We Came Into Town Under Cover of Night

#1

The drives home were sluggish
Perfect for a heavy heart
To step inside was to catch the eyes
Of cats and mirrored lasting impressions
And heroes, what were they anyway?
Or villains, face first in the snow?
No, no, I don’t know
And I’m almost there
Almost to the edge of falling back into
What happened first, way back then
When the shadow light was just physics
And my favorite songs had choruses

I could romanticize that spring
And call Caroline my savior
With her little hair and little head
And little hands and big words
I gave her a book and a stack of papers
She read them all, I believe it
But she’s in Columbus and I’m still here
And in Columbus, as Mark says, there’s no spotlight
To dazzle and that’s alright because dazzle hurts the eyes

I listened to Tallahassee almost every night
As I drove the two big boulevards home
It made me feel better about my own circumstance
But it still brought out the hurt
That I wore in my eyes, wear in my eyes
As I pictured peacocks
And Cuban planes and empty roads in college towns
And you


#2

Hey you, “No”
Where did your little hair go?
To other towns with colleges
Big ones and little ones
Santa Cruz, Columbus
And hey you, “No”

I never went anywhere with you really
I only went outside and back in
I only went to Pico and that other street
And in the cruelest of ironies
I was in the goddamn Gap dressing room when you cancelled
Our second date and we still haven’t rescheduled

This is my own sweet time
I can say what I want, want what I feel
There’s a hundred years to live
And a thousand years to heal

The secret is, no one knows
Hey you, you never said ‘yes”
And I imagine you leaving Los Angeles
And then that other town and that other town
In the bright white dazzling morning light


#3

I slept on that floor for months
I slept on that floor for 9 long months
I slept on three blankets, sometimes two
And a soft thick rug on the hardwood floor

(The rug is gone now, sold or under the bed)
(Two of the blankets are still here but I only use one)
(And the hardwood floor’s still hard, with little short nails and splinters)

I think I’m going soon, I’ve got a feeling
Maybe down to Long Beach or up to where I’m from
And anyway this isn’t the town we came into under cover of night
That was 2002, that was some other place
Two cars and one truck and a posse of friends
All spread out, Midwestern now, like brown sugar on waffle plates

Santa Monica was misty that night
Santa Monica was misty every night
The mist cut into me, messed with my sinus and the bed wood
But whatever I loved and missed that air
So it was with heavy heart that I left
In the Caroline, No and Peacocks spring of ‘06
I don’t remember what the sky looked like that day
I remember it was Saturday
It was morning
It was heavy
And then I’m gone again
Some day


#4

So March and April I listened to Tallahassee almost every night
And April and May I dated a girl from Tallahassee once a week
I didn’t treat her as well as I could have
But we learn from mistakes and we shake up the breaks
And May and June I found a Milwaukee swoon
And June and July I was back in the heat and yeah
It was the hottest endless summer of my life
I can still feel it
(should move closer to the water)

But what about that girl from Tallahassee?
Where is she now?
She’s in Burbank
I’ve never seen her place
But I hear it’s nice
No air conditioning
Must have been hot that summer


#5

Sail on sailor, come sail with me
Sail away with me
Between the moon and Kansas City

Fly with me on paper planes
Feel the freedom in the middle states
Interstate, in the dark, in the light

They make the trucks yellow and orange
So no one misses the fact
You’re moving away and you can fit it all
In one vehicle

(I’d rather drive a UPS truck)

“There’s danger of me losing all my happiness”
Then she lost it
I can’t see it anymore
I can hear her voice
I hear the call
I hear it all
And if the words were 50 years old
The happiness was only 20
And still not hitting 21

There’s morning
And afternoon
And evening
And sleep
Floor, bed, side of the road
And you

December 7, 2008

I Don't Think Of You That Often

I have empathy
unlike you
this is why
I'm better than you

hot cocoa and s'mores
for all the poet's whores
is an appropriate reward
for years and years
of praising perfect verse

your best friend told me
you worked as a sailor
for months at a time
in the seventies
the implications of this
are too numerous to mention
until more data is ready
data that demystifies
the certain blurring
that such an endeavor implies

there's an intimate moment
at the end of our movie
that defines us as people
you know the moment
it's after the guns come out
and after the tension breaks

I love the way your green shirt
brings out the green
from your green green eyes
now here come the anesthetic
feel the pain, common worker

there's a part of me sleeping
a part of me you don't know
because you have no empathy
there's a part of me sleeping
out in the desert
next to the windmills
in the heart of the beast

I'm better than most
but not better than others
this sums me up
in the eyes of the caged one
and in the eyes of me
this tells you that
I'm coming home, but I'm coming home alone
that's the way it must have been meant to be

so where's your pride?
your pride's on the radio
I've heard the only song
you ever knew how to play
I've heard it sung badly
I've heard it sung falsely
you were the only one to do it right

October 26, 1995

Allies

the sugary one is stirring up trouble
making threats and speaking loudly
of canyons and the yodels therein
I haven’t seen you smiling lately, why?

packing your things
you think of going
but really you’re staying
because tomorrow
you’ll be back
so you may as well
leave it all be
climb up a tree
and make your own threats

the trouble, once stirred, is absent now
the sun is falling from its sleeves
the gauges we have are unreliable
and I think that’s the sound of trouble again
it couldn’t last, it wouldn’t
but that doesn’t mean
my eyes aren’t green
my skin isn’t soft
my lips aren’t dry
but that doesn’t mean
my angles are worn and rounded slightly
because, brother, sister, other, they’re not

June 6, 2000

Sightings

I'm looking at the fog, can't see the hills
I'm thinking about a revolution
I'm thinking I should announce my retirement
I'm sitting on my couch, can't feel my feet
I'm remembering the drives along the west side of Bush Lake
And then it spits you out
By the highway, near the glassy buildings
People I didn't know worked in
People I didn't know slept in

I'm waiting for an answer
I'm confiding in you, can you feel it?
I miss the mollusk, I miss the ocean
I miss the lake, I miss the muddy feet
But I can't just do what they say
I can't just covet the end of the day

She saw me on 3rd Street
I saw her on Chapman
She saw me on Pico
I saw her on Colorado
She saw me on Larchmont
I saw her right back
She looked away on Normandale
I looked right through her on Burnt House Hill
She saw me on 3rd Street
I punched the little spaces on my iPhone
And considered a move, eastward in the dark
I waved
She drove ahead
And in the fog I will know you by the trail of what I've never said

December 2, 2008