Not simply words, even the sculpted words of 
     scrappy screenwriters,
but more like Zen meditations of surf upon the shore
Child that once was, old man who now relives as ritual 
     what once was adventure
Ears, thoughts, cells cleansed by reports of a timeless pulse
Heart lifted, feet moving in the wet wintry splay 
    of a long gray apron,
a stage set grandly enough for continental drift 

Days drift with the seasons 
Now I wrap flesh in layers of borrowed warmth, 
     thick as the furs of ancient animals,
and breathe clean ocean air,
the pure product of so much watery soul
      and maritime mortality
Tiny creatures ourselves, 
      earnest as a self-sheltered mollusc,
crawling crablike
to put our toes in the water, if only metaphorically

And withdraw, quite promptly, with an oceanic sigh
Ocean! you were always my mother
And Time, a little stroll on the beach
                        

Why I’m huddled in the chair
unable to dip a toe in the big bad outdoors,
that kettle of broken limbs, leaves asunder,
flowerheads cruelly turned to wasted illusions –
the big blast we have all been waiting for
(and I alone with dread?)

I have charted the safer waters, 
bundled up with my buddy, Fossil Fuels
ploughed the familiar furrows 
    of strong roof overhead,
closet full of old coats,
windows tight as the thighs of aging virgins…
OK, as old books then,
poor old geezers, nobody’s fingers having run along their spines
     for ages
with no gentler touch to put them to bed
with the speculative contents of dusty bottles

No, cold feet and all, I am listed among the lucky ones,
warm in certain precincts of the heart,
happy in private circumstances,
too poor to have wider responsibilities
too fortunate to be on the other side 
    of the Goodwill counter

Lay it on me, winter
I’ll engage for a chilly embrace
     under a bridge somewhere,
toes and fingertips like icicles,
counting my lucky stars
     Orion rising
doors wide shut,
and the heart’s thermometer trending up
                        

Writing a newspaper story about how Creative Institution X
will offer this, that, and the other thing to the paying participants
in a new, or sort of new, upcoming program 
staged at a lovely (or surely pleasant) suburban site where relatively few of us
will ever worship at the altar of high art 

Unless of course, in earlier years, our parents were wealthy enough 
to send us, like little packages of wonder mailed to the future,
for the sort of resume value enhancement such experiences offer
And, what the hell, I’m just doing my job, 
making words, the only words for which I get paid

… when a melody begins on my desktop computer
because that is how I sweeten my time
And, without warning, I am thrown into the awareness 
     of being,
another being perhaps, in a parallel universe, 
or (I suppose) simply another place in my head
… and find I am in tears

In how many worlds do we live at once?
How many creatures truly occupy our mental property?
I am he who makes words at the keyboard 
(and wishes to be paid)
and he who gazes out the window on a sun-strewn winter day
     with the solar lust of the eye
and whose heart is, seemingly,
a blithely unguarded fortress, a citadel for the taking
by any aggregation of sounds
capable of warming its way inside walls of fleshly indifference,

or breaking down a door,
or picking a lock with the keys of C, G or D Minor 
and the voices of the angels