I read your words
to the samba beat of a fantastic
Afro-Cuban horn band
and I think
it was well,
for without Mr. Sandoval’s
fantastic Afro-Cuban
horn band,
why,
I think that I’d be crying
instead of just so
morose

I wish,
that I could really,
really,
play the blues guitar

I laundered thoughts
so they were untraceable
in case I am accosted
in the darkness tonight,
out there

No one must know that
I’m so up-beat and
devil-may-care when
this depression’s about

Why, they’d lock me up,
or shoot me dead, or
at the very worst,
detest me.

How dare I make
the best of things
when there’s such a chill
and the wind is
wailing so?

How dare I

Your whispers mingled with the cold night
and were lost to all but the Devil,
I’m sure,
and I held tight as a precaution
second
and as a comfort
first

and your whispers sounded once more
with my life pressed against your own.
But they were lost once more
except that the Devil that night
was me,
but only in the details.

Even with all the culture and
refinement and every moment
of this modern age of punk-soul
experimental-hip-hop jam-noise
every experience a special and
new one every eye looking just
behind the Billboards or raiding
basements or record bins there’s
still Rock and Roll and it’s all
it ever was and it’s all it ever
should be and frankly sometimes
I just feel like it’s all I’ll
ever need

Every snare hit snaps
a clue or fact
like bullets on an overhead
and this is what reality is

So sometimes you collect
or ask as much
and allotments aren’t enough
but I never fought a war,
maybe I can’t say

Me? I’m a lucky man,
I got all my parts;
factory original and all

war’s a rough business,
makes it hard to think
sometimes

Makes it hard to breathe

and sometimes nobody wants
to fight much more, and
sometimes somebody wants to live
and this is what reality is

and sometimes they fight to death
and sometimes they win.

My soul is hoping,
but I never fought a war before.

I have half a mind to throttle you
and dash your soul against the sharp stones
at the base of the bluff
that overlooks a vast expanse of ice and sea

and even if you were only cold an instant
I would be happy

and even if you drowned just  a little bit
I would cry these tears of joy
that I’ve been saving all this time
for a special occasion

I am a creature under duress
from the atmosphere
and from the biting vermin
and prowling wolves
and so forth
and we all are

Sometimes when I lay down at night
I hurt with no definition of terms;
an un-named throb or forgotten bruise
or a rash from the bite of a sneaking tick

Sometimes I am afraid that my ears
will never stop ringing.
Sometimes I rub my temples too hard
because even though it hurts now
I’m sure it will help in the end

Most nights, though, I breathe our
atmosphere, and relish in the duress
of it all

There was more than once
that I tried to picture that guitar amplifier
with the thick carpet and reindstone studs
lined up so perfect. I never quite could.

Dad still has that old painted Gibson.
He brought it back from the dead.
It plays just like it should, but the pickup
still isn’t quite right. That’s okay, though.
The paintjob still looks wonderful.

Dad says that you visited that night,
and I understand that you couldn’t stay long.
We’ve all got places we’ve got to be,
and I think you understand that,
too.

Either way, I’ll play the next one for you.

And then there are all those people
that come and go and kick and claw
for no real purpose but to agitate
and here you are with bruised shins
and scratched shoulders

You’ve been running a fever for
probably years, I would imagine,
but the people with the thermometers
are busy checking the boil on their
latest batches of poison
so you soldier on with that fire
burning out of your forehead*

(*fires, mind you, are not so bad
mostly; they warm the heart that
powers the spirit that drives the soul,
but it’s a bit like your carburetor
is putting the fuel in the wrong place,
and I’m sure you know all about that)

Despite it all, you do pretty well.
You cultivated your garden and you
made your spices and I wish that that
had been enough to make you better.
You perform movements now and again
and it moves you, too, even if no-
body is looking

You write. It is excellent.

As for me, I don’t have much for you
in the way of cure. I am no alchemist,
nor a nurse’s aid,
nor a real live Pharmacognosist.
I even put too much sugar in the tea
most times

I can wrap a bandage, though, and I
can get you cold water almost always.
I can even lay still, now and then,
just long enough for that throbbing
in your head to almost go away.

And I’ll do all of that,
just as much as you need me to.

The mosquito is useless
As he grows fat to grow fatter
So his children can do the same
And there isn’t anything he can say
To excuse himself, with that strange
Stinging probiscis of his

His only redemption is found in the colder months;
In those days he can, at least,
Not be bothered to come around.

He sins again though,
come springtime.

My breath is carbon monoxide sometimes
It wilts plants and poisons me too

on those mornings I just try
not to breathe

Deep breaths and
a particular sense of dread
that the parts are all breaking
are typical in these situations
though you’ll find
that the breaths will get
shorter
and if you’re lucky
the dread won’t spill over
in to reality but
alas,
that’s just usually
how these things end
up

the feeling in my wrists is dulled
by the scraping of shirt-cuffs
but the feeling is dulled
so it is no matter at least
until they start to sting
again

Every crooner on the planet
is dead and buried and
a stack of all their favorite records
is in the closet of every second-hand
store in the United States
(though they fetch a fine price
in some parts of Europe)

For all their words and melodies,
all the crooners have to teach
in the end, is that crooning
doesn’t get you anywhere
but dead and buried.

I tossed a coin in a fountain one time
and watched it’s quick decent to the bottom
where it settled on a stack of other people’s wishes
and it was a metaphor for the work I do

I considered that
every night
for years

So, I found another body of water –
an aquarium this time around –
where I can swim with the fishes rather
than lounge on cast-off change

Someday,
I hope to dig myself a pool

There are mountaintops
that I am sure I’ll never even consider
summiting. Vast oceans
I may never cross. I have yet
to see a Tundra, let alone
wander it as hopelessly
as so many have before me,
and I know not how it feels
to be a tiny yapping dog
in ‘Gator country
in the spring. What I do, though,
I do with fervor, and when
the day is done and all
the money has been counted,
it will be clear as a silver bell:
the saxophones, I don’t just own
for decoration

So I stepped by
and scarcely had I drawn out
my pocket knife
(for to carve a simple glyph
for to find my way again)
than did a Disciple come forth
with black cloths waving
and a smile on
and a great, firey sword
and when he spake,
it was of heresies and
how-dare-Is and
when he hefted his blade aloft
it was slow and unwieldly
and with naught but a pocket knife
I struck with speed,
and the disciple –
black cloths and all –
fell face down and expired,
for even the biggest
firey sword has no business
being hefted
by an idiot

He left some years past
and with all the craft and skill he had
he parsed existence ceaselessly
pausing only to enjoy it’s wonders

He loved a woman who did not love him
and so he had no reason to visit
nor scarcely a reason to write back home

He crewed a small vessel and
he loved it, too.
It never did fail him, so he knew
it loved him back

And though he wandered so,
his mind never did, astoundingly

He was locked to the confines of space
and finding that it was big enough,
decided to let sleeping dogs lie

He’s there now,
I imagine,
though without a letter home
I guess I’ll never know.

I dreamed of you that evening;
all of the luster and intoxicating scent
and every smile was a subway token
and every story was a beautiful potted plant
on a windowsill,
halfway up a tall, tall mountain