A Willingness To Be Shaken

is required of adventurers, lest their minds
be lost: caught riveted betwixt channels,

transfixed by the waxy, clattering progress
of the blade, its dark rubric limning

just the soundless edge.

And each of us in it up to our elbows and knees;
shame hot against our faces, we grasp at

the somehow still warm tatters of a self
no one could want, least of all

anyone of this crew, which
I can tell has standards.

I’m walking away from that cheap suit
like class always does,

with ceremony.

I Rode With Mosby

before it was fashionable,

stealing and burning; raising

General Hell from the stupor

he falls into if we let him. I left

a woman in Birmingham and

three dogs in Mobile; we’ll see

what shakes out in Memphis.

At Graceland, I hear, there’s

a butler answers the door

in his sweet time, in a dialect

native to Macedonia. It causes

a row among the boys, who

are hopeless with languages and

just want to go home, but won’t

without severance or a health plan

that includes dialysis. I’m

not even going to tell you that

the pool is kidney-shaped.

I can tell you this much:

in the swamp before a raid,

you couldn’t settle your mount;

they’d be twitching and snorting,

blowing the pitch of our high

out their muzzles in twin plumes

of steam, each a whistle marking

midnight, and every man horsed,

irreplaceable, and all too excitable.

one day at a time, we’d go;

time to roll out and get some,

then, before dawn

we'd get more.

I Just Don’t Think Like A Portable Unit

all my ergs are potential; my legs are grown over with vine,
my scruff of beard is shot through with a dull and agitated
gray, and, theoretically, I think sex is too much trouble. Once

you’ve been one with another, burdocked, the two of you twinned
for all time, mated for lust, branded, burned down, thrown back, and
thrown over for love, eternal, people start having expectations.

Felicitous Results May Be Obtained

by compression of the occipital at the
Vandenberg Gate while excavating the
desiccated plug from the neck of the

venal medulla with a 150 cc.
chambered lancet; mop with
graduated hygrometer and sea

sponge, and try to forget.

Death-Screws Through My Baby

and my head doesn’t feel so good. It might
be time for a soothing neural bath. Coffee to boost,
perhaps a quick hit of extreme power yoga.

7:07, it’s starting to get light in furthurance (sic!)
of my nefarious (via shiftless) aim to ease
my passage through today.

Everything

me included, is exhibiting the self-same symptoms:

viral patterns of exponentiation from a central-most
interior seed lit by the fire of the stars; all the while,
we, it, they, them, shine with a light from within

to match the brilliance of the morning.

The Last Will And Testament

of Pancho Villa was recently unearthed
beneath a bus station. Apparently,
it confirmed the outlaw was flush.
He left misbegotten gains to his
first wife, Maria, and their son, Paulo,
to his mistress, Esmee, his chauffeur, Raoul,
and as well to his poet biographer.
I live on the spoils.

His Way

I’m writing my autobiography, you might
not be surprised to hear; however, the truth is
this comes as a surprise. This woman I know,
she’s fifteen or twenty years younger than me,
and we became friends because I was friends
with her father, who was probably thirty years older
than me. He was a prince of a man. Which wasn’t what
he saw in me, unless he was overlooking an awful lot,
which was his way. When I read of his passing,
I also read that she was his daughter. So, I approached
her to tell her how much he had meant to me, and why.
Then we became friends. It’s been maybe five years
since. She recently approached me and asked if I would
write up the things we had spoken of between us
about her dad, as something she could share with
her family. Well, being sort of long-winded in general,
I told the story of the sometimes fierce resistance
we hippies faced invading this fair valley, the point being
the way her dad treated everybody like they were somebody
that deserved to be treated with joy and kindness. Also,
I had to tell of our survival problems of food and heat,
which her dad had a hand in helping us solve for a few
critical years in the beginning. For a while there,
I saw him several times a week. At both of his jobs.
But after I’d poured out six pages or so from these twin
perspectives, I realized that neither of those interfacings
was why I was grateful to him, although, it was clear,
I'd tapped into the sure beginnings of autobiography.
I could see right through the long trail of years still
stacked before me, their unruly crew of mixed destinies
dark to me, but eager to get off, willing their cues
from the not quite interrupted dark of those freezing
mornings, as we gassed up the green truck, stamping our feet,
and smiling back and forth, beside a man only destined to
change the futures of every one of us who knew him,
and loved him.

