THE OLD BEAR

THIN PLACES

Collected Poems: 1974-2019

THE OLD BEAR

THE OLD BEAR'S PENIS

The old bear
can no longer remember being a cub
but his tongue, cleaning his fur,
awakens the taste of uterine jelly ---
slippery but spark-filled ---
electric memories of the womb-cave.

Now, even the gentle woof of his mother
nudging him toward her rubbery teats,
is indistinguishable from the wind
as it roots around the stumps of old rampikes.

He remembers every womb in his sky.

Each is his axis.

Each is his zenith.

Each is his polar star.

He stops, squints back between his hairy legs,
to where his dick and balls dangle, warm and meaty.
“Still there,” he thinks. Reassured. “Still Here.”

His old bear penis has led him where his old bear brain
would never go.

His old bear penis is soft iron
and all that he ever wanted in his life
was magnetic.

Sometimes it is all too much.

He flops on his back in the clover field,
his head filled with pollen and conversations,
his dick sticking straight up ---
but with no way ever in his life
of knowing if his compass is truly pointing true north.

IN SUNSHINE AND IN SHADOW



The old bear never liked trees ---
they are overreaching beings with
delusions of grandeur
too eager to escape the earth that birthed them and fed them.
Oh, he hunted and hid in the world of trees
but it was, he thought, a diluted world:
less magical than the careless ownership of rivers
less forever than rocks born of rivers solidified by sun,
sucking from the soil but never caring to reach for the stars,
ugly but enduring, seeing nothing but blind to time.
The old bear knew that one day he would become rock
but for now he sniffed the green leaves perfuming the spring air.
He moved slowly, but with his own distinct purpose.

into the forest of all that rises high but passes quickly.

THE DRINKING GOURD

The old bear squinted at the Drinking Gourd,
his one good eye tracking the handle
like rabbit prints in the snow ---
hunting the polar star with a hunger less of belly
and more of what still snapped and sizzled
between his battered, chewed-up ears.

He clacked his chops in the air, as if his broken fangs
might sink into something familiar;
as if his tired jaws could once again
catch his own fleeting history, leaving his tongue,
scrapped and worn by hooves and scales and horns,
to savor that which can only be tasted once
but never forgotten.

As he plodded northward, still sniffing toward the sky,
clouds began to clot his ears
and snow, like white bees, began to sting his eyes.

He thought, of course, of honey.

It would be clear ---
the color of icy water running over
black stones and beneath spring skies.

He shook his large, stubborn head and shuffled on.
He no longer looked up
but now,
as he breathed hard through his open mouth,
he knew where he was going ---

and even the darkness seemed easy and sweet.

FOUR LETTER WORD

It is winter
but the old bear can't sleep
can't sleep
can't sleep.

His den: more tomb than womb.
His fur:
too tight across his lungs.

Outside: the snow falls
falls
falls
like memories of past loves ---
each flake: its own DNA ---
each flake: just the same.

He is awake because of
tiny blue veins that pop in her
temples when she laughs ---
tiny blue veins that
sister her wrists when she
flexes her hands.

Her low voice in the cold air
teases him erect,
scolds the child in him,
laughs beyond his earshot ---
makes him jealous
of her many secrets.

He tries to warm himself
with the shadow feel of her body
small against his large clumsy heart ---
the press of
little-planet-breasts --
the dip in her lower back ---
the roadmap of her hips.

She is, to him, a perfume
like no field of clover,
like no nectar that could
ever be honey ---
like no wind driven by
sun or rain.

And her taste.
Her taste.
Her taste is a promise
on the deepest day of winter ---
warm on her neck
warm on her thighs
warm on his tongue.

He knows he will stay awake
awake
awake
even though he is old ---
even though the snow
has begun to fall.

He rolls on his side --
sore in his eyes ---
his brain: half alert, half numb,
and
and
and knows that
she
is spring sun
and he winter moon.

And
and
and knows that
she
does not even know
he is awake

And
and
and knows that
she
will never know
why he can never again sleep.

Never.

Never sleep.

Ever again.

SUN AND MOON

The old bear squints up at the noon sky.

Low in his throat he growls a hatred for the sun,
then lowers his head to look for shade of tall, thick trees
and the equality of darkness.

Goliath pines defy the light,
birthing black puddles at their roots
where the moon takes hold
and rises from the ground up.

