the broken ghosts are the worst.
they wander the pre-dawn shadows
arms hacked off replaced with twine tied
to hip bottles of Jäger trying bad pick up lines
on the living: younger than my daughter, pink sweatered
push-up braed, that slightly abandoned look
too far from campus and needing to sleep it off
rub the sleep out with empty hip bottles
an hour or so after sunrise in about an hour.
this is one of those resurrection stories
the ones someone tells years after in a bar
that night I slept naked on the wharf
Category Archives: work
notes towards a eulogy
I can’t help but feel sad for this city
born of a river but having forgotten
its roots / down here under another
impressionist sunset / do not brother
do not trust the waves/ but listen
anyway / the lack of knowing does not
take away from this sacred place:
those who are drawn are and the rest
find their solace in other corners
somewhere in this sad city
on the other side of tired shawscope mornings
the great blue heron made no sound
save for the flap of his giant wings
legs kicked briefly at the air above the river
jumping off like something
in The 36th Chamber of Shaolin //
communing with the silence of traffic at 3 am
the tug boat spot lights draw lines
like low lying fog / I find I am uninterested
in the angry young punks, their posturing
and only the desperate fishermen are out this morning //
they will blame their failure on river monsters
too big for the shallow mud but they
do not look too close at the waters no
not too close else they will conclude too correctly / I conclude nothing it is not yet 5am
too early to order breakfast// and I am too heavy footed too earth bound and I do not yet
speak heron