It’s That Time Again

I’ve returned from the forests of death,
I’ve come through this wood before.

Nice how no one noticed I was gone.

Apparently, you can put the truth
right under people’s noses,

but I guess Dorothy Parker was right:
you aren’t going to make them think

Willin’

Lowell George and Steve Earle and me.
We are, is what I want to say, willing to
undertake any task, persevere through any
adversity, and suffer any losses in order
to complete our mission.

Aimee

A deep breath. I got away from
the Beekeepers. I think for good
this time. Someday, I’ll go back.
But for now, I’ll just say, damn,
that’s some powerful shit.

I’m Good With Accounting

We settled, and since, things have been better.
I never was one for denying me or mine, or
keeping up after. I blame that imbalance on

growing up in a military family. To get money
I had to steal it from Mom. Although, they did give me
a clothing allowance that would have draped a lord.

I had sixty shirts, which is when she taught me to iron.

Here We Go

I’m letting out all the stops in a commemorative poem celebrating
the birthday of Bill Knott, which I don’t know when that is, but this

poem is for him, and also Paul Muldoon, Jack Gilbert, and C.K. Williams,
not to mention Mark Strand, Bill Olson, Mary Ruefle, and Galway Kinnell.

But for Knott, the one poet I should single out for praise and
bestowed affection, above all others, BK included, is Norman Dubie.

He’s my all.

Meant To Be

Well, some things are, I guess. It’s looking
pretty predictable so far. The world is headed
to hell, and I won’t be there to see it, unless it

comes soon. Not that I’m looking forward
to the sun zooming in, or anything; it’s just that
I so love bad weather, I hate to miss it.

Meant to be decapitated by a flying sheet of
plywood in a hurricane or twister, for instance;
or simply drowned ignobly in a rise of sea; however

it’s intended.

Having Downed Both

the ups and the downs for the day,
I’m freelancing for two more days.

I’ll entirely disappear then for two weeks,
then emerge in a new skin, with re-weathered

mind and exhausted, hard-tested, inextinguishable
spirit. I’ll catch the standard just as it dips;

then won’t we take the field again
in all our mighty numbers.

Like I Said

for whatever reason, I have no trouble exceeding myself.
So, what’s the brass ring? Where’s the beef? Where
has it gone?

Rest Your Weary Eyes

what the horizon holds at bay is too large
for the rating of your presently assigned
contemplative vessel. Application to the

Chief of Sensing Units will cause the active
status of your projection to be temporarily
withdrawn from any environment it populates.

A tag “No image Available” will hold your places
until a notice of successful adjudication is obtained,
and is submitted to any channels specified. If permitted

a return to active status at the applied for rating, one
will document, for a period of six months consecutive,
observation levels exceeding eighty percent in

eighty percent of projections.

You Look Like Someone Else

I mistook you for a friend,
and lover. Someone who could

be depended upon to never leave me.

I’ve decided to make the above
into a form, for ease of reuse.

Some blank lines below can
sentimentally enumerate

on a case-by-case basis
the best times we ever had.

Along About Evening

we took a walk partway around the lake.
The sun’s wake echoed its smudge of pink

across every scale of a mackerel sky. I proposed
a room. You suggested we lie under the trees.

I’m Overcome

at last; what I live for.
Lay me down in potter’s field

or toss me clean away.
Either way I’ll be gone.

One To Another

our column stretched from Ford’s Crossing
to Falls Church. We all wanted the killing stopped.

But then the police came among us, infiltrating our mass
with their distinct blue lines, poisoning our spirit as

surely as if they were the veins of our delicate leaf,
and we gorged in acid rain.

The Sum Of My Skills

might mount to near acceptable levels, if allowed.
I keep things in check so I won’t get carried away,
which is something that does happen.

But when they are carrying me away, when the song stops
and they lay me in place, I’ll be humming the opening chords
of Freedom. They’ll close the freeway.

Other Music

is just too weird, too frenetic.
I was only away an hour or so,

but when I came back I could tell
she knew. They both did. The guitar
player, too. He looked away.

Guys, I was checking out some other stuff,
for my mental health. I mean, this is
eight days straight . . .

But things with those other things didn’t work out so well, and . . .

Look, I was wrong, but I’m back now,
and everything is fine, right? Let’s
get back to it.

A Dissertation On The Use Of The Colon

Things to the right are resident members of
things to the left. Elaboration flows, as we would expect,
from left to right. Now, interestingly, in the Orient,

everything’s reversed. Things to the left are
contained by things to the right. But, alas, they have
no colon to designate such implied parentage.

