daz Herz an sich

The cold, wind-teared face of night,
the gaps between perception,
tree and eye, eye and mind, heart
and another heart hurt. The way they
damage us, our deleterious hope. The way we
still rise in the golddust morning,
sprawl in grass rising over our bodies,
sun-lid light, warm red wind
and an eye opening into
everything all afternoon again,
sunbed, cloudleaf, a goldfinch
deleting the land and landless luft
in fine-lined, bonefeathered wings.

the steam at the edge of your glasses

in the long early hour
between coffee and showering
I quiet my clamoring
body in borderless layers
the way snow mutes a city,
so even in this winter-
gray cloud-lit morning,
everything sounds like a sunrise.

unbinding into the day

after dawn,
diamond-cold winter,
before the sun
has climbed over houses
across the street,
their smokestacks billowing
white streams back-lit
against newborn blue sky
flowing out into the east
bound wind.

Michiganian mid-summer

Michiganian mid-summer,
duck lake's
sandless shore

and footpath into wood
cut long ago,
bermuda grass

creeps in and up
ankle tickling,
leafshadowed sun

decanted through the tress
mapped out
onto forest floor

through half-transparent
pillars
luminous

light in shade,
cricket
hum

choruses
the summer
familiar,

the trail
itself
a home,

sun-warmth
remembered
and present,

the tree-split
before
I was born,

rain-worn
resilient
wood


opening up
as though a
wooden volcano

whose fiery belly
holds only
moss,

the day
holds,
the path

motionless
and steady
in the shadow-light,

nothing
of the moment
as a river,

the lake-
shore locks
the water,

the termite burrowed
fallen tree,
amber wood-dust

haloed out around it,
sinking slowly
into earth.

I woke late one morning

I woke late one morning
and the air was hot and dry,
my tongue was chalked transparent
and around it coughed a sigh,

I rose through sounds of sunlight
children out about for hours,
pissed with the bath door open
and sacrificed the shower,

lit my first morning cigarette
from a pack I did not buy,
ashed in an empty beer can
from some earlier July,

and stayed sitting on the sofa
staring at the locked front door
for what might have been an hour
of not thinking it, before

I moved out through the kitchen
watching dust float through the sun,
and put on a pot of coffee
knowing I'm the only one.

Will Listen: No Cost, No Catch

[1]

my middle american city, small downtown, clear
pockmark free pavement and brickface, uncrowded
air above symmetrical city streetlines, here

light moves through the empty body-space
of soldiers somewhere abroad: deep desert,
sandstorm weathered rocks, scorpion-faced

and falling ever into sand, slipping
toward the autoclavic center, molten back
again eternal, ephemeral: 'burn' is not enough;

creases formed in the coarse fabric, time
coheres around the pink rose bloom, dissipate,
the accretion of ash unfolds the mountain flat

and ripples someplace in the oceanic dark;
scour the chalk flaked pages, the water-written books
for an eschaton's coordinates, the map-point of safety

that hides in your body, embedded beneath skin
and spirit bespoke by imperceptible growth
of trees rising from the moss and muckgrass;

as the millimeter bug clings to the coffeemug,
twenty times toeing the porcelain perimeter
above the steaming black, so too you return my stare

with quiet constancy; bodhisattva peace amidst the city-rush
laps against the shoreline of your soul, whispering
through your ventricles, a rebellion of quietude;

with warm bread, ballast and seafoam
we unfetter ourselves into breath, evanesce out
capacious and comfortable in our negative capacity

[2]

I broke from the tenets of the city,
washed myself up on a black sanded shore

and then I made way, I carved
a space in the air for my body,

moved about among the tree branch,
slid down the water-rivulets worn into rock

only to wake in a sun-lit forest
of people contiguous as quilt;

the acorn's center, the foot-clapped pavement
hum something sorcerous, framed from inside

as the tree-bark hides an outward expanse,
as under us air around arrowroot gloams;

