______________________________________________________________
some poems by michael mcneilly (mcn):
water wings
But in the end we drown;
we breathe unknowing until breath
requires more than thought
can animate, and we draw one
then not the next;
as we carry within us the sea
of which our final breath is made
flesh, our own blood or what
would have been our blood
had there been time,
or a beach for the waters
of our heart to wash upon.
It is our own blood in which
we drown, as the voices
we have tried so to
ignore at last come
crashing in, wake us
from our sleep of life.
And the heart that uttered
blood for us day by day,
kept our secret sea held to
its shores, kept the raging
river of our blood
within its banks
is startled
into silence,
struck dumb by other
voices that must pull
us down, or up,
or call us home.
mcn
--
value
not the
summer boardwalk
forest of
unattainable young
thighs
but the hot night
memory of slipping
in sweat sliding
off you
laughing
the one in the hammock
out the 2nd floor
window naked
her head shaved
laughing up
the 30 thousand
dollar sport
utility vehicles
nothing
in comparison
the cruises
the single malts
the thousand dollar
suits the gold rolex
nothing
that one touch
of her lips
that was all there
was recorded here
forever
the small hand
tugging my beard
back down
your voice in
morning darkness
no celluloid princess
no walking barbie
no inflated temple
love goddess no
vestal version
the one with
the slender fingers
that wrapped me
in breath-faint
touch
the streetlamp
light sliced apart
by half-open blinds
spread on the
bread of you
the best things
are free
whether you can
get them
or not
McNeilley
I have to go out today
it's been 3 days
since I opened my front door
and I have to pay the rent
and I'm out of coffee
but if this wasn't my
last pack of cigarettes
I might put it off again
it's not raining
but the sun is pretending
it's spring
it's what some would call
a beautiful day out there
with my luck I'll run into
conversations about that
I don't mind the world so much
it's people I don't like
their false smiles, phony
gladhandling bullshit
that 90s way
everyone looks down on
everyone else
still if I don't move the truck
they'll think I abandoned it
and come knock on the damn
door again, so either way
I have to go out today
the pack is getting thinner
the coffee thicker
but I sit by the computer
wondering if you will write back
from wherever you are now
problems you won't
talk about between
the lines of the rare
message from you
I know we don't talk much
these days, we always kept
our problems to ourselves
but still one of the better things
to me about the world
is that it has
you in it
as we write to each other
mostly when things seem ok
it's been a while now since
there has been much
communication we
have our own internal
clocks for this
when things are not ok
which is lately not that seldom
it comes through between
the lines all the same
I never understood this
but it's as obvious as
that bright damned sunlight
I have to go out today
taking you with me in
my head, more so than usual
if for no specific reason,
without thinking much,
without worrying about you
as this would only piss you off
smile into their
vapid faces, cringe at the
price of another carton,
fine day, yes, fine day
did you see those cherry
blossoms, not much wind
but colder than it looks
McNeilley
to see without light
when I wake up too early
as I do so often lately
and lie looking at the ceiling
I think of you for no reason
as when I fall asleep not at
some set time but when I am
too tired to stay awake you
always come to mind and I
have come to accept this
though at times I still wonder
what I could have done or
said but I can think of
nothing still too often after
too much to drink or simply
over a cup of coffee there
you are again a thought with
no content just a presence
some remembered feeling
of rightnesss that had
to have been my mistake
that should vanish as you
have but will not here at
bedtime and there in the
glowing morning dark with
nothing in between
McNeilley
First Church of Jesus of the Dead Safeway
We're so glad you've decided to attend our services.
We like to keep them short, so we can get
right to the Cinnabons.
We chose this old Safeway as a form
of recycling. They're always abandoning them
for something newer and more plastic.
This old brick building is a nice home for Jesus,
warm and dry and spacious. And the rent is cheap.
We don't have sermons, we just read a bit
from our bible, which has nothing in it but the
words of Jesus. So we won't have a lot of
discussions about who to hate, going to hell,
smiting the enemies, stuff like that.
We'll just talk a little about what he said,
see if we can figure out what he meant,
and try to live up to it.
Jesus never said he was perfect, and
neither are we. He had a lot of good ideas.
That's all this place is about. That
and the opportunity for communion.
And some singing, we do believe in singing.
