Narrative

 
I have a pain
in my mid-section –
possibly my liver.
Cirrhosis got Kerouac
and the 12-gauge
got Hemingway
before Cirrhosis
could.
The ways out
for writers
are bleak
in most cases.
I should probably
put down
the bottle
the same way
we need to
put down
this narrative
about writers
killing themselves,
voluntarily.
It’s a tired,
old narrative
and the people
looking in
from the outside
don’t understand
that it hasn’t
been written
by writers
themselves.
It’s been perpetuated
by pop-culture vultures
who need something
to feed off of.
Fate can be
a cruel bitch
who always gets
her way
and writers succumb
to her lure
which keeps
the narrative
alive
when it’s
iconic writers
we should’ve kept
alive instead. 

I Age


Arthritis and aging make it hard,
I walk gingerly, with a cane, and walk
slow, bent forward, fear threats,
falls, fear denouement─
I turn pages, my family albums
become a task.
But I can still bake and shake,
sugar cookies, sweet potato,
lemon meringue pies.
Alone, most of my time,
but never on Sundays,
friends and communion, 
United Church of Canada. 
I chug a few down,
love my Blonde Canadian Pale Ale,
Copenhagen long cut a pinch of snuff.
I can still dance the Boogie-woogie,
Lindy Hop in my living room,
with my nursing care home partner.
Aging has left me with youthful dimples, 
but few long-term promises.

upon closer inspection

once in a while
one of my
demons dies
& upon examining it
close up
i notice its claws
more resemble
the hands of my angels
& when i fold them
they’re soft
& warm
& i place a daffodil
in them
like i should’ve
long ago

The first time I

See them together
I think maybe
I’m seeing double,
identical twin
brothers under-
dressed for sub-
zero weather,
killing time waiting
for the 5:13 A.M.
bus, drinking a six
of the cheapest
beer sold at corner
24 hour across
the street, trading
hits on massive
roll your own
doobie, then taking
one last piss in bank
parking lot.
I want to ask them
if they’re reporting
to jail but I know
it’s much worse
than that, they’re
going to work.

Cigarette Burns in the Sheets

 

There’s part of me that really likes a good cheap

motel room with a small patch of peeling wallpaper,

a few cracks in the ceiling and one or two cigarette

burns in the sheets and pillow cases, here and there,

maybe a couple of shady characters pimping and

dealing from a room around back. As long as there’s

a liquor store, near-by, cable TV and hot water,

then I’m good.






An Old Courtyard

 

A clock ticking in

a dead man’s room, a feather

stirred by a cool, damp

 

breath of wind through the

open French doors that lead to

an old courtyard with

 

cracked tiles, over-grown

with what, no doubt, must have once

been perfectly cared-

 

for flowers, shrubs, trees,

hedges, and even an old

water garden pond,

 

where a few frogs, koi

and an ancient turtle can,

miraculously,

 

still be found, lurking,

as must a pride of peacocks,

somewhere on the grounds.

 

terminal couple

hair

black as a wine cellar

holds me motionless

all day;

 

as a doddering sun

with melted ear

and melted eye can still

debride lips

of a kiss and scrape

like a dermatologist.

 

i am swindled

once more

of your heroin

though i keep the plunger down

like the taproot of a fir tree.

 

i am grounded like a moa

though the feathers in this head

are my spirit’s imprisoned fingers

squeezing through burlap.

 

somewhere in this bravery is the iron grip to

weigh against eggshell.

somewhere, the bravery to wipe the silent bottoms

of your shoes.

somewhere are the wild cancers

that will burn us up in one night.


 

after gallows

in the end

i won’t know

how deep are the graves

in the cemetery

or why

they grin at all –

why winter gives

birth to an ice age

and picks its chipped

teeth.

 

there is a value

in warm rain

nourishing a river:

sound lightly dripping;

sound of an axe raised through misty breath;

sound of an exhausted fox;

sound of a snake pit;

sound of that sad scandinavia.

 

i say, in an english voice,

that little stem on your beret

is a twisted chimney not

letting out the smoke:

 

i say this as memory

seeps through walls

muttering

all over the floor.

i work at tying this sack

of human reasoning

tight as

a moneybag

fills a hole in the ground:

as blood does

a split lip.

 

in the end,

a retrovirus mutates,

becomes

violated

by something smaller.

 

water is everywhere -

that knuckles sing like braille

on drowning fists

cannot be for lack of breath and,

though a sperm cell always carries

a red rose,

in the end,

an invasive shower

washes it all away. 

