"Let the dead ones attend to burying their own dead,"—
A buddy told me, and I just smiled in reply.
And, with that smile, I said to myself: "Why not?
Let them bury themselves, it is worth a try."

A noose, a cudgel, the firefly flash of a blade—
And the eternal peace, the corrupting peace...
But how well, my friend, you pretend that you are alive,
With a longing that is so endless, so full of grace.

Tall she stood above me
as I looked cancer in the face
at eye level
'round the size and color
of a very ripe plum;
fierce, angry purple bright
like bruises near pretty
more reddish than black,
ready to burst
creeping in a slow flush
down her breast,
a predator ready to strike
devious violator
devouring monster
undercover parasite
pimple with a nipple
up to no good
made us wonder
how she believed for so long
(long enough to kill)
that it was only a well mannered,
well meaning tumor

is Brussels sprouts when all I
want is butter pecan ice cream.  It is rock

climbing on Everest for which I have no
map.  Free me to the beach and let me crush

my reading rush with a paper back mystery.
Wring and twist those stanzas tight until

a stream of sense drops into a pool of clear insight.
Read it loud, find clues hidden within the rhythm

Read again those awkward strophes; find what
missed when first eye met the poem.  Grammar

be not dammed for the sake of verse, but knocked
askew like a giant block precariously resting on its corner.

Tip-toe on, danger exists only in the future tense.
Scant words simply rendered beckon like church

bells. For in the paradox of wordplay lies passion
and when written to the edge by its gravity we are held.

apparently invisible
true believers in midnight
rain worshipping anti-intellectuals
lionesses with revolutionized minds
rememberers and daydream dwellers
protectorates of language
admirers of emptiness
perhaps, you.

She's one colossal failure to embody heart & misery,
or misery vs. heart.  Either way, she isn't how
I intend to love.  Or should I explain what she is?

I'm freaked by a hallway, alarmed by a razor, a blond
named anything, & fear never equals any linear sense.
She doesn't either.  Or should I account for what she does?

The measure of a life to be forgotten.
The timed-out motions of approaching death.
A head in blood on top of a desk.

The bullet that enters behind
the ear.  The shot's echo through
concrete walls & open doors.

Is it the rain that falls all day?
Or is it sunny, & does the sky insist
the matter is decay?  She does.

Or should I explain what she doesn't?
When, at last, will there be union?
Failure might be her view—this way.

It might be mine—that way.  It's not our pleasure,
& it's no future obvious to me.  Yes,
distraction's the fury, & it leans against our lives.

Sister, I look at you
through black fabric, sweat
and bloodied gauze.

You're nothing but expensive furniture
with your child-like submission and
post-feminist, ruthless obedience.

You have no say with your silence.
You forget woman should be
heard and seen.

"Woman is the nigger of the world," I whisper
behind my black fabric, sweat
and bloodied gauze.

It seems late
to find out yesterday

he has a nickname
like words for gay
man in Spanish but
he does not make

fun of gay men
he dances with them
they are the better
dancers.  His car is

the sound of the
door open the key
waiting to be turned
my car door is

open too every three
sentences he looks at
me directly, leans into
my car shifting his

shorts at the knees
like a man in
dress pants sitting down.
Took me a year

to say hello but
seemed late last month
he mentioned his wife's
father, his wife, my

phone number is on
a piece of paper
in his hand these
two hours in this

parking lot the chorus
of his car and
my mosquitoes.  He has
promised to invite me

dancing we both like
to dance
no idea
what he wants but

if we dance and
do not understand where
his wife is I
will choose another name

and write a poem
at least find a
better way to describe
two people in the

summer moving so close
to telling each other
stories.  I lean on
my open door and

straighten, he leans against
the flank of my
car, stands up.  It
is like holding a

piece of string between
us like this

In order to let the walk
take you, you must first
go outside, past
the rain full of
the fields on which
it is falling,
song full of bird,
water that swears
it is a river.
Go down to the banks
where a car is
growing rust at the
crumbling edge,
drawing slowly over
the ghosts of its
teenage owners.
Slide in behind
the broken wheel.
Can you see the girl,
her hair laid out on the grass
in the shape of
takeoff or landing,
the trees above her head
shuffling their leaves like cards?
If our eyes
which are the feeblest stars
can't see this
try looking with them shut
then
get out of the wreck
let the walk take you back
upstream or down,
til it tires of you,
and turns home.