Bereavement (I suppose)

I approach stunned, bewildered

A minesweeper’s brute concentration
Focused on the next step

Stepping aside ghosts

Step aside, make room,
Make room


It’s a throng now
Like, officially,

Like, at that point
Where you’d feel cursed
If you didn’t know better


I mourn the death of a friend,
And I feel guilty for forgetting,
However briefly, the old dead.


I thought I was coping just fine with yet another death.
Whatever, done this before, no problem, right?

But, maybe not.
I don’t know if I’m doing this right.

I don’t know if I’m using it as an excuse to write poetry

Or exploiting it to reach out

I’m emotionless
Calm and something else.
Some other feeling


I take these as common signs of bereavement.

A Poem for John Kerry

US Secretary of State takes a break from Iran talks to get his bike fixed

Tinkering away in the shop,
A Tuesday like any other,
Rainy and cold, but spring’s on the way.
Idly daydreaming of John Kerry
Between tightening spokes and sprockets
American SoS
Stately, if not majestic.
Negotiations tough you bet
Centers himself by cycling
In the hills
Outside your shop
But something’s wrong
He speaks fluently
Your language
Isn’t real
Until the security sweep
And the cameras go silent
But by then derailleur’s fixed
And he’s gone
Conquering hills

The Wilderness Might be an Island

I dig the concept of the spiritual wilderness that I’ve begun exploring.

The Wilderness has been referred to as desolation, and loss, and a parallel world system. It’s night. It’s a void. It’s the abode of the poet monk.

The Wilderness is a place that’s traveled through, or to. It seems to be lifeless, or dying. Is that the Wilderness: weakening, dying? Either weakening or dying or searching, there’s always something inging.

I dig the concept of Wilderness. Of loosing. Of crying desolation a void

A void exploded within me long ago, if I were romantic I’d say from my heart. But I’m more pragmatic than that, what exploded was the very fabric of reality, of space time, a collapse back into unbeing, nothingness, hopeless abandoned babe in the Wilderness struggling against the primal forces that govern existence. New born innocence in a corrupted laboratory, the experiment improperly powered down.

Gripping the shredded fabric that was once a heart and soul and ember. It was love love the strongest wiped clean in an instance of madness abrupt uncertain screaming accepting no sacrifice below the greatest sacrifice.

The Wilderness sprung from there, from that. It’s an interesting place to be, this dead zone. But maybe not dead so much as alien, there’s life here. Wolves and bobcats and on one road glowing eyes of green and yellow whiz by the headlights of a poet monk searching and seeking or running, discovering. There’s life, but vacant of kind, vacant of lot or clan. There’s enough rabbits to keep you entertained but vacant of people or person really, just the one.

RIP Sucker a poem for the wretched

Mark?
Oh, he’s dead now,
Not much worth knowing
If you ask me
And I know all what that
Entails, suggests, reveals,
Means dead
Not much worth knowing
Or having
Ever having
Ever having had

Extinction

I dunno
Maybe I’ve forgotten
How to write poems
Just as I’ve forgotten
How to breathe
And how to dance
How to talk
Maybe these are
Repertoire skills
A trinity of blessings
If you’ll forgive the math