A Poem for the Old Man Without a Name

 
I’d get home late
every night
and all the lights
were off in his
building except
his
I’d look at his 
window as I 
walked up the
fire stairs to get
to my apartment
his building was
next to mine
I was always tired
from work
I’d watch him
sitting on the edge
of his bed with a
whiskey glass in 
his hand watching
television
looking like he didn’t
have a worry in the 
world 
like every single second 
meant something 
special 
every night I came 
home from work
he’d be there
with the light on
in the exact same
position
it was as if he were
waiting for me
to restore some hope
to things
after another completely
wasted day
though for the past 
week the blinds have
been closed
and light turned off
today the blinds were
open
all the furniture
was gone
and tools sat in the 
spot he used to sit
he is gone
no one thinks of
him anymore
no one cares
I care
he was my light:
I miss that light.

A LEISURELY DECLINE
 
 
From a riverside porch, I watch
rain roll down, spattering
timbered banks, stone shoals.
Breakfast is cold sausage and frontier biscuit.
I can hear news tv through an open door,
the phone in my back pocket
I hesitate to answer.
There are warnings through the day—
of patriot storms, Jesus collapse.
Dire works of providence seep into
daily discourse, lessons for the Sabbath.
I read online that angels block every gate,
transmit their suffering to
county rebel, conspirator, country preacher.
 
Walking inside, latching the door,
I close out the common benediction
that rough nature is striking beauty.
Like the calculation in
emptied eyes of power,
The tv view has changed.
Between medication commercials
comes invasion combat and commentary,
then a hurricane report, with
reporters undulating in the wind
like coastal palm trees.
Measures marked by cold decision,
there is a justice to it.
Ambition is climbing after trouble,
privacy bargained, crucible documents
changing hands in after-hours hallways.
 
As I close the curtains, I see
an ambulance speed the canal road,
siren lost to the distance.
Switching to music channels,
indie pop falsettos and droning beats
will carry the hours.
Above me all morning, I watched
the lights of descending airliners,
imagining crews fighting
to land in this crossing wind.
Turning out my pockets,
cell phone muted,
I collapse to the sofa, settle in
with Catton’s The Coming Fury,
ironic intent applied.

Cyber Urban Cowboy

 
He’s not John Travolta
and I am not Debra Winger
and we don’t fall in love
riding a mechanical bull
in a saloon as Mickey Gilly
sings lookin’ for Love
in all the wrong places.

He’s not Tom Hanks
and I am not Meg Ryan
searching for soul mates
in Seattle and New York City.
Nor are we Robert Redford
and Jane Fonda widowed
and seeking companionship.

He is just an Arizona cowboy poet
and I am a Montana girl who publishes
a poem about cows on the open
Arizona range where I now live.
He leaves a note in the comments
section with his email address.

I email him and get no response
and I google his name looking
for an obit or other tragic news,
and all I see is a photo of a smiling
cowboy in a black hat and shirt
in his bio on Poets & Writers.

I imagine him scribbling poems
around a campfire as he herds
cows up in the mountains,
where there are no cell towers
or Wi-Fi, and when he gets home
he will find my emails piled up
like presents under a tree
and read them over supper
of venison stew and cornbread biscuits.

Fear

the nurses at the station in the cardio-rehab unit
were telling ghost stories from their childhoods
and I could think of nothing to add
could not remember being scared of ghosts
probably because there were much scarier things
than ghosts:
like the possibility of being beaten to death by a psychopath
like catching a back-handed slap from my Uncle as I ran across
the living room
like growing up to be as dumb and look as ugly
as some of the adults around me.


Tuesday Night

in Dullsville, USA
some action down by the
Mini-Mart but
hard to tell what kind--
a punk in a pickup truck
roars through--
street light changes red
to green and back:
birds dive bomb from trees
and shadows spread across the
hillside
as the earth turns
another degree
and the sun's rays
catch the topmost branches
of the elm tree beside the
Ace Motel
on the corner of the
intersection
where cars move through,
going somewhere--
unlike me.


Trifecta

I had triple bypass surgery and
died on the table
and was revived:
did not return with an NDE to
report, or even knowing of
my demise--
found that out by reading the
doctor's report on his desk
while his back turned to me.
One out of every thousand
they said, before wheeling me
to the operating room door
where the doc stood with
his team, all in hairnets and
blue scrubs--
"any questions?" he asked.
"Let's do it," I said.
They ran the stretcher 
into the stadium, 
under the lights.