life supplies some circumstance of birth
Which might make the sting of pain and death
The worse
With loss and woe
But find a heart that doesn’t groan--
That can’t be done
The heart makes it’s own heavy
‘Til life is done

We grapple against our own selves
It’s not circumstance or happenstance
That shapes us
The heart can’t feel without revealing
How empty the feeling is
Of wanting more
But that’s what a heart is: the endless longing
Bending ever beyond
For more

My boring hometown is your Rome
Your home is the race to get away
The heart makes its own heavy
And its own unknown

The Elemenopee!

My daughter, when I was only three
There was one thing only that I feared
Naptime and the Tooth Fairy
Okay, that’s two things
I couldn’t count then, don’t blame me

But when I was four, I discovered
Through some heavy reading
And some soothsaying
And some pieces of a dream
(Pieced together through telepathy)
A dreadful reality
A great beast:
The Elemenopee!

They said he had sharp teeth
Well, not “they” exactly, 
I just knew some things about him:
I’d found some tooth fragments, you see, 
And some tracks in the woods
Which, clearly, were monstrosities
Oddities which made me sure
The great beast lived just outside my door

I knew, too, he had jaws strong as ox-bones, 
Claws long as ostrich feet
And the way he galloped
Well, he was tall as a tree
A tall tree, too, not some shortie
And, judging by all the lemons shaken, bruised, and fallen
He had a taste for citrus and, thus, terrorized our garden

The Elmenopee, I’d heard,
Had been filmed, but I’d never seen the prints
And, in any event (it was said), they showed nothing
Which should surprise no one
The greatest beasts always have invisibility
And other powers right dastardly

He’d been seen in the woods or gliding on a lake
But when push came to shove, he always got away
That’s the nature of his way--
The Elemonopee!

I knew I had to find him
So one bright, blue morning, I set out to try
Mom cried, of course, but then, knowing I would not be denied
She made the most delicious peanut butter things
And a mug of Kool-Aid
And three lemon cookies I could wear as rings
And with fanfare and singing
I pressed forward, toward glory

It was a long hard day
Through woods that turned to bog
It seemed that way, anyway,
(Though some would say, later,
I just tripped in the stream)
All I know is, when the sun was going down
And I was hot and tired and cross
I spotted him

That’s when all my fears breathed out
And I couldn’t reign them in
I’m too much a man to pretend
It wasn’t that way (a real man can say what frightens him)
But then…when he saw me?
Tea and crumpets and cream

Yes, he invited me to tea!
And so we sat over a nice Earl Gray and...
Oh, you say that’s brave?  Well, yes, I guess so,
In its way
(Honestly, I've never thought to say)

I sat there with The Elemenopee
And we talked about law and politics and poetry

It’s all true, by the way--
The teeth, the bones, the invisibility
But the truth less told? 
He’s a softie, he is
Just a dear and silly thing
Shy, with bashful sensitivity

He said people were always chasing him
But never got to know him
And he cried when I left
Said I was such lovely company
And couldn’t I stay for another pot of tea?
But mom had promised tater-tots
So I left him there, bereft

I never saw him again, which I regret
But I’ll always have the memory
Of The Elemenopee
Crying and sighing
Waving goodbye and smiling

I’m telling you this because, should you ever see the boogie man,
Should some dark shadow crash behind you
It’s good to remember that the great beasts
Usually have soft underbellies
And, in some cases, a weak spot, too, for tea
With a touch of honey

So maybe just think of a monster in his underwear
Or sorting out his laundry
And it will help you remember
The great ghouls are the greatest misunderstood
And...

Oh, what happened after?  Well, we went on a tour
Nation-wide (two states it was, on either side)
For some reason I can’t find the brochure
But it was wild, and we had a great time
After each show, we’d go bowling

And where is he now? 
Retired
On some Tahitian beach, strolling and
No doubt, drinking lemonade with lime
Having a grand old time

Oh, that dear beast…The Elemenopee

The Week Before He Moves Away

She ripped her new stockings
Running across the cotton fields
Laughing in big gulps, like swigging soda

The twittering,
Like drunken larks tumbling flightless
Across the ground
Almost woke the dogs and cats

But they didn’t
And “almost, but no”
That’s youth’s good luck
Beneath a harvest moon
In summer’s final swoon

