And She Swims

Poetry Chapbook from March, 1995

(Jim's favorites in boldface)

He remembers
Remembers roller skates that clamped on
the key turned so tight, shoe toes curled
flying down cement sidewalks, wings spread
skinned knees and elbows, breathless
On fire with being seven years old

Remembers the smell of summer-hot tar
Pressing pennies and fingers
fascinated at this early form of publishing
Fireflies chased before the Silent Spring
caught in eager hands, stuffed in Mason jars
Magic in glass, spilled out and made free before bed

Remembers the first leather jacket, pleaded for
Expensive
His family wasn't poor, but these were war years
Saving bacon fat, tin cans, rationing and Victory Gardens
The jacket pulled off and left, its very first day
Nine bucks, and fifty years later he still remembers

Remembers flags hung in neighbors windows by gold cord
A blue star for each son at war and some had several
Lost or missing, the blue stars turned to gold
Windows passed quietly, whispered and cried over
with nine year old tears, while playing at war
and watching neighbor's parents, quickly grown old

Fifty years later and a maintenance crew patching streets
half a world away, the sudden smell of hot tar and memories
of skinned knees, pressed fingers and fireflies
Slammed screen doors, the stars turned blue to gold
Nine dollar jackets and sons of neighbors lost
The breaking wave of a lifetime, remembered in a smell

AND SHE SWIMS

She tried to tell him things had changed
That the music was somehow slower
and she couldn't dance to this beat
Legs tangled, stumbling across his floor
where once the rhythm carried her
Wanted to keep it
Wanted to keep it
Oh, God
Wanted to keep it

Their song ran backward, words all rearranged
and yet he wouldn't stop singing
and the lyrics still made sense to him
But it made him sweat to work so hard
at what had always been an easy job
Needing her there
Pleading her there
and sometimes
hating her there

They found that holding on too tight
kills small birds and love
Kindness between them not shot from the sky
but just trembled and died in their hands
so quietly the moment wasn't even marked
Talking it out
Not talking at all
Talking too much
to silence

He carries the scars like a wounded veteran
of a war he never understood
sometimes bragging, sometimes crying to sleep
She wears her love for him like a warm shawl
wrapping herself and another in its folds
He drinks to forget
She lives to remember
He drowns in regret
and she swims

BIG BOATS

Big boats and big horses alike
The same feel between the legs
of rising power, eagerness
galloping across watery fields
This animate thing held in the hands
rolls and plunges under me, alive

A forty footer, close hauled and flying
rail down in green water, she hisses
and wind hisses back from the shrouds
Shoulders braced against her wheel
Leg out, to ride the thrust of sloping deck
so like a shying thoroughbred

The wind is unpredictable, untame
It lies peaceful and grazing, head down
then pricks its ears, neck swinging up
to snort, reminding who has power
who merely holds the reins, sits deep
in its roiling watery saddle, waiting

Then we're off and hunting horns sound
sliding into blue green troughs and rearing
a bridle full of halyards, lines snapped taut
She's breathing hard, this bloodline
carries years of careful breeding
She knows her way to the finish, running free

Wanting only a quiet word, a restraining hand
stretched along her neck, trimming sheets
to show respect for all these animated forces
No patience now for faulty horsemanship
Bring her close to the wind and heel her over
Big boats need their head to bring you home

PERFECT CHILD

If you would hold a perfect child
Feel its small arms around your neck
and take pleasure from that laugh
that dribbles love of life down its chin
So love your childish imperfection

In a world that honors surface beauty
hold close your shyness
A doorway only sometimes open
Invitation to warm rooms, soft light
There's shelter there for those more bold

Drop fear of failure like clothing on a beach
Lie for a while in the warmth of chance
Winning is no more than willingness to lose
Close your eyes, run fingers over jealousy
explore its contours, things we want to know

A child trusts until it's dropped, not caught
Open your arms and learn to trust yourself
Catch incompleteness, balance it on your knee
watch it giggle, close its hands around your heart
Perfect child, wipe the dribble from your chin

TRUST ME

Trust me, he said
and so of course she did
Having no other option
toes not touching bottom
she barely floated in this pool
of self esteem
The problem was age old
a question of definition
He meant it too, this man from Mars
speaking Venusian

