MEMENTO MORI

It's all come down to corn dogs

on Mother's Day, tortilla chips

in the microwave and varicose veins,

writing this poem about the

neighbor kid piping rap so loud

that the daffodils tremble.

So this is the new sublime,

two-stroke snowblowers choking

out the winter gas -- look,

there's a crow in the bird bath

retching the sweet port from

last night's roadkill soiree,

and the morning paper's flush

with photographs of some

gray-bearded homeless man

wrapped in a blanket and

clutching remote controls

as if he ruled the world from

his kingdom of fear. The day

dies not with a bullet

to the brain but a pot

of blood-colored flowers

and a greeting card of

lavender kittens sporting

sparkling tiaras, then

reading the obits while

gnoshing a pecan log,

scanning the columns for

someone you know

all too well.

BLIZZARD

Where were you driving that night

when wet flurries splashed the glass

like stars? Driving as if there was

something out there, beyond the orchards

and cornfields buried in drifts, prowling

the slow curves as if by instinct?

You did not stop when the car swerved

near ditches or fishtailed in slipperiness

under the blinking amber light

of Bangor til you reached the lake

where drunken black waves rolled and you

walked the ice-slick pier where the

lighthouse eye swept the darkness and

the foghorn moaned. You stood there

trembling in the stillness, waiting

for something unknown and unknowable,

the same old story played out

yet again.

CIGARETTE BOAT PHYSICS

That magnificent speedboat,

all flame-colored and delicious,

all fluorescent-fiery-and-ablaze,

all quetzal-tailed fury-flaming

in the face of Quetzacoatl-

on-the-floating-gardens-of-Xochimilco!

All low-rider rump-rumbling-in-the-jetty,

prowling the waterline like some obscene

thought-burning-in-your-medulla-oblongata,

a water-sprite plasma-spitting cornea-splitting-electrons fast!

It's so fast it's get-you-there-before-you-think-about-it fast!

It's transcend-the-boundaries-of-space-and-time fast!

And when it rears up and launches

like some comet spewing rooster tails

and double-helix waves in its ferocious wake --

well, it dares to disturb the universe.

Condo windows rattle!

Children's brains are jangled so hard

they learn how to read multivariate calculus instantly!

Meaning is wrenched free from the cages of alphabetic glyphs!

Grown men and old codgers weep

at the splendor, the memories

of their first kiss under the Perseid meteor shower, ardent desire stiffening!

If only you could climb into the saddle

and punch that motherfucker like some

heat-seeking missile all bare-assed and thrusting-

all-over-oblivion, it's the ejaculation

of ecstasy, the Aztec-sacrifice-heart-plucked-

from-your-chest-and-beating-bloody-in-your-hand-in-smoke-and-fumes

serious! So fast that the rest of life is all entropic boredom,

a meaningless mechanistic universe, cold and

void, slow as molasses, obtuse chowderhead slow!,

humdrum ho-hum, think-nothing-of-it null set and its

indeterminate idiocy, how can you return to the world of null set

epiphenomena?, striations of boredom where time has died

in some horse-latitudes-no-hint-of-a-breath-of wind?

We're talking the end of all things both perfectly platonic

and stained by the world's cursed disappointments and irregularities.

This jellyfish brine-smear of on your face,

you're left in the backwash, the galactic firmament spray,

it's the interregnum between beauty and purpose

it's all beans-and-franks doldrums, what life

could possibly be worth living?, might as well

cash in your chips, it's over, and quite frankly,

let's face it, it's a relief..

