FOR BEGINNERS

Perhaps it's too late now 
to turn around in failure;

perhaps no providence 

but the one we make in words.

So we run on 

like proverbs,

like a newspaper horoscope, 

like Ecclesiastes did— 

each last breath, 

which once was all life, 

presently a memory—

eventually abandoned.

What do you think of 

when someone says repetition? 

Exercise regimens. 

(You can't sprint a marathon.)

Amateur hour. 

No big loss. 

A knock at the door.

A lack.

MUST BE DECEMBER

Between row homes' 

little cold 

sigh of a railing

decked with green wire

and that curious 

"city version" of dirt

which collects near the road verge

made of bare concrete, 

three robins—

former rakes, to be sure, 

now all uptight

and pointed and sticky—

darting absurdly 

back and forth

and squawking nonstop

about Easter.

CONTROVERSIAL THOUGHTS

Without trying, you'll look out 

and see the sun shining 

down on your city, 

knowing—but unable 

to bring yourself to believe 

that it truly has no 

alternative.

You won't even have to search 

in order to find 

that which seems 

to want to define itself 

as beauty—

the amber light 

on antique heaps of brick, 

the streaks of dried dog piss 

that mottle the street, 

each nearby 

grass blade in high relief.

An unwilling witness—

amid depression, 

amid poverty, 

despite sickness, 

despite depravity.

Perhaps, then you'll say

there's something 

to not fighting 

for our consonance 

when every scrap of this 

wretchedness 

is compulsory 

and every stitch of love,

unearned. 

CASTLE IN THE AIR

You swear 

what keeps you going is 

the prospect 

of tomorrow:

a contemplation 

of the rosy 

taste of clover honey, 

the mouthfeel 

of good milk. 

But what is hope, really, 

but a certain kind 

of fear 

that's been perverted 

and turned 

on its ear? 

When you leave here, 

how will you know you were 

free in this moment—

this moment of sorrow  

which must precede creation—

regardless 

of that thing 

which was destined 

to happen?

POETRY

From the white 

obvious sky, 

the white obvious wind 

blowing all 

the big feelings out of me; 

blowing me 

to a cold smolder.

When the 

tips of us numb 

a little, they move easier—

harder to cease 

than it is 

to continue.

It must have been 

an hour now—unspecified 

and serene.

Right now, 

I'd put treasure down; 

I mean,

I'd wager dollars—

there's nobody out there

saying my name.

CASHABLE

Spate of birds 

in a white sky—

dark curling signs.

An endorsement 

on the slip 

of the universe 

that I might be here 

to verify.

 

KNELL

In cold wet late 

November, everything says—you too 

must end.

But our bodies, stiff 

and soggy though they are, 

keep on

lurching 

to the mailbox, slouching toward 

the grocery store. 

The grim cadaverous 

limbs of trees, the bloated wreck 

of leaves 

clotting each gutter,

the bleak iron 

fences, the toneless concrete;

the souls of everything here

keep whispering— 

like us, soon, you too shall be. 

Yet we go about our tedious business; 

we have duties 

to attend. We may be 

frightened, but we, the living 

shall heed no injunction 

from any thing which is dead.