THE FIRST MOTHERS DAY AFTER THE LAST MOTHERS DAY
Slowly it dawns on Sunday morning
that you didn’t call nearly often enough
and didn’t send nearly enough cards
or thank her nearly enough
And even if
you put the cattle racks
on the big grain truck
and filled it with flowers
till it ran over all four sides
Even if you drove it to the cemetery
and dumped the whole damn load
on her single rose grave
it wouldn’t be anywhere near enough
LEAVING TOWN
With the last house at your back
and the last dog in the last yard
tired of barking
Still standing and still staring
at a line posing as horizon
The warmth and wounds of love
drying in the wind
Knowing that the world
is indeed flat
That you are only one
step from the edge
And that you will
fall off
VACANCY
Walking through the room
pretty as a picture
hollowgram hanging in the air
exactly as if she was there
AFTER THE DEATH
(for Orli and Gideon)
These are the days of the rats in the cages
The burrowing into sawdust corners
the gnawing on bars
and the running on wheels
mostly the running on wheels
Even at night, specially at night
while God in his lab coat naps in the corner
and you know with perfect logic and insanity
If you could just do it fast enough
if you could just do it right enough
Like the wheels of old watches
all the cogs would fit the way they used to
when the good ones all had jewels
sleeping safe in their dark cases
And each morning you had to wind them up
if you wanted hours in your day
And you know, wish, know, wish, know,
that there is another way that this must go
And if you could just get the woulda, coulda
shoulda, coulda, woulda, shoulda; would,
coulda, shoulda, woulda, wheels
to mesh their gears just right
You could turn it all back
IN MEMORY STILL
(or computers byte)
You keep popping up in my memory
On old disks I find love notes
still as loving as when they were entered
Faxes, letters, poems, thoughts
full of beauty full of trust
Valentine’s poems, three of them
overflowing with sensual exaltation
wisdom exchanged, depths plumbed,
promises made
Fresh and clean and bright
as the day they were written
lines that would go on forever
lines that still do go on forever
I don’t know how to tell the little ones
and zeros that we’re now apart
it might break their heart
EGGSHELLS NEED LOVE TOO
Lately I’ve been feeling so empty
and more fragile than ever before
Everything that I believed in is gone
Desperate I turn
my jagged edges to the world
Step on me
with sensitive feet you will be sorry
with lumbering boots, I will be crushed
KENDRA
When the natives of this land
suffered a death such as this
they knew how to grieve
They felt it to the depths of their being
and cut deep into their arms and legs
that they might reach deeper
Today my great friends
I reach and bleed with you
Written for my cousin Kenny and his wife Betty on the tragic loss of their eighteen year old daughter
AUNT EILEEN
(1912 – 2000)
The death of my aunt
came when I had been at the sea
and my pores were open
She entered quickly
Dragging shadows of other deaths
aunts, uncles, father, friends
All loud with the clanking
of the chains that still bind
KURT
I am sure that the life
of my dear friend’s brother
held great meaning for a great many
He will be missed
My poems will miss him
He would take them down
into the greatness of his being
wrap them in music and meaning
and sing them back out to the world
I am sure that Kurt touched many people
in ways they have not been touched before
nor will ever be again
My poems join in the mourning
for that touch
THOUGHTS
ON
A DEBBIE MOMENT
Debbie, a great friend of mine, died too young
and in too much pain in Houston about five
years ago now
This moment just sneaked up on me
earlier this year
Can’t help wondering how many people
are having Debbie moments now in New
York and around the world from what
happened just six weeks ago
How many people in the world in the last
five years having Debbie moments from
a hole blown in their sky