When You Are Out

When you are out

necking with your new lover I’ll be

rereading Moby Dick and that is horrible

friend for an old woman.

I know you don’t owe me a thing

and so I say, please come  home 

There are worse things

There are worse things than being

a suck ass and trying your hardest

to stay at hand but I cannot think

of one now

 

 

 

 

 

 

 war must be hard

My Friend; The Handyman

If I had a friend that lived close by

that knew how to fix things and didn’t mind helping

I would make him cake or write a poem for him.

 

I would give him a feast to write Scotland about or

let him use my paints or let him have my tobacco

anytime he liked.  Such is such. 

 

When I lived by lake superior I had a friend

who would come over and if something didn’t work

he would fix it.  He was good and capable. 

The Trees

 

 

 

 I hate the sight of the lonely trees in parks 

or in front of people’s houses

or on the sides of roads in narrow strips.   

If I could lose the road

in the forest I’d wander

through the years eating

grubs and leeks and doves

with my body to teach me love

 

The other people

constantly about on a cell phone 

with their infectious hellos  and drive-in’s

could be tricked out

 

 

 

 

The city visions are not life’s

glory or the moist forest floor.

The wheel on the bike path is not

the hollow notes of sticks on trunks. 

The tang of the paper mill is

not a fresh bundle of cedar

 

The city is an ice cream truck

with meth head driver.   

 

 

Someday a road will fell the last of a forest.

Some chain store or lawyer’s office will take

the spruces’ and maples’ thunder and the wish

of the leaves and the heart of the forest will be myth.

It will be a jump of machinery.

It will be a thump of humanity.  

It will be a hump of death and waste and rebirth.

Balance is not real

Balance is not real.

It is a swing a swinging. 

 

Hold out.  It slows enough

to jump up.