Feel free to bring instruments,
feel free to dance.
For communion today we will have
Cinnabons and lattes. This is one way we
spend your contributions. The rest go into
the food bank and the homeless shelter.
You may wish to contribute or take from the
free boxes in the back room.
The clothing is not fancy, but it's clean.
There are cots in the back if you need
a place to sleep, but we do ask you to
help clean up. But I think we should
all pitch in.
If Jesus were here, God knows he would.
McNeilley
the you the water remembers
-----------------------------------
we took the bumper jack with us into the lake
to anchor our swimsuits
and swam skin to skin
until the day reddened past noon
and when I pretended I couldn't find
our underwater locker
you stood and walked right up onto the beach
less red than I
the water closed behind you like
the fog that rolls in over Alcatraz
and my pride cost me
a bumper jack and some swimsuits that day
but I walked out too
tried to shrug off the water and the sun
with an assurance akin to your own
and we dressed in the sand
it's the one thing I remember best about you
20 years since
and I haven't a single picture except
this one to recall
the you the sun bathed in splendor
the you the water
remembers
.mcn.
What Light
__________________________________
My heart climbed
the wall of her
apartment building,
finding good footholds
among heavy old vines,
all the way to the balcony,
where its hand became caught
in the wrought iron railing;
and as the fire department
came to rescue my heart
again I saw her
watching there,
her face in the window
like the moon among
nasturtiums,
nodding her head like
a plastic dog in the
back window of
an old Ford,
the kind whose
eyes light up
when you hit
the brake,
her blonde hair
blowing like
candy wrappers
in the wind.
.mcn.
Postmortem
.........................
Cold, not stiff,
it lies on marble slab,
eyes open to the ceiling,
as though waiting
for the next movie.
Sorry,
not a double feature;
separate admission required;
sold out.
Knife slips in,
slides from sternum
to the
pubis bone:
Good God,
green butterflies,
music and
circling golden lights;
bells and a breeze,
shooting stars,
meteoric,
no wonder it died:
it just filled up
too full inside.
Contents released
fly through
an open window
like winged
valentines.
.mcn
when dogs fly
---------------------------------------
the first time
I tasted the stuff
I was at a girlfriend's house
I was 15
her parents weren't home
they had lots
of money
we lived in a dry county
north of dallas
but her dad worked in big d
and brought home what
ever he wanted to
they had a full bar
off the kitchen
we made martinis
or she did I watched
she made them for her dad
they tasted weird at first
but they got better
she had two afghans
big damn longhaired
long-eared dogs
they use them to hunt
lions in africa she said
they were a gift from
her uncle who was
lloyd bridges' cousin
I think that was it
they had a 6 ft. fence
and those dogs could fly
right over the damn thing
anytime they wanted to
we took a pitcher of martinis
shaken over ice and strained
out to the pool
and went swimming
and she'd call the dogs
and they'd come running
take off on one side of the pool
and jump all the way across
to the other
sometimes they wouldn't make it
and we'd laugh at them
as they scrambled out
and they'd tear back to the end
of the yard and take
another run at it
floating on our backs
looking up at dogs
flying over us
big blond dogs with ears
like wings
drinking martinis
and laughing at the moon
I remember thinking
this drinking is
pretty good
pretty damn
good
mcn
As you eat white asparagus with mayonnaise
_____________________________________________
As you eat white asparagus with mayonnaise:
single black olive, on the end of my finger,
and is this montrachet, or graves, or semillon?
The fragrant bright pink salmon waits, poached with dill sauce, as
you eat white asparagus with mayonnaise.
Your lips, parted in the beginning of a smile:
and as you gesture with the chilled and supple staff,
a brilliant white on white and cometary flair,
a blonde wave curls across your forehead. A glint of
gold chases the peripheral flash of your hand,
as you eat white asparagus with mayonnaise.
I break a roll, my eyes upon the slender stalk,
hand halfway to my mouth, overcome against my
will, all thoughts of this dinner past my reckoning,
as you eat white asparagus with mayonnaise.
