The already dead
1
I assume it is nothing
A pain deep in my bones
Suggesting doom.
I am a harbinger of ill tidings,
That man with the placard
On the city street corner
Shouting warnings of calamity,
Each bout worse than the last,
Cancer, earthquake, invasion from space,
My hands shake as I sketch out
Each scenario in the air,
I am the fallen man beneath the bridge
The bathroom blood bath with slit wrists
The sleeper with the empty bottle on my nightstand
Feeling trapped in my own life
Like a coal miner after a collapse
Hearing the distant sound of rescue,
The digging of shovels through the rubble
I know is really the grumble
Of my own grave being dug
I always hear the sober voices
Filtering down into the coma of my life
Pronouncing the death sentence
While I peer out from under the bed sheets
Pondering the possibilities of my salvation
And each time, after each imagined disaster,
I wonder,
Why bother.
2
His voice sounded like a crow’s
Awing each plea for change
As he made his way along Main Street
His gray and wrinkled face
Painted with the pain of survival
Cold nights sleeping near
The laundry’s street-side exhaust
His days stumbling over curbs
In a stagger suited people
Blame on booze
The weariness of walking
Making each block
A Way of the Cross
Kind people giving him coins,
Store keepers bring him
With donuts or coffee
To pick some other corner
On which to bed,
He almost never complains
Though his routine is
A collection of
Strung along woes,
He hopes will secure him
Spare change
His laughter sounds like crying,
A crow’s caw elevated in pitch
I asked once if he feared death
He stopped cawing long enough
To say
He was already dead.
3
For years I thought
Sex was over rated
People didn’t screw around
Nearly as much as they said
Media making mountains
Out of mole hills
To which Mohammed
Would never come
I saw myself as saint
Thick, with self restraint
Hating the lusty soul
Who could pick a rose?
Without fear of thorns
When aching for the same scene
I could not
No medieval torture
Could have felt so cruel
As those moments
Of torment in clubs
When I posted watch
On a bar stood
To witness the lost parade
In which I served as
A mere float
I imagined all I might do
With any number of women
Being Jimmy Carter
In the intensity of my passion
A man whose chin was stained
With the juice of forbidden fruit
I thought all men
Were just like me
With sex a mere illusion
And the race prospered
By some mysterious
Process of pods,
Seeds falling out
Of our ears and eyes
But rarely erupting
As they do.
I kept thinking love
Would save me
A life preserver
Tossed out to me
Even as I sank
For the last time
Over my head in lust
And lack of courage
But love is hardly enough
And like Mohammed,
I came too late
4
You left me with
Pigeons and squirrels
In Riverside Park
A cold wind and warm sun
Carving out the details
Of my day
Monday afternoon
Bringing me back in time
To the early days
When the world was created
Me, you and a river
Whose bridge is named
For a man who used
The river for retreat
We locked in our weekly ritual
Of advance and withdraw,
Me braving the mists of Avalon
To recover you
For a few brief days
Hours squandered
On the concept of love
Each moment squeezed
For all we might
Get out of it.
5
I see them dance in sunlight
The shimmer around their knees
As each wave works its way to shore
Like court jesters entertaining
Kings and queens
Scraps of bread thei8r reward
As tourists giggle
And move on across the sand
Each beak of these birds
Pecks at the mirrored surface
Of retreating waves,
To snatch sand crabs
And other sad citizens
Of the shallows
Birds looking as if they knee
Paying homage to the gods
Who provide for them,
Feeding them with each tide
Even in deep winter
When the tourists are gone
I see them at dawn
Still dancing,
Picking at sea shells
When the sea is calm
Flicking over each
Piece of debris
For clues of food
Sand drain dribbling
From their beaks
After each attack,
Sometimes, at night
I hear their wings flat,
As if powered by moonlight, too,
A moving mass in the dark sky
Searching for some invisible
Paradise beyond my perception
Wings catching wind
Leaving me to wish
I could fly as well,
That I could live as they do
Accepting God’s gifts
With no questions asked.
