Retirement

When the guillotine was first invented
it served a purpose I suppose
until the crowd became too addicted
to the Executioner’s absence
then anyone was eligible to bow before a hungry audience

It had the appeal all great inventions have
of provision,
immediate and satisfactory,
Just say the word and the deed is done.

No middle aged man looking out the back window at the axe in the stump
near a stack of firewood,
swelling with remorse over a secret occupation he could never speak of
to the kids.
“It’s just a job” he would say to the wife
“I’ll stop at the market on the way home.”

Only now with all this time on his hands
is he able to finally count the heads.
Especially the ones who turned slightly to the side
looked up at him from the corner of their eye
and asked for a second chance.

Other gods

He climbs the steps
with a quiet reverence,
an offering
held carefully in the jaw
and lays the sacrifice at the top of the alter
then slowly backs away.

In the morning the deity screams
and is unpleased,
sweeping the carrion
from the path of unrelenting worshipers.

And so he seeks the adulation of other gods
whose temples fill the city block
with portals ready made
for hungry vagabonds such as he
to come and go as they please.
To eat and drink
and even dream.

But there is no respite for his prey
who cower behind the blades of grass
or the closed curtain
holding perfectly still
hoping the zealots
will stay away from the back porch
with their brochures.

Reverie

I have tried to keep my memory of you
Filled with what was best about us.
Warm breath on the mourning pain
Melting away any bitterness
left untouched by idle worship.


So when you came back yesterday,
I wanted to push you away,
because it meant that I would have to destroy
the you,
I’ve come to love.
The you
who stayed.

In the restaurant you were unrolling your napkin full of silverware,
And I watched you with the same speechless joy
I would have had,
Were I given permission to be near Michelangelo
watching him untie a roll of muslin
where he keeps his beloved chisels
and selecting
just the right one.


You began stirring even before you began pouring.
Steam was climbing up the pillar of cream,
With the same wispy arms and legs,
as the last words you spoke to me,
in the cold night air
so long ago.

I will never forget the sound of your voice back then-
Every word wrapped
In a tattered gauze of frosted breath
As it rose quickly past your beautiful face.
The face I knew I would never see again.


I stood there helpless as the shape of you,
disappeared into a thick white oblivion.
I remember an unbearable sadness coming over me,
and looking around to make sure no one was watching.
The same way I do when I slip on the ice
And look around.
Hoping no one saw me fall.

When Ends Meet

I went into the kitchen,
to make myself a sandwich,
Only to find,
A rolled up plastic bag
with two familiar shapes inside:
No one ever wants the crusts,
And there are always two,
Abandoned at the bottom
of every twisted sheath of cellophane.

Even though they were just as kneaded,
in the very beginning
as the rest of the loaf:
To avarice children,
With dirty hands,
It’s as if they’re not really bread;
nothing more than stale book ends
to push aside,
in pursuit of a flawless row,
of perfectly cut portions.

I stared at them for a moment,
and felt so sorry for them;
Alpha and Omega
Facing each other,
Little bare backs
Exposed and tanned.
And made myself a sandwich.

Lunch Break

I watch the sparrows,
Scavenging around the tires of parked cars
For the crumbs of careless humans.
Or a colony of lost bugs,
Led across an asphalt desert,
by a wingless Moses.

Prurient wind,
Pulling on the skirts of women
passing by.
Forcing them,
to hold their summer dresses,
against their hips and thighs

Out Of The Way

A night filled room, exhumed
by the songs of morning birds,
pick away the darkness all around me
Until I begin to see,
Some pencil drawn trees,
On a grey tablet sky,
Opened up on cardboard feet.

She came by,
To help me get ready,
with a coat and tie I had never worn,
Stuffing in the maple twirls, acorns
Shaking her head and saying,
it was time
for me to know the Lord.

Lumpy white socks,
conceal the roots,
coiled around the bottom of my soiled feet,
pulling me along the winter street
with the string of souls,
To knit and purl the front row.

The reverend spoke of a boy,
Who perished on a tree,
I wondered to myself if the carpenter’s son,
Had hewn the poles himself,
with drawknife and spade;
how cruel it must have been,
had no one told him.
He would die on the very cross
he made.

People stood to speak in tongues
with esoteric words.
She held my hand and smiled at me
Thinking I agreed,
god would speak to us,
with such ambiguity.

It felt so sad to let her go
Because I understood,
The difference between the pew’s veneer
and the feel of living wood.

When I walk beneath Cathedral limbs,
where all things move with ease,
and Jehovah whispers his Pentecostal hymns,
Through the boughs of evergreen trees.

The other

If this is all I will ever have,
Then let me know soon enough,

But maybe, I don’t want to know.
The reason why the birds in the sassafras,
Grow silent before a storm.

Your stillness keeps me hanging on,
Like wood clothespins, caught on the swell of old rain soaked rope,
Strung between two poles, swaying in the back yard.
Waiting for long sleeve shirts and sailing sheets,
That toss and turn on the inside now,
since the dryer was fixed.

I still believe.
There is time to get home before the lightening strikes.
I want to keep you the way you were,
before I knew,
The way the air feels,
after it rains