guilt is a funny thing

 

 

 

it doesn’t matter if you knew better

or if you were doing your best with

the knowledge you had

 

if your own hindsight doesn’t shame you

someone else’s will

 

if it doesn’t, you’re probably not human

 

Well Meaning

Well meaning humans

friends and family members

tell me to write a novel

something I can get paid for

They ask if I write

if I write at all

if I do, why don’t I show it

to them

they say with ups at the ends of the words

I mumble about the poem

about the line

about when I sit down and write

a poem  I do what

I can and hope

their war will be lost

on my ability to write a

decent poem

Of course I have a lot of

horse shit that I don’t

finger until it becomes apart

of my identity but the

process of writing a poem

I’ve put everything in

I’ve excepted

that I will never get drinks or licks

in exchange for my poems

But if I don’t write these bloody

stumps, if I don’t fuck on the mother

tongue and smear her ideologies

in my gruesome fantasies

her neat and organized world

may beat out the orgasmic

and thirsty

I’d Pull

I’d pull the despair

out of your body like a cord

but where would I put it? 

 

I already have one of my own

Would you like it?

Missing A Few Hours

I want sex.  That is what

I’m writing this poem for

 I hope to convince you

that having sex with me

is a good idea and that you

shouldn’t delay. Or else

you’ll miss your chance

 

A chance that could change your life

forever or entertain you for a few hours  

I don’t know why

I don’t know why

we are still writing

poems, Henry.

 

I tried to go

in a different direction

 but I kept wanting

 to come back

 and sit with you.  

 

Now what, Henry

We are out of beer

I Use Poems

I use poems the size of war.

I write them in the morning

after the pretty city motions work.

When other citizens shop

for beans or rake progress

I arrange sounds that fuck people.

 

So high they get, after my oos and aahs

they promise not to kill again 

 

I Will Curse

I will curse and destroy you

dirty world with your  clean shirts

pressed pants and plumed hats

unless you grant me

a cheap apartment with

running water and a fat bathtub

right now.

 

You may negotiate the soap

Growing Up

Growing up she used to daydream

that her father was a drunk or on drugs.

 

He never had a job. 

He never spent time with the kids. 

He was always somewhere else

doing god knows who.  

 

There was never a good explanation. 

Was he insane?

Could he love?

 A bad seed?

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

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.

Carrots

The carrots taste gross and I’m not lying.

Hot chocolate with chocolate chip cookies

taste better and there is really no reason to discus it. 

Carrots may be better for you but chocolate

tastes better and that for me is enough of a reason

to eat dipped chocolate chip cookies, not carrots.

 

May you live forever 

Teddy Bear

I am not happy in my playhouse. 

My teddy bear changed.  Or I did.  

Or the world did. 

 

I got some mad inside me and 

said fudge.  Teddy hissed. 

I snuggle with a stressed out bear

who paws my tongue. 

Ha.  Good great pancake syrup.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My number one fur wants to gain morality or sensibilities. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some days aren’t ours 

they come and they go

and what are we 

 

we are what is left on the chair

watching and loving 

and for what and why…

 

when we realize our mother

loved us best and that was as good 

as we can get. And then   then

we think someone else might love

us. We think we’ve found 

some magic that the rest 

was too dumb to find….that we are

lucky and blessed. Then… then we come 

home early and find our cat on the neighbor’s lap

purring.  Then we say suck it and we find

our lover in some odd position giving

goo glue eyes at some slender beef

and then… then we leave and walk and walk

and walk until we forget who we think we are 

and we stop caring about this life. This life goes

by too short but then, then we don’t want it

it is meaningless. It is pain.  We are all there is.

We are not enough. We are not garlic or a sunset.

We are old. We are still stupid. We don’t 

like to be alone, still stupid and old

 

But others can’t be trusted. We can’t stand on their back

to see farther.  We can’t make them hold us. We smell.

We are cry babies.  

 

There is no pudding for cry babies.  

There are no songs for cowards. 

 

 

The bath water is cold and the flies are in.

we have sand in our butts. We are freaky 

looking wearing blue all the time.  We 

write. We shit. We pace. We write. 

 

No one reads it because it is lame. It is not

smart. we can not write smart. We try but 

everyone tells us told you so.  

 

We say fug off but we hurt and want someone

to tell us we are ok but we are not ok and so 

no one will say it and we wouldn’t believe

it and so here we are   

 

and yet we talk politics and paints and pens

 

is there anymore ale

no 

it doesn’t matter -I’ll have a glass of tap water

Someone plays with someone

a lover snores besides a someone.

the daughter of someone is in a bedroom

pulling air through a harmonica.

 

 the sun is out and someone sits with goose bumps.

 someone has turned grey as a rain weathered tin.

someone’s heart is twisty sensitivity and has not yet learned to swallow.  Darfur. Iraq. Afghanistan

war torture. Cuba…WWII, the love of family.

 

 

someone’s grandmother comes to visit and leaves.

someone’s friend calls. someone gives advice, says, “find a lover

you can sit and talk with,

 

 

 laughter holds hands into sticky glances. 

