POEM FOR X

After scouring forests and fields,
After scanning the hollows of trees,
The back seats of burned-out sedans
Abandoned to the streets of New Jersey,
After ranting into a snaking gutter
Until echoes from the depths mocked
My useless complaints, after reviewing
My choices and revising my defense,
After compulsory apologies to myself and others,
After evicting the squatters and confronting
My oppressor, who was myself, after letting go
The thing I had, the lovely thing that shined,
The thing that danced with a spontaneous verve
Coursing from the root of life,
The thing that foundered and was broken
But which I gripped desperately in the rain
At oblivion’s cusp, rivulets loading my pockets with silt,
Which might have fostered growth
Had I not cast handfuls to the wind
And spit anguish into ditches. After all of this,
I stepped forward and found you. The past has collapsed
Like a fortress of earth. I don’t know the future.

A WELSH SCYTHE

is better than a Swiss lathe
or a Scotch spade. I wouldn’t think
of using a Norwegian adz
or an Austrian sledge unless
it was clear that a Welsh scythe
was not available. Once I employed
a Belgian T square, which was enlightening,
though the results were less than impressive.
The Greek panel saw loaned to me
by a neighbor was hardly worth my time,
but in his garage I spotted a Slovenian radius trowel,
and that helped me in ways I could not have predicted.
Avoid Polish jackhammers and Finnish gimlets.
These items are not only dangerous,
they’re addictive. And rude. The French chisel
is a charming device. If the Welsh scythe did not exist,
this tool would be worth considering.
But it does exist. Therefore, I advise you
to fling the French chisel into the Seine
next chance you get. Yesterday
a man was bludgeoned with a Serbian mallet.
But that is not so surprising.
A famous sonnet was once written
about the Portuguese linoleum knife.
Still, the poet was third-rate, and he hanged himself
with the garter of his former mistress.
Spanish forceps: I acknowledge their originality and verve.
They could easily seduce a naive journeyman.
I, however, remain unconvinced
by the Italian whipsaw, the Hungarian bench plane,
the Danish spike bit, and the Russian boilermaker’s hammer.

In the 17th century, a brief skirmish
was fought over the Swedish putty knife.
But that is, at best, a footnote in a forgotten history book
glazed with dust in a blind machinist’s basement.
Much more significant was the appearance
of the Bulgarian ploughshare. Few now recall
the scandal prompted by this apparatus,
but I assure you: in its day it was radical.
As for the English, what have they given us but the grease gun?
And so, I, an Irishman, straddle this lonely heath,

gripping my grub ax, dreaming of a scythe from Wales. 

FIELD

I came to a field
of grasses I couldn’t name.

A puddle reflected
an overcast sky. By a stone wall

I glimpsed a wiry bush
with sharp, crimson flowers.

I sat down and inhaled, though
the air was polluted. All air

is polluted now. My head
was filled with chatter, memories

of people I’d hurt, hours spent
roaming a bookstore

only to depart empty-handed.
I was hoping to find the volume

that would reignite the flames
that engulfed the house

I grew up in, the barn
behind it, the acres of woods

I roamed with my dogs.
Let it burn, it’s already

gone. Let flames take
the books I loved

and lived in for years
as I walked the streets of Missoula,

human conflagration
of desire and doubt,

anxiety’s plaything
in a Soul Asylum T-shirt—

he didn’t know he’d chosen
a path to a field of unraveling.