Trust me on his red planet
means I'll do my best
In her ice blue sphere it meant
I'll be your everything
which no one
can provide
and no one
could survive
So, pure as the driven snow
they drifted

Lives lived not up or down
but slantwise
Sliding off the edge
of talking
skidding away
from listening
slipping off the road
of caring
It was said at the inquest
bad weather caused the wreck

Debris was hauled away
broken bones splinted
All the oil slicks
sanded down
and traffic quickly back
to normal
Matter of fact, I saw her
just the other day
The eyes of Venus smiled
as a Martian told her, trust me

THIS MOMENT NOW

Old friends don't seem as old
as they used to be
It has to do with porch swings
and beat up trucks
lemonade in afternoons
and swatting flies
when generations lived in the same town
Which doesn't happen much
anymore
We're far too eagerly caught up for that
in building computer links
to the new branch in London

That may sound like a complaint and isn't
so get off my back
Could be taken for a longing after simpler times
and might be
But perish the thought of being in that crowd
and caught out of date
It's just a statement, but the tug is there
They're gone to other things and places
and it's heady stuff, this moving
always upward, a sense of focus
before we had the chance
to call ourselves old friends

And that's just as well, it could get tiresome
sipping lemonade
A life of knowing who's car's coming
down the road to turn in here
and when you pretty well knew that Tuesdays
you'd see Bob and Joanne
Recognizing Sunday from no mail, late sleep
and chicken baking
First thing you know it might get comfortable
in a life like that
and Cancun would seem a strange place
to go in winter

But life's divided itself these days
into then and now and maybe
Then's been gone a while and now gets lost
in years of maybe
The plans and dreams, the thrill of moving on
as the future buries now
and strange things happen from time to time
on the sixteenth hole
Looking for a lost ball, people have been known
to sit down and weep
wondering suddenly where old friends have gone
in this moment now

FAIRY TALE

Their love was well documented,
known long before
they allowed themselves
to think about it
The streets they walked,
amazingly chalked
with hopscotch patterns marked
where no children lived
Trees under which they sat,
rustled leaves on afternoons
while sailboats
lay dead becalmed
A neighbor took note
the bus was always there for them
a scheduling miracle of sorts
proving fairies were about,
requiring candles lit
in the local parish

Love is like that

They were late to the party,
so to speak, blissfully unaware
insofar as the recognition
of these signs
Believing they had a choice
about such matters of the heart,
of soft leaf music
and hopscotch patterns
She thought about him
mostly when he wasn't there
and he could think of little else
but her, there or not
Letting a few things slide at work
and wondering why,
but the wind knew
and cracks in the sidewalk always know
and the bus of course
was the clincher

Soft music in the background

And so it went, when it went at all
in fits and starts, stargazers
looking backward looks,
sometimes forgetting laundry
And then it went more quickly,
the heady stuff of learning
the fun to be had
over scorched eggs at breakfast
More breakfasts shared these days,
a winding of the clock
that ticked in the wind
and brought the bus
There's a time for ecstasy
and it seemed to be their time
and it was new,
golden as French toast
and the neighbor lit candles
for the bus that kept coming

Illustrations boldly drawn in color

Their unravelling should have been
known to them as well
and wasn't, but then this
is a fairy tale of sorts
And after a while scorched eggs
no longer seemed such fun
and the drain in the kitchen sink
backed up on Tuesday
Before much longer, the bus
was strangely late and so were they
as the neighbor lady smiled
and saved her candle money
Once a quiet midnight rain
crept around the corner of the window
and crawled across the ceiling,
dripping precisely,
to drop exactly in the middle of the bed,
wetting no one

An omen, fairy tales have omens

He began to make excuses then
and she began to accept them,
glad to stay late at her office
and catching up on Vonnegut
Eggs after all, were high in cholesterol
and maybe he was too
so it seemed logical to diet
and fall out of love
The water mark on the ceiling dried,
the sink regained magical
gravitational efficiency
and a persistent pimple disappeared
She runs for busses now and all too often
the doors are closing
and strangely enough she whistles
and waits for another
because in fairy tales,
another bus will always come along