 

 someone’s daughter goes outside to a ride a scooter

someone’s lover snore stops and becomes a whisper.

someone is sad and blessed

someone is lonely and surround by carpet.  someone doesn’t know

what a someone is, only what a bomb is not.

 

all the creative ideas

that someone hasn’t learned

to control are the pieces that someone tastes and savors.

 

 someone can’t shake the snakes, or explain

the need of death by whips and earthquakes. 

 

someone needs a bath with potato soap and someone brushes

the lives that someone tangles and never notices. someone

moans for the someone who someone is mis-teaching.

and someone is searching for a home for someone who is homeless. and someone

is playing dice down -out into a hall to make someone some money.  Someone is dodging

work to go to a war and haircut. someone is looking in a fridge

and someone is watching tv. someone

pretends that someone’s feet are planted on the ground. someone is nobody cause they are dead

cause someone has just blown off someone’s head.  someone is singing

words of evolution. and someone is wondering

when someone will peek into someone’s eyes, and hand

someone a rye and Swiss sandwich.  a someone is scared to go outside alone or

talk with someone over the phone. someone doesn’t want someone

to know someone writes death letters to someone’s self. someone is sick

and poor. someone is rich and disconnected by a fence around their yard. someone is birthed

and someone eats noodles without sauce. someone is

a friend for life and someone has cancer  of the mouth.

someone is an artist and someone is

nurse. and someone utters a little curse. 

 

someone listens and someone blesses  the life-giving tree.

and someone won’t ever be free. someone

lives their life internally.  and someone is trying

to figure out who someone is, and someone won’t

find the answer, while someone will know it doesn’t matter.

someone marches for peace and someone doesn’t want to come home from war

someone needs a hug, and someone’s been over touched. someone is on

drugs, and someone wishes drugs could fix someone’s problems 

End of the Road

 

 

 

 

You’ll know when you get there. 

You’ll be surprised, a fever may come.

You might have to sit and stare off.    

When you leave you will weep.

Walking backwards,

staring and trying to remember

as much as possible.  It won’t help

 

You’ll scratch your insides

to ask why you can’t return.

You’ll try to rationalize

the big the city, the prairie grass.

you’ll say a river is good enough.

that there is more opportunity

where you are, better schools,

better job market. 

you’ll even say you can go

home and visit.

You’ll say people move on 

but despite all yourself talk

you won’t be the same.

 

Visiting won’t give peace. You’ll leave. 

You will say, its time to

take advantage of the new place.  You’ll try, 

you’ll look at the people and their hem lines.

You’ll find old buildings and new lace shops

but it won’t be enough. 

You’ll fake it for years. 

You’ll bitter, and save money,

hope to buy that little cabin.   

But you won’t.  You’ll stay in limbo. 

 

Knowing your dying but thinking

you are doing the right thing.  

Your heart will break.  Again and again.

You’ll make new friends

and find new ways to express the hole.

You’ll read your poems to strangers.

your stretch yourself out and in 

but it won’t matter.

You’ll still miss her.

You’ll still want to return to lake superior. 

Even the warmer climate won’t be enough.

Land locked you’ll damn alone.

Smart enough to hide your wanderlust

your craft will become

the source of replacement. 

 

You’ll miss the library

with the sacks of poetry people.

The rocks, o the rocks,

 you’ll be attracted

to all rocks and touch every

fugging one you can, and say,

send a vibe  back north.

 

 You’ll miss October’s face,

 its eyes, its grin, its sway. 

It teasing you. 

You’ll miss February  and her doe

that is shy and curious. 

Your miss June’s sass

and March’s enlightenment. 

You’ll miss December’s

scotch and savior conversation.

 

You’ll miss August’s acceptance and wit,

strength and hot friendship.

You’ll miss May’s perception,

its soft anger, that grows on the world.

You’ll plan to gather your months

at her shore but it won’t happen.

Goose pump you, will follow someone

 else’s lead, your gentle job’s.

You’ll hate yourself for it,

for doing the right thing,  ever.

true walking machine

Some day man will be a true walking machine.  

Full of beeps and parts that allow them

humans to advance a little.  I think

all this cutting and adding will one day stop.

Then evolution can continue.  

Mold

Strangers keep asking when I’m going to fit

the mold that they need.  I’m a hobo, a street musician.

I paint on corners, and read my poems

on the sidewalk. Fuck the coffee snob houses.

They’ll take me if I want them.

I write.   This is it. This is all you get.   

This is my hand. It will probably cramp soon.

I must write while pain is young

 

 

Let us not be folded into others’ cubicles,

not deranged and broken by their patterns.

 

Listen.  I am the greatest woman to ever live. 

Lick me.  When I walk into a room of dredges

they slide the muck towards me with eyes as lonely

as history. They want to pluck my string. Hear the symphony

of my fucked lost lines. Stand aside

poesy. I have a cunt of amber.  Men, women

I’ve changed the philosophy, I’ve brought back witchcraft.

 

 

 

 

umm hmm

you looked so good

when I touched you

I became old.

Dirty thoughts raced ahead

of the “how was your days” and the

“nice, glad you’re homes.”