That sucks for them.

It Has Been Suggested

Oh, me. There ought to be much to say here.
Let’s see. You’ll eat your vegetables
or you’ll stay at the table all damned night.

And, Hit that bully, Richard. Hit him
in the face this time. Of course,
Don’t touch that thing and You can’t

speak to her that way, that woman
is my wife. Last, and this was
good advice, targeted to me, but, alas,

like the others, never followed, Don’t
wear your heart on your sleeve.

My Life

should be seen, if inspected, as a series of
mounting conflagrations, each ending in

the loss of a girlfriend and the gaining of
some new piece of sore wisdom.

At these junctures, I feel like my mind
has been wiped of evil, which due to

the spanking has entirely fled. Sometimes
he spends years sneaking his way back in.

Moving

I’ve got the knack. We moved nine times by
my senior year in high school. I’ve moved

thirty-four times since then. I’ve left all my stuff
in other parts of the country, and started over,

at least three times; and once had it all burned
to the ground. I’ve lived in tents and cars and

shacks and condos. Houses, cabins, A-frames,
buses, lofts, and under the stairs. Attics,

basements, back rooms, closets, apartments,
jails, and frat houses. And everywhere,

dragging all this stuff.

Charging Motorcycles

and general mayhem were the rule at
The Hut. It packed a Friday night crowd of

miners, bikers, and cowboys into a five-room
shotgun shack pitched about a quarter mile west,

outside the city limits of Cody, Wyoming.
She was there. Why was I here?

Philosophy

is fun; metaphysics, too.
I while away the hours

speculating on what’s
burning right through my lap.

So We Walked Along

beside the water shimmering with the last red sun
anywhere. Hereforward, we are about to wink out.
As has been predicted: the end is near. It is suggested

that anyone wearing a prosthetic device, step
to the side of the line. An assistant there will
help you to remove it. Where we’re going

there won’t be any need.

The River Only Takes

Far from here, away over hillock and stream,
beyond the divide between worlds, I planted

a stake with your name on it. When I return,
when the moon pauses in its circuit, they will

turn and call for me. You’ll be with me then.

Trolling For Adverbs

I was out the other night, nosing around. These streets
could use a hard rain. Dignity’s rainbow has fled.

Of course, my calling has gone silent, too. Where is
the art? At least, when the rose curls and drops its hips,

the world is set aright.

Excalibur

I was called from my callow and wayward youth
to a position far beyond my idea of why I came.
I abdicated eventually. Let too-eager fools beware.

Just the chestplate, the helmet, and this sword,
limned with lead, set me back seven mules,
the hoe I was carrying, and the damsel I had with me.

Then, to boot, they set you to watch on the northland frontier
for shirtless, bearded men in the throes of kill-crazy frenzies.
It’s true. You can’t miss them.

The Truth Is

you can start anywhere; with anything.
I mean, it’s fine to have an acceptance

of death, but that doesn’t mean you
have to lie down. That there’s time enough
for that right enough cannot be disputed.

I therefore put it before you: Is man meant
for the stars or the ash heap? (trick question)

One Finds That

instead of being astride an age,
one is immersed in and defined

by it. I lived through these things.
I tell these tales, remembering

the stories full as much as
what they’re about. It’s been

the best of all times to be alive.
Glad I early accepted.

Writing Poetry

should probably not be thought of as
a matter of life and death.

That would be hyperbolic, would it not?
Thus, unpoetic, thereby, by definition.

Having Written Poetry, however, has been,
no joking, the sore death of many.

That It’s Not Difficult To Exceed My Former Achievements

could be seen in either of two ways. One, the obvious,
that I’m a consistent under-achiever and always have been,
and so on—or, two, that I’m so quick on my feet, that

I exceed myself as a matter of course, whatever the situation;
which I’ve seen ample evidence supporting both positions,
so I’ll just claim nolo contendre. Right? Is that how it goes?

You Never Know, Richard

when lightning will strike, my mother used to say,
which had me kinda anxious early on to make sure

it did; which it did, early and often. I don’t think I
peaked too soon. This being ordinary business is

really quite challenging. My hat’s off to all who
manage it. Being great when you were young is

kind of like being popular in high school,
not entirely coincidentally.