LIGHTENING THE LOAD

He's learned not to expect
all that much these days
and it doesn't do a thing
to kill desire
but cuts way back
on disappointment
Overly protective you say,
and flies in the face
of all that stuff he told you
about possibility
But he's not so sure that
that's the case,
maybe there's a
middle ground
where the country's
not so steep and bumpy

It's a matter of balance,
which is what everyone says
when things
aren't working out
But they work surprisingly well
as a matter of fact
since he lightened the load
of expectation
Let this pack horse that is him,
slow down and breathe a bit
loosened the cinch
and gave him time to graze
Seems he's willing to go further,
even break to a trot
and gave up kicking now,
no longer bites

So the lesson, if there is one
is to travel light
and dump off all those
heavy expectations
They're nothing more than rocks
he's found and there's
precious little nourishment
or warmth in rocks
His curiosity's a better carrot anyway,
no longer driven,
it follows sights and smells instead,
sometimes listens
Strange that all these years
he never knew freedom
from hauling all that
overloading stuff around

WALKING SEPARATELY

This part of me walks separately
A dog on a leash
straining for freedom
Wanting to catch a rabbit
with absolutely no idea
of what to do with one

So reach down and unsnap
I'll take off through the bushes
ears flying and bounding
Picking up brambles
that you can pick out later
if you've any patience left

Maybe I'll run all night
howling at the moon
to climb the silvered hills
Swim creeks and scramble
up the muddy banks
Screaming with the pack

There's wildness in me
Wildness in us all
A need beyond the supper dish
Cozying in your lap
Snoozing afternoons
and these leashed walks

I'll be home in a day or two
or maybe ten or maybe not
It's that way
with domesticated breeds
They seem so much at ease
but part of them walks separately

THERE SHOULD BE RULES

That incredibly uncomfortable time
between loves coming and going
when the flame has flickered out
and still some warmth remains
The memory of other times when
this person lit your life and you theirs

But now that light is elsewhere and elsewhere
comes constantly to mind over dinner
or worse yet, while making love
to the one who sees you burning still
and isn't yet ready to put out the cat
Yet it's time and the cat is howling to leave

There should be rules for this and aren't
A price to pay that's affordable to both
A loan that's called and all accounts settled
Value received on both sides, an even deal
where everyone smiles at their profit
Not wealth perhaps, but desire to invest again

Lovers who remain as friends, it's tough
to make that combination work, something
to do with one not losing more than they can afford
It comes down to that I guess, not taking
too much more than you've given and hoping
that the accounts will somehow settle out

FLOWERED FIELDS

Man, I've been saying it long enough
A regular evangelist for freedom to move
Relationships should be open and easy
That's what I said, meant it too and now
I've found a woman who understands

She takes me on my own basis and knows
my need for time alone, has figured out
that love has more facets than need
and loves me and loves others too
So, how come I'm getting itchy with that

Why do I wonder where I stand with her
and what it means when she flashes that grin
touching the hand of someone else
Why do I go home with the blues so often
even though I know she loves me, told me so

I love her too, but you see we have this thing
about our freedom with relationships
Recognze that spatial need thing, being her and me
instead of us, which is just too controlling
Know what I mean, understand my take and hers

It's got to be the way, other stuff just doesn't work
Never has worked and I'll be honest with you
this isn't working either, I don't think
Does anyone know where this train is going
Why the connections aren't in my timetable

It's warm when it's warm, but man it sure gets cold
standing on these platforms, dedicated to travel
on what I was absolutely sure was the scenic route
It might be a journey longer than I knew
lost among these freeblown flowered fields

IT'S JUST THE WIND

If you should see tears in my eyes
it's just the wind
Not thinking about the things
we might have done
or might yet do if you were here
It's just the wind

Walking through the parks
in my part of the world
and thinking about how many times
we walked and talked
but it's a little blurry now you see
It's just the wind

Took a trip not too long ago
across big country, wandering
Looked back over my shoulder
to a ribboning road
and had to stop when I looked ahead
It's just the wind

Get caught like everyone who looks
too deep in forests or high in trees
and need to kneel to catch my breath
Run my fingers over mosses, see perfection
and it swims before my eyes
It's just the wind

Lie on my back and watch the stars
Who hasn't done that, such a common thing
and then I see it all come clear
Looking out to things I'll never know,
that slow my heart and slow my breath
and for a moment I am perfect too

