This is the season
Of maximum dynamic pressure
Of short cold days
And only light for funerals.
Throttle down, says Control.
But hell I’m still a boy;
It’s only disembodied Fate
That cleared the pad at birth
Or accelerates with height
So you Roger this, Control,
Not my choice, nor yours!
And keep your hand away from that abort switch!
Why…why…what’s with you,
Control?  I was only dropping our swing
Ladder down from old Fort Oak
Because…
Because…it’s snowed
To shake it off a bit
Or would you rather slip
And fall?  I say, I say
I saved that broken arm!
Or don’t you remember
The name of our tree house?
Or don’t you remember
Us playing war? 

A friend is dying slowly
And I’m wrung out
For words; he from pain
That never ends.
My philosophy major isn’t cutting it:
“Know this:  We’re all next.
Everything that ever lived or will live is around your bed tonight.”
But no sooner than I hang up the phone
I see I’m out of beer
And the Pantry closes at midnight
A twenty mile round trip in dark and rain
(But—God!– that teen cashier never looked more cute!)
Or sometimes I try the feeling tack:
“Believe me.  We feel your pain,
We really do.”
But what a gross presumption
On my part.  And he knows it:  “YOU–CAN–
NEVER–IMAGINE—THIS PAIN.”
Back home, two beers for guilt,
Two more for helplessness, I see
Old times night-conquering the bay
Eels on hooks, the stripers’ strike and peel,
The deep we fought and won, netted
And hoist in—until the words occur calmly
And fulfilled:  “Old friend, just another fishing trip.”
He faintly smiles, we dream.   

The ice
About
Is cold and bright
My warmth
Does not contend
Its crush
But slowly
Fades to
Dream’s delight:
Last visions
Of a summer day
One final fade
To touch
To voice.

All I know is that
If it’s mine it must
Be a superior thought
Or I’d say God must
Be grooming me
To be the next Dostoevsky.
Take today: I feel
My influence solving
All the problems of the world
And everyone I’ve seen
In the grocery store tonight
Knows it—they look my
Way as if they see a halo
Round my head and why else
Does the cashier card me for the
Beer I buy except to see herself
This savior by a name, adding,
With a grin, “Does this work?”
As she scans the largest tube
Of K-Y jelly in the store. 

Dirt
Road young, 4-minute
Mile

Dirt
Road old, memory
Path

Dead
End Road, new sign
Says

Dirt
Road old, my wise
Friend

My bad:
Two six-packs of Miller after midnight
To celebrate a day’s clarity,
The perfect paganism of Physics
As on July 20, 1969.
And now:
Cursed invariable brain knot
Bed of nails, the collapsed IQ
To 58
With all its ancillary helpless visions, unmediated:
From the Haitian
Social worker handling the welfare intake
And tons of paperwork,
To the Black Muslim psychiatrist
Weighing ECT under
Jewish supervision:
Forgive my Southern roots.

This woods has no intent
But my own
To find in it destiny
To rest in its shade.
Speak to me tree
I’m lonely and lost!
It says to my longing
You get what you Will
If years of bare branches
Have roots in the ground
Limit is only
The Fate of some leaves.

Summer
Came, I opened
Up

Fall
Arrived, the dark slipped
In

Winter
Froze to chilblains
Cave

Spring
Smiled back, took my
Hand

And
Now we marry every
Year

Attended
By the Sun and
Green

The solitude of stars
Is just their distance set
But I’ve seen that distance
In a face and felt it
In my soul, a wonder
Of the faraway beyond
A voice or touch,
In her eyes
The light of love
A trillion miles
Away. 

Darker
By the day the fall we fall
To

Memory
For the light of warmer times
To

Reverse
Regret, the would and could have
Beens

For real
Imagination working at its
Best

A
World unfallen, apples safe to
Eat