IN WHICH THE PHILOSOPHER CONSIDERS THE QUALITY OF TIME WHILE WALKING THE SHORE

                                                                              for jk


This is no ancient mariner, no
clam digger, it's a man with a blackberry

texting from the ocean's rim
among the children with buckets

building castles to ward off the waves'
slow scrawl, scratching glyphs in the sand

with driftwood sticks and seaweed 
flags. It's the issue of being and

time he's considering, the shimmer
and shadow of minnows in the shallows,

the hissing breath as the gentle waves 
recede, it's the scattered path of footprints

fading in the wet sand, the steady
pulse of the slow waves themselves, 

the slow combers unraveling into
foam, how that sailboat anchored offshore

rises and falls, how the amplitude of
dolphins swimming up the coast, diving

and surfacing, their slick gray skin and fins
perfect in the ocean, how the sun overhead

seems to arc across the sky, the faded
gibbous moon sinking in the eat, , and

here below his wet and callused feet 
scrabble over so many shells tumbling

ashore, sand dollars and sea stars battered 
and chipped, the sweet suck and pull of the soft

sand that buries his feet. 



And what of the thoughts of this man, the
dialogue unravelling in his mind

as he scours the shore, where is the record
of his great meditations, his postulates,

his arguments, his inner sanctum, 
his truth? 



You can hear them in the salty hiss,
the skittering legs of the plovers,

the bounce and clang of the harbor buoy,
the fading cries of seagulls -- there is no

"I," no sense of one's self, one's being
nothing remains here beyond these 

measurements, these particulars, the
space between his steps, his fading 

footprints, how the water's foam seems to
sink beneath the sand, and disappear.  

POEM FOR JANUARY 1, 2013

I dropped by that Starbucks on the shore  to 
drink coffee and who should I find there but 
Memory drinking a decaf caramel macchiato 
and nibbling apple crumb cake, he'd gone bald 
since I last saw him, now he wore thick glasses 
and a wrinkled raincoat, like some washed up
philosopher. LIfe hadn't treated him well, he'd 
been reading Levine and fhe next thing 
he knew he was in Shelbyville working 
the Kwik Trip Lotto and hot dog carousel. 
I felt bad, standing there with my Venti 
coffee, my bermuda shorts andf flip flops, 
I'm on vacation, I told him, could I 
join him? He shrugged his shoulders and said what
he always said, "it's a free country, suit 
yourself." There were some awkward moments, there 
always are, I told him I'd made it, I 
manage accounts for a large data processing 
firm (it sounds like I'm on a game show, I laughed,
but that's what we're required to say), I get 
four weeks off a year, can you believe it?, 
I'd quit the booze after the divorce and 
found someone who gives me my space, she's 
just returned from some spa in Taos and, 
hey, wouldn't you know it, I'm writing a novel. 
Well, it's mostly  vignettes, slices of life, 
but I know they'll add up to something.  
It's my chi, Donna says. I asked him what 
he'd been doing with himself all these years 
and he said, well, since the Great Disruption 
he'd lost his house on the gulf, it was just a 
shack, really, but still a shock, now he just 
combs the beach -- really, I comb the beach
looking for anything of value. I collect 
driftwood, I find coins, I study the waves.
You remember that time when we plucked conchs 
from the shore when we were kids? He'd spent a year 
in Petoskey working in a lumberyard 
and living in a trailer under a radio tower.
He'd foud his way to Cairo where he 
planted trees and sold books, he'd given up 
the writing and figured he'd get a houseboat 
and just drift away until he found something 
new. I grew uncomfortable, suddenly, 
thinking of Donna back on the beach 
flinging sea stars into the surf, I've 
got to be going, I said, I fetched sixty
dollars from my pocket and said here, 
get yourself something to eat, maybe at 
that little crab shack up the shore, and then 
I walked off, a little self-conscious, he'd 
lost it, it was sad, even poignant, I 
felt an ache in my ribs, the smell of lilac 
and curried chicken sandwiches and 
words floating in the wind, just out of reach,
but I kept walking into the sunlight 
and the faint sound of the surf hissing,
and the smell of hibiscus and that sweet 
dying of the gulf. This would not be the last 
time we'd meet, I knew, but it would be our 
last together here. I hoped he'd understand 
but knew, of course, that he wouldn't and that
he'd grow to begrudge me in the future, 
as I too would begrudge him.

POEM FOR THE END OF 2012

The theologian drinking cosmos
     at the cocktail party said
the universe is really nothing 
     meaning it's mostly dark
matter, but something he said
     always comes from nothing 
and we know that there's no 
     such thing as nothingness,
that is, a constant state where
     nothing breeds nothing. The
proof, he said, is all around 
     us, we just can't see it
and even if we could we
     could not comprehend it, 
the concept itself -- just like
     the universe, he said --
is too abstract, like god, just
     because it's all nothing
doesn't mean we can't talk to it,
     feed it, pray to it, curse it,
damn it. After which the guests
     retreated to the pool and
poured themselves another drink
     and waded into the dark
of the pool and now naked stared
     up at the sky to feel the moonlight
on their faces like a blessing
     and as their eyes adjusted 
to the night they lost themselves 
     in galactic swirls, stardust
and retrograde planets swimming
     in the nothingness of 
nothing, they felt the dark matter
     all around them and the stones
in their heads stared in wonder
     and the theologian among 
them lay in the dew-wet grass
     weeping not for himself
or his soul or the souls of 
     those of us naked and shivering
but for the loneliness he 
     felt now loosened by those
cosmos, the empty glasses 
     clinking all around him like 
the music from faraway spheres 
     and wind chimes tinkling 
in the warm galactic wind.

     
     

TURKEY FAT

They're not big gravy fans
so when they pull the bird
out of the oven and 

slice open the cooking bag 
like a deflated oxygen tent
and rip off the wings and legs

they're looking at a carcass
of steaming white meat and
two quarts of boiling fat

sloshing in the roasting pan
which they liposuck out
with a yellow-bulbed baster

and spray into mason jars 
and set them in the yard
to cool before they feast 

on burnt brussel sprouts and 
marshmallow carrot pie and 
mashed potatoes minus the 

gravy, and five days later 
they throw out all the jellied 
turkey skin and bones that 

our mutt Friendly finds the 
jars of congealed fat 
and laps up the soft grease,

lolling his tongue into
the jars until he's all 
grease-nosed, his fur all muck-

smeared and for the next three 
days he's shitting pools of 
turkey fat all yellow and 

slick and it's then that I 
count my blessings, thank those
zealot pilgrims for this 

bounty, I thank God for 
my neighbors who shot our cat 
Henry in the eye when

their kids got .22's for 
Christmas and who throw
cherry bombs at woodchucks

in the gully every 
Fourth of July, I 
thank them for their 

shattered bottles of 
Old Crow and Mountain
Dew sparkling in the

autumn sun, I say a
special prayer for their
souls, for throwing thistles 

and stinging nettle seeds
and deadly nightshade into
their yard, for placing a 

nest of paper wasps 
under their crawl space 
with all the garter snakes 

I can find. 

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.