Poems

There were nights my room felt more like methan I did. The radio low on the dresser.The dial glowing.The DJ talking like he knew secret roads out of town.A stack of school books pretending to matter.A heap of clothes in the chair.Ticket stub in the drawer.Two bad poems folded in a notebook.A glass with three […]

At nineteen I was convincedeverything mattered more than it doesand less than it should. That is not wise.It is just accurate. A call not returnedcould black out a day.A song heard in the right carwith the right weather on the windshieldcould make me think I had found the whole secret of being alive.A line in

There are evenings when the mirrorlooks like plain glass. There are evenings when it lookslike an accusation. Same face,same eyes,same bad hair doing what it does,same shoulders not broad enough yetfor half the things I want from life,same mouth better built for silencethan speeches. Yet the mirror changes.Or I do. A person spends years growinginto

I wrote a letter just to seeIf words looked truer when set freeOn paper rather than the headWhere half of everything feels deadBefore it ever reaches sound. I wrote it slow.I crossed lines out.I put in things I meant at firstThen took them back for fear or doubt. I said too much.I said too little.I

I wrote a love poem onceto no one. Not a real girl.Not somebody in algebra.Not the one from the rink,or the one with the red scarf,or the one who smiled at me in line and ruined two days.No.This was worse. It was for the whole idea of being wantedin that perfect feverish waysongs had taught

When the late bus cameeverything looked different.Same school,same brick,same flagpole,same gym doors shut,but emptier in a waythat made it seemI’d stayed behindafter the day had been taken up. A janitor rolled a mop bucketdown one hall.Some girl laughed somewhereI could not see.Locker doors banged once,then once again,then not at all. I sat by the window

It was too hot for the jacket.Everybody knew it.I knew it when I pulled it on.I knew it when the lining stuck to my armsbefore I even got out the door.I knew it halfway down Main Streetwith the sun hitting the parked cars so hardthe whole block looked angry. I wore it anyway. That is

She passed me in the hallwaywith books held up against her side,and nothing happened.No choir.No great bell.No bright mark split across the day. Only thisI forgot what I was thinkingfor half a second,which is more powerthan most people ever get over another. I wish I had some noble lineto pin the whole thing down.I do

When I was small I thought by nowI’d know most everything somehow.I thought that older meant less doubt,More answers in and fewer out. I thought I’d wake one day and feelSolid and finished, hard and real,Like all the grown-ups in the roomWho never seemed to drift or bloomInto ten different kinds of thoughtFrom things they

I played the same song four times in a rowand called it thinking. The tape hissed a little before the drums came in.I liked that part.It sounded like weather trying to get through the walls.Then the singer came on full of hurt and swaggerlike he had been born in tight black jeanswith one hand already