the days go down easy if you're willing to swallow

she said: "mama, that cross

don't mean nothing

to me. I like the way it dangles

from the rearview mirror,

catching the sun

in it's shining eye from time to time

you gave it to me empty

the way someone else's secrets

seem like television, and

/////you don't ever

////put them inside you

and you showed me how our house

filled with light from

the inside like

a human aquarium
and how our family breathes
the same furniture and eats
the same thoughts every
supper
while I go still as a starfish
so you can't tell I'm living because
///////I don't like
//////to be watched

oh mother mother mother
you wear these wounds like jewelry
like wedding rings, oh mother
won't you please
take them off now?
you wear it, but I've
lived it
I knew it and know it like old
skin and livers and stale air,
I used scissors to cut out the parts
I don't need anymore, so mother
please listen, there's something
//////to be said for
/////letting go

so I'm driving and driving and mama,
I will keep on driving and still shouldn't you?
with this cross I don't bear but
let it hang empty
to fill up with daylight
like houses I have never known
and when the night drops upon us,
I don't worry, see
I've stored me some lightness
and that's when we'll see
/////what on Earth
////we can catch."

One of Them Was H.G. Adler

"One must have a center, an unshakable quiet 

space that one clings to vigorously, even when 

one is in the middle of the journey, the unavoidable 

journey…" And one must hide that quiet

space in others, divvied up without calculation

among the comings and growings of son,

daughter, friend, mother or husband. Not all

quiets in one basket. And to assure its 

continuance among cannibals of quiet spaces,

one should hide it in the pockets of passersby,

brief persons standing in line, a girl who

coughed into her hand on the El train. This

is how milkweed evolved and survived 

so many unnatural centuries: slipping out

from beneath the thumbs of so many 

green traces. There was the whiplash wind

and they made seeds of it. So too one should

be with the cunningly alive silences. One 

may get struck down, but others are arriving

and all that noise was for nothing 

but to secure its safety. 

Every last one of us has something

Orange war smoke
left his lungs wheezing
and his nerves totaled
but his eyes never
..........changed, kind
and shining open

Johnny was not afraid
of duty, even when it
.........held a gun, but
when he got home,
he wondered if it
meant anything

He still wonders
sometimes, forty years
of coughing in his sister's
basement, he has learned
how to make days
.........disappear

He doesn't even get
lonely, only bored
from time to time
and for this, he knows
he is not lucky but
.........blessed

And his nights go down
easy, with Bud lights
at Longshots, smoking
joints in the side-room,
a terrarium with a bar
table, preferring the
company of plants
..........to people

He likes Tuesdays
when they bring out
the Karaoke machine,
Johnny loves to sing
despite the fact that
his damaged lungs
.........won't let him

One night he sits
at a front table and
sings along to every
song, laughing and
coughing and thinking
all the while
"If you could only see
..........my life!"

And then after chanting
every word to Walk on
the Wild Side, even the
doo doo doo doo doo doos,
he turns to the woman beside
........him and says
with deeply stoned eyes
glowing upward,

"Oh Honey,
it's all starlight anyway."
.......And then, so softly
no one hears him:

"Death can never hurt you
........until you die."

Going to Bagdad

Going to Bagdad
......this morning,
over snow-painted
.......roads, it won't
take me long
.......to know you
there,

there won't be a desert,
........but forests there
i will hide behind one
........of the matchstick
frozen pines, until you
.......find me there.

The Lives of Modern Lovers

He could never get over it. Growing 

taller as it was, as he climbed. 

The famous people he met were, when

he got used to them, only people, 

divided neatly into men and women. 

Greatness, the heads around them said, 

and it came running. So far inside

the roiling chaos-streams of strangers

they could almost feel themselves 

as thoughts. Not any larger than 

themselves, just multiplied by the thousands

and friendly for no one. No wonder

they were afraid. No wonder they shrank

from the hand that touched them. They

wanted to be larger, not cloned. They

wanted to be too big to die, not 

captive behind the eyes of thousands. 

No wonder they disappeared inside 

their movies, or consulted the 

conscious kingdom of suicide. Adoration

was a kind of jealousy, and envy

their chance to deeply love. 

Teenagers To Music

I slam into you

you into me too, just like

we're the ones we want

Seventeen Degrees

From night's walls, I say
"Listen, the snow is falling."
Oh, but so are we

Haiku 10:07 am

I am so tired
I could lollop in the sea
and not even blink

A poem to you, as you are sleeping

A poem to you, as you are sleeping
with paisley in your eyes
May your dreams be soft as Sundays

A poem to you, as you are sleeping
as if you'll never wake
The stars all talk above you

A poem to you, as you are sleeping
with oceans in your ears
I can hear it, too.