It stops the wind

A YOUNG MAN'S GAME

It hurts you when he needs
more than you can give
Timelessness is in knowing limits
and you know yours
but some things fill his eyes with tears

Disconnected things without reason
Mallards settling at sunset
in patterned perfect unison
or the holding of a seamless note
beyond all breath

A remembered look on his child's face
before age caught up with childhood
and taught the power of a look
Eyes that catch his, lingering like a photograph
The well known thousand words and more

And you have looked inside him
and other times away
with wordless knowing of your limiits
Either way, it fills his eyes with tears
and crying is a young man's game

DON'T TAKE IT PERSONALLY

This isn't about you
so don't take it personally
It's about me and I have
no other way to take it
Coming apart is never easy

But there's an obligation to loving
even though I told you otherwise
How many times?
Times enough I'm sure
but I hadn't thought it through

Nothing lately but time to think
Time to walk and have those
experimental conversations
trying everything on for size
to see what fits

Looking bullshit in the face
Mine, not yours
so don't take it personally
Turning over obligation
like a shiny stone

I think that one who loves another
has a single obligation
A simple one, as most things are simple
Not to cause too much pain
The rest all settles out from that

So leaving you comes down to this
The price of loving you is too much pain
and I'm dead flat broke
The cost of loving me was never very high
but your pockets were empty too

JUST MOMENTS

I can only love you
and if it's not enough, it's not enough
You see, I'm here from other places
and once upon a time, I knew it all
But that was when my loves came one by one
closing all others out with an intensity
that seems now like stranger's story
not well written

It's well populated, this older world of mine
cities full of strangers loved
Some known better than others
but loved even so and changing in my mind
So many colors, maybe you can pay the bill
and leave a bit for the waiter
because I love him too
Not so well perhaps, but well enough

He fights his own dreams, keeps at it
You can see it in his eyes
It's all in the way he pours the wine
and thinks of what's unwritten
That pretty much says it all for me
How we pour each other's wine
and if our hand shakes, clouds the bottle
or doesn't and it runs clear

Time to leave, I'll walk you home
to Seattle or Tunisia or anywhere you choose
It's not too far in any case
and I no longer care for cabs
We'll talk of things we couldn't know
except for those we loved before
We're more of a crowd than a couple, don't you see
Only for moments are we alone, just moments

JEREMY IS BACK

Jeremy is back, not expected but back sure as hell
wanting it to be a surprise and walking in to play
like I'd seen him yesterday from a continent away
Knocking me over with the throwing of arms
around each other here in Prague again
The long hug of men who love each other easily

I left twice he said, as though I hadn't remembered
and both times it was a mistake, this city draws me
Here now to write his novel and the songs
that slide off the guitar like water
A rendition of Watching Allison Drown for me
I knew you wanted to hear it, he said and grinned

Wanted that and more my friend, wanted the energy
you bring to me, even when we don't
see each other for days or sometimes weeks
It's that way with some people, they just give
you what you need by being somewhere
in the same city, the same proximate space

And so he's back and hanging out on my couch
until he finds a flat, to compute the letters
that make words and the notes of songs
And he'll be gone again even though he claims not
because that's Jeremy, drawn to other places
I'll wait and write him, one day he'll walk in again

NO TRAMS TO KACEROV

Prague's made me into a man of trams
my doors sometimes stuck open
Other times can't swing apart at all
for the crush of my humanity
but Kacerov is where you live
and there are no trams to Kacerov

We tried all the routes to make it work
Faster metro, up escalators and stairs
to walk a block or two and think it through
just settled in each other's pace
A cab perhaps, but I'm no good at hailing cabs
and there are no trams to Kacerov

So we met for Sunday brunch, then on from there
to walk our borrowed dog in Sarka park
where last week's snow still tried to fight the thaw
of warmer weather and briefly warmer thoughts
Late afternoon we ended up on metro all the same
and there are no trams to Kacerov

I walk a lot these days and think about steel wheels
Blue sparks overhead, an impatient clanging bell
rung at cars in the wrong lane and rung at me
'cause I'm in the wrong lane too, standing in tracks
and not moving forward, the bell always behind
And there are no trams to Kacerov

