Failing to Fall

everybody writes
poetry
i
write poetry
badly of course
the grape jelly
is gone the way
of bullfighters
and hemmingway
because
books burn easier
than gold


guns lay
hot and naked
next to hands
on carpeted floors
and
roses fool the sun
while i wait
against the window
and the telephone


solitude
comes only in crowds
and small birds
reaching for the roof


we had a deal
or so she
thought
yes
we did
locked in water pistols
set to
shoot out the
horsemen
only getting as
close as the
bush


so i’ll sleep
in my car
again tonight
hoping the police
won’t catch me
and
the dandelions
won’t blush
as the oceans
sit on the world
so very far
away

sparrows weep
but seldom
under mosquito
netting
we lay on
bamboo
italy four blocks
away
china
even closer
the air an
animal
stalks us
there
till slipping
to slight
slumber
we enter that
listless purple
sleep

broken battered and blue
those fingers holding
the page like a
cigarette
tender cool
caring calm
and callous
all at once
the words smoking
and drifting
out of your memory
here in our separate
present
i’m reading about
our separate past
wondering
simply
what’s going on

slipping through the illinois morning
flying like an eagle in the back seat
of my parents car


on my way to an ancient burial mound
rising up out of the river bottoms
the missisippi mud holding lives in reserve


i’ll eat cold meat
out of a tin
covered in syrup


these things sickly sweet
memories
pain and pleasure
in equal counts


playing with broken toys
in dirty goodwill aisles
2,000 miles and 40 years
later i’ll watch my boys
do the same


its all luck
and
i’ve had a bit of it

tonight out in the
somewhere
the girsl are playing again
the game we invented
for them
and if i feel better
later on i might toss
my ego onto the table
for luck
or maybe i’ll just sit here
adorned with
my shorts and the
ease of apathy
but
i will not fail to fall
under the wheels
of
my life
i cannot wrestle
the angel to the mat
for a 3 count
or explain the permanance
of moments murdered
by a stranger
known as youth
only the photo
of myself and that girl
with a tiger stalking her hair
seems sensible
in the evening of continued
future uncertainty
two women on my bed
luck
tucked inside the waist band
this is the way it
will end and
i hope nobody minds