A Bird Named Bliss

I was quite a day
throwing vegetables into the field:
tomatoes, butternut squash, zucchinis
heavy as newborn babies.
Shadows were not quite themselves,
by dusk they were jade tablecloths
pulling themselves out from underneath
goblets of sour clover flowers
and the brains of my vegetables
quickly liquefying in the heat.
I was quite a night
spreading across the lawn like a stain,
over the remains of vegetables,
a plush disregard under my feet.
Shadows ate me up like cannibals.
The sky turned the color of disbelief.
And I felt the ghost of a bird named Bliss
glide across the field of my soul,
over the dead of my vegetable love,
it glided in silence, glided in silence.

Now that the clover flowers are all gone

Now that the clover flowers are all gone
let’s sit awhile on this porch
and watch the moon come.
We don’t have to talk, or we can
about whatever you want. If it’s baseball,
I’ll listen. But if it’s wrestling,
I can’t promise to pretend that hard.
Today I saw a bumper sticker:
“Punk’s Not Dead.” I wanted to climb
into that teenager’s car, drive
to a musty mobile home and drink beer,
smoke joints. Life used to be that simple.
A matter of whose brother
was twenty-one and holding. Now,
it’s responsibility. All this preparation,
planning for a future I can’t be sure exists.
So sit. All the clover flowers are gone
and we have everything better to do.

Guidance

You pace the floor
for three hours in your underwear
with the oven on
and the windows open
before you finally admit
Hopelessness.
And isn’t it nice—
To be that predicament?
Farewell, expectation.
Au revoir, desperation.
Conquest—
goodbye to you too.
Only now
it occurs to your last
blistered finger
to unravel the puppet string
and let the past fall
like a billowy garment
onto an empty stage
turning into a pond,
turning into a mirror:
Every time I look
miracle . . .

Faith

Because this is the only way
I can be with you—
in these rooms with strangers
drinking coffee,
speaking of Gods I never knew.
And when I say the prayer
I suppose it is better
to be a little embarrassed
among others than at home
alone with my shelves of dead friends.
They talk and talk but never listen.
Sometimes here it is not much different.
Someone passes behind my chair,
touches my shoulder,
I am saying the prayer
because this is the only way
I can be with you
and it is always your hand.

Fireflies

Seems entire years have escaped my memory.
Those profoundly selfish, lonely, angry, loveless years
finally grew tired of throwing their days into the air,
frustrated. They quit me,
folded threadbare space, packed their bleakness
late one chilly night; maybe in September.
I can’t remember because they took that too.
The goddamn years.
They clipped the barbed wire,
stole off into the meadow,
perhaps on a night just like this —
No stars, moon, no crickets, fog, or toads,
only the fireflies with their neon lanterns
glowing brighter and brighter
as they go further and further into the night.
Hard to believe.

Examining my Liver

Oh but it is so warm and slippery and purple.
I never expected purple
or ripe as a September turnip
or tough as a leather belt.
My lovely, living liver.
Add a shoulder strap and it’s a canteen.
Add a zipper and it’s a purse.
Soon the shot my stomach churns
will polish its walls to a flash.
And what I’ve put through it:
Corona and cocaine
tequila and Topomax
moonshine and metal-based inhalants
saki and Seroquel
Hennessey and heroin and hepatitis.
Dear wondrous universe
shimmering in the liquid dark,
Thank you for my liver,
who stubbornly held onto life when I wouldn’t,
who worked without complaint during blackouts,
for things that convert the useless to useful,
for things that patiently filter
the toxins of life without judgment.