MARCH

After the operation you must learn

to walk again, each afternoon we drive

to the graveyard and the dying pond--

it's March in its relentlessness,

the ground frozen and floating ice melt,

gelid, every day you bend a bit

more, the knife piercing your ribs,

we walk the snow-crusted field

of slumped stones and snow hollows,

we keep our course, back to the ashen

asphalt where each day you count

your steps, farther, one boot

in front of the pother, while

over the ride of stiff milkweeds

and thistle we hear the nattering

of ducks swimming in open water,

patiently paddling, waiting for

the warmer weather, chasing down

the rival coots and buffleheads

turning their bills and burying them

between their wings, narcoleptic

floaters, impervious to the cold wind

shunting in from the west, and

when I take your mittened hand, love,

and lead you back to the car,

I hear you grunt and wheeze

with each step, stubborn, insulted

by the scalpel, fingers probing,

the snap of gristle and tissue,

the insult of steel and extraction,

the gasp for breath, it's so timely,

isn't it?, climbing back in the car

like arthritic dogs, grateful, we think,

for this cold snap, all the gray,

clouds of mallards flying down

from the west, each squadron

splashes down and slows to a quacking

drone, we close the windows and seal out

a few wraiths of cold breath, another

day, another few steps, another day

together, waiting for spring.

SHE SELLS SEA SHELLS BY THE SEA SHORE

She Sells Sea Shells by the Sea Shore -- that's

the name she took in exile from her last husband

before she settled for Freedom, or Freedom Pleasures,

and opened herself to a life of loving. And why not?

Hadn't she spent fifty years of her life waiting on men,

waiting for men, being cheated on by men. Faithless

and betraying bastards. Here now on the island she could

elude all that, slip into a life of healing, find

the lonely men, the broken men, the men humbled

by their own arrogance and covetous ways,

their blind hunger to consume all things, men

combing the gulf's shore for redemption, how she

gathers them like castaways, men who need loving,

men who need her strong hands and soft skin,

men that did not jab at her breasts or yammer

about her hips or freckle-pooled flesh, men who

adore her totality, how she wades into the cold

pagan waves in her swimsuit and sombrero and

flip-flops, leads them back to her pelican-grove

beach shack, shapes sand candles with pools of wax,

designs seashell necklaces and conch chowder bowls,

sprinkles her bed with a starfish-netted quilt

and when she walks the mangrove trail she sings

to the red heron and roseate spoonbill,

she coddles babies at Winn Dixie, whistles

at dolphins, she makes you love loving again!

And then, necromancer!, at the bonfire

she spots another troubled man wandering

the crablegs and shells and jellied tidewrack.

She takes his hand and hugs his arm and you know

it's your time, watching the fire flicker off

everyone's laughing bodies, cold night descending,

smoke and sparks flying up to the stars,

waves sighing, you think why not?, one more time,

this time for real.

PUNTA RASSA, ARRIVAL

It is only from the unwelcome cold

of La Nina and the silence of the season

between us that you find yourself here

again, poolside and basking in Bernie Madoff's

tropical elegance among the mockingbirds

and mojitos, iris and Kahlua mudslides,

that man who died on the plane this morning,

his wife shouting Help! and others asking

is there a doctor on board but by then it's

too late, the aneurysm had clenched his

very being, even the attendants rushing

with the tanks of oxygen and defib

could not restore his elan vital. That's

when the man beside you said, Well, I'm not

a doctor, I'm a dentist, can I help? So

it's only fair that now, sitting in the palm-lined

esplanade at the harbor's edge, you should

see them, two dolphins, sleek and sluggish

under the cool and endless azul spreading

across the gulf, they're slumping along the coast,

mindless among the scissored crossings

of speedboats, ancient and millennial miracles.

There is nothing much more to be said, is there?,

except "Have we come to the end?" and

"I'm glad you're here," it makes all of this so less

temporal, so much time lost in your remaining

seasons. Go to the pier and follow those swimmers,

wait for them to surface in their slow stubbornness,

wait for their slickness to skim the smooth surface.

This is a terror and a beauty, waiting for this clock,

the dorsal fins, the two swimmers swoop down

into in the deep unknowable, and then the smooth

gliding appearance catches you slightly off guard,

when you hear the woman's voice cry out,

and feel the relief, in the end, that the tumult

was complete.