6
I watched the smoke wings fly
From puckered red brick lips
Each chimney, a part for this aerial fleet
Which sets sail and eventually vanishes
Into gray skies ripe with snow.
Winter always reminds me of you,
Your blushing face contrasted in memory
Against the threatening sky,
Precipitation eminent in you
And around you at the same time.
Your face is reflected in frosted glass
A bitter dream that still
Making my extremities ache
Each time I recall you,
The winds whipping at your scarf,
You wiping the cold from your fingers
By rubbing them against your jeans
I begged you to wait for spring
When amid the green you might
See a bud of hope in me
Green leaves leading again
To flowers of love
As they had the first time
Autumn’s colorful gown
Wears us differently,
Me drenched it is varying hues,
You soaked in its dismal browns,
Always the harbinger to how
Stark winter will be for us
And how unlikely love can
Survive in such a climate
Puffs of smoke rose around you
As you turned to go,
Each chimney sending off messages
Of distress for me, unnoticed,
Growing invisible as the gray
Met gray on that dismal day
You,
One more puff of gray
Fading into the distance
As the snow came,
A vision soon vanquished
In all but memory, where each icicle remains
As sharp and painful
As ever
7
I don’t know why I wait here
Or why a train means more to me
Than a car or bus,
The station, a dinosaur
Filled with abandoned bottles
And sheets of yellowed newsprint
Rather than bones.
The platform is dotted with
Other refugees like me
Who insists on riding rails
Instead of roads,
And me,
Overdressed,
Anticipating rain,
Looking as if I carried
All I owned on my back
In search of some place
With gold-paved streets.
My gaze is locked
Onto the rusting track,
Bus-riding habits
Leading me to hope
The train might
Arrive sooner
Than scheduled,
Looking, looking,
Fearing to blink,
That my ride will pass
Me by
Unnoticed.
8
I couldn’t believe someone
Had killed an animal
To make gloves for me,
Digesting the rest of the beast
For soap and other
Practical products
We stuffed on a shelf
Somewhere
For later use
My family had given me
The gloves for Christmas,
Laying the dead beast
Down under the glitter
Of tinsel and Christmas balls
For me to open in the morning
How many guilty hands had
Handled them before me,
I wondered,
My family collecting them from a clerk,
A clerk from a warehouse worker,
A worker from a truck driver
All the way back along
The foot chain to the man
With blood on his hands
Catholic school taught me
Man was made in God’s image
And assigned to manage
God’s beasts on earth.
Vietnam and this Christmas gift
Telling me how well we had done
My fingers stiff as if fitting them
Inside these gloves
Had pulled the trigger
That ended the poor beast’s life
One nun later told me a living saint
Wore gloves like mine,
With holes poked in the palms
Where steel nails fit
Precisely leaving a trace of blood
To trickle out at intervals
Lambs blood mingling with his blood
So he needed gloves to keep
His fingers warm,
When my family asked
Where my gloves went
I said I lost them
Though my uncle later found them
On top of the trash
9
The crimson light
Spills into my room
Like red water
Into a dented metal bowl
Spilling over
The ragged rusted
Edges of my life
As if to drown me
The warmth on my cheek
Wakes me before
The brightness does,
A probing finger
Search out each scar
Left over in me
From my dreams
I can hardly breathe.
My room remembers
The nightmares better
Than I do,
Like a record keeper
Marking out that hazy
Landscape with
Unintended landmarks,
The sock left here,
The burger wrapper there,
The cobwebs of unused
Life decorating
Waiting reality.
I am intimidated
By it all,
Rearranging the artist’s work
To recognize what each shape
Really is
Or what it is
Supposed to be
Me, blinking blindly
Against the light
Fearful of that neighbors
Pausing outside my window
Might peer in and see
What I am all about,
A collection of distorted images
A floor full of trash,
And no memory of how I arrived here
From where I was in my dreams,
Each moment letting in more light,
But leaving me no wiser
Than I was when last night
I closed my eyes.