Passage Grave

My passage grave

is made

in this long dawn

Some four thousand

years hence

he will be along

To sift my bones

and my meager

possessions

And measure my skull

and write a

four-thousand word essay

I'm becoming quiet

I’m becoming quiet

consuming less

I’m trying to trade

the schemes

for pleasantness

I’ve grown acclimed

to finding

in a line

more meaning

than lies

before my eyes

I’m believing

that my peace

is worth more to me

than recognition

of my worth

in other's eyes

What would she do?

At night

I did

go to sleep

and wish

my love

sweet dreams

At night

I did go

to bed

and give

to my love

one last kiss

The Operation

There’s no choice

but operation

it's said as casual

as some might

say,

There’s no choice

but walking

the rest

of the way.

There’s no assurance

or reassurance

but statistics

are on my side.

Any questions

I may have

will all be answered

in due time.

But only one

that I have

is never answered

why?

1/24/02

All you can ever be

You live with her

but you’re not at home

a guest in a house

The source of her

disappointment’s unknown

nameless and unknowable

A previous marriage

that was no home

ended badly

But for a few days

She plants flowers

she looks angry

the child is at play

I wonder why

the scowling face?

after so many days

have passed away

Is she happy?

she works at it

the child is a jabber-box

She commands

he, the child, pretends

and then

goes his busy way

You're always here

(For Mary)

That was your car

they took away

I wonder where

I did believe

there was something

of you

still there

I don’t know

the whole story

I wasn’t privy

And details

aren’t important

when there’s love

for somebody

Can you will the wind

The house

the night

and you

awake

The will

to fight

the wind

that shakes

But can

you will

the wind

abate?

Because we choose

How do we choose to die?

I mean,

for some the choice is made,

but others choose.

Contrary to some

you are not a dying machine.

Every corpuscle of your being

strives to live

And knows no other way

yet you die

and some choose.

And if a body is dying

you have no choice

But no corpus of the body

not one cell

attends to this

cessation of living.

Random Decay

Tick

there’s a falling away

Tick

there’s an ending day

Tick

there’s a word to say

whose time has passed

Tick

there’s a looseness inside

Tick

there’s a pain alive

Tick

where soundness before

you could ignore

Tick

there’s a place familiar

Tick

where many an hour would deliver

Tick

a fullness to life

that no longer survives

Once a road

Once a road

is changed

by forces

wielded by man

It becomes a path

that no one

at last

can walk down

Once a field

is lost

to the clean scrape

of heavy machinery

It’s like a dream

once dreamed

then nothing

revealed

My love for her

I apologize

but am not forgiven

If I were perfect

how would I

make a living

of apologizing

every day

I’m given?

She forgets

but is not forgotten

If I were memorable

how could she

have forgotten

my love

Once her only begotten

that now she

remembers only

as never really being loved?

Stop my heart

There are things

left unsaid

There are years

left unlived.

There are days

waiting

for

something.

There are looks

left un-exchanged

There are touches

left, that still remain.

If I were a poem

If I were snow

I’d leave before

my welcome

I out stayed

If I were night rain

I’d dry before

the coming

day

Canthus

I have often wondered

at the convergence of two paths

and the angle

between

As you seemed to be

in one way extreme

and I the other way

was cast

And yet as canthi

naturally form at last

to guide the vision

of lover

to loved

Picasso by the door

Picasso by the door

would say

You two, with circators’ souls

working as day labourers,

not allowed.

Love Does

You ask me what

I want

from you,

I want nothing

love wants.

You ask me why

I long

for you,

I don’t

love longs.

You ask me why

my attraction

to you,

I know not

love knows.

You ask me why

I wait

for you,

I don’t

love does.

Painting

In the day when I paint

I slip a brush in my pocket

And carry the easel

to a side street

And there from tubes of blues

I make costly mistakes

of more than hue

when we last did meet.

Love's impress

Quit my tears

you waste this page

If love were a

dozen roses then

I would be loved.

If love were a

remembered occasion

or kind word

when needed

then I

would be loved.

If I found love

in a catalog

and sent it to you

Would you exchange

it for something

less true?

For love is a captive

If love were a captive 

and came to you in chains

And gave to you the key 

would love with you remain? 

Would love with you remain 

with rattle and scrape of chains 

As if across some dungeon-ed floor 

toiled love forevermore? 

And would love forevermore 

be locked behind some pinnacled door

Be manacled by some rusting chain 

just so, with you, could love remain? 

If I were love 

and you held the key 

Would you choose for me chains 

or choose to set me free?

And if you choose 

to set me free 

Would I be love…? 

For love is a captive 

given as a spoil 

And even with key in reach 

Love of itself will choose to toil. 

Love, forever, is inhuman

Love, forever, is inhuman

for tragic tear

dries away

for sorrow slips

and fear fades

even hope

fails the grave.

In creation find beauty

new meaning

is given a new beginning

to procreations sin.

Yet what child cowers in the womb?

love, forever, inhuman

without meaning, stillborn.

Real Company

I sit and wait

the darkness outside

and the long row of

ceiling lights

casting the mirror

from a plain panel

of glass

Til darkness

beyond this world

creates

an ever ending hall

and nether world casts

its dimming rays

up and down this cavern long

And swelling expectation

fears and even hope

keep me gazing

in quest of an end

and maybe a friend

beyond the window

three stories up

Sails may fill

I am the spirit of

Fuller, Whitman and Ives

I ply the creative craft of this land

and have no home.

My fellow man, my accuser,

to him I seek to give

All my life an endless pouring

of my soul and my health.

Accused not of greatness

but of difference

they want to make a commune

of my novel self.

The curve of love, the tragic curve

‘… the fundamental curve of love, I suppose.  It is the curve of all human powers (disregarding the plateau of learning, the checks upon decline) and it seems to be the curve of sexual excitement and discharge, which is after all the physical core of life.  What is this curve?  It is the fundamental path of any projectile…

                                                        

                                                                                                                    Norman Mailer

At birth I was hurled

outward

against my will.

As if the continuum

of a tragic curve.

Girded with motion

I pursued

the straight and narrow

till death demanded

my geometry rounded.

The tetrahedral

 No personal attest-ment

escapes me,

for further I seek

always afar.

The two-ness of universe

prepares me,

radiation-ally angular

vertex forming stars.

All lines seeking

in spirals,

not conditioning, partitioning

the truth.

All rivers here on earth

flowing like tensors,

to the greater oneness

of two.

Common Sense

Man is centrifugal
he seeks outward
he searches about-ward
never knowing inward
is the beginning of direction.

Universe is centripetal
always whirling inward
center-seeking free-ward
never knowing outward
is the conscious choice.

I think herein lies a complement
of forces:
             <-<-<-   ->->->
              in                 out