Animating the Ruin

Enough of this trying age of buying things,

let’s knot some words into the thing dying closest,

and when the onus falls let’s shuffle the jokers

back into the deck, paint dancesteps on sidewalks

and sing the whole way, teaching tunes

that lead to bold dancing. In light of such majesty,

toy trumpets are raised and bellow their call:

the time has come for harmonicas. Let’s walk

the interstate medians in graceless highwire decadence

till the highway’s a logjam of left-behind cars,

the parking lots full of fire pits, tents

and tambourines. Pilgrims all, let’s take the reins

of black and white horses and drive well again.

By God what a racket worth hearing we’ll make.

Appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, no. 43, Fall/Winter 2008-9.

Insomniac’s Aubade

Some nights, I go sleepless the old way

and think dumb thoughts mostly.

Uselessly, I knead them in my head

and bake them into loaves all night

and then, come morning, come to

gently with tiny bells and write down

the thing crafted thus aslumber.

It’s a failure of a way to work.

Most times, shamefully, I lose it—

the aviary keeper looses his gaggle

of birds from their cage and they

pour out my window and signal

the dawn in a flourish of sunlight

unburdened. The light spills over me

in waves and cleans me white

as an old bone. But yesterday,

just before waking, this thought came:

Have you walked outside, lately?

And I woke on the roof, unawares,

staring straight at the sun. It was

so hot already the shingles burned.

It was as if the world’s strong hand

had grabbed me and handshook me

like a man who just got a job.

I sat for a bit, collected myself.

Across the alley, birds perched

on power lines, lined up like words

down a line. So I plucked them off

and plopped them down on this page

just now cause I think I’m supposed to.

Is that what you were saying

with all of that light? Or is this

just another one I didn’t get right?

Appeared in Midwest Quarterly Vol. XLIX, No. 1, Autumn, 2007.

Forest Ridge Farms Nocturne

‘Twas eleven hours in the cube today,

and Fran and the kids look cooked when you

get home, rapt in the flash of a high-def

Rembrandt three group in the great room

while you quickly warm your dinner. The vinyl’s

falling off the house next door, you say.

She throws a sexy smile the kids can’t read.

Eleven trips she made today, she says,

from school to home, to lunch, to home,

to school, to home to change their clothes,

to softball, grocery, softball, home, and last

a walk out to the drive, to meet you all alone,

a kiss because she missed you, and also

cause she’s lonely, so what is she to do?

Tonight, you say, we’ll find the good urge,

to close the door with minutes to spare

and while we lay, we’ll talk out our days,

the Blankman account, Em’s ankle sprain,

sun rays and the warm grass smell. Tell me,

darling, how you pushed the window open

and stood staring, waist down naked.

How did you know? she asks. It was around

midday. The lonely quiet turned me on,

so I stared out at the vacancy, the vast

empty chainlink silence of it, ‘til I, close-eyed,

crosslegged underneath, shivered myself,

then napped on the made bed an hour.

Work, I think, would fill the void, she says.

It fills the time, but not the space, it makes

the day go quickly by, and that’s what’s got me

scared these days, you say. The girls are asleep,

she says. A humid waft slips in the window.

That cut grass smell? You smell that? she says,

That’s what got me going. I love you, you say.

This love, these thin walls can’t contain it.

Appeared in Hiram Poetry Review, Issue 68, Spring 2007.