When he was young the sun warmed his ego
but sometime,
somewhere,
he fell in love with her
and there came an eclipse
in the solar orbit of his skull.
Sometime,
somewhere,
some how,
the old bear's brain
became lunar.

The sun is not an exhibitionist
but it exhibits
in its glare,
every difference there is on earth,
no matter how small,
no matter how unimportant,
no matter how sacred.

The sun is not a voyeur,
but it makes a peepshow out of life
and burns away
the sudden magic
that bursts between only two people.

The sun does not judge
but it mades judgment possible,
irresistible,
inevitable.

When he fell in love with her,
all that was diverse
became a warm, singular blur ---
a smudged, impressionist painting.
In the light,
single things tried to define themselves ---
but under the moon,
all individual thoughts, words, senses,
became one and only one,
beyond any need to explain.

He did not care that the light
enabled others to see what he saw ---
but he did know the thrill of secret love
when clouds covered the moon and all things
became truly one.

One night,
the clouds passed through the sky
and through his head.

He knew then that his moon
reflected the sun at which he growled
and through the dark,
through his helpless eyes,
into his helpless brain,
through his aching lungs and beyond his blood ---

the light –-

came like visible heartbeats –-

made possible only by all that is dark

and all that is her.

STILL MIDNIGHT. STILL HER.

Midnight on the edge of the earth,
beach sand in the jaws of a black wind.

The Old Bear: deaf from grains in his tattered ears.

Snout: stuffed with dunes.

Blind.

Sight burned away by a fire he cannot see.

The Old Bear closes his eyes and lumbers on.
Paw after paw after paw after paw.

In the darkness eyes do not matter.
He sees inside his own head.
His old bear brain startles him ---
full of color and light and motion ---
it opens up like the sun
springing on the ocean horizon,
hungry like a hunter
or a lover.

“Oh yes,” he thinks to himself:
“In the dark there is a world beyond the dark
and it has nothing to do with dawn.”

He lumbers on.

Gone is water.
Gone is earth.

He steps blindly,
contentedly,
toward the moment when all creation ends,

and begins,

and recreates itself.

OCEAN MIDNIGHT

The old bear reached the edge of earth
blind from the darkness of his deepest night.

Behind him:
his fields of clover
and the bees that tickled his ears.

He tried to forget.

Behind him:
ragged stands of rotting trees
thick with the strangle of red brush
where he killed and ate and drank,
pissed and shat and fucked.

He tried to forget.

Behind him:
the possibilities of her,
bringing blood to his bones,
turning his smallest thought inside out,
keeping him awake, winter after winter.

He tried to forget,
so he walked to the edge of earth.

In the dark he could smell the foam of endless waves,
the funk of fish,
the iron of seaweed flowers.

In the dark he could hear the crash of lives against rocks
driven by sun,
pulled by moon,
there for only a roaring second,
there from some other edge of earth.

In the night he could not see what his brain knew to be there.

He knew that water deepened the deepest night
and with one step he might find the forever of it.

But darkness equalizes all shapes.
Darkness equalizes ocean and earth.
Darkness equalizes love.
Darkness equalizes all that is possible.

He tried to forget.

He could not forget.

No matter how far he walked,

no matter how long he swam,

he could never see to find the forever of
her.

NOT BEING ABLE TO FORGET

A dark night.

Moon-forgotten.

The old bear beared his way through the
poplars and pines and tamaracks.

The claustrophobia of memories
crushed his lungs
then opened them like milkweed pods ---

shut his heart with a clap
then opened it like ice breaking from the river
in a spring he’d never live to see.

THREE IN THE MORNING

Something rose in the old bear's brain like the morning sun
although it was the deep woods of night
when he opened his swollen eyes.

He squinted at the full moon as if it were a clock
even though he could tell no time
except the fall of snow or the rise of tulips.

Hours no longer meant anything to him.
Nor days. Months. Years.
He measured his passage by the growing stiffness in every joint,
the metal buzzing in his ears,
the shooting flames of pain when he pissed.

He used to think that those were the reasons he awoke,
suddenly in the deep woods of night ---
half confused,
half expecting to find himself in a new, young, wild world.

Then one night he suddenly knew.

It was her.

Her scent was sweet on the light-beams of moon.
She moved in his memory like swaying shadows of trees.
She was his blood in the deep woods
and there was no room for sleep.

He knew.

