rescue
twisted
ever
after

user
liar
bent
deceiver

root
trunk
branch
leaf

fall
leaf
branch
trunk

root
deceiver
bent
liar

user
after
ever
twisted

rescue
stranger
lover
phantom

mother.

(PDF version)

sooner or later
his life will run him down
and he will lose
what he holds most dear.

the one thing
that has kept him going
given him reason during the day
and comfort
during the hour of the wolf
will slip from his grasp.

no beacon
no safe harbor
dead-eyed stranger in the mirror
old fool ground down by the days
slack skin staring into black
night after sleepless night
alone and drowning
in the far end of the pool.

(PDF version)

Creating a linear narrative with a list of accomplishments in the classic obituary format didn’t work for me either. As an alternative, I decided to approach the exercise as if my life had ended that very day and simply write whatever came to me in response to the event. Here is the result:

obituary 12-11-11

he was a horse of a different color
he was an army of one
he was a stone on a river bottom
he was a bird that fell out of the nest.

he was an A student
he was the smartest guy in the class
he was a tax deduction
he was a paycheck.

he was a castaway
a fugitive
a superhero
a cowboy
a jet pilot
a soldier
a time traveler
a family of astronauts
a secret identity.

he was an alien from another planet
who fell to earth.

he felt confused a lot
he felt like he didn’t belong
he felt like something was missing
he couldn’t wait to grow up
even after he grew up.

he fell in love with women
who didn’t love him back
he fell in love with women
who lied to him
he fell in love with women
who cheated on him
he fell in love with women
who didn’t appreciate him
he fell in love with women
who couldn’t see him
or let him be who he was.

he lived for 15 years without loving anyone at all
(he never saw that one coming)
he kept trying
he got tired of trying
and sometimes he stopped trying
but he never stopped looking.

he wanted to help
he wanted to make a difference
he wanted everything to be better
for everybody
he couldn’t understand why people lied
so much and so often
when it took so little effort
to tell the truth
he couldn’t understand why people were
so mean to one another
when it took so little effort
to be kind.

he was a prisoner
he was a punching bag
he was a scapegoat
he was an exile.

he was a flower in a jar
a damaged romance
a beast in the night
a cave full of bats.

he put it all on the line
he gave everything he had
to everything he did
he lived at the edges of his edges
he fell many times
and was broken many times
in many ways
but he always got back up.

he was a sand castle in a tsunami
a beam of moonlight landing on a blade of grass
an erupting volcano
a still mountain stream
a quiet moment that passed
in the twilight.

now the wave that brought him here
has taken him back
he was ahead of his time
he was ahead of the pack
he was never sure he mattered at all
but he did.

(PDF version)

For reasons I can’t fully articulate or even understand, this poem feels incredibly personal to me and I feel incredibly vulnerable, almost naked, sharing it. I declined to share it in the men’s group the first time we brought our obituaries in for discussion, saying I was unhappy with mine and planned to rewrite it. However, there was no rewrite because when I sat with the task, nothing else ever came through, and I finally decided that what I’d written must be what I was supposed to write at this time.

I would still like to write that rosy “dreams fulfilled late in life” obit, and maybe I will at some point, but I guess I had to write this one first.

the windows are dirty
the doors are locked tight
the altars are built
of barbed wire and bones.

the wind blows through
the rain pours in
the bells don’t ring
the dead don’t die.

the child in the corner
looks for his shadow
his eyes are frozen
he cannot cry.

(PDF version)

too far gone
I can’t go home
poisonous feast of
fingers and tongues.

empty universe
primal isolation
I can’t find love
so I settle for meat.

strange meat in my mouth
my meat in strange hands
she is meat
I am meat
we are meat.

I feed on her
she feeds on me
I feed on myself
I violate myself.

I strangle myself
I choke on dark flesh
hungry and sick
killing my soul
trading my life
throwing myself away
over and over
for meat.

(PDF version)

I am the one who
calls bullshit on bullshit
I am the one who
demands to be free
I am the one who makes trouble.

I won’t play it safe
or be someone else
I am the poet
I am the artist
the one who goes over the wall.

