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Friday, May 16, 2003 at the bottom of the well... this echo knocks
around slings itself into a cozy vortex... frightening itself... but locked out.... carefully remove your fingers from the pumphole... then call your friends over... for the wild show... a timid tornado has its day... made of words and a devoted orchestra of... idiots bent toward the next word... grinning back from the damp slippery ledge of fame a struggle to say...
becomes a bloody rout of all troops... say something... to say for example that the air spins us toward a more stable politics... is to say nothing that anyone cares to hear... you don't... do you... instead... let's look closely at the sky... or the ground under our heavily shod feet... let's understand something about turning into flame or stone... before the shifting walls cause us to seem ridiculous... and irrelevant soldiers in spas... teachers in bubbles i'll wait for the great
crested concordance to swoop... listen for its subtle chirrup... this family did... and they're much the better for it... listen to the humble grey coreopsis settling down for the night... an exceptional value this... truth that comes slobbering into dusky melancholy... conceiving tomorrow's predators today... shut down all the schools tonight Thursday, May 15, 2003 i'm not talking to you... unless it was you
who called last night... left a message about rivers rising... and sang a verse of
crossroad blues... the window needed a shade... and yes... i have read all of
these books... every other word... took me a lifetime... don't you remember sitting in my shadow while i took my time... i was pretending
to be somewhere else... under the influence Wednesday, May 14, 2003 when the sun spoke this morning delivery came... stumbling... damp... into poor hands open... tough... from hard scratching at rocky ground... regular motion with a firm grip... delivery came... slipping through a green night... into sweet patient fog... turn us into losers and winners... turn us into frogs... we've still got what came loping to mind ghostly this morning when assassin clouds prepared to strike her suddenly red thinking
has taught us to plant evergreens - preferably sweating pines - around our desired ends... never ask... don't ask why she turns this way and that... just rearrange your day to include some remorse for the hurtful things you might say... keep your door open wide enough... write more pomes about thunder and chess Tuesday, May 13, 2003 the first day on location we called for a salmon waiver... but we got this probative tracking shot down through town past the hanky-panky watertower off into the slithering gloom...
so we set up an infantile infusion smokescreen... but our go-gettter couldn't set the light beneath one of the heady quatrains... and we had to settle for a quick martial flourescence...
tomorrow... if the key grip doesn't run off with our rowdy paleoclimatologist... we'll be ready for the woodpecker hemorrhage Monday, May 12, 2003 it's all a guessing game... what did they
mean just before sunset... or sunrise... the planet we understood as well as ourselves... we ran into the rain... washington one summer night... when everyone studied god's black language... you thought it was true... but i was just pretending to know sluggish enough...
slow to think that you might want something... i might become the last boy... i was... when we stuttered home... was it the sidewalk made us more careful than cats... was it the beer or the thing you said... my laugh... directly singing...
not flown like a wood thrush... singing about the last idea... just before sweeping say what you saw... simply... a ghost like paper nobody read... i think it was important... the color of some pressing thought... less a feeling than a corner we turned... preposterously a fact first the words altered
the room we sat in... i was counting on your merciful eyes... then the floor became interesting... you said the day had gotten cooler... i knew it... pretend i'm not much more... than a window or a wall... find some use... for them when i started to say
how frightened... no i never said how frightened... a quick shock... boys cry... no... boys stand still in the middle of the street... they wait for lightning... across town houses are exploding... green lawns never wince... oaks bend... some break... but boys have something to say... with silence... gray paint on my hand smells like thunder rushing... up to me ... let me understand what it had to say... Sunday, May 11, 2003 punch it quickly... brown box of sappy spring here... go on... the track is wild... still fresh blood... scent... like a lonesome boy cut sharply... and slandered wolves at every corner tree... no you wouldn't understand... i was trying to get out a stampede of rats
or buffalo... that uncut lawn blown unanimously... another lacustrine postcard from the suburb... did he say... something about cussing... when no one's there to hear wind on the water... whisper fears out... go scamper mad... and solo sing yr self hush the wind's got
a hole in it... there full of nothing... rushing like a widow to the window... open up... let all the bad beasts in... let all the bad light out... make room for the street ruckus... gushing rivers past trashy lawns... open... some sky... over there Saturday, May 10, 2003 be happier when we examine you... your arms engage all questions... let them hold wildflowers at sunset... everyone remembers you... younger in idealistic blue jeans... we just want you back... in khaki slacks now... if need be... a modest belt for a careful life... shiney shoes... for a smile... be happier next time something stops...
you stop... they said with all good intentions... to stop it... so you have buried a sheet of paper... under the rest of this rubble... a sheet of paper... your name scrawled on it
... after days and months of weather we meet by the mound... ready now for some new growth... rebirth... some minor transformation and... we get... springing up... some smoke... some stink of sunset held too long in infant hands... unhappiness... yes... an empty vindication amend it now... to
read... we require water, sunlight, and some animals to eat and to know while we stand alone beside the river thinking hard thoughts about what has been lost... we require mudroots and thick air, breath like a fallow field done and undone and finally done for some years now... we require two feet on the ground, a nose to the grindstone, a stiff upper lip... amend it now back to finish your phrase currently  |