SELF-PORTRAIT IN SLEEP
In the dream the game
has begun but I don’t
care The ball feels tiny
in my hands like a toy
I would give my son
who does not seem to exist
but who I wish was watching
from the bleachers alongside
my Sunday school teacher
who told me I was going to hell
because I am making
everything the goal bending
to me as though in prayer my dead
grandfather somehow my coach
and he is crying because I can
dunk the ball despite the fact
that I seem to be dressed in
the suit I wore to his funeral
but my team does not mind
I rebound and pass the ball
downcourt with my eyes
closed as though in a dream
which this could never be
even though wheat has begun
to grow along the baseline
and around the edges of the court
and the large brown horses
we keep for my father’s friend Joe
have wandered into the gym which is
now a barn and tiny sticks of hay
are floating down from the rafters
like the feathers of long skinny birds
which are now flying through the
open windows and I worry it will be
impossible to make an outside
shot with so many things in the air
but then I notice the walls
and the ceiling have vanished
we are playing on an outdoor
court both teams and all the coaches
and fans are now in my driveway
somewhere in Oklahoma
and I begin to realize that
I will never make it back to
my real life because my shoes
have grown into the cement
and I cannot move anything
it is as though I am a statue
of myself in a place that is
and is not my home
and suddenly everyone is
gone and I am alone
in the middle of a field
except for all of the dead
[NOCTURNE]
So many things
are asked for
in that moment
before sleep
sets you in
its tiny skiff
and rows
you out
into the deep.
The self
is never more
the self than
when it is
alone,
which is to
say, at its
most needy
and thus
the time
we turn to
prayer, open
as we are,
not to being
filled, but
to being
even more
empty.
UNCERTAIN SELF-PORTRAIT
No one knows if the final item at the bottom of Pandora’s box (what the Greeks called elpis), was meant by Zeus to be a gift (sometimes elpis is translated as hope) or just another evil (sometimes elpis is translated as expectation, the most painful of all emotions), either way it waited the way the living and the dead wait for something to start and something to end which is not the same as expecting either, the question though is if hope is the last (the worst) of Zeus’ evils or the one gift able to stand against everything let loose
STILL LIFE WITH ABSOLUTION
Forgive my silence.
Forgive the middle parts, the lost ones.
Forgive the times I slept. I am sleeping now. Forgive me all the dreams.
Forgive the times I powered up a device instead of remembering.
Forgive what little remembering I’ve done.
Forgive my blindness; seeing
I have not thought nearly enough about those about to die. For this I ask forgiveness.
I have not believed enough in feet on the ground. I have not believed enough in grounds. For this I ask forgiveness.
I once believed there was more than there is now. I no longer do. For that I ask forgiveness.
I sometimes think of the dead walking through an empty field wearing coats. I imagine fog and a sky like pumice. For that I do not deserve forgiveness.
Forgive me the times, many, in the car alone, I do not think of ________.
Forgive me the times, many, when I am the only one awake in the house and I do not think of any heart but my own.
Forgive me for not knowing more of my heart.
For the times I have thought about you strapped to a chair in front of a plate of bones, I now ask forgiveness.
For the times I have wondered if things might be better if there was more ________, I ask forgiveness.
For the times I have neither sought nor wanted forgiveness, I remain ambivalent about forgiveness.
For the times I wanted the night sky on my skin alone I ask forgiveness.
For the times in the future when I should ask for forgiveness, I ask in advance for what I will not seek.
For the lies, many, I will tell my sons, I may or may not ask forgiveness.
When I speak to you next, will it be to ask for your forgiveness?
When the next shot is fired and I think about Kara Walker or my sons sleeping in the next room or Michael Kiwanuka or how glad it was not fired at my wife, am I to be forgiven?
When I began this poem, I thought it would mean something. For that I ask forgiveness.
Sometimes I feel as though hundreds of tiny birds live in my fingers. Forgive my vanity.
For the times I have not forgiven you, many, I ask forgiveness.
I have no idea if there is blood on my hands, for that I also seek forgiveness.
For the truths I will reluctantly tell my sons, many, I may or may not ask forgiveness.
For my mouth of snow I ask forgiveness.
What is too much sorrow? I may have it. Do I ask forgiveness?
What is the right amount of selflessness? I do not have it. Do I ask forgiveness?
What is the answer to the question have you lived? I do not know. Do I ask forgiveness?
People are being shot in the street in the fields in prison. I am thinking very hard about them but also about my league championship basketball game on Wednesday. Do I ask forgiveness?
The world is a sponge of suffering, and yet, by comparison I am spared. Do I ask forgiveness?
My son who brought home two small guns he made in woodworking class is 10. Who do we forgive?
Men are hanging by their necks under bridges in Mexico. Who do we forgive?
My son told me last night he is sometimes scared of the homeless men we see near our bakery. Who do we forgive?
I believe if something happens to my sons I will not forgive? Shall I be forgiven?
There are things I will not name here for which I should seek forgiveness. Shall I be forgiven?
I have lied to the people I love the most. To you. I will do this again. Shall I be forgiven?
It is very likely I would rather you die than me. For this, I do not ask for forgiveness.
VISITATION
The dead are at
my door again
like an ocean
without wave
or curve
without
the bullet holes
of the moon
It is the time
of the night
when the ghosts
arrive in their
little wagons
of bone
do they come
in search of
the not-yet-
forgotten
or do they
only seek
stillness
in the wake
of the nearly
remembered
what does
it matter
here in the
fire of the
shall never be?
AMERICAN TRIPTYCH
I.
Day before Easter,
day after sacrifice:
On a screen I watch a church burn,
read of bombings in Ukraine,
overdoses and evictions. Suicides.
Above the bay,
the sun a bolus in the sky’s mouth.
Right now,
the entire city seems to be stretched on a cross.
My wife and sons are asleep,
and I am thinking about transformation.
What is the end before it is the end?
What could I change into?
What would the world need to resurrect?
II.
There comes a time in one’s life when one wants Time
to relax a little,
take off its shoes,
kick back and have a beer,
maybe talk about Steph Curry and the Warriors.
Basketball is a good metaphor for our lives:
the up and down,
the fouls, the ticking clock.
The numinous blows its whistle every time I touch the ball.
The crowd chants to take me out of the game.
My griefs,
lined up like a row of candles,
glow in their gold on the bench.
III.
Easter morning,
and I appear not to have risen from my body—
Here I am in this country
like air in the earth.
The sky this dawn blank as a cracked egg.
The great bunny of sorrow hops once more down Dolores Street.
If you put out a plate of carrots,
she will leave you a full basket.
You can carry it with you
up the steep hill of this life—
it will never lighten.
SELF-PORTRAITS: A TRIPTYCH
I.
This moon is
here, this
light is free, this sea
is now,
this globe
is orange, this life
is dark, this sky
is yours.
II.
Skin, I have
forgotten
you again. Forgive
me. Because
of you I know
the salt,
because of
you I bleed.
III.
Death,
I am wearing
your red robes.
LANDSCAPE
I
have
been
thinking
so
long
about
looking
I
cannot
see