some substance half outside of me sings
and spurs a nascent sentiment

like washing your hands in warm water,
like familiar arms round the waist—

let yourself glory in the opening day

Learning to Destroy the Teacher

[1]
I call myself out from hiding, I call to the things between, the things found
when mid-summer springs forth, the flaxseed sprouting in open field,
laying lull of lilacs in the breeze, bowing their Tyrian purple crowns—
Be not modest you luscious kings of fields unwoven!
Be not modest you who reads me in time unseen! I have felt
your diaphanous span, felt the humming of your inevitable arrival, it is not
a gift unwarranted, it is not much more than mine, not much less.
What wonders of your world surround you of which I know nothing?
What wonders of your world surround you of which you know nothing?
Do not shy away from your sovereignty over encounter, shy not from the singularity of our span,
from the kitchen mouse scurrying frantic over the tiles, fleeing the head servant's cleaver,
from the fields of corn towering toward gray sky, waving briskly before the coming storm,
from the oaken wardrobe, crafted by warm and rough-worn hands the color of cinnamon,
from the children playing on mounds of snow, bundled warmly by mothers and fathers,
from the riverbank's silt-lined shore, otters rolling in the gray-brown muck,
from the young ladies dressed for Friday, laughing their way into the taxicab together,
from the sound of a hunter's footsteps, crunching quietly over fresh snow in the forest,
from the stillborn's mother, her sobs echoing over the heavy arms wrapped around her body,
from the crash of football helmets, the flexing muscles pushing against, the stress and competition,
from the flight of a sparrow, pointed light looped line across the billowing sky.

[2]
On the Michiganian shoreline I spread myself wide and invite the day, I pause
to call out to you who stops not at the lake, who hurries past holding your hat to your head in the wind
and say I do not despise you in your rush, I too know the ebb and pull of business affairs;
I go with you down the steps of the subway, elbowing through, swiping your card at the turnstile,
waiting and crowding in toward the 4 train as it screeches to a halt, doors close, slowly forward, faster, the sway of the car, the muffled music from headphones turned high, the stops and new people, the shuffling
EJN
feet and newspapers, the people looking up, around, the eyes turned only toward shoes, the novels'
pages fluttering between delicate hands, the eventual halt and final arrival; in Tribeca we rise up
into the open air, my spirit lagging behind to admire the height of skyscrapers, running to catch up,
ascending the marble steps, nodding as you do to the receptionist who's wearing his inerrant smile,
tallying on your phone the tasks for today, chatting baseball with the elevator steward as we climb.
This is the accomplished man, well-fed, smartly dressed, a fine suit, an overcoat for rain,
not unshapely, well-shaven, going home to enjoy a cigar by the fireplace, collar unbuttoned, tie loose
and perhaps a fine red wine, perhaps a sniff of bourbon, all the while clear headed and content.
This is the destitute, yellowed nails long and brittle, head bowed beneath the bridge, frayed and
molding blanket draped over sagging shoulders, the rainwater pooling black at his sides.
This is the sunshine on your skin, the heat and color, the squinting to see, the ethereal blanket of warmth.
This is the mouse caught in the trap, its fur fraying and ruffled from the struggle, eyes wide and
voice shrilly calling to no one, neck half-broken by the wire, vision fading from us like a dimming lamp.

[3]
I speak for you who does not speak, you whose voice is caught somewhere, I unlock
the latches on your chains, give gladly water and bread, I slide some solidifying
secret under your tongue, there it starts to vibrate and resound with something not quite unsaid.
Who can tell you you're done? Stop and sit with me by the rough water's edge or
by the bar in the dimlit tavern, here the beer is hearty, quiet music's playing and I'm in no hurry.
Where are you going? Where have we been? I pray you; stop trying to close your borders,
what is open is open. There's nowhere you aren't that you're essentially
supposed to be. Let's have another drink, linger here away from the chilling evening air, bathing
in the glow and warm smell of small candles encased in frosted glass, flickering back 'gainst the woodwork.
Share with me a few more of your readied words, your deathless stories. These are weighty, real, these
are not the last words. There are no last words for the way the dusk-glow that ripples over the horizon
melts into the star-birthing nightsky overhead, no words for the way you carry your
laughter in groups, your contemplative nights in moonlight through a window, your running in youth,
the first bed you'd ever shared, somewhere within you—vibrating like the eyes of a Bengal Tiger, everystep.

Birds in the Dark

Through rainwater beaded windows, car headlights
sweep through the unlit living room, two blinks
of the turn signal, yellowing then unyellowing
the silver urn on my mantel, the solitary night spent,
the solitary night saved, like a young man brimming with strength
in a stone-framed monastery, like so many piggybank pennies
I grow up to find useless. If you spend the night watching
the night, it grows into something formless, hideous
then shrinks back into the fireplace den, shrinks
into a universe of its own, the unwashed dinner plate
orbiting motionless on the coffee table, preparing perhaps
to launch an offensive in the East, annexing the red stained wine glass,
or to crash against the wall at will: mine.
Isn't this the point of meditation, to be god of a moment?
To temporarily take hold of the reins even when you aren't sure
who are the horses? I will carry this darkness
with me in the morning, pass on its presence
and peace to the eyes that meet mine.
Outside: the storm's heart is illusive and beats
down on the pavement in moments we can't quite catch—
down 'til just before you think it might dawn
it's done, and the blacktop glistens rough in the streetlight.
Inside: I glisten rough in the dark.