It Is In Fact Possible That The Best Poems Are Written

on Phenethylamines, but we’ll see about that. In the meantime,
who cares how good a poem is to anyone? My intimate relationship
with the author allows me to state as fact that his most keen interest

is in seeing himself thrive. In his eyes, that is. He stresses
again and again the importance of this satisfaction with one’s life;
as one is gifted to the extent of being able to carry it out, that is.

The Other Day

I saw this girl I used to go with. She looked
so good, I just wanted to be all over her. She
kept resisting, which was hard to understand;
no mistaking the current between us. What
was holding her back? Probably it was because
we were in the middle of the store parking lot
in broad daylight; but I just thought of that now.
At the time, I simply thrashed to this primal,
fated, foregone connection between us. Now,
you could say I’m just another male idiot,
and no argument there; but, that said, man,
she looked fine.

Bon Soir

the very last glow was gone like that; dark
came on us like a long and costly siege.

Now for half a run full around this small
fitful planet we’d be unguarded, blind,

and still. Was it time for The Milk of
Human Kindness or the Knife of Truth?

I couldn’t say in the dark whether
I held one finger or two. Ask at

The Dispensary of Just Rewards
for a full accounting, they said. When

you are scheduled for apportioning,
demand representation by stout counsel.

In their faces, like; that way, when
they come to harvest your head

it won’t surprise.

There’s A Rumor Going ‘Round

that my supernatural powers derive
from unnatural substances, that some
studied alchemy engineers ambrosia
and imbroglio alike; as if they weren’t
carved from my flesh.

I’m Carrying It, But It Ain’t Me

Just like I don’t claim to be God,
I don’t claim not to be. I’m kind of

caught here in-between; not knowing what’s what
but my life is on the line, at least. It seems

serious to have such exquisitely refined sensors
yet not really know what to make of their input.

Sub-Topical Transmissions

can be redundant, what with the
adrenaline of emergency already
coursing every other minute anyway.

But, at least then I can mull them over
in an appropriate state. Like this morning,
I took off work, gave up trying to counsel

my waywardly progeny, and
am finding reason after reason just
to stay put in my chair.

Busy people mystify me. I’m beginning
to think my urge to lie down is counter-
productive.

Is It Genetic

that my younger daughter’s head is full of rocks,
that only her super intelligence allows anything
to fight its way through the mass of stubbornity?

Her mom certainly thinks so. But, that’s good,
we must believe, that some of the ill effect of
the geologic assay reverts to me, who,

we must suppose, should have no wish
to stint for sake of slack, in supporting
his loved ones.

The Progress Of My Addiction

I didn’t enjoy hearing it around
other people as much today,
but here at home, I’m tying off.

Mortification Gulch

is not that far from here. A couple bends will
take you right there. While you’re around you
should probably take in Desperation Flats. I

knew a feller, he heard what was cracking
just outside town, he lit out of here like
Old Scratch was going for him door to door.

But I didn’t come here to tell you that. No,
you’ll grow accustomed to our unique geography.
It’s rather the local populace presents a problem.

Around here, a man takes up with a women,
they don’t give him a decade or two to figure
things out. Nothing less than exemplary, or

short of entirely energetic will do for output,
right from the first. This would have to be
a knowing commitment, naturally. You

couldn’t happen on what’s demanded by accident.
Guide books do exist, but they are a well-kept secret
among gentlemen of the road. I could perhaps make

inquiries. Cigar, sir?

My Copy of MS Word

is not genuine, says the popup.
Do I want to turn myself in now,
or “Remind me later?” I chose “b.”

I’m just that kind of guy. I’ve been trying
to put off paying the freight forever. I’m
not stopping now. But when it’s due,

I’m flat; sayonara. The world’s full
of chiselers. But I never worked at that
either. When something presents itself,

I just choose “b.”, do nothing.

In Deep Water

paging through my libraries, I accidently clicked open
a Wilco playlist, and just like that I was free of
my obsession. Yet, still, by the second track,

I was gone and back. I’m happy like this.
As long it fills my ears; let everything else
take care of itself. I never said I was anything special.

Not lately, anyway. Actually, I think it’s an earned
alchemical transformation. I’ve finally developed
a huge and longing habit for something

I can have as much as I want of.

Angels With Bad Guitar

I’m caught. I can’t conceive of any other song.
Four days now with this one. It’s all I ever want.
That said, I suppose it’s up to me to tear myself
free somehow. Which brings tears to even to
think of. I can’t stop.