Four Poems on Learning to Exist

1: Loss

I am the drop of wine that misses your lips
on its way to the hardwood floor.

I am a drop of wine
I am in the process of missing your lips
until I hit the hardwood floor
and then the act of missing is done.

2: Solitude

I am a breath held in the lungs until they start to sear
and the room swims. I am the swimming room.

No one’s around and no one’s talking.

Some books are on the floor and fan is on the ceiling.

The fan’s not moving.

The room is quiet.

If the room is quiet it may as well

be for swimming. So I swim.

3: Sociability


I am one of so many things that can only maintain
the impression of being alive through constant motion.

A shark, an automobile, a comet.

I pace the sidewalk, the party, the after party,
across the rolling meadow down the road to your apartment
where sometimes I knock and ask to be asked inside
but mostly just brace myself in the doorframe

until I run out of breath and need to leave

I am approaching rapidly.
I am immediately receding.
I am not trying to hurt anyone.
For once this includes myself.

4. Intimacy

I am the set of teeth that clasps a quivering lower lip
I am the still, quiet room where hearts can be heard beating

Each of these things will maintain for a given duration
When they stop, I will parse through the soundwaves.
I will be unable to discern the attack from the decay.

Five Variations on Being an Asshole

i.

young hearts of my young friends are bursting now

winter pipes if pipes ever burst in winter around here

i’m feeling a little between the lines but it’s better
because it’s not about me anymore, thank god
but then i go ahead and make it about me anyway (asshole)

ii.
i read a poem that turns me on

go outside and smoke a cigarette

try not to make any phone calls (asshole)

iii.

i used to make phone calls all the time

they went like this:

when was the last time you slept well?

when was the last time you slept with someone who loved you?

with someone who didn’t? did you love him?

was he a better fuck than me?

I don’t believe it (asshole)

iv.
it’s really amazing how long it takes people who love me
to quit doing that
and even after they quit loving me how much longer
to learn to hang up the damn phone.

I’m at least trying to keep my nose out of that mess now

feeling more and more between the lines but it’s better

because it doesn’t really hurt anymore

I’m having trouble writing now, though
(what a way to think, asshole)

v.
when was i quitting cigarettes or learning lessons anyway?
here are some lessons I’ve been wanting to learn:

‘how to exist as an atom or less and not worry’

‘how to love ceaselessly without getting your guts everywhere”

‘how to swallow hard and take a shower when you think 'suicide'

because it’s better than drowning.”

it is better than drowning,

--more and more these days, I swear.

(someday you won’t be an asshole, asshole)

someday you’ll be a field of flowers.

~8

i read a poem that turns me on
go outside to smoke a few
try not to make any phone calls

when was i quitting cigarettes or learning lessons?

‘how to exist as an atom or less and not worry.’  

‘how to swallow hard in the shower when it’s better than drowning.’

it is better than drowning

--more and more these days,

I swear

it is a field of flowers.  

~7

young hearts of my young friends are bursting now

winter pipes if pipes ever burst in winter around here

i’m feeling a little between the lines but it’s better
because it’s not about me anymore, thank god
but then i go ahead and make it about me anyway

(asshole)

~6

And maybe I could move to Chicago and get famous writing dirty poems about you.

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