1 Tbsp. Gravity, Heaping

What fiery force flung us here
through the holy doors of mothers?
My body showed up in the sand, at the shore
painted toward the earth, fading from the sun
as surf swallowed me in stages.
Is this the end of progress? Have we finally made it
to civilization's gory climax, rumbling chainsaws held high
above the trembling sense of plenitude and purpose?
The ceiling fan whirs without breaking the heat
and in her laced, barely-there black nightgown
nihilism keeps tempting and tempting again.
Is something really imperceptibly intended,
painted blue with fingertips, kindergarten morals
written underneath the river-hiss of tires on pavement,
smeared by the hand of an infant-god
invisibly behind the lines of divorce papers?
Is it here where the universe starts? Ends?
Can we ever name the night?
The sun still sets in Boston, out over a wide country
that someone somewhere will never see.
The moon shows us the sun,
the earth the moon. But if we spread our vision wide
to wrap around us like a quilt, will we stop our interminable turning away?
In the middle of an unoccupied Tuesday, walking along the river
I wake like a bird beneath the wide and cloudless stretch,
see nothing above but the brilliant blue burning
to be understood. Are you as it and I?
Have you feared the weightless void?
There is no rough beast slouching toward us,
no axiom to define the contours of your breath.
In the neon-glowed night, I float on my feet light as I was
in the billions of mornings before the earth turned.
Do you think we were not waiting then
as we are now, hungry for emotion and purpose?
The smallest speck of something is hurtling toward us
at tremendous speed it flies through the void
tearing through cosmos to be born as an orchid.
What is the smell of baked bread?
What is this fault-line in my chest?
Does the morning sun on white kitchen tiles
strum a 12-string guitar in your heart?
Can the trees in city sidewalk squares
grow indifferent to forests?
I want you to crash into my center
like a water-balloon filled with light,
like we've never ever been
hurt by anything before.

Sawgrass

I.

This endless errant idling assaults me.
I dream of a more purposed wandering:
Of weaving for years like a crumb bound ant on the kitchen floor,
Of cresting a mountain path, white dusted rocks, fine twill of snow
Without footprint, cold, clean air cutting into my lungs
And cut through by low sun over cliffs, I watch
Nightfall come like a lynx stalking forward through the wood,
Mountain shadows sliding up from the valley
Then swallowing back on themselves, breeding darkness, breeding
The litany of stars


II.

At the lakeshore, beneath the still water: smooth dark stones;
The bare branch framed moonlight of November,
Where white wolves snap their gaze to the crack of a branch,
The familiar haunt of dusk, coming quicker each evening;
Halt of treeleaf, growth of night, baritone whistle of wind
And a deepening dark through the white pines—
The unrecordable sound of eternity hums;

I watched the early autumn turn, the green leaves singed yellow at the edge
Frayed with fall, tired and wind-burnt after summer's spent;
I watched the wrens and warblers run, knifing through the sky, watched
When their darting paths curved downward through the chilling air,
Some internal compass swinging South.
And now in these colder moments I speak softly to their absence,
Barefoot atop the mud and crunch collage of brown and ruddied leaves,
Through the waking winter air I shape my words
As to a lover in the first morning windowlight;
Far in the forest, a Great White Owl opens
Her deep, dark eyes toward the brimming moon.



III.

I feel a soft and quiet pull within
As the flower of desire blooms in my heart,
As I burn to be brought back in new forms,
To reemerge in the Oak leaves' lines,
A resurgent rise like the humpback whale
Breaking the surface with its balletic body,
White misted spray of breath;
Or when birds break out of a tree all at once,
Flock of flight, flapping wings
Daring you to follow as they fly
To you, then overhead, beyond
The space where the forest opens like your hand
Into a plain of tall grass, golden rapeseed in brilliant bloom,
Out over amber sandstone crumbling cliffs,
Then down, diving inches from the cliff-face
To cut skyward above the canopy of leaves,
Disappearing into unbound sun.


