Inside Out Loud
And then
the day
became fact
Burned
beyond
description.
Though
why waste
a day
with de-
scription.
Better to
say why
waste
the poem
with trumpets.
Better to
say lilac,
to say war,
the room
I live in.
The collapse
of interiority
happened
in my time.
In my time
I was a
bewildered
subject,
a ghost
hungry for
selfhood.
I was walking
and talking.
I thought of you.
I think of you,
ghost.
It’s im-
possible
to see
the flight
against
the void
I come from
inside
the extremes
where I
really lived.
The other me
hidden
and darker.
I kept
my language
closer.
These
redacted
documents
inside.
Writing
is one thing.
Pain is
the same thing.
I am
a stranger
in this.
I use
the words
haunted
and life
because
you can
see them.
But it’s more
like spinning
light in
a dark room.
A catastrophic
light.
I have seen it
before but
if there is
a way
forward
I have yet
to find it.
I will sigh
at winter’s
psychodrama
of wind.
There is
a greensward
inside.
A reclamation
in small things.
There is
a hill and
on this hill
I see
another hill.
The bridges
were a
natural iron.
Ferns bowed
in the gale.
Leaves
came to
ground.
What wind
brought me,
wanting
to see
the truth
in green.
Sequestered
here,
there is
a purpose.
There is
a density
to sight.
To see is
an organic
thing.
Sunday was
like this,
an un-
wavering
lively
occurring,
stupefied
and restless.
Now It’s Dark
Not the easiest day I am having, clouds banking
and I dropped my signal.
I was trying to find my shoes and thought
I am overpowered by the gigantism
of commercial governing.
As I looked for my shoes this morning
the thought was where am I going?
There isn’t a place I can walk out from
under this chemical sky.
So I thought I would write a poem.
I thought I would try and make art.
But the chemicals seep into everything.
Reader if I could I would bring back for you
a sun made in crayon.
A sun unformed in the paper sky.
I wonder the paper that made me.
Being human I know that paper makes my mind.
Strange pulp reminding me I am far away.
When my brother could no longer speak
I said Tommy I got this
even if I don’t want this, I’ll sing for you.
When my brother had no voice there was only the couch
and a wooden floor
the ceiling and the TV with nothing blaring.
When my brother lost his voice I lost my childhood
lost the sun over sand in some place I can’t remember
in Rhode Island summer.
So far from myself in a body I can’t remember.
To no longer remember my body as a child.
To no longer remember today all that was.
Van Gogh was tormented by the sun and why not.
A constant blade-searing light that kills and cures.
I am not comforted by the cold stability
of universal laws
though one day I will die and think, that’s ok.
At least I’m writing and it makes a party in the dark.
A zombie feature that connects me to the undying.
I read every moment is an opportunity for grace
and think every moment is a possibility of art.
I tie my shoes and now I am standing alone
in some inky light.
Yesterday I passed a Budget Motel next to
the Peoples Bank.
If there’s some connection it’s lost on me.
My heart lost on me.
Weather like thought dissolves into static
a wiggy keepsake like nesting dolls of my
spiritual blank.
Sky opening into blank.
I thought grief is a form of grace.
Then someone said the thing about money
is that it’s money.
I live on the edge of an expanding circumference
alone in some inky light.
Now rain turns the world to constant applause.
The day is uncoupled.
All there is is thunder as the house decays
into a sound like me.
Freezing rain with silver seems to be speaking
and isn’t asking me anything.
Just doing its thing in the gray morning.
I was down with materialism but
wanted mystery.
I’ve asked myself a lot of questions like
why the day’s cascade
swiping left for life, right for lose.
All of it a dumb show.
All of me invested in poetry and the
arrogance of this.
Wanting to transpose loneliness.
Why not take on the next life
with its silence.
On my desk there are small plastic creatures.
The light on them is unrealistic.
It uncouples me.
Or the sight of serious windows opening out
onto serious lawns.
This must be a government building.
This must be the anodyne room of
a hospital beeping.
Every pronouncement on the feed, alien.
I’m in this corridor wandering a mind.
But the day is past caring.
The rhythmus is blooming at the beginning
of the way back when.
I am sick with tradition and its weak signaling.
Sparkling eclogues drift and contribute
little to the cause.
I am an incident trapped in thick description.
Just google it.
Dust jacket shows some rubbing,
near fine in cloth.