.mcn.
keep writing
-------------------------------------
and at the end
of the letter
keep writing
she tells me
in lieu of
goodbye
as if I
could stop or
something maybe
she just means
keep writing
her
the poetry
will keep coming
no matter what
I do and some
people will hate it
and that makes
no difference
maybe they hate
shit too but
they keep
shitting
what it's good for
makes no difference
you just keep
doing it
it's like the
cheapest therapy
like a sunny day
in December
like free booze
as if you wouldn't
drink it
I write it down
and some people
read it
and if there was
no one to read it
I would keep
writing
like the tree
that falls
in the forest
and nobody's there
to hear it
as if the tree
gives a shit
it's like there's
this hole
in my head
where the craziness
drains
out
I don't need
a doctor
to lance it first
I don't need
a prescription
or even a
few bucks
or a bottle
keep writing
har
mcn
(11/5/96)
continuum
------------------------
choices unmade
branch out behind us
as we climb
toward the top
until inevitable
the unexpected
breaking of that last
slender branch
.mcn.
Syncretic Intussuption
A hand against a slender arch of back
a curve undescribed
its radius of a calculus as eventful
in theory as in application
still despite our finest efforts
we remain unconvinced
of our beauty
our strength
so we do what we must
must do what we must
we reach for one another
down distances like interstellar highways
and there in the space between
what is known and
what is thought
hope lies waiting
- Michael McNeilley, Olympia, WA
the gods that live in the trees here
---------------------------------------------------------
speak softly to the birds in the night.
the birds listen, and remember, and repeat
what they are told. they speak the words
of the gods in bird language, in the
mourning calls of doves, the harsh cries
of crows, the chirps and natterings
of small birds the names of which we
do not know. in the night the dogs
take it up, carry the song to the moon,
but in morning the dogs sleep, and the birds
bring up the sun for us, we who wake
wondering of the message, of the clouds
our dreams drag over things that should
by now be simple things, as something
in us knows how little is in fact
unspoken, that it may be only lack
of belief or trust or simply listening
that haunts our failed comprehension,
and why it is alway in morning it comes
to us, whether we hear it or not,
how much there is we do not understand.
Long Division
====================================
I do not know as yet how many
of you there are, though there must be
many of you I have not met, as there
are many of you in me,
and many more without.
Nor do I know how many times
you goes into me, or me
into you, as it must proceed
there are many of me as well.
I do know that not all of us
have met, as I do not expect
all ever will, or even think
it likely we should try. The lines
that run from there to here
between us are much longer than
the lines connecting me to you
and you to me, though some of these
are strong enough to bear the weight
they must. What comes between,
anticipation only serves to justify
in retrospect; there is no scale to measure
what will happen next, or where
each line will lead, or what divides
our fragile we into its dividends,
nor what remainders might obtain
should we reduce to you and me again.
So there can be in this no summing
up, no quantity interpolating
postulates withheld, no way to put
a number to our days, as only time
resolves. I only know the fulcrum
approximates equality as best it can,
though we must stand like butchers in
our stained white coats, rounding up
and down the costs and weights, uncertain
furtive thumbs pressed to the scales of fate.
mcn
The night was dark
-------------------------------------
and warm, and the ape heard
rustlings in the grass, though
there was no wind. And he made
soft sounds to himself, and climbed
the tree, and sat on a lower branch,
sniffing the air. But the clouds
moved to the east, and the sky
brightened, and as the full moon
peeked through he raised his head,
and climbed higher, at first
watching for movement in tall
reeds, but seeing nothing, smelling
nothing, with nothing to escape;
still he climbed, branch by branch,
toward the light: the light that
cast stark shadows on his fur,
that lined the shape of leaves
upon his arms. Climbed until
the branches thinned, and he
could climb no higher, and moving
one paw above him, watched it
traced against the moon, and reached,
reached as high as he could reach, as if
to touch the perfect light
set into the blackness of the
summer sky. Reached and stretched
and wished he could extend just
one small bit more, to brush it with
a fingertip, stroke its glowing face.
And there in the branches more
apes appeared, reaching, holding
arms up high, with soft whimperings,
each hoping for arms long enough
to touch the jewel of night.