I could move on, but home is here for me, too many
going back, a time to learn the language, settle in
Accept my creaking squeeking tramlike self
Know it's just another way to get from here to there
Here is where we are and we're not going there
'cause there are no trams to Kacerov

EXPERIMENTAL CONVERSATION

This conversation keeps running through my mind
long after we stood silently and said goodbye
I don't want this you know and looked at her,
traced the hair swept back across her ear
and made her look at me
It's not the wrong time and place, the time is now
the place is here and we belong together
not apart

I know she said, I know
Then let me say the things I need to say
The things I thought you understood
without the need to put it all to words
The wrong time is never wrong
when one person hears another's song
and understands the words
I know she said, I know

As for the place, I need to learn the place
See it through your eyes and know the streets
that cross your city and intersect your life
I know my life, but need a guide to yours
Need you to take me by the hand
and show me what it is that makes me care
Take me back, because I'm at the edge of loving
and I can't bear to have you leave me here

It makes such sense, my conversation rambles on
for us to keep the hold and not let go
She nods and puts her head on my shoulder
It was always such a perfect fit she said
Our lives? No, your shoulder, but it's a start
and I held her for a moment, not breathing
Love begins with trust I said, we need to trust
I know she said, I know

I've come half a world to know you in a language
that's not yours, that you may not understand
To know the perfect child that's behind your eyes
Language is all we have, just words and trust
I'm not a child she said and I'm not perfect
We're all children I said and perfect every one of us
but it takes love and trust to show ourselves
I know she said, at least I want to know

So here we are I said, and we're about to turn away
about to let it all slide off and run to others
who won't ask so much of us, won't want to know
I want to know, so please don't turn away from me
Not when finally the time is now, the place is here
and you and I are so very close to trust
Not finding words, she nodded against my shoulder
The one that fit perfectly and we turned, walked home

A conversation running in my mind long past the time
when we stood silently and said goodbye

NEAR AS HE CAN TELL

He's loved a few young women
now that he's no longer young
And it's been a fair deal all around
as near as he can tell
They gave him tenderness and trust
which hasn't much to do with age
He gave them back uncomplication
which maybe has

And if you'll forgive the metaphor
he's pretty much an old V-eight
In a time when newer models
look alike and fight for market share
Solid and well made, the paint a little faded
but power when it's needed
Sometimes when lives seem all uphill
good mileage doesn't mean a damn

At any rate, he's not that difficult to drive
Well maintained, knows most all the roads
Can still be fixed with common tools
Not much to go wrong that hasn't
still under warantee
not many tears he hasn't cried himself
Uncomplicated circuitry, no chips to fail
and leave them standing there confused

Like he says, it's been an even deal both ways
and not a rush to youth for him
or search for wisdom on their part
They were always wise enough at any age
It really isn't something gained through years
and the kid in him never grew up to move away
Something to be said for that as well perhaps
It's been a fair deal all around, near as he can tell

THIS MAN

He jumped back suddenly
and left himself standing there
Circled this man slowly
to take a look
and see what others saw
This man's face that in repose
quiets small children
even when his mind is elsewhere
and drifting in pleasantries
The grin this man meant to show
and often felt
seldom broke the surface
and he wanted somehow to explain

And when this man before him reached
to touch another tenderly
and understand their heart
to share their pain
with all the love he felt
It was strange to see how nearly
that touch seemed to be
a mere tugging at the sleeve
Not at all what this man meant
at least from the look of it
Standing back, one could hardly see
his tenderness at all
and he wanted somehow to explain

And so he followed this man for a while
mirrored the purposeful stride
of himself on the street
to see if he would stop this man
as a stranger might and ask directions
if he himself were lost
and searching among the faces
of passersby for a glance that held
and might point out the way
He looked to others on the street
and watched their eyes for clues
to this man who was himself
and he wanted somehow to explain

TO TRADE IT ALL AWAY

The bunch of us are free and broke
unrecognized and ain't it grand
Which is a damn good thing
to remember, to make a note of
and paste on the wall somewhere
to keep handy as a reference
if other times should come

No pressure of celebrity, being recognized
and reservations never needed
autographs and getting the best tables
but giving up the lostness
of wandering streets alone
And that's a big deal, if you think about it

Wandering alone in streets or paragraphs
able to kick back and play it out
Plenty of time to kick back here and now
and you gotta like that freedom
gotta need that scattering
gotta want that kiss of time

