Bienvenidos, Amigos!

Who the Mighty Mightys think I am

Who my bosses think I am

Who my students think I am

What Society thinks I do

What the faculty thinks I do

Who I actually am and what I do

Transient Lives Forming under Moonlight

For Ken Seward

So we went out there
met some people
we wouldn't have
met, together heard
the song, a bit

off-key.   Now I go
out every morning
at 4 to see
the winter stars
begin their ascent
in early October.
Sirius greets me
& Jupiter moves
between Gemini:
with sharp binoculars
you can see
Galileo’s Jovian

jewels swimming
in ether.  Somewhere in this

sacred silence above

I wonder if Ken's
made it out there, to
the planets I mean,
even the stars, for
I believe he has somehow.

About transcendence I know
only of hiking in the high
Rockies or finding joy
with a woman. I imagine
the dead to be alone
in and about the scattered
hydrogen molecules
& cosmic rays guiding
them to the other end
of creation.  Of the rest
I do not know and cannot
say anything.  The letters
are nowhere to be found,

the post card and photos

long ago burned.  I sit in the grass
to await the lunar eclipse
really knowing who will
see it, who will not.

When the Water’s Gone

Call me when you get to the speeding

soft ambivalence of lips, the fleeting
kiss that takes away the hours.

It's been caught up
in the static of middle age--
aching loins no more, the bed

not as warm as the dark downstairs
room  with a hard leather couch
& the sleeping dogs who are

sad, like me for they know time
is only a convenience, at best
a concave lens that can

only open the last bit of light so far.
In this room, clean swept and free
my lover & I drift

into the dream world with the fire
murmuring hope in its own iron-clad
room where it can whisper all night.

The Warmongers are against me tonight,

the cold passion of atomic ignition

makes more sense

than illuminated visions I have
of apple-shoulders cupped
in my soft hands, hair

like black honey on the pillow.
20 years out, my life reminds me
of a ship's quarters what a long

voyage this became--
the  shallow hallways, the broken
switches on the wall. The children

are all but gone, we are done
& they like small green
planets depart our ken, the pen

or nest they must leave.  So this
plan of mine worked.  But I go
alone into the night as usual.