The Theater

I wonder who it is
That is tearing off that one's mask right now
And who is it
Who is putting the mask on the other one?

There are entire communities
Whose masks are being torn from them
And other nationalities
Who are putting them on

A sea of pale faces
And glittering eyes behind them

Colonialism

Now Mrs. Payson’s house is being sold
She has gone to a home in the South

Also, Kelly’s father just died of cancer
And he drove to Keene for meditation group

The Greenes couldn’t sell their home
But they are renting it, so they moved to Lyme

My cousins’ dad’s girlfriend was distributing
Clothes out of her BMW, none to me

My cousins’ dad was attending to his small new dog
The one he sneaks into restaurants

We all took a hike up Gap Mountain
And one of my cousins’ kids deposited diarrhea on the trail

My other cousin’s wife is pregnant
And can’t eat the things she likes to eat

My Mom’s friend called from Connecticutt
About the 1959 Swarthmore Yearbook while we planned

The visit of my children to Fire Island

Dad was wearing his orange Ukrainian
Democratic Revolution tee shirt when we went swimming in Gilmore Pond

And me?

I just drove

Drove the winding roads of town and mountain
Shuffling through radio songs, looking for the right one

(Life is simply too much
And it’s far too long)

The Coming Storm

If you watch for the signs of the animals
You'll see them, quivering, eyes to the sky
Turning to their burrows, turning to their dens
In a darkening afternoon - listen
As a hoof stomps nervously, and to the grasses rustling
As the herds swing through narrow canyons
To places more familiar

And men also, and women
Whose worlds are at the same time more wide
And more narrow than those of animals
Some of them are also picking up their faces
To the tired sky, out of their common dream
To the greying horizon where night now stands in
The core of midday - so in silent places

Where antennae quiver you can hear a dark haired
Woman lean to speak with an angular man

She says to him : "there is a storm coming"
He, nodding, saying nothing

While they turn for shelter.

can you

can you tell when the next cloud will disappear?
can you count the drops in the sea?
can you number the blades of grass
on the sweeping prairie
or the dimensions of your lover's thought?

can you box regret?
can you chain the sky?
can you sit in the core of the earth?
can you breathe the vacuum?

can you collect the petal of a flower
and simultaneously keep it alive?

can you really tell me
why she is no longer beside me

or when these tears will cease?

no words

there is a deep river
running underground

it's the river of sorrow
and it runs
under the ground

everyone who has ever
will ever
cry a tear

has watered this river

there can be no more tears
there can be no fewer tears

and now
on this underground river
i have set sail

with no known destination

Number One

They call me
I was standing in the stream
There were stones, and water flowing by them
I was asking

Where are you, my number one? Where are you?

You whom I adore
For whom I fight
and
For whom my tears flow

Last night in a dream - I went Mad for you

Where are you, my number one?

They are calling me back
But I am standing in the stream
My hand is clutching for you
To hold yours, the hand

Of my number one

The unearned things are going
The unearned thoughts are going

But the heart's desire remains.

The Wasteland

They came in low over the cratered hills
And released their munitions
Flew screaming past in a glimpse
Of light, sun, and metal

Hours later, I picked my way through the ruins
Of this more contemporary wasteland

There was no flourish here
There was no linguistic self importance
Masking impotence

There were simply steps
And people checking into motels for sex
And children being ushered into empty rooms

In the Wasteland

Turning

The birds are wheeling and turning for you
Conspiring to center into you - you at the center of the circle
In the image, the jets wheel inward on a circle to you
They fight for you, the men obey your commands

Troopers converge on a target, in a spiral
You move in with them to make a kill
Seeing the flames silhouette a running man
And knowing that all of this vast galactic turning

Is for you, in you, and at your command
You close your fist with the lust of mastery
Then open it to release the dove of a new world

Ascendant

Now the eyes that were inside
Are outside
The imploring eyes
The quizzical eyes
The kind eyes

Have risen high into the sky
And now the eyes are in the clouds

Those eyes have become
The eyes of the entire World

Who Gives a Shit about the Way of the Samurai

Above all, when the enemy is scattered and disorganized, you must...

Hey! Wait!

Who gives a fuck about the Way of the Samurai

You dumbass arrogant fucks, get a life and stop killing people.

this poem

this poem is not good
because it doesn;t say what i want to say
about what i learned today

never

ill never again make love with lisa

and i'll never again write a poem
like the poems i have written before about lisa
i'll never again lie with her and watch her move with me
i'll never be able to do that again
and there are some ways of writing poems
that i won;t be able to do again

i can see her body moving as i insist it moves
as though it was some dream

from which i had to awaken

lisa

lisa come here
please
im alone in this apartment
come here please

but you wont be coming here tonight
because you are driving
to sleep with your new boyfriend

so you wont be here tonight

when i see

a beautiful woman or a white car
i think of lisa
with whom i shared a year and a half of life

i miss her - my best friend
i was able to talk to her really
about anything at all

now she's not here anymore
i didn't even see her today

the man she now makes love with
is not from this town

he is from another place
and that is where she goes now

new poems

these new poems are not the same
as any of the old ones
i really miss lisa
when we made love
i can't even speak about it
but i remember it very well
making love with her
for many hours at night before sleeping
lisa was once with me
and i remember lying
close to her

i miss lisa

and i wish i would see her on the street
and then she would come towards me
and we would meet, like in my dreams

i really miss her right now
because this is her town
this is not my town, this is her town
this is not my world
this world belongs to lisa

i don't know where you might find
a world for me

thanks

thanks for reading my poem
whereever you are and whoever you are
you took the time
to read my poem
i am glad you are there
i am glad you are reading this poem

and i want to thank you

never

i never wrote a poem
before i wrote this one
thanks very much
for reading this poem
i never wrote one
before this
so this is the first poem
i ever wrote

Goodbye

I don't want to say goodbye to you
But I guess I have to so this is it
I'm going to say goodbye now
Maybe someday I will see you

Now, after I say goodbye to you
I'll have to take a very long walk
For a very long time

inside

the birds hopped from branch to curling branch
and he stepped inside his home

stepping inside his home, he found
the birds hopping from branch to curling branch

and he stepped inside his home
and there were the birds on the branches

through the gateway, through the door
into the place where the birds were hopping

from one branch to another, stepping
into his home to find that the birds were hopping

Now

Now I can't even stay here for the three of you

even though one of you reaches for me in a dream of the sky
and another tells me how she is learning how to do handstands
and your eyes are direct, loving, like the sea

now I can't even stay here for the three of you

At the Monument

Twirling on marble - studying
Arts martial
Receiving kind words from Tennessee

At the monument for the Union armies
Who fought against Tennessee

Reading the names of the generals
Reading the names of the units
And thinking of men, moaning and bloating
Blown in two by cannon

Fighting Tennessee
Calling out for the mothers, dying
Against Tennessee

While receiving, as I twirled
Studying martial arts

The kindest words I have ever heard
Coming from Tennessee