Samsara

I said, "I'm repeating myself."
"The devil may care," he said.
"I need institutionalized," I said.
"The devil must care," he said.

We were on a junket and
everyone was talking
about the past.
I remember all these people,
the blue turban, the lost pocket watch,
the flying cap, the forecasting.

Once I was at a horse race,
losing my ticket for that horse.

"I fired a weapon," I heard myself say.
"In someone's direction."

"We pick up the path as we go,"
said the little man sitting on the rock.
"Back is gone."
"Choose."

Necessary

                   l

When I talk a block of wood
comes out of my mouth.
Something whittles it down,
something slowly rocking.
It sits now in the square
overlooking a few benches,
a gentle. quiet reminder of
what I said.

                     ll

A few debate what the design says.
It speaks to some
and holds its tongue
for others.

                     lll

I sit on one of the benches,
positioned to the left
of what I said.
The sun reaches down
caressing the texture of it.
Traffic slows.
"It deserves more," I think.

                       lV

What I said has moved on.
Was it my comment, my reaching?
A light rain is falling on the square.
From the coffee shop where I sit
I notice the green impression
is still there.

                         V

I can't seem to remember
if I could have carried it.
I conclude it was enough
that what I said
stood alone for a while,
outside my
somewhat restless,
lighter,  blue,  self.

Nocturnal

                                                            For Kim


I wish I had more time to know you
when we sleep.
The knowing summons me to a tryst
where no one is there.
Not you,  not me,
only the tentative cat pressure,
the deep southern groan of the dog,
the rain quietly wanting in.

As I lay there it feels like you
are the rain,  the dog,  cat.
Suddenly you release a little snore.
Like a sounding.
"Deep six" says the pole dipping deeply.
No grounding tonight,
safe passage below this tangled
supra-structure of legs akimbo,
arms hugging pudgy white flotsam.

My legs make a crossing and
we become a soft,  implicit raft,
turning,  eddying.
Direction is not in the geography
of where we are.
I let my arm slip off the side
into the cool darkness.
Water sings around my hand.
The tune is movement and
movement reaches for me
like a destination,
like home,  like knowing you.

Return to Normal, situation fucked up

Let's look at the expectations: Day one Sunday- nice leisurely train ride to Chicago, art, cultural center, a shoe store the size of Costco, great breakfast at our favorite place, Lou Mitchell's, a wonderful bookstore Unabridged Book Store on North Broadway, check in at our conveniently located hotel. More of the same  to come on Monday with our favorite, Patricia Barber, at the Green Mill that night. And Tuesday too, Only thing, the only thing, was at about 5:30 Sunday upon awakening from a little siesta, Kim asks me for her little blue pouch with her insulin and her post cataract surgery eye drops. Only problem is, The Onliest Problem, I left that pouch at home on the coffee table next to the pullover I took out of my backpack. Well shit. The only train to Normal that night was leaving at 7. Now it is nearing six so we bolt, like Jack and Sandy in the Out of Towners. Only matter is, I have been nursing a fever since the day before. We reach the terminal downtown where I ring out my shirt.  Only deal is there are no seats says the ticket woman. But the supervisor finds three available if we pay the difference. Since I am considered a senior and look like a senior senior at this point,  with temp climbing, we are able to get on with the first batch and sit together. "And sit together" being the highlight of the afternoon. The whole ridiculous thing, loss of hotel room, insulin, Patricia Barber, sleep, etc, was so over the top that Kim and I began to laugh. What else was there? We did buy new running shoes at Galactic World of Feet, left our old ones in the room along with Kim's socks and bras. Chica-go we loved you.

Sake

                 1

I am pinned down by fire,

-pernicious-

that has taken up residence.

It rides with me,

like fungus under a nail.

Somewhere, deeper behind the scene

it can be pulled under,

meadowed by its imagination.

Brown is greening.

                2

Behind the barn a lovely bird

waits to be seen.

I have seen it thrice.

Each time it blurs

as it lifts.

I catch a color,
different each time.
Has it arrived or
is it leaving?
Smalt, mulberry, canary.

                3

More of what I see
is less recognized.
More of what I feel
trumps the unrecognized.
I correct myself:
The movement is not
in my mind,
it is my mind.
Add color for definition.

Lemon jello

                                     

                           I

Everything wants yellow.
The morning sand is undressing.
The blue-green lake forgets its sunscreen.
The sandbar lifts, showing a touch of banana.
Clear glass rests in the sand, a topaz wannabe.
"Show me," I say to the mallard along the shore.
"Here and here," he says without saying anything.
Light.


                   II

The age of yellow is over.
The night mountains are gone.
The sandbar is free to move about.
In this time
there are no designated hitters on Tuesdays.
Television is offered randomly.
You may be the one to see it.
Maybe not...
A church is no longer a place.
It is a sound we make when we sneeze.
And sneeze is a clip of emptiness.
Sacred.


                 III

Then everyone slept. For quite a while.
They say it was an extension of giving up.
It went on. It passed.
The guardians drifted away.
Memory lost its static.
Roll miracle of binocular vision.
Everywhere, a flutter followed
by the earliest idea, then a later one
that connected back to the earlier.
Wings.

Martian Interlude

For two or three days
you could not remember a thing.
You carried a mirror everywhere.
The bluish doubt, still there,
unexamined.

You thought about water too much.
So many contexts.
That you had left.
There had been a baptism.
The water was hard and cold.
The bridge shone and shook.

The radio in your head was maroon,
a motorola, smaller than a lunch box,
that flipped open in the front.
The front cover became an antenna.
The handle on top flexed
like a watch band.
A question grew then.
How could anything so large
reside inside.
But you were the one who
heard yourself say,
 "come in."

Years later your brother found
the radio in his inventory.
He laughed over the tubes and
the big batteries that had powered
it at the gulf shore and the shimmering,
scooped-out,  private lake
owned by Germans.
The radio was a reminder,
like the boomerang,
of something you had put out there
because you wanted to.
So this was a history?
It will fit nowhere unless
you set it down.
"Land," they said,
"you must land now."

Crossing Nottingham

                                      In memory of Boo

The machinery was swift, unforgiving
There was no reprieve, no stay.

I stood on the lawn searching
the gray pavement for your paths.
But you were too light to leave any.
If I pulled up this hard road
and attenuated my instruments,
would I see the tracings
of your passagings there
in the exposed earth?
Take this way the markings would say.

Before you  was not a path.
After, an impression that keeps after me.
You picked yourself up
and put yourself down.
Over and over.

There is no report on you,
just the hard facts of memory
inside the soft, silent way
you negotiated yourself
through the still light
and the tumbling darkness.

Mood

Interior weather moving through,
a color not seen,
muting.

Always framed for something,
set up to take the fall,
it awakens as transcription,
as the blue diamond on
someone else's forehead,
as advantage taken
of the immobile, immutable.

It burns down in its holder,
smoke then smell then
just soft grey sift.

Only in sleep is it read back.
Somewhere the slight motions of
an otherwise still stenographer
capture and release,
ready to repeat as needed
repeat as needed.

Out of what it comes
is not clear
but what is noticed
is you are
its conformity.