Weakness is an Occassion

uncle throbs as he swallows home early
2 men at the pulp mill

burned electrified retinaed
and I see it: power line

down
truck bed
driver
jumps
hand glides
over metal stacks

an operator grabs him
grounds him boned

I watch uncle strain
when he strains
tremble when he trembles
blink
practice

Instead, Off-singly

[I]

She never told me she was dying, but
how hard was that? She never told me


[II]

Some people won't exist. I'm a loaded mind.
You evolved between monsoons. You

a mother and a poet, a robust cloud string
sometimes a merry band of horizon

I wonder if I can explain a
modern day hitching post

a poem where I can see better. We lost you
I said. She said she would've let me know sooner

when she went. I'm always disappointed. I expect to know
when someone I love dies; it's like an engine

being in tune and suddenly
no 2/8. Where'd the timing
go? Exhaust calls, says thanks

for the gentle rhyme and I
juke for a mechanic.

Steel Lives

We all dance. We all pay
homage to our ghosts.
Does it matter?

You give and you give and you
give up. It don't matter.
Does it matter? Your pact:
no one speaks your name
tomorrow has your name
inside. A horror story:

bagged and stranged with the dey, the key
taped to your palm, your wrist. Your fingers
don't have the strength to pry. It's always
out of reach. Does it matter? It don't matter.

Do you
have a curved-vein man
in your family? a brother
or father who does what he wants? Do you
have a wild-eyed mama? a blood-
scolded sister? It don't matter. Does it matter?

Even free you're suspended
over impaling rods. Go
on and try. Go on
and fly. Go on.
Git.

Sermon

Life is funny.
It's daunting. At the corner
where birch bends your ear

You've fallen
to the ground. Sans Maria
a sly fox woofs down berries from underneath
your arm. It's cancer. Life
is funny. It's daunting.

Apple sunrise for dessert.
Cherry Cobbler for dinner.
Cola, cola everywhere and not a drink to drink.
It's life. It's funny. It's moonshine
before bed and barndoors at sunrise.
Peach pie for breakfast. That cow's
a bum for your sweetness. An acre
of rising. An hour later

the bear shine up birch and swallows
rain like willows bending in your ear;
Life, it's funny. It's daunting. It's life.
It's cancer, your cancer. You'll get it.

The cure is life. It's lessons. It's daunting.
You'll get it.
You'll get it.
You'll get it.

Wait and Chore Song

If I had money
I'd show everybody
how much you wish
how much it weighs

If I had money
I'd show everybody
how much I give you
Start a laundry--wring
clothes inside I'm always
gathering change.

If I had money
I'd show everybody
how you wish
how much I give

If I had money
I'd show everybody
how much it weighs--loads
of birds in flight I'm
setting down We're slow dragging

If I had money
I'd show everybody
how much it weighs
how much I give

I'd pail fallen soldiers if
stars were money
I'd show everybody
how you wish
I'm moon--we're that close
you say centrific

If I had money
I'd show everybody
how much I give
how much it weighs
how you wish
I had money

When Suddenly

encountering art
she gasps as if

finding a storage of electricity. It happened
under a slurry of neon and city. Eels

on a brick sidewalk;
an abstract canvas. She squirms.

I dig
hands into pockets; I roll

my fingers in defense. I imagine
I am packing

great rolls of wire. A coupler
wound through her left ear. I make

contact, a sensory shock.
She grounds me.

Gadswoons and Water Cuts

to the coy pond he moves
like a cricket boat might, a leaf
headed to shore. These fish

require words
he could only whisper
in a lighted room. But

she says, “What?”
So he changes the voice:
“Pull the trip. Pull
down the night.” And
he dives. Hears fish

say, “To be ghost is a missed chance.
There were other times when
you should have gone.” But

what did she hear? A riffle?
A bullet ricochet off water
and crawl into sand? Someone
tangles. Someone finds
that they live alone.

Ghost Smoke

I. The mourning song

Grandma had secrets of the holy ghost
always dreaming someone was going to die

next day, washing a dead body
singing:

wet when God sends us
wet when God takes us back


II. Sandstone

The dead lived in sandstone
under our hills. On wet summer mornings

their smoke would come up in the yard.
I worried about ghosts in the smoke

but grandma would say,
"They have to live somewhere."

A professor told me once in a Zen-kinda way that the answer was in the stone. I've re-written this poem half a dozen times, but I've never gotten any closer to it.