a single eye

I believed
the Universe would end
on such and such a day
with so much entropy to spare
atoms throwing off electrons
quark divided
against quark

but one thing I had not bargained for
-- your faith would prove to be so strong

not trust in yourself
or in a higher principle,
an Absolute that binds
heart to heart
world to world

but a deeper knowing,
a single eye watching
a single watching eye
listening
in the midst of whirling suns
and warring nations

we would come back
through the simplicity of our desperation
to the mercy
of our infinite, gracious deferences

I thought my Hebrew teacher wanted to kill me

A sign of things to come, this narrative poem represents a night from my teens.

* * *

I lay in bed with this delusion
churning me awake
keeping me racing
my red demon horses, bloody
with rage and spittle flying
around mental track
listening to Billy Joel
on the pop radio station
"Only the Good Die Young"

in the details

the devil in the details
the pixie in the pieces
parts of car
screw and nut
welded together by rust
I can take the old plate
off, cannot put the new one
on, do not want to drive
without this critical duck
in a row, stuck
where I started
yesterday
taking
the bus

as confessions go

that I turned on you
who cradled me
while the firing squad
loaded their weapons
who opened me
in that spectacular moment
of my destiny
who stood on the other side
while the ferryman
eyed the black ripples
juggling the half-moonlight

Hurt

"Everyone I know"
he sings, says
snags and snarly crags
"leaves me in the end"
Johnny Case
performs Nine Inch Nails

voice has traversed
every lonely road
deepset eyes
have seen the sunset
slip over the cliff

man in black
rubs sandpaper over wounds
a brutality that heals
this spectacular Hurt

the power of myth

once fictional
now medicinal

resuscitating dead trees
is not killing time

lifting while leaving
flying through better believing

nothing beats a story
told on the eve
of transforming

*plop* (a poem about a poem)

Basho
and his frog
must be rolling
in their graves
with laughter

we'll never get over
that gymnast amphibian

no one told him
his splash
would be captured
for all posterity

let go
of these tiny moments
a poem
has no cause
to prevail
over centuries