1. |
What All Cats Know
00:30
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Dogs are prose, and prone to please.
Mice are good for eating.
When moonlight splinters through the trees,
We watch humans while they’re sleeping.
Disobedience is heroic.
It’s wrong to persecute witches.
Hell is a world with no poets—
And heaven a charm of finches.
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2. |
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For me, the cooking life has been a long love affair,
with moments both sublime and ridiculous.
—Anthony Bourdain
It may be that hunger and love
Are twins from the same Mother—
An eternal longing to lull our lack.
And the presence of an absence
Is the recurring attack of history.
To ingest such fictions or facts
Is an ordeal beyond all endurance:
As you step back to your private pantry
Where no meal can bring assurance.
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3. |
Catching Chickens
00:55
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Morphine doesn’t do much for dementia.
I know this because my grandmother
was trying to catch an imaginary chicken
on her deathbed.
Wanting to calm her fevered thrashing,
my sister cleverly said: “It’s okay grandma.
I caught the chicken for you.
You can rest now.”
But my grandmother’s faded blue eyes
suddenly sprang wide open, and fixing my surprised
sister with a stern and lucid glare, declared:
“No, you did NOT!”
And I’m still uncertain which came first:
our nervous laughter or the shock of her clarity,
so unexpected, we almost died.
I guess we all have to catch our own chickens,
before we cross the road and reach that other side.
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4. |
Bless Your Heart Sonnet
00:55
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You been conceited since the day you was born.
Walking around with your nose so dang high
In the air, you could drown in a rainstorm!
You no apple pie on the fourth of July.
You no sweet tea on a warm summer day:
More like spoilt milk—in case you forgot it.
Strutting around in your new lingerie,
But no one gonna write you a sonnet.
I swear to Gawd woman, you smash me to bits
And our time together is cattywampus.
You can kiss my behind and kiss my grits.
You ain’t no Georgia peach, you just pompous.
But bless your heart, you sure did butter my biscuit!
And when you sizzle like bacon? Cain’t resist it.
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5. |
Afterlife with Borges
01:21
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I have always imagined that Paradise
will be a kind of library. —Borges.
We were stalked relentlessly by tigers
Inside an adversarial athenaeum
Of horrific hieroglyphics
And mocking mirrors—
As books from other writers
Kept multiplying like our terror
On the expanding, capacious shelves.
Someone once said that if God is dead
Then everything is permitted.
But what could be more audacious
Than a labyrinth full of trilogies
With every third volume omitted?
This is not quite the paradise
We had hoped for or imagined.
And speaking on behalf of all
Our abandoned companions:
Are any of us truly transparent?
Even ghosts seem to wear
Such terribly haunted clothes.
Perfect clarity is as rare
As translucent roses:
There is just so much to unsee
In the afterlife’s undaunted library.
We close our eyes and as Borges turns to go
A familiar song begins playing
On some ethereal piano
High up above in the firmament.
We try to sing along…but the words
Have lost all permanence.
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6. |
Take It All Off, Slowly
00:31
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Some leaves are the color of lust,
Or speckled gold and burnt sienna.
The spectacle of Fall is a carnival:
Bold flashes among the branches
In this sun-freckled fiesta of September.
The aspens turn and then they shimmer,
As the leaves peel off like garments—
Flung at the feet of a stripper.
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7. |
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Oh mama, the world is wet with weeping again.
Oh papa, the storm-tossed and lost are sleeping again.
When hope is double-crossed, the cost can be severe.
How often can hardened hearts start beating again?
The trauma that we all hear is a mantra of fear.
A litany of terrors and errors repeating again.
The stretcher-bearers bear the bodies from the rubble.
But why be too troubled with all that bleeding again?
We are punished and pummeled, worried and wearied.
But all things buried will soon start pleading again.
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8. |
Fallen Angels
00:32
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There was something about the snow that day:
Flakes that fell like little angels to the ground—
Hands clasped in prayer, mouths soundless
As they spiraled down in star-bright sanctity
And melted away without a word or even a bell
In the church being rung. Nevertheless, I heard
A whispered hallelujah, as I caught one on my tongue.
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9. |
Pomegranates
00:44
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My wife is on the couch,
peeling a pomegranate.
