One Moment, Replaced By Another

(after Yusef Kombunyakaa's "Thanks")

In his poem, the soldier describes the bullet
that didn't kill him. How it happened to miss
it's chance, mere inches to one side of dead-
center, hitting a tree that grew in that place,

He wonders what it was- Wind-Drift? Grass
Rustle? Light-Glint off Gun-Metal? Any one
of which might be the angel that saved his life.
He barely mentions another story of survival,

this one, a grenade that failed to explode. I think
we can only come close to Death just so many
times, so we assemble A Story to Tell, including
all the other almost-times. I won't dishonor him,

thinking I know anything of what it's like to be
someone who has served. My story is different
altogether, except it too is a ghost of "What If?"
Young kid, I was visiting relatives in Florida,

swimming off of Grandpa Frank's boat, close
by the Gulf of Mexico. I don't remember
the charter fishing vessel, the people aboard
shouting at me; I don't remember any sound:

just the wet weight, as I pulled myself out
of the water, looking over my shoulder at
the hammerhead, furious at the fishhook
in its jaw, how I didn't scream as it burst

from the water, big as Death. What I remember
was the fishing line, marking its path towards me.

Any Given Bottle of Beer, 1981

(after Sharon Olds)

Fully informed about the vintage
of my parents and how they failed
to be even that, I decided, as a teen,
to never follow in their footsteps,
never recreate their mistakes. Meaning

I wasn't going to drink. College soon
put paid to that, (the best camouflage
is fitting in). So, I learned a great deal
about the glories of excess, and how to
make any tick o' the clock happy

hour.  In fact, it wouldn't be for years
to come that I would fall into the deep
end of the glass and not be smart enough
to know when to stop sinking myself.
Three decades decayed away my hope

of ever feeling normal around alcohol.
I try to forgive the dumb kid now. Pride
in my sobriety is tsk-tsk-ing a beer radio
commercial at 8 a.m., while humility is
admitting that's not the earliest I ever drank.

If I were to blame it all on the missteps
of that self-made stupid student, I would
also have to admit he never set a foot
to print that wouldn't lead straight here
to the shoes I put on, one at a time, today.

The Diameter of Things That Are Not Circles, or, Sleep Relaxation Tape No.2 "A Strange Bed"

As with anything else in the world, begin
right where you are: the floating, fixed-
point that is the center of the universe that is
the inside of your head. You. Now circle

the bed three times like a dog that does
things not completely understandable
to itself. This should make you tired, or else
you may start mourning a long-lost pet

from your childhood. Either one
is pointless because what you want
is to sleep. Not to be selfish, but sleep
is simply too personal to believe

what works for everybody else fits
your needs. You are far from home,
tired in a strange bed, lonely in the way
you always are before sleep arrives

to join you. Think of something else.
What is the diameter of a square?
A triangle? Rhombus? Parallelo... stop it.
Diameter is something about circles.

You remember that from Math class
in the 8th grade, where you sat behind
your ex-girlfriend and the new boyfriend
she found after you. At least you think

it was after, but then you remember
the angles of her face the last week
of your relationship. The way ripples
don't build from nothing. All of a sudden

you two were no longer you two, just
another two people after a love that turned
the corner to ruin. Ever since, nothing
has changed- corners are still things you fail

to turn and instead, find yourself backed into.
Come back to this bed. Listen to the circle
of your breathing. You turned the coffee-maker
off, before you left on this trip, right? Yes.

Of course you did. You always do that.
There is every reason to believe you did
this time. Sure you did. Remember, circles
are things with no ends that mean nothing

other than exactly what they seem: lines that are
endless in their ability to turn on themselves; more
cutting edges that startle you awake; places
with no corners where you can find sleep.

Impromptu Haiku

Thinking back to one
year ago. Weird. Memories
are weird. I forget why.

Erasure

Sometimes I think I don't mourn things that are gone,
I mourn absences-- the empty spaces between words,
graveyard of nowhere, only the gut-cold stomach-fall
remains, each time I panic for evidence of anything

ever being in that space. That it ever was nameable as
"hunger" or "promise" or "that touch I knew you by".
When I told myself words were not worthy of you?
We both know that's not true, but also, probably not

in the way we think the other imagines. I still look
for the right un-word for you: that perfect sound
of words being taken back from the air, if I could.
Words get caught on paper. I used to think that was

so they could last, so they could stay in one place...
no, it's so we have something we are able to erase.

The Only Machine You'll Ever Need

There were fascinating details; that's what entranced everyone about The Machine, when they
first encountered it. Endlessly resplendent with small craftings, and layers of appreciation, it  made the very clever feel clever all through their bones, while not making anyone feel stupid, the way some people feel, when facing mechanicals.

Whoever made it had a deep love for hidden riddles, clever double meanings, and details so breath-staggeringly gossamer, you could scarce exhale for fear of interrupting a moment. Different people will tell you they absolutely heard what they heard (it doesn't matter what anyone else claims, even were they in the room at the same time) and they would swear upon what ever what most important to them as proof. And everyone of them would be right, or at least honest.

Because The Machine makes the noises you need it to make. It appears in shapes it hopes you like, as long as that happens to be cube-like. But it can touch-interface, or if that's too presumptuous, too modern, it can fine meshed-gear clockwork, it can piston and hammer, it can simple lever; it wants to  you to be satisfied.

The architect, with heart of Bauhaus, the Steam-Punk hipster with their Victorian wish, the Futurist with the wired smile, they would all be pleased with what they saw. Lovers would weep, and the Terribly Alone would follow its humming (they hear it as a kind of melodic humming) and discover themselves impossibly found.

The Poets wait until everyone else is gone, before gathering up the words left underfoot, with their fingers busy listening. When they are done, each goes home and attempts to knit soup for everybody.

Suggestions for Being an Ally

Pretend you have been invited to someone's house.
for Dinner. When you arrive, knock on the door,
wait to be invited in. Don't kick in the door , even when
expected, and demand them to explain the forks. Or
the food. To say, "That really looks amazing! May I
ask if you'd be willing to describe it to me, please?"...

That is polite. "What the hell's that? Don't you got any real
food? Do you have pizza wherever it is you come from?"
is not. Don't be an ass. In fact, forget the inside of the house
for now; forget even the front door, stay outside, quietly.
Just take a minute and look around, observe, witness
what their immediate country looked like. certain trees

they, or someone, planted; those gardens, tendrils tended
into vines and green after green after more green; more
life from this simple work with the soil.  Next, houses,
all around tree-lined streets that lead to businesses, big
and small: bakeries and sidewalk cafes next to the street
markets; friendly neighbors on their way home from work,

maybe the other way around; or maybe they were leaving
for the cinema, the theater, the outside world, universities
in America. Feel the life that was here, before civil wars
and western munitions; drones that taught children to fear
blue skies; death by approximations made half a world
away.  Victory by assumption. Destroyed cities and survivors targeted when they want to go somewhere safer, like
where you come from-- that place of confident rooftops
where blue skies & sunny days are taken for granted. Not
cities shown in media as if they were built like that, all
fallen; the refugees suspected of being the very killers

they want to flee from. If you want to be a good ally, don't just ok

demand the bombs to stop; then open your safe homes.

Share meals, feed hearts, indulge their polite questions,
be generous as they would be, were their houses still
there, and they had any food. If you want to be an ally
ask if they have anything they want to share, then listen...