I am the one who knows
that a failure to accommodate yourself
to a system that strips you of your dignity
and violates the very essence of who you are
is not a failure at all.

I am an energy that cannot be suppressed
forgotten
bought off
or repressed.

I am the child
I am the elder
I am eternal.

I have no price
I kick and scream
I smash the clocks
I rock the boat
I am the force of life.

(PDF version)

(PDF version)

so how’s that new job going?

god I just
want to run
out of here
as fast as
my legs can
take me.

(PDF version)

dark-eyed luxury
brilliant hourglass
plush warm lovely
forgotten dream.

forgotten dream
forgotten worlds
forgotten self
forgotten need.

she is jungle
she is ocean
she is starlight
she is music.

glorious illusion
forbidden treasure
holographic past
someone else’s present.

with her I want
with her I remember
but wanting is not having
and remembering is not being.

(PDF version)

I need to hang on to something
I need to let go of something
but I don’t know
which is which.

part of me wants to sleep
part of me wants to run free
on the playground
to forget myself
to dance the viper’s dance
to be married in the street
to shed the heavy skin of my life
the dead weight of what I regret
the dark dread of what I avoid
and be reborn
in the fields.

(PDF version)

I wake up with every misstep
every lost opportunity
every time I dug in my heels
wrong or right
and wouldn’t budge
and every time I wasn’t there
wrong or right
for someone else.

I watch my skin turn to paper
and my hands to dust
the sun goes
up and down
up and down
faster and faster across the sky
everyone and everything
is older than I think.

we all sacrifice ourselves
and our lives
to something
there’s no avoiding it
that’s the deal
that’s the bargain
that’s the way life works
like it or not.

but do we really know
what we’re sacrificing ourselves to
do we really understand
why we’re doing it
what it’s gonna take
what we’re gonna get
and what it’s gonna cost us.

I used to wonder
why I was alone
but now I know.

I put truth
above all else
and now truth
is all I have.

(PDF version)

(PDF version)

the many ghosts of used-to-be
my loyal long-time companions
have drifted off and faded away
dissipated like a morning mist
leaving me here alone
in the blinding light of present time
weighing the merits of truth versus mercy
as I watch the pages of the calendar fly past me
like fallen autumn leaves
blowing down a dead-end street.

time is a train going faster and faster
nothing behind me
nothing before me
now there is only
now.

(PDF version | Video version)

he looked so old
I could see he wasn’t feeling well
when I asked how he was doing
he told me
I want to go home
to my home
I knew he meant his little house in the north
2000 miles from here
the one where he’d lived
since he and my mom divorced.

he said
I’ll take the bus
and I said
no
let me drive you
just tell me when you’re ready
but when I wasn’t looking
he snuck out to walk to the bus station
to take that long ride home
alone.

I wanted to do something for him
I thought this might be my last chance
but he wouldn’t have it
maybe it was pride
maybe something else
but whatever the reason
he wouldn’t
and I sat sobbing silently
alone.

now my drinking cup is cracked
and the small white plate
that’s held my food every day
since I left home at nineteen
to get away from him
falls to pieces in my hands.

(PDF version)

stripped down
stripped out
tripped out
tripped over.

tripped over my own hands
tripped over my own feet
stripped down + tripped over
over + over
over + out.

(PDF version)

the car won’t start
the bottle is empty
the air is frozen
the house is silent
the windows are painted shut.

(PDF version)

(PDF version)

how deep is this river I’m trying to cross
how fast
how wide
how far to the other side.

how many more echoes still haunt this canyon
how many more secrets in shallow graves
how many more soldiers will die in the forest
how many more houses will burn to the ground.

how far down do I have to go
how far down do I have to dive
how far down do I have to dig
how far down is up.

(PDF version)

knock me out
I mean you
knock me out
I mean you
crank me up
I mean you
scare me baby but
I’m alive and I can
take it.

(PDF version)

silver blue moon

alone …
together …
alone …
together …

waves lap the shores of a silver blue moon
too soon to tell if I will love you

but time knows the answer.

(PDF version)

it does not fear the lowest places
but rather
seeks them out
knowing that in the lowest places
water and sky are one again.

(PDF version)