Good Morning Every One

From my window I see the sky

through the firs’ sparse boughs,

the birch’s branches bare.

The ninja silhouette of a squirrel

scampers across. The mountains

have snow on them.

In the woods across the river

there’s a man stabbing a corpse.

I do not call the cops.

He’s taking the elk home

to freeze for the winter.

Ducks paddle upstream, in a row.

Always upstream,

always in a row.

No one takes a straight edge to their line.

I’ve never known a nun to smack

the wrist of an eagle

for missing its supper.

God does not need us to scold

one another. Our

fingers can point at many things

but the Indians used to point the way

with their lips.

A nod and a kiss

to the direction they wished

to go.

God was once, only

once perfect,

but that was long before rulers.

Now God learns perfection through us.

I tell you,

we’d do well

to learn it through ducks.

The Break Cafe, October 29th, 2015

There are a handful

of things I know

for certain right now:

I have good friends

with small but not unpowerful jobs.

Sean didn’t charge me for this tea.

I know anxiety

and how it can swipe the whole jigsaw puzzle

to the floor in a second.

I know right now

I’m breathing deep and serenely as

Billie Holiday lyrics pour

gently from the teapot stereo

over the leaves of a saxophone.

I don’t know where I’ll be

next lifetime, though I have

a feeling some nothing of me

outlasts this body, the same

nothing of me that outlasts this mug

of tea once it’s empty.

The same me that limps down the street

wearing all of my clothes

and a few garbage bags

waving sharpied cardboard at cars

for the hope of chicken bones in my beard

in the coming days.

The same me that is the body

of a taxi cab honking hurry hooray

for today get the hell out of my way.

There was a tremendous mural

under the bridge over the Yellowstone

in Livingston. It was dated

September 11th, 2001

and prophesied the end of all war.

There were childish drawings of buildings

and soldiers burning, angels

flying down from heaven

to catch the falling, to lift up

the wounded and the screaming and
the dead with X's on their eyes

There was a huge redwhiteandblue tag for

PEACE

next to it.

I am letting the cool waters of the Yellowstone

bring peace to us all.

In that place, in that month

it wasn’t a mighty river.

It was low and slow and gentle.

Some places it was just

a wide trickle over rocks

and I crossed the river

back and forth in these places,

my feet hardly getting wet.

I’m sorry to say

this is how peace comes.

It doesn’t come blaring from the intersection

green light go, wait your turn,

halt, halt, stop everything

everyone stop.

I mean

it does, but not everyone recognizes

it all the time.

And even when it does

crashing descend upon you

it’s unsettling,

quiet unsettling

how you never noticed

it’s always been there for you.

It’s always been there in you.

You’ve always not been there

in it

and now

the river smashes your dixie cup,

crumples your tea pot

you are rolling over and

down against the rocks bashed

banged brow, face mashed

legs and arms twirling like a mangled

piece of farm equipment

I’d be more specific but I can’t

you’re so old and rusty misshapen

I can’t even identify you.

Not to worry.

When the Spring floods subside

that old metal is just

a former shell of something.

It’s being buried solowly in the bank

by moss and lichen and mud.

That’s not you anymore.

Come.

Gather you legs.

Meet me by the side

of the Yellowstone in September,

the side closer to the peaks

and let’s weep before that picture

of our brothers and sisters dying for nothing.

Let’s scream our madnesses silently

into the gentle flow of water, for this

is how peace comes to us truly—

in slow sips of breath,

one Sinatra song at a time,

the warm tears on our face,

the mug lifted,

the ring of tea

left on the table

slowly evaporating.

Damn You Charlie Wong!

I know what makes me happy,

it’s just hard to get there.

My nose starts itching 

from the grease. I reach

into the backseat for my

sweater.

                   Which one

should it be? The nine

to five suburban driveway

dream, or some wandering

mendicant never setting down

roots. Long ago he said,

“Here’s what you have to de-

cide: do you want to warm

your feet by your own fireplace

or someone else’s?”

                                         I have

so many sweaters. The green

cotton hoodie, two black wool—

one with buttons, one with a zipper—

a thick, lined flannel that passes

as a jacket and as a shirt, and then

all the gray pullover hoodies

I’ve accumulated from running

track, different organizations over

the years.

                       The years add up,

yep they do, and if I knew

I was going to live to be 200

I’d have a totally different

plan, but I’ve got to plan

on 80, so this’ll have to do.

I’m 27 soon, “Marrying age”

I said to her

                            the other day.