I think there are more dogs here
--------------------------------------------
than people. as I sit out in the new
mexico night air in a t-shirt and sweat pants,
with a drink and a cigarette, they're
a backdrop like the stars, barking
in the distance at drunks or prowlers
or one another or the moon, the moon which
hangs overhead like a black velvet painting
of a spilled bowl of diamonds. thinking
if I were back in Aberdeen I'd need an
umbrella to do this, if I were in Indianapolis
I'd need a parka, but here it's just
cold, and it's a dry cold, the kind that
won't give you an earache just for spending
a few minutes outside on a night
without wind. and there's an owl
in one of these trees who drowns out
the dogs every few minutes. the owl is
out here every night too, probably
watching for chihuahuas. the guy behind
us has two chihuahuas, I think the
little male is named Taco, or maybe that's
just their plans for him. if it were
daytime he'd wander around the corner
right about now, drop the empty beer
can he'd be carrying and bark at me, pick
his can up and run, but I think even he has
brains enough to know that owls hunt
at night. our tiny lawn is dust, but
for a couple of corners where I planted
tulips, I've been watering there, I think
they'll be coming up soon. tomorrow
will be sunny again, warm enough for
spring, and tulips know. inside a pretty
girl is reading in the bathroom, the loud
exhaust fan straining to pull the smoke
out of the tiny windowless room, so it
won't harm her cats; reading some scary
book with a computer virus in it that
can kill you. I should go to bed but
the stars are brilliant, the night sky clear,
the dogs are winter crickets singing into
the glowing dark, the owl a mystery all
its own, and the light from the streetlamp
frosts the bare treelimbs like an Atlanta
ice storm as the door opens a crack,
the small voice says "don't freeze,"
and I decide not to, knock off the ember,
save the butt for later, roll in.
why I watch you sleep at sunrise
-------------------------------------------
I know a woman whose husband died suddenly,
a match in a gale. she moves through her
empty disordered house in clean pressed
clothes, with the thought of the need
to bathe once more today;
and a man whose wife was lost by slow degrees,
a torture and release that could not bend.
who replaces his furniture with new, draws
his life back from memory, though he would not
have her go, and her thought will never;
and a friend who must pull back her touch
from the one who can no longer find within
the need of this, grasping at sullen air, her
fingertips worn smooth on a seamless wall
of inconceivable indifference.
you turn to me smiling, two cats on your lap,
the briefest greeting, practically unheard, and I
am moved to touch your shoulder just in passing,
to let no smallest opportunity be missed,
knowing nothing lasts.
mcn
cracks in the driveway
-----------------------
he really hates
sleeping alone
but she's sleeping
under grass
on a little
hill
with flowers
he calls up
old girlfriends
with nothing
really
in mind
and the air
conditioner
breaks
and has to be
replaced
annie calls
and she always
liked annie
and the plumbing
in the kitchen
floods the room
with water
which drips down
the steps into
the den
he still wakes
every morning at
3:30 to give
her her
medication
but he can't
so he takes
some
nothing grows up
through the cracks
in the driveway
they must be
new
and mary calls
to see how he's
doing
and the next
morning
he finds the door
to the freezer
open
the big one
in the garage
must have been
a few days
from the smell
and he has to move
her car
out front
to wash out
the freezer
with a hose
then parks her
car again to
the right
where it
goes
like he still
sleeps on the
left side
of the bed
and what to
do with all these
teddy bears
he replaces
the teddy bear
canisters in the
kitchen with
manly chrome
ones
in the afternoon
bells ring
like an alarm
but they are
gone before
he can track them
down
one night
he finds himself
standing
in the kitchen
in his underwear
with a wrench
but there is
nothing to
fix
mcn
Dance Friends Dream
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Eyes closed, breathing slowly in, then out,
concentrating on the point where out becomes in,
I begin to visualize them. They move, or float, in
that odd slow motion found in dreams. They are
wrestling -- no they are dancing -- arms on
one another's shoulders, turning in a circle
counterclockwise across the floor.
It seems they are dressed in silver nylon spandex
leotards, but one is not drawn, or at least I am not
to consider the shape of them as individuals.
A small circle of friends.
Still they shine as they revolve, groupwise, centering
on -- what? Not me, I observe from one side,
from some sort of hiding place, I'm not sure where,
as if between walls, looking out from between dark
blue panels unseen, so that the silver revolving ring
of dancers, lighted from within, turn past me as
within a frame.
I cannot see all of them at once...perhaps all of one
or two, and parts of others. They turn crabwise, like
Escher characters, each walking in a sideways circle
-- a revolution, a rotation of friends. If they don't revolve
around me, do they revolve around something else?
