Sunday, August 27th, 2006

It's a mixed blessing living in the cultural zone of the city.

Letting Out

The playhouse takes them in

Meek and mute

And turns them out

Changed and charged

With a manic profession,

An energetic regression,

And an urge to howl

Just to lesson its level;

Loose to roost

Like the song

Of a drunken bird,

Lofting to nowhere,

Hoots hurled

Like boundless bricks

At the streetlights

Of the midnight sky,

And hobbled

Falling into windows

And onto sleeping heads,

The price of being a point

Part-way to the parking lot,

So that tossing and turning

I grump and groan

At what their problem is,

Which is just

Another way to wonder

What I've missed

This time.

Monday, August 28th

Perigee

With eyes closed,

Falling and flying

Feel no different:

The same body

Flung to fate;

The wind carving

Tears away

Just the same;

And the Earth,

Immovable always

Against longing

Or regret,

Stings and cradles

All bodies alike

In the end.

Tuesday, August 29th

Eggshells

I don't know,

Despite looking and asking,

Despite listening,

The what of it,

Let alone the why,

Or how being lost

Should come so easily,

That crossroads could be

So featureless,

Horizon so flat,

Stars so dim,

Whenever the question comes.

It's as if it is better

There be no explanation

For disrepair--

That what you say,

Should stay outside and alien,

Prehistoric, oblivious

To the office granted

Daily, hourly, and

With each haunted breath

Taking us deeper

Into wilderness, desert,

The brutal quiet of the couch,

Or back to back in bed.

I don't know the what of it

Because I look to you,

Ask you and listen.

And though you see, know

And lovingly explain,

Because you are right

The wilderness is colder,

The desert drier,

And I am not surprised,

Knowing what I do not know,

Listening to you

Only for the sound

Of my own voice.

Wednesday, August 30th

Bench

Doubt shines

Through all the mechanical

Meandering of the day,

A second star

Whose noon comes

Abundantly

And ever unexpectedly,

Like the glint off a passing bus

When I was just

Starting to soften

In the shade.

Thursday, August 31st

Always Yes

Today I am the middle man,

Earning my keep by what I know and who,

And not by anything

That I might actually do.

I connect two ends of longing thread

And bridge their searching spark,

But will not let them touch or tie.

I blend their shadows in the dark.

I take from off the table

A healthy piece of pie,

Leave questions not quite answered,

And the well just shy of dry,

A river running just out of view

Down a desperate merchant's trail,

And hide my heavy thumb behind

A silver tongue upon the scale.

Friday, September 1st

A Thinner Skin

I don't tell

Of my worrying

Anymore.

They only just say

"Don't."

As if it was

A choice,

And worry

Wasn't just the skin

Of the caring fruit,

And peeling it away

Wouldn't gouge the flesh,

Leave it wet and raw

And sighing out

Its sweetness,

Undefended

And brown against

The glare.

Saturday, September 2nd

Today, a list of names in a magazine caught my eye. I'd read the thing half a dozen times, but never really noticed the list before.

Column

There is a limit

To the meaning of words

Laid out in a list

And centered like a poem,

A long leaf,

An ugly millipede,

An ink river

Whose borders swim

In and out

Over syllables,

Ever breathless and unread

Whenever it is names.

Just people

Who have no meaning anymore.

No presence on the page

But to press the length,

Spin weight to the title,

The legend.

Donors, dead, or daring

To pass this way,

Adding their shape

To the roll,

And absent, say

By someone else's hand,

We were here.

We paid to ease this ill.

We fought this fear.

We were gathered together

Not to be remembered,

But for a cause

That remains despite us,

And are remembered anyway.

Even if by no one

But the author.