The Middlewesterner

Oh,
the terrible

swift fury
of beauty!

Darkness,
sudden and severe.

Afternoon
will not be the same.

Sun,
or the promise of

sun,
or the memory.

"Rhythm of our speech,
metronome for the heart."

*

"It is not
what you want
it to be

so

let it be
what it is."

*

"God stays out of my bed and
I don't sleep in his church."

"If I couldn't steal lines
from myself, sometimes

I'd have nothing to say."

*

"Two poets,
two buzzards

riding thermals -
what works for me

may not work
for you."

*

"It is not
about words.

It is about
seeing. No,

about
trying to see."

Cold affront of steely cloud.
Darkness at mid-day.

Wind and more wind
blows my stink away.

Hawk on its post.
All is right with the world,

at least for today,
this moment, now.

Long view from the mountains,
such sadness that grabs you.

Another hawk.
Another morning

holds us both.

Don't we love
this lovely world.

Don't we love
to wreck it.

"I have but
few readers.

Few readers
are enough."

*

"Listen.


Listen more.


That is


the poem."

*

"Free verse
poet

trying to
play bass -

Beat,
he says,

what
beat?"

"The poem -
slow

wonderment
and no

hope but what
you find."

*

"Sometimes two
and two must make
five, or else

there's no hope
for poets."

*

"What dancers
say in their bodies

poets must
say in their teeth."

Shine of sun,
a white

sheen of roof
forcing

me to look
away.

Snow on the mountains.
Sun on the snow.
The long lay of the light.
on everything.

I am going home.

Two geese set
their wings like

twins, slide
towards the water.

Roiling wind.
Rolling crow

looking for home.

November whiskers -
old man

talking to himself.

"Sometimes
the mind

shuts like
a door

and there
is no

peeking
through the

keyhole."

*

"Long thoughts no longer."

*

"If the poem
won't go, light

a fire under
its belly - see

what that gets you."

"If a word
is something

everything
is nothing."

*

"Word-salad poet -
shit hits the fan,

catch what you can."

*

"If you'll let the poem
push you, it will

push you all the way."

A lay-down day,
the end of November, and

nothing much to say.

The sadness of
November sky -

a bitter wind
coming.

The tawny lay
of the November day.


You can go home,
almost.

The November
cold, as unforgiving

as my brother who's
Republican.

"If I never
write another

poem, I will

have written
this one."

*

"Writing a poem
is not much more

difficult than bleeding
to death - it only takes

a little longer."

*

"Sometimes
there is no meaning.

Sometimes
it's just a Christmas light

blinking."

"Short lines is all,
because my mind is small."

*

"Won't someone take
this slosh of vowels

and figure out
what's wrong with me?

Help!
I'm trapped in here."

*

"From the word-
spouting fount,

it's Damned if you do,
Damned if you...."

Cold November -
even the sun

wears its gloves.

On a day like this
in November, you can

almost believe in God.

November,
and the sky

is wider.

Those are cranes!
A ten acre
field of them,

grey as a
November day.