Last Night Blues

A silence after the midnight train's passing by stirs things up
 Night birds return to their roosts, and the wind runs off to some
     newer place

It is just like the night

To play tricks when you're trying to be so quiet

Without realizing he's slept, he wakes again

Another three-ten

The old man overhead snuffles and moans

Soundlessly the bedroom door opens

And a ginger cat pads across the room

Vaults to the window ledge 

And gazes into the night

                                Perhaps this is the way it will be

                                        Together you could have done some things
                                        No more warm spot on the sheets to move to after she's woken

                                        You're older now

                                           She'll be harder to find

                                            To be passed by

                                                    While recording that which the act distances you from

                                        To work with words

                                                        To discern shape among the shadows

                                           To get it right

                                                            To wait on the judgment of others

                                          To sleep

                                                       
                                            Places we've been

                                              In the early dawn he awoke, and did not mind

                                          He thought, Once I tried to kill myself

                                           A long walk on the ice

                                              There's more than one way to do it, you know

                                                                          His heart stuttered, and he went on

Romance

I'm glad I never saw the Goat

He might not have had a jump shot

Some Van Goghs must get discouraged

Some manuscripts get left on trains

Or get lost in the fire

The boys with the guitars

Won't get very far

  With only a sad song

Requiem

Hey Townes

One thing I wanted to ask you

Is it better dying

Than sitting around waiting to die?

You're the only one I could of think of who'd know for sure

And I figured you wouldn't mind the asking

The Aleatory

I looked it up: aleatory means

"Of or depending on chance, luck, and contingency"

A good word

If you knew that tomorrow you must die

Is this what you would be doing?

Then maybe you should do something else 

 

The Kingdom of the Spiders

Sometimes at night, on my way to sleep
As the birds start to crow, I visit the kingdom of the spiders
Where I plan intricate murders
Vast schemes of revenge for crimes not yet perpetrated

   against my person

Or let the bullets fly randomly, from a concealed vantage point

on a height

Calls are made from a safe phone

Requesting officers be sent to this addresss

Where I lie in wait, with a rifle and bad intentions

And no cause, save the continued independence

               Of the kingdom of the spiders

In the kingdom of the spiders, my partners never speak

They indulge my desires silently or ecstatically

According to my whim, which they are sensitive enough to discern

Without my having to explain it in so many words

They weep sometimes . . . but that's okay, just this one time

The kingdom of the spiders is shattered by sleep

In the kingdom of the spiders, resentments build webs

Fantasies take wings, and are ensnared

Jokes tend to be cruel in the kingdom of spiders

Dreams are no consolations

They skirt too close to the surface

And star the same characters, over and over again,

        with no resolutions

Actions are without motivation in the kingdom of the spiders

Nothing is forgotten there, and nothing is forgiven

Candles flicker behind screens

Time is measured in the drip of water on stone

I'll never tell the way to the kingdom of the spiders

The kingdom of the spiders is eternal and fleeting

It never was and always will be

Was never meant to be so, yet proceeds according to plan

Only the lonely never visit there

It is older even than doubt and guilt and cowardice

Newer than betrayal

Older than age is the kingdom of the spiders

Wishes are stronger than words in the kingdom of the spiders,

       stronger than deeds

Regrets overcome courage, which lies broken

The drunkard in his self-pity . . . is lauded for his fellowship

The whore commended for her honesty

God gambles on the house in the kingdom of the spiders

Never is he asked to put up a cent of his own

The rot begins in the kingdom of spiders

Cancer is made there, and placed within

The kingdom of the spiders is where love comes to die, to decay

And is made to confess to uncomitted sins

Placed upon the rack and tortured in the flesh

While nuns deceive their husband

And the children are punished for running wild

There are no judges in the kingdom of the spiders

They are not needed

The air is fetid with aggrievance, and damp

You suffer there for the sins within you that stayed within,

              never committed 

Leaving you shapeless as the fog

No nepenthe nor rum can shroud the kingdom of the spiders

In the kingdom of the spiders no one sees you for what you are
And you see all too clearly
There are no words to express what you feel
No noises you can make
The only laughter in the kingdom of the spiders is without mirth
Of a cruel and knowing kind

The spiders will not hurt you
Just hold you down, and torment you for a while
They feed on self-loathing and doubt
Excite paralysis
Poetry is written in the kingdom of spiders