All the songs I listened to

Thinking of you
that you never heard

Its how we don't escape
gods that never knew us
the little sleep that 
rounds out the jagged edge
of mornings call

wooden, deep and crowned
with thorny, silken real
only the chance of deeping coomb
the mess I'll leave behind

II

The things that stare back at me
Bof all the good that's ended
the last of whatever poetry was in me
gone, lost in the swelling throom

some sweet words
the way you said my name
and shared it, small imperfect circle of platinum
and friends
surprise birthday parties
holding your face in my hands

I told you I loved you one hundred and fifty feet off the ground
no one else around, just a sudden drop
dark, with the city and stars around us

all that history, unshared
same place, different people

III

Beautiful, young, lilting chords
I could listen to songs too painful before
Mountain water, cold and shocking
Laurel-scented air
the bars dark tables ringed
with my past, you and I

I wonder how much he really gets you
some small part of me hopes he won't
I cling to the thought of us
there, our place and time
ambered, sepia-toned finally

Lost and squandered
my fault and regret
hopelessly caught together

I am haunted by endings
and the soft, mellow dark sound
of stringed wood through
mountain air

v.1
dm
24July2013
Beaumont, TX

Bullet

the shield that stops
anything threatening
the sudden and dramatic end

barely an inch, some steel
hydro-packed, hollow point

stainless and cruel
such a lovely sudden pull
a heavy click
dropping into place with
such a simple gesture

silver and copper
so compact, so precise
to go out while watching you do your thing

and who is that
who’s there now, fingertips
soft touch, whispers
in the dark and precious

all that was and will never be
words mean so much, yet
so little

I’m here and all those memories, still
an evening drive, kudzu and dark
thick with cicadas and heavy air
damp, warm, so southern

tears, cheeks wet
and the whole hopeless wonder

dm
5 March 2013
v.1

Alphonso

I wonder sometimes
what debt I owe you, just to know
that she has someone, anyone

to take the edge off
or provide a simple shoulder

and then, I know
it's you that gets to feel the touch of her hand
and caress the small of her back

dm
18Jan2013
v.1

My dog’s final days

I listen to Abby describe the way in which she’ll leave
and I don’t really feel like it’s something I should be concerned about
the way in which she describes how she has so much to do
and how I’m a disappointment

I remember Jackson as a puppy and I think
I’ll always remember him that way
small, brown and so soft

and I constantly talk of him as if he were my son
sweet boy
left behind on that next journey

she came to me when I was edged on the precipice of change
and it’s been so long since then
habit forming

there isn’t really a day I don’t think about you
either one
and how it is that I’m such a bad person

I don’t care enough
or I’m not attentive enough
taking care of all those little details of living
something that’s stretched through since gretchen
maybe always

I really just want to have him under my foot again
that strange sad look
and rest his head on my leg

he always seemed happy to see me
and always wanted me to be there
asleep on my bed
and cradled in my arms

the only one who ever really got me
selfless and devoted
and I wasn’t there


I passed you off
left you to someone else
loving though they were

I wasn’t there at the end
and you were alone
scared and confused
old beyond the years

no familiar smell
no mother or siblings
just, maybe, the thought of me

and my absence.

d mcmanus
10/5/2012
v.1

Bullet

the shield that stops
anything threatening
the sudden and dramatic end

barely an inch, some steel
hydro-packed, hollow point

stainless and cruel
such a lovely sudden pull
a heavy click
dropping into place with
such a simple gesture

silver and copper
so compact, so precise
to go out while watching you do your thing

and who is that
who’s there now, fingertips
soft touch, whispers
in the dark and precious

all that was and will never be
words mean so much, yet
so little

I’m here and all those memories, still
an evening drive, kudzu and dark
thick with cicadas and heavy air
damp, warm, so southern

tears, cheeks wet
and the whole hopeless wonder

dm
5 March 2013
v.1

I've gotten so used to your pushing me away

she said
that it was easy to think she could just leave
and I wouldn't care

to be honest
I thought I wouldn't
but she's still in this town
and still in here
this place

I think I'll live with strands of her hair
for as long as I've lived with her.

dm
3 Jan 2013
v.1

So, now, 

Everything I don't want to happen
Happens
See it come creeping up the hill
a Birnam diguise full of hewing and hate
that I unleash attempting to spare
myself her final sympathetic and caring farewell

and the deep combing throom 
of the door to her heart closing
is the sound that topples temples
and shakes the roots of parliaments of trees

the thickest brass struck with the most ancient wood
in a signal of final closing
that continual significant mistake tolled over and over

II.

the crushing push on your core
as you look for some small sign
that small smile when you pull her close
in the warm bedded early morning

now she just bends as far away as possible
clutching and cupping her phone, hiding her calls
hiding from you
pulling away one old sweet mannerism at a time
and you can't afford to lose
knowing how you allowed it to slip past you

III.

Chance and magic and the shear translucent weight
the funny way you don't see it
when it's put right in front of you

just before you realize you don't deserve any other outcome
and that's the way it really is

Does she keep lists

of things I've done wrong

in that new apartment

she asked me about

the credit listing

the foreclosure of our house

is that all

all that's left of what we have to say to each other

I keep lists

and I know everything I did wrong and all the lessons

I didn't learn

all the ways I never managed to grow up

caroline

the fucked up way I dealt with that

caroline

3 syllables and a song i used to like

crow on the cover

touching your knee

touching your knee

crying on your back

listening to you at jonas hole

back when I still might have had a change

just let it slide by

the last moment

nicole outside the window of that red corolla

just that moment

that exact, specific second

watching her crouch down

passenger side

not knowing what she'd say

just what I wanted

shooting pool

dive bar

dancing to purple haze

that's the high point

and it all went down from there

i should have kissed her

nicole, that is

dm

10/3/11

Bob Mould mask

that bag over our heads`

listening to sinners and

their repentance's

cheryl came over

and over and over

highway pylon placed

a warning not to come in

II.

humming the melody to sunspots

searching for words that can place that time

or place

failure to bring myself into the future

longing for what might have never been

your drugstore ge portable cassette player

beside me in my truck

driving to greensboro

another distraction

from growing up

dm

v.1

9/5/2011

The sea is deep

trailing foam, a trough cut

by bent, shaped boards

a master of wind

the creak of travel

masted perch, tears in my eye

--dm

v.1

9/10