FERRYMAN

He drove the Studebaker down
the two-rut road to rent a painter


he pushed off into the minnows
and shadows they cast on the sand


then the uneasy adjustment
to buoyancy, lock in the oarpins


and we traveled across the lake
in patient pulls--we could feel


the muscle with each stroke, my brother
in the stern marking our progress


to the marsh, I was on point looking
back on his sunburnt face, the knot


of dark hair above his walnut eyes,
a stranger to us when we reached


the channel and slowed over slick weeds
and muck that pucker and popper


obscenely among the bullfrogs.
We pushed and sloughed through


corndog grass and water lilies
the tea-colored water, we grabbed


clumps of reeds and pulled our clumsy
boat deeper, swarmed by dragonflies


and mosquitoes and sweatblind
we stared at the lone red-winged


blackbird guarding a drowned tree
as the first cool air slipped over our skin


and we emptied into the hidden
lake, slicing easy as a dolphin


into the green water, he threw
the inner tube over and we dove into


the warm aquarium sunlight and clung
to the rubber skin while he pulled


that same strong patient pull as we
circled the lake, weeds rubbing our


skinny legs like limp snakes, through
the islands of slippery lily pads,


our toes scrapping the spongy muck
and in the middle feeling the faint


cold pulling our pollywog bodies


behind the unspoken man we
called father, the Admiral, the


great ferryman lugging us
in this private watery world. 

WHITE PELICANS

Those white
     pelicans
in the grey bay


     sliding
by, sliding the neap
     backwards


looking back
     at the bay
now swelling


they are agents
     of time
floating phenomena


penetrating
     the future slick
as you please


staring down
     into the past
for fish, for


something deeper
     than what they
learned aeons ago


     sure it's
one thing to
     skim


the wrinkles
     at sunset
as you fill your gullet


     here it's
easy, just gaze
     into the past


with the prescience
     the perfect
knowledge


of where
    the fish
lurk


     now as you
pluck them
     as you please


like reading
     this, writing
this, don't think


     too hard
he'd say
     as if he knew


it would all
     work out,
you'll never be


     satisfied,
don't even
     try.

AFTER THE DISRUPTION

No one
     comes here 
          anymore


          in the garden
     of earthly delights
the bayside


pools are pools
     of floating 
          palm fronds


          and feathers
     the egret fountains
that once 


spit water
     in delicate arcs
          are still


          there are no 
     lox or omlettes  
on the breakfast 
     
verandah, no
     mimosas, just
          deck chairs sprawled


          everywhere, no 
     mojitos or frappacinos
just mockingbirds


and wing-flapping 
     grackles disturbing
          the palmettos


          pelicans napping
     on the busted
pier posts, ospreys


roosting in 
     the cupola,
          fetching their 


          daily haul 
     of silver fish, 
heron and ibis


stalking the shore--
     all the splendor
          of the bay


          the honeyed mango
     sweetness and oranges,
the turquoise water


and brassy sunset
     bleeding on
          the surface of


everything, it's
     a squatter's spoils,
          this ramshackle 


          hotel, the bohemians
     have all split 
for their squalor


elsewhere, the 
     vagrants occupying
          the spoils 


          of babylon
     took over as we
knew they would.

AFTER THE MIGRAINE

and the shimmering blindness,

the carnival whirl-a-gig

spins you in centripetal

flush -- the alligator man

escapes under his tent

in a house-of-mirrors flash,

it's all snow cones and

cotton candy, corndogs

and pigshit, blue ribbon

mincemeat and sour cream pies,

fusty peanuts, lipstick and

ring toss, anything is possible,

the mutant, the grotesque, the superhuman,

you'll write that novel on

the human condition, a tragic

folly, rush out to your old

high school flame and smooch

under the bleachers, you'll

read poetry for god's sake,

cummings and ginsberg and

ferlinghetti, you'll take up

ballroom dancing, do the fox trot,

construct a new grammar

from stone, hike the Andes

to reach the ancient city,

drink the blood sacrifice,

touch the face of god and spit

into the sad Pacific rain,

smoke cigarettes with Kafka

in the cobbled streets of Prague,

drink Pernod, absinthe and mescal,

and bigod that's just this morning,

before you retreat to your

monastery and chant the vespers

in the stone garden and watch

the dissolution of the world's

insistence, all the

distractions, the senses now

muffled and time unraveled

in the eternal zen moment.

