On the Passing of Jack Gilbert

I think that you would have loved us, Jack.
Maybe her especially.
It’s just a feeling I get.
There was a time two Februaries ago
when you were still alive
and the two of us had broken hearts. 

We read a few of your poems
aloud and it seemed like you knew
a lot about that. Much more than
we did. The Great Fires--Christ
you seemed so hurt and so were
we. But you hung on to love.
An intelligent, forceful, honest
love. Your favorite word was
still ‘heart.’ It made love seem
so promising and resilient that
we bit our bloodied lips and
dove into it, in spite of everything.

Thanks for that, Jack.

Since then, I’ve done some things
that might have disappointed you. Still,
I think you would have liked me
through it all even if you took her
side when there were sides to take.
She moved to Los Angeles a few
months ago, but the night that you died
she called me crying like she had lost a father.

You would’ve loved her, Jack
and she’s going to miss you.

I’m going to miss you, too.

~5

America I am restless What are you doing tonight?
Fuck the Internet and Cellular Phones Drop by
with some gin and a woman who will break my
nose Wipe the blood away with your monographed
handkerchief Send us both to bed for misbehaving

~4

I am a new and fresh creature
some broken shards of a clay pot
you can see the earth through my cracks
my roots gorged with water

it is nearly winter
and I welcome the last mosquito to my arm
let it drink of my blood for its perseverance

Election Day: Nov 6th, 2012

If I can fall in love with a boy passing westward
on 7th while I move east
If I can make a long distance phone call during my lunchbreak
to a friend who is sobbing on the T
and If I can smoke on a terrace while the bars are letting out
and the streetlights shine on the 100 people searching
for their cars Then don’t you still exist as we imagined you America?

The newscasters speak as if you were both halfs
of the iron maiden as well as the body closed inside
But I will spit at the feet of nostalgia You
still look young and sexy to me America

Full of potential

Too cool for the crowd you hang out with

I may be humanities educated but
I admit you are the body and I am
          just a fleck of your hot blood

If I want to kiss the girl through the mics of WYSO
as she announces election results in Yellow Springs, Ohio
If I walk to corner store for smokes in San Antonio, TX 
where the kid with trackmarks not much older than I am says
I’m having a hard time
says, 
can you spare...
and it’s the face of a former president on a piece
of metal whose smell rubs off on my fingers
that he wants but I only use those to pay
for laundry so I don’t have anything
to give him and I start crying
Doesn’t that mean the chambers of our hearts
are still conjoined America?
Doesn't that mean you still exist just
how we imagined you?

~3

A guy with a mustache
shot God at the theater premier last night.
We’d given him box seats for his birthday
after working on that play for what felt like our whole lives.

~2

The old poets write with their postures--
pressed by precedent into a daunting
straightness of line.

These poets and those who laud them
they say we write with the shaky hands of children
when really we write with the trembling hands of lovers.

Oct/Nov 2012

I was reading poems outside the bar like a misanthrope
trying to look interesting. I was choking on a black
shard of desire too sharp for the sword swallowers.

Wasn't I precoscious and dangerous, once?
I remember thinking: if I continue being this 
charming they’re going to have to kill me
in my sleep if they want to kill me because
otherwise I’ll just talk my way out of it.  

My cigarette mouth must get so tiring.

Throw me from your bed and make me shut up.
Send me out in fresh dew, up all night, into streets
lined with slickbacked cars dreaming. It is 6am,
7am. The first time or the fifth. Who’s counting?

We do it to ourselves, anyhow. And sometimes
it hurts, of course, but I'll dab away the blood
from a million split lips before anyone tells me
it's not beautiful anymore. Anything that persists
in this world is beautiful, and you, darling, above all else.