Year's End

I start with a lie. That's too strong. A falsehood. How about a miscalculation? The year has not ended. That's a fact. We are not at year's end, not fully, not yet, not now. I start with the half life of a half truth. I start with a start, a stutter start. I stutter my strut of a start because I have nothing to say, nothing to say except to lament the rubble and ruins, the strewn limbs and blood rivers of Putin's nightmare backward lurch into history. To think that World War Two was over? And to honor, I can't find proper synonyms, the bravery, heroism, patriotism, valor of Ukraine, its people amidst the smoldering slaughter, that mother on a gurney outside the bombed maternity ward they later said she and the baby died, that image to remember, like the silent scream freeze-frame shot to the head in Saigon, or the white man brandishing the US flag against the restrained black man, the soiling of old glory, Stanley Forman, and so on, ad nauseam, till death do us unite. Even before year's end I want to flip the calendar, turn the page, close the books, hurry before there's more, hurry up, there's time, and that's both horrifying and hopeful is it not.

rearview solstice

they said it was the shortest day not a D-Day but a December diurnal one a solstice they said something about the sun earth nexus something about the failing light flailing to find itself on the upswing stretching out the light the definition of day and now I am flailing to see that in my February-drenched rearview mirror the one with the solstice memory the one with the solstice promise winking at me the driver me the one masquerading as something someone whose name escapes me

soft touch

Each box of pens sported a dime-sized label declaring SOFT TOUCH. Anyone seeking the ying-yang symmetry of a HARD TOUCH label would be disappointed. Besides, who wants a hard-touch writing instrument? Presumably someone who desires a forced halting, an imposed reflection, speed bumps or humps or whatever they call them in your neck of the woods. A writer who wishes to be arrested goes for the hard touch. It need not be rough or clumsy. Think of it like a vehicle's electronic stability control (ESC) system that employs computer-controlled braking to foster safe driving. They used to call this a governor. Sometimes a writer craves that meditative slowdown. 

For post-post-modernists who shun handheld writing instruments, a keyboard's settings can accomplish much the same thing. Or pour mucilaginous maple syrup over the keys, but don't expect to use that keyboard the next morning, or ever, without a side of waffles.

A soft touch. That's when you want to glide, sail away, slide down the snow-covered hill with abandon. Let it ride. Don't stop for no one or nothing. No edits, rewrites, fixes, catches, second thoughts. Smooth as silk. Enjoy it while you can. Merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a stream.

They say: She's a soft touch, an easy mark. He's a soft touch, a softee, a marshmallow. Dupes. Targets. Victims. Gullible and gulpable jellyfish.

And yet: Soft touch mother to newborn, father to failing father, skin to skin, kin to kin. Romancing the stone, like water like time. Soft touch melting madness. Soft touch secret texture, facile tactile, silent language. Touch tone static-free, soft spark whisper flame.

May I borrow that pen?

held harmless

If anyone or anyplace needs indemnification, it's Planet Harm. To indemnify: compensate for a hurt or injury; or to protect one against hurt or harm. From Latin, indemnis, unhurt. Here it gets tricky for us Harmlings. Who among us can be counted among the unhurt? Exactly. No one. That doesn't mean we're on a level playing field of harm. No, no, no. Harm glides on a continuum starting from the first infinitesimal, granular speck away from unhurt or unharm all the way to the end of the harm continuum: a nightmare beyond words or imagination. Worse than that, is there an endpoint to the harm continuum? Harmlings can always go darker, conjuring up new brews of bruises and agonies. 

Then again, surely it's not linear. Our paths of harm are zigs and zags, spins and turns, halts and balks. Same with unharm.

Let's not be so bleak. If we are to think that way about the worst of us, or the worst of the inclinations of any of us, then we should go to the other end of the spectrum. When does harmless leach into harm? In other words, who says anything or anyone is pure unhurt/unharm or pure hurt/harm? And whoever said it's static or immutable?

