--WHEN YOU’RE AFRAID, EVERYTHING IS A DOORWAY

 

Walrus

He already had a body

Two in fact
But he wanted a different one
Needed a younger one
Of his own
A confused doe
One of those you’re
Supposed to kiss
Lips closed
In affection
Not open-mouthed
Like a rabid walrus
Whiskers cutting scars
Flippers bruising breastbones
Tail flapping obscene
The heft of all that blubber
Pinning down a life
Crushing it like a
Bulb underfoot
Pieces shooting everywhere

 

The History Of Their Handprints

It was the second fire

Years after the garage
Had burnt down
I came home from
Night church
The light switches
Wouldn’t work
I didn’t smell smoke
Right away but heard
My kitten Christopher
Mewling downstairs
The hallway door
Leading there was closed
And in the basement
The shell of my brother’s
Bedroom had become
Charred crimson cinders
Each slat of wood
Resembling red rebar
Or long stove coils
In the smoky haze
I scooped up Chris
Went to a neighbor
Dialed the fire department
They brought an investigator
Who grilled me
Out on the damp lawn
Until it grew so dark
I could no longer see
His expression or
Determine if he was
Actually serious
He pointed questions
Was I resentful my
Parents had left me
While they lived
Somewhere in Idaho
Did I want retribution
Were there issues
I had with them
That would lead me
To set my own house on fire
I said
No
No
And
Of course not
I never said how
In those years
Each day was spent
Hustling the demons
That buzzed around
My shallow skull
Like a hive of
Angry wasps
Sometimes drilling
Their stingers
Straight through
My hippocampus
I never said I
Was actually thrilled
My parents were living
Someplace other than here
Where the history
Of their handprints
Still haunted everything
Darker than
The thickest smoke
Glowing brighter
Than any oven coil
Burning everything
To ash
Again and again
And again

 

A Boy’s Manhood

We went to

Different churches
Every other month
This time Catholic
When the priest mentioned
Something about St. Peter
My brother pointed
At his crotch and chuckled
We were young then and
Didn’t yet call our penises
Dicks or Cocks
Or even Boners
They were just our Peters
It struck me as funny
My brother too
We laughed into our palms
Pretending we were coughing
From the pulpit
The priest dressed in
A milky-silk robe snickered
Trying to ignore us
Mother said Shush
With those eyes that
Always signaled danger
But we couldn’t stop giggling
And then our giggling only
Made us giggle harder
This all about St. Peter
Or a Peter
A Willy
Juvenile names
For a boy’s manhood
At home afterward
Dad called us out to
The open yard
With Mom peeking
Through the sink window
He made us take our
Pants down
In broad daylight
Neighbors close by
Who might watch
He said You know
What this is for
Though his voice
Wasn’t harsh at all
Though he swung
The familiar belt
Over our bare asses
Taking turns with each of us
Swack! here Swack! there
Naturally it burned but
We were still giggling
At the end of the beating
Pulling up my shorts
I wondered what
St. Peter thought
About a couple of
Foolish boys finally
Out on a lark for once
I pictured him with
A hand pressed to his face
Camouflaging his laughter
From the rest of the saints
With their bowed heads
Dutifully subservient
Prepared to receive
Communion
Eat the body
Drink the blood
Ensure their salvation

 

--YOU’RE MY GREAT ESCAPE

  

If You Are Not

And if you are not

the sun or moon
Or medicine
   from a pure river
If you are not
Gold bars
Beaches with sea glass water
A triple rainbow propped up between
   the arms of the sky
If you are not
Filled with the strongest science
A jack of all trades
Winner of Top Chef
If you are not
Bilingual
Cavity-free
Charitable
Limber
Completely confident
Good with directions
Able to multi task
   in your sleep
Or a virgin
If you are not
   any of these
   I could really
  care less
Just scoot closer
Spoon me
Whisper in my
   ear again
   about how
   we fit

 

Seattle Rain

We are setting records, historic ones

The gray, incessant nasal drip rain
The hoodlum clouds clustered at every corner
The flock long gone, now sunning down in Florida
Treetops the only ones pushing back on oppression
The mountains gripping their pristine bed sheets of snow
The lone eagle circling overhead like a stood-up lover
The beaver submerged with his one big breath
The deer shivering in soaked pelts and muddy hooves
Squirrels mating all day on the fence just to keep warm
Rabbits humping because that’s what rabbits
Do regardless of the weather or time of day
One enormous cloud, plum purple, rinsing out her dirty laundry while
Just for fun, or because I’m an imbecile, I step outside
Open-mouthed, tilting my head upward, catching her
Cool wet coins as if they are candy shot out of a piñata
The rain will make you crazy all right
Just ask my old roommate
The one at the psychiatric ward
In the room with every window blacked out

 

The Problem

This morning when

I looked down
I saw that I had
Old man hands
Skin pale white
Milky if they
Weren’t so dull
Flesh like a plucked chicken
I suppose I could
Wear gloves
Stuff my hands into my pocket
Or cut them off and
Get fitted for prosthetics
What I do instead
Is ignore them
altogether
The same way I do
All my issues
And that right there
Is the real problem

 

 

--I’M A BIG FAN OF LOVING YOU

...I have been thinking about friendship quite a bit, how important it is, how lucky people are to have good friends, the kind where there are no walls, where you can break down and cry if there are tears in you, the kind of friends who will let you peel back your skin and show them your dark and fearful places, the kind of friends who you can get pissed at over petty things or big things, who will take your tantrum in stride and still love you regardless.

