Setting Fire to My Life

Poetry Chapbook from October, 1993

(Jim's favorites boldfaced)

Setting fire to my life, the spark of discontent
flares a tinder of broken promises and dreams
A roaring blaze, consuming yesterday
throws all too little heat and not much light
Flames lick, shadows dance against the wall

It needed to burn out and settle down, this fire
Needed to fall in upon itself in showers of sparks
turning much that's gone to powdered ash
floating up, to drift away in spirals on the breeze
Leaving just a hidden core of warm red coals

The embers will last, maybe until morning
when new breath blows them softly into life
Feeding smaller twigs to a more modest blaze
Lower flames, more capable of heat and light
Enough, at least, to make the morning coffee

It's come to that, the things I need to know
Strong coffee and the squint of morning sun
An honest taste and promise of another day
Reflections from inside myself and all outdoors
Learning who I am, how to love myself again

It's taken far too long and too much pain
shared by those who cared for me and lost
their friend and lover to a mindless pile
of things and stuff and heaps of promises
now burned and blown away, well gone

There's something here worthwhile to know
Reason to blow those embers into life again
Who can tell, when second chances come
if it's really worth the cost of all the burning
But the gamble's taken, setting fire to my life

FEAR OF FLYING

The time of childhood, all things remembered
sticky and sweet, skinned knees and friends
hugging unselfconsciously, with open arms
Fathers flying kites, boats rowed through lakes
Teaching by adult example, fear of flying

Sand castles, on their sun splashed beach
hiding blueprints of a life to come
Who knows when just a child, the width
of that foundation, how strong the mortar
Welded in conformity, following commands

Making their lives, hardly weaned
a deconstruction, teachings spoken false
Carried from us, to some breeding place
the seeds of all this discontent to sow
in fertile furrows of their children's minds

Generations, yet unborn
need no infection of a parent's seed
Each newborn, slipping from the womb
comes perfectly, wondrously into light
To be only left alone, never crushed

Cradled, rocked, picked up now and then
Dusted off, smiled at, sometimes hugged
The light born in those eyes, is quite enough
to show a path, no one else may ever see
that leads from youth to middle age, eternity

TIME BETWEEN LIVES

The time of life between lives
That gulp, between two long breaths
Reflecting on what's gone before
Preparing to resume the trek
A pause becomes a needed thing
as
A marriage may have ended
With all the wounded lying
Broken soldiers on a battlefield
crying in pain, looking for mom
Waiting the wait that's endless
or
Rediscovery of self and worth
Knowledge of another life, offstage
needing water, sun and nurtients
Undiscovered, but waiting here
to bloom, attracting all the bees
yet
A million reasons from the millions
who find themselves at the brow
of hills they've climbed
to take the long view
catch their breath, take off again
so
Take long enough to know just where you are
Remembering the history you've made
Turn it in your hand and catch
the breath and time you need
to end the wars and wars and wars

TIRED MIND

The writer's fear is a nighttime thing
unopposed by daytime occupation
The tired mind, completely undefended
Languishing, adrift in useless dread
Thought becomes a witless blinking

Sounds amplified, every slightest move
a scratching shriek against the pillow
Conviction's color fades to black and white
projected against the wall in patterns
Mystical, beyond the scope of reason

What if inspiration never comes again
The thing that keeps me working and alive
gone south in flocks, like ducks or geese
Migrants in flight, pursue that deepest fear
The coming winter snows of barren thought

One day there may be no returning flights
No beating wings to celebrate the spring
A winter never ending and no words to write
The flocks all hatch in other warmer ponds
and rear their young alone, away from me

The writer's fear is not a morning thing, it fades
Dissipated, lost before the early signs of dawn
Sun that warms these frozen lakes, rises still
and welcomes back the mating flights again
Another season to hunt the ducks of words

TULSA

I'd like to know you naked
so I could better understand you dressed
Clothes get between us
Hiding what's behind your eyes and mine
I ask you where you're from
You say Tulsa, what's in that?
Tulsa's oil wells and money to me
Growing up and broken hearts to you
How could I understand, and so
we have a drink, never finding us

I'd like to take you home, slowly take off
all your clothes and Tulsa
The blouse is too expensive
your jeans too plain, your underwear all silk
They hide from me the one who cries
at sappy songs and loves old dogs
Take off my shirt and jeans, but slowly
They're not made as well as I
They speak of other times, other places
Nothing of the man that's me

