No one goes there anymore.

Or bothers to call.

Only the moon stays up all night.

A blind man, waiting for daylight.

The days flow out at the hands.

The usual witnesses

ready to testify to the same events

taking place all at once.

Nothing changes, nothing stays.

So you get memories.

Along with the other diseases

that come on like long lost friends.

You owe nobody nothing.

You hold on.

And here comes the night.

A hollow stone over the graves of your neighbors.

In Memory

So I remember

this

Rock at the foot of an oaktree

as though it belonged there,

moss-soft on its cold side.

All told, it was autumn.

But the pines were singing and green.

Light everywhere.

And the part that was dark

a sound

I can hear now.

In Memory

So I remember

this

Rock at the foot of an oaktree

as though it belonged there,

moss-soft on its cold side.

All told, it was autumn.

But the pines were singing and green.

Light everywhere.

And the part that was dark

a sound

I can hear now.

Blue air

blue it's not

air it's not

blue

air

I've been there

before

Clouds

off the earth

flower

out of the dark

day color

dark follows

sheerblue

coast

dream

ceiling

before

I've been there

I never know when

I'm really asleep, I hope

I never know that

But when I slow

to a snail's pace

or raindrop's uneven

unforeseen track down,

The window

I'm not so sure

And now memory

shows me its face

a stranger I was not

sure I'd ever get to meet

You

before I knew you

1.

I almost want to believe it, when the lawn says

there are no ghosts, only crickets.

That makes sense, it's August

It's the fear you get, with a powerline cut

live and crackling without giving off sparks,

there's a mob of smart electrons about to cancel you out,

X marks the spot.

2.

Weird, how the dead right away start talking

then have nothing to say,

just when you're ready to listen.

It's the same on moonlit nights.

The same valley

with stones like rising bread.

3.

Away from the house, I can see

another life

in the glow from the kitchen windows.

Daybreak

after a night of insomnia.

Bones of my body

carry seed of this light.

Banked embers,

snapping

around me.

4. The silent grey

tar and gravel roadbed

has swallowed the last tires.

Pale in its terrible rigor.

Ice.

5. Not everything has a name to it.

Late as it is, I can tell where I am

by the x-ray. What little shows

looks new.

Bone by bone,

it's the night

stripped to a skeleton.

I know

I'm not ready yet

to start haunting my past,

still, just one step ahead,

the dice scatter and shake

like crickets

everywhere, next to my ear.