Last One

To the last pistol shooter in America
there are flowers in the hallway for my Jim.
Please lay them on his grave
and your gun down there beside them
so he'll know.

April 1 2016

Broken Sleep

Sleep has shape, you know?
One night dreams were drawers for me.
I shut each one on its raucous contents
only to find the next one open
and myself inside.
And there was the night of code,
whose methods and whose attributes
were useless, through every iteration,
for debugging my subconscious.
On such nights,
waking is a temporary mercy:
another dream will swallow me like a suitcase,
and I'll never get back the time I spend
packing and unpacking what's in dreams.

March 22 2016

A Daughter's Memory

My father spoke in tongues.
He was an articulate man
but glossolalia marked him.
There was nothing of religion in it;
his speech was catholic
(I looked it up)
and born of humor,
and maybe something more.
Why did he exercise so much
his talent for fictional language?
I thought perhaps he was reaching for
an expression of something he didn't understand,
but honestly I felt that whatever it was,
it was pulling him away. I'm sorry now
I never asked him why he spoke in tongues--
and on this, of all things, he was mute.

March 6 2016

About Some Nights

What tedious road
will I blunder down tonight?
Will it take me only partway to
the kindergarten room I can't find, to make up
the classes I missed but can't now understand?
I suspect it may peter out
in a corner of the city unknown to me,
but it could also sweep me away in a sudden car
past all the right exits to a highway with no more.
Please don't let it bring me to the house with the basement,
or put me finally by the elevator banks where none will stop
at the floor I need. And by all means,
don't strand me where I will need the telephones
with their tiny keys.
That is the curse of roads: they take you
where you don't intend to go
and then run out,
and at some point you always find yourself on foot,
in a mall whose stores are never the ones you want.

February 23 2016

Sailor's Tale

Shore down in the Ditchy Roads
when the first of the peals came over.
You'd have thought the master of ships would have said
it was a chancey lie,
but as it was, we were pressed to the back,
and keeling till to the boards, with none left over.
Well and well, it was a hard claw, no denying,
but we after took and belled the horn
with all sails flying ribbons to the sky.
Who'd ever take that course again,
you must heed this warning, truly given:
Take no loft to the peal, for God's eye is in it,
and you'll likely be sent all a-bearing to hell,
for a man is a man,
and a woman a woman,
and only the children may sail.

February 3 2016

Seawalls

Sometimes of a night the sea
in scents of seaweed visits,
to sing me songs of distances unguessed,
beyond the boundaries of concrete walls
that stand for hubris blind to failure.
I am everything you are not, the ocean whispers.
I can take the things you make,
your houses most especially,
and toss their decks, discarded wrecks
on broken roads. You claim
to gain serenity from simple sight of me
on summer days, but deep within your eyes I also see
your fearful worship.

Tomorrow, my dog and I will go, well-clad,
to answer the endless water. What I will say
is not yet clear, but something it will have to do
with the seawall of my skin,
and the kinship of the ocean
to one that swells within.

January 23 2016

Calmative

No more what.
No more how.
No more why.
Only this.
Only is.
Only I.

January 14 2016

Remaining

Some things go on forever;
Christmas tree needles,
confetti,
and glitter.
It's  not a bad thing:
They're on the asymptotic curve,
memories of happiness that fade
but never quite reach zero.

December 23 2015

Conversation

I talked to God last night.
He said, "Don't worry. It doesn't matter
if you believe in me. Truthfully?
It isn't as big a deal as some people think.
I just want you to be happy."
But the pain, the suffering, I said. What about that?
"Well, I'm not your babysitter, you know.
Believe me, it hurts, but I'm your parent
and I want you to grow--and yes,
those who die I heal with me."
Okay, I said, but why? I mean,
why all this in the first place?
"Because," he said, "there was nothing before,
and I had to. I am the creator, after all.
Really, I am creation, so..."
And then he said something I didn't understand--
but what do you expect?

