BAITS

...Many men go fishing all their lives without knowing
....that it is not fish they are after.......Thoreau

The bright lures caught him,
Their intended victim.
Hula Popper, Lazy Ike, Daredevil, River Runt.

The lake will turn over like
A sleeping woman, and
He will be there with rough cracked hands.
Bushwacker, Sonic, Hawaiian Wiggler, Whopper Stopper.

He craves the sleek contours
And simulations of life
In obscenely intense plastic.
Hooks are always there, just hidden,
Neatly packaged like suburban adultery.
Hellbender, No Alibi, Dipsy Doodle, Slurp-it.

He squints the shimmer of water from his eyes,
And mutters a kind of love
Or excuse for loneliness.
Bayou Boogie, Hot Spot, Dying Flutter, Buck Bush.

The choices, intricate as guilt, fascinate him.
With drooling visions it is all here just for him.
Puddle Jumper, Roostertail, Blue Demon, Bingo.

I start with a groan, swelling to a moan,
rising to a keen, ascending
to a shriek that tapers off in a thin wail.
I hug myself and, whimpering,
rock back and forth on my heels.
No one has ever known such sadness.
No one can grasp how I feel.

I smash an egg over each eye.
I smear my face with coal and pepper.
I wear a paper bag soaked through
with spoiled watermelon and pork grease.
I shred my happy past - my books,
pictures, and poems, published or not.
Ill never fly fish again.

Ill never make love again.
Ill never sit outside and watch night
stretch its starry tent over the sky.
There will be no more metaphors.
I am more sorrowful than a sorrowing man.
Life has no more meaning to me
than a life without meaning.

My heart slows. My blood congeals
to brown, vein-clogging mush.
My stomach goes on strike; my colon
bars its door. People assume
Im terminal. They imagine what
would make them feel the way I look,
and project their paltry problems onto me.

As if they could fathom my misery
by waterwinging over its abyss!
My pain is too heavy to lift,
too vast to measure, too ineffable to name,
and incalculably too precious to share.
I dig my grave in a landfill, and topple in.
I rub dirt and dog droppings in my hair.

Ive sunk so low its funny; so I start to giggle.
Then to chortle. Then to roar. Mothers
clutch their bleating kids, and rush away.
Gangbangers dash to the far side of the street.
I crawl out of my grave, strip, and shower
with a gunk-filled water hose.
I shake and shiver, grinning, in the filty air.

Dear son, I cannot speak, and yet
I have so much to say to you,
Too much for time and will to net.
Life goes with just this last adieu.
I have so much to say to you,
Far more than I can now convey.
Life goes with just this last adieu
To serve as what I want to say.

Far more than I can now convey,
I love you with a love that yearns
To serve as what I want to say,
Ablaze with joy that bleeds and burns.

I love you with a love that yearns
Too much for time and will to net.
Ablaze with joy that bleeds and burns

There was a time not long ago when I
Had neither life nor love apart from you.
All you said was absolutely true,
Nor could I see myself save through your eyes.
Kids have a sense of life, but don't know why:
Your love alone gave my world its hue.
Of all the things that touched me, there were few
Untouched by your bright song or inner cry.
My luck, then, to be so finely loved.
Of you my world was sculpted, light and free.
The graceful architecture of your heart
Had its twin whichever way I moved.
Even now, though we have lived apart,
Recalling your love makes me glad to be.

Julian is a true and loving friend.
Underneath the words there is the heart.
Life is not a table set for one.
If one would eat, one cannot eat alone.
All we have we borrow and we lend.
Nor do I breathe without your taking part.

Dear Mommy where are you?
I can not seem to find you,
You are there I can feel you
Why don't you touch my hand.
Oh mommy please I am only
Blinded by my eyes not my heart,
I long to feel the touch you once gave
But when Johnny died and I became blind
Your heart has gone and mine lives on.
Oh mommy please get in touch with me,
Hold my hand like we use to touch
The sand of our great land.

Wedding Poems