 

 

 

I trembled out of human control

I drank the cheap ale down hard

smoked fast and frequent.

 

your body rolled

on the top of my mouth

 

If you are alone in dark

water, wait for me.

 

I’ll be the fist of plunder

the knife of excess

the city fountain lit with blue

a rope out, a hand job.

mumbles

I don’t how it began.  I think I was born this way. not that I’ve haven’t spent years workin’ on sound. i have. I’ve made sound into a friend.  I’ve made it into something that happens when I sit down and write.   I’ve made it automatic, and not that I can even call it sound.  its not sound. most of it is irregular, the meter is like a hobo’s hum.  the tone playful, simple, and humdrum.  its the hour after your grandmother died, and you don’t know it yet, but you expect the worse when the phone rings.  Its the process of mopping a floor that doesn’t need it.  You do it because you can’t sit still.  you can’t mourn uncertainty. you can’t pace into a hole. so you clean.  you put everything in a place.  you double check, under the bed, you hang up your robe that fell two months ago.  Then you mumble “give me thousands of lovers,” maybe rock or shake a leg, or crack your neck.  you ask what’s the point of this, sigh.  Then city lights shut off. the sun comes over the houses, into your window, and for some reason, light hits your hand, and you smile, and your eyes drop a little dumb tear, and little laugh begins to fold and open your chest, and a voice begins. its says, now there was a time, oh of course there was a time,a normal time, really just yesterday, a p and j was made on homemade bread, the bread was toasted, and the j got all over and p greased the counter. it wasn’t that good, but it was good enough. the p and j is rotten. it is not fit for a last meal.  it is not a beef stick.  you call it dinner with anger, but you eat it. and sleep the same.  in the late afternoon you say, I think I was born this way. you pick up the cheap guitar and sing for hours. you don’t remember how it began.  you’ve worked years at raising your voice into a responsible companion. Now every time you pick up a guitar, a voice comes.  its automatic.   there are problems.  nobody values a voice. its taken for granted.  no one wants to hire or buy your voice. people turn the volume down.  the people want dance music, not throat songs, not blues strums, there is no place for your sound. you go into the box and color on the walls.  put pictures up, settle in, reserved to die that way. somebody kicks the box, you look up, a girl is moppin up. she’s says, i heard your song, its good, you need practice.  she climbs in the box and hits her fist into you. she sets a beat.  you look at her, hard, long, it hurts.  your sound at first is a scream.  then a melody,  then your voice falls out in hobo meter, its a tone. a vibration. a seed. a bomb, a gene, you don’t know.  you can’t say if it is this or that you don’t know where it came from or how.  you stay in the box, and let your brain thump out.  

Bedside manners Aubade or a poem for U.S.A

 

I’d love to hold you to the end of time

I don’t know why, You’re heavy and suffer

from temper tantrums. Your gun has entered me

many times but you’ve never pulled the trigger.

Lovers quarrel, but that’s not us.  We’re more like

friends that kiss and help the other dress. 

In the end I’ll put you in a uniform.

Some days are just like that. I still don’t know why.

 

 

John Donne Help me write this poem.

I’ll play it on my guitar and sing off key.

If the message is easy the people will clap.

I’ll get paid. And in the night I’ll lay my head down

on a pillow that is used to being split in two. From me and you

in the coffin there will be skin cells and fingernails.

We’ll hide the pain by stoic love.

Say, “I loved you just because your human,

now your grass and beans, clay and a heart sack.”

 

Hands can hide the deepest pain.

Just by waving smiles come.

Tonight I’ll fake it for you. 

I’ll drink some ale and  steal the covers.

You’ll sigh, forget tomorrow you have to split

in two, break the bonds and get the sticky job done.

All pigs die. And it never made me cry

One of us will dress the other after death

The body won’t bend, the skill saw will come.

The gentle wet spots will dry.

 

I still don’t know why.

I’ll lie tonight, and tell you there’s nothing to worry about.

A glass of water is free and so are we.

Nothing can steal touches.

I hate memories.  They come to smack me.

I saw a man shot in the head on TV

His back shoes still stand out at me. 

Photographs used to be easy to take.

Now its hard to see the fear, anger, and frustration

in your cheek

 

I was never in Iraq, I like sand castles just the same.

The war will never end. But lets pretend

Tomorrow the boat doesn’t leave

Tomorrow the planes don’t fly

Tonight the solar system will save our bloody souls.

Wash away the guilt that one of us will lose.

I bet its you.  I’m much to bad of person

I’ll live forever in mourning. I’ve had fun in your mouth

Your tongue is velvet and lavender. Hold me

through tomorrow. I’ll sacrifice nothing after

Old age never comes to friends of the sea.

I wish we weren’t children of sailors.

At least in the rest,  we be at the place of our birth

Salt water wash over us and the last sea otter. 

 

I afraid to turn a page. That will mean we are

older, gray and more adapt to decay.

When we first met I was barely 20.

Now I’m happy in the morning

and restless at night.  If this big

world keeps spinning, I guess so will we.

