The Cooler Thing

She’ll try to choose to do
the cooler thing.
Pretend he didn’t bolt away
the other day as if he were
a feral and unloving cat.

Today she’ll conjure up
perspective on all that.
Pretend she’s got
a conscious witness
at the console in her middle

who possesses fitness
to assess without
a lot of twiddle –
no getting pissed
or lashing out.

Today she’ll underplay –
opt for dispassion:
see if she
can understand
one tiny bit of anything

without

strong

feeling.

No reeling tragicomic up’s and in's and down's and out’s.

She has her doubts.



.

Hurricane Lamp

You explained:
“The light
went out.

If it were
to come back
on, I don’t think I’d

trust it. Fragile apparatus:
busted. Bubble: burst. You
were not the first. But I had

hope. Feel like a dope. And
then there’s you escaping
with the loot. You

always
were
a hoot.”

..

"What Do You Do All Day?"

A Prose Poem in Four Arbitrary Stanzas

I can't seem to put it into solid language. It feels like
it would injure it to try. Partly because it would seem too
sort of skeletal, laid out as 'facts' -- and its effects are
so rich. I inhabit my inner life and the outer of life of NYC
so completely (a 'completion' of course that isn't; it intensifies
moment to moment) that they have become seamless.
Anything I do, whether it's a walk to a meeting or some

other encounter (supermarket, friend, etc.) or subway ride
up to the cat I take care of every day on the upper west side
or coming back here for more of my very active solitude
or cooking broccoli or Brussels sprouts (my main dinner
diet, with pasta - oil & garlic & salt & red pepper flakes)
and then making my bed and feeling -- every night! –
this unbelievable luxury of being in & sinking into the city

of my heart in every possible dimension of it -- settling
down to watch NCIS & House re-runs & PBS whatever
& then drifting off to sleep, and dreams, a whole other
way of inhabiting this waking dream of a life -- well, again,
doesn't begin to say it. The writing – sure, would have to be
'central' -- I climb onto that island daily -- but then everything
is central: I can't single anything out as more 'crucial' than

anything else - it's all part of the unbelievably ardent love
affair I have with this city, this completely indifferent & yet
passionate city -- this city 'who' (I see her as a transgender
empress/whore) demands everything I've got & it's still
not enough & coming up empty-handed in front of her &
bearing her dispassionate disregard and chronic hunger
for more still constitutes the most glorious pleasure I know.



.

Limits of Influence

Whitman didn’t go to Harvard –
had a rag-tag family –
never looked like he’d been barbered –
spewed his passions handily:

sometimes I will sit down with him –
glad to be next to a fan
as I am of sweat, and jism,
flesh, testosterone and man –

but I can’t take too much of him –
all his lengthy catalogues –
soon I want a new touch: love, whim,
cadence, meter, travelogues

colored by her realms of Soul –
Dickinson’s dance through the night –
hymnal prosody made whole –
full of freezing light, and fright –

‘til her language breeds a madness
in a mind as slight as mine –
and I seek a different gladness –
comprehensible design –

Auden? maybe; James? perhaps –
Kipling has become a friend –
I climb to, and from, their laps –
still can’t find the proper end –

don’t have much left in my coffer –
few fruits hang down from my tree:
wonder if some other author
might resolve the mystery.



.

My Private Phoenix

Precious cobbled thing! –
reconfiguring a small clay pot –
nestled in silk cloth –
conglomerated bibelot
about which
something in the soul
decides to sing –

for urgent need of song.
Stray Christmas ornament
gone wrong – redeemed, re-won,
recaptured and made fit for May –
all day – all year –
I shall salute my private Phoenix
here. He knows there is no

antidote to pain
except to reign – aflame –
over a longing heart as if
its longing were a subterfuge
for some much lovelier, more
secret art. He nestles now,
before he rises,

fragile brittle glittered creature,
featured player
in this huge and layered moment
of which – dear, lost everyone
who’ll hear me! –
we and he are each

and indispensably a part.

.

Painful, Fresh, Inevitable

You develop the resources
to prevail over time – regularly,
rhythmically exhale, inhale –
and yet regale your deepest
fantasies sufficiently to stoke
the hottest ardor – thus to barter,

maybe, for the chance to make
them flesh – and then accept
the failure (painful, fresh,
inevitable) of the sale – as you
develop the resources to prevail.
Over time, which is to say

with a magnificent fine disregard
for time of any kind, interior
or ticking on a clock, you may
at last transmute at least
the sharpest edges off the shock
of being here – create a smoother

and less fearsome apparatus.
Like Lee surrendering to Grant
at Appomattox, you discover
you’ve capacity to cede control,
post-fight, to fate: learn not
to choke on love, or favor hate.



.

13th Day of Christmas

Christmas ripens for too long –
Then so quickly rots –
Trees, discarded, limp and wrong –
Broken muddles – blots –

Garlands have become detritus –
Down – what was above –
Not unlike what would excite us,
Then we used up: love.




.