Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Toward the blackberry.


After I lose my sight
will I still walk among grasses
and lonely clouds? Will I
be able to know each season
as juicy berries and
swollen waterways
and starlings swash above me like lost clouds?

When will I say, it's too hard to live in this universe? Will I walk toward the blackberry even as I get lost in its brambles? 

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Step back...

Right there
step back a foot or so
until I can no longer see the face sagging
and your neck
what have you done to that neck?

What have I done?
I have hung on the rails of life
day and night and day
until my fingers froze in place
my eyes stopped blinking
lest i would miss that tiny
bug that would spoil the soup.

I'm done now. I can see that, and this and all other sagging parts
parts I thought had been stubborn from the start, actually, from
that eleventh year when parts became important in so
many ways and no stepping back
or forward helped anything
except a compliment from a teacher,a friend
a stranger.

Like the man on the bus with the strong cologne smell who told you he knew your father
how he played at weddings too
he said, and suddenly squeezed your leg asking you if you sang as well as your father.
You froze in that pose
not knowing what your next step should be.

You know now; now that nothing can be done
about anything that has passed; yesterday and last century all gone
discarded instamatic from the drug store
one day bleeding into the other, each day just more cloudy than the rest.


We tell ourselves we grow wiser.
More like dogs,  we step up eagerly when  new smells are introduced.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

The comfort of distance.






My eyes dart left, right, 
back and forth 
my destination is supposed to be right here.
I could rest my weary body
but that bench's height is not quite low enough
for my short legs and that old man, who knows why he stopped there.

These benches could be harboring graffiti, old gum stuck among the railings, snot or.

My children ran around and chased each other and anybody else's child around these alleys. We sat and talked with strangers about everything and nothing, for hours,
Just yesterday.

I rush to my next scheduled fulfillment.

And children, they are now held  closely, all the time.






Monday, October 7, 2013

Title at the bottom.

Do you know how
you fold and
unfold a map
a microcosm visible
for the second
you need to know where you are
yet
you need the entire macrocosm
to understand where you've actually
been?
Enough history of a day
a month
an eternity of zits
and disappointments
with just a mint
peeking in the
recesses of your day pack.


The saddest thing, remembrance.