I’m really lucky to have some of those in my life.  I have less than a dozen friends of that ilk, but I have some and that’s all I really need.  They’re enough for me.

Last week I was in Milwaukee spending time with one such friend, one of my favourite guys on the planet. In every way, it couldn’t have been a better time.

Tomorrow I head to Portland (I know—You’re going to Portland again?) to see my other favourite guy on the planet.  Every trip there leads to side ache laughter and shenanigans.

Friends are more than important.  I’m not sure what the right word is.  But let’s just stick with important, even if that’s trite.  For someone like me who is virtually alone 80+ percent of the time, those experiences with friends are like going to see your favorite band perform, and then after the concert, having the lead singer (in this case it would be Ryan Adams, Brandon Flowers or Chris Carraba) invite you back stage to hang out, regale you with stories, share some drinks, and stay up until dawn, then exchange cell numbers.

I hope you have some great friends.  I hope they make you laugh so hard you have to walk away because your lungs are bleeding.  I hope you feel vulnerable enough with them to bawl for an hour, curled up on a chair while they say, “It’s okay.  Keep crying.  I think you need to.”

I’m sure you have those type of friends.  Maybe take a moment today, or soon, to celebrate them somehow.  I bet that would make them very happy.

 

...So I hope you have a fantastic week.  I won’t be posting until late Friday when I return, but I thought I’d share some things I like that you might as well.

 

-“You only live once, but if you do it right once is enough.” Mae West

-"In things pertaining to enthusiasm, no man is sane who does not know how to be insane on proper occasions." Henry Ward Beecher

-"You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late." Ralph Waldo Emerson

-"Discovery consists in seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought." Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi

-"The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook." William Merger

-"We must not indulge in unfavorable views of mankind, since by doing it we make bad men believe that they are no worse than others, and we teach the good that they are good in vain." Walter Savage Landor

-"There is work that is work and there is play that is play; there is play that is work and work that is play. And in only one of these lie happiness." Gelett Burgess

-"All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible."- Thomas Edward Lawrence

 

--THE HEART ALWAYS INSTRUCTS,

USUALLY WHILE POINTING

IN WHISPERS,

SAYING

   HERE,

THERE,

AND THERE, TOO,
  PLEASE?
 I'VE HEARD THAT'S TRUE.
BUT REGARDLESS,
AND ABOVE ALL ELSE,
  BE A GOOD STUDENT. 
  PLEASE LISTEN CAREFULLY. 
 STAY ALERT.
NOTICE THINGS. 
FOR GOD'S SAKE,
  TAKE NOTES IF IT HELPS YOU
 RECALL WHAT
   YOU MIGHT HAVE
OTHERWISE MISSED.
 FIND PEN AND PAPER.
   KNOW WHAT IT FEELS LIKE
TO STAY HUNGRY
  AND ALIVE,
 VIBRANT AND
  RELEVANT.
TELL THE HONEST
 TO GOD TRUTH;
   IN THE END, DON'T
 WE REALLY JUST WANT
TO BELIEVE THAT THERE'S
SOMETHING IN THE WATER?
 THAT IT'S ACTUALLY MAGICAL,
 IF ONLY IN OUR HEADS?



In the Rubble

Already at such an age
You are a war
A boy
Son
Broken arrow
Broken water glass
Broken window and promise
Wanna-be orphan
Closeted poet
Romantic
Closeted dreamer/schemer
Obedient
An open-air dart board
Awaiting the first throw
 
You can’t run fast enough
Can’t hold your breath long enough
Can’t find Jesus in the rubble
Can’t get a refund on your DNA
Can’t imagine why you’re even on this earth

Yet you are a fighter
Scrawny but scrappy
Hard to pin down
A sprig pushing up from the dirt
Shadows bounce off you
Prancing on cement
Until one day they don’t
Until one day sunshine
Shoots through you
The way it does through glass
Because now you’re a ghost
Invisible to everyone but
The ghosts around you
Who are also hiding
Wandering and dead

How Sand Is Made

It’s impossible to

Avoid the current
Raging river contorted
Curled and cramped
As if in aguish
Its swirl and eddies
Hypnotic water fire
The underlying
Sexual current
Offshore is itself
Twisted and perverse
Vaguely cloaked
By rare parental kindness
But we are young
And don’t know better
Or so we tell ourselves
The pitched tent
On the rocky bluff
Rattles as if ransacked
By a starving bear
The center pole
Wobbles and strains
I keep calling out for Sis
Wondering why
She’s not here
To see how beautiful
And angry
The water is
As it scuffs every
Sea stone
Below it
One slap
Two slaps
Ripping away grain
Until someday
There will be
Nothing left
But sand

 

Thread

We ate the animals we owned

And the ones we didn’t sat at
The dinner table afterward
Playing Gin Rummy
As if was something
Important and special
Like taking communion or voting
They spoke German
Always German
When it was about us
Our names mired in the harsh dialect
Each tsch! richt! or flucht!
A discordant piano key
Dissolving in the smoke-filled ceiling
In fifth grade
I earned the language
But didn’t tell anyone
Voyeur spy or traitor
I might have been them all
Seated nearby listening
Deciphering code
Stitching their secrets together
Then my mouth and eyelids
Using a sharp needle and
Mother’s finest silk thread

 

 

 

--EVERY SECOND IS AN ETERNITY

 

…Tomorrow, before the sun even shows her face, I’ll be headed to the airport en route to see one of my best friends in Wisconsin, returning late Friday, so this will be the last post until Saturday.

