DRUTHERS

After another
all-
night storm rages,
all of my self-

assurances lie—
like so many

abortive ruddy tree
buds do,

on long and glassy early
spring sidewalks—spilled-

out
in these forlorn
patterns—
completely

shattered—
slashed and bereft
of whatever slender and flimsy

arms they'd erstwhile been clinging
to for support.

And yet, distinctly somehow
spelling-
out

now,
in their new wash of dead

diagrams on
the raw ground,
a message—

it doesn't matter;
we're still

so confident!

that
we'll just be

replaced—
by others.

DANG

Even the most

handsome

polished

captivating actor—

can't shrug 

and simper

and skitter-

dance 

off-camera—
when there

is none.

CORRECTIVE

Feeling small
and useless

as an
apple's core—you capitulate

and just retire, dis-
inclined,
to rest

supine, out of
sight for a
while some-

place dark
to shore-

up whatever
scant fleshy
substance might

be left
and worth it
to preserve

and vague-
ly reinstall
upon your

eventual and
reluctant re-

emergence,
wearily, and
only then when

you manage
to, grumpily
acquiescing—you still don't

feel great—
so much

as you feel
horribly

real.
And here.
And now and

necessary—as
an apple's core.

TOO BUSY SUCKING ON A DING DONG

Lou
Reed, you

told me—
no kinds

of love
were better

than others.
Okay, so

then—why wasn't
it

just you?
going—doo,

d'doo,
d'doo?

INNUENDO

The old wire
of a
man—leaned

just
so, and
smoking pleasurably

a long
thin one on the
corner,

in front of the vine-
encrusted
limestone parlor—

knows enough
to say
nothing.

He has stood here
too many
times already

not
to
understand—

that bitter taste
is both
less

potent
and more
effective—

when a pinch-
dose of
levity is

incorporated.
That's why—
he likes

to always
makes sure—
his funeral

black—has those
pinstripes
in it.

THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN

The scariest thing I can imagine
seeing when I
look

into your eyes
would be—the sight

of my own
staring back

at me 

in wild surprise—after hotly

and tear-

fully insisting 

that you please, for god's

sake—just once

and for all!

tell me—

the answer

to that veiled
and perpetual 

riddle of old Joe 

Strummer's—Should I

stay, or should 

I go? Should 

I? stay or 

should I go?—as I 

fall immediately 

and completely 

to pure pieces,

cracked-

open by the honed

warmth 

and the blunt, un-

solicited

charity of 

your answer—oh, 

you poor

guy—didn't 

anybody

ever tell you? Don't you
know?—you can

do both.

ALL OF HIS GREATEST ACHIEVEMENTS WERE STORIES

Eventually,
inevitably
ruin visits beauty—

pale Death comes,
takes what

he wants

and spits
back at you
what lean shreds

are left—and then,
after that

happens, all you
can manage
to do is

wake up—
and look

around, bug-eyed
dumb-

struck
and amazed

at just
how much—more terrifying

the real thing—is 

than the daydream.

HER

Some nights—you'll try
the same experiment
over again, only

this time, you'll
swear it isn't

you—but the
streets
and sidewalks

that surge and
ripple under-
neath you,

causing you
to feel
either—complete-

ly dizzy,
or not quite
finished feeling it yet;

as you lumber
to heave

wet air
up
towards whatever stars

your mind likes
to suppose
are still

there, and you
cleave the dormant
and unconscious

neighbor-
hoods some more—oscillating
either

closer to
or further from

your position
of equilibrium—
which isn't

really a place, so much
as a very particular
person.

X FACTOR

Whenever—I
take

time out
of the equation—all the problematic

numbers
and letters
I carry—start

looking
more like still photographs—

of rain—
beaded-

up
cool

and clear and
clinging

tight to the potato-
brown nodules
of bare tree branches—that is,

less urgent,
because
of course they're not

going anywhere;
but also
so much more

worthy of my attention,
because

in real
life, they're obvious-

ly not going—
to hang

around forever
either.

