APOLOGY

I'm not dead yet.
I will be, of course,
someday (I might be
now, as you're reading

this--I don't know when
the "now" you're reading
it in is). If I'm
already dead as you're

reading this, I hope
you'll forgive me for
having lured you into
reading it under false

pretenses. I didn't mean
to. I didn't know I was dead.

BEFORE

There's a lot to be thankful
for. We're not dead yet's
a good example (though
we will, of course, be

one day irrevocably).
I don't enjoy fishing
because I tend to see
things from the fish's

perspective. I always
think, "If I were a fish..."
Not being fish is
another thing we can

be thankful for, I guess,
though we, of course, are.

THERE

An almost white, whispered
rumor of you is all
I had to go on. So
much for insufficient

beginnings. Word of you
had been heard escaping
through the usual cracks
in what we remember

of parting's sweet sorrow.
Under every surface
there is, of course,
a second surface we

can never quite get to.
I will look for you there.

HISTORY LESSONS

The Romans liked making
water go where they wanted
it to. The Greeks by this
time didn't give a damn.

Hitler held a halo
of burnt Jews above
his head and said,
"Love me for who I am."

Amazingly, some people did.
Napoleon had his head
up his ass when he thought
he could conquer Russia.

Not even the Russians have
been able to do that.

NOT GOD

I can tell you must
be something special
because I have never
wanted to kill you

on Wednesday without
immediately regretting having
wanted to on Thursday.
I like you a lot every

Friday I see you on,
and I still set my
Saturdays aside just
in case you show up.

Sunday is my day
of rest. I'm not God.

FATHER

When he wakes up,
my father wants to know
why he died so early.
I never know what

to tell him. I make
up a story about the
inevitability of falling
out of bed at least once

in every lifetime. My
father doesn't believe me.
"I am your father,"
he reminds me

and cautions me again
not to count on much.

AMBITION

I don't feel ambitious
enough this morning
to rape an old
woman. Instead

I help her up
out of her chair
and into this walking
contraption she has

that keeps her from
toppling over
like a felled tree.
We are both

happy at my lack
of ambition this morning.

MUHAJADAT #9 by Asad Faulwell

GRATEFUL

I remember once wondering
whether eating a peach would
be okay under the circumstances
I happened to find myself in.

I don't really remember much
about the circumstances, but
I remember quite vividly
the peach itself and what

it tasted like when I finally
got up the courage to
eat it under whatever the
damned circumstances were.

It tasted like a peach, a fact
for which I will always be grateful.

ALWAYS

About a hundred yards
east of where eternity
fell into a rut yesterday
I found your damaged

angel. I picked it up,
of course, dusted it off
the way I normally do,
and brought it back to you.

We will, of course, start
over, the way we always do
in our two competing eternities.
If you get there first, of course,

I'll stop and wait for you
the way I almost used to.

REAL

On the day we all
agreed to agree that
diamonds and gold
have value, a tree

appeared on the horizon.
The next day the tree
was gone, a victim
of what makes us wonder.

I am telling you this
not because of anything
actual, but because of
certain irregularities that

have been uncovered in
the center of what makes us real.

THE 'YOU' POEMS

People sometimes ask me who the "you" in my poems is. Except when the "you" is me, I don't think it's ever any one person, or even just one person necessarily. Sometimes it may be. I'm not exactly sure myself. It occurs to me that it might, in at least some cases, be what Martin Buber referred to as the "other".

CAUSE

I have often used
metaphor to relocate
from one useless state
of being to another, but,

to my credit, I have never
not enjoyed the illusion
such activity frolics in.
I have felt the soft

underbelly of the source
of everything not nailed down
and wondered where its
unexploded center was.

I have not yet had cause
to create myself out of nothing.

HEAVEN
(David Lynch)

In heaven everything
is fine. You can buy
lunch there for a dime.
Get to it by bus

if you have to, or
aeroplane. Be on time.
In heaven happiness
explodes like an old

apple in a movie
(the one with oozing
eyes that are ickier
than they are lovely).

In heaven everything
barks louder than it bites.

HORSES

What's this I hear
about you failing
again to get near
enough to the railing

to fall overboard and drown?
It's hard sometimes to own
one's own success,
much less

the success that somebody else's.
Trying to take the pulses
of people with hearts
that race puts, I feel, a number of carts

before an equal number of horses.
And then we die, of courses.

SOLID

Call me crazy,
but when I close
my eyes, I
become willing

to wait and see.
Uncertainty's as
solid as the trunk
of any tree.

And that's enough
for me when my
feet are on the ground.
I sometimes turn

around to see if I'm
still where I am.

BIRTHDAY POEM FOR ASAD

Let this be the beginning
of something gaudy enough
to be greater, even, than God.
It is, after all, the birthday

of one who wasn't
here before his birthday.
(What cold days those
were, the ones you chose

not to be here on.)
How thankful we are
you decided to arrive.
It's not even close to when

it is when you're not here
being so absolutely only you.

IMPRISONED

One of my better memories
is imprisoned in amber
like a semi-precious insect.
Do you remember me?

I was the one behind
the guy you insisted
on looking away from
at the dance. If,

by chance, our eyes
had met that night,
we might have met again
behind some billboard.

But you were looking elsewhere
at everything you saw there.

NICK

Nearing what may or
may not be an adventure,
we begin to listen
more attentively to silence.

It's hard to hear
what it doesn't say,
but easy to imagine
where it lives.

In a white house
much farther away
than meanwhile is.
At the other end of

endless, no doubt, near a
nick in the nick of time.

WHEN

I love it when a thing
turns out to be not
worth doing, but only
when I haven't done it yet.

When I have done it
and it turns out to be
not worth doing, I
drop whatever I am

into the nearest bucket
and quickly wash myself.
Then I feel at least
a little wetter. This

seems to be happening every
other Tuesday at noon.