Merced, 1964

They stand in front of a big black car that 

Waits patiently as they pose, ready to 

Take them to their new lives, drenched in early 

Morning California haze, the sun 

So low three young shadows grow across the 

Frame, as dark as my mother’s hair at eighteen.  

She wears wedding white and he air force blue,

Short hair and boyish face, in the too soft

Focus of nineteen-sixty-four, the year 

I was born to these unfamiliar 

Children, he who went to Vietnam and 

She who let me run away and come home 

To the house of Atreus, the Merced 

Address with the big backyard full of grass.  

Eastern Oregon Correctional Institute

for Matthew

Just back from driving east on 84—

Columbia, the Gorge—and through the misty dark 

To where my brother waits in prison, locked away 

For years, where little can be said, nor should—

Those are the rules.  To Portland, all 

Those Hawthorne apparitions tapping shoulders—“Man, 

The soul is cheaply had.”  So, slowly, home seeps in, 

Our lives’ vast difference.  He had it harder far 

And must have known how bad it was, for all, though most 

For him—could not a happy life create, or with 

Himself in peace, at last in dust and dark.  He could 

Not choose, it seems, to suffer less, to make what most

We want to see, or be the ground of others’ dreams—

And easier by far than prison more 

Than once before the end.  Do not his life and mine, 

Their forking turns, entail some purpose, obligation, too?

Was he much less deserving made?  He lived much more 

Than I who had the easy way, yet now remain 

Of us now one.  We answer yes there is but act 

From no too much, though both assume the need

To use the faculties so granted free, 

And not to hear the flaws, or few— to keep 

The dogs of doubt far hence, though they about 

The margins circle, mark and comment bark.  

What fragile wings our hands may soil, trim or break. 

Worse yet, forget, neglect—complicit in their waste.  

The world robs us and with our help we silent are.

Our voice a stranger to itself, what we 

Name not, half dust, half deity, alike

Unfit to sink or soar, low wants contend 

With lofty will and easy not to say at all.  

Perhaps it’s better far, for many reasons, to 

Take up less space with needless words, the trouble they

Can cause and do and have till death do us apart.  

Did he his voice so loathe? Or want to drown?  

How much we turn against ourselves, my brother, what 

In you is me as well.  Might he have made

More meaning than he did, or be alive

And living still if he from loss or shame 

Or silence say what need be said?  We sat

Across, in rows, who could still rise and leave

And those in Prison Blues.  To me he said

That “Every time there was a choice I made it wrong.”  

Under a Blue Sheet

I dreamt I opened my brother’s casket, 

Round and smooth, in the shape of a womb, made 

From two perfect pieces of stainless steel, 

Tightly fitted together as one.  In

The shell he curled, like a fetus under 

A blue sheet.  I cradled him in my arms 

Looking down gently at his eyes.  They moved 

And again under his lids, though I knew 

They hadn’t.  He was warm, pliable, his 

Head hanging heavy in my right arm and 

Hand.  I could see lines around his eyes, and 

His hair was brown with slashes of gray, slicked 

Back the way he liked.  Then the illusion 

Began to slip away.  I could see he 

Was gone, his face aging, ashen, before

I looked away, closed my eyes in darkness.  

The Later Eighteenth-Century

     for Lexy Chubrich

Your head bobs up and down, lolling 

Neither place definite.  You grasp 

And drop the struggle like your pen.

Better to abandon yourself

To visions compelling you give 
Them form--from fields of pure aether 

They come.  Are those lines notes about 

Johnson?  They do not resemble 

Rational explanation or 

Moral reasoning, but they have 

A certain vigor, lively and 

Muscular their appearance, though 

This has much more to do with an

Emerging sensibility 

Than anything irrational.

Or does it?  What are you writing 

There, exactly?  Transcribing dreams?

Flashes of inspiration?  Or 

Are they feint scribbles to confuse?

These points, squiggles, blotches, circles,

Jots, letters—are they some new tongue?

In trance, eyes closed, your hand traces 

Ouija-like patterns, etching signs

Of what lies between this barren 

Ninety minutes and the dreamy 

Exaggerations of a nap.

This Hand

        The old Man still stood talking by my side;
        But now his voice to me was like a stream
        Scarce heard; nor word from word could I divide;
        And the whole body of the Man did seem
        Like one whom I had met with in a dream;
        Or like a man from some far region sent,
        To give me human strength, by apt admonishment.
                William Wordsworth, Resolution and Independence

You’re a good person.  I can tell cause I 

See real clearly.  You’re probably laughing,

Thinking I’m some old fool.  Sure am.  But I 

Still see cause I know where silence is and 

I go every chance I get.  Practice long 

Enough and you start to live there.  Do you 

Believe me?  Sure you do.  You want to,  I 

Can tell.  I saw you practicing.  But you 

Gotta grow up yet.  You’re too weak, thinking 

You know this and that.  All that learning did 

Is make the I show more often—I think 

This, I know that, I want this, I need that.  

