Day 22: I thought I posted this yesterday.

Culture War


Let’s face it: it is all your fault.
No matter who you are, you did it.
Listened to the wrong ideas,
soaked in the loudest lies,
sipped or gulped them down
at breakfast or on the morning commute.

The space between our arguments is not
demilitarized, but booby-trapped & bloody.
Your choice of network defines you;
don’t you dare switch the channel.
It’s worse than you thought, Declan,
we’ve anesthetized the way that we hear.

If have no choice but to bar the door, man the fall-out shelter.
I'm selling my books for food.

Day 16 (11.16.2010)

StackTumbleStack

            (for Liam)

one

beginnings:

tears, fears, hope

personified in

tiny fingers,

tiny toes.

     two

laughter out

of smiles, develop

into phrases full

of promise too

important not

to keep.

          three

we went

from three to

four before

a third Fall

counted another

number for you

& sharing with

a baby seemed

so easy for a

boy like you

     four

the conversion

to hero complete,

all the options remain:

über or noir,

the choice too close

to impossible, so

you settle for

being both

            five

school in,

you’re never

out of ideas:

words bloom

as letters form

easier & easier

on your tongue

& your mind

a trap that

catches all

the prey my

prayers could

ask

____

Five years of moments fall

like exploding stars, dusting

a world that keeps expanding.

There is no tumble down a

growing boy & his sidekick

brother won’t soon rebuild.

____

                 soon enough

yearonyear

                  need will slack

inchbyinch

                  infallibility fades

lifegoeson

  

____

thanks, 

son,

for 

your 

first

five 

years

I’ve 

grown

as 

much 

as

you 

have

Day 14

Crossroads: Between Here & There


There was never a chance of turning away,
starting over, from scratch or in the middle of things.
This is not the same as stay the course; nothing stays
the same for long. Every day requires new courage,
new resolve. At the call each morning is a choice:
 
How will I reinvent myself today?
 
Like an accordian folding in on itself:
time's tuning requires touch to make sense.
It is a familiar sound, the morning music,
a slow, steady drumbeat that signals:
another day, another day, another day.

Day 11/11

No One Wants to Know

It hit me today that they don’t really know who I am.

I certainly don’t know them, don’t need to beyond

the here & there hour, the rushed or well-thought paper,

the after school briefing, quick question, occasional cry.

When the needy one, full of storm-fear never grown out of

& compulsion—making it all seem like destruction—asked,

again, for the hug that was certainly a stand in for other arms:

I quaked and yielded. She did not want to know me,

but to know that someone would care enough to say:

I accept your fear with the same unreason that brings it.

No one wants to know what the other one is thinking,

just that for a minute’s time a faithful space is shared,

or hope is defined by a bit of community that will be

allowed to disappear, without a need for shedding tears.

Day 10: A Love Poem

Walking

Days ago, one of our boys asked:

how many steps to heaven?

while we were walking on a Sunday

through a park designed to let

the grieving have at least the horizon

to ease their sense of continued loss

with the evidence of perpetual growth.

There, in the autumnal distance,

change is as natural as the death

this space was laid out to memorialize.

Nothing is out of place from that far,

nothing is unquestionable, not even

the distance between innocence & loss,

between wanting to know everything

& doubting that answers exist.

Holding your hand & theirs, 

nothing was absent of truth. 

Any answer would suffice, 

but neither of us bothered 

to decide on one, 

but gathering strength beyond tears, 

we held each other tighter 

& went on down the path 

that led to the rest of the day, 

the rest their lives,

the rest of the time we have left,

whatever it may be, 

to hold on as tightly as we can, 

to know that it is the moments like these 

that bridge the distance between growth & collapse,

that solidify the pleasure that invents heaven 

and gives the idea of God temporary proof against doubt.

Day 8 & 9: Agreement & Speed

Unsocial Contract

You choose language

uncarefully, shouting

this or that expletive

 across the bodies

circulating around,

oblivious, you:  

no sun but a burning

sphere of invective &

meaningless phrase.

Forgive my complicity

in your ignorance.

It’s just that the

language we share

allows me no bridge

to cross the distance

between your bold

star  & my humble

orbit through your

hurled words.

Circa 1905

Stacking minute upon minute,

the day works its way into

the week’s end then:

slow, now, slow.

Week by week, the years add

a number of epiphanies

& weaknesses, but at the

midpoint there’s a need

to  slow, now, slow.

