They are carpet-bombing the Holy Land
as if there were only one

and I am laying in bed
typing at my computer
trying to figure out
what I can do to convince you
that things just aren’t
as bad as they seem

but the bodies keep piling up
in Congo and Palestine
and Burkina Faso and Venezuela

and I dreamed my brother fell
off of a ship in the Indian Ocean
and he dreamed his son died from cancer
in Ohio in a hospital
so I guess even dreams are bad now

and I am laying in bed
typing at my computer
while the power grid flickers in Tbilisi
wondering if I should even bother
getting back up
when the alarm goes off

I watched
for a train
every night
on Mosel
near the river
for years

in rain
in darkness
in snow
I waited
every night

one night
it was cold
I saw
no train
so I left

I saw
no train
on Mosel
after years
watching
dead
track

time cannot travel
backwards

and that deserves
repeating

the sins of the Father
are naught but Holy Ghosts

but the plastic in your blood
is real

and your tired bones
don’t get better
at being tired

wrap your legs
for surety

lash down the mainsail
tight

but forge on
and fearlessly!

for God is out
on these shifting seas

Impatient
but still waiting

time cannot
travel backwards

and that deserves
repeating

its been five in the morning
for many nights now
struggling to find the darkness
in the vibrating glow of you
but all the lamps are unplugged
and the window is cracked
and you could always just leave

yet you haunt the black corners
just beyond closed eyes
and then the foundation shakes
the queen bed lurching
as the hot and the red comes up
through the fissures in the floor

so now I am descending
pulled by reaching tendrils
down from the Great Below
and I see your smile in the dim
and I feel your sparkling eyes
and you cold always just leave
but you didn’t
did you

I thought about the time
you and I got whiskey drunk
and drove to North point Beach
in Van Buren
at 11:00 p.m.
because you didn’t believe me

the cell phone flash
walked us through the secret path
and our drunken feet
climbed the back of the dune
and we watched Lake Micihgan
in a fever pitch
capitulate in the cold
for hours

I wasn’t thinking about death
perched that Christmas morning
with you
overlooking the north side
from an ancient gravestone
atop the second tallest hill

The cold seeped through me
from the marble slab we sat on
slowly honing back the dull
from the alcohol
as the clouds flew by
though there was no wind
to speak of

every now and then
we could see the moon
while we talked about history
all the frieinds
we don’t call anymore
the houses we lived in
there, and there

the trees like fossils
accenting muddied grass
as far as we could see
in the cool poluted city light
we talked about old parties
the drunk and the wet
and the foolish

and I wasn’t thinking about death
in that cemetery
on that Christmas morning
even after all the signs

Running afoul of
the law of
the jungle
with a gun tucked in a belt
with a hair trigger
with a sputter and a cough

they will beat you
to death
with clubs and fists
just to teach a lesson

they will set you on fire
but for the gun and
they will tear you to shreds
but for the hair trigger

but the belt
is tight in the humid
and the sun
and it is too tight
when you draw

and the legeslators
of the jungle
call out their laws
and the cops
have come for you

and the clubs
are coming down
now

Stasis doesn’t stop time
and as the clock tied
to the bomb inside your
skull wound nearer
to the double-zero,
we were all out playing
parlor tricks on porches
for our friends
in open air
in case some other illness
were to wander through
and kill us to a man

But maybe
it’s a roulette wheel
and the double-zero
is just the space
you put all your money on
as the dice bounce
over and over again
but slower and slower, now
as the stasis sets in
and brings things
nearly to a halt

perhaps we’ll watch them
spinning in nothingness
a fraction of a fraction
of a degree at a time
with baited breath
still just guessing
where they’ll land

and things may slow
to an almost infinite still

but stasis doesn’t stop time
so maybe now
you’re just borrowing
against the house

I was king of the broad strokes
he said to me as he leaned back
in the worn and dusty recliner
that was stuffed in the corner
between plumes of cigarette smoke
and a half built chevy 305
but it was always good enough, you know?

in those days, he told me,
it wasn’t so hard to just get by
with a toolbox and some elbow grease
why I bought this place just four years
after dropping out of my junior class
but I can’t hardly keep my car insured
without a trip to the boys on Cork street

but I’m old now and that’s all there is
he said ashing in to an empty glass
I can’t work like I used to
and I sure as shit can’t go to school
but I still got this place, he shrugged
and I guess I’ll at least be able to eat
until the social security runs out

I held the broken glass to my eye
in the dimming winter sunlight
examining the chipped edges
like a jeweler a gemstone
as the wind fluttered from the distance
bringing a bare chill from the north
until I looked at you
and told you it was perfect
and I tucked it in my pocket
to be forgotten by the following afternoon

We stood in rapture on a dew-soaked lawn
in a chill that was early for the season
and you were lit up in that little park
with bright lights on every side
guitar and voice electrified
crooning out hymnals of your own design
while for just a few short moments
all those gathered found themselves
at home again

and I cried in that summer dark
swaying behind line after line
of friends and loves and neighbors
as your voice rang loud enough
to cover the sound of passing cars
while I laughed and smiled
while you shivered and sweat
and if that wasn’t home for you
I hope you find your home one day
for just a few short moments
too

sometimes the feeling of being so drastically alone
hits you in the stomach at 2am on a Saturday
after all the beer has been drunk and the people
you had spent the day with were all no doubt sleeping
in their various beds in their various houses
and you would almost prefer to choke on something
to take your mind off the throbbing in your gut
and the slight spin that your head is reeling in
but the lights are off save for the glow of your phone
and the loneliness would be stark and maddening but it
is softened by the last few texts you answer and cushioned
in the low growl of the furnace until the thermostat
is triggered by the temperature’s rise and that growl
finally
stops