The Band

  They covered one of my

favorite anthems.

I sat in the back near

the darkness

and the blond with the

tattoo gibbet.

They sang a song I think

they called Vulva.

Around midnight

the guitarist launched into

the story of my life.

I sat back like

Id heard it all before.

Idyll

I wrote the word empyrean

on a colored sheet of paper.

It sat on my desk like a starfish,

so bright I could not take my

eyes from it. The children come

afternoons to stand and stare.

At night, when I am alone, I ask

of it simple things, food, hope,

a way out of the maze of personality.

Really, its silence is so inspiring!

Griot

 “Women’s work and children’s play.  These are the mysteries.”

                        Peter Redgrove

I can hear her in there,

my daughter,

among the overabundance

of childhood

writing her soap operas,

moving along at

a confident clip,

never stopping to edit or

rewrite.  She

has imagination that lasts

all day.

And while I listen to the

burble of her

voice through the door

I wonder at the stories

colliding in her little head.

Where did they come from?

And again—how can

I just let them die

in the air?

I motion my wife over to

listen also.

It’s the least I can do.

An audience of two for a

performance

given once, yet perfected

like a rock

granted centuries of lapidarian water

John and Bob and I

                 "Hear the cruel no-answer until blood drips down"

                                                    -Ikkyu

                                John Lennon, Bob Dylan and I

went out to the forest where

there dwelt a man so wise, it was

said, that few understood his

pronouncements.  When we approached

his hut we were blocked by

a sign, which read: I am always out.

John Lennon, Bob Dylan and I

stood for a while in abject silence

(for we had come far for nothing)

and when we once more reached

the city we parted without goodbyes.

John and Bob went home and wrote

new music.  I went back to the forest

with my enemy, my ego, and

knocked on that door until my fist

was a raw thing.  I am waiting there

still, looking for wisdom, true,

but hungry moreover for a piece

of nonsense on which to base my life.

Some Kind of Happiness is Measured out in Miles

"Even this late it happens."

-Mark Strand

 The trick of the light, the

way you look in

tight jeans, the softness of

your face as you knit.

The way our daughter dances

on sticks, the way she

sings, the way it all moves

around like a bop.

The times Toby takes his will

and sweetly imposes it,

the patience he has, the way

he shapes himself, an

almost man.  It all, all,

is carrying me forward,

like a freshet, like a cataract,

like the long and winding sheet.

Blissom

 She couldnt even

wait till the movie

was over; she

reached where I was as

indurate as a pine-knot.

And, in the bedroom,

she was hot like a

swinked gypsy.

Who knew it meant nothing?

Who would have

guessed that years later

she would wrinkle her brow

at the mention

of my name?

That clangs around, she

says.  Is it

a spell, a magic word?

No, dear, its only refuse,

something to pass

over, ash