I'll hold you close, we'll make love
Take the long way, twice around the park
to drift asleep, tangled arms and legs
listening to our rhythms rise and fall
Sounded out in quiet breaths, gentle murmurs
touching, always touching
When we wake, I'll know the perfume
of your smells and tastes and you'll know mine
Cautions gone, the gentleness behind our eyes
A gift we've given, each to each

So I'd like to know you naked
Then I'll understand your clothes and Tulsa
We'll have fallen through each other's eyes
I'll see your world as you'll see mine
Conceiveing how this girl became a woman
how this boy became a man
The road map of our undressed selves
spread across the sheets and studied
The lines from here to Tulsa and beyond
a myriad of known routes to share

MARKET RATE

I have no particular defining grace
Just a slowly moving target
as unlike myself a moment ago
as some stranger on the street
moving through this time and place
Water pouring, wind blowing
Ask me who I am, I'll ask
to know the time, the seconds ticking
Not to worry, in the moment's question
I've become another

Only knowing what I've been
Bargaining for what I may become
Yet bargains, once they're made
are often debts to pay
at rates of interest far too high
Transactions over which we haggle
Negotiating who's advantage
sets the price, when the note is due
Markets, only vaguely understood
determine you and me

Constant fluctuation, too much supply
sometimes no demand
So my thoughts still flicker
like a faulty tube, a loose connection
This slowly moving target
against a sea of market change
Looking for another grace as undefined
Variable as mine, and yet
less shy, more market wise
A better judge of capital and risk

My eyes hold yours, but only
for a moment, then they're gone
to another corner of the room
Speculating at a greater distance
A price beyond my current means
to say hello, ask your name
But, then again, I'm changing
from the man who held your eyes
You saw all there was to see
to know and then moved on

EXTRAVAGANCE

I've given too much of my power to you
and I regret it, for now I'm powerless
You never asked and yet I gave it all
You never wanted, but took it even so
My love for you, extravagantly spent

I do that when I love someone too well
Investing in another, all my shortages
Taking my strengths, giving them away
sometimes to strangers, sometimes friends
Friends and strangers yet, but for my love

Extraordinary how it all gets out of hand
Quickening in my mind, larger than life
Reality's out the window once I dream
In those dreams you accept the obligation
that's never there, except within the dream

It weakens me and makes me less a man
Perhaps it makes you less a woman too
This vice of mine that makes me find in you
all the poetry and grace that lets me live
To die without those graces, once you're gone

NEAR MADNESS

A time when lights could not be shut off
even with their cords pulled from the wall
Harsh and bright and made of nameless stuff
The hidden facet of my every wish and fear
shining for friends and enemies alike to see

A time when every word spoken low and softly
rang amplified a thousand times and more
Shouted from rooftops and silent streets
My every thought a known thing, naked
No secret too submerged for common view

A time of weariness and wariness combined
Close to madness, yet not so well defined
Transparency of soul if soul I even have
Where's the madness to be seen through glass
A life better lived with uncurtained windows

Comfort to be had, a settlement of all disputes
where those for and those against can come
to see well lit, amplified, diaphanous displays
of every treasured love and art I hold
No longer covered and withheld but spent

IMMORTALITY

It's the nature of me and you
to yearn for immortality
It's always been, will always be
a shared essence
And I'm just a man, asking the same
long after I'm gone
Because I'm as bad as the worst
and as good as the best
You're the woman of my manliness
We have us in common

And yet a sense of deathlessness
is not what I'm after
I'm really quite content
to drift away, unremembered
except in the mind of you
The woman I love so well
who loves me too, as long
as I am here to know and love
It's in your mind I need
to be immortal, unforgotten

Not in your heart, it will belong
to others along the way
But in your memory
where all loves find their source
Untarnished, improved
by obstacle and distance
What greater obstacle than death
What greater distance
What brighter light could shine
on passions left behind

Accomplishment, as a legacy
isn't what I hope to leave
Fame in the arts is out of reach
of my best work
Still there's such a burning
need to be remembered
Rememberance is permission
Your approval when I'm gone
So I'll choose my own immortality
You'd allow me that