Hold me in your words, lets pretend

the world has ears and the lessons are just slow

to come around. War is just antidote and hunger

an empty jar, a blown off arm, A piece of freedom

 

I was never in Afghanistan but I like cinnamon just the same

The war will never end but lets pretend

Tomorrow your boots won’t slip and go

Tomorrow you collar won’t be blue and starched

Tonight the windswept pines beat the anger out of our hearts.

Suppress the damage of the homemade bomb of our fear.

One of us will smell the others rotten flesh. The other

will gag and sway as the end moves a little farther.

If it’s me it will be ironic. I am the poet and never

do anything with danger on it.  You’re  the soldier.

I’ll be the crushed petal in your breast pocket.

Smell me while you die.  I’ll wash you while the apple pie bakes

in the oven.  And in every love song I’ll place your name

 

 

 

 

 2007

 

Winter ( one last look)

What if the grass was still green and we had time to touch each other on strands of Lake Superior. What if when I called your name you came to me wearing shorts and sandals, with your hair growing long, and smiled to touch me. And the sun was up and the waves were so high they knocked us down. But the water was warm, so we stayed way past the dog walkers and the hikers, and sunbathers, we stayed and made love, if it was summer, we would. There would be no other way; we’d stay for hours on the smooth rocks. Or at least I like to pretend that is what would happen, if this were summer. It is not even fall when the leaves turn their reds and browns and pinks and oranges with the evergreens contrasting, and the big blue. Nor is it spring when the evergreens lose their needles. And the ground is covered in reddish brown little needles, and the ice shelves melt and the Canadian goose returns with his family. No, this is winter, and so there is not much to do, but crunch and slide as close as we can stand.  

Used Once

If I had a cure for a broken

heart I would gladly give

it to you, even if it

could only be used once

 

If I could end the little outburst

Or see you look at me, without

the sass, or convince you, someday

you’ll be a fine lover. Practice.

 

but you don’t listen to a damn thing

I say, and so bless you. Do you realize

at this very moment sound is coming from

my mouth, careful thoughtful sound,

 a clumsy, thoughtful line 

I’ve said so many times 

it seems to hardly matter  

I am in bathroom with the door closed. 

 

 

Hungry Christmas

 

 

 

Somebody gotta wring their pans

against large rimmed plastic glasses.

Make pay for heat in poverty stands.

Get the bunnies out of the jars of molasses.

Ride through the winter snow

and stop at lonely city trees to

ponder new worlds, ever aglow.

 

I am in the cardboard box

under the little bridge. My nipples

have long frosted off and are probably in

someone’s fridge. Everything I whisper

is a raspy fart on other’s tongue.

 

The fairies bring me wintergreen

but I cannot eat. It all comes up as bible pages

and anti beef propaganda cheat sheets.

Where is my dead Shakespeare and the wild

strawberry patch. What happened to the thing

that used to pass the sandwiches on down

and ding the bells of Saint Mary’s on 2^nd street.

 

If you see me and you think boy, there goes

a fallen treat, you are right.

I lost everything to fried meats on a name

something night. I miss the yellow potato soup

from the hospital. She tasted like home

but was warm with sweet onions and toasted breadcrumbs

 

The monkeys fling by, the gypsies shout their way,

the troubadour sings of lost battles, and I

follow a holy rats tail of cheese and hunger

 

I may be the lowly cane of poverty

but at least, thank the red and green gods,

for this coal coat and golden rifle. 

If I can’t get a crow, I’ll get a wallet.  

Smell Of Sulfur

Smell Of Sulfur

 

I have traced the arch of your back

the slender curve of your chin.

I have held your hand.  Touched

your strawberry hair and wiped the

snot bubble from your sleeping face.

 

In the morning nothing was said of

of my strong hands or wet eye lashes.   

I wrote you a thousand love poems

but you were too busy to hear even one.

I molded my lines in your shadow and in

hard work, for you, for a freak chance

of heart on heart contact. I am sick

of living in my head -red devil. 

Jump out of my mind and stand where

I can smell you.

 

Merry Something

 

Merry Christmas. 

I hope all is well with you and your family. 

I’ve been avoiding blows to the stomach and have been standing

for periods of ten minutes or more without problems, so things

seem to be on the up and up. 

Next week husband has an interview in Madison. 

I have been helping a friend with his contracting

business(tiling, drywall, painting, too many safety meetings).

 

Daughter has her Christmas concert tonight. 

I put a little tree up and there are three presents.

 

Its an odd time now.  We don’t if we are moving or robbing a bank 

(ha.. not so funny after its done… help I’ve been shot). 

 

This year has tossed a few white elephants up on top of us.

My brother Matt has psoriatic arthritis, which is genetic, and painful. 

My brother Peter is recently married and is preparing for his next tour of duty in Afghanistan.

 grandmother is on her deathbed. 

 mother is going to Russia to feed orphans for the Holiday. 

 

So I don’t know where I will be or what I will do for the Holiday,

but know without a doubt I will be thinking of you, and hoping

that you are surrounded by love and joy.  

 

The months roll on dear friend, and I grow strange and lonely. 

O, life is hard.   It is all nuts and sawdust. 

I hope to see you, and put my fatty arms around your choppy

body.  Wishing you pie, meat products, and old wine.  