Ripping the rind and
plucking each red jewel
from the wreckage.
It is a bloody and laborious affair:
a ritual that I despair of
because I have no patience
for this Phoenician fruit.
When next I glance over,
she has the ruddy loot piled high
on a bone white napkin…
and the seeds look like tiny hearts,
offered in terrible tribute to a wife
who eats them like an Aztec goddess,
one by one, sacrifice after sacrifice.
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10. |
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The cock doth craw, the day doth daw
The channerin’ worm doth chide:
Gin we be mist out o’ our place,
A sair pain we maun bide.
—The Wife of Usher's Well, traditional folk ballad.
Some people just can’t take a joke.
But Tommy Lee found funny
almost everywhere he looked.
Had he been a stand-up comic
he may have made good money,
or as an author of children’s books.
But Tommy Lee worked in the factory.
And like a kid who never grows up
he was an obsessive practical joker.
Looking back, it’s a miracle
he was never fired, but people say he was
universally admired by his co-workers.
Then one afternoon, Tommy’s fingers
got caught in the machine. And it cut him
clean to both wrists, leaving only stumps.
For two whole days, Tommy’s tongue
was quiet. Then he awoke to the smell
of the hospital, recalled the industrial violence,
and he began to understand:
(he would never work again.)
On the third day, his mother came in,
and she saw Tommy’s chest expand.
And while she cried, Tommy Lee died,
saying: “Look ma, no hands.”
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11. |
The Third Deadly Sin
00:31
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Whenever you feel that old familiar tug—
the babbling of the blood from a carnal stare,
or an over-friendly hug—
blame it on the wine you had with dinner.
And remember the prayer of St. Augustine
ye sensual sinners.
Take comfort and do not fret.
For even the Bishop of Hippo once said:
“Lord make me chaste. But not yet! Not yet!”
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12. |
Road Trip
01:11
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Cold Colorado morning.
The coffee percolates.
Elk are on the move in Evergreen.
They bellow their morning prayers
with breath like frosty incense
while drivers in their cars stare
and gesticulate in their direction.
We are all part of a herd.
We huddle together for warmth and protection.
Down in Denver the traffic is already terrific.
And I'm in the backyard, writing this poem—
thinking about Jack Kerouac
and getting that specific itch.
Wanting to get out on the road—
just drive and throw my cell phone
out the window into a ditch.
It's a tempting thought, I'll give you that:
To keep on driving
like Neal and Jack.
Drive until the tank is empty
and my belly full of breakfast:
Eggs over easy, bacon crisp and salty.
A road trip to a state of grace.
Becoming a different person—
just by going to a different place.
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13. |
The Virtue of Brevity
00:25
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O those long-winded preachers
I grew up listening to in the south!
On and on they’d beseech us—
With diarrhea of the mouth.
If you can’t say it in 15 minutes,
Then I have but one retort:
No sinner has walked out on a sermon
Because it was too short.
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14. |
Magicians
00:59
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Who doesn’t love
a white rabbit
pulled from a black
top hat?
Or the restoration
of the woman who
underwent a smiling
dismemberment?
We all clap
for a good resurrection.
(Sleight of hand and
misdirection).
How did he do that?
An endless river
of scarves,
a vanishing coin;
levitating cards.
Chinese linking rings,
deadly swords and sabers.
Near death escapes
from sealed
water chambers.
Catch a bullet in the mouth?
No problem!
Get guillotined on stage?
He reappears unharmed
and your children
think it’s awesome.
Of course we know
it’s all an illusion—
and wishes are seldom
granted.
But a part of us
needs to believe:
in a domain beyond
deception—
a world re-enchanted.
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15. |
C-
00:26
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I was always below average at math.
Yet I know how fullness retracts
And shrinks back to empty.
How the calculus of loss
Is unequal to achievement,
Or simply: how all our numbers
In unencumbered joyful sequence—
Become balanced by our teachers
In the algebra of bereavement.
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16. |
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I am the scholar of your lips—
A not-neutral academic
Of the careful cartography of your hips—
Which demands an engaged partnership.
Your body is my dissertation—
The sole subject of my study.
And in my imagination—
You’re like bourbon from Kentucky.
