Anniversary

Two small boxes full of dead boyfriend.
I saved just a few ashes.
The rest of him in Italy, somewhere.
Buried in the family plot
which I refused to witness.

I carried him there like a courier,
in a zinc-lined box labeled BIOHAZARD
instead of in a proper coffin.
Embassy regulations. International red-tape.
(Never mind my tears. Or feelings.)

And him burned up just because.
And the family screaming.

Too much. Too much
to think of or remember.
But this would have been
eighteen years.
Half a lifetime; or a lifetime.
Over.

Summer Day : June 4, 2003

What can you do when the earth shatters under your feet
but fall into the crevice and hope either to recuperate or die?

You sit in that dark, smoking hole
amidst the debris
of what had been
a normal, regular life;
with sunshine and house facades,
and perfectly tended lawns,
and immaculate plots of flowers,
fine shrubbery always just the right shade of green;
and everything else that's beautiful and ideal.

You sit in that hole
choking on the fine, ideal dust of it:
A dream that had been so fucking lovely
you thought you'd die from its perfection.

Then,
one day,
everything shifts,
just slightly.
And the precarious balance
of its loveliness
is thrown off,
and there goes
your precious fantasy—
in an avalanche of rosebuds,
wood panelling, antique glass,
your grandmother's tea cups,
all the once-worn clothes
you believed were so beneficial.
It all comes down on you
in dust and darkness;
and covers you up.

And meanwhile,
the sunshine is still glowing;
and all the neighbors are on the street,
standing just at the edge of everyone else's lawn,
admiring the beautiful, chemical perfection of it all.

And no one notices the smoking dust
settling over you. No one misses you.
No one needs you to remind them
of the dust-drenched meaninglessness of it all.

Because they have full faith
in the beauty brought
by a lawn cut just so high,
and a shrub trimmed just so square,
and a life opened just so wide.

September Blues No. 3 : September 2004

Autumn day
quiet with crickets.
Flutter, leaf.
Grass blades bend.
Cat squinting in sunlight.

Nothing more beautiful.

September Blues No. 2 : September 2002

I took my ancient Baedeker to Italy
in an attempt to make my European tour
with a nineteenth-century frame of mind.

Despite cell phones and high speed trains,
despite jihads and Intifadas,
despite bomb threats and terrorists,
I went out with my blinders on,

oblivious—
or as is nearly possible without
taking both my eyes out—
oblivious to the modern world around me,

marching like E.M. Forster
out of the greenwood;
or like Ruskin
swinging my Seven Lamps
over cobblestones
and "night-cold grass"
lit by glow worms,
in places patinated
with rust and dust,
under the porticoes of the past
where rich and indolent ladies
would sweep their skirts
while hoping for romance.

I took my ancient Baedeker—
and my modern baggage—
to Italy.

September Blues No. 1 : September 2002

Endlessly I seek
something eternal,
seek the secret things
in dark hints of dust,
but discover only selfishness.
I see only the funeral shroud
of truth
twisted in a lump.

There is an answer
germinating there,
embryonic.
I know.

But I will never see it.
I will never decipher
its miraculous simplicity
until I've dropped my concern
for this flesh,
until I've given up
the white boy's blues.

September Song

Dead relic LA.
Lights on the roadside
at random.
And for what?
One vast stupidity.

What's the use
of a bend in the road
when the dirt lies unbroken
in every direction?

To represent
that one man
made a decision?

(Specific.
Insignificant.)

To prove that his life
wasn't pointless?
That he had chosen something:
one arbitrary mark
of his will?

A sterile choice,
but his.

Choice makes meaning
of what doesn't ultimately matter.
So, a path across dirt fields
with a bend in it,
to prove that he was here.

And made a difference.