It is the agony of God

any way you look at it,

penance for beauty,

and thought, and just being

itself, redemption

for ever waking in

the first place

NO HANDS

GOSPEL

The fact that nothing
whatsoever comes to mind,
springs into being so to speak,
should be evidence alone:
Caveat emptor! Abandon
all hope ye who enter here
because the fact is that
there's nothing here,
not a single ordinary thing,
no idea, no nuance, not
even the shred of an idea,
a tainted memory, no,
you're on your own, my friend,
you must provide
your own content, your own
image, it's like those
art kids say, I don't have
an intent, it's what the viewer
brings, I let the reader see
what the reader wants to see.
it's all relative gobbledygook
anyway, a hullabaloo of signs
that signify nothing but
their own presence.
So when your eyes
pass over these marks, here,
these glyphs, these scrapes
of pen, you're only looking
at evidence that some thing
scratched against this
surface, nothing more, right?
Like that feeling when you
were sitting in church
in your acolyte robe,
sleeves sweeping down
like great wings, watching
the altar candles flicker,
the thin wisp of smoke
drifting up to the stained glass
dove and the hand of Mary,
how the flame glimmered
on the gold cross!
The pastor's voice swelled
as he delivered the sermon
about the Light of the World!
The sun streamed down on the
congregation in rainbows
where dust motes floated
freely like some swirling
galaxy of wonder and
it's only when the pastor said
"And the Light went out!" that
you saw the candles
extinguish their flames as if
the cool breath of the Holy Spirit
had blown across the church,
how empty it all seemed
so suddenly, so full of people
drowsing, the organist stirring
for the processional, calling
you to minister to the holy flame

and snuff out the candles

but no divine spark remained

and so you proceeded as

an impostor parading your

candle lighter through

the singing congregation,

wondering Is this a sign?,
like the sign of the fish
and the pentecostal flame
now flickering in your head.

LESSON

for Ron Bitticks

We met in the studio, cold

and empty save for Carrie's paintings

large and encrusted with oils, a

bas relief of the ethereal,

luminescent strokes,

oyster and blue gray,

the shimmering mist of light

somehow refracted through the soul,

mesmerizing, the iridescent

elan vital that envelops us

like a halo.

We stood before her paintings,

six visions of essence, and

prepared for the crit. There was

a stillness, an awe, a shuddering,

the four of us afraid to talk,

pacing the warehouse floor, waiting

for a question, any question,

to relieve the silence. The

professor broke the trance and

led us to the imbecility of words,

disjointed syllables, clumsy

sentences in the presence of

so much mind. "Well, what is this?"

he asked, as if the words had

never been strung together

quite this way, as if this was

the very first question we'd

heard. There was more nervous

banter of hands, shifting feet,

"What are these trying to be?"

There were jabs of words,

fits and starts, sudden pile-ups

of uncertainty, retraced, vocables,

curiosities. "These are the feet,"

someone said, "suggesting a body

somehow floating in the luster--

it's as if the air itself, the very

atmosphere, is some silvery

substantiality, like you see

at the shore when the sun

blinds you in the mist, that haze."

"It's like some new era being

born," someone added, "yes,"

another chimed in, "the world

vanishing, dissipating

into spirit." The professor

strolled before the paintings,

embarrassed by his very presence,

tuggingh at his mustache.

the poised inquisitor, the stentor,

impatient with life. "I wonder,"

he asked, "if there are any questions

from the painter?" There were none

excerpt, at the anguished unfolding

of hands, her skinny fingers splotched

with coppery pigment and a

tainted agony, she asked

"What do you think?" We stuttered

and stammered, unequal to

so much tremulous light

surrounding us, our eyes lost

in the mysterious mystic.

"You've done it!" the professor

shouted, somewhere between a

laugh and a forced confession,

and we all parted ways, nodding,

knowing something more than

he could possible say.

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