If Only I Was Born In Cuba

I mourn my own hands. These hands

that made love, made art, wiped the snot of  my son and daughter. 

That have roofed a house,  and driven down highway 41.

I have psoriatic arthritis.   With theses arms and legs

I have no insurance.

 

 

I carry a white elephant of symptoms

but I am more concerned  for the collection of polar

bears my family greets.

I am  a father, and a better one than they

will ever be. As the provider, I’m a welder at a factory.

The news is bleak and old suffering

turns her rattling eye on me.

It is a time to pray, but I have no faith.

So I desperately pray to a god I think

long has stopped living. 

 

 

There are pills that are too expensive

for me to buy, that only slow down

the process if luck stops by.

If  psoriatic arthritis cripples

me, there will be no one to wipe  family’s tears.

No one to draw them near or pay the bills.

 

God may I be strong, may I stand, despite

the pain and fear, may I be hard, and carry

this. O this is the meaning of catch twenty-two.

I wish this prayer came from my imagination

instead of  the ache of my body and frustration.  

My hands are already starting to cramp

up and I feel the warm tingling

in my joints. I will hide the pain until I can no longer

 The pain is already almost unbearable. 

 

 

I live in U.S.A and here, there is no hope for

poor and sick,  for middle class and sick. 

O if only I was born in Cuba, or Canada or France

or the UK, or anywhere where medicine was given

based on need, and not dollars.   Not dollars  

-Don’t tell me this is the result of  inner poverty.

The Sax

I woke with mankind pressed against
blood. the pain. the ache. I searched up, into
the sunrise. the oranges of morning stretched and fell.
Granddaughter danced in the new Monday. I surged on.
“Let us go then,” I said and we walked to school.
Up on the hill I heard a sweet jazz slow.
A middle age man played his sax as the autumn wind blew
the children lined like they always do, and
the leaves played a percussion shadow show
The children smiled. The parents left a little less rushed
The sax played high, then low.
My Granddaughter and someone else’s tapped
their toes, swayed their bodies to morning in October

I’ve seen wars and depressions, houses fall and rise, in this
old miners town, I seen drunks and hobos, kids on skateboards
and mothers running late. I’ve seen church walls crumble and
jobs move south. but I’ve never. in all my walks
seen a man at an elementary school playing sweet jazz nice and slow.

As I skimmed to my apartment, a thought came to me.
pain establishes earth, bows the crust, and feeds the war of eternity.

The blood will bloat and the wind will break
branches to toss on the ground
again and again but the world,
has seen a man in black jacket
on Monday morning playing songs
for children waiting for school to begin.

I walked on and a melody washed my back.
I thanked the man, the children, the turning leaves.
Sang out, “I’ll suck some of the pain. so you
can taste the seizures. May today bring you pleasures.”
my feet tapped the sidewalk, the leaves scuffed the arms of this city
and war, war wasn’t so important.

Another Way To Savor

I am in a marriage that is nothing
like childhood fights about maple syrups.
Mother said the kids like the pineapple, strawberry,
and butterscotch. Father said they don’t need ‘em.
Resentment filled the breakfast table along
side the crepes and chunk fruit, coffee and sugar,
uncorrected essays and yawns, hammer
and car keys. The marriage I’m in is not

an early childhood of packing items,
father standing with gun. Those were not marriages
My marriage is a hardwood floor bowed from
the hodgepodge of a king size bed and a
blanket, a rattling round table with two
chipped cups, a spent teapot of green and a
silent slice of lemon. Not a hungry
thing under the bed. In my marriage I
pretend I am rich, and put butter on everything.

2007

I Understand That Life Has Been Hard

I understand that life has been hard
on you. It seems that every choice
you have made has been the wrong one
And for that I am writing you into a poem
that will take years to finish.

You may not be the success that you
wanted. The yacht and the large
house on the bay belong to other men.
The sweet ride with gps and the bouncing bass
has side stepped you.
The perfect wife has become the ex.

The unity left reality before the day
to day things could balance into
a fiftieth anniversary surrounded by
grandkids and lifetime friends. speaking
of friends, so many are cosmic
dust, and long-term relationships,
jobs and different zip codes.
most of your interactions
are spent with the kids,
the guys at the factory, in irrational arguments.
I am surprised at your resiliency and your laughter.

You have the heart of a 500
year old pine in copper harbor

the kids, the way you
take of your daughter, the little details
of brushing, and camping, are hard
for most but you, you make it seem easy.
The son that you did not father,
but are fathering alone,
because the mother is bipolar,
and the real father in prison,
You were not so lucky
to have a father as conscious and caring.
Your father
was a wandering vagabond.
he spent more time with long legs than
you, would lie and steal,
bullshit his way just for a sniff of adventure.
your mother
with her faith and need to be
the bread winner had little time
to devote to you.
but look at you.
Not all of your choices have been bad ones.
You have done
right despite the leftovers of neglect,
I have never heard you
blame, or accuse anyone but yourself.
Damn it, you have done well.
Give yourself a little credit,
have some teriyaki chicken.

