Long Enough

You've feasted on the daily bread
long enough to see a trail of ants
coming over the mountain cushions
toward the gulch between cereal bowl and serving plant.

I have sat behind the wheel
of a car I cannot drive
long enough to know the drive way
is a place of static electricity
coursing under the asphalt
just as the sun reaches the center
of the noon time air
and turns the radiance into spearing prisms
and cause the car to seem
to meld with the side of the house,
indistinguishable from milk box, garden hose,
or engine parts from a lost freezer box.

All of us have stood
long enough
in line to remember
the tide of birthdays
that come at you
from a crowded calendar,
who is around and who
cannot return a phone call,
the window we await
remains a point
at the end of a long stick,
none of this furniture
puts us at ease,
the noises are as familiar
as a chorus of breakfast table coughs and sighs,
the slow trickle of light
crawling in from under the door.

I am made of money

At the edge of things
that come in threes,
death,
taxes,
rent,

tongue to envelope glue,
twitchy finger on
mouse
to submit
the rent of the atmosphere
we've chosen to live in,

Paradise isn't for everyone
and there's only
a handful of
empty rooms to go around,
only so much
floor space
to stretch your feet,
these rights
must be protected
and paid for,

which is another way of saying
who needs to eat
or get across town
on bus routes
that are getting scarcer
than crumbs
on an orphan's plate,

let's get beyond our worries,
let's live in the present tense,

I am made of money
until the last
stitch goes
and all I was worth
falls to the floor,
is swept up
and sold as story
someone can scare their grand children with.

san francisco

lost again in alley scrubs seeking a straight path among inclining bricks buildings odd and sharp as needles loom over us all braving a short walk home, canyons of cracked asphalt and singular puddles alive with oil cans and rainbows that spread out in decaying circles concentric and amorphous at once, greased and glistening from stuttering lights hanging over a servants entrance of a restaurant kitchen where we seen strange men in white aprons and t-shirts wield their professional knives and hoist more trays of filthy dishes to a crowded aluminum counter, long cars and short cabs drive by on the main street we walk to, past dumpsters and cardboard condominiums exposing an arm or leg only half concealed during a dream of rain, the slurred hissing of tires on the street, someone shaking a bell, store fronts lit bright in righteously fake light of heaven, something is about to erupt over the spires that prod the clouds full of northern rain, there's not a taxi anywhere as we stand there full of food and shivering in the wind.

Home

I am lesser than the sum of
the parts |
you found for me
after the trains arrived
and the ships rolled in
with waves brown
with old dreams
and dead fish,

medals for my chest
and steel for my knees
that never buckled
nor knelt before
strange aromas
of cash reward.
I kept my nerve
and protected
the shelves
that held each and every pot
our futures were contained in,

spiders and houseflies
come and go
as their nature pleases them to do,
the mail comes
and rests out of reach
until knees and will power
match their reserves
to match the staircase
if only to find out
the name of the
newest debt
that was invisible
until the uniform is exchanged
for an average man's clothes,
used and slightly too large,
threads from the pant leg
dragging along the floor,

coming undone
each image that flashes bearing flag and brand name,
undone and peeling
to expose not green fields
but only brick
and generations of
calcified glue
that replaced the smiling faces
with hysterical smiles
we've worn
as we enter into the night
alone and without reward.

Three women

So these are the faces
of your summers and falls
that have gone by
like billboards
zooming by in passenger car windows,

your daughters
bought funny hats
and baggy jeans,

you walked
where trees and canyons
met with canyon walls,

three women framed
by sunsets
and early dew or frost
conditioned with respective decades
of reading, of being read to,

reading the lines
of faces that seem
the roads between
the cities you called home,

these are
spaces I've felt
in the space between
my bones,
the sense of place
and purpose
nameless and untouchable
'though I've yearned
for years
for what I thought I knew,

but it's wonderful
to be between all the chatter
and each smile
and grimace you could manage,

it's goes unsaid
and we'll leave there, as is.

JIM CARROLL IS DEAD

eventually you roll up your sleeves
after you arise from the nod
to notice
the back of your shirt is covered
in grass stains and
small twigs
the shape of crucifixes.

there's another song
these fingers will manage
as nicotine tips strike
keys that click
and snap another
name that
occurs to you
when the morning sun
is right where you like it,
in your eyes,white and intense.

the name rhymes with
the things
you've done
and the things
that became broken
as you past through
court yards and gymnasiums
trying to keep your balance.

the name
sinks like a rock
to the center
of your dreams
where you are leaning
against a rock
nodding to the lines
the poet grunts
as he comes clean
with nick names
and a drum stick or two.

you look down
and see yourself
on the floor
not moving nor breathing
and look
to the page
you were trying to fill,

it is empty
as the air
between the words "I love you".

you return to the floor
to the floor,
reach for your heart
leave your hand flat over your shirt pocket

and then die.

A philosophy you can open bottles with

Clearing house, really, posting this poem here. I wrote it in 1980 after I'd gotten back from San Francisco , where I did a poetry reading with  the late and magnificent poet Leslie Scalapino at Intersection for the Arts, cheerfully arranged by poet and college buddy Steve Farmer. The Bay Area struck me as a location where anything that could happen already has, and this sense of things being slightly crazed at their core inspired to write another of my open-ended whimsies. -tb

For the glory of Candlestick Park
these matches defy
your vagrant bluster,
they light their intended ends
and. then fade to black
half—way across the pitching mound,
either curling up or bowing down
to the press box rafters.

Second of all, I would think
that you’d wish more than
a fine—how-do—you-do
in a borrowed car.
In later years,
they- who -know- such —and — such
and you—know—who
might say and even believe
that sex—wax is a very malleable thing.
One solution: practice your sailors’ knots
and keep the evidence in your back pocket,
in case you're asked about
what really went down.

Try this on for size:
hold a flame thrower
at arms length
and try to blow it out.
if you’re not able
to extinguish the flame,
you should check yourself
into the nearest
stop—smoking clinic.

Finally,soft drinks consumed
through a straw
tastes their best
when you're not laughing
or watching the horse you bet on
drop dead at the starting gate.