Ethos.

1
One tall drink of water
one taller cup of coffee
one mug of beer. That's the tallest.
This is the best.
I'm not afraid of the worst.

2
Close the door and open your eyes before you settle.
If we sit on the sofa it goes without saything that
an indentation will remain after we leave for other realms
or simply for the outside balcony.

3
This older wiser one in front of me speaks ethics,

but I want to think of the ethics
where we touch fingertip and nail
sensitive nerve endings, electrified
through currents, a mess of tangled wires,
lightbulbs.

You light up my eyes like some sort of electric luminescence
like seeing glow worm caverns and caves carved and ruptured
by flash floods, by rivers from paleolithic times. Before my birth.
See me trying to tell you about rivers
with a river of words and furrows of my mouth,
of my brow,
of my palate at the back of my mouth.

4
Powerful obligations of hospitality he says.
Care for the poor bloke on my porch he says. Sure.
Come and let me hold you on my porch,
let me let you hold me, something I must do:
this is my code of ethics.

The sofa
two stained mugs
a cigarette and a half
getting it right in the way
our lips vibrate, hesitate, wait and
touch.

Upon Going to St. Mary Mag's.

Hallelujah

today is a day
unlike
any other

because every Sunday
we celebrate Mary
the unwed mother

Jesus
John
Judas
and all the others

who have debts unpaid
beds not made
and haven't prayed
in years
smell the incense
kiss the buttresses.

Sunday, the day
the Lord hath made.
I will kiss ass and
be glad in
priest and hymn.

Amen.

Snail Mail.

Since you wrote me such a letter
I thought I'd do the same.

Chimneys here are in a row,
roofs angled and shingled
everyone calls me love and cheers
but I am neither of theirs.
I wear the same dress two days' time—
two months' time you write me letters
and I'll do the same.

Orderly grass needs running on,
needs me to mess it up.
A red-faced old man sat in the park,
muttering his breath out
strongly smelling acrid, alcoholic.

School boys drank Coke on the same bench
calmly next to him, hovering shadows
of their bodies played on the ground
from the lowering sun,
all joining in the same.

I could never ride a bike on the left
even though I'm no right-winger.
I have more wings than I care
to count feathers on
overwhelmingly off white,
still learning how they work
you learning the same with yours.

Pray, think about me.
I'll do the same for you.

I write a haiku,

a haiku of a heron,

which is now over.

Anything Good.

Like the old woman with the shuttlecock,
tying the knot,
fibers tear away from the red and blue dyes.

Water makes cutting the rug easier but
makes me worse, too.

This is that liminality you were mentioning
wasn't it
that point in time where we're shadows

the point when the grass we indented in young mayhem
takes time to spring up again, the

lag time takes
yes
jet lag and reading
talking and walking
coffee and cigarettes takes time
as does anything good.

give me your hand and
I'll photograph Scottish rain
to give to you in person.

Post-Milton.

Death was free to all,
not here it thus has grown
for when cool breezes stroke my neck,
Spring, its seeds hath sown.

And how shall I appear and lay
when buried in my grave?
My bones to reach through dust and dirt
and hold the hand that stayed.

The hand that staid hath nail endured,
builds firelight at day's gloam.
For where those feet are planted near
it's there I call my home.

thank you to the world

thank you deep friends

thank you deep love

thank you my family

thank you deep breaths of air



thank you God for all of this.