the distant past, approaching
standing in the sunlit spaces of
late-afternoon shadows, he is talking to
pollock who is dead but the
truth is something else
altogether
warm
for november but not
warm
an age of hoses whipped to
death for entertainment
caviar and lemonade
young woman on her bloody knees on
the church steps but
the idea of saviours no longer applies
the stores are all out of business,
windows boarded over,
and he is asking pollock why?
and i am leaning in close,
hoping for an answer
song for tired hands
waves of autumn leaves across
pitted brick courtyards
subtle mistake of considering
early november sunlight to be anything
more than itself and she
turns to me, says you can’t spend your
whole looking for answers in the mouths of
dead men, and it sounds like
the truth
sounds like god digging for bones out
along I-88, like pilate selling splinters of
the one true cross
laughter and hope, sure, but what about
the ever-present past?
it was linda’s cancer then
david’s suicide and always the
mumbled wisdom of homeless junkies
it’s the promise of wide open spaces
but even on the warmest afternoons
the fact of winter overwhelms
even in your arms i am
cold and getting colder
am old and getting older
what more can i
give you but the truth?
the image but not the idea
moving east through six a.m.
tunnels of rain, november, december,
age of desperate ghosts, this woman w/
the pale scars keeps slipping pills
between yr lips, keeps speaking in a
language he doesn’t quite understand
only 10,000 miles to the coast
only the ghost of frida kahlo
to light the way
sister asleep in the back seat and he
misses the exit and then the
one after that, and these faded plastic
wreaths w/ their tilted wooden crosses
on the side of the highway
this first grey light of day
thinks let me keep my name
thinks let the suicides all
take someone else’s
starts with love and then
burns his way down to the
ghostwhite bones
litany of concentric circles
finished his drink then
shot himself
said he hoped the poem would be better than the
shit i usually wrote but i didn’t even
know him, wasn’t even there, and he pulled the
trigger and it was november
was sunlit and cold and the blood on the
walls, sound of the girl smiling in the doorway
of the porn shop and my car wasn’t running again
was rusting in the sunlight of someone else’s
driveway and the sound of the
shot and she was smiling as i walked by, was sharing a
cigarette with the guy who worked there, asked me
how the poem was going, said she wasn’t even there but
he had finished the drink then shot himself and
past the high school was the river
sunlit and cold and i found his body floating
near the shore, knew his girlfriend but i couldn’t
lift him up and two kids on the bridge above
throwing rocks down at us, tried to explain that i
wasn’t there, that i wasn’t here, but my
hands had lost all feeling
mouth was bleeding and the hole in the side of his
head where the light poured out, said the girl
had been his sister and i told him he was dead
do you remember?
it was november, bright blue sky and frozen and
he’d written his girlfriend a letter, had told her
he was sorry and then he pulled the trigger
told her to ask me about the poem
showed her some words i’d scribbled across the backs of
some carry-out menus when i found her
standing in the doorway of the mexican restaurant,
explained that i wasn’t even there, and these kids
across the street throwing rocks at us
my car down by the river, tangled up in blue
on the radio and she said she’d always hated dylan,
said she’d always hated the stones, and then he
finished his drink and pulled the trigger
static poured out of the hole in his heart and
he said the poem was the important thing
said the gun was just a metaphor but
he wouldn’t stop bleeding
laughed when i showed him what i’d written
and told me i’d better try again
indian summer
on these clouded glass afternoons
spelled out in pastel shades of blue and
grey, down dead-end streets in a
town you can’t escape, climb the cemetery
walls, walk the last thousand miles
down to the river, body of a dog
tortured and killed, 13 year-old kids huffing
spray paint, soft warmth of the
mid-afternoon sun, end of autumn,
freeway sound
dream of home
wake up lost
still no sign of snow