Wish You Were Here

You gave me the lake moon
shattered by the fish dance.

You gave me the last

taste and first

touch you said
your daddy kept locked
deeper than your momma
ever knew.

You said that, 
my little lady. 
You said it.

Did you really say it?

We saw the Michigan night
drop like an angry back-hand
kiss. We saw the dark
fall fast and sad and fist-

first. You laughed so hard.

Remember when you
laughed so hysterically hard?

Your daddy laughed like that.

Remember how I held
my fingers out to you
like buttons on a juke box?

Remember how you pushed —
one-two-three —
each finger in turn,
and I sang every song
you asked me to sing?

You're my brown eyed girl,
I sang. 

Sha-la-la-la-la-dee-dah,
sha-la-dee-dah.
 
I sang I wonder,
still I wonder,
who'll stop the rain.

What was that song
you asked me 
not to sing?
 
We knew
nobody knows
where it comes
and where it goes.

What was that song
you couldn't bear to hear?

Oh, my girl, sing.
Sing with me. 

Sing.

You gave me 
a broken moon. 
You gave me 
the minnow-slivered moon.

I fish for you. 
I fish.   
I fish for you.

I Build Blogs — She Says I’m Narcissistic

Not right now, she says, 

when the river leans

so heavy against the levee.

What does that mean

is what I ask her.

She says,

Is it all about me? 

What do you mean?

You are weak, she says,

and I am strong. It's all 

about me, ain't it?

Ain't it? 

She says.

Paranoia’s in bloom this spring.

Paranoia and the black mold and the long

fingers of victorious high school principals

snapping those vapid Victorian songs.

Oh, we should never, we 

should never be afraid

she says to die.

Assurnasipal II of Assyria inaugurated something or other.

He smoked cigarettes and built ziggurats.

I build a tower of words

with poplar poles and cottonwood beams,

a tee-pee whose top

reaches unto heaven.

I build my flimsy tower 

on an inlet of the Internet

where the search engine shows

me my eyes.

Where the search engine shows

me the me

my eyes want to see.

Where the search engine flows

syllables over the levee of my heart.

Lafayette, Indiana, July 1995

That kid on a red motor scooter knows
the limits his desire reaches under
mid-summer maples he won't
remember because his dad 

maybe an older brother chases him down 

riding a little bicycle

screaming obscenities like Fuck

you little fucking shit you

know you ain’t supposed to ride my bike you

get your ass off my scooter and home

before I break your fucking skull in the silence

that follows—though never quite

quiet for day settles anyway like lace

thrown over the back of a tattered couch

or the shoulders of an old woman

who won’t say thanks because she’s got

only a T.V. screen and a cinder-block wall

—not even dust floats down but

I expect the one absolute one 
day arrives and I too lose

this afternoon

                      lose myself too.

Mickey Ceasar

That last beer,
the coldest
bottle in the fridge,
so far back on
the bottom shelf
I was shoulder deep
just to grip it --

the one
I said I'd save
for you --

I drank it.

One chance
is what I thought.
One chance to get
everything right.

Fuck it.

Sometimes it don't
fall that way.

You know
what I mean,
my far-flung,
wind-tossed
brother.

You know
when lines
get short,
it's hard
to think.

Just
drink.

Happy, Happy, Happy Birthday, Devil Dog

Happy birthday, Marine Corps,

you sag-titty, one-eyed bitch

who never let go my nuts.

Oh, yes, I'm happy-happy-happy

for what you taught me,

Marine Corps, you taught me

how to touch my lover, my wife.

You taught me how to touch my

children. Thank you,

Oh, carrion comfort.

Thank you, Marine Corps—

my mother, my father, my lover.

Oh,

let me go.

Let me go.

Let, let, let go—

my mother, my father, my

one-eyed self.

Litany of Hermeneutics

Like first light 

clawing up from dark 

water, I'm the strict 

interpretation that starts
with misunderstanding.

You know me, my darling, 

my bruised peach.

I'm your thin skin 

sliced — the finer, 

more manageable crisis.

I'm the morning's first crow,
the wild turkey that startles down
dawn with my pine-bough drop-flight.

I make you draw red
lines all up & down 

your arms, my
whisper-swish razor-love.

I'm translated into forty-six languages.

I saw cancer, indifference, & hate
kill all the best 

ladies I ever knew.

Jesus was a personal friend.

That's a few years now,
the systematic fist,
Bible verse, knife.

Christ, you say.
This isn't what 

I came here for.
 

I say:
You want a job,
right?

Right?

I hasten to say that JFK
was not my father.

I have about thirty-seven hand-gestures
I could teach you, 

my lover, my dove.

I have about gone mad twice
as many times as my old man.

I wanted him to see my eyes 

when I took his pistol.

I want you to know

the careless practice of interpretation
really pisses me off.

I want you to know savage pain
is the name of a punk rock band
I never started.

You know I wasn't 

a really good dad,
but I was damn,

a damn good Marine.

And fifty-seven fists fall on me

like the cold, back-hand waves

breaking the shore of Lake Michigan.

One time I heard a story.

One time I heard a song.

One time I heard

my name on your lips,

your lips.

You know I still 
tell lies 
like flies on shit.

Well-Well-Well-Well-Well, Don't You Know Her Well?

It's gotten late now
she wants to be alone.

Having forgotten how to fly,
she still remembers where
she put her wings.

Welcome to paradise.

Welcome to three days drunk
& twenty-seven yellow-eyed smiles,
thirty-seven good-byes.

You've seen my name, she says.

You've seen dawn drag day
down my father's narrow valley,
sag like a last note,
a final wag & waddle of the crow
gliding above that little creek
where my father drowned.

Why should you care,
she says.
Why should you
when I'm not here?

I'm thinking of that song
The Postal Service sing, she says.

I'm thinking of my wings,
my dusk-feathered, 
last-light flight. 

Such great heights,
she says.
Such great heights.

I'm dipping my wings in those clouds.
I'm dipping my wings in that creek.

I'm dipping my wings
in my father's grave.

Phoning the Poetry Hot-line

Every poem I write,

every song is a threat

is what I say to you.

You ask me where

will the poem explode.

What does it look like?

Did I place it myself?

You ask me why.

You are taking notes.

You write long distance phone

booth connection. You write,

I hear a street, 

maybe a PA system or wild animals.

You write kitchen sounds, quite

possibly fried eggs

like a mother used to flip.

We have many children in the building,

you tell me, and I have a family at home.

You write the caller’s voice—

a hairy, nasal slur
like a wet fart.

You wonder if my voice is familiar,

who it sounds like.

Does it smell like

mustard gas and roses,
you wonder.

What is your name, you ask.
What is your address?

I put another jigger in my song.

I won't pull the trigger
till you're gone.

Hello, I say, I Johnny
Cash the bomb.