Aaron Thibeaux Walker Is Asked to Set Realistic Goals

But but but he raises his cup
opens his mouth to say it
and drink it both at the same time
what's possible what isn't possible
without a suit a shiny silk suit
and a cool tight sleek silk tie
a knot I tie around my own neck
this morning before the medicine
cabinet you know the one with a slot
on the back wall inside for used
razor blades and a clean shave
with a close shave I can do anything
but I know what you mean how long
a pause is this going to be?
lips part and the next sound
caught in his throat here it comes
he croaks okay okay I get it
never be president that what you mean
or a brain surgeon or a rocket
scientist or an automobile designer
and anyway don't wanna be no
transvestite cross-dressin' fool
keep your hands off me don't come
any closer just kidding no
I know what you mean but I don't know
I just hit the notes and if they
wrong I know which way to go
what road to go down swinging my axe
flick my tongue between the frets
twist them pegheads home I
ain't holdin' back long as my sweet
strings hold up five minutes more
I've got more I know the rules you
keep your goals my friend I play
by the rules while you fools can shoot
for the moon and who knows
that's you not me

AN INCREDIBLE NUMBER OF COINCIDENCES

An incredible number of coincidences fall
from the tree each night and in the morning
wait glowing in the grass for our fingers
this is Easter and Christmas everyday
all around us being awake in a dispassionate
and curious way it's how I got here after all
an event that now runs in my blood
acted out six thousand no seven thousand
miles away from here across two oceans
and one continent ah but the ship's name
was hindsight and my own tongue the rudder
in the salty seas of analogy here now
the pages of light where I point my dark
words twisting the lines around the sun
till penumbra rhymes with rain and every
thing every living thing drinks and drinks
you call my name and my thirst is slaked
and bent like this my roof holds out its
wings spreading the downpour evenly
to the flower beds below the hanging
fuchsia and strawberries the Spanish
moss with its curtain flattering your eyes
as you look out on this scene gardenia
begonia Mexican sage Hawaiian ti
and variegated banana mamake
and ferns all speaking in tongues
while we list the ways we might never
have met let's listen longer you say
okay I'll get the wheel barrow and
meet you in the lower bed the mulch
too with the ten tine fork and old
newspapers old news we will lay
out on the ground ready to return
to the worms before sunset

IT GOES LIKE THIS

It goes like this there was weather and people in outfits

crying too and my father hands in trouser pockets his

cuffs belled out over his shoes he was Clark Gable in

-cognito later I would attend college near the famed

actor’s home town unless that was a drunken rumor

this however was fact my own birth I remember it well

the release the lights the rush of air I look back on wet

claustrophobia the little movements when my mother

surrendered her bicycle to the gods of the pavement

those moments were not my style though I am open

to contrary opinions Paddington it was the hospital

not the station subsequent visits to both confirmed

my suspicion it was a grey world entered either way

when my cave turned inside out when her waters broke

and I tumbled helpless in the shallow waves onshore

in view of all but out of reach until I got my drivers

license it was raining that day too with some sun

PUTTING AWAY THE FIREWOOD

It's time to put away the firewood
our orange cat still
hasn't come home

IN THAT SEA OF DESKS

Clenching two days travel between my teeth
I perched on an empty desk in that sea
of desks a hundred or more of those
hungry inkwells sucking at shadows

in that lifeless classroom where the bell
expelled one last ring and the long board
long wiped clean holds only ghosts
of how things added up or names

famous or merely naughty or shifty
how fitting the flag hung down up center
where the last teacher to stand on that spot
beamed up or bled down through those 13 stripes

of red and white to that field of stars
oh say can you see there's no ceiling
in heaven no spit wads or notes
passed blindly hand to hand

while here on earth the founding fathers
framed like a recent photograph
look hard into the room for the living
ah what's the use I wanted to come here

now there's no one else to blame
no point yelling or even hunkering down
cynically thinking about the children
I had a thought that drove me here

and now it's gone I'm seeing over there
my dad looking out the window
and the brother in the brown cassock
fingering a rope belt giving him the eye

STUDY FOR 3 GRACES

stripped away
the cave venus juggler
with her tummy flopping
right down to her mons

how many millenia
has it taken us
to get so close
to the bone

how hungry we still are
will always be
we mustn't show
the old signs

childbirth's stretch
smoothed over
hills valleys
softness lost

airbrushed out of the picture
even the knot
just a spot
for a bauble

THE SEA CAVE

Each time we reach the far end of the beach
we reach into to the cave with our feet
or at high tide our minds
always our coming and going does this
today we turned before the dark mouth
that always pulls us in
next thing I know you're on the sand
back to the lava
the smell of seaweed strong today
the vision of its bright green fringe
still vivid around the pulse of stone
always I recall how it came
oozing down
when
so long ago
hot molten earth innards
from where
a pu‘u
an opening
an eye wet with fire
a goddess enraged
I can't say
so here we are
you on the sand
so much new ground
your hand touching a smooth washed place
and I follow
a novel thing
a change
a matter of timing
serendipitous for us
for the tide
I can't say
today's moon Mahealani
one of the four full Hawaiian moons
yesterday Hoku before that Akua
but who's counting
I sit next to your exquisite sense of now
and all is quiet calm a gentle breeze
an idyll in the sun a moment's magic
engendered as we press our backs
to the rage that cooled long before
who knows how long before
was it a rage I keep wondering
or was it so hot fierce primal and core-driven
so inner planetary honest that it truly defies
my anthropomorphizing
so I bask in you
our instant sanctuary
our nest of beginnings
when around the corner from the public beach
where stick figures mill about along the strand
with umbrellas buckets sunglasses token coverings
a man and a woman enter
surprised to find us there just sitting
and you thought you were all alone she says
en route to the cave
it's purple inside
he says as they leave
and another woman leads another man
if she doesn't come out I didn't do it he says
and we look at each other both understanding
it's time to go