the comeback kid

final seconds tick
down to zero,

click

game over - or is...?

she's dropping back, kids!

it's a Hail Mary pass
a Baby Jesus football, caught
in the end zone, defenders
breaking down in tears

pandemonium

as the cheers
erupt
for the home team
Final Score -
- unbelievable!
Saints: 21
Sinners: 23

what an all-time upset

victory

Death

Death
sometimes hurts,
sometimes, they don't
say

I don't want to know
either way

The World Curved Wrong

the sun set down
on a world curved wrong
the horizon buckled back
for one good look
at the colors and light
that faded from our faces
as a darkness rose up
from between blades of grass
the shadows climbed our legs
and reached from low to higher
places. But before the end, I guess
we had one hell
of a time in heaven
and that was the last
that there was.

no further lessons to learn

but one.

I Drop Rhymes

I drop rhymes
like a watch ticks times
like a clock tocks hickory docks and then chimes
I drop rhymes
like Mama Jong drops tiles
and I gots more styles than a model's got smiles

black, and red

black,
and the night
are not owned by the dark
there is glorious light
that pervades every heart
on a frequency past
what our searching eyes see
still our searching hearts fill with it,
luminously

red,
and our blood
are not ruled by the blade
are not bound by the cruel
not by violence enslaved
for blood's strength is in life
not in spills, but in flows
in its unspoiled bloom
on your cheek,
like a rose

from venus

There will come a point when you will just give up.

And then, there will come a point when you will
believe
again

in defiance of all that you told yourself,
your hysterical vows,
your infinity-dog dares
to do without

to say to love:
"go screw"

and you, a foolish shoo-fly sap
drawn down the lip of that needle-toothed trap
once again, you fall in
and it's

sweeter than it's ever been

as you willingly dissolve

into him

karma's bullshit

bad things happen
to everyone, eventually
even assholes

and the fact he got his
has nothing to do
with how many times he gave you yours
and laughed, walking off

unpunished

he remains unpunished

had he treated you well,
like a saint, this would still
have happened anyway, to him
the same exact way
- or something worse
eventually

and so he remains, unpunished

and in that same period of time
you collected twenty comeuppances
you did not deserve, while he waltzed free

is that your cosmic balance?
what a shit head.

and he'll waltz on from this, too
while you curse and wait for worse
to befall

all it does
is make your soul mean, and small
to sit around waiting for it
and then crow
when it comes

the size of your soul, now:

there's your karma

my problems

my problems accumulate in private
then I work them out
right here in public

right here in these poems
where you can smell it

"hey, what about those problems, Joe?
that you were talking about?"

Well, you know
sometimes I feel sort of
wrong place-y

and other times "is this
skin mine?"

and then I might wonder
"HEY! What's going on?"

but for every damn problem I have:
a poem

the rosary

we pray to thee
to take this prayer,
so round, and small
and hard, we've squeezed
with fingers white
and all our might
which isn't much

another bead

like days slide by
so full of grace,
we fail and try
to know our place
and oh, our father,
glory be

please string this out
another decade more
or so,

to live to see

another
sorrowful
mystery

if you care

if you care,
I don't know why
you care

if you love me, I know
you do
but I don't know why,
I swear

I'm not worth much
but I am worth love
I'm not worth much
but I was worth more
than what

this was

not that into that band anymore

I guess you're not into that band
anymore, that you recommended.
Not into their new stuff

it's a shame, it's good

no, not a shame for you
you had them when
they turned days into
anticipation for you, and nights
into eternities,
straight into your memory
for forever, at their best

well a band like that, that
can capture the moment, can
be perfect
on the night
- a band like that, will
never be as good again
in anything they do

especially if it's different

until they can do it again.

Hey

would you like to go see

a show?

superbia

alarmed
by the middle-class plastic swell
that budded, split and swarmed
suddenly into bulging pods and forms
identical in all but their designer colors,
the trees shrank back toward the hills
that were themselves soon infiltrated
by an unchecked growth

larger,
square, tall,
and with tall, squared, staring eyes
lit from within by hardwood paneling
and framed original art, the ridge-line
sprouted fat blocky towers and undulating,
smooth-stone walls, defined lawns and gardens,
with here and there nests of round stones like eggs,
selected for their large size, pleasing shape
and harmonious color. Here and there, trees
brought in singly from elsewhere, planted
in place full-grown already,
sending forth self-satisfied sap and pollen
the bees and hummingbirds love

the old trees stood
wherever they were left,
and grew,

sad

an award

I wish you saw how I see you
wish you knew how much I
wish I could

I want to give you an award
for everything that you meant
but it wouldn't mean much
to you

nothing means the world to me now
nothing means the world to me now

but you showed me what it could mean,
though

and so I give you this,
award

for a lifetime achievement

or at least,

that's what I would

have
thought

and under the tree...!

she was wearing a scarf,
and a hat, and mittens
and bootie socks
and that was it! Oh,
and a ribbon
with a bow upon
right about where you'd think
the adhesive might smart

but the knock on the door
- "Come right in!" she calls out
as her big brassy smile
falls crash from her mouth
"Oops! Wait! I'm getting dressed -"
it isn't who she expects
well it serves her right! Really!
What an impudent tart.

Trying Mountains On For Size (early draft)

dibs on this as a poem title!!

terra cotta

we seem too deep
to be reached
and when the thoughts
seep through, through the sponge
to the cracks
and in drips and drabs
they collect in the pan
beneath,
well, it's nearly brim
-full
now

we will have to pull
and switch it out
for a new, and empty
tray

and set the old one
out to harden

like

clay

I'm there

I've got a standing rendezvous
with destiny and she
always stands me up

no that's ok, that's ok
no problem

so I'll see you next week huh
destiny? yeah, pencil it in
next time for sure

hearts that melt

hearts that melt
need heart-shaped molds
to freeze them up again
or else

you wouldn't know
they're hearts at all
just dark red puddles
drying out

to set.

the convenience of winter

ah, the convenience of winter!
easy to open, in the convenient pop
top. Ice and snow: galore! And you'll
have a capade or two of your own, in these
stellar rubber boots and this all-over sleek
down-padded winterized rubberized vulcanized
thermal-insulated snowsuit with inner moisture-wick
and convection-assist! Slide-plow down mountains of white
slipping, sprawling, falling forward and glide for tens of feet!
your face chafes red with cheer and your hands,
fully-begloved, nevertheless do freeze quite through
and you must pound them against objects, hard, to restore
feeling and tingling vigor to tips of fingers. Oh! The fun
you'll have as you scrape and chip ice from necessary surfaces!
Push and plow open-topped tunnels out, so that others may walk,
dig out your car so that some other son of a bitch
can be parked in the hole you made,

so cozy

when you get home

concrete circle, driftwood, sand

I want to affectionately tousle her hair
with my lips and chin and kiss, and this
is not all I want to do

but it's a start,

hearts in worlds of their own, apart
but adjacent - the universe next door
takes fire and wing, we watch the blaze
whisper, hiss, sing

as my arms, in fleece, encircle her.
our faces forward, eyes alight
the dancing fire we face breaks wood
and cracks its walls and crisps its grain
to ash, and dust, and flame
and night

tomorrow the smoke
will be on our clothes
and in her hair

the fire will be
- where?

my inner kirk

My inner Spock said

phasers on kill

My inner Kirk said

fire at will

My inner Sulu said

your shields gave in

My inner Bones said

HE'S DEAD JIM

curved back

straight
and far
along a line
that's drawn across
the furthest distance between two points
that I can find

away from you

but curved
and bound
by circles, weights
and gravities that bend our shapes
right back into