18/30

pale light, at dawn
waking whenever I can shake off
dreams’ stronghold, from those fields
I was only circling
coming in from those
dark fields of rust and reed
the deep industrial waters
I wake before my shame with dream still
all over me
and what the dead said echoing
admonitions like leichen on the soft,
blood-filled side of me
in pale light now because
the wisdom of time comes as a warning
what’s lost is clarion
and ringing in the dark
what’s lost, receding back
as the doves’ moans erode and fade the dark
the pale light is this inspiration now
bitter drops
on the tongue
swallowed and gone
it wasn’t that long, was it?
we were piled in to your
’88 Omega, sinking deep in green New Jersey
lost in a country that gave us our names
copy of Kerouac, pack of Marlboro
trash bag full of dirt weed
and a hole in the left foot
of my black Vans
mighty Father Sun
up there in my 18th sky
days slapping like cards on a table
from the lake out to its furthest point
the water body-temperature warm
and stained red with cedar
felt like our last summer (it was)
driving back to PA, the moon
fell-down, scooping out and scything
the sky North, back across the borderline
leaving the girls to their abusive fathers
home, night, hometown, 1993,
radio switched off, pulling in, sneaking past
sleeping neglectful mothers
clasping a heavy lid of dark over
come Fall, come failed love and college
marriage or no marriage, neglected kids
of our own
bands and Art and writing and battling, I do
the pale light, these pains, shaking off
what could’ve been and what definitely was
unmitigated glory, all ours, letting
the day take me again, from that painless state
that
deep veldt of innocence a field
I only circle in dream,
when our skin was tight and browned
and we had no fear.

2031, JIM TRAINER’S SIXTH FULL-LENGTH COLLECTION OF POETRY, IS AVAILABLE NOW THROUGH YELLOW LARK PRESS.