2007

The Whole Process

The Whole Process

The whole process is a mess. It shames them
into spendthrift days alone with pretty
papers and dictionaries. They’ll never
change the world with it. They know that. O
How many times they have been told. O how
futile. How destined to live in poverty
with the monster under the pillow
of their restful dreams. O they know.

You don’t have to tell them. Nobody eats it
but them. They have heard it’s a dead fart. Yes
-the successful others told them to write
greeting cards or to become a Spanish teacher
or go back to school for nursing. They were asked
how they would make a living and they always said
they didn’t know but were alive. And that’s
the problem. They are happy in short spells

when the world shuts up and allows them the freedom
to speak. Some have taken up telltale
strips of ribbon to convince people they stopped.
That they are looking for a job, “Really, yes,
some good leads, any day now” they say.
But they are collections of little white
infractions of selfish behavior. They can’t halt and need help.
Even when they are at the beach, with their child

by their side, racing the august wind and four
foot waves, and seagull floats on lake
superior and lover reads in the shade,
there is nowhere they’d rather be. Still
they are writing poems on mental scarps of paper.
It’s their mother’s fault. She raised them wrong.
When they wrote a poem she would say, “That’s nice,
how lovely, keep at it.” They trusted her-

that there was a place for them in craved stones.
They didn’t know that Shakespeare was dead or
Dickenson mad, or Emerson a liar.
They were a poor mother’s kid and nobody
told them poor kids don’t grow up to write poetry
but instead go to work for rich people
cleaning their dirt, or join the army.
They should have guessed by their mother’s laborious

man hands. The way she’d say they were lucky.
She never had nothing, just one skirt and one
blouse she wore everyday. That they should be
thankful for their four pants and five shirts.
Their grandmother’s slender legs, and knobby
knuckles, egg on her face, always talkin’
how her own mother worked so hard, never
yelled, and how on Christmas they would get an

orange and a new cup should have flashed some
critical thought on their lack of a lot but they just felt
lucky to have a toy to hold in their soft hands.
Their grandfather drove milk-trucks in snow and grow
corn in the afternoon hours. Enlisted
in world war two and had an alcoholic
step-father beat him who his mother never left.
That kind patience should have made them question

art. They thought their brothers studied numbers
and picked rocks for candy bars and the love
of hard work, not survival. They were no
president’s son and no ivy league daughter
setting up herself for the duties of marrying power.
They should have tried to snag a lover of wealth.
But they were stupid. Pretended love was all they needed.
Blame their father and his irresponsibility.

His desire to wander, his love of a good
story and the way his voice changed when he
talked with strangers, adjusting to their slang and infliction.
Blame their Father’s father, a door to door
preacher man, who used words to save the souls
of poor and told knock-knock jokes to them on
walks to the store. They should have cursed
the supporters and the morals of the hard work

Amerikan dream. Should have told them “I
am a slave to the dollar, don’t deceive me.”
Now it’s too late. It became the only
thing they could do and still sleep at night.
To make matters worst, they thought what they
were doing was holy. Now they are
sorry they didn’t study chemistry
with a bigger calculator or worked at an

automobile factory. Or cleaned white
houses on the hill or cut down trees in
the back forty. Or laid concrete for the new
wal-mart, or taught kindergartners not to
eat paper. Could have been a secretary
for a butt doctor or captain of the last
fishing boat on the great lakes. A sales clerk
at a department store jolly at a lipstick

counter, or a librarian dusting classics
while mouthing the words of Wolf.
Could have been a mechanic at an oil change spot
A painter with a brush and a loud radio,
a dancer in a strip-joint where old lonely
men stare at pear shaped butts or horse slaughter
after the races are won and over. But
they decided at seven that they

would be a writer. Now they are poor.
The cycle of poverty and poetry
hangs on human linage like the extra
fat kisses on their ribs. They have turned to sin.
Tell the kids that poetry kills infants,
damns young idealist to hell and makes lunatics
out of the gifted. That advertising

would be better. Tell them to become a
cop or janitor or any other
uphill occupation always needed
and supported. Like you said, “nobody pays
a poet.” Celts have died out, and poesy is a dead
start. A little poem will get them nowhere.
A longer one will make enemies. They
can’t be what you want. So don’t blame them.

Just read their poems. Nobody told
them what they would sacrifice for coupling
sound and silence into clean water.
Frozen, and expended, they twisted fires on
pages, spouted fountains and memory
into stanzas. First loves and oak trees into
war protest endings. Baked tears and shame
into heroes songs and birds into spaceships.