THE ISLAND OF EXULTATION AND FORGETFULNESS

Crossing Death's Door again we're joined

starboard by Lazlo the dachshund,

and the girls, River and Ginger,

Lazlo's tucked in a traveling purse

and growling, the girls' fingers poke

his black eyes and snout, he sneezes

and as we pass the white pelicans

scooping across the surface, aliens

to this climate, the girls' mother

implores "Come into your own space,

River, come back to your space!"

We sail past the private island,

idyllic shoals of someone's sacred

sugary sands, the mother's ring

beside us a diamond cluster

that shimmers evanescent rainbows

splashing everywhere like God's eye.

When we turn at the marker and

rollick and roll with the waves and

Lazlo the dachshund yelps, and River,

in her own space, and now Ginger,

spilling out of her space, giggling

at the bedazzlement just as we

enter the green calm of the harbor

and all of the phenomenology dulls

to the boredom of idle buoy bells

and flags snapping on the horizon,

hair whipping across our eyes. Abstract

pools of green and cool backwash air

on the pier. This is nothing like

the myth, the older story, the unknown

returning. This is you coming back

to your space, my dear, pennants flapping,

ferry engines rumbling and the steel hull

shuddering to stillness as you dock,

the smell of fish and diesel fuel,

oil-slick water and spiders, the taste

of honey and hay, of the girls' laughing

at the circling sea girls, and Lazlo

growling from his purse, all banished

from the mainland, seeking exile

on the island of exultation

and forgetfulness.

This 12 X 18 room

where I spend my days

and nights caught in

the habits of ghosts

the yellow room

with the rollaway bed

and the card table

of paperbacks, a

transistor radio and

a copy of Good News

for Modern Man

no different now

except the window's

larger and the plaster

swirls are grey like

suicide winter

the year spent tapping

keys and washing dishes

reading Giants in the Earth 
and  Liturgies of the Western Church,

taking photographs of

Asylum Lake, the long

walk behind the paper mills,

snowflakes smelling like

the dead river

look, brother, we're not

the revolutionaries we

hoped, it's all disco and

glitter glam and Jesus

catching the the Greyhound

to Ann Arbor, dipping

sardines in ketchup

and passing Old Crow

the proselyte pan handling

in Candy Cane Lane eating

dogpiss snow to heal his

broken teeth, the city's Dutch

Reformed swilling fondue,

Swedish meatballs, and

marshmallow jello

Sunday morning in this

room, behind distorted

glass, like ice fishing

with mealy worms,

a plate of cold toast and

margarine, Taster's Choice

crystals, the dream again

of reading in the dark,

reading in the dark!

eyes penetrating the

unfathomable pages,

ancestral ghosts

loosened from the black

cages

this room I'm in now,

this one you can't see,

the one that I too cannot

see -- once again it is

torpid, unconscious

the death of the world

and you-know-who all

over again, it gets so

cramped -- I don't

want to waken in

the closet blind and

scratching the yellow

plaster, mouth groping

like a bluegill plopped

on the ice again

UNRESOLVED

each time you awaken you

wonder: Who am I?

Where am I? Huh?

all the existential

claptrap, dislocated

memory spattered by

quicksilver dreams--

then the inevitable,

the tyranny that

something means

something

it’s the same

since sweating in

that yellow room

waking to God

the migraine, dust

motes floating in

sun scalpels

relentless, the

autonomic system

awakens, divorced

from the mind, all those

plans–the ceremony,

ghosts fluttering,

thoughts in the wind

waking in

the Florida heat,

children’s voices

riding the salt smell

and rotting crabs,

bonfire tangos,

sunset agony

if the gulf

waking this morning

to what? a bed?

a room? the fear

that you are not

what you seem but

something unknown,

something unknowable,

what language do you

know?