I choose thunderstorms
Think of me when they roll in
Earth and stars, the sun and moon
all too commonplace
Preference is all that's left to me
and all I have, I leave to you
Dramatic, unrestrained
Don't think of me in common storms
but only when lightening
bolts the sky and thunder boils

They come so seldom
These romantic masterworks are scarce
Announcing themselves
not shyly like I might if I were there
but with all the cymbals crashing
So unlike my quiet love for you
these storms were here before me
rolling through your hills
They'll be here when we both are gone
Remember me in them

FALLING THROUGH OUR EYES

Mid winter, cold, damned cold
The kind of cold that freezes thought
and mine were ready
But she was warm and pretty, with good legs
Her smile catching me by surprise

Warm hands, warm touch, warm fingers
playing across my back
Her head so quickly on my shoulder
Sometimes love just comes like that
An unexpected meeting of the eyes

But does it ever last
The sudden rush of passion
that makes me think I'm cared about
Or is it bound to lessen
as we know much more and care much less

Her body's warm and nestles against mine
Waking, tangled in the morning light
we tease each other, reach across the sheets
She stretches, each line so finely drawn
We fall through one another's eyes

Six months since we met, first held each other
A love that seems to deepen every day
I know I'll hold her years from now
with memories of each intimacy shared
This love, this Golden City, Prague

HERE WITH ME

You should be here
with me in Prague
A funny thing happened
late in life
And funny things are things
we want to tell
To those who know us best
and you do
And would find my charm
amusing
If only it wasnt so spilled
on the streets
With everyone standing round
to look
Wondering where
the body is
Two trams to Letna park
and all those steps
City laid out across the river
smiling
You'd like the conversations
overheard
In a language I don't understand
nor you
The peace of other people's
quiet talk
Against my ear like
background music
Music we should share
If sharing were the end of it all
And made some difference
It's peace
But what the hell is peace
except a look inside
At all the stuff we thought
was outside
Held out, locked out
let in
So thats the funny thing
I'd share with you
This knowing what
I never knew
Finding it
late
Wanting to give it to you
early
It's such a long
road
And I'd like to save you
some steps

F2.8@500

Photographs,
worth a thousand words
You've outrun me
My friend
with the camera

My words come slowly
Undeveloped
The wash of chemical
revealing
only snapshots

OBLIGATION IN THE GRASS

The park is calling, an appointment
must be kept
Can't be put off
A call not taken over lunch
Between errands or in the face
of some demand
Emergencies
take precedence
Shove back from the work
Put off the afternoon

Lie in the grass, sun on your face
Eyes closed
Unravelling, all the ravelled
pieces of yourself
Let a thought creep through
All that warmth
Loose thread, picked at
until it falls away
The fabric drops
in piles at your feet

Don't reach to pick them up
They're all well gone
The thread's the thing to follow
Drifting on the mind
as warm as sun and grass
Simple . . . simpler yet
Less is more, the legacy of Mies
and God is in the details
More permanent than buildings
The structure of a thought

Leave it alone and let it run
See where it leads and why
No bird dog's worth a damn
when caged or leashed
But running free, upwind
Nose against the earth of thought
Coveys of understanding
lay hidden in this grass
Huddled, thinking you won't see
Afraid to fly

My book is filled
with obligations in the grass
Time alone to pull at threads
Following the hounds of thought
Yours may be too
There are no better things to do with life
than lie down with it
A lover in the field
that knows your every need
and just wants time

A WEEK OF RAIN

It's rained a week
and there's a rhythm to it now
This bleeding into earth
This draining of the sky

A scolded child, it screams
Throws fits and beats against the window
Wearing itself to sobs
Sniffling and wiping eyes against the streets

Metaphor's too easy
Too often used, just as often felt
The blue days of a child in tears
waiting for a lollypop and mom

THE NEXT LEFT TURN

Sometimes I'm rocked by sadness
But it passes
undefined, still creeping
around the edges
If it were a street
I'd turn and walk another

Times that find me then
move like so much smoke
and I need to grab a handful
Make it mine, name and hold it
Smoke is hard to grasp
Sometimes I am too

It's gone by morning
and I almost grieve the loss
The part of me that hurts
needing to be held a bit
wants the time to feel the pain
Reporting it as mine

