the sieve and the sand

First, do you have the patience?
To count the raindrops
one by one?
Then pour them all into some overwhelming
question-
Are you cynical?

Does your heart beat faster
than most?
Does your stubble grow slower?
Do you have the right l-o-o-k?
Do tornadoes have a conscience?

When it drizzles non-stop for all of eternity,
how will you go?
The city is damp beyond repair and street
gutters blubber out wails
of the homeless.

Do you have the patience,
To follow cyclones back out to
sea?
To dissolve and resolve a
hurricane or two?
Are you selfish?

When does the drought start?
Where is my breakfast?
Can you touch me like you’re paying for it?
I suggest we read in bed
forever.

There’s a once-in-a-lifetime
storm coming and you’re our only savior.
Where do I stock up, Mr Weatherman?
Haven’t you got this
covered?

Eventually the icecaps fall
apart like teenagers?
The sky will crack open like a
glorious puzzle.
Where is the newspaper?

I’ll do whatever you tell me.
I’m really quite nice when it’s raining.
Read me the forecast and take
off my clothes.
The tropical season is nothing.

i grew me one long and sexy
but the wife
she disagrees
and now i stare down my
buzzer knowing what stands
between me and him is at least
six weeks.

but there are some powers
my wife maintains through
threats of witholding
things i don’t do well without.

she wins.

i’ll miss you my friend
you made me look pubescent
and then sort of kinda manly.
now you’ve grown long enough
to make me amish, or at least
a “fundamentalist”.

i knew thee far too little.

There’s a lot more country road than I thought there was
and a lot less gas in the tank than this trip will take
and the cash in my pocket is hardly worth two gallons
and the watch on my wrist was a yard-sale find
and sometimes the only thing you can do is keep driving
until the gas runs out and at least all this country road
is beautiful this time of year and evening, what with
the sun filtering through the already-turned leaves like that.

You had your claws pressing
against skin and stretching it
so it looked like it would break
but the pain was borderline at worst
though the threat was understood
fully and you hated it but
all it did was make them grin

So now you sit quietly, as
every disenfranchised harpy must
watching your so-near-prey
bounce on unrequited-ly
while you flex your fingers
and make sharp your claws
on the timbers of passing ships

With the weather like it is
there won’t be much hunting -
not this season, anyway -
but you’ll survive I’m sure,
for even the kindest harpy
learns to dig deep eventually,
and a harpy you still be.

sometimes

nothing says

more than

anything.

It is very likely
(knowing the current culture of course),
That a title such as above,
or where ever such things are located
would evoke images of dark, braided hair
(and unusual fashion, no less)
Probably on some celebrity or peer
Or latest Snoop-Dogg video
Or latest Allen Iverson highlight.

But this is NOT how I remember corn rows.

I remember leviathan (if leviathan is three times your height) stalks
which erected themselves as solemn as Gregorian monks
(though I had no clue what Gregorian monks were at the time).
But green monks, at that. And very emaciated.
Very, very emaciated.
None of this matters.

I remember, with a running start,
Diving into the safari foliage
Armed with a machete constructed from hickory
(otherwise known as a stick with a pointy end)
And dis

appearing.

There I would hide out,
With mom imploring that I come out.
She said she knew I was in there.
To this day, present moment, in point of fact
I doubt it!

And even if she did, it matters not.
The principle remains:
I stuck it out.
“Dinner,” she offered.
But I didn’t falter
Despite the teacup chihuahua
Beginning to rouse itself in my innards.
But the hunger stalked me like something much more
Vicious than a chihuahua.

I remember a plan formed itself very plainly
As I stocked the jungles, with nineteen suns hanging overhead.
Sunflowers, clearly.
As they beat down mercilessly, I realized my folly thus far:
Provision lent its ears to me
And I devoured them raw!

Shredding their sheaves
The kernels popped and deflated between my teeth,
the white and pee-yellow carnage lay undisturbed on the moist dirt.
Which is probably what pee would look like if you pooped pee
In little turds.

Satisfied, the minutes passed,
But the poor chihuahua, idiot that he was
Got himself swallowed by a lunatic banshee that howled out of my bowels.

I pooped myself.
Diapers were still in vogue (thank goodness!)

Yet as I recall that moment,
Should my browned mess have contained a more
Abrasive, brillo quality
Then, yes.
It would remind me more of corn rows.

