The old wounds scrape open often enough with
My stumbling into walls and doorframes or
Brushing up against the thorns hiding under more flowers than you’d think
Ripping open again to bleed and stain my shirts and pants
That I then have to throw away because
I cannot show myself as I must appear
If such stains linger where they can be seen
So I do not need to pick at them to keep them open
Although my bitten fingernails are drying red beneath
And I certainly do not need
Other hands tearing at my still raw skin
Flaying me a little bit at a time

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As out into the world this verse does come,
I go, as I too rarely do, for some
Conversing lunch. I seldom brave the scrum
That comes with ev’ry workday’s afternoon,
And seldom spend the cash to fill a spoon
With soup or fork with meat from cattle hewn,
More often eating at my desk from home
Than daring from my office out to roam.
As staid and stolid, I am rightly known,
Both plain and proper such as well enough
Will serve those I am often near. Such stuff
As tales are made of, I from me rebuff,
For I know I am not of such a kind
As greater stories keep in their designs.

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That my coffee for the day is done, I know,
Yet still I reach for a cup I expect to find there and filled,
And when I do not find it because,
Responsibly, I rinsed it out and put it away,
The tide rolls in from the sea without which I cannot see,
And I cling tightly so that I am not swept away,
Small and weak against the world

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They gave me back the words I had sent to them,
Put their pens to my pen’s work
And written that they thought that they were good,
But
If some things could be changed,
They would be better yet,
And I thought for a little while before
I decided they were right

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A third of the way along, and
I have to wonder when the ceasefire will end
Or if it has already ended and
I have frown so accustomed to the voices
Of Smith and Wesson, of Ruger, and of Sig
That I no longer hear them as
They call to one another from afar,
Shouting out their responses to the
Putative Prince of Peace, in Whose Name
They stand forth proudly and
Spew their innards all around,
Leaving messes for others to clean because
They are, after all, only tools

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Now less than seven days remain,
And I continue to take pain
To my string of poems maintain
For less than one more week.

The exercise has done me good;
I had expected that it would,
The engine, knowing that I could–
But I should be more meek.

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The leopards lick their fangs in new delight
As gath’ring clouds choke out the fading light,
And we, bare monkeys, shiver in the night.
Who knew that orange shines so in their eyes,
Them serves as spice? There should be no surprise
On faces facing fountains spewing lies
That they are wet, made moist that they might feast,
Those spotted cats. No warnings yet have ceased
That such would be the fate brought by such beasts,
But though the klaxon sounded across years,
And though full many voiced aloud their fears,
No sound of thinking reached between the ears
Of those who shiver now and seek to cling
To falling trees as leopards ruin bring.

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I am remembering my dreams again–
Sleep-borne shadows of the world,
Not grand ambitions for how my life could go.
Those are long since gone away,
Others’ wills having worked in the world,
Mine never having been so strong,
No more true than the slumbering seemings
I have remembered more in these past days
Than for years that have pissed themselves away,
And I have to think that I was more at ease
When sleep was a blank
Than I am when it tries to show me something
I do not want to see.

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I am aware of how
My world is shrinking, how
The walls between which l
I run my daily course
Grow higher
Not because more bricks have mounted them, but
Because I have been sinking deeper into ruts
Carved by my staying on my single path, and
Strong as legs may be that drag me sullenly forward,
Plow tilling a sterile furrow,
I ain’t got shit for upper body strength

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They beckon to me
The harbor and the shore
Saying I should see them once again
If in another guise than I knew them before
Once not seldom visitor
Greeting them gladly under bright skies
And I know I should answer
Say my yes and go to them
Sink into their willing salt wetness
But my heart might as well be that bird
Not the pheasant but the other one
For I have worked to build the walls and shut the door
And I no longer know that I can see in strong light

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