IV.

In this spacious room of twilight
I walk quietly with my spirit, arms outstretched,
Touching my fingertips to the tops of the tall grass;
This is where the divine is hiding
As the tide hides in the waves,
As the moon hides in the tide;

This is where the fading last light preaches
Wordless, sermon of silence as the coming night
Vibrates harmonious around you, vibrates
Around the bend of a branch as a bird
Takes the air under her wings to arise;
Nothing that grows and dies is out of tune;
Nothing that arises from your heartbeats is profane;
Everything exists only in interrelation, everything depends on
This one blade of sawgrass, taller than the rest,
And the choice of the firefly who is hovering toward it,
About to alight

Adjusting Brakes

Old bike brake cable
thin cord of rusted metal
new auburn stained thumb.

ancillary inquiries

When I lean back and breathe in air
at midnight, why does it feel more real?

What is the Platonic antithesis
of this feeling of falling?

Did your peacock come with feathers
or was that just an afterthought?

When rain throws itself against a window
does it cringe before the crash?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Can I find a space in the bottomless ocean
where the abyss is seen not thought?

Where in the world did we get
this much color in our bones?

Will the reeds rustle as wildly
in a thousand years as today?

And if God is a summer's day
to whom do we turn in December?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Is there some heavenly calculus
for lightning seen and unseen?

Where do you find the thread
that stitches the hinges of knees?

Are we still slumbering upright?
Are at least the dragonflies awake?

Does surf slide across the sand in
night quiet as could be, or quieter?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How does the layered sunrise
shoot through me like an arrow?

Why were these hieroglyphs written
so sharply in the sky?

Do the fractal stained window panes
show your faith like a mirror?

Or is there something else inside
that whispers like the wind of you?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If all the shades of blue
can't contain us, can the sun?

Do we disappear like sound
of the flint-flint-flint of a lighter

when the flame's finally sprung
for it's pure and passing purpose?

Now that we've been thrown here
when will we dance?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If I keep moving slowly through the wet grass
will my softly muddied feet feel free?

Who can make you feel young
after you've written a will?

And when the ink has dried does the paper desire
the tattoo of death written across it's face?

Could the end of something as true and
intangible as you really be forever?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Does the thunder make you hide
as the stars hide from the day?

And just what is the thunder,
this ocean of sudden sound

crashing over even skyscrapers
like a tsunami of the sky?

But when the storm breaks in half
like a cloud of red sea under sun,

do you wonder how many centuries are hidden
in the making of this moment?

No Clouds

The pure summer blue above
seems sometimes to stare right back,
one great concave eye over
creation; moments like this
are when I reach deeper down
with my small and callused hands
to grab hold of the thick woven rope
that binds me to the anchor inside
and pull it taut to tighten
both its grip and mine
on whatever weight I've got.
But as sweat beads on my brow
and I lean back to gain leverage
I turn and look over my shoulder to see
the three blind mice named id, ego, and
soul scurrying, scrambling for straws of experience,
using them with the delicacy of morning light
to weave my rope together.
There are tiny green strands of quiet moments
watching wildflowers bend shyly beneath the breeze,
thicker burgundy yarn of loud nights with red wine and revelry,
and all the faces of friends rolled into thread
in more colors than I could describe.
To watch them work is incredible,
these three fabled minions of mine,
squeaking like sonar, calling out coordinates
with bits of twine 'tween their teeth
in a twelve footed sightless waltz of creation.
They give me the sense of having endless allies
in this beautiful broken place I call home,
so I turn 'round and smile, lowering my anchor
hand over hand on my tight-woven rope, deeper
deeper down within me
into a warm and shapeless place
where there is no bottom.

Walking in the Midwest

I imagine every tree to be
driftwood in a hundred years,
branches gone, the firm trunk truncated,
the wood's rough ridges of bark
ripped away at the roots by water,
the old deciduous' lifeblood
now crashing down in an Oedipal ocean.
I see whole forests of them
washed up on the sandy shore
of my thought--this is how I escape
the towering bookshelves of bibliocracy
that reign as the primal tyrant of our minds.
Still, we act; we built and are building
language. We built and are building
and are built by words. We built and are building
something slippery that sustains us
through the moments of winter and loss,
something deep and wide and gilt-edged,
something that allows us to take our morning coffee
with cream and sugar in a sunlit kitchen
the day after our fathers die.
Maybe that's why twisting roots of wood
worn soft like rain by sea surf
make "chaos" seem like a warm invitation
to change, make consciousness less like a bear-trap
and more like a window for flowers and sky,
make the lifeworld seem a lot more like
a world of life.

