Lent, Gas Line

 

from this week in February, 1974  (I was 29)

 

  During Lent, Gas Line

 

I’ve exhausted my supply

my energy’s been drained

my engine stands cold

there’s no gas in the tank

a procession of autos

kneels at each station

Supplication

 

It Don’t Need a Priority

 

from this week in 1976  (I was 31)

 

         It Don’t Need a Priority

The horse is attached to the cart,

impetus and payload.

Just because it ain’t overturned yet

don’t mean it won’t.

One hoof in a gopher hole

and there it goes like a thirty-year old bomb,

apples all over the road.

 

There it is; the crop is already sold.

Impetus and payload, what can happen will.

It don’t matter;

assuredly the broker is a dead man.

What’s left is what always was;

don’t it become humorous?

The inevitable cannot become more so.

I want TV shows and video games

 

January 9, 2013  (I was 68)

 

I want TV shows and video games

that put reality in my life

I want to see

people screw extra-maritally

I want to hear them shout

when spouses find out

want to witness them caught

for whomever they shot

want them to talk filthy

when they’re guilty

want their mug shot to linger

while I give the screen the finger

I wanna cut down terrorist hordes

with my lasar swords

They scream in agony

when I drop them off my balcony

want their blood to spatter to antimatter

realistically right next to me

before I push the button to be

someone else in level three

In Huck Finn like on the internet

 

December 7, 2013  (I was 69)

 

In Huck Finn like on the internet 

nobody tells the truth to another

Some because they don’t know it

Some because they fear it

And never does it seem to occur to one

to be the sensible dodge

upon first meeting a probable devil

or one of his improbable imps

 

The longer the story the less I believe

 

From this week in November, 2019   (I was 75)

 

The longer the story the less I believe

particularly if I’m telling it

The certainty we seek in detail

is obscured in patterned perception

related in rhetorical embellishment

Synonymous-ness is what we seek

to explain the inexplicable

What else was like what just happened

what other creature behaves as such

when was it we ever felt like this

In exacting a classification first

is found correspondence then distinction

Immediate constituents are purposefully adjacent

a functional significance in both

similarity and difference

 

Been waitin’ there’s a delay

 

October 21, 2006  (I was 61)

 

Been waitin’ there’s a delay

Expected arrival before yesterday

Expected very little and not exactly what

I suppose it’s supposed to be

I’ll take what I can get

but ain’t lookin’ for naught

Have always known nothing’s free

Try to stay out of debt

Hope to receive what it is I bought

 

Get somethin’ and it gets you

Own it’s what you got to do

Find a place to keep it and put it where

you can get used to using it

Let it grow to be a help

on a shelf beneath the stair

Ownership no excusing it

whimper a guilt repent a whelp

Give what you can and buy what you dare

If your father is already dead when you are young

 

August 9, 2010 (I was 65)

 

If your father is already dead when you are young

you lack the advantage of knowing his fuck-ups

It’s too easy to believe the appraisal of other men

in premature evaluation of his or your own talents

Those with titles are most presumptuous

uncle priest coach teacher fire chief policeman

all so dismissive in their ignorance

and so believable in their imperialism

Youth gives credence to their baseless judgments

 

Before they earn your disrespect you’ve become adult

It takes that many years

You have moved away from those individuals

but not from the idiot types they represent

In their expressions of authoritative certainty

they never realized the damage they propagated

never faced the critical regard of peer review

Now as an undead father I think I am more sensibly obvious

in my metaphorical expression of hypocrisies and failures

A fraction of satisfaction is fact

 

July 24, 2014  (I was 69)

 

A fraction of satisfaction is fact

tis a syllabic fracture of an action

an act that’s a type of truth

a faction of veracity I sat on

until it hatched here

What in this life are you preparing to do elsewhere

 

June 29, 2013 (I was 68)

 

What in this life are you preparing to do elsewhere

What of interest but not of occupation

do you regard as unformulated pursuit

Artists in stone paint and glass define enchantment

Do you feel an inherent connection

a recognition that your presence fits

into a realm you’ve never visited

Where are those semi-familiar places

some part of you intends to occupy next time

 

This time team sport lost to individual endeavor

after a dedication to unity others did not share

Public dance gave way to secluded solo

I sat along borders of self-realization

watched visions pass behind closed eyes

breathed and hummed serene accompaniment

opened eyes to glimpse the sparkle of the mutable

Now I shall catch the attention of talented youth

who will become my great-grandparents

I drove to the library

 

June 9, 1975  (I was 30)

 

I drove to the library

past a kid squatting at the roadside

surrounded by tools and the rear flat

of his ten-speed.  At his age

I’d have never got it together.

I returned some books

scanned the headlines of the papers

and drove back thinking I’d load the bike

into the van and give the kid a lift.

There he was tightening the last nut.

I stopped anyway and told him why.

I asked how long it took him.

He smiled and said he didn’t know.