We wanted soup at Saigon Garden

but we were in that awkward window

between lunch and dinner. They were

closed till five, so Frugal’s

was my choice. I wanted

a burger and some fries. Her

stomach hurt. Then she downed

a breaded chicken sandwich and

moaned, “I have no self

                                                control.”

I remember playing Yahtzee in the

evenings with my parents. I remember

a Saturday morning in the English off-

ice, November, he had fingerless gloves

and Wish You Were Here on, he was

typing up poems and I thought,

“Damn that sweater looks comfy.”

Then he tore into my poems with a

red pen and I

                              was so thrilled

every time I met a girl who

played catch with my heart.

All the late nights holding hands

on our backs in the grass at

Lorel Park, staring up through

the orange Chicago night sky

until we saw stars, until

                                               shit

it’s getting late, I’ve got to

sneak back home, but let’s do this

again and again and again

                                                  the Autumn

turns to Winter and I happily pull

my sweaters on and we happily keep

each other warm by fires

                                                and then

Spring comes and Summer and we end it for 10,000 reasons.

The years add up. Despite what I

believe, I am getting older and I

am wondering if it isn’t time to

grow up a little, forgive myself

for my childish past, ask for

a second chance,

                                     and a third

of my life is gone now

                                           if I live

to be 80.

                      If I live

to be 80.

                        Well.

                                    That’d be

enough.

Brass Skin

The woman next to me at the bar

just hollered, “WALKER!”

in my direction.

Shrill and piercing

like a golf ball flying into a mailbox

clangclangclangclangclang.

I don’t blame her—

she’s drunk on a Friday afternoon

and eating peanuts.

Here are the feelings today:

gratitude,

doubt,

excitement,

ambivalence, and

fear.

That last one’s always there.

Well, almost always.

There are times

after a run,

in the morning looking at the mountains,

I think about everything that might happen,

everything that’s inevitable, and

it’s all okay.

Old age, homelessness, shitty jobs, fuck-ups,

horrible diseases I say thanks every day I don’t have

yet, death, yes

all okay.

That feeling never lasts more than an hour though

'cause next comes giddiness that maybe

I’ve left all my troubles and worries behind

once and for all, and that’s

always pursued by a feeling

of manic anxiety.

Then suddenly

I’m back in my own skin,

my mind the hammer

of a church bell

at noon.

clang…

clang…

clang…

clang…

clang…

In a Very Golden Sunset

Will sets the ash tray in the center of the table,

“So most people think this is their body

and the rest of the table isn’t,

but that’s not true.

This whole table is your body.”

As he says this,

I feel the birds rising out of the field

across the street in my chest.

“My family is hurting,” he says.

I nod.

Leaving the brewery, we wander

to the cracked abandoned lot nearby

to smoke cigarettes and continue

our talk.

Will says something about Jesus and a rock

smacks

the ground
next to us.

There’s a trench surrounding the entire lot,
and I see a little boy dash from one tree

to another.

Another rock comes arching towards us.

I see the top of his head bouncing.

I pick up a rock

and lob it underhand over the lip of the trench.

We exchange
crossfire briefly
until a woman’s shout

echoes

from the trailer park across the street.

He hops out the far side of the trench,

picks up a bike in wait

and rides off through someone’s yard.

Will and I say peace, and I ride off

in my car, M. Ward sings

This river that we ride

has always been alive.

O my soul one hundred million years.

Baltimore, Spring 2015

The pizza place in Whitefish, Montana has CNN on,

which is playing live footage of Baltimore S.W.A.T. teams

lining the streets, pulling up in tanks and paddy wagons.

The pizza place in Whitefish has CNN on.

They’re there to enforce a curfew till dawn.

The customers watch and chew their cheese.

The pizza place has CNN on,

which is playing live footage of S.W.A.T. teams.

Svladi is Icelandic for Coolness

“Measuring cups, play a new game,

Front of the class, measure your brain,

Give you a complex, then give it a name.”

—Andrew Bird

Tonight I was reminded

that in kindergarten

we had these religion worksheets

we had to complete

every week. Crossword puzzles and

coloring in the pictures.

My teacher Mrs. Svaldi

reported to my father

that I had colored a person purple

and a dog blue.

She was concerned.

My dad informed her we had a kerry blue terrier.

In 2015, it astonishes me

that in 1994, a middle-aged woman found it

preposterous that a 5-year-old boy

would color a person purple

and a dog blue.