Why Running in Youth and Love Will Never Not Be(.) Good.

My inner psychic life a sailor
along the shore of something strange,
he minds and mans the gap from Wisdom
eyes with envy rolling plains
from starward deck of Sartrean vessel,
destined morals : auburn clay
are cargo in my hold forever
molded million times a day;
and cardinal virtues not a quartet
nor orchestral symphony,
much more the seconds in a century,
soft touch of lips, or eyes to see;
for even disenchanted worlds--
though knife-black freedom can alarm--
hold the dictum that no other
but myself could my soul harm.

Dear Santa,

This year I turn
older, just like last,
so could I have a few more
porcelain years to place
on my granite mantel,
Hummel talismans to time?

Also, there are some things—well, lots—
that my teachers won't tell me.
Why does the grass grow and
stars shine and people
keep killing one other
amid the miracle?
Why do we always hide?
Are you and God related?

I can't understand
how air bathes the globe.
I can't understand the words scribbled in the sky.
I can't understand how death fits so firmly
in my hip pocket each morning.
So please help me shore up my defenses;
cast my soul in iron, my hope in brick,
plaster over my fear and mortar my faith,
teach me to see the empty fleeting nature
as a flitting bird in flight,
as a fact like a flower,
as a bowl of warm soup.
Teach me to be

Yours, Truly.

Where Are We Headed?

The hawk glides in place-
Effortless anchorage over
The strong summer wind
Barreling down the cliffs,
Lifted by nothing
But the air of the earth.

This is where we are
Supposed to talk about dreams,freedom,
Maybe God. This is the point, the rift
Where grandiloquent proclamations of hope
Seep in through a crack in the poem’s foundation
And collapse like wet cardboard
Under their own weight.

But maybe it’s best
Without all that?
Maybe this is just where the hawk stands
For himself, where the confluence of the universe
Who put him before me
And me behind him
Is enough, maybe this is
That part of our story:

A day that once would have been
Nameless, predestined at a point to be July,
Under relentlessly loving sun
Plants growing
A universe of their own
All around us.
This is where we are.

Summer Rain and Such Things

Flowers tickle the back of my neck
like cigar smoke, curling in
and out of me, blooming vanilla
and pearl, a scent so fresh
as the birthing of souls
it's almost enough to forget
the gauntlet that lies ahead,
the endless trap of the gray mundane;
Red alarm 6:15 glowing through the winter void
anxious lines for coffee that steal
my kindness like a fly in the gaping maw of venus
where our lives seem simple as cigarettes
in geologic time, regret and relaxation but
burning, always burning
down, it leaves me feeling
anorexic again at the table of life,
no communion, every line on the menu
a brand new way to be damned.
But no ink of despair is so dark
as to blot out the spin of our sphere,
and Heaven as the sky and not a mandate
turns ever around us,
and the only way to wash out stars
is light
and the crashing storm always opens
cloudless blue
opens again, to purple, to green
to all the layers that allow
grass, gods, bodies.
Grow.

The History of Post-Medieval Love

If the body is a temple
For the mind
I could use a reformation,
Though the thought of theses
Nailed between my ribs unsettles me.
Still, I read somewhere in a book
It’s not the nail but the hammer,
It’s not the cross to bear but the witness
To the way the aurora is unspeakable,
Before we all supernova sometime
Out into our otherworldly light.
Yet despite the stars
My worst moments feel terrestrial
Godless, scarred all over with scorn
Like a poor man’s memory,
Like the August midnight hours
Awake, humid in our earthly autoclave,
Thrashing through black bedsheets of guilt
Until I calm at the penumbra of dawn
To open my heart to hope,
Nestling my head between pillowy prayers
And hollow doubt.

Dear You,

Under the Half Moon of the Almost Twilight, cream-blue sky
I looked at the flex of your body and thought,
We have such beautiful machinery,
Instruments of the Universe as we are.
But also that and how could I forget
My Instrumental Self was always programmed
To endeavor to show the Ultimate
Ephemeral Nature but Persistence of Love
in all things was my passion, my passion was
in all things, You saw the Great Coalition of Doubt
grayblack and shadow-edged, lurking in the abyss beneath
and through the retrospection
of the Time we are not thinking,
when we wrestle ourselves awake,
when will we dance?
when will we dance?