FREEBIRD

A clandestine
warbler—perched somewhere

out there—
is driving you

to distraction
alone
in your kitchen—complacent

to keep reprising
the same song!
over

and
over

and over
again. The problem
is not—

that he doesn't
know any

good covers.
It's that—
you

know too
many.

HYPERTENSION NOTWITHSTANDING

His main aspiration
now consisting
of—slurping soup daily,

he soon began
to find—that he routinely
met or exceeded

all of the goals he'd set out to accomplish—
and then,

he felt happy.
And he slept—

so!
soundly.

ISCARIOT

I knew—but couldn't exactly
admit I might
love you

probably
at bleary two
o'clock in the morning—there

on the greasy head-
congested
floor of some out-of-town

public high
school's huge and pitch-
black auxiliary gym—when I found

myself
picturing you sleeping
soundly on the other side of the scrim

with greater precision than I thought
about drill sets
or Radiohead

and even more conspicuously
than I felt
the ramifications

of my melodramatically
dwindling faith—in
Tylenol P.M.

EXTREME UNCTION

In a dream I had—walking
with jingling
keys, I happened upon my illustrious dead

grandfather,
at the end of a dim hall, back in the tall
town where I (sort of)

grew up. Only, instead of five,
I was thirty-
two years old. And he,

then in his mid or late sixties, baggy and manila-
clothed—and likewise a
bit of a priest, who married lots of pretty

keys to their locks—had become none
other than the
janitor of my Catholic school.

Thinking this likely as tense and strange
for him
as it felt for me—I figured (especially

since we both
were grown
men now) probably

best to open with a joke. Hey,
grandpa, have
you heard? They say you can tell

how important
a guy is—
by how many keys he carries?

He did not
smile but promptly told me—
to shut my

fucking mouth up,
spitting on me a little
in the process, and that no

one likes a smartass.
Which I guess was alright,
because, like I

said, we both were men. But also,
alas, as
now I could plainly

see a lot
better, because he wasn't
really my grandfather

after all.
He was—my goddamn
mother's dad.

QUICK PICK-ME-UP

You know—your personal favorite
comforting
soothing

one-in-a-million coffee mug?

Chances are—you're exaggerating
a little;

there's really—
just several

tens
(maybe
hundreds)
of thousands of them out there.

PULASKI PARK

He should
probably start
charging

admission,
the way—the steady
ongoing rush

of traffic
incoming on the John
F. Kennedy is

so close—but just
out of sight enough

to only lend
a kind of—
audible hush

that helps set
the right
context for

the grand yellow
lawn—painted

so exaggeratedly
wide with cold

streaks of
mud and such
glassy morning

mixtures
of dog piss
and dew—and spread out so

long, too, at the
foot of his

benevolently
dilapidated mansion.

GROUND

Make up your
mind, old

dog, is it?—
these furtive

stripes of mossy
sod—poking

up through
the new

cracks
forming—in almost

every
obdurate block

of mottled concrete
sidewalk under-

neath your feet
which are

guilty—
of being

so destructive-
ly stubborn

and
bossy—or is it

the other
way around?

PHASE CHANGE

Somehow—in
the early
spring, every-

thing begins both
to fade—and to
brighten. Even

the homeless
man on the
corner (whose ancient

face—used
to look
rough and obscure

as some frost-
battered birch) now frisks
and babbles

like fresh water—brighter,
but more
relaxed than before,

as he
no longer
begs for your

spare change—
but more
kind of

dares you
not to—fork
it over.

I AM A ROCK

Sure, I'm maybe
a
bit in-

secure—
about
my

place
within the
world—but why?

on earth!
doesn't
any-

body?
sell—organic
salt.

I DARE YOU

Every single morning, you

wake up—screaming 

to notice

so many 

of the same 

things—from the vastness 

of clean 

sky, to the

crowded 

mantelpiece 

that needs 

dusting—inevitable 

things, resolute 

and reassuring, all those

colored 

pictures of 

the way 

things once were, have 

been, ought

or need

to be—that

most days, the absolute 

hardest and most 

unimaginable thing you 

could do 

would be to 

shut your eyes

and make-

believe—that you actually 

don't see. 

