Poetry

The Most Convenient Definitions

“Battling your demons,”
they call it.
Fighting the monsters.
Taming the beast.
Or, perhaps,
rebuking the Devil.

You must cleanse yourself.
You must take this pill.
You must do yoga.
You must read this book.

You must.

I suppose I can’t lie;
shedding the past is good.

However…

do you remember?
Think back.

Before you were told what to fear.
Before you were told what to hate.
Before you were told what was wrong with you.
Before you were told who to be.

I’ll tell you true,
cross my heart, hope to die-

’cause I seem to recall a boy,

whose demons brought him food,
whose monsters came out from under the bed 
and gathered ’round for story time,
whose beasts ran with him
past the high school lockers,
and who walked the prairies and woods
with Lucifer and Jesus both;

we shared Canadian whiskey,
Dominican cigars,

and harmed not ourselves 
nor any soul,

traipsing the beat
in the heart of creation.

Worthy

​And so I gaze
into the caverns of the night.

I open to the eons
and the windward side.

I praise the Sun,
and run with the storms.

I leap and fly
above the harriers of this age.

I smash my bottles on the brick walls, 
taking note of what escapes.

I kiss deeply and longingly,
and make an offering
at the shrine of the heart.

And I clean my kill,
giving thanks
in front of the fire.

And I am wounded before the altar,
and am drinking deep the blood.

And I unfurl my banners also,
laughing in triumph 
at the marching armies.

But most of all,
I embrace you, and say goodbye,
until again we meet,

and hope we may both find
the table set for us 
in the clearing next time.

The Sun and the Shores of Time

Sitting on the shores of time,
after I’d awakened to the sounds 
of migrations, erosions, tides;
the songs of eons, the pulsing of life,

the voice of the deep-heart
did cull my chaff from my wheat;

and there by the waves
I knelt down and wept,

for I had to throw my mask into the sea,
my only worldly possession,
my inheritance;
and it was fine and well-crafted,
and precious to me;

still I threw it, 
and watched the water devour it.

There were waves of liquid,
and of the temporal,
and there were tears
as the ocean inside me came out
to meet its mother;
even then I went mad.

But after the noontide of this age,
I felt the hand of the Sun
cradle my face,
and I lifted my head,

and the Sun asked:
“My child, why do you weep so?”

And I said:
“I’ve thrown away my mask. I had to.”

“Ahhh, I see,” said the Sun, 
“this must have been quite the mask.”

“There is no other like it,” I explained.

“Then let me tell you why I’m happy,”
said the Sun, 
“for every day, 
for more cycles
than even you can comprehend, 
I reflected off the ocean 
and shone on the shores 
and raised great forests 
from the reactions of my heart. 

Yet only now can I see your face,
and I have missed you greatly.”

And there by the waves,
I laid down and slept.

Sojourners

“What’s it look like to you?”

“A calendar.”

He nodded. That one left.

Another came along.

“What’s it look like to you?”

“A vacation.”

Again, he nodded. 
That one left as well, after awhile.

Time passed.

“So what’s it look like to you?”

“Peace.”

He narrowed his eyes.
“What does it sound like?”

She closed hers.
“The wind says ‘go west, young man’.”

He laughed.
“What does it smell like?”

Inhale.
“Dirt and stone after the storm.”

He nodded.
“Now… what does it feel like?”

She glanced over.
“Perhaps a hawk on the wing. 
Or a horse, chasing the sunset. 
The good kind of pain, 
after a hard day in the sun.”

He tipped his hat back.
“What brings you out this far?”

“Got tired of dying.”

He opened the cooler in the truckbed,
let the tailgate down,
took out sandwiches and beer.

“Here. I was saving these.”

They divvied it up, 
and with feet swinging, 
breathed in deep over the valley
as the dogs chased rabbits through the pasture.

It’s like

listening to cicadas at night,

a child
reading by flashlight under the covers,

a dog,
resting its head on your lap,

the first touch
after time, distance, pain,

the moment between lightning’s flash
and thunder’s crack,

the spaces in between,

the difference between the sound
of a spring rain seeping
and the scent
of a yearning earth,

the hopeless and hated assignment
handed back with an A,

the sound of a wine cork
leaving the bottleneck,

the smell of coffee,
the creak of hardwood,

your feet in a summer creek,

the body
pressed close
on the dance floor,

the tuning of a guitar
before the opening chord,

chalk on the sidewalk;

and now that i think about it,
loving you is very, very much like
a barn, with a hayloft
and a rope-swing.

