Remembering My Typewriter

Is that a typewriter I see before me?
Come let me press your space bar
with either thumb let me swing your
carriage to a new line hold down
shift and fly across QWERTY
ipsum capsicum and ampersand
without thinking fingertips resting only
on your home keys whilst pausing
twisting back your roller for earlier
impressions those lightning strikes
those keys the bones of your ancient
fan opening and closing take me
to the margins of possibility until
your ribbon runs quite dry oh my
tabulate tabulate return oh damn

Afternoon dives into an empty swimming

Afternoon dives into an empty swimming
pool and says ouch lies there crumpled
on the bottom and waits till 5:30 for gin
and tonic to come and fill things up
again I say I say the evening star is
out and so will I be pretty soon sings
the long dry spell between noon and
six the breath held the pinched
expression forgiven as the hours grope
towards the ladder and the 5 o'clock
shadow just had to find its way in
here eventually into this rambling
syntactical array of time passing
with its bouquet of unopened minutes

Your tongue along the salt

Your tongue along the salt
your toe inside the fault
and everything between vibrations
mine at last—let not these moments
pass away I heard it said
I hear it now I lean on you
like a child against the bed's edge
eyes tight against the truth about angels

the mind I feel is too much with us
thinking and drifting out of sight
of land broken its truce with the shore
lost now on our own catamaran of love
too lost to hoist the sails against
the coming storm

It's Very Difficult to Put Revenge Back in the Box

Bless me father it's been so long
I can't remember how the incense smells
how it curls like God's thoughts
toward the dark regions of His house
yes I'm on bended knee glad to see
you've installed cushioning
since I last paid my respects to mortal and venial
I'm at that place on the spectrum your holiness
your grace my grace is a little worn
so much to reveal and so little time
and all the while the undertow of illusion
and the geometric snare of rationality
like a calendar harmless enough its
gridlike inducements you can see
the marks here and here father all
the creatures I've killed in irritation
a sweep of the heel wiping out entire
armies all the vain blasphemy hurled
at cars parked too close or traffic
moving too slow and greed father
things I coveted including
my best friend's well
this is hard to say father
bottle of '67 Chateauneuf-du-Pape
that was painful for everyone
but worst of all I'm a purist
and I've lost count found love it's only
perverse curiosity that brings me
back here your face against the curtain
my reason for coming up in smoke
father, ten pushups won't work this time
I'm certain

No Trace

Last seen walking an isolated beach
at low tide on a remote island
in fact the eye witness may be
making it all up the way
she leaned into him their hands
loosely clasped their knees
lifting in certain mystic synchronicity
his trouser legs unrolled and wet
around the ankles feet immersed
in trembling shallow surf a zephyr pink
imbuing all even her white shift
wet too at the hem clinging
and all this just a moment just
an image in and out of focus
all the deciding and hesitating
long since given up and let go
what each brought in their way
lost now as history rewrites itself
and someone over here this side
behind our left shoulder says
it doesn't matter but there was
a coincidence I hear you say
an address in Chicago an aging aunt
en route to Santa Barbara
a garden with fireflies and a night
without traffic without urgency only
the pale undoing of corn in the kettle
meat searing and laughter never
talk of the throbbing aircraft their
endless migrations dropping fire afar
so much pain washed away
in this tide