Sullivan said form follows function
and there's truth in that
but he was an architect and they know it all
I say recognition narrows all the options
and that may be true as well
but I'm a writer and we know less and less

So here we are, hoping lightning will strike
and the smell of fame follow like thunder
'Cause sure as hell, success will give a scent
to be sniffed against the last work
and make hounds of us, heads down
To work out the lines, kennelled by success

We want it even so, hunger for it, seek it out
tired of singing in the closet
needing scribbled voices to be heard
and a good table would be okay as well
autograph or not, at least a place to eat
We're running eagerly to trade it all away

WITH ME OR WITHOUT

This probably sounds like
thinly disguised complaint
and maybe is
I have complained before
of lesser things
No matter, it has to do
with moments
what they mean
if they exist at all
outside of speculation

Because I have this prejudice
that the moment may be all we have
everything before just history
a memory at best
and what's to come is merely hope
dressed differently no doubt
than we would have it
unrecognizable, but ours
and if it doesn't fit
we wear it anyway

So life perhaps is in the moment
and only there
Decades of moments,
yet only moments still
And there's comfort in this thought
redemption of a sort
Fear is forward and not here yet
maybe won't arrive at all
Regret is past and needn't darken
the light of this time now

And so I'll wrap myself in that
and call it good enough
Philosophy's a tiresome thing
and I hope you'll excuse my haste
but my moment's moving on
with me or without
The act of now takes all I've got
a concentrated skill
a silky skirt against my face
if I'll only hold it close

THE PEN RUNS DRY

Fumbling our way through life, it seems to me
is much like a series of short stories
that we insist into a novel badly done
and the editor was out to lunch that day
Overplotted, characters obscure and undefined
It isn't War And Peace and we're not Tolstoy

History will clean it up, the victors always do
well after the fact of life, a critical review
But history makes a lifetime work of censure
and won't submit a damn thing of its own
lived well or badly, scrawled equally across a page
Every life leaves tracks that quickly fade

They'll scribble final Cliff Notes when we're gone
Even then a page at most for lives lived greatly
a mere paragraph for the rest of us
eighty years or so, edited to fit
survivors listed, marriages to fill it out
A life finally boiled down, like a pot run dry

But it breathed and bled through pain and fear
it smiled and loved, this life so badly penned
the moments each and everlastingly connected
like numbered dots that form an image
and it could have, might have been a masterpiece
if we could see the colors in bold strokes

Each of us wrote hurriedly, hands shaking, novices
as best we could, one draft without revision
Too much paper, the dialog dashed off unrehearsed
apprenticed with no clear need to learn the craft
Far too much to ask and yet it's what we're given
and all too soon the pen runs dry, too soon

YOU HAVEN'T HUNTED DUCKS

If mud has never sucked your boot
arms full of gear and struggling
And dumped you flat assed,
hip boots running ice cold full
The momentary worst that could happen
happening
Then you haven't hunted ducks, my friend

If you've never broken ice in sheets
sliding one beneath another
to open a patch of water with frozen hands
Watched with a friend or dog those open skies
where birds should be, but aren't nor will be
To trudge on home, empty handed, satisfied
Then you haven't hunted ducks, my friend

Perhaps you haven't watched the dawn
creep from black and white to color
Never heard the rush of wings
before it's light enough to see
Or late afternoons, a sun that gutters out
and streaks the sky with forest fire flame
Then you haven't hunted ducks, my friend

If you've missed the solitude of listening
to birds that chuckle a mile or more away
And haven't watched a black lab's eyes
looking up and honoring pricked ears
Felt the shiver run from him to you
and followed his eyes to teach your own
Then you haven't hunted ducks, my friend

When winter fires bring no memories
of conversations held with friends
And the dog lying sleeping at your feet
dreams not a dream of watchfulness
If you find yourself impatient for the news
and sound byte stimulation
Then you haven't hunted ducks, my friend

DAMN THAT NOAH

Damn that Noah anyway
with his forty days and forty nights
All that incessant two by twoing
hand in handing, pair by pair
Raining hard, the waters rising
and here I stand
up to my knees alone

Life begun again in Noahspeak
as if the waters ever really receded
What a legacy
coupling in couples ever since
Double or nothing takes on
a whole new meaning
biblically and otherwise