in the end it’s

you and god, the same

unknownness

awakening

WHOOPTEE FUCKIN' DO FOR YOU

for A & A

Whooptee fuckin’ do for you! she said,

this was their first cocktail party, a soiree

in their honor, drinking Grey Goose kumquat quests

and chanting Ferlinghetti’s “Constantly Risking Absurdity”

from the picnic table festooned with paper lanterns

and tiki torches. The guests sulked and slinked

in their sultriness, words slurred in the syrupy

sloops of fireflies and luna moths floating

their carnal syntax across bare shoulders

and breasts, men stripping down to vests, there's dancing

barefoot across the dewy grass -- someone

put on Sinatra so they're dancing -- and

when he said he needed to recite his swan song

they all sang "The Way You Look Tonight" with

Ol' Blue Eyes, they weren’t having any of it, no,

this is not how artists fade away, this

is not how cognitive theorists launch their careers,

there’s too much wisteria curlicued overhead,

she pleaded with every slender braceleted gal

swooning to the crooning she could corner:

Do you think I’m pretty? Do you think I’m smart?

And of course they nodded and danced, yes dear,

of course you are, you are!, kumquat quests spilling

over their hands and down their lovers’ spines

as they danced, cooling the humid sweat and

patience from their fingers, and now he was

holding court by the fountain of Aphrodite

riding a swan, he was telling them all about

the swan, the song, and she, spying him, found him

so luscious, so utterly divine, and there,

among those flush-fleshed calypso dipsos,

she bounced up to the picnic table proclaiming

her right to holiness, to sing the Canticle

of Canticles!, and he, washing his hands in

Aphrodite’s spillage, shouted that he’d

never slurped oysters from their shells. The

lascivious couples slinked off into something

like a fistful of pixie stix poured down one’s throat

when looking at the stars, wax bottles of sugar

water one drinks to quaff their preternatural thirst,

licking the frosting off red velvet cupcakes,

whooptee fuckin do!, she shouted, Is this

all there is? Whooptee fuckin do for you! he sputtered.

This was not their swan song, they knew, but what did

they know? The night was fading and folks were

copulating in the neighbor's hottub, shagging

in the bearded iris, frolicking in the perfumed

French lilacs. They were left with the platter of

Cheez-Its and Triscuits, red grapes, cold asparagus tips,

potato chips and melted brie and the Eurythmics.

Standing there on the picnic table, under

the paper lanterns, they touched each other's lips

with their fingertips. Whooptee fuckin do for you!

baby, Whooptee fuckin do for you!

THIS BEE

This fat bumblebee trapped

at my window, his whole being,

it seems, furious and

trembling, buzzing against

the glass until he fatigued

and resigned himself to

his fate, this transparent

flat pane that detaches him

from reality – his

yellow thorax fur gleams

with slick sweat, as if

the effort of life itself

drains free from him. He lifts

his legs, delicate brushes

fastidiously grooming

his abdomen as if to

release the pollen he’d

collected, combs himself

to look composed for the

inevitable while his honey gut

shivers. He stiffens for

the passing from one state

to another, a cessation

of bumbleness, and so

we see that existence

does not, in the end, precede

essence, at least

not for this bee, it simply

means the end for this bee

is the end of essence

itself, the same old

same old, again.

WHAT IS AND EVER MUST BE

You can feel it coming,
can't you? Even in this
exhibit of former friends
where you wander past walls
of drawings, prints and paintings,
emerald bee-eaters,
fat rust-colored roosters,
naked women leaning
against abstract barns,
a series of houses,
still lives of blood ripe
peaches, exquisite, fruit
prints of a snowy river
while outside the dark
windows the river empties
into the starless night,
it's all line and value,
color and texture,
gravity and grace. You
buy three drawings of
sandhill cranes taking flight,
captured, as it were, as they
escape a slip of marsh ice
and leave the photographs
of powerlines stretched
across a field of rotted
pumpkins, straggled vines,
plein air paintings of the
old County Grounds, those
fields of lavender and
marigold, milkweed and wild
raspberry, hawks and kestrels
thistle and milkweed husks,
the hollow graves where the
nameless and star-crossed
orphans were buried, you
can feel it coming, can't
you, now that they've swept
the leaves in great mounds
so the streets look like
ancient burial mounds,
these nights are all so
elegiac, when the freight trains
rattle and moan, you feel 
a cold front coming in from 
the west, and you know it's coming,
there's nothing you can do,
it's the tide of all things
material and the
inconsequential.