Having beaten eggs into whipped

Having beaten eggs into whipped
and heavy cream into peaks
and molded the crust to a tin, and cut
glistening, arced, fat chunks
of sliced peach, we
prepare for pie. Making pie
is the sweetest of all self-deceits
in that in all of baked goods, bads
peek out: boo! Calories! Processed sugars,
sex with professors, heavy syrups, indulgences,
Martin Luther nailing a paper, heaving
with grievances, to a heavy
oak door and on it: a
recipe. Protestant Peach Pie. Well, Marty,
spare me your inordinate affections, your ex-nuns,
your seven rules for better living, your vitriol and
vim, but I do believe I will have a big piece
of That

pie,

when it is good,

Is an unquestionable good.

others is others

"others" is a box

that all of us fit.

we'd best

get

used

get

used

to

it

I'm nice like a knife. To the point

I'm nice like a knife. To the point
it leaves a cut in my own hand.
mishandled, easily and deft
away from the thumb, always
but
oops - all thumbs

all thumbsed up - what
a fine, keen, cutting scene
this leaves
all over
the cutting room
floor

nice.

damn!

I
left
my orange
at work! I
guess now I'll
have to take one
of these pears. and
I don't think they're
ready. How can you tell,
if a pear is ready? does
it have to give, gently?
and the risk involved! a
squeeze, once given
gently - can never
be taken back.

and should it go...?

love deforms the heart to fit its object
deforms; no, perfects
through union, fit to fit.

A new and altered shape, and one
never to be quite lost, an impression
whose bruise goes so much deeper
than skin

the face of she you love, there
the light comes flying off her skin
absorbed by her, with joy it flings
itself away to spread her out
across the universe,
at constant speed

to anyone with eyes to see
the light deforms to carry her -
her form to every eye it can.
It has taken her on
and taken her in
the light will never be the same

the love you put out, took her form
came back to you, it's useless now
for any other purpose but
to see her smile,
cry for joy
that you can be her cause
of joy

that you can be a gift to her,
who is a gift to you
as if from god.

and love,
love deforms the heart
to fit its object
love perfects the heart
for only one
and loves makes love
so useless now,
for any other purpose
but one.

and seeing her
and holding her
and being hers
to hold.
is enough

and should it go...?
and should she go
and should love go,
should one's one love
go,

the reverse-impression made
upon your heart, by her hard face
in the last time that you see the light
that flings itself from her to you,
the print that makes will never fade
and it's become quite useless now,
the heart deforms its object, love
- quite uselessly, remains.

Proves true

decay is systematic

No seriously
an accident, you think?
or malevolent design
it's how we were meant to fall apart,
and how we were meant to be perfect
but only in the past - when
we couldn't quite see it
then

This is to get us ready for heaven.
this loose skin, mottled and blotched
this long-wisped fuzz of what hair we have left
the gauzed-over glaze of memory, milky
and milkier, like albumen
being
slowly
soft-boiled by years on years,
- it is all to get us ready for heaven.
So that when we die, we cry out
in relief, like tears - so clearly now
I see! So firm and taut
is my newborn soul!
my mind is mine, again, and
I am whole,
am home. Again, and
finally! oh

"Thank God"

amen,

But those who die young,

don't get it.
not quite
the
same way. Those
who die young, they
become

Buddhists.

Another Poem-In-One-Go

When a poem like this
gets set to go
all bets are on
all rhymes combine
all rhythms flow
all words slow down
then speed up, stop
"hey" - look around
"did you bring the map?"
which way is west?
words bunched up fast
directionless
'til one says "HEY!"
"This way, let's go!"
and off they fly
combine, and flow

My love for you is like a freight train

My love for you is like a freight train
loaded
with freight
freighted
with purpose
purposed and directed Westward, where
towns and whistle-stops all along the line
wait, impatiently upon the 7:50 to come in on time
and deliver up to them their allotted packages,
parcels, barrels and crates
of this love I have

Death, But Not Without Honor

Death, yes. We all shall dine at that table.
But not without Honor! Whether Honor be served
as a dish, or served as a guest, if Death
invite me to dine without Honor present,
in some form - preferably, in a place of Honor,
I will furiously decline, with apoplectic spittle
zinging from beneath my curiously accurate
British Indian Colonial mustache - which I
intend to grow, in anticipation of the event.

Death! Proud be ye, and rightly so, despite
what some have said - yet Death, without Honor
ye are but some ghastly stick with which to
frighten children. A far cry from the lordly
destiny of kings and warriors, a pale shadow
of what we know of Death, of what we know
Death to be. So what will it be, Death?
How about a little Honor, then? That
would make it go easier
for each of us.

The Descendants of Cain

Cain should have died,
but God said: "No.
I put a mark on that guy.
And anyone who kills him
gets the business."
And Cain, driven out
from the land, was fruitful
and multiplied. And his seed
bore fruit, and branch, and
set down root - which grows
among us still. God put a mark
on man, when he let Cain go.
And one day we shall be avenged

But not sevenfold, no
We've devised worse maths
than that, for this. And we speak
all one language, we have brick
and bitumen - our tower stretched
its top to heaven, and found it!
Empty. No one home. And nothing we
propose to do will now be impossible,
and this is only the beginning
of it all.

God should have killed Cain outright.
Or at least, left off the mark - that
protection! God spared him, to mark us!
God inflicted that mark on us all. If
even God let Cain live, but with no
mark - spared him, but spared him to
a life of no distinction, marked out
for nothing - maybe Cain would have
just fled to the wilderness then,
ashamed, and died out. And
maybe we could somehow
now be free.

But no. We must walk the earth proud
and win our wives as killers,
with heads held high: see
my mark! The mark of Cain,

Put there by God.

Pretty cool, huh?

Down Wit' the Locking Doors!

You GOTTA be down with the doors that close
and the locks that lock, and the clear windows
that you look through to check, "who's that dude outside?"
did he come here to steal or to sneak or hide?
what's he ding-dong for? what's he knock knock knock?
It's a quarter to half past when, by my clock!
in the ungodly hour people creeping around
that's why when it comes to locks, hey
you gotta be down!

Unlike most Bills

Unlike most Bills, his name was short
for Billiards. His pappy won him
in a game of pool, the first-born son
of a pregnant pool shark
who never should have played that last game.
And he did mommy and pappy alike proud,
taking up the cue at an age when most children
were still asking questions like, "Why?"
"Fucked-up," is how he'd describe his up-bringing,
but you'd be able to tell it's not a complaint. As
he sights along the angles and runs balls like rain
there is a grin on his face that only pretends
to be a grimace of pain. You leave a little lighter,
considering the situation he's been through

poem goes

poem goes RHYME!
poem goes WORDS!
paints a pretty picture
(that's a metaphor, SIR!)
poem pricks ears!
poem makes think!
some poems DON'T, but
THOSE POEMS STINK!