i dont know much

i dont know much
but i know what i like
not like some who
cant tell
a rc from a coke
or a beretta 92 from
a glock 17
which are not complicated things
at all except to that guy
who says
he is dying to own
that plain white canvas over there because some
bullshitter
like that
woman with all the hair over there
said in a article in the sunday times magazine
the white
could dance a solo
fandango
around whatshisnames green one

when you talk to the animals

when you talk to the animals
i act like it too they're
still with us and how i care for them
the way you used to and call
them by name and tuck them in every night
cause what good would it do
to tell you the truth
that i had them all put down except
your old pom rex
or that he sleeps in your place now
where i can feel his faint little heart
close to mine
when i beg him please baby
please
don't leave
let me go first one time

the way it felt

the way it felt
when i thought
i was falling in love
the last time
is so far gone i can't even
recall her name
just the tiny glass gazelle she had
with three legs
that would shimmy on
the glass-topped dressing table
and fall over
every time we fucked

the quickening

my body is sloughing away
even while it gains
but waste as it will
what's inside
is fading faster still
and listen don't tell anybody i told you
but only just yesterday
i had to go look
in the bible again to make sure when it was
mama died

over there

what good is it
for her to say
she never wanted anyone but me
in her whole life
when that nobody over there she's talking to
has stolen my name
and i'm just the one who stops by
to close the blinds and turn off the light
and tell his hunny bunny
night night
don't let the bedbugs bite

sitting here with a people

sitting here with a people
from last year
i am suddenly aware of all the excellence
in the world
how each of us no matter how low
will get our reward
before it's all over
if not the presidential medal of freedom
why then a scholarship
in animal husbandry
or half an unrestricted mil from the macArthur foundation
all the way up to
us blessed few
with perfect attendance
in sunday school

kinnell

reading the poetry
of galway kinnell
again
at random
on this soggy saturday morn
his work as it
invariably does
brings on my little rain as well
these tears of a old man
not quite as long gone as kinnell
(what is he now eighty something
seven?
five?)
but certain still
i will never
catch up
(turn to his rapture and feel
my despair)
though i sense
he too even one such as he
must still wish he could go back
and repair some things
for who among us
ever reaches the end
where it was we dreamed we could be
like the surgeons who
found a way to amputate a boy's leg and reattach it
backwards
so he can walk again
soon as he can teach himself which way
he's going