Xmas eve 2002
outside tonight
snow piles up
& surprisingly
a lone motorcycle
gingerly glides by
followed by a
plow
not much traffic
& for good reason –
not a white out yet
but large flakes fall
coating the streets
not like the old days
trudging a mile
asshole deep
to school before
busing became
SOP
no toys
to assemble
no last minute
wrapping
& watching
“It’s a wonderful life”
& wondering when
Jimmy Stewart
will wake up
just a quiet
empty street
that’s quickly
losing its identity
no need to sleep
no need to get up
until I have to
Santa Claus
& his magic dust
makes me sad & alone
in a crowd of one
missing it
a long dry spell right now
the nights are long too
& without that warmth
the body knows
by smell & touch
I don’t miss those that
were entwined in that time
just the presence
of mind & body saying
words without speaking
feeling without asking
I could be a fool for
giving up a sure thing
but nothing
is a sure thing anymore
except the head
when you realize
you can’t keep
the masquerade up
& there is just
so much shit you can
put up with
until you crack
I go backwards sometimes
by living in the past
when sex was mixed up
with love
now I know better
sex for sexes sake
is one thing
but sex with someone
you love
transcends everything
but love has many folds
in which to hide
& you have no control
except of the heat
you have
deep inside
self
is DNA what we call
our soul or self?
for 10,000 years
we have searched
for the answer
to what makes us
human beings
maybe even
denied the fact
we swung from tress
in the test tube it seems
we are just molecules
bonded together &
fused with electricity
firing off signals
to the nerve endings
that govern our lives
the electricity I get
from listening to you
overloads
my primitive senses
but I seem to recall
an urge to weigh things
before jumping to
unnatural
conclusions
again
I wish I was
running across a Savanna
arms full of fruit
sunlight in my hair
smiling
with
fear
globular distances
I used to run
my fingers over
the ridge
of mountains
that run down
the backbone
of the country
sliding across
the plains
to those lesser
piles of stone
in the east
trying to imagine
their height
in relationship
to the dust mote
size of people
scurrying around
in the grains of paint
on the surface
I knew the names
of all the countries
on the planet
circa 1955
knew where north was
the deepest part
of the ocean
imagined people
crossing the
Bering Straight
years later when leaving
a store with my wife
she would invariably
go in the opposite
direction to the car
or never visit
the west side
on her own
in fear of losing her way
& be set upon
by cut throats
& hoodlums
I kidded her about this
until I started scanning
the sky with a ‘scope
looking for other globes
in my relative neighborhood
there are no
ridges now
to run my fingers
over on a star map
& know that this is Utah
or the Himalayas
no three dimensional
object to reference
when I lose my way
just blackness & dark matter
the globe sits
on my VCR now
the only clear spot
in the living room
it was going to be
thrown out along with other
out-dated material
until I retrieved it
from the Goodwill pile
there are countries
on it that don’t
exist anymore
rivers of questionable
form & direction
but I know this planet
pasted on its surface
traveled by boat
& airplane & fingertips
if only the sky was
that easy to travel
light years measured
in inches curving away
to the North Pole instead
of being lost in equations
of time & space & distance
