Insulation

Early light pools on the black tile floor as if

Fallen from the monitor sky while he checks his mail,

Brushing his teeth automatically, a buzz against his gums,

Reading magazine poems about children born or bundled

In snows of cities or Scandinavia, the shaver once more

Doubled by exhaust fan blades an octave above

And perhaps the phone rings under orchestral effects

Thundering from kiosk speakers.

Leaving the house in a pointless April snow

He grazed the honeysuckle buds, but the rime held undisturbed,

And didn’t he check behind him for traces of his passing.

Car doors locked guardedly, dashboard commands to belt obeyed,

Interior air recycled, stations scanned to yield a forecast history,

And then the work of separating all those strands of desire,

Curricula and rage, like an old porcelain fixture

Holding hot and neutral at bay.

Certainly not the cruelest month, by afternoon all snow trace

Gone and windows open driving home through onion fields,

He breathed again on his own and his hands planned gardens.

The long wait over, time to slough darker skeins from his soul,

And surrender blessedly to illusions of perpetual resurrection,

Welcoming the uncovered leaves to be raked, branches lopped,

Beds made, the simple open chores of husbandry

Danced to the mind’s pure music.

Occasional effusions,

observations, polemics, etc.

Aeroplane Assembly Lines

(For Gabe)

My last dogfight

spun on a sky grey Formica

kitchen table, my son,

chin on my shoulder, navigating.

Swearing, we followed the ace’s lead:

“Get on the enemy’s tail and stick

like glue.” But this model Fokker

instructed by High Command…

Screamed the headlines beneath us:

…to confound the enemy at will…

FUSILAGE REFUSES MUCILAGE!

…slipped away, a clockwork cloud…

STABILIZERS NOW DESTABILIZED!

…and had us.

Momentarily.

“Hang on, Boyo, we’re going in!”

on a wing (the one he’d sat on) and

a prayer (to both gods Testor and Duco).

We rigged this Albatross as did

those first gladiators of the air, fighting

hand to hand, pushing away with sticks,

just ten years out from Kitty Hawk.

With guns that shot off—not through—the props,

with canvas hulls that stones sank,

we built a beached Whalfisch and

painted, all with infinite pains,

on its bleached belly, a dead eight.

Then window-launched it to oblivion.

James Joyce Book Club

Well me ladle I here tel

Sum guise cree ate booksom clubs

Ververy TomDickensHarried cat

Knoses in the shelfsame toem

Meat at howses drincoln bier

And shit around and shite and shat

Wye donut we fallow like

And rede lil joys togather

A chapterse at a thyme meighbee

(Lecher dozes all diejest)

Sum randumb noughts weed email

A litter airy sirgull we

Constellations

(For Erica)

I’ll walk a way

through your star-tangled deep

to the stand of the fish-bone tees.

Where land’s but a ledge,

and our path is denied

by the granite ground that we tread.

Far from the portals of purpose

and hearths of those now hardened against you

I’ll show you the strands of tomorrow:

the Sisters, the Twins and the Heroes.

For this night then you’ll be safe

from the Wolves unleashed in your sleep,

the Serpents seen coiled within,

And the unhooded Hawk on your heart.

parked beside the anorexic clinic

while you swaddle your student in solace

(through the window later I saw you both

a wisp in blue hands nested in yours)

reading fiction till even twilight failed

I doze arm out the window grazed

incredibly by rough fine flank: a doe

bounding toward a waiting wary hart

together nibbling shadows to surfeit

Apologia:

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Pretender

And later, when I tried my hand, I blanched:

With stubby brushes, slightest oils, as though

I'd have patina first, before the forms,

Despite his showing me how violent art

Must be. A duelist when his knifed colors bled

On canvas after canvas, he'd reclaim

That Europe fascists stole from him--

The domes and spires restored, his promenades

And bridges, meadows too, and mountain larch.

Particulars of former passion: say,

In avocado shade bougainvillea

Embraces yellow fretwork tables set

With bold Aegean plates, lilac linens.

I had no mis en scene like this to lose,

No gnawing hunger to be whole again,

And drawn to copy only what I saw

Before me, could not draw on images

Enriched by anger, love, and dispossession.

