the great

Mordant. Descent. So heartbreak, even then,
Was known to him. When Bach returned on foot
From Lübeck, all he said was he had been
To the north to learn a thing or two
About his art. He didn’t say how long
Of those four months he walked beside the same
Slow river while imagining a song
With current broad and strong enough to blame
His fear for life on. Or, when nighttime fell
In moonlit rivulets, how long he tried
To sleep and dream of nothing else but home
Before new harmonies of grief would swell,
Surrounding him where he lay, a hundred miles
In every way from everything he’d known.

lent

Because I like pain and suffering, that’s why.
I like sitting alone with my thoughts and my
small hungers and my fears. For like two minutes,
anyway, and then to leave them in exhaust.
I like knowing that there’s more to this city
than I know. I like the desolation, too:
the way St. Paul’s carillon sounds in the long
empty street, how the world sighs because it’s Lent.
Why ride the bus? Because it’s cheap, and I like
thinking of all of the lives I would lead if
I lived up the hill, what I’d do if it rained.

“me imperturbe”

Easy in the flight of hindsight
Knowing which winds blow a true spring
And (take this one) which winds outright
Lie. I think it was misleading,

Robin, for the day to start with
Gentle rains and warming southerlies.
Time itself, so pleased to be in
On the joke, had woken early,

Sending cloudy covers flying
Back across the unmade sky, its
Shadow stretching in the morning
Light. We always knew a free gift

Is a gift but rarely given.
Still, you have your red puff–chested
Dignity. When the weather changes,
We must bundle up and bear it.

pissing in a graveyard

High above the names both
famous and domestic
taken all too young and
right up close against a
suitably obscuring
tree, I am relieved that
anybody around
to see is also a
good few years past caring.

the balloon

Lighter than air
is air itself
set fire.

Trusting ourselves
to not be burned
we stood

closer to one
another as
it turned

lighting the block
in bursts & gusts
of flame.

morning prayer

Defend O God that I beset this day
In many trials of my patience by
A lack of sleep and general ignorance
May not appear so slovenly before
My peers or strangers that they will suspect
The depths of my ineptitude and fear.