How many thousand years since then?
a bunch
Argued over, but a hunk of time
at any rate
And yet on streets and trams
they throw their twoness in my face
Maybe yours as well

Counting their money
in front of the poor
Spreading their feast
before the hungry
If it weren't such a lovely thing to see
I'd look the other way
Damn that Noah

NO CONTEST

Months of broken peace
you couldn't call a war
or a relationship
Too brief for that
Guerilla fighting anyway
and raids by terrorists
but the truces
were something else again
The firefights were brief
and then a run for cover
as she withdrew
in orderly grace
and I scrabbled
up the nearest hill
A final armistace agreed
and prisoners exchanged

But she'd made captive
all my front line troops
while I only briefly held
her passing interest
No matter, it was done
in neutral territory
as my pride and pain
staggered home
and her fascination
crossed too easily
into the waiting arms
of someone else
I'd have to say the casualties
were mostly mine
and I'll admit it was
no contest from the start

WHISPERS IN THE TREES

When Indians roamed these advantaged lands
before we made of them the spotted owls
of their culture, a forest turned to desert
They honored the silent tread of moccasins
Came and went softly, left no mark
knowing something of how legacy's defined

But these are modern times and modern men
who smear the ink of prophecy across a page
and speak of private land and private right
Suddenly, and if the word seems a strange term
then think of a century among a million of its kind
This land, this Earth, this sphere is private now

Privacy means someone's in and someone's out
Fences, walls, doors and darkness define the term
Pave it, drill it, cut it down, it's mine alone to use
Keep off, keep out, keep back until it blows away
it's blown away before, died in my father's hands
So trust me once again, it's mine by laws I wrote

How came this to be in an eyewink of the world
that moment lost among eons when this blue sphere
governed itself, balanced gracefully among its needs
In an instant, civilized we turned upon ourselves
a single flash in lightninged skies, this ownership
Stole the keys to treasures we know nothing of

The laws of sustenance preclude the laws of man
what cannot or will not be sustained must fall
The laws of government and armies of the world
mean not a thing when forests die and grassland fails
That red voice whose sons and sons would tell us so
stolen from them now, it whispers in the trees

HEARING RED AS BLUE

If you've ever listened to your recorded voice
and heard yourself
as others hear you
and thought it wasn't you
I propose it's because you hear yourself from outside
as well as inside
as you speak the words
A unique perspective
Stay with me, there's a point I'll try to make

When you're misunderstood and frustrated
they don't get the point
that seems so clear
The same strange happenstance probably applies
not so strange perhaps
if you think about it
Your conversation coming from that inside place
where what's meant
isn't always heard

Our intentions may be hidden deep inside and layered
with endless complication
paintings over paintings
a collage of mystery
we hardly understand ourselves
Small wonder why as we persist in saying white
that they keep hearing black
or gray on a good day
Mixed messages, with an inside and outside, like a voice

You deserve a thoughtful conclusion from this theory
and I've none to give
sorry about that, forgive me
Took me a long time to get this far and yet I hope
you agree it may be true
unless it's blue, or red
depending on how you hear it
So draw your own conclusion and let me know
I'll likely get it wrong and hear you differently

HEAT LIGHTNING

No common sense to finding love
It comes like heat lightning
when there is no storm
Caring not a damn for schedules
arriving unpredictably
at the wrong time
out of sequence
and usually cracking a joke

If you grin and say I'm wrong
then walk your own road
and don't be surprised
when you stumble
on the way to certainty
You may have made a reservation
tipped the headwaiter
and still find tables empty

Love happens when you've forgotten laundry
and your mind
is on other things
Stopping to tie a shoelace
you look up
and there it is
smiling and confused
not expecting you either

LET'S PRETEND

Let's pretend we never loved each other
and unwind all the windings
Let loose those filaments
we wound into a rope
Make ourselves two strangers in a bar
and find the glance we've lost
across another mirror

Let's pretend tomorrow won't be here for us
Become a one night stand
Leave clothes and memory torn off
The lost us found again in lust
and sweat and catching breath
Not giving a damn for promises
and knowing there are none