December 19 2015

Water Sweep

I used to want to be a water sweeper.
So peaceful
working in some basement with a broom,
pushing shallow flooding toward a drain.
It isn't easy--
water wants to walk back where it was--
so I would savor every sluicing,
but admire the water's tenacity.
You probably have to wear really good boots
to keep your feet dry
and contemplate life's easy flow
like one of the Buddha's followers.

December 2 2015

New England Thanksgiving

The moths are thankful for November,
the clouds are thankful for the sky,
the stars are thankful for the night in which to shine,
and I am thankful you are mine.

November 26 2015

Sympathy

The deer don't come to the apple trees.
The apples never fell
because they never grew this year.
A mystery, like the empty vines
beneath which there's no Concord stain.
Probably it's drought,
but it's right by the house where he now lives alone,
and I agree with the neighbor who walks a dog
that one absence might make other things go missing
in sympathy. I wonder if the lawn and street
miss the company of fruit.

October 28 2015

Grumble

I can't help feeling this
is the ruin of the year.
I'll take a red leaf
or a vine of porcelain berries
with appreciation,
but look,
it's just a consolation prize
for what we'll soon endure,
and once we're past the new year,
it's just a weary slog
to the grudging warmth of houses
and the door to Spring.

October 19 2015

Walk Wind

Still that wind
makes walking to the beach
a thing to flap his ears.
The ocean talks with many rising tongues
and the sun sends glory down
through running clouds.
Summer's given up the ghost
and autumn will do the same,
so bow your head in acquiescence
and against the wind you can't deny.

October 6 2015

Untitled6

Dog Lines

The Wolf Who Cried Boy

Once there was a young wolf who lived with his pack high in the mountains, near a small village. Every day the pack went hunting, each wolf in its own direction.

One day the young wolf, finding no food, grew bored. To amuse himself, he threw back his head and gave the special howl that means, "I have found human prey."

The other wolves came running, but when they found there was nothing to catch, they went away grumbling, and the young wolf had a good laugh at their expense.

The next day the young wolf played the same trick, and again the other wolves came running, only to find nothing to eat. They scolded the young wolf and warned him not to play the same trick again, before stalking away through the trees.

The very next day the young wolf actually did see a boy walking in a field near the forest, and he gave his howl once more, but no wolves came. They were all fed up with his tricks.

So the young wolf leapt on the boy and ate it up all by himself.

Moral: Sometimes practical jokes can pay off in a big way.

September 22 2015
 

Denial

To pick a red leaf from a tree
is to admit the possibility
of fall, which I will never do
however bright the jewel
shines at me.

September 20 2015

Pope Francis

I dreamed about the pope last night.
His unusual car was caught in traffic
on an American highway,
and the roadside was thronged with faithful.
Actually, at one point a fight broke out,
which didn't seem good,
and as another man waved hopefully, the pope turned away,
raising his hand in distracted benediction.
He still smiled, but I thought he looked a little harried.
It seemed like a sudden test of faith,
but I had little fear that he would fail;
even in the middle of the world,
I felt, he could stay a good man.

September 5 2015

Storm and Hound

I had wondered that very day
where all the summer storms were,
so when he leaned his palpitating flank into my chest
and showed me the color of his back teeth in his panting grin,
I was not surprised,
and I could hold him through the thunder and the sudden light
and remind him they are here but soon
the cicada darkness will return,
and you, my friend, will still have nameless prey to chase
through one hot night into another,
and so on till the Fall.

August 31 2015

Second Rain

The trees rain last
into dry shade they cast
while the sky was taking its turn.
You can relive the rain just by walking
through intermittent showers dropping
suddenly from green heaven.

August 24 2015

Wading For Dog, Oh

They are not drowned, the fields
of marsh across the river,
but tide's a surprising thing:
There may be water still in the great track rut
for him to trouble
with his splashing dash and ducking head,
until he stands in rapture grinning
and I call him to come shake it off
head to tail
like Pluto, faithful clown.

August 17 2015

Three Fortune Cookies

If you can't fit in, stand out.

To understand your journey completely, you must go on foot.

What does a mirror look like without its reflection?

-- The Collected Fortune Cookie Sayings of Michael Kei Stewart

August 10 2015

Still White

Three Way Stop