Honey into fingertips and books into blank
explosions of Sunday afternoons. As lovers
they spooned soup and gruel. Gave jars of hope
to anyone with ears to hear and made houses
for the isolated. Surrounded by hugs and hands
they made their lives into imaginary
bars on windows. On tours with notebooks
they rattled until their raspy voices cut the right

pitch on coffee tables and tabloids they mastered
strangers’ faces and mother’s death they turned
into a rose bush growing in a made up
childhood backyard. Before the letters could be
sent they pressed them in Zen cookbooks, and saucy
flower suppers. They made beds out of old
poetasters who they believed were free
and poor with nothing to lose, like themselves

they thought as they crushed their egos into egg
sandwiches and grilled cheese weekends.
They made wine out of cobwebs and urine.
Always working to change the world for the next line.
Damning themselves when they were weak and tired.
O how they tried, and thought they’d win
a sailboat and a piece of Amerika.
Never realized they would die

to light a wick on the heads of their children.
How their children would follow them in their slow
destruction. Wouldn’t have pressed their soles into
bread and jam or spent their weekends writing
scones and chocolate cakes into elegies.
They would have went to work in the factory
if they had known the dandelions
they planted into leather chairs would be

plucked and burnt. If they could have tasted
the bitterness of old age and weak stomachs
they wouldn’t have forced down hot-peppers or ginger
tea fingered by doubt and despair. If they
really thought what they were doing wouldn’t make a difference
they would have kept it to themselves
like they had wanted all along. To sing
in the rain and not in shelter of the shops.

O someone should have told them when they were
young. Poetry isn’t an option, although it’s fun.

2007

Paranoia Schizophrenia or A Song

On his left forearm there is a cross,
a spaceship, and an infinity symbol.

He scars with a rusty putty knife, tells
his little girl, “I cut myself for God.”

His arm is buttered popcorn.

She looks down at her hands, blonde
bangs in eyes, says, “I don’t cut myself.”

Her father has robots in his backpack.
She has an empty lunch bag and the leftover wire.

Her voice is gonna have to be enough and break
the insanity of her father’s inflictions.

Earth is hard. She will have to step soft to
kill father’s lies and stand plucked in song

A Poem For Theo at Dead River

theo talks about city land
i fade in and out the conversation

i’m thinking poetry
slight, dirty hand
touch wet
waft. tare.
sand
he says it sucks, and
people hate poetry

they like pornos better
i say
he laughs, and asks if i know
why
i tell him yeah, soft and shaken

its written for poets
it doesn’t appeal to the
common person
jinx i think

i drink some more coffee

its lost to the professors
and the not haves
i say.

theo can recite w.c.w
but he doesn’t know
jack shit about poetry

he thinks it should rhyme
have even meter.

that was fun he said

he doesn’t think words
are
sounds, pictures,
hues, lovers
he doesn’t hear language breathe
nor taste the salt of
the inadequate symbols
expressed in hopes to
preach the gospel
to the lost disciples
trying support the revolution

tryin to support the evolution
he told me that he would make statues,
paintings. all sorts of shit
and he loves coffee
so he is lucky

i tell him i am building a
life

he sees ignorance
ego
youth

poverty
hope

so thats why i am here.

in the window.

i am trying to prove to theo that
poetry is a live
in his ribs, and bones
that behind his lips,
in the roots of his teeth
in his hair particles

he only sees a man

i laugh.

he asks me if i am good
i tell him i am best
compared to who?
i don’t think he believes me
i don’t think i believe me
if i keep saying it maybe
i will feel the pressure
and a light will come on
like puberty

theo says he used to like
taking pictures of
naked young women

now i like a middle aged
naked-woman
he says

i smile. i think of kate
and short comments
grey hair, soft skin
all poets are lunatics
laughing
i told her she is
right
you can’t deny truth
like that

but i don’t care
do you

she must have spent some time
with young poet before
must have begged
her acceptance
praise, and clap
clap, clap

don’t clap

think.

or maybe
she gets
sick of their
endless expansion
scribbling on napkins
and shower curtains

their constant search
for truth
enlightenment
its exhausting
to see a dog chase

and never leave his front
yard

the shadow of his house
always blocking

i try to act like i
don’t think i am
better because i love
poetry
and if i had a dead river
i would let
the poets come
and crazy up the place

there would be drums
and guitars
clanking spoons
and we would have to call
the place ‘river.
alive river?

too much?

there’s others
they come and go

you can see desire
in their hands.

the way they are bent, slightly
shaking around the coffee cup

dry, and worn smooth

i asked theo to show me
how to roast beans
he would rather tell me
how to do it, but once he starts
talking, you can tell he is a man
who knows more about coffee
than i know about poetry
what he does, hardly nobody cares
we say stuff like this is the best coffee
in town.
but its meaningless
because me and theo know
not everyone wants the best
but i do
and theo is thinking about it

so i sit in his window
i would rather
listen to him ramble on about coffee
some more
i could really learn something
so i go have beer and
try to forget his doubt
.
i like beer

i get drunk after one

so what
the wind picks up, i look back at
the lake just to make sure she’s still
there
and blue
and i have to walk there
and put my feet in
and make sure she’s still
cold.
clap. clap
good job lake

for one second i
feel like i am special
i feel united
and at peace
i feel strong
and in control
even if it is forgotten after
my coffee cup is broken
for a moment i made history
as a poem in the window

trying to teach theo
he’s poetry

Two Boys Cry

Dad does not toss around with his two sons.
Matt and Sam throw the football at tan siding.
Dad never put money into an account
for his sons’ college education.

They’ll get by on their own, like he did.

Dad works at a foundry. 12 hours a day, 12 days on a
concrete slab, in a iron dust assembly line
Dad grinds 100 pound parts and is paid for piece work.