The kind I don’t remember.
Or at least the kind I don’t care to.

every moment of the regular season is spent in anticipation of the
final game of the post season

the final game (or series as the sport may call for) arrives
and we cower in the corner more comfortable in our
anticipation than our excitement at what has arrived

and like that loneliness we’ve come to love and mourn
(albiet briefly and irrationally)
when we marry

we miss the feeling we know more than we enjoy the
moment when it arrives.

in the great scheme two weeks is hardly
worthy of notice

in the six years of agony two weeks
is anything but
unworthy of notice

minute passes slower than each previous
minute

worthy of painful notice

my watch has received more “face time”
than my wife.

and she’s getting mad.

i figure when the hare
(running full speed towards the finish)
had the ribbon in his view,
he sped up saying to himself
“almost there, almost there, almost there”
and doing all he could to hang on
placed one foot in front of the next
and hoped for the best.

i identify in this stage
but beg the Lord when I cross
the line I will not find I’ve lost
the race to a stinky,
slow, slimy, animal who drags
his home with him wherever he goes.

I have swum across the waves for sometimes now
and it is the saddest thing when you look away
ugliness reels its head
You stay besides me
thinking of me
loyalty keeps burning
where love has left
a few honest words
would provide the necessary hurt
but the ideal man you’re trying be
won’t leave me alone
your gentleness is a wicked thing
it is wringing life out of me
and I have to do myself the unkindness
of letting you go

I know I’m better off
I have thought of all the words to say
I have said them before
I have trodden this path before
it just does not get any easier
but this time I’m sharpening my nails
ready to scratch over the surface of this breakup
so get off your horse
don’t try to be so perfect
don’t back down
I need to find out what was real
the depth of what we lost, of what we never had
and of what we will never be
before I can walk away

i’d tell you more
but i assure you
my words are being nearly
sucked dry by vocations
i choose not, but choose me.
and thus i’m left
like a used rag — used.
and tired.
my fingers too empty
for any further verbal
diarrhea.

long before our
hypertensive phase
philosophically close
and butt naked in the summer heat
we peed rainbows
and understood the sincerity of our mustaches
like worn out travelers climbing up towers of mud
we cultivated a mystic and ate stones for fun
we called on heaven at will
angels knew us by name

Buddha smiled and
sat us on his lap and rocked our fears to sleep
Jesus walked us to a home we didn’t know we had
we marveled, but strings attached to our feet tripped us
and we rolled back down the ravine,
into our lovers loving embrace
but suddenly life had dried to a haze
we tumbled in confusion
inarticulate, dysphoric and crazy
until someone stuffed us with pills
quieting us down,but

sometimes when our eyes meet
memories break a trail through our inertia, and
we can hear seraphim sing, and
feel the peace we felt then
when our heads rested against Buddha’s belly,
and feel Jesus’ s warmth when he showed us our home

sometimes we think we’re the sane ones
sometimes we know we’re the lucky ones
we count our blessings more than our pills

I HAVE BEEN INFORMED OF MY FAILURES AND TERRIBLENESS
BY YOU AND YOURS AND ALL AT ONCE IN THE FACE OF IT’S OWN
SPECIAL KIND OF ADVERSITY BUT EVER SINCE WE HAD THAT TALK
I’VE HAD SIX PHONE CALLS FROM SIX PEOPLE FOR NO REAL REASON
TELLING ME IMPLICITLY THAT I’M ALL RIGHT
AND EXPLICITLY THAT YOU’RE WRONG
AND SURE IT’S NOT QUITE THE TRADITIONAL FRACTION BUT
WHEN YOU GET DOWN TO BRASS TACKS, GENTLEMEN,
SIX OUT OF SEVEN AIN’T BAD

track that stranger down
cover his eyes
shape smiles on his face
nothing is strong enough to distort
his innocence and fluidity of spirit
you can throw many lies
set off vapors of ferocity and guile
he will heal
he swallows the whale in the room
he knows his name, heart and vertigo

when a cloud of dust settles
he brawls with anxiety and panic
he seeks a space to unearth the sublime
the universe is large, he is tiny
on this territory of tears
but he moves his spine
shakes his legs
and draw exhilaration in

for better or worse
the wheel turns
he faces the sky, the ground
and for a little while he can see himself move with the world
feeling its beauty and misery

sometimes a woman picks him off the ground and
he comes up radiating the strongest light
he feels safe
about that silver line
shivering in the sky
and when winter calls him back home
he takes that memory and wraps it tightly around his heart
a warm blanket for all that is ahead
for the days when he will wake up, and break down on the floor
for the days when he will need to fight all the terrible things on his mind