I sometimes daydream of the cleansing flame
Calling in at the house I have made my home and
Poor guest, bringing no gift
Feasting past fulfillment not only on
What I would lay out for any at my door
Whom I would welcome in
But also on what I keep from my visitors
Things of which I am but a custodian
Keeping them for worthier hands than mine
Heirlooms laid up for those few I see
Who will come after or have arrived
Little enough of a legacy without
Flapping red tongues being put to it

It is not that I am eager
To lose so much
The results of the work of years
Decades
And not only mine
But the notion of starting again
Doing it right
This time
Has appeal
And a clean break is better than a ragged as
Leaves bone protruding through skin
Shards moving through flesh
Tearing and hemorrhaging
Killing in pain and quiet from within

I am not looking for matches
Brimstone striking to cauterize the wound
Or even for the knife to
Make the cut
But
I know where the cutlery is
And my whetstone is well used
And the matchbook is not so far from my hand as all that

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I write to leave a record of my days
I write in hopes of earning people’s praise
I write that I might delight and amaze
All those who read the lines I leave each time
I put a pen to paper, whether rhymes,
Alliteration, free verse, prose, and I’m
Yet pleased to have the time to write I need.
That voice that says I’m privileged, I heed,
For having time to sit and write and read
Is luxury that many, sadly, lack.
It may well be that I remain a hack
Despite the written pages that I stack
On shelves of wood and bits and bytes, but still
I write, and as I do, I yet do thrill.

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The due date was stamped in
Red ink, only the
Fourth such stamp to mark the
Slip stuck into the
Back of the book
And more than a decade
After the last one

Seeing the spread, I
Have to wonder who
Bought this book for the
Library in the first place
Who read it before I did
Who will read it next
And if they and I got
Something like the same thing
From doing much the same thing
Years apart

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It is a fair question
Of course
Because any poem is
Just words on a page
Few will read or
Breathed into the air
And wafted away on the winds

And yet
The poems are still written
Still spoken
Still sung
Still read
Still heard
Still matter
Now as in all the elder days of which we know

Knowing that so little reward
So few resources or acclaim
Accrue to verse and those who make it
Though more to those who worship several Muses at once
They still work the work who work it
And there must be some reason
Even if it is not clear

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Clad in gold and white and blue and
Defying a single eye to look and not
To weep
Send a salt trail falling across the cheek
Before splatting to the ground
But one of many falling thus as she
Parades about under many banners
Letting each of them flap in the wind or
Hang limply where it had been erected
As those who had hoisted them
Pant at her touch

It is not gentle
Wringing much from those who feel it
That hot grip upon them
Pulling them forward whether they
Will or not
But they cannot keep her from coming
Themselves spent and not satisfied
They made wet by her less than
She by them
As is so commonly the case

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It’s easy for some
To order from the menu
Pick that one hamburger
With its juicy patties and
Warmly seeded buns

The thing is
Even if it might be on the menu
The dish cannot be served
If the ingredients are lacking
And I’ve no ground beef

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Such greed as gathers lucre grows apace
Swelling, suppurating, stifling grace
As, charmed by cheers while giving chase
To gold that gleams, a Stupid God looks on
And grins. It gallivants; its growing throng
Delights, depraved, distracted far too long
From worthy works by wiles ill-minded ply.
I and others often wonder why
The world will work in such a way. We cry
For aid, for answers, for some ease at last,
Seek to see the Stupid God sink past
The deeps, descend, and be from this world cast,
But holding hope is harder every day,
And mouths aren’t made so many times to pray.

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Digging around amid the
Furrows I have raggedly plowed into
Fields that should be better regulated
That came to me in good order
I find a seed that I can plant
Water with such moistures as I can pour out until
A tangling vine springs forth to
Thread itself up the brickwork built up over many years
Cracking away the mortar as it scrabbles for purchase
Drawing from soil long since
Refined and reshaped for some sustenance
It can use to flower and fruit

That fruit
Plucked and taken in
Savored perhaps for its sweetness
Or enjoyed for its tartness upon the tongue
Or maybe boasted of for its bitterness
Bracing thereby whoever ingests it
Adds to and is subtracted from
Leaving a new seed
Replete with new fertilizer
To find its own place to sprout
Take root
And offer the chance for the cycle to
Start again

I have feasted on much fruit
Whether those sold in the markets Rosetti describes
Or such as may well have been forbidden in gardens long since
Spread the seeds that I have swallowed behind me and
All too often turned to look upon what arises
Thinking weeds good crops
And plucking grain before it has a chance to grow

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He put something up on what was once called his wall
What might have been a bulletin board in another time
Or on another server servicing another program altogether
Noting the love a novelist long gone would have had for
An export from Lake Geneva
And I commented in turn
Wondering what works would have been
Had that export not rolled out onto the grid
Into the hearts and minds of many

I stand by the comment
Knowing the hours and days and weeks and months and years
Spent poring over tome after tome after tome
Sitting with pen or pencil in hand poised over the paper
Sitting and staring at the screen my flicking fingers foist pixels onto
Doing my part for the magic Mackay makes a scholarly project
Crafting my own small part of a world that lives
Nowhere but in memory
Mine and others’
Instead of bound between covers on shelves and for sale
But I am not sure I would be better for the exchange

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They pay us just peanuts and I am allergic
Choking while they say I should be grateful and
Point at those who choke from the sprays
Foisted in their faces from behind masks
When their own masks are made crimes
Point at those who suffer no food allergies
Who never suffer from them
Or from bulimia, either
Point at those who suffer maiming and loss and death
While they sign the checks cashed in with that suffering
Others reaping the rewards of their investments
Red fruit left to rot in far-flung fields
But, yeah, I ought to be grateful

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