Personal Info

The next day

after returning to the rest

home where Mom and her sister

lived out their last days

before the infections and the strokes

took all their notions of night and day

in the cruel undoing of the first Work

that precedes death—

there to see a friend through

the same awful inevitable trial

of maternal care—

across the broker’s table

witnessing my wife’s mom sign

again and again to keep shelter

under her own roof

oh I provided contact info all right

blurting out my mother’s telephone

and she gone these half dozen years

Rebourn

In the sun-glint auburn robin wing

And the dark hulk of the shrugging crow

Lies Spring’s quickening indifference.

Corrective

whenever the shears

are sharp say

the oldtimers prune

ripe exuberance

demands it

as do diseases

clip judiciously

for fire blight

or the scab in spring

Sidewalk Artist

(For Erica)

Daughter iconographer

you are welcome

to my wet cement.

Those horses reared

at passers-by, the

flailing strings of rags and foil,

discouraging dogs

and sparrows are not for you.

Your hand prints starfish

you trace the paths

of unicorns

and try to cipher laughter.

Song for "The Last Unicorn"

When I was alive I thought as you do,

That time was as real and solid and true

As me, and maybe, more so.

I said one o’clock as though it were green,

And Monday as though on map to be seen,

And minute to minute as though I had been

Moving, place to place.

Like everyone else I lived in a shed,

Bricked up with minutes and seconds that sped,

And I never go out till I was dead,

For there was no door.

But now I know better, but now it’s too late.

With all of my worry I had no need to wait.

I could have walked through walls.

I could have walked through walls.

Faux Ballade

I know shite from shinola

I know ripe melon by its sound, good wine from bad

I know which fork to use, which tie to wear

I know which way the wind blows, how deep’s the sea

I know who turned out the lights, where Moses went

I don’t know how to deal with darkness

I know the girl who lives down the lane, the horse she rode in on

I know what makes Sammy run, where birds go in winter

I know How Long is a Chinaman, how deep is this wound

I know who’s in charge, who’s picking up the tab

I know how to excuse myself, make excuses for myself

I don’t know how to deal with darkness

Dearest, I know how to speak to my mother as a child

I know how to talk to my children grown

I don’t know how to deal with darkness

Thursday

Whoever left

Those sunflowers

To winter

Like rusty showerheads

Left them running

And they misted

The whole meadow

This morning

Good Deal

The shop steward in his wheelchair

scared sixteen years right out of me

on the Good Deal Market loading dock:

“Watch you don’t wind up like me.”

Details of his lesson—incline

of the trailer, load shifts, flimsy

bottom boxes/heft cased aloft,

those idiots at the warehouse—

could not compete with his chromed stasis.

I stood transfixed, assessing

great risk for small profit, even

less with union dues deducted.

I scrupled as I later would when drafted

but duty prevailed—and shame and

chariot thoughts of the eight year old

Pontiac I was saving for.

Unproprietary

Everyone says Nam today

as they might down or son.

Even those who hadn’t started life

by the time we quit there

contract a decade of terror

hubris and dishonor in one sound

and with a passing interest ask

Did you guys do a lot of weed? and

Did The Doors really write the soundtrack?

Ill Treatment

Doctor the ledger

Nurse a grudge

Cure the mortar

Bind the drudge

Who Owns What?

I would just like to know

I’ll give you for example

The student from Harvard Business School

Who laments

The disappearance of his favorite soda

RC

With its just right flavor of cola nut

So few remain that the coupon offer

One dollar off on your next two bottles

Mocks his quest

So he looked it up

Found Schwepps

Bought Snapple

Got RC as a gimme

And just didn’t pay much notice

On Your First Father's Day, Son

I sent you something recently

(Hardly marks this day decently),

But echoes some fond times we shared

And projects the same re-paired.

I don't know if we watched them all

(There's much these days I don't recall)

But chances are we probably did

Back when you were just a kid,

Sofa-hunkered late at night

Two guys watching black and white

Tales of love and less from round the world--

A love of film again unfurled.

And so I think of Silas one day

Nestled in your lap as these play,

And you can help him see what's there

And help him make his own tales fair.