In real life on Planet Harm, it's typically, if not always, more gray. Harm competes and blends with unharm. Unharm flirts with harm; they may have a dalliance here or there. Unhurt and hurt, harmless and harm, might sport in the same bed in some riotous rampage of intertwining. They may even breed offspring. Or it might be more subtle than that: harmless and harm might merely exchange glances, or shake hands, or briefly embrace, or catch a cold from each other, a virus of harmlessness infecting harmfulness, or vice versa.

This is getting too confusing. The point is: it ain't all black or white.

We'll end on a buoyant note, a lifting of spirits, a poetic hymn to what Harmlings aspire to, sometime somehow somewhere:

Held harmless.

In the bosom of love. In a mother's arms. A father's grip. Embraced in the night. Sheltered from the storm. Under the brooding wing. Behind the fortress walls. Held harmless. Held without question or qualification. Held without cost or payment. Beyond all doubt, merit, or fear. Less harm. Free of harm. Banished. Forgotten harm. Erased. Ambrosia d'amnesia.  

 

valedictory volleys

do you have any last requests

like a favorite song or something

hello goodbye

any parting words of wisdom

a word to the wise

the wise don't need no wisdom

or words

like a last meal

be serious

bon appetit

pass the ketchup

what about blindfolds

for me or the firing squad

sayonara

can I have a cigarette

au revoir

spare change

hasta la vista

do you take cream or sugar

down the hatch

a leap of faith

shake it up, baby

 

doc said I have essential tremors

I get that

who doesn't

I know, right

a little trembling is downright essential now and then

you got that right

especially in this day and age

it's the dawn of another age

or another rage

for real

maybe an earthquake is the planet's essential tremors

letting off seismic steam

try a little tenderness

is it contagious

ain't no cure for love

Love Potion Number 9

keep searching

my teeth chatter

who could blame them

the words they've uttered

makes me judder

in my own skin

my nervous envelope

as Proust said

remembering things past

and present

 

sometimes I wonder

do you
ever
think of me
sometimes I wonder
what if
what if not
and everything in between
sometimes I wonder
that I wonder
which is wonder aplenty
sometimes I suppose
I wonder
which is just as good
sometimes I forget
to wonder about wonder
which is my loss
though wonder
still awaits
me there
fresh and fierce
patient and planted
mountain solid
and the trickling stream
the chickadee
and snow spilling off the branch

cell mates

you threw your phone away?
just like that
out the window
on the highway
me too
really?
into the lake
gone 
tossed
really
it was hard
scary
then it wasn't
right
why
I'm not even sure
gone
tossed
just like that
brave new world
land of the free
the bearable lightness of less
is more
and then some 

where did it go

things don't just disappear
it was right here
I used it yesterday
I looked there
did you take it
this is driving me crazy
where did you put it
if I knew, would I be looking for it
I remember where I used it last
it's not there
where did it go
I need it
this is so annoying
what?
I looked there
I looked there too
over and over
I'm losing my mind
where did it go
retrace your steps
I did
do it again
more slowly
I did
do it again
ok ok
it's gotta be somewhere
what if it's lost
I'll give it one more try
what?
what is that
how could it be
I already looked there
sandwiched in there
you can't blame me
it was between the other two
at least I'm not crazy
what a relief
I knew it was somewhere
but somewhere was nowhere

Pittsfield aria to myself on a Saturday afternoon

along North Street cascading light its vestiges fading eagle head of my cane poised against the mailbox eagle The Eagle a building posing opiod optics no one seen no one heard vacant lot the tottering totem swaying was that a needle in her hand a long train a-comin' a tall train a-goin' I went down to the station walked The Common the old high school how about that gazebo mother father child reunion flag-draped baby Lake Pond Silver streets Bank Row alley in the shadow Crawford Square the Marketplace wear your mask I'm masked and anonymous why aren't you where was Melville when he wrote Moby Dick here Lolita by the pool her back to me unknown unbeknownst to one and all hibiscus hideaway the tenement testament still standing for all to see beware of the dog private property keep out or is it keep in I can't tell anymore can you

