Found These In the Weeds

A few bitter roots and buds

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Sonata #65

It's one of those days 
when I'm not completely in my body. 

Things aren't lined up. 

I'm off center, a shade outside myself, 
a step behind or slipped over to one side 
like I'm out of alignment, about to lose 
my balance and land on my ass 
not my feet, feeling fragile not agile, 
spaced out—not tuned in, 
almost anxious . . . but probably nothing 
a nap couldn't fix, 
or at least would be worth a try. 

I don't want to cry (yet) 
but I do feel a tad bit lost,
uneasy, certain that it's all in my head 
or the result of not being clearly
placed, squared away in my space
and in sync with the body E-Leck-Trickle 
banana, neither mellow nor yellow 
as Donovan or Melanie laying down 
about bicycles, roller skates, or the hurdy-gurdy 
man which is where I am most comfortable 
these days in the nickel tunes of dollar memories.

Melodies transport me 
to locations fixed in those unhinged realities— 
my mind pockets of time—flashbacks 
that define the sharp edges of my existence 
before years of blurring brought me to this, 
the fading of steel rails into sand, 
a letting go of the tracks and ties, 
the ballast and spikes, 
a loosening of my interest in rules and games, 
an eroding of all views and news, 
a caring less out loud, my coming to this 
chronicling of letting go, this quantum acceptance 
of what I know and don't know, 
the awareness that I don't know much at all.

Yet it seems that maybe this aging process
is helping me expand into death, that unknown— 
the unknowing of the “self”—our  
disintegration, that cracking of our shell 
to greet chaos, oblivion, eternity, the light, 
the dark, our more or less—
Heaven or Hell or right or wrong—
that simplified western either/or song 
we've sung and danced to our whole lifelong. 

In the end we're forced to move on, go
with the flow, the unfolding evolution 
of a universal design, gravitas 
exploded, floating chips, the stream, all of it,
infinity, the impossible scheme recycled,
revealed, unheard, unseen, fallout 
crescendo, this nucleic acid dream.

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Go Lightly

Sometimes the weight of the pen is too much
to pick up, a rusted rail embedded in the ground,

so you keep going, walking, looking and listening
for words to lift those bodies buried in your chest

as if language can work like a pick and shovel,
make sense of the hole and hard-pan in your throat,

somehow levitate and turn this husk of existence
under light like a jeweler examines stones

before transforming them into glittering beauty—
you want that untold story we'll never hear.

As you fold your hands, don't bow your head,
look up, out, through, into . . . the only rules

you follow you break . . . sadly we make no
mistakes, we all learn what we need to know, so

when that bullet flash ends your sky light and 
beating heart, all guitars return to their cases,

no weeping tomorrows will be heard, merely 
the phantom hum of your amp left on and no

forgetting of the questions, the whys—those who
had no idea knew for certain your destination.

Like all who labor to ignore the night, go lightly 
across this cemetery—look to the sun burning bright.

	for Craig	

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Flat Lazy & Plum Crazy

You do not give
a flying fiddler's fuck
about the price of I-phones
in China or Bangladesh.
You could care less
about buying or owning
anything but time, air,
the business in your head
which you prefer to mind
and mine though you know
it's no glory hole, holds
no revelations, won't yield
much more than your carefree
wanderings in the field
of weeds you prefer
to call flowers where you lay
down in the blue grass, 
watch the clouds stream 
and stitch the images in your 
wild-eyed dream cells, that
film/canvas sky, the soundtrack 
an easy breeze backing
the meadowlark's song
until your a cappella
rendition of Both Sides Now
spooks the bedded fawn
to bolt and bounce away—
it's true you really don't know
life at all. Still, you do 
know this: the warm sun
on your skin, the ant crawling
the hairs on your arm,
and the simple fact you love
this lazy awareness
that could easily lapse into
a nap or leap to its feet
like a deer and go bounding 
naked down the hillside 
for the silly thrill of it, 
an odd self-preservation,
for nothing more and
nothing less than now.

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