AND WHEN OCTOBER GOES

The calendar says it’s autumn.

And yes, the storms have

gathered into a legion

of silver soldiers

who will roll over each other,

one by one, until they break

the hour glass of time with their thunder.

And yes, the place where my mind

went to dwell is equally dark.

So I beg you: even though it's fall,

do not look at the moon,

that liar, as he sits on his

ivory throne wearing the black

velvet night like a cloak.

In this case, white does
not stand for purity.

In fact, he is ambivalent about your love

and you know this is true. All it takes

Is for you to look up, even once,

to see that fat, cratered bastard

flirting with the insolent clouds.

ETIQUETTE

I once wore work pants

to the dinner party.

I couldn't sense the proper time to sit.

I didn’t know which fork to use

and was uncertain how to waltz.

I could feel them staring at me

their eyes as sharp as blades

the imposter inside me tensed,

just waiting to be discovered.

How long, I wanted to scream,

How long until you realize

I know nothing, have nothing

to offer, will not be bringing

a single, solitary solution to the table?

I knew I was a fiction. I was nothing

but a made-up story, but it’s in

fiction, of course, where

one finds the greatest truths.

MY MARIANNE

driving on 

the freeway

with the window down

this golden woman

lets her hair escape

in the naked breeze

it becomes wild 

liberated 

tumescent with change

this golden woman

(who will never pierce

the air 

with her beauty

because it lives in the sky

and surrounds all of us

like the atmosphere

with its life)

sends her love out

as if it was a lantern

a light in the angry darkness

she sends it with mercy, 

baby, 

and such deep compassion 

without condition

SOMETHING LIKE THIS

Something like this

but lacking the poison

and the violence and the scars.

Something with hope,

I think, a clear vision,

maybe some epiphany

that's just waiting to open.

Something like this

In the clear forests and

The meadows and something

like this even in the manufactured

suburbs that are keeping kids safe

And warm despite their

closed door dysfunctions.

Something like this

Where I want to be living

only different, not exactly the same.

Somewhere where the sins are absolved

With impunity

Where friend can be found

Where I desire the proper flesh

Where the sins are absolved

And where I long to drive

beside the cars who blast

their carbon dioxide tunes

through the naked streets of L.A.,

their radios tuned to Top 40 hymns.

Something like this

Very, very similar, in fact,

but not exactly this. Something

nearly like this, yes, but

Without the absence of love.

BOOK OF LONGING

in the book i'm reading

the poems sound like prayers

and are interspersed 

between line drawings

of naked women and

simple self-portraits. 

in my mini-van

this morning, i sang 

several choruses of 

hallejuiah, the notes

soothing, but off-key. 

Outside, the sky 

was lavender

and the moon, as it sank,

was a bright 

silver coin in the east.

SOMEWHERE IN LOS ANGELES

At eighty-two, you still spend your evenings
blackening the pages
while the guitar and synthesizer
gather dust in the corner of the room.
The desk where you write is covered
in the best and worst of your new work.
I imagine Lorca, your daughter
who lives downstairs, straining an ear,
just waiting for the next "Hallejuiah."
Do you still write about Montreal, the city
where the cold nights drove you into the streets
for your solitary walks,
where you were a bemused companion
of the courtyard cobblestones?
Does the Parc de Portugal still find its
way into your verses and songs?
Will there be a line about the pure snow
falling on the slopes of Mt. Baldy?
Let me ask you this, sir: What is it about age
that makes us irritable and slow,
that finds us snapping off the heads
of our guests as we chat? It's not like you
still have to choose between the monastery
and a tour. Your time is your own now.
You may write as slowly as you wish.
It's sad to me, I'm just now realizing,
that you will most likely die in Los Angeles.
I've been there before, my friend, and
I would have wished for you a less
plastic end to your story.

LEONARD LEAVES THE MONASTERY (1999)

I'm going down the mountain,
Roshi, going back to searching
for the Talmud and the Crucifix
amid the sin and decadence.
I'm just so tired
of all of this inhaling and exhaling.

It's time for me to dance again,
Master, in the cafes of the night,
time to seek out the whores and the drugs
like before, when I sat with them
in their darkened corners of the evening.

Have you seen my cedar guitar, Roshi?
It's time to write a new song, time to blacken
more empty notebooks, visit with my children,
and if I have time,
have dinner with Suzanne who
is still half-crazy,
but that's why I want to be there.

And yet I will never forget
what you've taught me, my friend,
about how the music sleeps
so deeply in the sacred chant,
how expensive wine is an eraser
of memory, how moving slowly
through the kitchen
with my bowl of soup
is a solemn meditation,
how the silence of a leaf
as it falls on the snowy hillside
in December
is both scripture and salvation.

I'm going down the mountain,
Roshi,
and I'm sorry to be going,
but you're the one who told me
that when you return
to the spinning world
(with its guns and its lawyers,
its freeways and its starlets)
how purely life manifests itself
when you dive right
into the middle of it,
and how you can only start living more truly
when, once and for all, you are
done simply breathing into it.

BROOKLYN

In some ways you are
one of at least a thousand stories
who pass through these halls
each year.

But this afternoon, you are another
transient soul about to wander. . .

This time you're bound for Illinois
six months with your father
though between the two of you
there is nothing you would really
call a plan.

As we talk in the hallway outside
my classroom
bulldozers create
a master planned
community on the hillside behind us--
a new neighborhood
full of its beautiful houses
and perfect Stepford families. . .

But that's not really your scene,
is it, Brooklyn. Not when
yesterday's xanax still courses through
your blood, and the other drugs
are not as much of a memory
as you'd have me believe.

Tomorrow you will
Pop another pill.
Text another friend.
A year from now, you'll wonder
where the rest of the
happiness went.

So how do I tell you now, in the ten minutes
before you go, that the pounding you hear
in your ears is the rhythm
of loss and pain, yes, but that it's also
the beating of your own living heart?
Where do those words come from,
Brooklyn, when the clock is ticking?

As I speak to you, feeling the
time run out on the chance
I have to share, your mouth is set
in a defiant smirk and your blue eyes
dart furtively like a rabbit's on a freeway
at dusk, but still I try
to tell you there is a light
the burns inside you
and if you have enough faith
that light will save you. And as if by a miracle
I see that somewhere deep within
you there is a small flicker, the tiniest flame
of desire to believe, but trust
is a currency you stopped spending
years ago, though even then
you were only a child, and it's then
you put on a mask
that says you'd rather be anywhere
but here.

So, finally. as my words fly out like
a pet bird whose cage door has been
left open, liberated, but never to be heard from again,
I realize that nothing I say
will make a difference
and that I don't know what else to do
or how else to reach you
so I sign your paper
releasing you from this place
and before I know it,
still another sweet, damaged spirit
that I just couldn't
save is gone.