NEW YEARS DAY 2006

You waken at 4AM, cold

in the sweat that the day will bring

nothing but murder and the strange

dirge of that dying man droning

in your head all night, pleading you

to open your mind but

it's too late, there's no mind to open.

You stumble in the darkness,

grope your way between walls

and ghosts and shadows

of someone else's life, so strange,

at 50, to be so afraid, so small,

staring out at the cold oak leaves

tossing in the wind, the swollen

rain falling like silver eyes,

the smell of copper and stars.

All morning it's like this,

sitting at the window as

the world continues its slow

dying. This is what you

have come to in America, where

to waken is to waken to no

new day, no reprieve, no

redemption. You are here

and then you're gone,

and the rest is, and the rest is,

well, let's face it, the

rest is, as they say, all

but forgotten.

IF HAPPY LITTLE BLUEBIRDS FLY BEYOND THE RAINBOW WHY, OH WHY, CAN'T I?

Here at poolside among the mudslides and
     mojitos I ask you how old is that
pine tree that looks like a big pineapple.
     It's a palm tree you idiot, she says, and my
eyes sneak off to the septuagenarian
     spread out in her hibiscus bikini
and her big bellied beluga tummy all buttered
     up and basting, there's a one-legged gull
begging for scraps and the rumble of
     speed boats warming up at the yacht club
before they careen into the bay where
     Winnebago gypsies fish for tarpon and tuna.
You're looking at frat boys in speedos
     nursing Bloody Mary's who groan when the
music shifts from Jimmy Buffet's "Margaritaville"
     to Mandy Potemkin crooning "Over the
Rainbow". All of this should be welcome
     at bayside but this is not a scene of
dolphin-chasing tourists, it's a scene of
     hangovers and sweating last night's rum,
it's Bob Marley and jammin', sucking limes
     and throwing back tequila shots. We feel
the gulf's pressure in our temples and rub
     our heads as if to massage away the
suffering and that's when I ask "who
      ordered the nachos?" and you say I 
really don't know, it just happened, and
     as the cheese slides down our fingers I see
the woman in the turquoise swimsuit and I feel
     the retractors crack open my chest like
an oyster shell, latex fingers massaging
     my heart and Mandy Potemkin singing
"Somwhere Over the Rainbow"  and for me  
     it's suddenly cold, very cold, and I wonder,
I really do, Why oh why can't I?

HE'S CERTAIN YOU CAN BEAT THIS

You dream you're dying.

Dr. Elkins, the premier specialist in this field,

     agrees to take you on. He's dispassionate

     but sympathetic. He's certain you can beat this.

You drive home startled but

     confident, it's just cancer, he's

     the preeminent expert, after all,

     you promise to buy a juicer, you'll

     eat better, and exercise.

This is what you've been waiting for, a reason!

Your wife doesn't believe you when you say     

     it's early, you'll beat this, Dr. Elkins

     is certain, he's had great success.

You walk everywhere, drink carrot juice, 

     kumquats and pomegranates, mangos,

     bike everywhere, eat raw vegetables,

     you're looking radiant and fit. "Just what exactly is it?"

     your wife asks, what is this disease? I 

     don't know, you say, this is just part of the plan, 

     I get the serum every two weeks. We'll beat this.

She'll see. 

Dr. Elkins' office is a ramshackle joint by the rail line,

     a real hobo hideout with a pot-bellied stove. 

     You wife demands to know your fate.

     "It's worse than we thought," he says.

     He's squinting through his spectacles, 

     looking at your latest test. "I'm sorry.

     Keep doing what you're doing, all

     this exercise, it's working."

You drive home crying, your wife crying too.

You call all your friends, your family, they all agree

     it's rotten.

Dr. Elkins is working on a new cure. He's 

     had great success--it' a homemade contraption,

     wheels of spatulas like a ferris wheel,

     spinning slices of wonder bread and

     pimento loaf while marshmallow fluff 

     spills out like sausage. The machine 

     massages you with the bread and meat

     and spins the centrifuge which extracts more serum

     from the blood of earthworms.

The nurse sees you're haunted by your mortality.

She walks you outline to the rail lines and sings an aria 

     while she leads you by the arm, stepping over the ties.

     It's beautiful, this song, the nurse is tall and lovely

     and now you understand this whole carnival

     is the cure! It's sad! It's tragic! You'll beat this thing!

At home you look in your child's eyes and see

     what's been there all along. He's not sad. 

     He hugs you like he always does, as if 

     for a moment you're the only person in the world,

     the way he hugs you goodnight every night.

The pain is unbearable. You visit Dr. Elkins and

     there's nothing he can do.
The nurse still walks you along the tracks singing. 
     It's still beautiful and she leads you by the arm. 
     It's midnight. You cannot see and you're 
     waiting for the train. You can sense the vandals 
     closing in. You call 911 on  your cell. It's 
     not supposed to be like this. The operator says
      "I know. We're coming." 
You see the lone eye in the distance.

It will take forever to get here. This will not end well, 
     you say, you can hear the vandals laughing, 
     they're carrying torches and they mean business.

INDIGO

                    for ES 

So: 

this evening

the sky is not ours,

walking barefoot

on the verandah,

it's not violet or

blue or even

ultramarine, it's

just the sky,

a fact, nominal,

as they say, just

the sky. There's

nothing here except

precious words

you’ve been singing

all your life, not

to anyone particular,

just a longing

for a certain order--not

that this is actually

knowable--thought,

after all, is a recital,

a flirtation, a performance,

a sense that the 

very sounds

are ineffable, like

the heart, unknowable 

among so many 

moods. And so

it's come to this:

an accident: `say

you witness the sun

setting in the deep

blue--the color

the sky translates

to mind of what was

once felt and now,

what? felt again?

an ache to forgive? 

a desire? No. It's 

the feeling of words 

spilt long ago, 

and the jealous itch 

to be other than 

one’s self, to love 

what one cannot love

even as a child

in that evening

now so long ago,

knowing now,

fact, there's no order

after all, that the mind

commands but

the world cannot

yield beyond,

say, this mud iris,

that violin, that

Packard parked

in a ditch, nominal

facts, separate, say,

from the drunken

wasps drinking

applemash, the

lightning bugs

floating in the

dusk, the lurid

opossum lurking

in the kudzu.

In the end it’s

only love and fear

we meet when we 

open the door

and the world

won’t stand for us,

or our beautiful words, 

regardless of the 

order, it’s the

world that lives

on, outside of us,

that’s the terror

of indigo and all

the loneliness

that follows.