Heart Food (for Judee Sill)

she sings to me
of distances....
stations unknown,
one hundred, five
hundred miles
from my
......home

she sings to us
in the hollow
of the desolation
song, with a voice
so deep

in my
......bones

i can hear
her whistle blow,
a hundred miles
the root of my

chest, close
to every single
person, yet
......alone

Omar Saves Las Vegas

Omar saves Las Vegas
because he has to.

He does not understand
Las Vegas, but he
won't let it fall apart.

He sees the whole city
at once in a blink
of his round, yellow eyes.

"This city is mine,"
he cries. "These lights
are my lights."

Omar never considered
himself a gambling man,
but he thought he'd
take a chance
on Las Vegas,
completely.

There was no question
in his mind,
or in his gut

.....and that
is the secret
to winning.

I dreamed long and hard of an old friend

we are, all of us, afraid

of the end. when it's mentioned,

we tremble and twinge and look

side-to-side like liars in

coffins, ready to face any one
monster..........except

he is there, behind our faces,

melting skin off our bodies end to end,

one microscopic flash upon flash upon
flash, we know he is watching us undress,
close-mouthed and quiet and wide-
eyed, at least, we think, someone
.................is watching, at least, we think
we are not alone

we see his work accrue, but when
he's finally through, we cannot tell
we face him, without memories
but awash in recognition of a friend,
and he turns to us and says,
"Fare thee well, honey.
................Fare thee well."

one from the center of the body

You don't need to write poems,
you have breasts, he said

But I have breasts that write
poems with my whole
body, every part
they won't settle for less

Yes, I have breasts
made of poems and poems
made of words within
words, nothing less

We need more than we make
and make do with far less
than we could ever expect.

And nothing I say, from
the heart of the cave
of my breast really makes
..................any sense,

Oh, Senselessness! I need
you nontheless, I confess,
...................I confess.

Saviors of God

the birds are falling 

out of the sky

       in Paducah

       in Louisiana

       in Sweden

on New Year's Day

thousands of wings

collapse 

like rain

       in Brazil and in 

       the Chesapeake Bay

all the fish

have washed to shore 

       in Kent, England, 

forty thousand Velvet

swimming crabs

throw their shells 

to a sand 

cemetery marked 

with starfish, sponges,

       anemone corpses

I am waiting 

     for the 61C

and I lean against the 

bus stop like my

     mother.

She will keep the world

turning....she will swim,

     and she will fly and

     will hold my 

tired head, here 

on Murray avenue

      until it falls.

      in New Zealand, 

      red snapper, hundreds

      of them, wash to 

shore as three fisherman

watch, mouths agape 

      and  silent. 

 Hoping for nothing,

      fearing 

      nothing--

      Free.

      

modern alchemy

i can do seventeen
different things
with a tomato.

i can write a book
that will teach you
to love him.

i can show you
how to breathe
your whole body.

i can dance
circles around
us.

i can fly
without feathers.

i can grow skin
with
cadavers.

i can sing
like David
Bowie.

i am lasers.
i am electric.
i am glowing
with all that
you gave
me, all
of this
in me
will save us.

first shyku

god is how
old I am

He remembered on the very last day

I don't have time for this,
so I'll say it:
A man
among men is losing his hands,
he is losing his hands and his
sorrow.
His face
stays the same, among men
he sees it blend into every
man's face, the same.
One man
is all men, we learn but
when do we feel it? We feel
it in flashes, in screams, and
in sorrow.
We feel it
in joy, endless joy we forgot
about, we are just one man,
just the
one.

ice speech

i see skyscrapers
inside caves
so anything
can be
contained
i also mean
to say
all is
limitless
i am turning
into
vinegar
influenza aside,
you can't
touch me
and also,
you can
touch me
everywhere
without
hands
i applaud
you, sir
winter
for making
me shiver
just when i
relaxed into
liquid
defenseless
picante, oh
hold me
and warm
me in
ice-dreams,
oh cave-king
i crown you
beside me!

For Nina, of Mirrors

She grew feathers

like she was made of

down, her skin bristling

with dark concentration

"At least I know
what I am made of,"
she told us, proudly
prideless and perfect

without being good.

She spun ribbons
of discipline with her
body as her thoughts

tied knotted corners,
drilling dances into
dim psychic caves
only sex can unravel

She grew feathers,
and still could not fly
so she leapt instead into
a softer seven-story grave