Vertigo's Return from Europe

standing in the doorway at night
like the still song
awake
after long years
of misadventure.

leaves pile up
like dead weighted
pillows

outside and the
sun is drawn
on her string
for the day.

everything is much
slower than
i thought
much
more
tired
than i remembered.

in the moves
that took place
while I was gone,
I lost everything:
a million words
12 CD's, two homes
even shoes and
my favorite
shirt.

at the window
i see the West
kansas
a greyhound
your birthday

and a city.

i didn't know
all this time
i thought i'd left
i was always here.

a saxifrage trailing
florence.

a saxrifrage and a
song.


A Guilded Age

it wasn't that hard to keep track of

meaning:
it was impossible

you drew away
I suspect
long ago

before all these crumpled
mornings
in isolated
stolen sheets

we would talk of
musical
interjections on the
weekend

big sur
brattle st.
patterson

the grass and leaves
of Whitman

chekov, dosty, emerson

america

yawping on cedar
decks

grilling steaks

steaming asparagus

stretching our minds
so that they might
prophesy

and being young
just being young

it was beautiful
I tell you