29 June

Poetry

is what came before Newton
named gravity and everyone happily
flying suddenly plummeted.

2008

19 June

The meanest thing I ever thought to say to anyone
1997

When the standard against which you measure your lapses of integrity is shooting strangers, it must be easy to excuse transgressions of the heart.

30 April

The woman in question

for Cathy

1995

“So, who is she, anyway?”

the fellow from the assessor’s office

asks the barista steaming skim milk

for his dry skinny decaf au lait to go

as the screen door flutters shut

behind the woman in question.

“I don’t know her name,”

the barista replies discreetly,

“but she’s a wonderful customer.”

Might have been a waitress once,

she thinks but doesn’t say.

“Medium regular here.”

The guy from corrections hands her

his sludgy bulgy pitted plastic mug.

“Well, we saw her walking the other day,

staring at the sky and smiling,

and you know what was up there?

Nothing but clouds.”

29 April

VILLANELLE FROM HELL
1999

"Fourteen days at Slocum Creek
are fourteen days too many," moans
the river, sallow, slack and sick,
"but I am waiting for the dam to break
and will wait 'til time and times are done
if that means fourteen centuries at Slocum Creek."
"I cannot gasp, but if I could, I'd shriek,
squawk, squeal and groan,"
the crappie, sallow, slack, and sick
is rasping as it fishflops down the thick
stagnant soup that it called home
sixty-six years ago, at Slocum Creek.
"This so-called campground sucks."
“That pissoir of a lake.” “Discarded, putrid bovine bones.”
The anglers, sallow, slack and sick
are calling and responding from the wreck
of outdoor recreation. Clowns!
Just fourteen lines describing Slocum Creek
have left me sallow, slack and sick.


Note: Should you be planning a vacation here, a BLM sign at Slocum Creek Campground near Owyhee Reservoir indicates that the overnight camping limit is 14 days.

27 April

Counterpoint
1991

I am the weight
at the opposite end of the scale.
In country where it rains
eight feet a year, the green kin
in my windows traveled here
from deserts where their fleshy leaves
stored scarce water and their spines
squared off against death’s teeth.

As I meander into love with you
I dream your death,
dispassionately wonder if you’ll be
the one I get around to
murdering.

Each day we kill our loves
a little more carefully.
I say what no one wants to hear.
My laugh is loud and impolite,
my silence has sharp edges.
When my hands clap rhythm
they reach for counterpoint.
You tell me you don’t know
if anyone can dance with me.

26 April

Everything I Made
early 90s

“There is nothing left to keep me here,” he said.
“I have lost more than I knew I had to lose.

I would take my grandfather’s clock
to keep it safe for whoever is to love it next,
but I will go without it if I must.
It is a fair trade for my life.

All I was given becomes a story I will tell by firelight.
Everything I made, I can make again.”

25 April

I DO
for David, April 25, 1998


Call this my rough draft of the vow
I’ll revise and renew and never quite finish.
What I did got me here, but it won't
get me past here. Remember
those strange words I stammered,
stalling for time, when you asked
if after two decades of safety
I might consider the danger that's love?

Our compass is set for a bearing
beyond my Shabby Hotel by the Sea,
out of sight of your Shoals of Reason.
You called me Ambassador from the Edge,
Consul of the Lost and Found.
You knew me well enough to name
my Homeland. The answer is yes.

This moment light gathers around,
I promise you what I do best
yet still with least confidence:
Like my mentor the mole rat, I will
gnaw through the perimeter. I am
poised to become the new creature
this marriage calls to. From now on I do
whatever it takes.