11:04

When we stepped from the train
And smelled that green
Felt that heat on our skin
Saw the distance shimmer and wave
In springtime heat
All covered in the morning’s sheen

All the possible, all the hopes
Were held there, in that pause
Standing on the platform
As we breathed in greens and blues  
With pleated breaths,
Folded neatly within our chests
Measured, each, to give us time
To see the steps ahead

I said, “Let’s go”
And fumbled with the awkward weight
Of trunked up things

You can’t risk standing still
Too long in that sacred place
Where hopes and morning meet

I Love the Spectacular Song of Your Heart

I love the spectacular song of your heart,
My love
And still, there is some music it hurts too much to hear in full
So sometimes I turn away from you
And take the melody in small bursts that, all the more, make be breathless
And in this way there's some feeling
That I won't be swept away, like sand

I’m like a child stealing the song of a seashell for the first time
Over and over
I pull it in close and hear the sound then, marveling,
Pull it away
And give myself to time and wonder and to awe
Before pulling it close in again

Circle of Life

Wherever you go, in this sun-blessed land
It’s hard to slip from the grip of highway
That droning sound
Crescendos with the sun, on either side,
Then dips down, but never slides completely,
Into sweet silence

You forget about it
The brain is adept at hearing
Only what it wants to hear
(Unless it’s the toll of water dripping,
But the pipes are good here)

At night, the jackals come
There are no fences that can hold them
And, like devils,
They know the time for feeding
“So you make sure you take your cat inside,” The Barsches said, when we moved in
Bringing us delicious pie
And of course, their own cat had died
And how Mrs. Barsch must have cried

We’re not that much more civilized than they are—
The jackals, not the Barsches--
But they still eat
Whatever’s meet to feed on
And disappear into the sky

So while the highway clings to earth
And cars cling with rubber teeth
To their lanes, within their yellow lines,
Blocks away the jackals come
On silent feet
To prey

And the girl next door
Opens her window
Glossed up, pristine
Young and sure
And slips into the darkness
Clutching at her purse
Some bright hope to pursue

I see her, in the oddest stroke of timing,
As I’m getting water from the tap
Sleepy eyed
In the hour of the jackals
At the low tide of the highway
At the hour of our clearest longing

A Lamppost

Silver light clangs down the street
After the rain
In the drizzle
Until, at the lamppost
The orange light breaks the night
Radiates warm
And invites
A soul to look up, to the sky
And pupils to stiffen and shrink,
Banishing the starlight
Blackening the silver sliver of moon

It buzzes in its blooming
All unassuming, though it breaks the stillness
The short distances below to peruse
In a calm and steady gaze
Cold, mechanical, quiet
Like the soundless stars

The way it buzzes, before I move on,
The way it’s buzzing still, somewhere
On the cold night
Incognizant, like a bug
Sad and senseless
Nudges me

Not to drown in melancholy
Or go down in droning

It’s been too long since I’ve written you
Tonight I will make the time
To put to words the Things that go beyond them
And see if they can steady me
(And, more dearly, find you)

A rope tossed down this long, dark well
Where, maybe you’re holding, still, the distant end
Standing in some field of moonlight
Or beneath some spot of lamplight
Looking up

I Am the Resurrection and the Life

Watching her struggle
Like an injured bug upturned on its back
Her breath searching, like so many legs desperate for something to hold onto
Reveals
The full brutal ugly of death
Which she labors into, helpless

But the nurse is smiling--
Cell phone to her ear--
As she walks by

Her charts mark the courses that are wandering ever nearer,
Inevitably, to the vanishing
Like bare strings that, broken, must fall into the dark below

That’s just the way of things
Which can be pushed aside for hours and hours
(The nurse, after all, talks about her weekend plans,
And something about a boat
And where they’ll catch it and where they’ll land)
That’s how most spend their lives:
Batches of hours and hours, pushing it down into the underground

But, then
It comes
And it comes to You

As my wife comes out
She smiles
Then collapses into the breaking of tears
That is the unsheathed honesty of a soul
With no energy left for holding itself back
(Which is what ‘normal life’ is, anyhow--
A holding back)

If not You,
No helpless are helped
If this is not truth and true
Pity us
And pity all who came before
Who labored on these shores
With no real hope of crossing

Somehow in her tears against the senseless farce of all of this
Something makes sense
As when a sky is pierced, just for a moment,
By sun
Before the black rumbles down again
And light is gone