Why you got more I fighting for space in 

You then there is you.  It’s okay, though.  You’re 

A good person.  You have a good heart.  You’re 

Asking the right questions.  Keep asking.  But 

You gotta be stronger.  You’re weak.  You know 

What that means?  No, you have no idea.  

Oh, but you think you do, I can tell by 

That sharp eye you just threw.  I ain’t telling 

You what to do, just saying you have to 

Find a strength within.  You gotta watch what 

Comes outta your mouth, and if you can’t stop 

The garbage then stop talking.  You always 

Want more, but if you know where you are, what 

You are, you wouldn’t want for nothing.  And 

All them folks running crazy, chasing this 

Or that, thinking what makes them busy is 

Life—they’re at stages in-between.  But see, 

Most people are caught.  Their attention is 

Taken in by what they think they need or 

Want—they can’t direct it to what they are.  

Are you listening still?  Good, cause you need 

To hear this.  Give me your hand.  Look at how 

Soft and clean and little it is.  Now look 

At mine.  It looks ugly to you don’t it?  

All gnarled up like it is, but it’s just a 

Hand.  Can you see where this hand has been, what 

It’s done to survive?  You’re thinking it’s done 

Bad.  Can you see this hand holding a bird

Or a flower?  Just this morning it did.  

See the bird and the flower they ain’t got 

Distracted eyes like you.  They see the hand 

For what it is—a tool.  What have you done 

With yours?  It doesn’t look much used to me.  

Learn to know things for what they are, not just 

What they seem.  Sure, they are always changing.  

That’s what life is, but you’re looking at what 

Seems to be, making decisions on that 

Fool notion.  When they ain’t that way next time 

You bother to look, you feel let down by 

The world—it’s just going about its own

Business, you’re the one letting yourself down 

Because you ain’t looking right.  But don’t fret 

None.  You’ll hear what I’m talking soon enough. 

Okay, then, I’ll be going now, thank you. 

And Gone

There is so much to life, so dear and frail, 

We cannot wait nor spare for what inures 

Us to the open, kindest part of self. 

To always find the poem in how we live—

In what we daily breathe—we should, but if

Our lives will not, at present, offer light

Do listen for the yearning in the time 

We have.  To feel the earth is moving, or 

The traffic’s flow, or mood of those around 

Us ebb like night and day, our anger, joy,

To catch the drift of this, this is the pulse 

Itself, though even as a burden, one

That might oppress with blood.  To lay your self 

Still wide, to how we are—so faulty, full 

Of joy, the finest dust and spirit, bound

To here, eternally, and nothing that

Shall ever be the same again, and gone.

Cockroach

At night when I catch them in the kitchen 

Or on the floor of my room, I burn their 

Brown little bodies to a crisp.  At night 

When I find a straggler or two, caught them 

In the midst of scavenging, they stand quite 

Still, hope I overlook, mistake them for 

Something else.  But I know their habits, just 

As they know mine.  At night, as I lie in 

Bed, easing into sleep, sometimes I hear 

Their patter across my pillowcase, or 

Think I do.  It happens often enough 

I know it's true.  So at night I exact 

A fee, a toll, for their trespass on my 

Neck or arms, and fry their tiny bodies.

There is only a moment of pain, I

Like to believe, and that’s enough for me.

Most the time.  When it’s not, I put them in 

A jar with lid screwed tight, hold them over 

The coils burning brightly on my stove, watch

Them scramble to the jar’s cool end and then 

I turn it round, again, until I tire 

Of the game, drop them quick, a burst, flame and

Smoke, where they last but a second, or so.  

Brother

You chipped my teeth

Waving that sawed

Off leg, the wood 

Connecting us,

Our mother’s house 

Turned blunt weapon. 

You locked yourself

In her shed, where 

She kept useless 

Things, to save us.

The police grinned

When you said you’d 

Blow yourself up.

But I don’t laugh 

At you, brother.

You’re dangerous.

You smile with my

Secrets shining

There in your mouth.

Princess of Oudh

From crushed remains of family 

Stones, diamonds, pearls, a toxic mix, 

The potent drink of silent death.

Between us, brother, sister, she

Our mother slept on cold, a slab

Of stone beneath us all, and for

Her royal head a pillow rich,

Brocaded red with gold.  She ate 

Without us, never called us child.

The bowl she drank is here, her drink

Of silence.  We are nature’s folk,

No plastics, politics, none know.

Our hearts we do not open just

To anyone.  From pharoahs down

Our obligation handed, her

Embalm ourselves. Between us limp

Her parching body slept.  Delights

In ruin nature does, so I 

Desire nothing.  Don’t, please, that word

Too common is, to pious flame

Conferred she was.  Her ashes flew

Away in rivers. Living still,

A dynasty of dead are we.  

Banda Aceh

It’s hard to find them

Now.  Most are under 

Homes, under rubble.

I’m not afraid of 

Ghosts.  I ask where his 

Body is so he

Can be put to rest.

He lost only his

Body.  Still, his soul 

Is there in that place.  

I talk to his soul.