And he knew it was not sleep that he needed.

THE OLD BEAR IN SPRING

The old bear stumbles to his knees,
crashes onto his left side,
curls his aching limbs inward until they scream.



Deep in his dark den he feels the big sleep
wriggling into muscles like snakes
scavenging like wolves or vultures.



Only dimly does he care
how long this sleep will be.
His fur is matted with sticks and leaves,
bristled with seeds, pods, and thorns.
He is a hairy botanical blanket of burs ---
a prickled carpet of hooks and teeth and spines.



The snakes wriggle.



The scavengers feed.



The old bear sleeps.



The seasons change as quickly
and as simply
as that.



Deep in his dark den
the sun buried even deeper in his chest
slowly melts the frost above him.



Small oceans shape themselves on
the continent of his slowly rising, slowly falling back.



Within the burs, seed-star nebulas explode their germs,
spiderish roots trail the tangles of hair
and tickle the dry skin of the old bear,
seeking places to drink and set themselves.



In the long morning,
the old bear shambles into the mighty sun,
shaking his head
as if surprised to remember himself
after yet one more winter.



His pelt is in full bloom:
green shoots spring from his hungry stomach,
his spine is alive with sprouts and blossoms of
yellow and red and white and violet.



He sees none of that.
He stands in the open forest thinking of food.
Thinking of which foot to use first.



He is a bouquet in full bloom –

alive once more in a garden of certain death.

ARTWORK

It was then

that the old bear

knew his entire world

was an unfixed sandpainting.

Colorful silica,

pigments,

crystals,

mineral earth

arranged in countless details

by happenstance

or creative hands

or a bored mind.

When the strong wind came

he watched as the sun

and moon

and stars

were swept away

in particle clouds

taking with them the seas

and the trees.

The last thing to go

was the old bear himself:

his fur, his sex, his skin, his senses.

In the moment before

the wind scattered his eyes

he saw himself whirling about his world

bits and pieces

this and that

uncountable ---

an old painting

without a new painter.

THREE SEASONS

1.

On his birthday
the old bear tried to sleep.
It was time.
The leaves had fallen,
the snows had come,
and his belly was dimpled with berries.
And yet, he couldn’t sleep.
Mumbling about he crashed through the red brush
clacking his yellow teeth
and banging his big head against the trunks of trees.
At the river’s bank he slipped,
the fat pads of his paws flailing in mid-air,
his hairy ass aimed at the heavens
then the ground
then the heavens
repeating himself
until he smashed through the ice:
a rolling boulder festooned by a geyser of freezing water.
Unhurt but frightened and very ashamed
the old bear pushed his snout toward the moon
and the sound of his roar
was loud enough to drown the sound of his roar.

2.

The old bear sleeps again
his hard-on gone soft
during aftertaste of huckleberries
and the rainbow trout of warm summer rivers.
His often angry dick droops,
nodding its velvet head like an agreeable fool.
His body’s breath pillows the den:
a warm, wet fog
smelling of fur and bowel and teeth.
The rabbits know that all is calm
their long feet crisscrossing the snow
leaving runic prints above the bear’s hummocked back.
There is peaceful amnesia in the
frozen memory of the air above.
While below, the bear sleeps on...
a seasonless dream in a winter embryo of spring rage.

3.

The old bear has been falling through space,
breaking all barriers of time and lust.
But now, through the clouds,
he has a nose-full of home...
the cunt of an old familiar sow...
the nostril dance of sweet clover
ripe in his favorite field.
Should he die from his fall...
should the earth greet his body
with a hard heart and a blind eye,
he would burst like a million surprised atoms –-
each one falling again through space
warm in the endless vaginal squeeze of forever –--
slightly scented with clover...
endlessly content.

CHRISTMAS MOON



The old bear
stands still beneath the full Christmas moon ---
too cold from too many years of clear winter skies to move.



He imagines the moonlight
to be her summer breath,
her midnight breath,
her breath in a once-upon bed,
playing warm across his neck,
teasing his ears,
heating him to the flash point.



But he knows that is not true.



He knows that this
is only one of many simple, complex,
deliciously dangerous dreams
that waken from loving her.



The night beams are so bright
that he can see the end of his world
like a soft blurred edge beyond the furthest stand of pines.



And yet, he cannot tell, no matter how clear his eyes,
whether to find her to the south of the moon,
the north of the moon,
inside or outside the moon.



