Hammer & Tongs, 

 

it doesn’t take long, for the warm-up bulletin of cardiac epiphanies

and tectonic seizures to once again help me in becoming a ghost. 

 

By which I mean, I was in the medium oblivion of taking landscapes

for granted, and adopted a neutered logic I’d gleaned from others. 

 

The camera catches the animal and in its quantum eye

the animal catches it right back. That was what I was after. 

 

I had gold fever, but in lieu of gold it was seeking sensory

addiction, like being sun-kissed, shots of adrenaline through

 

confrontations, small acts of stupidity. We’re stuck in this

century, graded on god’s highest curve, 

 

in my American zapoi, the wildflowers raze their own

symbolism, they are full tilt remedies for more mediocre

 

confusions. 

 

 

Meetings with Broken Glass Over a Lifetime

 

Shattered sound system door and cupping cereal-sized

pieces in a panic before parents got home. 

 

Wind catching the door like an angry ghost, at work age 21

 

Gary Oldman as Sid Vicious fucked up and glorious walking

through thick panes

 

A spiderweb, suddenly, 

accelerated across my field of vision, like instant ice

shatters in the dream that is a car wreck (age 20),

 

the crack across parents’ station wagon that 

never grew 

 

Roommate punched my window when we argued

over something, while i don’t recall,

obviously stupid. 

 

You hear it first, every time. 

 

 

Mother, Poolside

 

From my mother I got my dark enthusiasms. She’d

drink Christian Bros. and smoke 100s staring

mid-distance poolside. The plastic patio chairs

her Greek chorus of ghosts. And she’d sit

out there for hours– at night in summertime 

Phoenix it barely

drops below 95, even in the dark. She

endured and in her duress her long undoing.

Life’s not in a hurry but it sure moves fast. 

 

In our scheming we neglect the daydream of

elsewhere. Where there was green instead

of desert browns and a breeze. Patient

suffering and sips of brandy + coke. 

Each crisis of mid-life angst turned to ash, 

by which I mean not solving problems but

living in such a way the problems merely dissipate. 

 

In the duress the chaos of smoke curls into

small infinites and the smell of chlorine, a 

late night sprinkler witness to her tears.