Sincerity is not the greatest sin,
but is nearly incurable and will sometimes whittle away
at truth
until honesty is left
a slender stick.

tea, coffee, and me

like promises of

heat and pretty faces,

painted tin and bamboo boxes

piled steep from years of plenty

wait in closed cupboards

eFragrance

she went back to see
what she had forgotten
the bit about cyber love
and the ether, the thick trail that was like incense
in her nose and
clung to her clothes
but when she realized she couldn't remember where she had picked it up
she searched her history
cigars, games, parks, recreation, money, susan b. anthony, long marches
the trail of tears, buchenwald, jews, catholics,
mixed marriages, coupling in the 21st century, lesbian love,
love, pheromones, navel orange worms, pistachios, moths,
sibs, sids, cyber dreams, her mother and father whose
only trail was her and her brother
and maybe if she ever has a child
and a box full of letters that she pulled out of the bottom drawer
Dear Charlie,
i'm so glad that you wrote,
I have been thinking about the other night
what a fine dancer you are
I had more fun than I ever expected
Emma is still angry with me for leaving her alone
but I would do it agin
I've given some thought to what you said
and I will be your girl
enclosed is a picture of me that you can put in your wallet
if you like, and you can write to me while you are away
we haven't known each other long, but I feel as if
I have known you longer than anyone
I will be your girl and hopefully another reason for you
to keep safe and don't take any foolish chances
with your life
your girl
Maureen
and he was not a fool,
so she was there with solid paper in her hand
when she realized she would have to go back
and find the link
to the man she met online and do something she had never done
print it out, the day, the place, the memory
of his little hello and the slow back and forth in eblack and ewhite
what was the name of that site?
for posterity and her someday daughter who might some day
be cleaning up after her death and would appreciate a small
surprise from the past
with the smell of old paper and the dust
and the endearing words of
their first hello, the dance across centuries
that would otherwise
completely disappear.

Religion

There is no doubt that doubt is a
handsome natural cavern
with a wide mouth
occupied early
by artists
and in it
a narrow
hidden passage
that priests honored
with a small guard fire
doubtless intended to burn
forever.

Now I Can Tell You

Now that everything is calm

and the weeping has stopped,

not even a lick of wet wound

Now that numbers add up again

and sunlight fills the cracks that the moon exposed

when my tongue leaped off my sleeve into your ear and her ear

and even the dog’s ear

after I’d chased her from the house

Now that the muse has rolled me and I’ve only mopping up to do

all the dust and the dried out things lying around like

rummaged bags

x-rayed, handled, fouled, and jerked out of storage

onto the carousel again

Now that I’m home and it looks like home and they all recognize me

and I remember their names, maybe for the very last time because it gets harder and harder to believe that I’ll always come back,

Now that I’ve yet to begin planning our next escapade like the one in the

weeds down by the swamp, fucking and picking ticks off each other afterward,

Now that money dribbles in, not rushes out

the tide in the air like a vacuum, an orderly flow in one direction

a small steady wave leading toward the hole in the machine

Now I can tell you how little lust means to me

how much, no more, I loved my sin,

how much I crave my ruined charcoal heart as it crumbles from within.

All being defies understanding and little dreams of its own existence.

All being deifies understanding and glorifies its own existence.

Fulcrum

With soft grass below
the danger of
walking on the fence
is that a leg will fall on each side of the rail.

Full Circle

When his plumage turned from drab

to gold and the finch considered

nest or seed, a sudden urge compelled him to

fling it all aside and dance in flight

precisely at an angle to catch the brilliant sun

a dive and glide

he never knew he fancied

until he donned his father’s clothes.

Every soul is a reservoir
of need
with a red tipped stick and a cup.

Seeds

I cannot be one of those mighty men

who forges an exact

of himself, hammering away in public

about the vein that lead him out of

the earth, inevitable given the persistence of time

and his own determination

that he would be a suit

of armor

or a vest of gold chain mail.

I cannot be one of those men;

I have been leaked with impurities that

prove ore to be clay

cracked under extreme heat and given the persistence

of time revealed a lack of iron

or even tin,

frail under a sharp eye

filled with junk like quartz,

seeds of ordinary sediment littered

in, and I’m reminded of an old miner

wet, bearded, calm as if panning was

an end in itself,

while inside the stream

where red blood cells wash across the open wound

he is desperate for a single strike that will heal

put a pedestal under him

so that his grandchildren

might point and say

That!  That is the stuff I am made of.

I’ve Got It Bad for the Muse

(or the Rich Lady with the Long Legs)

I went out looking for the muse,

I do that, look for the muse,

I don’t know why; I rarely find her,

although when I’m ready and

she’s ready

she pounds on my door

and I have to roll out of bed at odd hours and

memorize stray thoughts in the street

commanded at penpoint

and cottoned to a broken muffler

and worry about keeping my head

never mind my clothes

which might easily get kicked under the bed, thrown in the tub,

abandoned in the cellarway

near the potatoes and the onions,

might not feel like a head at all,

but more like a cabbage or a Brussels sprout

and even peeled, skinned, I love when she rolls me.

She’ll find me in the face of a woman not my wife or

in a dream not my own

and she’ll rattle me, throttle me until I spill

practically drooling like an old fool

and no one is there to wipe my face

and sometimes there’s even a bad smell

and though I might repel myself

I don’t regret her

until she leaves,

she always leaves,

the rich lady with the long legs.

I never learn

I go looking for more

as if she was somewhere

because when she’s gone

everything is calm

and all the words that I know

are like numbers on a simple ledger

adding up exactly right

and I know that’s not life

not the muse

not what might explain anything.

November Makes Me Dark

I like when she says

November makes me dark

with its moonless nights and long thin raindrops that stretch from the low sky to the ground and

the once bright leaves are flicked off one by one by one by the forefinger of winter

and we manufacture ways to depress ourselves

like shrinking the day

and spending too much

and wearing too thin jackets on too cold days
and no gloves.

I like when she says November makes me dark

because my back goes rigid

and the hairs on my skin pluck themselves up

and my pride at being born when the rest of it is dying

shines a light

and I tell her November makes me.

Me, too.

I have met people who claim to know Christ.  Parrots.  Dogs.
They make me want to squawk, bark.

Available

I will also work for pay,

commission,

for any act or thought no matter how small

or large a note it appears to

me

for you or anyone you know

who feels poetic in the bin of his soul

or on a whim

but has no time or

talent to pursue with excellence

but has a dime

in the manner to which you have become accustomed

:the Lexus you drive, engineered in Japan

:the Rembrandt you hang, painted in Holland

:the Valium you love, designed by Hoffman-LaRoche

who knew your ennui,

no less masterpieces for the money.

Your will

upon your retainer

I will

in metaphor

develop to fit the bill in verse, hardly free

and leave your loved ones hanging

on every penny of your thoughts

as you grow ever closer to immortality.

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