Let's pretend it doesn't hurt to look away
To follow where our eyes have gone
See the drift of focus that was us
as we both speak softly
in past tenses now
Becoming history, yellowed pages you and I
gone, long gone, before our time

Let's pretend we'll come this way again
Start over, somehow make it work
Understand when first we touch
How to hold without crushing
How to balance
without that awful grab
as fingers slip and the last scream fades

Let's pretend we never saw each other fall
That endless moment when only eyes ask why
and all the trust ribboned away
Did we jump or merely lose our grip
and does it even matter
We're gone and all I hear
are endless wailing echoes

Let's pretend

BEHIND THE BINDING

Sorry about the shape this volume's in
although it's held up pretty well
for all the times the pages turned
But there doesn't seem to be a way
to fit everything you see in me
into a book that better fits your hand
A slicker cover, more pleasing to the eye

So take it or don't, I can't do otherwise
than promise a pretty good read
It may have taken far too long to write
Cliff Notes can be purchased for a drink
and it's more irreverant
than irrelevant I hope
And some chapters just aren't worth a damn

That way wandering bookstores too, I guess
some novels need to be stuck with
through the early chapters
and others not worth the nights
spent trying to find a plot
But I'm the author of my work
and hardly clear on that

Even so, some reviewers have been kind
There's a sense of style at the center
a phrase or two well turned
a hopefulness about the thing
The cover's raggedy, a few pages torn
Yet still, I'm at my best I hope
behind the binding

NOT NOSTALGIA

This is not nostalgia
but I used to love the broken man
and yesterday I passed him by
on my way to business
on my way to something
that wouldn't wait
In a hurry, I know you understand
and there was no time
for the touch on my sleeve
and the hunger in his eyes

This is not nostalgia
because I knew her, oh so long ago
years back before the climb
when we talked on rainy afternoons
without loud music
But I'm so close now, so very close
to the next step up
and the moment's come quickly
and the deal's closing in
and the times are closing down

This is not nostalgia
that's a name for World War Two
Glenn Miller's band and radio
There are no homeless on the Internet
and it never rains these afternoons
'Cause I've been promised wash and wear
wrinkle free
and no bitter aftertaste
for the touch on my sleeve
and the hunger in his eyes

It's not nostalgia
so then why this feeling of dèja
without a comfortable vu
Having been here before
in times not turned away
When my father held the door for Mom
and she smiled
A smile wrinkle free
with no bitter aftertaste
Can't think about it now, I'm late
but I know it's not nostalgia

UNDER THE INFLUENCE

Astrology, it seemed to him
was a good bet
because he was tired
of carrying the load
of decisions
Those never ending
endless spending
heart rending
responsibilities
that love asked of him
and the work required
as the bank raised an eyebrow
at the missed car payment
and Visa overload
These days he needed help
choosing a breakfast cereal

So he consulted

Looked up the hour of his birth
to see if today was rising
in his sun signs
A likely time he thought
for her to open gently
against his kiss
But Jupiter was holding court
with Mars
and he was late for work
the third time this month
On Monday, Omar promised him
the moon was in his corner
but the bank called anyway
and on Tuesday
the cereal all sank, no snap
no crackle, no pop

Tarot Cards must hold his life instead

MIND DRIFT

His mind drifts to the homeless man in Chicago
killed as he slept in his pile of rags
with a hunting arrow, steel shafted, razor tipped
for curiosity perhaps
or mindless perversity
or for the hell of it

And a little boy in Yellowstone, four or five years old
pushed eagerly toward a bull elk by his father
as though the wild thing were Disney tame
innocently stupid
a thoughtless thing
this child in harm's way

And he remembers the lives that he has touched
wonders if they feel the same cold shaft
and the shove of his hand against their back

A CERTAIN RING

Finding a name for sleight of hand
that sounds like someting else
sounds like careful thought
and sounds like balance
with the sound of fairness
perhaps sounds like applesauce
Yes, that's it, we'll call it applesauce

Finding a name for expediency
that will let us off the hook
and never show our shame
a way to toe the party line
that flows rich and slow like honey
Yes, that's it, we'll call it honey time

Finding a name for what we do
and mostly do not do
yet calls to mind our heritage
and marches well to bands
that sounds and feels like government
Yes, that's it, we'll call it government

Applesauce honey time government
It has a certain ring