Overwrite Overpass

haven't we been here before
before when
you know, back in December
westbound, not eastbound
we're eastbound now
now I remember
every rest stop
'I Shall Be Released'
over and over again a loop
remember when I said it's over before it began
right
that I'd never see her again
but we're on the other side now
son
brother
going the other way
coming and going
what's the going rate
going and coming
what's the difference
true, what's the diff
this is the other side
the opposite way
no direction home
none at all
my breath smoke in the night
rising halo
the ribbon of road unfurling in the dark
radio silent, CD off
I shall be released
arriving before I get there
but this is the other side
I know, you said that
if you can't erase it
at least record over it
overwrite it
play it backwards
pay it forward
in the rearview mirror
frosted in the skeleton night
still as an anvil
before it lands
I told you so
you didn't want to hear it
I brushed it off
lake-effect snow
on my hair
off your coat
the windshield
wiping the window
back and forth
forth and back
swishing for the clean slate
never slated
barely sated
singsong sing
north of Sing Sing
lunch for one
tea for two
for her and for you
the check, please
let's hit the road
wake up, a little Susie
on the road
you and me
me alone
as I always knew
always will
the ghost of a chance
lost in a dream
as it was in the beginning
is now and ever shall be
world without end
love without beginning

echo chamber

Say it again. And again n n n n . Re-re-re-re-reverb erb erb erb. Anyone here? Anyone hear? Echo and Narcissus. Waves. Repercussions. Re-echo. sierra echo x-ray. A room of one's own. Cathedral choral. Chamber music. Sacred sound. Ordinary space. Ordinary sound. Rippling. Less less less less less gone. Repeat beat. Narcissus and Echo. Solo. Vox. Voice. Void. Hollow. Hallow. Hollow. Hallow. Hollow.

couldn't

tie my shoes
blow bubblegum bubbles
ride a bike
float
lose my virginity
or anyone else's
get sober
behave
not say it
say it
be celibate
stay married
remarry
divorce
stay divorced
lie

and then I could

as if possessed

we called it a loan so give it back

you got behind on your payments, didn't you

so did I so did I, I did

return to sender became our mantra

who owes whom, you said

we signed no papers

I didn't owe nobody nothing triple negative

we lost count not that we ever counted

 on anything

payments you ask what payments

no cash no credit no receipts

no currency no coin of the realm

and now they're talking repo

as in repo man or woman

as in repossess a heart take it back

as if a heart could be possessed, owned, loaned

in possession of one's faculties

self-possessed

forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors

possession is nine tenths of the law

search and seizure as if possessed

breach the peace

round up your posse

reply by replevin

in other words give back

what never was  

the night dawn

before the dew burns off 

burying the dead, and others

this interment no death dirt tossed the blue yellow butterfly flowers curlicued on the tabled urn her hard-earned urn beside the appointed Book of Common Prayer petitions we recite in common we mouth to the wind her uncommon age virtues demeanor generosity laughter tears we leave these severed maternal ashes for others for strangers to plant no not ashes cremains into the ground it is not her and it is not the ground yet the table the surrogate altar and it is not her here not quite do not look here said the angels at the tomb the gardener a simple hole in the ground a pale rose on the table an alstroemeria bouquet on the gravestone ashes to ashes burying the dead burying this dead engraving her memory what remains

let the dead bury the dead let the dead bury their own dead Jesus snapped hurried harried not my problem as if to say more urgent matters burn at hand such as now and the living above the dirt those of us still born still breathing

bury as in hide conceal protect shelter preserve

others

as for others entomb their reckless ecstasies those exalted maelstroms we loved to call love singing o happy fault o happy day night

bury it all bury it cheap or dear bury it deep

where every singed seed 

stalks the grave ground's readiness

where watered ripeness raves