He fills his lungs and, for a second,
they burn from the drink of sky-borne fire.
Then all within him is calm
as if she has breathed into him
with a kiss just before sleep.



He knows that can't be true –-
but alone in the night
beneath another clear winter sky,
he takes his first next step
toward the full Christmas moon.



























MAGIC



The old bear believes in magic
but he is no wizard.



One-by-one those few he loves
died on distant planets,
were drunk back into roots of trees,
became air: breathed once then gone.



He believes if he believes
he can make Earth turn more slowly,
make our sun rise later in the day,
make our tides disobey the moon.



Even though he can't
and even though they don't
he keeps chanting spells in his head,
casts his ju-ju dust,
shakes the bones of chickens,
dances at midnight when winter
turns to spring.












She is all he now has left to lose.
But deep among the night
he knows that she is not
really his at all.



Deep among the silence
he knows that he is simply
an old lost bear
and no wizard lives within.



But still he believes.



He believes because he hungers.



He believes because he thirsts.



He believes because she
warms him from the cold.



Be believes because once,
years ago,
he kissed her wrist,
and a single pulse of her heart
remains forever on his lips.












SAYING A GOODBYE

The old bear

came to his river

one last time.

His eyes: sockets of ice.

His joints: fused pain.

His heart: night seeking light.

The old bear

came to his river

one last time.

The water: gone.

The water: petrified rocks.

The grasses: dried to sand.

His heart: night seeking light.

The old bear

came to his river

one last time.

The stars above it: gone.

The stars: sharp stones aimed at his heart.

His heart: night seeking light.

The sun: a socket of ice.

The old bear

came to his river

one last time.

His heart: watching deep in the night.

His heart: night seeking light.

Deep in the night:

there was no moon.

Above his river:

there was no light.

WHAT THE OLD BEAR MAY OR MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT HER.



He knows,
of course,
who she says she is ---
but thinks to himself
that her true name
may be solar-flared by the light
of her beautiful face.
Safe-housed by her
secret-agent brain.
Drummed deeper than any known rhythm
by her unpredictable heart.
Lost to any mortal man in the
maze of puzzles between her legs.



Sometimes,
he wants to know her
true name
so much that he bursts into flames:
burning the frozen forests,
melting polar ice caps,
boiling arctic seas.



Sometimes,
he thinks if he learns her
true name
the world will instantly end.



Sometimes,
he knows
that if he knew ---
the mystery of her
would clear only for that
split flash in time
before she,
once again,
changed her true name.

THE METEOR

He saw it coming for many years

as fast as light but slower than time ---

at first a sly wink in the dark belly of sky,

then bold, teasing, bright with danger.

When it buried itself into earth

the old bear rose on his hind legs

facing the rise of the newest sun,

his eyes: clear of all clouds,

his ears: open to every sound ever made.

Already the trees, naked of leaves,

were in full, fiery bloom;

eagles rocketed toward him in a

glory of solstice explosions;

swarms of honey bees, ignited, flaming atoms,

set his fur on fire as the solar wind

embraced him –

blasted him –

sent him hurling toward space:

a blazing bear planet.

He thought nothing.

He thought all.

For what whatever it's worth

he was air,

he was light,

he was forever in orbit.

FALLING AND FLYING



Bears can not fly.



Bears only fall through space.



And yet, here he is:
the old bear in mid-air,
completely helpless,
jetting on the thermals,
vapor-trail dreams streaming behind him,
betraying his sky-path
like an accidental comet.



He does not understand
any place in time
without trees,
without bees,
without rocks beneath him
cutting his feet,
reminding him he is still alive.



At 500 miles per thought,
his brain is a wind tunnel
in which only she remains
a constant heartbeat,
or the last half of a song,
or sun-dance in the corner of his
watery eyes.



She is like that.
Like air.
Like breath ballooning his lungs.
Like breath that
leaves his blood always wanting more,
wanting more,
wanting more,
until he crashes forever
without ever
hitting the ground.



Bears can not fly.



Bears only fall through space.



And yet, here he is—
the old bear:
airborne,
swooping,
soaring,
floating,
rocketing forward like a lost hurricane.



He turns his head skyward,
ever higher,
every faster,
helpless in flight without her.
No matter how fast he flies
he feels her
just behind the nearest cloud,
hiding in the blue,
mirrored in aluminum moon,
soothing his burning skin with sky,
coloring shallow atmosphere
with her scent of deep earth.