Well-aged and enjoyed in moderation.
Too much consumption offends proper modesty.
I take you instead in sips—
I drink you up responsibly.
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17. |
The Poem Behind the Poem
00:45
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I live in between the black ink
and white spaces of the page.
Your fingers graze the surface—
and I tremble. I can be as pliable
as a pillow, or stiff as steel.
Everything you feel I feel.
In the absence and lack I lurk—
the poem behind the poem.
And I am willing to work
on our relationship. I am a mind
waiting to meet you. I am nothing
without your gaze. Can you see me?
Not yet? No worries. I am patient.
Read on and be amazed.
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18. |
An Invitation
00:52
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Come, you soft-shelled poets filled with seawater.
Come and leak your speech on thirsty beaches!
Come and sing the ocean’s primal power.
Come and christen the living dictionary.
Come and listen to the seas, the rivers, the lakes.
Come and offer tribute to the tributary.
Come and accompany the lute and the lyre.
Come and salute the shifting personas.
Come with your fuel for the original fire.
Come add your spice to the cauldron’s aroma.
Yes, come and find your calling, your true vocation:
The marriage of mind to cherished hydration.
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19. |
Frogs in Texas
00:33
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After the rainstorm—
a symphony of frogs!
A plague-like multitude,
a croaking catalog
of amorous amphibians,
hop-plopping in the grass
after a good soaking.
So glossy wet with gratitude—
they are green and obscene
and glamorous.
Somewhere there is a
great god of frogs
who conducts this cacophony
of guttural, semi-permeable
pornography.
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20. |
Goodness Gracious
00:35
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It is so quiet
The landscape itself
Seems pious:
The hallowed hills,
The prostrate fields—
Even the flowers
Bow their ostentatious
Heads in silent prayer.
And in all this humble
Goodness graciousness
I find myself there:
A clumsy, cursing
Stranger—nature
Looking at nature.
And what is worse:
The quiet seems
Unnatural—
My place in it
Perverse.
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21. |
That Damn Goose
00:52
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I swear that damn goose with the glassy eyes is out to get me.
So much foul madness in such a ferocious fowl.
Every time I walk by, he starts to high step like a Nazi.
I watch him warily from the safety of the balcony,
As Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries plays in the background.
That damn goose is as strong as Zeus, with his thunderbolt beak
And his hissing mouth of Hades. Can geese have rabies?
I swear he is half-cobra with his arching neck and venomous face:
The rough and brutal beast foretold by William Butler Yeats—
The most vicious Canadian goose in the entire United States!
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22. |
Condesnery
01:07
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It is a made-up word.
It means: 13 ways
Of baking a blackbird
In a pie. Layers upon layers.
And beneath the crust
A festival of flavors:
Earth, worm, seed, sky.
The density of it
Does you a favor:
You taste compression—
And concentration.
Distilled like whiskey—
Now condensation
Gathers on the glass
You vaguely resemble.
A poem hugged snug
Is a pig in a blanket!
A single poem can wear
So many clothes
Other poems are naked.
Not all are
Equally skilled
At seduction.
Some poems wink—
Others reek
With the pungent
Perfume of skunk.
And sometimes,
It just implodes
Under the weight
Of sound and sense.
The poem with
Cake-like ambitions
Collapses and shrinks—
Condensed.
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23. |
Go Cat Go!
00:42
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If it weren't for the rocks in its bed,
the stream would have no song.
—Carl Perkins.
If it weren’t for Carl Perkins—
That fingerpicking star
Of ardent arpeggios
On his Gibson guitar—
We wouldn’t have
That contagious
Cool cat serenade
About those famous
Blue suede shoes
That rocked the country
Senseless
From the humid heat
Of his home in Memphis, TN.
The toe-tapping
Son of sharecroppers
Forsook the fields
And became the Dixie fried,
Awesome apostle
Of rockabilly's gospel.
Can I get an amen?
Glory Hallelujah!
Listen up all mama’s children:
Just a Little Dab'll Do Ya.
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24. |
Heavy Elements
00:44
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The lightning rips
A seam of sky
Wide open:
Slashing a gash
Through night’s
Ink-splashed manuscript.
