Insomnia
I spoke not a word
No one visited my grave
I was buried on the day I was born
nobody knows but me
The cold wind is a low black hill
that comes closer and closer
until it is no longer there
I was not heard
When it came to not having visitors
I was no lone ranger
I came alive before it was too late
everybody knows except you
A low black hill disappears
in the rear view mirror
I was not seen leaving
no one said goodbye
in the rain.
***
Sailing west
at ninety miles an hour
falling off the edge of the world
that scientists claimed had no edge
My heart was in a knot
The wheels of my car fell into a story
with no beginning or end
only endless huevos rancheros
and houses growing out of the earth
I could see forever, but forever
has a price that is understood
in every language except for the one
which will save you
The dust of clean places
Sneaks under your door
That is why leaving
is a job for someone else.
***
Moonlight washes my floor
A cat keeps me awake all night
There will be ice on my roof
in the high country where I hear
coyote howling at first light
of day which is hungry to see
the stars disappear one by one
Writing a poem is like making love
in a dangerous place
millions of people
on the other side of the door.
***
God threw a curtain over the moon
staggering from room to room
in a dream
one corner of a street in a city
bleeds into the corner of a street
of another city
I feel my way along
the walls of a new house
the dark end of the street
looks like a bright beacon
I stumble from dream to dream
almost where I want to be
just a feeling like a fresh turkey
sandwich in Lusk, Wyoming
Just a hunch like a hot
underground river
a hernia outside Topeka
a night light burning out
in Pecos, New Mexico
The sad insistence on being unmet
at the airport every Thursday at three o’clock
Steady Eddie is a lonesome dude.
***
My hidden relationship to success
along with my six best poems
were accidentally deleted
the first time I used a computer
I am mystical
I am ceremonial
I am superfluous
My flickering consciousness
wanders dimly lighting a hallway
in Einstein’s strange house
On the whole I’m having a night
Mars is a tad too close for comfort.
RS 2009-2010