poet, interviewer, musician, traveler
Blind Willie
nearby traffic noise
it’s warm for an October night
Blind Willie Johnson calls to God
I’m in boxers and a t-shirt
lying on a bag of air
a mile away my sons are sleeping
tomorrow I continue the work
of building yet another new life
3 October 2013
Oak Street
head thick as mortar
autumn air warm through open windows
first night in new home
the blues
this year the blues have taken hold of me
Mississippi John Hurt, Blind Blake
Blind Willie Johnson, Reverend Gary Davis
the crackly ancient sound of steel strings
reproduced in modern ones and zeroes
like the Dead Sea Scrolls on a Kindle
I’m working through a book by Leroi Jones
about the direct route from slavery
to this ultimately emancipatory music
starting tomorrow I’ll be in an old house
no furniture, no dishes in the cupboards
but as I sit on the floor and strum my ukulele
my blues will be happy blues
1 October 2013
State College, PA
grumpy
because he’s done it all
seen what there was to see
reclines now in black pants
and a semi-formal sweater
talks in the general direction
of the microphone on the table
tells all the same stories again
tries not to sigh too loudly
at the half-his-age questioner
midway through he’s surprised
by an advertisement dragged
behind a barnstorming plane
out of place in this post-
industrial skyline
it’s the most animated moment
in the entire conversation
as the plane flies behind
a nearby building
he reclines again
waiting reluctantly for
the next question
30 September 2013
State College, PA
dog asleep on a beanbag
cool air slinks in the kitchen door
I sit typing under the stopped fan
29 September 2013
State College, PA
a vague sense of longing
for what, you’re not even sure
it’s like leaving the house
with that feeling that you’ve
forgotten something or left
the oven or the iron on
in this case you feel
the need for someone
but you can’t pin it down
can’t tell who the missing piece is
or where or how long
she’s been missing
so what else is there to do
but write poetry, listen to
scratchy blues records
wait to see if it’ll be
clearer in the morning
28 September 2013
State College, PA
high school football is the work of the devil
god I hated high school
tonight sitting in the stands
I felt the pressure in my chest
remembered the slog through
the thick mud of social caste
never getting hit because
I had big friends who would
get between my mouth and a fist
my 7-year-old boy is next to me
as the whirlwind of tiny
topics swirls around us
I wish I had a shield for him
and I wish I could get on the PA
system and tell the homecoming
court to fuck the business classes
and do something that might
make the world better, not worse
27 September 2013
State College PA
after Othello
walked for an hour
passed two people
nobody walks here
except downtown
no streetlights
just dark sidewalks
faintly lit by
storefront neon
feels like the day
after a neutron
bomb took away
the people but left
the buildings intact
just signs for BBQ
gasoline, Pepsi
and traffic signals
with no cars
changing on timers
green, yellow, red
green, yellow, red
26 September 2013
State College, PA
the problem with elephants
there’s an elephant in the room
frankly, it was fine until
she had to go to the bathroom
no one is sure what happened
to mother or the dog
and no one much wants to check
25 September 2013
State College, PA
teenage nights
we used to drag a cot
and the folding bed
onto the back deck
we’d put a Moody Blues
tape on my boombox
then lie on our backs
solve all the world’s
problems while we
watched the shooting
stars in a crystal sky
24 September 2013
State College, PA
but I was going
into Tosche Station
to pick up
some power converters!
23 September 2013
State College, PA
brothers
in this photo they’re looking at one another
like they can’t think of anywhere they’d rather be
Bernie in a red sweatshirt, John in blue
they’re strapped into the seats like astronauts
waiting to be hoisted to the top of a tall tower
so they can plummet down screaming
the first time Bernie asked, John said no
but after a couple other rides at DelGrosso’s –
Pharoah’s Fury and the Crazy Mouse –
John changed his mind and they got in line
now, as they wait for the slow trip upward
Bernie is reaching out to John, maybe
asking his little brother to hold his hand
more for Bernie’s comfort than for John’s
standing at the base of the tower
I’m bursting with love for these two boys
certain that moving here was the right decision
when they come down, I’ll be waiting for them
22 September 2013
State College, PA
the boy across the street is moving away
two little boys in the driveway
saying goodbye, probably forever
at this moment it seems like
the biggest loss in the world
they’re not even sure how to act
one boy hugs, the other stands there
they exchange numbers
calling each other “dude”
then one turns, walks toward
the moving van in the driveway
the other watches him walk away
takes his mother’s hand
heads back to the house
21 September 2013
State College, PA
kitchen table lullaby
there’s a pizza box tilted against
the anachronistic percolator
like a drunk leaning on a buddy
for help home in the single digits
a bottle of Orange Crush slowly
warming on the kitchen table
next to a too-early cutout of a
black cat on a pumpkin
the dog is snoring on a beanbag
the crickets or maybe tree frogs
are ratcheting up the noise out back
everyone is in bed except me
it used to be this way all the time
the house goes from loud to quiet
until I’m left to my own devices
clicking away at the keys
in recent years the house has been
quiet at all hours of the day or night
but I still find the late hours precious
like I’m the last one in the world awake
as if when I go to bed all the world
winks out of existence until
my eyes open in the morning
and the clocks begin ticking again
20 September 2013
State College, PA
put it on the long finger
a hammock between two oak trees
creaking like a ship in a gentle sea
a curious honey bee exploring
the droplets on a glass of iced tea
a tan dog snuffling through the yard
on the trail of a long-vanished squirrel
a light flashing, unseen in the kitchen,
at the top of an unattended phone
19 September 2013
State College, PA