Gold Rush

Haven’t you been told?
California’s full of-


He left, and rode into the west

at an even pace,

carrying the sunlight and the kitchen table 

and the bed and the front porch with him, 


and passed out of memory 

into the mountains and beyond the plains,

where shadows are long

and nothing is named.


His horse joined the mustangs 

on the desert’s edge,

reaving dirt from the earth 

in front of every thunderstorm;


at the end he remembered 

burying his face into her hair;

under the light-years

it was enough to be real.

Offering

Is that your wish, then?
To break bread, as they say,
in the clearing
at the end of the path?

You wanted the words of Christ
in red,
and they were written in blood
across these lands.

So if two or three are gathered
in your name,
who is there
in their midst?

No matter.
Sins of the father
need not pass on,

and grace is still sufficient.

As I’ve seen two or three
broken by a word
or by deceit or by things unsaid,
I’d yet give some years of my life
to have them all here;
aye, to have you all here…

You’d be surprised how much you forget,
how it all falls away like rain
off a barn roof,

if you’d stop to find yourselves
again, close as you can,
in your mother’s kitchen,
in the field with your dog,

or sharing a basket
in sunfall
under the cottonwood.

So then,
will ya not wait for me,
and I for you?

Waves

Lapping in compound water-breaths
against your feet,
a cycle of liquid moving
in reciprocal song on skin

with sand that susurrates
against a tidal rhythm
of seconds, minutes, hours, days, years…

I see you, sitting there.
So what, then, do you feel?

Do you feel
the pulse of creation?
Do you hear
the voices of lovers past?
Do you drink deep
the roil of the turning stars?
Do you sing
the coming of the fresh and crying dawn?

These things are not for me to know,
for I see nothing and everything all at once.

All I know is
when I stumbled upon this beach,
and wound my way around the wreckage,
I found a path made of your footprints.

Invigor 13:83

​Passion is a discontinued brand. 

Yes?
Can you give me some agreement on a Saturday night?
Can I get an AMEN from the front row,
and possibly a HALLELUJAH from the back? 

Say you all so? 

Now goddamn stand and speak, the lot of you. 

Stand, and be counted, and hold thyself not a hypocrite,
for you wander not in the land of Sodom or Gomorrah;
you are made of flame and pulse and must break yourself
on the rocks of the liquid shore. 

Cry foul,
cry pardon,
cut loose,
cut low; 

let slip the dog days of summer
out the still winter of thine own blood,
for you are always treading the plains of milk and honey;
and I have seen the future ripe, and full, 

and for what you want, 

I say surely you shall not perish,
but rise,
rise in shaking ecstasy at the light of dawn. 

Now goddamn stand and speak. 

Midnight Exigent

Now on the keys of this machine
you rest your hand,
the blinking space of the first code-line
mocking your furrowed brow.
Children run past, brushing your knee.

Laughter.

The scent of rain and smoke invades,
and is lost.

A flash of hair wreathed in sunset,
a pickup truck,
a dog licks your palm.

You are in love.
You are alone.
You are watching your mother open her presents.
You are leaving on the 9:40 flight.

(Was it on a beach? Or a dirt road?
The waves… were they water? Or wheat?
Was it my father’s voice, or my daughter’s hand?
I can’t seem to– wait! Her kiss! Was it?
What did I want to… be? Who?)

You are leaving on the 9:40 flight,
under the weight of such a wild and particular gift
from the universe.

And a clock is such a heavy thing
compared to lovers
in a dance entwined…
or to the boy.

Was there a boy? You’re almost sure of it-
in a bike helmet and a bedsheet cape,
thrusting a wooden sword,
crying in defiance welcome
against the spilled-out midnight sky,

Now drain your whiskey,
and admire the slow burn in your belly
as you say “Yep, coulda been…”,
only to hear the other old men fire back
“Aw,  bullshit!”;
because you know,
somewhere,
they’re pulling at the same strings–

as beside the same still waters,
thy cup runneth over.