You may argue that the hardest part of leaving
Is simply that:
Leaving.
But it’s the taking that’s got me.
What stays and what comes with?
The smokes, certainly, and the football.
But what about this picture of the frozen summer
Before I knew which way the wind would blow.
Do I want that?
It is small, but heavy as stolen candy.
Extracting the picture, I find the frame
Much lighter.
The road will bring other pictures.
Taking and Leaving –
Sleepers beneath the same covers
Slipping away
As the sun defines the wrinkled landscape of
A new day.

Propped against a post in the keen autumn air,
I watch ten trains slide by
Too quickly,
And one week-long train of hard-boiled Mondays.
As I light each cigarette
I give it a name.
Lungs clutch the smoke
Then let it go
Let it go
Let it go

The day comes in a nondescript package.
I put my money down, spin the compass
And escape on gasoline wings.
My engine passes into dusk
With the sound of a door
Closing slowly on the laughter of friends.
I am heading for the sun’s embrace
Where new hands will raise a glass of amber,
Even as the circle of the moon
Breaks on the mountains
Behind me.

It was about two o’clock in the hot afternoon
When Willum McCall stopped working
And stretched his back,
Standing in the middle of his newly-tilled field.
He leaned heavily on his hoe,
His thick fingers familiar with the wooden texture
That had rubbed calluses into his palms.
The worn head of the hoe sunk
Into the fresh ground like a metal tooth,
Touching the soil with a simple intimacy
The machines would never learn.
McCall stood there,
An anachronism from a discarded time.
The sun baked down on him,
A strange wizened tree of tanned bark
And weathered bone
That had sprouted from the ground
Some fifty years before.
He rested his chin of chaff and stubble
Between knuckles that knew work.
He regarded the leisurely probings
Of an earthworm
Tasting the airy blue infinity
Above its moist netherworldly home.
Its soft undulations were a beckoning finger
Promising a day when the earth
Would need to reclaim an old tree.
Far away,
A suit peering out of a television set
Announced the arrival of an information superhighway.
Willum reached inside a pocket in his
Tired blue overalls,
Producing a handkerchief which had long since forgotten
That it was ever red.
He wiped away the moisture
That collected in the ridges of his brow.
As he did this,
His hand passed across his vision.
He peered at it anew —
A peculiar grasping device found among the furrows.
Willum thought it strange that a boy’s hand
Should look so etched and chewed,
But then he recalled that fifty years
Could do such things to a boy’s hand.
Somewhere else
A strand of fiber optic cable
Transmitted the digitally compressed cursing
Of mutual gunfire,
An echo of embattlement from the other side of the world.
Willum took in the heady breath
Of the fields
And it was almost like the very first time
When the scent is palpable and weighty,
Filling the lungs with dark brown matter.

The smell invoked latent wonder.
For a moment, the small ridges of earth
Became the skin of an alien landscape,
Concealing a womb bundling green promise.
The sun, a white globe hung inexplicably in the sky,
Was as though newly lit.
It communed in a secret tongue,
Fiery and soft,
With the invisible congregation of
Form within formlessness.
“You shall be grass,” it said.
“You shall be trees, fields; a vibrant intensity!”
For a moment, Willum McCall stood in the nexus of Creation.
The nervous warble of birds
Interrupted the sun and
Chased away Willum’s thoughts.
Above,
A faint moaning announced the progress of an airliner
Sliding smugly along the sky.
The farmer looked back down at the rows he had made.
He thought of ripe green and sun-touched yellow.
In a local supermarket,
An old woman was screaming
That the shine on apples had been
Synthetically reproduced.
Soon it would be not only the shine,
But the apple as well.
Then God would be out of a job.
Willum blinked away his reverie,
Glancing at his father’s watch
(Now his watch)
On his father’s arm
(Now his arm)
And turned the hoe in his grip.
As he bent into his work,
Willum appeared in the sensory array
Of a military spy satellite,
Passing above in high orbit.
Matching no signatures in the
Computer’s bank of templates,
He was ignored
As though he were part of the field.
Willum McCall’s hands worked
The tool of wood and metal,
Changing the earth.

(for Troy and the Superhighway)

Summoned from sleep
We have arrived
Supernovas in our eyes
Skating down purple lightning
The scroll of the sky unrolls and we read out our names written in fire
The outsiders flee as new stars define the constellation of Boom
Vinyl platters cut the night, bringing back the mother tongue
Shouting the lullaby of candy light
Swimming through the floor to our secret grotto of noise
Shadows break through the light and twist
We are the shadows
We are the light
If you could see with the eyes of the velvet butterfly
Eyes on each wing, always seeking the sky
Forever in motion
You could see us
Our sweat fills the fountain
Drink – it is sweet – it is life
Our bread is bass
Our wine is light
And the bass comes like a comet
We grab its tail and ride
And the bass comes like the trumpet of war
Our dance is a battle to save our childhood
The bass blows out from our bellies
Swelling out the walls
Unlocking doors
We blur through each other
We melt into the sky
And rain down on upturned faces
And the bass comes like a herd of psychedelic llamas
Blowing us to the floor
And the bass comes like a carpet ten feet deep
We drown, laughing
We are an avalanche of purple
Rushing up the walls
Painting a mad mural, a phantom landscape of electronic ghosts
We know the taste of every color
We know the name of every star
We know the shape of every note
But we do not know peace
The bass won’t let the children sleep
No, we do not know peace
Not yet

Let us not so hasty go
With lambent eye and nimble toe
To sup with bugbear’s hoary host

Tarry here in fields of wine
With spirits soft, my aspect thine
And to our new love we’ll raise a toast

From dreams of geese we’ll make our bed
Our souls entwine, their bodies shed
Spinning tales until the thread is gone

Our magic hooks draw out the night
We are drowned in our purple rite
Lethe spills its banks so we forget the dawn

When the shrubs ceased their dance,
the smallest one
peered into the night sky
and wondered aloud,
“Why do the trees have constellations
but we do not?”
The wisest of their number rustled,
“It is because they are tall enough
to rearrange the stars in their own image
while we must be content to divert
the streams and send bits of ourselves
to countries far away.
The trees will always wonder if
the patterns they have arranged are true.
They must grow many limbs
to support the burden of their conceit,
and grow many rings
to support the burden of their limbs.”
The tiny shrub seemed to understand,
tightening its roots,
pulling itself closer to the ground.

another feeble dream
clawing at breakfast table
resplendent night song now
offensive in sane morning
swaths of Thursday
the wistful day
incubating more fevers to
come for me at dusk