I said good-bye, he said thanks anyway.

Emily said there interposed a fly

 

from this week in May, 1998  (I was 74)

 

Emily said there interposed a fly

between her and the light

at a most inappropriate but perfectly ironic time

as if to let anyone who noticed know

the inconsequential accompanies the substantial

and only perception regards a difference

The fly detained by the glassy pane

cares less for the light than the freedom of flight

in the world beyond the bright barrier

awaiting the slightest opening to slip through

as did she to record the passage

foretold before the occurrence

We did not say let's not talk about it

 

from this week in May, 2020  (I was 75)

 

We did not say let's not talk about it

but that's what we did

and right out in the open is where we hid

 

We are saved by unconsidered decisions

resolved a lifetime ago

wandering alone at night in falling snow

 

Recognizing the incomprehensible is a skill

You don't know you have a clue

then out of the silent frozen darkness you do

 

Each the curator of a private gallery

a mutual concession

to trust one's individual discretion

 

I've ever had a need for solitary visits

choosing pathways to frequent

where I can come to a kind of agreement

 

Togetherness is a recognition of separation

both disclaimer and claim

that fact of difference makes us the same

The old men have spots on their pants

 

May 1, 2009  (I was 64)

 

The old men have spots on their pants

in places that should embarrass them

They do not see them

They no longer have reason

to suspect they might have spots on their pants

 

The old men grumble under breath

about things that would embarrass them

if they thought anyone heard

They no longer have the attention

of any near enough to listen

 

The old men tremble at the table

in a tremor that could embarrass them

if it overturned the furniture

They no longer have the influence

to register an after-shock

 

The old men issue perplexing odors

tainted wafts that might embarrass them

They don’t smell a thing

They no longer have to discriminate

aroma from taste

Morality of Homeland

 

April 27, 1979  (I was 34)

 

         Morality of Homeland

Does anyone remember

we do not come from here,

we are not of this place?

The thing that binds us

is what makes us all aliens

come no matter how long ago.

 

It is not necessary to believe

we are of this place

nor to believe we are

of the same place

nor to believe we will return there

when we leave here.

 

It is unnecessary to give a shit

we’re so many generations removed.

We were put here;

we did not make a choice,

so it’s okay if we fuck up the air

and the water and the ground.

It’s okay to pollute the fire

if that’s what we choose to do.

 

In your lifetime I was never young

 

April 26, 1999  (I was 54)

 

In your lifetime I was never young

Yet when you were young

your eyes were not fixed beyond my life

and we looked at things together

and a common vision could make us laugh

 

That changed at a pace I failed to perceive

and it has been some time since we laughed as one

Our interests are kept in different rooms

What we see now are distinctions

in clearer focus from a distance

 

The example of my life has been no match

for the hot clarity of youth’s magnifications

Smoldering thoughts and vocal flames

extinguished to charred ash

by the searing beam of your vision

 

We like things to come in groups of one

 

March 27, 2012  (I was 67)

   

We like things to come in groups of one

one fish on the line is perfectly fine

one heart makes a valentine

 

We are undone wanting but one within the One

a sense of humor to exclude passion

no fabric beneath the fashion

 

We fear to know one and one and one are not three

but a larger One as you and I are We

Inside we know each one makes One grow

 

There must be a verb

 

February 25, 1998  (I was 53)

 

There must be a verb

situated between escapade and escape,

something to allow getting away

with a bit more seriousness of purpose

than frivolous adventure,

some search for perspective

where withdrawal requires responsibility,

a returning with the change in hand,

not merely with a picaresque travelogue

nor even a set of tactics

for springing the locks and riding the rails

to hideouts of abundant seclusion;

but with the change in hand.

Addressing Abe Lincoln in 1975

 

February 12, 1975  (I was 30)

 

Addressing Abe Lincoln in 1975

Abe Lincoln

tall father in the stone chair

America’s comforting conscience

these hundred years

nothing left of you is merely real

We have come to understand your solitude

we have grieved

we have become war weary

we have lost faith

the captain a lost shadow in the man

We sit before the new world stage

with vague memories of other theaters

other characters other meanings

The great works remain

 

February 11, 2012  (I was 67)

 

The great works remain

the makers are taken

sky word note paint stone

voice ear eye hand gone

 

That done deletes need

but may be a seed

sower left sown

creation now done

 

works must conceive one

in their own image

deduce a being

that may have made them

 

story song prayers

cathedral prayers

on canvas prayers

no petitioner

The most believable astronomical revelation

 

January 26,2008  (I was 63)

 

The most believable astronomical revelation

is the increasing distance between things

Every communication device we create

makes the separation more obvious

and proximity more dangerous

Truth is kept simple in idiomatic terms

There is fondness in our absent hearts

and discomfort in things too close

From afar we integrate shapes

into forms that are recognizable

while we deny adjacent congruencies

that might make us seem as one