That you're 

not being 

constant-

ly reassured by the 

light. That,

instead of knowing 

inside-

out, every

scene that you're in—

that for one god-

blessed 

second, your 

whole world

is both—

dramatically 

empty,
and heroically

full
of things—you 

don't understand.

COMMON LAW

I promise—to
walk

Lucy every
day—not really

for the rest—
of her

life—but
mine.

BRIGHT IDEA

In order

to survive—we have to 

imagine 

that
which we have not 

dared to
imagine yet—that

from space,

there actually 

is no Great 

Wall—but there is

a great 

filament. Which is 

more attractive

anyway—because, scien-

tifically-

speaking, even 

a far-

out race—full of
color-
blind men

who came
to earth starring,
would still be

able to—perceive its light
value.

BENT

Though poor in

a little bit 

more than just spirit,

Ashland Avenue's great old archangel

is never far

and hard-

ly deferential—

baggy and 

swerving, rash-

cheeked and

cane-

enabled, and with wisp-

white

quills that peel hard

from the corners

of his barbed 

temples alternately leaping

and genuflecting 

and

leaping 

and 

genuflecting—as he motors 

to catch- 

up and narrow crow 

eyes—at each 

dim passer-

by, rather 

covetously—over his extra-

large breast-

plate white chunk 

of conspicuous 

and cartoony prim 

crucifix—like it's some kind

of crosshair.

ERWARTUNG!

Admit it. You didn't know 

what 

pastel 

meant—until 

somebody—

up there

felt 

solicitous enough—to pluck 

and toss 

you, for nothing 

at all, 

more

Crayolas—than you thought

were necessary.

STILL, LIFE

More than once—

I've stuck

some shit

I bought

in multiples, without

thinking—from someone

who bought it

from someone

who bought

it from someone who

Probably stole it—

into the most

delicately fluted crimson and

cobalt glass bowl

that my older

Brother Jeff made

one Christmas, alone

in his

basement—

and just

left

it there—next to the Nutty

Bars by the

windowsill—until,

either

it rotted—

or I

bought more.

ALMOST LIKE WATER

Statistically
speaking—you

are one—

in probably 

like—fifty people.

DEVIANT BEHAVIOR

Midmorning—you're still sort of
nervous and furtive-

ly gorging
on Hafiz, when—

you suddenly begin

to feel a
little sexy

and shameful

in about-
equal measure;

which, lucky
for you—is the

exact same tingle

as hunger—
so you

smack!
the book

down,
pop-

up
and scramble—

after apples.
And some peanut butter.

HIS MAJESTY

The un-
disputed, ab-

solute

greatest 

and
most

prodigious mountain

painter
in all
of Indiana—barely

so

much
as

touches

the canvas.
That's—

how perfect-
ly

light

and 

evocative—

each soft and low 

and pure-
ly pigmented Phthalo-

Blue—flourish

of his

illustrious
voice is.

G.I. TRACTATES

I.

For starters—its usually preferable

to be

on your knees 

only

to do

useful things—

scrubbing tile 

floors, 

working-

out a little more 

vector math, 

etc.

II. 

The second 

you begin to notice 

any kind 

of distress, remember—

pretty much,
every single

thing you can
think of—would also

work equally 

well—in reverse.

III.

In the
end—it's never

the distemper

that does

you in.
You won't succumb

to an illness,
after all

this—but to
the enormous absolute

value—
of god-

damn
convalescence.

WORK OUT

Inside a large brown 

and beige 

dream I was 

having, I wept

and prayed, 

and wept and

prayed, and kept 

weeping and 

praying, in these 

neverending

circuits, like

crazy—until,

at long 

last, this plaster 

cast (which I always 

kept close—it was

all

I had 

left) 

of her 

face broke—

into that ravishing 

secret 

emblem of light- 

smile—which

only I 

would be able to recognize 

from past 

experience, as 

being composed

of half-

pity 

and half-

a rejoinder 

of relaxed, unbiased 

laughter—dispatching exactly 

what I needed, 

and exactly 

when I 

needed it: a miracle (yes, 

but one 

which I'd 

still think was hard-

won)—and a simple,

rigid, formal instruction:

to quit—

weeping so 

much and stop 

praying so often—

and, for god's 

sake, to wake- 

up and just 

kiss her—somewhere below 

the neck, already.