Sadness needs that deference
and I am always unprepared
Eager for the thing to go away
and when it's gone I'm lost
To wander peaceful boulevards
until the next left turn at sadness

STUART ISN'T HERE

Stuart, you're writing makes me jealous
You left some on my desk, I didn't know
and only found it, this evening, late
when I was tired from my own stuff
Too tired to look at more, but there it was

Wanting just to eat, pour a glass of wine
A few minutes with a book and then to bed
It caught me, made me know the work
can be done as well as this and better
You're just starting, Christ, I'm starting too

Feeling years behind, your words all float
and mine have to swim against a current
There's always another bigger animal
further up this food chain we call writing
Ain't life a bitch, that's what they say

The jealousy, the trying to get it down
is what makes a sharper edge and so
still doing the work, thanking you for that,
But, Jesus, you're tough to thank
You're stuff stays in my head

WALKING IN CHICAGO

Walking west on Chicago, from Michigan
Two dollars in my pocket, lost in thought
Black man asked for change, got the two bucks
In Chicago, broke is mostly black
Not my last two bucks, 'cause I'm not broke
There's some money in the bank, not much
Wasn't hard to give, to make myself feel good
Not like sharing all I had, not going hungry

Blocks west, two more stop and ask
The last two took it all, I said
Robbed you? Shit, man, who?
Worried for me and gonna help
No, just gave them my last two bucks
I hugged the nearest, told him
I was sorry, he hugged back
In shock, our eyes met, just an instant

Both full of tears, mine because I loved him
His because he recognized the love
A moment, freeze frame in my mind and his
An embarrassment, snagged and tangled
Caught unaware, in my humanity
Frozen in my mind, I know I'll see his face
Feel his humid hug, see those tears for life
Perhaps he'll see them too

We're all so hungry for each other's
touch and understanding
Driven away from holding on
Unknowing, it's all that's left of you and me
Running, always running, chased
by fear of what and who we still may be
What others see in us and yet so close
to one another, under all that stink of fear

WAITING FOR A LIFETIME

Waiting for a diaper
when things are helpless
For a bottle
in the giddy giggling time
For my mom
to come and tuck me in
For my friends
to talk into the dark
For my dog, when he was lost
and I was scared

For puberty and hair
where hair's supposed to be
For adolescence
not knowing what it is
For a date, that wouldn't keep me
on the edge
For adolescence to get over
will it ever?
For someone to tell me
it'll be okay, someday

For a job, that's half as good
as Charlie's
For friends to call, finding the phone
is off the hook
For someone to love
anyone with breasts will do
For marriage
to take away my lonliness
For divorce
to take everything that's left

For the end of the month
this one's been a bitch
For the first of the next
to see if things smooth out
For the last car payment
they never seem to end
For the next new car
another payment book
For happiness, knowing it's not
a time or place

For understanding, the real thing
For the real me
For quiet time
so I can get a handle on it all
For life
to explain itself somehow
For death
it needs no explanation
Forever

REPUBLIC

We forged the tools
to build Paradise

But Walmart proved
too strong a pull

EDITING OUR SONS

We want to write your life
It's not enough
to kickstart the genetics
We need to write on that blank page
our lives, edited to suit

Don't let us do it
Write your lines, your words
There's too much faded prose
showing through our pages
It never suits the author

Jealousy, some regret, not much
We see your paper blank, it's not
Hoping for a re-write, good reviews
of all those words we spelled wrong
Failed paragraphs, lots of chapters

Leave them there, scribbling your own
Takes lots of words to write a life
Punctuating yours as well or badly
as ours, nothing there to learn
But leave your son's pages blank

The self we couldn't sculpt
we'd carve in you
Take away the knife
Remembering where it's put away
to hide it from your son and his

And break the pen

STANDING AWAY

I've been writing hard, but not the thing
Poetry, for a change, a breath that's not its breath
Not that I'm stuck or tired or run out or pissed
Just need to stand away a while
Write letters

It goes in hunks and now is not a hunk
Spinning and running, taking me places
I didn't think I'd go and maybe shouldn't
But there it is, running and I'm out of breath
Taking time for guilt with no guilt

Sometimes the work is in not working
That's not my line, but I love it so
in a couple of years, I'll forget
and claim it as my own
And believe it

