Buried in the 1040

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When you are the only one
who understands how to use the tax software,
you end up doing taxes for friends--
not that you are an accountant, mind you, just that
you know how to navigate the software
and the computer,
which your Luddite friends avoid
like, well, like a tax audit.
Five days later you realize
you haven't written a poem in days.
A mutter'd curse upon the IRS as
you print out the last tax form, and wonder
if there is a poem buried in the 1040 somewhere.
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Where the Poem Is

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Sometimes you have to walk away from the poem.
Or more precisely, sometimes
you have to walk away from the blank page
(or blank screen)
and call it a night.
The dog will still love you
whether you write anything or not.
He's been waiting patiently
for you to get up from the table,
call it a morning and
take him outside,
where the poem,
you realize once again,
has always been in progress.
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Three Helpers

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We have three helpers.
One is Ray the handyman,
a single guy with a beaten pickup;
he's helping with the gardens
and finish carpentry on parts of the house.
Then there is Alice the caregiver, a single mom;
she bathes Anita, does some small cleaning,
and gives me three hours to myself
three times a week.
Finally, Marcia comes in twice a month
and cleans house, top to bottom for eight hours
because I just can't get to everything
and Anita can't get to much at all from the wheelchair.
And we're lucky;
lucky for a pension that enables us
to hire helpers, lucky to find good help, lucky
to have a home.
I remind myself of that every day.
Even more this month
I have reminded myself of this luck;
Ray disappeared
in the midst of cutting bead-board for the basement stairwell;
alcoholic girlfriend in jail, pickup broke down, barely enough money
to make his rent,
he curled up in bed for two weeks and didn't answer the phone.
He's answering his phone now and working, but we wonder for how long.
Alice doesn't disappear, but instead juggles doctor appointments
for her asthmatic/ADHD daughter, keeps trying
to pry a slacker boyfriend loose from her couch, and now
asks us if we could co-sign a loan on a fifty-grand house,
which will not happen. We like her, but that won't happen.
And Marcia? Marcia shows up at 9 am
every other Thursday,
happy and ready to work
for eight hours without a break,
just a little food in her purse.
She doesn't say much about
her son in Afghanistan, except that
she misses him.
Sometimes, when Anita has turned off the TV and
is asleep in her chair, I hear Marcia humming
as she cleans in the kitchen.
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Fragment: Debate in the Cave of Hypnos

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Last night, again with a testy Hypnos in his cave,
I watched Aergia and Horme argue about
the competing qualities of sloth and effort.
Horme gave a complex, energetic soliloquy,
while Aergia just leaned against a Doric column
and yawned.
"Don't you have a poem to write?" Horme asked me,
obviously frustrated. I shrugged my shoulders,
making a point for the other side.
Hypnos snorted in his sleep and turned his back
on the debate...
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[Not done yet...but I was, like Aergia, a bit slothful yesterday. I'm trying to keep up the poem-a-day thing, honestly...]

Send Me A Message

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Enough of e-mails, tweets and texts.
I want to learn of the news from signal fires
and forest drums. Send me a bill via clay tablet
with your cuneiform, sermons on banana leaves
inscribed in Sanskrit, rumors of peace
in a bundle of olive branches, the results
of the election in petroglyphs,
the quarterly report in hieroglyphs.
Send me a message
I can hold in my hand
50 years from now.
Or just
write me a letter
on whatever you now use
for impressionable paper, with whatever you use
to express yourself in ink.

The Handshake

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This afternoon,
a young man with
a printed brochure in hand
came to the door.
He said he was experienced and energetic;
he'd been a County Commissioner,
had worked for state senators and representatives,
and now was running for the state legislature.
I wanted to tell him
what the fuck do you think you're doing,
still trying to help people, trying to change things,
after years embedded in the beast?
Aren't you despondent and disillusioned,
completely dissuaded from your proximity
to the political endgame to ever
want to represent any constituency ever again?
I didn't tell him, but I think he knew.
He shook my hand anyway.
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Eye Doctors

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I must see
Two painters, a collagist, and a sculptor today;
Four doctors of the eyes,
All with office hours on April Fools' Day.
I'll ask each one
What I'm seeing lately, what they are seeing;
Am I growing lighter or darker,
Am I out of focus, or is it only the background?
Monochrome, or full color?
One painter sees me as a series of cubes, the other
As a still life; the collagist
Sifts through old magazines and rubber stamps to answer;
The sculptor turns to take a hammer to a large rock.
Whatever they come up with, I am happy to see them again.
I raise my camera, and see each again.
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