He has the rooted body of a windswept pine.

Matt, the eldest, is 11, and a fierce disciplinarian.
He’s afraid at the beach when the water hits
his knees, and makes Sam go in first.
Sam throws seaweed. Matt bunches in his face.
Dad sleeps in the warm sun at the kitchen table,
his black snot, damp and moving.
Dad is a gamer. A clean face father,
brown hair with slices of grey, tv eyes,
car radio, a flannel shirt cover,
blood calloused hands. Not a good cooker.
Sam is six and buds hunger. Matt will make cheese sandwiches.

The boys are violently happy. No one tells them its bed time.
No one sings about disgusting lovers and petal adventures.
And even if they weren’t, what could they do?
They can’t go to mother, say, ‘where are you’
She’s dead. And dad, dad’s too tired to wake-up.

Their battle cry is something else.

Claque For The Dripping Faucet Minds The Slices Of Bread

i guess if you knew where this story was going you wouldn’t continue listening. you’d say something about this being a clay shay of claptrap
but since you don’t know where this is going
or what i would have you feel you continue in this twisted jargon game

do you remember learning about string theory and the gigantic brain that we are in that has been named half heartedly

when two slices of the bread hit together solar systems are created
like the first step into an idea with the clash of the second idea a theory is formed the same way a woman makes a lung while sipping tomato juice there is not much different in the way the woman’s mother made her mother’s grave dress out of the knitted table cloth that lightened the old oak table that was forgotten in the last move to the room where on Saturdays an old man dressed up as clown comes and sings ballads that remind the woman how hard it was to make it to the urine drenched chair that she sits hunched forward on the chair, which was once connected to the table, which is an idea that was talked about while eating toast and jam like a jam and toe fused in symbols means the same as growing old and the same as giving birth in small rooms that smell of bread and solar systems where the table and chair and the new ideas with the two slices of bread met jam and toes and her birth

the circle of ideology is a scary thing to see unfold for the first time. the second time it is life changing pleasantry

today, thankfully i woke early washed dishes picked up discarded papers that wore houses with eyes monsters who gave candy grey hair wrapped around pennies i scrubbed on my hands and knees with a coarse brush and later before bed had sex with my husband

he told me it had a been a good day, and i smiled back a repeated idea

today i was careful to focus on what i was doing slowly banished thoughts about long narrow passages that lead to more bulging tremor passages that lead back to wrinkled diminutive passages the red pepper sauce on the green plate. the crunched up collage of falling leaves with glitter dirt the tightness of long strands of hair on youth penny dates 1997, 1984, 1976 the grain of wood under soapy purifying reflection the tongue licking up spine into the mouth of the salt block dream

let me make it clear that there was
no where i wanted to go
no new idea i needed to meet
no twisted game i wanted to end.

the simple sound of water dripping out of the faucet was enough to
make every minute not turning it off a claque repeating positions.

by now you realize this is going nowhere new
nothing shocking nothing flippant and attention grabbing
no new way to feel insignificant want
you will have to learn to feel the simple inner empty space in your today by yourself

that is why i recommend you stop reading clay shay claptrap sorry for exhausted efforts and remember guessing twisted games that you don’t want to end and despite large

imaginations logics theories your solar voyages
are not much different than the solar systems’ endings which by now you must know
are the same as the bindings which lead back to the beginnings of why you continued listening to this twaddle that you felt would fill you with some-things.

Raw Yellow Chicken Scabs

I ate a piece of raw chicken on
accident. I didn’t see all those yellow

scabs. The last time I took a piss
was a couple of minutes ago.

May I have the blue sweater you’re sitting
on? It smells like two kinds of farts in here. I need to walk

more. The inner parts of my thighs shift when
my backside twitches. I hate this diner

we always go to. The coffee taste like
stale almonds. I noticed a pile of

guts on the sidewalk on my way back from
the doctor. It looked like noodles and oatmeal

with French salad dressing. I would have stepped
in it if hadn’t been for the seagull

staring at me. He kept saying he was
lonely and it caused me to look down.

bloody body

I’m working on being a better woman.
So I won’t try to prove it
by giving into your demands.

I recently made peace with my womanhood.
I finally realized what those crazed bitches
who have ten kids knew all along.

Pain sucks.

I heard a soldier say

Such a bad day to find a rope and friend,
such a bad day to hide the sour touch of hunger, of watchful sin.
My faith is not strong enough to be answered. My faith is
broken. And yet I hold on to a bible and a photo.

Outside, I hear a child call, in long and extended
soft yells, of ‘I am lost, where’s home’

This little voice sounds like my daughters voice,
and I almost cry out ‘yes, dear I am here’
but my daughter is state side, at school,
limping her way in a classroom.
my half heart says run to the lost child,
hold her, and help her find a mother.
This voice, so patient and enduring, calling out,
is in the way of war time orders.
The child walks in front of the truck.
My buddy speeds up to run her over.
As he sings the songs of boot camp training
‘Kill them on a Sunday morning,
Bomb them on their way to prayer’

Like usual I join in and don’t care.

Why do you feed me?

do not eat in front of me. it hurts my feelings