PRIORITIES

Don't be grateful
Be arrogant
And write well
But wash the dishes

IRREVOCABILITY

It's an embarrassment
This living on your couch
And so, you'll let me go
Not because of my humanity
You'd fight and die and lie for that
Going made irrevocable instead
By your embarrassment and mine

It Comes and Goes

My mind is stuck in poetry
Short beat overdrive
I guess I'll leave it there
a while
As if there were a choice

Chasing dogs in heat
down alleys
Standing under windows
hot under my collar
Yowling

Thoughts in five word bursts
The measure of a clip
in this automatic fire
Mental shorthand
It can't be helped

It comes and goes and then
I think again in dialog
Longer thoughts, it's time
for prose
To get back to the other work

GOIN' BROKE

Bankruptcy's like death
All the agony
Is in the preparation

LINES

Lines in palms and poems
don't mean shit, man
It's the ones in faces
that tell the future

Work it out
Put away the night cream
Let me know you
and you, yourself

The poetry's in your eyes
Mostly at the corners
where your history
paints roadmaps

Let me read your mouth
The writing's there
at the edges
All I want to know

HAT

Old man, old dog
Who'll miss the other most

He wears a hat around the house
He's shrunk to where

his head meets more often
cupboard doors than friends

THINKING ME

Did you think me into wakefulness
from there?
While I was here
in the midst of dreams?
Time zones playing games
against our psychic energy

A thought ran through your day
to intervene my night
The rain has stopped
Its end the noisiness
of sudden silence
and it brings me full awake

Was it raining where you are
and did it stop?

WITHOUT A SCRIPT

Not a public execution, I've no right to stand
with sword in hand, your neck at my feet
I take the right, make no excuses
Uncredentialed, it's just the way it is
So many ghosts in life, I'm just one more

Following from day to night and back again
there's no need to slash at one another
My Douglas Fairbanks leaps a balcony
Meets your Errol Flynn, knife clenched in teeth
Somehow never masking that famous smile

How does he do it? How do we and they?
Without rehearsal, no cut and no retakes?
I don't want all your life and time, just all of you
when we're together, but ghosts get in the way
fighting up and down the staircase of our minds

Not stumbling, as we do, but coming point to point,
Thrust and parry, in endless choreography
Your sword nicks me, high across the chest
Blood soaks toward my heart, we come together
face to face, conceding one another's pain

Then spring apart, my blade slits the purple silk
Above your breast, exposes, barely touches skin
I'm bleeding, you're unmarked, catching breath
Am I above you on the stair? Can't recall the script
Is this the scene, the time you take my life?

Not your neck that's at my feet, but mine
How can it be, my hand holds the blade?
Lens pulls back, long shot in soft focus
One stroke, then just another of the ghosts
Untitled, unrehearsed, without a script.

A GIFT OF BUTTONS

What can it mean and why these?
Of all the possibilities
For your anticipation
your understanding
your today
your tomorrow

And yet these caught my wanderings
Stopped me dead in aimless tracks
Said to me, you are there
this makes sense
don't think about it
don't come back later

Made by hand, each slightly different
The imperfection of human touch
Laid out like so many dinner rolls
a confectioner's frosting
glazed and then the kiln
a second kiln, then a third

Why twelve? Not by chance
Nine were not enough
Fifteen beyond my reach
every day a compromise
between need and real need
words and necessary words

It's too much and nowhere near enough
To touch your collar, dress your front
Closure of breast pocket or sleeve
the gift of no money
the gift of arrested step
the gift of buttons

STANDING

Behind you,
watching your reflection
brush its teeth

Near enough
to smell your hair
The skin at the back of your neck

At a distance
Diving for the impossible shot
Landing on your belly

Lying in the grass
Sun bleeding through the trees
Dappling your skin

On forgotten streets
Dodging pedestrians
Intent on the laundry and life

Close enough to feel your breasts
The long slow curve at the small of your back
Breathing, just breathing

Close
Yet far away
Always standing near

FRIENDS AND LOVERS

Friends and lovers
are the ones we give away
into the care of other lives
and other times

You've been my friend and lover
Friend to my warmest thought
Lover to my misdirection
I hold you dear

Some stumbling thoughts
meant for you
Written as well as I can
At least for now

So, stick them in a corner
Drag them out
from time to time
when you wonder where I am

I'll remember you
You'll remember me
Friends and lovers
Never far apart