He thinks to himself:
“That is just enough.”



And on he flies.



Even though old bears
can't fly.




























HER LIGHT



She is like fireflies
in the dark summer night
of the old bear's brain:
dozens of sparks and storms,
electric atoms,
flashes of then, now, and beyond.



He sees her pulsing
at every point of his compass:
tiny stars made bright
by the darkness that
keeps them each apart.



He wants to chase them all:
each light that is her ---
wants to catch them with his eyes,
wants to taste their metal, salty bite,
wants to feel them pierce him
like small vibrant stones
shot from space directly at his heart.


















The truth is:
he wants them all ---
even though he knows that to catch one
is to lose the rest
and that none
really belong to him at all.



And so they leap and snap like fireflies.
That is her: everywhere in his world
but never really his.



Sometimes,
just as he thinks he can't go on,
one light dances brighter,
orbits near his eyes,
shocks him awake with its life.



It seems so close,
so very close.



“Mine,”



he thinks to himself.



“Finally mine.”

WHITE NOISE

The old bear is just white noise,
and these are just earth dreams
where stones are simply water that
stopped moving at exactly the place and time
that creation and destruction taste the same.

I’ve grown fat but know that you
still remain as thin as a sliver of wood
stuck deep in my finger or my heart.

It’s all been good
and even when it has not been good
it has still been good.

BETRAYAL

The old bear lost his voice

betrayed by a winter storm

disguised as a summer breeze.

It shook him by surprise,

raged a dozen deaths within,

hammered away at all he could not live without.

When the ice melted,

when he felt his own warm breath

and knew he was not dead,

he called her name

but no sound came.

Thieves on a bitter wind

robbed him of his every word.

He could see her

happy without him

on the very edge of his eyes,

surrounded by many who

whispered their love,

shouted their love,

wrote their love,

swore that their love

was proven in their songs,

or their cocks,

or the magic promises they made.

The old bear lost his voice

betrayed by a winter storm

disguised as a summer breeze.

She was all that he couldn't let go

even if he should.

Now, she'd not hear him go,

or even know that he was once there.

The quiet behind the storm

began to swallow him whole.

But then,

on the very edge of his eyes,

he saw that she saw him.

He had done nothing but stay.

But he knew she knew.

Had done nothing but refuse to let her go.

But he knew she knew.

Maybe,

just maybe,

that was enough.

The old bear watched her,

voiceless, helpless,

unable to say the words that left unsaid

might explode him into endless pieces.

Sometimes love is its own answer

to the worst of storms.

Sometimes love needs no name.

Sometimes love grows in silence.

TREES

The old bear never liked trees:

they were overreaching beings with delusions of grandeur,

too eager to escape the earth that birthed them and fed them.

Oh, he hunted and hid in the world of trees

but it was, he thought, a diluted world ---

less magical than careless ownership of water,

less forever than rocks - born of rivers, solidified by sun -

sucking from soil but not caring to reach for stars;

ugly but enduring - seeing nothing but blind to time.

The old bear knew that one day he would become rock

but for now, he sniffed the green leaves perfuming the spring air.

He moved slowly, but with his own distinct purpose

into the forest of all that rises high but quickly passes.

The old bear dying in the woods

The old bear stumbled up the icy hill toward snow-burdened pines ---

the beating in his chest ragged as cockleburs and thistles ---

frozen clouds blooming at random from his lungs.

He knew he’d never reach the hilltop

and he sat beneath the hollow winter bee tree,

the scent of honey now part of a long gone season,

his eyes bleared by clouds.

He searched for even a secret of sun,

not expecting,

not disappointed.

The wind scattered his thoughts and he watched them go.

As his breath joined them in a long slow flight

he felt the music in his chest

and the rhythm was just

Perfect.

MORNING

The old bear had fought and fucked all night.
Young bruins. Young Sows.
Middle-aged bruins. Young sows.

His teeth were bloody from the long biting dark.
His feet hurt. His dick hurt.
He was knackered from ticks and burs and thorns.
His eyes strained to see the barest crack of light
as he pushed eastward through the woods and weeds.

He smelled like death.

He could taste the end of his world.

He lumbered over the bloating bodies of those he had killed,
sniffed back once toward the wombs he had filled with small bears,
then stepped gently into a good morning.