How can they, they have only me in common.
They are friends of mine, but not of one another --
some of them know each other well enough
to hate each other. As my good and true friends,
somehow they must.
Lights flash as they turn faster. They seem to be
coming closer. Will they see me? Can I let them
know that I am here? Can I stand up, slide between
the panels, join the dance? Where should I begin?
If I am dreaming, I imagine then I'll have to wake up
soon -- if so I hope not to remember any of this
unless I can remember it all.
Will they know...will they ask? Sometimes it seems
they can tell. What will I tell them? I dreamed of you.
mcn
(not at all sure what the hell I'm doing this morning.)
elegance
---------------------------------------------
is not always
the fine sauce
so many seem to think
but more like a roux,
its base a long-simmered stock,
warmed slowly until
the flour is just brown,
never harmed by the addition
of a bit more wine:
thickened by butter,
time and patience, complex,
yet simple enough to
dip a biscuit in.
mcn
the opposite of winterizing
--------------------------------------
the phone rings
and I tumble out of sleep
fall halfway out of bed
to answer it
hello?
is this wym's radiator
repair?
what?
wym's radiator repair?
is this wym's radiator repair?
no, you have the wrong
number
oh
and a late spring breeze
billows the curtains
which are also filled with light
I have slept too long again
and I knew it wasn't you
but I do feel some
connection this morning
something like a kite string
so many miles long
one of us is holding
so that the other will not
fly away
though I do not know
which is which
and I imagine a tail
of colorful old neckties
the way the string curves into the sky
and seems to disappear
but holds the kite
which without the string
cannot fly
and I close my eyes and
tug on it
as the phone rings
hello?
is this wym's radiator
repair?
no.
just me again.
dang it!
mcn
Dance of the moon and sun
------------------------------------------------------------
There are pieces of you all around me,
they arrange the darkness and the light.
Morning sun filters in through the memory
of your hair. I read poetry before dawn
by the light of your smile; it is better for this
than as an umbrella, as it lets in words
more readily than it keeps out rain. When
I run the water, the bathtub asks about you,
and the morning coffee pot speaks in your
voice at times, though it knows you never
drink such stuff. Some nights your fingertips
against the windowpane are all that hold
the dark at bay; as your love is in every
corner, telling me nothing bad can get in;
as when I close my eyes at night, I look
into yours. Your touch surrounds me as
I wake on the sofa, the tv still on. I would
have frozen by now without you, would have
stopped breathing or gone blind. And this
is your heartbeat in my chest; I know the
rhythm: two beats together, then not quite
too long a pause and it repeats, moving
the blood through me, just as your breath
on my eyelids begins and ends each day.
And when you come to me in the night
you are whole again, and all is as it
should be, as if you'd never left.
mcn
The yellow-bellied sea snake
The yellow-bellied sea snake
must shed its skin to grow, but in
the logic of the sea it finds no rock or stick
or truth on which to rub,
and so it ties itself in knots, pulls itself
on through, and sheds its skin against
its skin, passing through transition
in a singular, Gordian display.
As, like the yellow-bellied sea snake,
you attempt to tie yourself in knots,
your breasts brush soft across me,
rolling like the sea.
Though grown, we each have growing left,
big as we may be, but rubbing one another
we stretch our length more freely, more decisively
than those who take this passage on their own.
At last our lost skins sink together, thinly gliding
ghostlike through depths of water bending, contorting
our departed shapes, while burnished, gleaming,
pink and healing, up we rise.
Michael McNeilley
the good ones are
already taken
the jobs the women the lives
I should know this
having had some of the best
of all of these
having fucked them all off
running after more or better
of course taken is one thing
kept is another
the good ones move on
it's like trying to keep
a rainbow
the sun goes down
McNeilley
my fault
not in pursuing you
though that I would not
is no reflection.
not that there was more
to be said, though there is
always more.
unless too much
has been said
(too soon for that.
but that I realize
though I could go on
describing your hair
for weeks, and that I will
if only for myself,
as I could go on
with your lips
and that the voice
on the phone
I thought was you
was not and that I do
not know the color
of your eyes though
it was dark (as it was
always dark).
and it is no excuse
there was not time
though there is not.
McNeilley
______________________________________________________________