9:17 a.m. southbound

9:17 a.m.

southbound

 

 

up

I imagine making                              the bed

                                                up

is like making                                     my mind

 

                not for                                                   

               

good

                                but

                                                                for the time

being needing

                                to tighten the night

                                                bolt

                                                up

                                                                right

 

f              l               a              t                              a              s              s

 

nearly done in

 

like a hobo I won’t ever know                                     but somehow I can

see beneath me in a not dream                                 up on the lingo up top

on the roof of the train maybe                                   I’m that hobo maybe I’ve

become that one hobo going hell                                              bent for leather

 

                                                                who/what stalled

 

                                                                                on

 

                                                                                tracks

                                                                                h

                                                                           me

 

                                                                                southbound

                                                                                9:15

                                                                                engine

                                                                                then

 

                                                                                car folding into

                                                                                car folding into car

                                                                               

 

and from that top I watch                                             and watch and roll and roll and watch:  

                :               :

 

let me say right

 

                                                here                      right                       now

 

this top

is lala land off

and I’m not

about to lose

any body

in the oncomingshitshow

but listen

did you know

Wyeth was painting

Alvaro

 

when he heard

his father

was crushed

by a train

coming down

on him and his

grandson

 

and going

home from

Maine

to

Pennsylvania

 

going home

o

i

n

g

                to the post          g

                                                o

                                                i

                                                n

                                                g

 

to pick up the house keeper

 

                                …

                                …

 

I imagine

                                                                                                can’t you?

                                                                                the length and depth

                                                                                the reverberating reach

                                                                                of the SCREECH given the speed

 

 

 

                                                                                of sound              “depending on the temperature

                                                                                                                of the air through which it

                                                                                                                moves---at sea level—

                                                                                                                assuming an air temperature of 59

                                                                                                                at Fahrenheit

                                                                                                                                                761.2                    

 

hurls ahead of the conductor

and then back again into his face

 

                           s

                                  c

s     c     r     e     e     c     h

       e

hsarc/crash

 

instantly.

they say

he died

instantly.

his boy/grand

boy died

instantly.

maybe.

maybe.

to me, in-

stantly is

just that

 

in some-

thing while

that thing

is happening

like parenthesis:

(instant)

 

the distance in time and feet and inches: the taking the trip up

the stairs to the bedroom, the pulling down the first time in weeks

clean sheets

and climbing in

between making

up           as if you

could

your mind           to sleep.

 

 

 

How to crochet a bird

How to crochet

a bird:

 

sit

 

                well

 

                                into the evening

 

draw it along

                your lap

                only

 

the length of it

 

to keep

everything

                                                in a straight and untangled line

 

                loop it through

                the fingers

                you choose

                will be

                the                                                                         most

                                                                use

 

                                and then

                                loop it

                                and then

                                begin

 

 

to make it

into

                                a              c

                                             chain

                                             a

                                               i

                                             n

 

and count. 

It counts

if you count

it counts

if you loose count

 

it counts

if the spool

spools

                                out                                         through                                to

 

                                                the next

                                                room                                     bumping

                                                                                                u

                                                                                                m

                                                                                                ping

 

                                against

                the threshold and coming to

                                a rest

                                next to the still

                                immature

                                cat who even

                                with all her practice                       

                                                still

                                                can’t kill

                                                a bird

                                                                with stealth

 

                                and still

                                                bats

                                                and bashes

 

                                                who’s panicked after licking the sticking

                                                pinfeathers

                                                and inhaling tiny bones

 

                                                                who goes through

                                                                her world and your world

                                                                                scattering

 

robins

and wrens

 

                and occasional blackbirds

                                and rarer still

                                favorites: bluebirds who flew

 

once they knew there’s be a cat.

 

Limp to retrieve that lost spool

 

and heave back over to that chair

and pick up where you left off:

 

 

                                                                that rub on the skull

                                                                                soon enough

                                                                falling into your lap

                                                                as from

                                                                                (at last)

                                                                a nest

 

                                                                                and given to

                                                                the wind in that attic window

 

                                                                                                before its stuffed

                                                                                                                years from now

                                                                                                                into the missing pane.

                               

                                                               

 

Guest Mug

That late in the day

and the print of the lip

is wearing up, ridges

where words sometimes

light like birds

or sometimes teeter,

quarried rocks

whose ultimate fate is to be

propped over

someones head like

a bedboard.  I'm after

looking for

that moment of day

when the morning's worn

off or through

and the daub of solid soft

rolled up going

dressed to the world

and is left forgotten

somewhere: coffee

cup I'm talking 

here, the one that's stood up

to her losing

her grib and flipping

rim over rim to come

to a stop somewhat tauntingly

just out of easy

reach and scorning

discreet the pink

print she'll thumb

and rub until

some comes clean

and some gets under

the glaze and privately

when she's turned

to other things 

a man will put his mouth

there and close

his eyes against the steam

and let all that's hot

and all that's not

be swallowed

and some 

when she turns back 

to look

glistens and he lets it

on his lip

until in time 

it dries there

or is taken up

by his tongue

like a retrieved

and unspoken

and unnessary word.

After Flock of Crows

Flock of Crows (1953) 

Drybrush

study for Snow Flurries

Sometimes they're the only thing that holds it all

down to keep it

from going off on its own 

into the deep deep of the esophageal

furnace of the firmament.  Or maybe, 

because there'll always be crows, 

the something that's pinning it

will be sitting there listening to it all

go off at the close

of whatever it is that's closing.  With

the promise of it

coming back in the next ten months 

or less depending on the winter

and all you have to do is last

it out, through fall, through

December and on

into the middle of May 

and all along  you'll know it 

coming and going

because of the crows and don't you 

draw from them those omens

eventually and inevitably working

their way beneath the seams

of your teeth.  Don't you, from the farthest

of your owned acres (and into the neighbors

fallow fields) take them

into your home to keep them

through the bitterest 

of months when you burn through

your winter

cordwood early and live 

in only two rooms 

of your fourteen room house?

Don't you see them 

when the mail's slow and that wood's

getting dangerous

low and the open window

is the only going

or coming they or you will come to

know.  Don't they,

lifted from the field by some sound

that will never reach you

and scattered against the snowing

nimbo-clouds like birdshot, draw up

the dry brown grass with their corvus

claws to finally reveal

what's been

buried there?  And don't you want to

go over to its edge then and look

into whatever it is that's been 

drawn back?  If only you could make it

before the world closed

over it like a water-healing

and you halfway there and losing

your bearings when the weather

turns and even

momentarily when

the house is gone and you don't know

how to get home.  And it's only

when the black bolt is thrown

(or, because you've long known

there's ghosts) throws itself

into the flurry that you are bearing

it for the sake of bearing it

correctly and you're all of you all 

twa.  

And you're all throat.  All wing and what's

beneath. And banking to 

all winds and all of what

it, after all these years,

with the compass in your rib, bids you: banking

into the wind

to let it lift in you what it can 

lift in you, the reason why it

has been waiting for you

all this time.