clench

clench

when i learned that my son was dead 

something clenched deep inside 

though my face made no change 

except maybe a twitch under my left eye 

i saw my wife collapse on the kitchen floor 

all the bones of her body gone 

but i could not move to help her 

not until the twitch under my eye let me 

in the days that followed my eye grew calm 

and unreality moved about me 

i swam inside it like the sea 

neither warm nor cool  nor shallow nor deep 

my wife formed bones again strangely stiff 

i could almost feel them pushing my hands away 

a hard ghost stood between us now 

his touch too much to bear 

a closed coffin built by another’s hands 

mocked the tools skills and material 

i knew well what my son knew 

the better craftsman than his father

 

when the builder builds he asks not why 

his imagination too narrow to see 

that the building will eventually fall 

and another builder build again

 

the creator creates us finite and weak 

our struggle so great we need no help 

in discovering new ways to die 

so rages my mind

 

my son one of many in the foreign place 

one of many fallen  into whose hands 

of the many families who grieve 

who can never unclench again

easter sunday

on an easter morning in the 50s

my sister and i received 

a large easter basket each

the crowning glory

was a huge chocolate bunny

hollow and waiting to be eaten

but i could not eat mine

first was the dreary inevitable

of an easter sunday high mass

with the chanting and the incense

the pageantry and the raiments

the liturgy and the sermon

my heart and soul grew faint

at the thought of being wedged

between my mother and her friends

on the pew in their easter finery

with their latest hairsprayed hairstyles

and reeking of pungent perfume

i carried the chocolate bunny

and hid it in the backseat of the car

under tissues and it cowered

all through mass as my father 

sat and smoked and read the paper

as the warm spring day heated up

after mass we were greeted

with an unwholesome mess

of melted bunny and tissue

fearful of my parents’ anger

i managed to spread the mess

and covered my hands and shirt

it could not be hidden

once we returned home but

i cannot recall what punishment

was meted out to the devilish boy

i suppose my father tried to clean

the seat but the stain remained

often during road trips long and short

my sister and i avoided the spot

as if it were lava on the seat

we’d sit on our separate sides

me on the left and she on the right

pressed against the door panels

a year later my father sold the car

the stain a shadow of itself 

the place where still we would not sit

perhaps another child again avoided

the melted chocolate bunny stain

that spread beneath mercury’s gaze

jeg.

4/21/19

the tomb of words

I dreamt that all poems were written

and that we’d write poems no more

a silence of words fell across the land

every language and every tongue

And when I tried to write the words

into a new and different form

to be original and and to be alive

the words would form no more

And all the words settled into an order

and all the thoughts followed in turn

and all the minds went rigid within

and all the voices sounded along

Neither good nor evil nor hot nor cold

the words fell as an invisible rain

upon the soundless empty souls

and new thought was frozen solid

I woke to find that all the words

had congealed upon my tongue

my mouth too full to spit them out

my throat too narrow to swallow

I woke to find that all the poems 

had been reduced to dust

what was important is not now

and the words interred into tombs

These tiny tombs did not hold

the dreaming words were unquiet

the ghosts of thoughts rose to haunt

my hopes of waking poems once more.

jeg.

10/16

inside

i am frail

and i fear the moments 

of weakness inside

tools

the tools are clumsy in my hands these days

i used to be so quick and sure

dropping the hammer dropping the nails

fumbling with my fingers

measuring and remeasuring 

and missing the cut

why do my hands seem to get in the way

they once were delicate and nimble

this is the second time i dropped that

stiff and unwieldy fingers

grip loosening and tightening

a hair more a hair less

my body has betrayed me in the aging days

eyes unclear reflexes unsure

memories dropped careless and wasteful

the fingers slow to open or close

numbing and cold

the jagged cut too short

jeg.

12/17

over

in this life

i have done everything wrong

i want to start over

death inside creeps

hovering at the closed door

until beckoned

death, silent, inside creeps

the cold breath

across the warm face 

lips part and slacken

the tongue lolls

the eyes turn

and motion settles

and time keeps on

jeg.

2/18