What is this lonely place you see
no refuge here
no legacy
no arc of blood
no continuity
but a special kind of violence
a creeping dizziness
released by razors
propelled by a pressure
that builds beneath your harbor
while you relish your calm
knowledge stacked to the rafters
you will find no quarter here
it lay in the shadows
it lay in the depths
always there,
patient,
solemn,
unrelenting.

14,696 +/-

Mockers in the cedar brake,
Ruby-Throats in the bonnets and brush.
Pseudacris crucifer audible over the whine
of a neighbor-kid's dirtbike.
All in the ember-glow of dusk.
The brakes take to shadow,
ambitious jutting in the days' remains.
I walk inside to grab a calculator,
to tally the setting suns-
Fourteen thousand six hundred
plus ninety-six spins of the globe,
give or take.
I walk back outside, and she asks
"What are you doing with that calculator?"
"Writing a poem," I say.
It is mostly dark, and I can't distinguish
bluebonnets from paintbrushes
or see the nubile shoots
of brushy bluestem and clover.
A Cardinal makes a last-ditch call-
Tew! Tew! Tew! Birdy-birdy-birdy-birdy?

Right Place, Right Time

During last Friday's beery midnight drive
up the winding escarpment road,
I heard a song by Ray Wylie Hubbard
that said something to the effect of

"Don't let your expectations
get bigger than your gratitude."

and as I drove through Bee Cave,
my eyes began combing
the plazas, malls and storefronts
for a tattoo shop.

Had one existed, I would be sitting here
in my office, on a Monday,
with a smarting palm.

Northward, in Kind

I took you for granted,
my city full of mountains I couldn't understand,
and streets, and water and lives.

Beauty takes time to settle in
too eager when it's young, too
self conscious.

I moved miles and years to find home,
a cold basement in the ghetto,
a loveless traveling
from rural to urban to southern
to wherever we go next.

A dream. A cycle. A barrier between
me and you, Seattle.
A nightmare, waiting.
A love I cannot have, and yet
there is no love without leaving,
and regret.

Alone, Southward

Two months go by-
passing fast,
life.
Lunch breaks in burning heat
rubber on the concrete
a/c running,
music playing,
a loss for words.

Note

Did I not notice

the grainy ghost-blue
through the slanted louver,
its handover, white to auburn,
and the brief blindsiding
by golden translucence
and its redeeming other-worldliness
as viewed from: the front door,
the river-rock driveway,
the rutted dirt-road,
the winding skyway,
the farm-to-market road,
and the descent into/ascent from
the upper Barton Creek watershed?

If I did not notice,
please perform
resuscitation.

Damn the Office Window

Another one, given
to a succession of interruptions
and the usual absences.
Lesser devotions,
barely materialized
and strung together
with good intention.

Subtitles. Submenus.
Subtitles of subtitles
and submenus of submenus.
Subselves of subselves.
Attentions halved and quartered,
diced and minced.
Parenthetical, variable,
an algebraic snarl.

Outside, the mottled sky.
The sway of Plateau Live Oak.
The Lesser Goldfinch fumbling
over dandelion bloom.
Don't look. It will distract
from distractions and sub-distractions,
from the succession of interruptions.