from Wood Life: A Poem (Snuff Books, Fall 2009)

1.

Out of the woods, numb
and not thinking, I walked
half crumbling county roads
through mountain towns,
not stopping to shop or sleep
on a stiff motel mattress.
I stayed off barstools, away
from taverns televising
Pirates or old Penguins
games. I will not remember
the remains, what I buried—
willing amnesia, forced
forgetting is an anesthetic
needed for new beginnings,
a new life free of old haunts.
So, I let cars pass, refusing
to thumb a ride and hitchhike.
One foot in front of the other—
it’s been days since I dreamt,
and as I sweat in September,
under overcast skies, away
from those terrible hills,
valleys, and hollows, specters
of Appalachia are behind me.

7.

I also dream of throats: ones with goiters
the size of grapefruits or soft balls;
I see Adams apples, pimples, pock marks,
hemp chokers, amber pendants, turtle necks,
v-necks, smooth skin, cigarette smoke
curling through a tracheotomy hole.
Much more – enough to fill notebooks,
postcards, and the backs of bar napkins
I’ve stared at all night, rethinking
all the other dreams: a pair of rotting lips
mouthing Oh, Danny boy over and over.
Aerosol flames against a spider’s web, and
my mother tapping her foot, saying Danny,
don’t do that, don’t you ever do that again.

There’s a place where my ghosts go to die,
I think I don’t remember their names,
faces, wounds, or what I did to them—
just the hike and the mountain trail to where
limbless trunks of dead oaks fill a valley.
It’s been weeks since I cleared out brush
and put rusty spade to rocky soil
and covered a knife in a shallow hole.

26.

 

                                                                        I breathe.

                        I breathe.

                                    I breathe.
                                                                        I must
                                                   
breathe, with
my hands on my knees.

The concrete comes into focus—
a trickle of blood rolls downhill,

over fissures in the sidewalk,
between my mud crusted boots.

I straighten up. I stand.  I see
the scene around me: the body

with a gashed throat, the silk
blouse slashed in dark red lines—

but that’s not the worst of it:
half her lip’s been ripped away

from her jaw.  And I ask myself,
I did that?  I hang my head. Walk

away.  Farther away, I stop and turn
and look:  her hands and arms sprawled

amidst a bloody pool diluted by rain.
And all inner instincts instruct. I did, I did.

And still I can’t remember doing it.
I walk the streets, with my sneer

still in place.  But now I’m aware,
fully aware of everything like bumps

in one’s face, as if something wormed
around, under skins, cheeks, and chins,

glaring back, showing white crooked teeth
that aren’t there.  I know others can’t see.

Can they?  There’s a cop several corners
away from my own crime scene.  Can he?

There’s something about the furrows of the man’s
mustache. It crawls over his face like a caterpillar.

I can’t stand it.  And before he says anything,
It takes one quick cut to drop him.  And then

something happens to the city.  Skyscrapers
sway.  Clouds seem to simmer, than boil.

As I continue down the streets, avenues,
and boulevards, no one sighs or screams
and so, I keep my hands in my pockets.