Beautiful illusion, this 

trying to juggle fire –

trading one ache for another.

Sun and moon withhold their light

and spend their time drinking instead.

Shoulders, steady and strong,

but cold, are small consolation

against the high-cliff dive

into welcome water.

When do heart and shadow 

walk together? Does one see

the other? Would they dance

if they met?

 

Centrifugal encounter, the quest

for the peace of another 

that renders only pieces

of another. No eye for eye,

tooth for tooth.

No. I and eye,

and tooth with tooth – grins

hiding smiles

hiding pain.

 

Beautiful encounter – when

our illusions become too illusory

even for themselves.

And shells crack.

And blood meets light.

_____________

Picture found here

Not everyone who lifts a glass

can do so with hands made

for prayer to the new gods.

The stolen reserves

of forgotten men

and their women of renown

steep in basements and gutters,

and tenements with shuttered windows.

Still, the backward glances

help remind the waffling ones.

 

It was near ten o’clock before the fellas

found their way to the table

of friends,

of insiders,

of wagging tongues and nodding heads,

of tacit agreement on disagreeables;

of the ancestors.

 

That’s when the best stories were.

That’s when I saw the words

most intended for song and not

for crouching in little doorways.

 

What was it you said before

we sat down to drink the air?

Something about

not enough garbage cans in laybys

or those fucking American hamburger joints

stealing from the coffers of your grandfather’s

croft house memories.

 

One more then, to close the wounds.

I took the long road today.

I scrambled up slow steps of the jagged, upward path-

leading to the thinner air and thicker place,

the craning neck of her yellow crown.

 

Then, for the first time, I saw.

I saw what others saw,

and failed to see.

And wouldn’t see.

 

I saw the rest.

And it was good,

so good that I came back down.

You and I – we are eucharist.

We are the slow quench and

burn of wine made well from

flaming water.

 

We are from yeast – all that nourishes

made perfect in a moment,

but only after stealing a well-oiled

gaze into the mouth of dreams.

 

We are the holy cloth, drawn lightly

upon the lip of the cup, still damp

from shared spittle and wine-made blood.

It is the kiss of the saints

blended well in silver,

refined, reflective.

 

In the comfortable day, boasting

hours poured into containers shaped by

mystery, there can be no other.

Only a thin breeze of moments –

under your fingers.

_____________

Dedicated to my lover and friend of almost 30 years – my wife, Rae Kenny. 

It’s okay to let the terry-cloth

wind blow itself through your thinning hair.

When the leaves fly past

your brow in that dismissive way they leave

a glint of naiveté, a good benchmark of

personhood. Only then are you safe

from their burden of proof. It tells me you’re just passing

through these moments without

the careless disregard you hear in the stifling

words of the never-enoughs.

 

They bounce in like clumps of collagen sadness and

pose at the Starbucks long enough to trumpet

their middle-age gym accomplishments. They lust

after glances but disdain the stares as somehow

presumptuous. In their strategic peripherals, table

reflections, and body language, they burn up

the fuel of appreciation. They like

to look at everyone but speak to no one,

especially the ruse in front of them just

hoping to lock eyes even once.

 

One skin shed in favor of a second, otherwise known

as yoga pants, they reign supreme

while supplies last of crunches, collagen, and

the deceitful quagmire of wealth. Maybe

there still lay rumors of rootedness deeper

than the soles of their Nikes. If no one looks,

do they disappear? But these stolen sideways glances come

in the luster of indulgence cloaked

in the risk of diminishing returns. Gawks become stares,

then looks, then glances, then indifference,

soon to fade in the diminishment of

apathy. The well-fitted tools of acceptance

turn to mock an unpracticed self-respect.

 

He runs his own Internet business. We’ve heard him

talk about it through his phone from across

the room in his well-thought out random attire.

An overly helpful demeanor, especially as door-man for

elderly ladies, helps with the compassion capital needed

to seal the deal: successful, built, kind – what more

could one ask? His secrets perhaps. How his wife’s

breath always smells a bit like mint and gin.

 

The one on her own stages

a similar performance, from the adoring

glare of her iPhone. It buys us all

an invitation to look without penalty, the detached

appreciation she’s come to know as attention.

The bubblegum ennui fools no one. In this tiny

15 minute window, short bursts of indulgence, the silent

praise of others passes for friendship. Maybe release can

happen soon, but through the derailments of a life

forced to surface through pain. Then, instead of adoring stares,

she can see back into the blinded eyes of another,

and finally exhale.

 

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Or, try this

Or, even this

We live life as no more than

the half-shrugged shoulder of

of a sleeping giant.

Let the wasp sting,

the filth stay,

the rodents gnaw

upon last year’s dinner,

prepared by another.

 

All has become

nature’s disavowal of its own

existence, the slowly turning

roots of black.

 

Flowers remain half-open,

squinting their heavy eyes

at the persistent sun.

Happy birds – I think they’re happy –

singing desperate songs

of unbidden encouragement,

scratch, scrawl, and howl,

like every happy voice – persistent, annoying,

useless, like a dare to a dead man.

 

Everything is good.

Is anything good?

What is anything but everything in reverse?

Oh, this melancholy, cottage

industry of romantics, poets, and

those with everything better to do

and no desire for it.

 

Life is good,

or so I’m told.

I suffer from an all too common writer’s ailment. It is an elusive demon, refusing easy corral, and lives on in spite of my best efforts to subdue it. Kathleen Norris, a favorite writer of mine, stakes a claim on this little inner hurricane of acedia, well-known to the 4th century desert monastics, and suffering from much needed exposé in books like her bestseller, “A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life: Acedia and me.”

This thing is attacking me where it hurts, writer’s blah. Frankly, there are times when writer’s block would be the better option. Better to write nothing than derivative bullshit, right? At least that’s what the self-pitying artist might be tempted to say.

Now, to be clear, I’m certainly not in a huge doldrum necessarily. I still love to write. I think I’m fairly good at it. But, at times, I wake up in a cold sweat and realize that I just read a collection of poetry by a 17 year old more intriguing, probing, and disturbing than anything I recall writing.

This poem is offered from such musings.

* * *

Uncorking the wine

Breathless like wine, still corked and waiting

in its darkness, sits that one, a one, this one.

 

Wheezing and sick, that soul, a soul, this soul,

like leaden clouds coaxing out un-fallen rain.

 

Sometimes bitter is a sky, unwilling to cough up

her best stories and wait for an audience.

 

What little disturbances, these sagging wits,

trying in vain to see into the sap of things.

 

What small crescendo to so great a symphony,

the song-less word, peals back upon itself,

just enough to pair with a mind in domino.

 

What a blunted song, gutted and safe,

lost in its own impotence, a flaccid regale.

 

What a forgetful space, its shape insufficient

to bear the weight of dents and denials.

 

What fraternity of the inconsistent, sparing nothing

in pursuit of everything, to gain nothing.

 

What a pale sentence, well-intentioned illness of

the crouched and waiting, waiting for anyone to come

 

and speak.