COMMENSURATE WITH EXPERIENCE

Tempted back into the same

old caves again

by that faintly warm 

glow of inquiry,

we remain terrified—
at the prospect

of what we might find

when what
we see, we see only

by our
own light—afraid 

of what
we might discover,

if we were
to dare unleash the power

of that awareness 

which is somehow 

aware of itself;

until—inevitably

our hands, trembling 

like pale fire 

and useless

to resist any longer, 

leap and flutter—

fan-out and
dance to their
inexorable work,

to chisel and wield-

away, making bright
pictures and tall 

words blaze, all

across and up 

and down the dank
walls—until, 

sweaty and furious 

and completely 

out of room, we stop 

because we must.

And we stand,

and we look. 

And boldly, 

we notice—the truth

gleaming back 

at us, not

in the unfinished 

fables our hands constructed,

but entirely in the doing. 

And, having done

all we could, we can
at last, feel good enough—about leaving.

HALL PASS

Oh! the intoxicating
freedom you
still find—in the

forever sound—
of hard sole
shoes knocking

hugely down
a long cool
linoleum womb.

2ND CHAKRA

Is nothing sacred?—spurted
the quickest

blip of a thought,
as my

trusty right hand
thrust—the long dangly black

tail
of an offbrand mouse,
head-

long,
and madcap—

into my
white plastic chrome-

book's
last open usb slot—for the inane twofold
purpose

of—scouring
up and
down to the

discrete
titillating ticks

of a slinky little jogwheel—and of course,
of right-

clicking—
without any need

for ctrl.

ORIGINAL

In the
beginning, relatively

innocuous
extraneous

stuff—harsh
black

coffee and rocky
sweet peanut

butter—collide
and glob

together, stopping-
up the cold

enormously
alone

space in the vast
turbulent

pit of your stomach.
Thus

coalesced,
some

other parts
of the same system—start

to receive
signals, become

galvanized,
and before

long, your fertile mind
is humming,

and it
turns,

like the earth:
bright—

but not

with its own light.

MONA LISA SMILE

Oh how

my throat—

and my 

heart! about

switched places;

the morning 

you left 

early for work, and I 

woke up 

later and—still

in effete 

reverie, gazing backward into 

the silent 

arid white

moonsurface

of my 

mind—

found I could 

still picture

your face 

alright, but I 

couldn't

will its 

incomprehensible lips 

to move any 

longer;

no matter

how tight 

my own 

would 

grimace, 

or my profitless 

eyes 

would pucker. 

So this—

was it 

then—hell 

frozen over. 

The nightmare 

scenario. The stark 

ineffectual

spot—where all the poems

stop.

TIME'S A WASTIN

It's like how—wild secret fortunes
of crystalline
ice money

resplendent and clinging—

like fuckall
to the under-
side of your Chevy,

are, at best—the grotesque
province of a few
slender

robins—and of those brasher
avenue rats.

COLD COLORS

There at the very last

light's fading blue-

violet trickle—every single 

stem of shadow in the 

street seemed 

to thicken, 

to grip hard

and deepen—and at once, 

he noticed—

color
giving way to plain 

and undiluted 

form,
and then suddenly, 

nature became bewildering—

consisting, to 

him, of everything 

he could no longer 

write about;

because it all looked 

indefensible—

without any cunning,

or artifice, 

or tricks—and if

it still told any 

stories, it told them
now only 

as a tree 

tells its leaves:

as plain
and authentic means, 

and never

as ends. 

Although—he protested 

alone 

to the creeping dark—

had not Art?

become just such 

an instinct for him too?

But blind 

and indiscriminately—as those

shadows' slow 

and sure dominion

of the pavement, 

he already 

knew—that wherever they grew,

those instincts 

of his

were all quite intricate; 

earthy, perhaps, 

but definitely

rooted—in study.