In all this fog
-heightened silence
ears strain
for a sudden noise,
the streets
exaggeratedly
empty, the shut up
glow of houses
so inaccessible,
no one will ever
walk these streets
again, except
there, under
a lampost’s sharp
cone, a figure,
attached to a dog,
or drowning
in place,
I’ll never know,
the white night
swallows it up
before I reach
that block,
and our floating
paths don’t
cross again.
What you want,
and what you get–
During Friday’s
commute the fog
obscured all,
no notion
of a lake
under the bridge
just strings
of brake lights
and headlights
connecting
through
the damp,
the freeway
blocked,
and I thought
of course it’s a wreck,
but no, someone
jumped
into the stream
of cars.
Later I heard
a guy ask
for his legs back,
he was leaving
that day,
he was ready
to move on, now,
a sea change,
a discharge,
and after
this week
I realize gravity
has more
of an effect
than I previously
acknowledged,
that is, just
about anyone
can get stuck
in a rut,
and water
never does
run uphill,
at least not
without
some help.
Our words may outsize
us, haunt us, outlast us,
but this margin
was too small–
Would that we could all
see how they carry on,
to do due penance,
or to watch them grow,
flow, and divide
as a river forks
to small tributaries,
the open sea.
A word once spoken
cannot be unsaid,
a swoop and curl
that speaks through ink
can’t be erased,
even if thrown away
it wasn’t, then
it was.
At heart, all art
is an act
of effrontery,
an intemporal drop–
We painted our caves,
chipped shapes
into stones,
we left our mark,
nothing could shut
us up, and nothing
ever will.
A drop and a drop
and a drop
cling together–
Dam up the water
and it builds,
and builds,
and builds–
Funny how
the fog appeared,
from nothing,
a haze
that revealed itself
as night fell,
two gradients,
both with a soft affect,
dark streets not as hard
floating under mist,
the helipad guide lights
dreamlike candy-colored orbs–
although it could be
that I am so tired
that I love everything,
indiscriminately,
just for being.
It’s a strange response–
or strange reaction,
or repercussion,
or compensation,
or reciprocation–
That. That’s probably
most apt.
[The day]
The gray rooms
are not large enough
to hold all
that they contain,
the precedents of admits,
the recycled air
and soft TV voices
from other sides
of curtains.
And on the psych floor,
small slots
of afterlifes,
another day,
then another day,
then another day,
or sometimes not.
It’s the day before the day.
The rain’s returned,
barely seen, gathering
at the eaves until
water drops
in chandelier pieces.
Any noise is too noisy.
The morning demands
silence, imposes it,
clearing from pavement
and shingles any last
vestige of snow.
i.
Every night has in it
a bit of every other night.
That’s the secret.
ii.
These are not blue walls
but they could be, might
as well be, given how
little else has changed–
these curtains can go
hang themselves.
iii.
And it’s trees instead
of the cathedral
beyond thick panes–
and double, here,
to better staunch a draft
iv.
Light at night
is not itself either,
not entirely,
like a thought,
it carries further
than you’d expect
v.
And expect is what
got us into this,
or compare,
like putting an ocean
nowhere against some other
ocean nowhere
only the night
is more constantly
constant
vi.
Which is not at all
to say blank.
Someday we’ll look back,
I hope, and you won’t believe
how I used to sit and let
doubt and red wine
carve me out
from the inside
in measured small sips,
hardly maudlin,
just knowing how
how many laps
it takes to cross
the night.
Then I’ll say hope
is an albatross,
and hope that
you’ll see not just
Dickinson and duality–
harbinger of good
omens, and doom–
but also the sea
stretching on
for weeks
under the sweep
of still wings.
Do you know
they mate for life?
This, after all,
is a conversation
of conjecture–
and knowing
the long long
odds on peace,
I hope at least
to outlast the need
for hope. That is,
a hope for we.
On one of the last
undecided days,
it was a comfort
to wake
from strange dreams,
derived from
the keeping of odd hours–
not mine to have.
The sky is dead dull,
won’t even play
at being day,
this empty house
exhales stale heat
and this beige
curtain oscillates
a bit,
this houseplant
unfurls a new
burnished leaf–
Still life,
still life.
Slate gray lake
a moving slate
each crescented line
a mark and an
erasure.
He said here lies
he whose name was writ
in water
and so is everything–
nothing completely
old, or new,
the same wave,
different molecules.
From this house
on a hill
the South end
of the lake
appears to glow
from within
now and then,
a thinning
of overcast skies,
more sophistry,
set against
snow-dusted hills
and block print
vineyards,
stark dichotomies
that thaw in
the afternoon.
OPTIONAL POETRY 