…The weather sure has been a moody customer lately.  Dark and brooding, then bright and perky for an hour, then clouds shimmy over the sun and it feels like the movie is over though the credits haven’t ran yet.

It’s been so windy I don’t how the trees stay standing.  A couple weeks back, one broke its muscled arm and the branch landed on the roof of my garage where the branch remains stuck to his day.  I tried to pull it out, but the limb is six sizes bigger than both my biceps, which I know isn’t saying much.
Before that, tubs and tubs and tubs of rain fell.  Every kind of rain.  Sideways rain, rain when the sun still shone, thick rain the size of dimes, sleet, hail, stupid spitting rain, rain like syringes, rain like cookie sheets…  I always wonder what the deer do when it’s pouring and sub 40 degrees.  That has to be miserable.  Where do they go, what do they do to stay warm?  Poor deer.  Come to my house and dry off.  I have extra rooms where you can lie down and nap a while.

…New stuff came in the mail. 

  Music:
Kendrick Lamar
Aimee Mann
Miranda Lambert
Thomas Rhett
  Books:
Charles Bukowski
Dominique Christina
Robert McKee
Derek Miller
Malcolm Mackay
Robert Olen Butler

…I’m going to need a half dozen trips around the world to finish all the books I’m surrounded by.  But other than love, books are the next best thing have surrounding you.  Well, maybe kids are second.  Yes, definitely.

…For the panel I’m going to be on next year at AWP, I had to fill out some forms way in advance.  They asked rudimentary questions but when it came to gender, oh boy.  I must be really out of touch because I had never heard of half of them.  Here were the choices (really):

Male
Female
Agender
Bigender
Cisgender
Gender Fluid
Genderqueer
Intersex
Transsexual
Transgenta
Two-Spirit
A gender not identified here

…Here’s hoping you have a fantastic week.  I’ll leave you with a few things I found in the last few days that make me think:

-“Ubuntu” –“I am because of you,” in Swahili

-The life that I could still live, I should

live, and the thoughts that I could still
think, I should think.
    -C.G. Jung

-“Anything worth thinking about is worth singing about.” Bob Dylan

-“I will tell you, that ant is very alive.  Look at how he fusses with being stepped on.” Mary Oliver

-“Why does no one take you aside and tell you what’s coming?” David Foster Wallace

-“I realized that everything I knew of Sam, and he of me, was still inside us.”  Patti Smith, on Sam Shepard

-"To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; not to love is to suffer; to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be happy one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness.”  Woody Allen

-“I need to concentrate on each sound so that every blade of grass is as important as the flower.”  Arvo Part, composer

 

 

 

--PAY ATTENTION TO THE FUCKING SUNSET

 

Scavenging

When you are born a crow

There is love at first
And then there isn’t
Minutes and days become
A manic scramble for food
Scraps or a buffet of road kill
Mating takes a distant second
Without sustenance you grow
Too weak to beat your wings
Which is why you must
Find nourishment
To keep the circle spinning
Should you freeze to death
In the winter ice
Or die perched on
The branch of an Elm
No one will know or even care
Not your friends
If you have them
And certainly not
The one who birthed
You so long ago

 

What They Say

With a straight face,

my teacher says I’ve got potential,
that I show every sign of becoming
a promising writer someday.
At home, Mom says I’m cute as salmon
with a hook in its mouth, flopping on a dock,
gasping for air.
Dad doesn’t say anything, doesn’t have to.
There’s a belt in his hand that goes flying.
It hits everything it sees, leaving lashes
and long memories.

 

Fox Hunt

The thing is you

have to like yourself first.
My therapist doesn’t say this exactly,
but that’s the gist, as threatening
as a blade to the throat.
“Do you? 
Like yourself?”
he asks after I swallow.
There’s a painting on the wall
of an English fox hunt,
riders wearing sculpted caps,
white jodhpurs and red velvet
coats atop sleek horses.
“You’re not focusing. 
We can’t make any progress this way.”
Half a dozen hounds are in mid leap,
their tails curled like whips.
“Where’s the fox?” I ask,
searching the brush and barren road.
He checks his wristwatch, cellphone,
the air above my head iron hot.
I ask again, “Where’s the fox?”
He crosses his arms, screws up his face,
rocks back and forth in a leather swivel chair,
wants to know why I’m so worried about a fox
when I can’t even find enough courage
to look him in the eye
lie like I really mean it.