Look at him,
paper-mache angel wings
stapled on an empty
toilet paper tube,
preacher of the gospel
of selective misanthropy,
mourned by shredding
secular holy books in
tiki-torch candlelight.

If you must remember him,
and pray, you needn't,
do so in truth,
as a simpleton's martyr,
no more, no more.

Under the flickering street light,
we wished each other a good night.
Words we may have wanted to say
could always wait another day.
There would always be enough time,
we were kids, alive, in our prime,
never thinking we would grow old,
or maybe we did, but never told.
Then one night, the corner was bare,
and then the next, still no one there.
An old man, musing on the past,
(when any day could be my last):
Tomorrows are not imminent,
but our yesterdays, infinite

Summer mornings, as I round out
the bend in the well-traversed road,
the new sun imposes itself
in the cloudy rearview mirror,
and, for a moment, I am blind,
the way ahead obscured by gnats
of light teasing my weary eyes
the yellow white of the desk lamp
I set atop the chest of drawers
and tilted at such an angle
that I glowed as I emoted
to a rapt crowd of stuffed creatures
enthralling tales penned in crayon
on snap fresh construction paper,
words I knew would only better
as I much too slowly matured
into my God-given talents,
for my life would not be wasted
swatting the blinding memories
every blasted summer morning
as I crawl across the bridge
to the work side of the river

When I was a child,
they buried chicken bones
in the backyard,
and when I dug them up,
they told me I had
discovered dinosaurs.

The spider web cracked mirror in my room
will never regain its clean, sheer surface,
but if I look from the proper angle,
or tilt my head to the side a tad bit,
I will see a face that once reflected
the promising light in my mother’s eye.

There’s a comfort in this melancholy,
an old blanket fraying at the edges,
pockmarked with holes, too thin to provide warmth,
but familiar, that coarseness over skin,
a retreat into something I know well
when battered by anxieties of hope,
something to pull over me when I fear
a mild air will caress my bare skin,
and I will be tempted to close my eyes
and taste the crispness of a ripe apple
picked from the orchard behind my old house
where I laughed with people who are long gone
and dreamt of days when I would turn the soil
after a calm rain refreshed the deep roots.

the bone dry days accumulate
at a slow and torturous rate,
yet on this night i find the way
to raise my empty glass and pray,
"Aye, so the clock does not restart,
bless this weary, still beating heart."

split me open
and you will see
a tiny seed
that once might have
sprouted and clung
to a trellis
bearing lush fruit
and casting shade
but now is just
a pitless stone
that has never
seen the garden

After we serve our nighttime tours,
we’ll break our fasts and strip the taps,
swallow the rivers, swim through doors,
dance the twelve step on basement floors
and dig our graves with bottle caps.

And when the moon drowns in the trees
and we’re down to a lonely dime,
we’ll make an altar of the breeze
and pledge our love to this disease,
a vow to one day at a time.

I step aside
to let you by
but then you say
I’d rather stay

walking blissfully unaware over
the ossuary and ashes of folk
who danced and loved by moonlight in this space
where we build our abodes and bless our hearths
break bread and lay in a peaceful slumber
beneath a night glistened by the cold glow
of heavens departed before their light
emblazed the passage we recklessly trod

a self forsaken son bleeds in his bed,
broken angels dangle from debarked trees,
paper-maiche sisters swallow pulped spleens,

fathers scream rosaries at the undead,
mothers carve their flesh with unanswered pleas,
Christ choking on a candied apple preens.

I push aside the cataclysmic gloom,
drink moonbeam light from the white river spume,
mock the snake bit reverend who forecasts doom,
and tap my shoes atop this nation’s tomb.

From my gilded terrace,
I shoo away
shirtless children
who pluck coins
from the fountain.
"They are wishes!"  I yell.
"They are fish!"  They yell back.

old friends laugh as I drown
in a dry river bed,
and when they offer hands,
I ask for rain instead,
and when it does not fall,
I crawl to the near shore,
**** on shards of dry grass,
and claw the earth for more

The Others will burn this place to the ground,
and only We can protect you.

We believed Our Party
when they said this,
so we chose them.

When smoke first appeared around
our home, we called on Our Party;
they told us to sit tight, they,
and only they, would help.

As the fire engulfed the first floor,
we again called on Our Party,
and when they appeared, they said,
the place is burning, just as we told
you it would, and they were pleased
with themselves.

The fire crept up to the upper floors,
and when we begged Our Party
to put it out, they stood on our lawn,
held signs, and chanted,
we will not stand for this.

when the fire reached the top floor
and embraced the entire house,
we turned, once again, to Our Party,
and they said, perhaps we should
wait for the rain.

Splayed on the grass, under the listing birch,
I bemoan to a thousand unmoored moons
floating between a million bare branches
undulating like waves in the still night,
gurgling ungracious words about climbing
when I could barely grasp the bottom branch,
hoping, one day, to climb so high I might
caress the anchored stars with humble hands.

They are saying that now
the darkest times are upon us;

Brother, let me tell you,
I have seen planes fly into towers,
I have known people who say
the slaughter of children
is a fair price for their arms,
I have heard of privileged men
violating the young,
and watched as citizens
chose a privileged madman for king.

(and if I ask my elders,
they can tell me of horrors
that would make me ashamed,
just as their elders
could do for them,
and so on and so on and on)

My brothers and sisters,
if you think the dark times
are just now upon us,
let me welcome you to the world;
the light here has only ever been faint
and the candles we carry
are burnt to nubs.

I don't recall the first time
I did anything;
I didn't, one day,
pick up a pencil
and start drawing the sky.

I have always been
an expanding universe
of stars and galaxies
and dark spaces
revealing itself

weary, never named souls,
who ground their sun bleached bones
into unyielding earth
and passed with no flowers,
restive in pine boxes
beneath a catafalque
dressed in black rose petals,
sing with dirt choked voices
of rising and setting
the empty bier aflame;
and now that the old king
has been resurrected,
take up their righteous song;
his seat is fine tinder

On this dreary Monday morning,
I lay in my bed and ponder
the prospects of another day;
perhaps I’ll walk to the river,
sit my creaky bones by the edge
where it is grooved to fit my form,
and count the rain drops that dimple
the surface of the still water.

Or maybe, I will stay inside,
lay on my couch and think about
the time when I was eleven,
and I was supposed to visit
the water park with my best friends,
but a storm came, and I sat home,
wiping tears that streaked my cheeks
as rain beat my bedroom window.

Some day,
This rain will end, I thought.
Some day,
This rain will end, I still think.