Yesterdays

I.
in 2011 from the foggy shell
      eyes behind cages of tempered glass
glared out through ragged hair

II.
time is a passing thing
                                     life is not

there was nothing left unsaid

I think of you saying goodbye
resting on my lap

chin against chin

III.
I hope you know
I never wanted

                          to go

A Weight on my Chest

Now that I think about
it the path through the wood
reminded me of Gettysburg
Little Round Top just darker
like I couldn't lift my chin up enough
to catch the light streaming
through the trees that cold
autumn day, I had Whit in my
arms, he was small tho, really
God damn unusually small
and there was another Whit being
born or covered in bloody gooey placenta
on some TV brain beyond my comprehension,
and Alton Brown was there swinging,
smashing and being an all around
hero saving the girls from roving bands
set on evil deeds which isn't so far off
from the truth, I guess--he would wander uncharted
alien forests heroically super
heroic without fanfare--and Whit glanced up at me
over the commotion of my eyes
waking and mewed softly for the
morning.

Whit haiku to carry in your pockets

Sleeping cat
open your eyes
see the gray rugged morning

Where were you kitten?
six years ago lost
when mother left you alone

There's no food
you check anyway
licking the empty bowl

my finger struck your nails
blood rose to surface
you were afraid but smiled

without a clock
you mewed for morning
until I rolled from bed

on the table sprawled
we watch the streets
with different memories

Scar down your nose
a white furry schism
between sad orange eyes

rumble of cars on street
an old obstacle ignored
your upturned sleeping belly

in your thick coat
I see the sad alleyways
rainy nights of the past

A song of leaves and crying

Whit:

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p[;'['

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These are the things my cat types to me while I'm away

Adoption

his blood, bright red and new,
dripped onto the soft
lambs wool bed leaving
stains like miniature brush strokes,

from his trembling eye,
I saw the wound, a sad gash
on the pupil unnoticed,
he lay still, unmovable, stoic,
content in that silent pain,

I called a women walking by,
told her about the injury, the blood,
the urgency, she thanked me
and ran to help,

I watched her for
as long as I could, then headed
for the exit
to buy cat food and litter.

Trying, typing, trying

Couldn't find a way out today
or a reason to write
anything worth noting or
worthwhile, I just watched the sunrise
and slept and read in the afternoon
heat and then the sun set slowly
over pink hued Philadelphia
coating my room in thick soupy
darkness,

Whit ignored it all
except for the shade on
the porch and the food in
his bowl,

he sleeps soundly at my feet
retracing his steps,
ready to take them again
tomorrow
and I'll be there
trying to do the same.

Wash Day

I walked downstairs
took the clothes out of the washer,
they were barely wet,
moved them to the dryer anyway,
set the timer for 60 minutes and
called Whit but he wasn't there,
he was hiding somewhere,
it was dark outside and he'd been
meowing all day wanting to go out
and roll in the ashes on the balcony,
he's funny that way,
I picked lint off the floor and
dropped it in the trash can
it hit the rim and fell back where it was,
I left it and called Whit again,

You can learn a lot about life
washing clothes

Cleaning fires

Time to trip this one
with a pitch and a dark earth
sky outback and Whit like the
junkyard stray he is rolling in
the embers of lost prescient fires
of last night under the stars
where there's more out then usual,
even the red lights blinking in the
distance don't look so afraid,
so I chase him running around the house
me cleaning off the dirt and wiping it
on my plaid pajamas, the
air is smelling like Spring mid-March,
I'm falling to the trip that is
what my life will be forever,
I see the west and the day and infinite
roads to infinite places, I see where I belong

Attention

Whit took his time cleaning himself

on my keyboard, focused on his left 

ear, his (there's something off about them)

orange eyes focused on a thing

I couldn't see, the light

from my window wasn't enough--

I was wrapped in a blanket and flannel and

plaid patterned pajama pants, I wanted to

continue my edits--Whit kept cleaning,

left leg scratching his face, tapping keys

underneath his feet--now he wants

in the closet, now he's out and mewing 

and mewing and meowing and rawling

and laying down and jumping and typing himself,

I rest my forehead on his and he snorts,

bites at the wires on my desk, I push him off

I bite his ear, his stomach puffs and he opens 

my door

Mill Shoals and Walt Whitman

You're blue darkness in the
Illinois night, a collection of trailers
and white silos, there's not one
picture of you but what I have
from the back seat of a car without gas,
I can't even hear the sleeping cows or
the time changing. The sun dips
quickly along the fault lines,
time lines, man made constructions,
.4 miles from the highway, too bad we
only found dirt roads on the way to
St. Louis or back-- I tell Whit
it's an hour shying away
it's what America looks like at dusk, but
he only wants to rub against my
face--he's been lost before under the stars

drinking on a mondee

Drinking coffee(black) over
tired conversation in the kitchen 6am,
my drunk wearing off and pulling me
to sleep, Whit already upstairs
hiding, which is very unlike
Walt with so many guys here and
cats normally liking attention,
I can imagine the dinosaurs outside
growling at the sun,
the high topped trees standing
against the wind, that flag reflecting
off man made surfaces, not so old
red-white-and-blue at the bears tasting our flesh on
paved sidewalks covered in rainbow silly string,
the coffee's now gone cold and
we're looking at each other probably,
for something, who knows, who knows
but we're looking anyway,
I tell a story about a gutted dog I
never saw and Joe is growling at the sun

Friday Night

I thought, "Shit my
phone is melting," but it was only
Harry Potter's 3-D glasses on the
stove, the phone was dripping in my hand,
I panicked until someone
built a castle on top of me.
I'm a pawn taking a walk, maybe
I'll take a slightly longer walk, but
only if I'm just starting out, outside
the stars are sparkling at night
though the sky is indigo with old
red white and blue reflections;
who lives there across the alley
with their serial killer 4:08am lights on
in every room but their bedroom and
the door is opened wide, whit and I
are playing a floor above and three stories up
under Tif's covers at the foot
of her bed and his fur is so soft, and shining
black and white, I hold him tight,
I fall asleep, and sleep and sleep
a dreamless tired sleep, dreamless but felt like hours
so maybe Tif the nightmares and what we talked
about are untrue, maybe there's just
nothing and the end.