And the stars are
The trillion eyes
Of an unseen god—
Each eye lit
Like a candle wick
To illuminate or ignite
Our parchment
Papered hearts:
Our weeping wax
And sticky pitch—
All our combustible
Bits and parts
That come from
The same stuff of stars—
(So we’ve been told).
Formed in the furnace
Of a cosmic bonfire:
Unimaginably old.
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25. |
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As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, my God. —Psalm 42:1
A congregation of devout deer
appeared over the hill
and came down to graze
on a Eucharist of leaves:
The new, green goodness
of God’s good spring.
Initially, there was no rapture
just a rupture in my reverie.
I had no idea what might occur:
smoking my cigarette outside
like a thurifer.
It didn’t seem to bother them though,
the smoke. They must have known
I wasn’t a wildfire.
Just another man sacrificing himself
in the wilderness.
And then, with magnificent tenderness,
one of the deer got so near to me…
20 feet or less. We were now
in the same sanctuary of grass.
For some reason I looked away and
stretched out my left hand
thinking: “This too shall pass.”
But it did not.
The deer approached without fear
his black nose nuzzled
my palm, the nostrils flaring.
And that was it.
Who blessed who I don’t know.
But he left as gentle
as a penitent.
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26. |
Writing the Vision
00:56
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Here in the rot and wreck—
In the besotted and messy elegance
Of my chosen art, I strive and crawl
Through broken psalms
Of complaint and praise toward
What? Irrelevance? Only time will tell
If desire is equal to intelligence.
And even if it isn’t, at least I have dwelled
In the temple of the most highs.
I have seen them ascend
Like Perseus on Pegasus:
These poets with their mysteries—
Their uncanny focus and eloquence.
They help us to see beyond the charms
Of sight. And by their liturgies
They sing us home to where we
Are infused with such reflected light
The darkness is quite undone:
Stunned, illuminated, and incredulous.
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27. |
Red Stuff
01:06
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Red snapper fish and red velvet cake—
The famous red apple; the slithering snake.
The blood in God’s creatures—the sunset at dusk.
The Indian corn concealed in its husk.
The communist cadre—the red-headed girl.
The socialist padre—the Eurasian red squirrel.
The crimson tide and the precious red rubies.
The color of nipples—on some people’s boobies.
The planet called Mars—the sports car for sale.
The fox in her den—your friend Abigail.
The stop sign on First St.—the pimple that popped.
Mao’s little red book—the tomato you dropped.
The cherries and peppers—the grapes on the vine.
That sweater for Christmas with its horrid design.
The cat in the window—your heart and your kidneys.
And good old St. Nick—coming down the red chimney.
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28. |
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There are some things we simply can’t sustain.
Endurance of the will is not always sustainable.
But what on earth can possibly have permanence?
And still, the heart continues to woo the brain
Despite all attempts to explain the unexplainable.
You are the center of my universe, contra Copernicus.
If I could take your suffering away, I would:
Bearing it in my flesh as a substitute:
Stigmata, Penance, Burnt Offering and Sacrifice.
So much in this life, wife, is poorly understood—
But love, though under duress, is never destitute.
Even in the face of hell it hopes for paradise.
Even in purgatory it yearns for heaven:
Even in this hospital, that burns like Armageddon.
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29. |
Such Weariness
00:32
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Sometimes, this world feels bent
And spent beyond repair—
Like a dirty coin too long
In circulation,
Mauled by money’s mad and vicious
Songs of consumption.
Ambition is for the young—
But life isn’t a ladder:
It’s a seduction…
A romance of matter and spirit.
What we adore is what we become:
For God’s sake, I can hardly bear it.
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30. |
Departure
00:46
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It is the way of all flesh and rust
That most things must come to an end.
What begins must stop, what was
Becomes what is not.
But some things remain. Not just
The DNA passed on to your descendants.
There are other remnants beyond
The grave and mortal coil of weakness.
To speak of it would spoil the secret.
This then is the end of a poem
That knows well what it can’t disclose
While hoping for a sequel.
So for now, this poet of the people
Says goodbye, the end—Finito.
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Mining for Rain New Mexico
Mining for Rain is a quirky band of brothers that create catchy indie folk & rock music to keep you and your loved ones well-hydrated in times of excessive dryness.
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