Time may wrinkle face,

hands, & resolve, but

the day’s quick pace

pulses & pride thickens

into humility allowing

that begging voice at

the heart’s deep core

to urge more & more:

slow, now, slow.

Give us just a little

more, Time.

Days 6 & 7: Weekend Poetry is Difficult

Day 6:

Looking for Obscurity

Everyone wants clarity, some

pray for it, even. Give me a

cloud-filled sky, it’s November 

after all: let the ribbon of birds

lose itself in a temple of cumulus.

Let truth slip away unnoticed,

waiting for some rambler to

pick it up & call it something new.

Let all of us lose our senses

trusting that behind the darkness

is that same blue sky waiting

for the lightning to strike or a

new sun to rise up like a first fire

burning every preconception to ash.

------------- 

Day 7:

Pro-Memory

without it, we would

never exist but in the

tiniest segments

four shiny sea shells

a broken bicycle chain

a can of old coins

nothing is all gone

everything leaves its dust

choose your objects well

seven unplayed cards

one fractured black rosary 

a pile of lost leaves

Day 5: Friday Found Poem (mostly)

Before&After

Nothing is constant, but change
comes quickly or not at all.
Someday we'll be happy here
comes the sun, tomorrow?

Or is it rain or wind or storm:
Let storm! Life is ... born too
young into a world already so
gone too long to keep so dear.

What can you do for change,
on a lark, on the lamb, in a bus,
on the way to wherever you are:
you are, all the things you are.

There is no mistaking here:
Everybody know this is ...
nowhere to go but...up to no
good to know you too, pal.

Day 4: Stuck or Unstuck [in time]

Containment Unit # 231

We watch the movie frontwards, stopping
not often for questions & noticing, they would
rather plug in to their own headlessness.
I insist that they remain well postured.
This doesn't please the prisoners, who
don't buy that they are free to come & go:

stuck, unstuck

they renounce my influence: traitor,
liar, thief, hypocrite, warden, bum.
My ticks don't bother them anymore,
they react, only to keep themselves awake.
Even when they smile, their teeth shine
with disdain, or is it just the clock, shine:

stuck, unstuck

big hand catching up with little hand
seconds committing suicide with
a leap less of faith than absolutism,
to keep all the watchers hoping
& guessing that soon even this will pass,
at the top of every hour a pause:

stuck, unstuck

but what of these friends unshackled,
choosers, minds broken open to see
that what matters here matters every
where, that what is true is as uncom
fortable as a poorly engineered desk,
a false ergonomics of education:

stuck, unstuck

We are held here, we two, we many,
an invisible thread, a visible cell white
walled & dingy, speckled with useless
memorabilia, a story soaked wasteland,
unkempt wordhoard, ill used, piling up,
forever unread, only to contain us.

Are we really stuck? Unstuck.

Day 2: Two For Tuesday (on a Wednesday)

Cut the Noise

November comes in like a megaphone
& dies out under a blanket of regret.
With hope, we survive the season's
sadness & light our candles one by one
hoping that the coming cold will bury
all the fearful chatter: the throaty violence
of  peaceful overthrow. Let there be
birds collecting seed beneath the frost.
Let their red coats bristle in the freeze
& their pecking beaks strike harder
than the oil man's spike. May we all
find the silence our broken spirits
need to purge the liar's spectacle.
Let freedom's ring muffle under
the gleam of falling snow.


_______
The Truth about Disappointment

It rarely accomplishes what it starts,
but slides away to a delicate sense of loss
that suggests a permanence that is always a lie.
Nothing is worth sleeplessness except love.
So says the sleepy election day Kansan with his bitter pill.

Day 1

15/35

At fifteen, restraint meant not
sticking up for a bullied friend
or joining in when insults were
handed out by the dozens like
some kind of locker-room party favor.
When the situation beckoned, fists flew:
willy-nilly, a few even landing on a face
that years before was a boon friend
& minutes after was the face of regret
& twenty years later shame.

At thirty-five there is little fight left
& restraint is easier to understand,
nuanced by years of practicing patience.
A man comes to realize that who we are
has as much to do with what we didn't do
as what we did--assuming the dents
we made are equally as important
as the ones we received.
                      But at the midway point:
perceived weakness & pretend strength
are equally unimportant. An aging face
shows all the signs of childhood fear
without the need for mask or lies.

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