habeas

My corpse was born same day as me,
and I've been dragging it around

like evidence forever since,
but one day I know
I will lay it down.

when the ruckus

when the ruckus
came up
there were days stretching out
like beaches with bugs
and nuts at a ballpark
when the ruckus
came up
there was time running empty
we filled all our glasses
half-empty with heart
when the ruckus
came up
we threw up our arms
with the sting-shining sun
squinting beams in our eyes
'til the ruckus
came up
let's pretend we weren't warned
pretend all we don't know
all we knew
was surprise

we go way back

there was a point at which
we both walked past the right way
fast and didn't see,
and we kept walking on
right to the end
and there we were. Impossibly
no hot dog stand
no left-hand road
the car was towed?
it couldn't be
it wasn't even on this street!
the side street disappeared
on me

and you
were really on my back
as we passed back, right past our way
- we went right past our street again! - without a glance!
as plain as day
and all the way back through the park
and half the way back to the lake
before you saw that tree you saw
from Middle-Earth, and then we stopped
and turned
and stood
to take the sights
and reconstruct the angles out
from where we were, with what
surrounds

and then we knew the right way out:

way back the whole long way we came
the same exact well-trodden track!
we'd only missed our turn, somehow

just catching up,
I guess.

we go way back

she sings

she sings
on the toilet
her voice
subtly but grotesquely distorted
by her efforts
you can sort of
hear what's happening
disgusting
I don't know why
I'm writing a poem
about it

slow leak

my life has developed a slow leak
I have to keep filling up
my right front tire
with quarters, and
damn if there wasn't water
on the tiles back behind, under
the toilet tank! Great. A drip
that I catch in a basin, that has
to be emptied
every several days, it's
filled up to halfway
and I am going away
for the weekend soon,
so I plan to surround it with towels
just in case. But it
should be fine. The rest of me too,
seems slowly to deflate, something
harder to see than water,
harder to breathe than air
escapes

and it isn't my sails
that fall empty and wait
as I drift in place, safe
in the cabin I hide
looking out the porthole
with no sign of storm
and the slow lap of warm
water creeping up the sides

GO GO SUFFRAGETTES!

Today the woman's right to vote
was ratified,
some years ago
and on this anniversary: I say
"GOOD JOB!"
to Susie B.

my life is no lie

my life is the truth,
or uncomfortably close
anyway - not a lie
not a vain, empty boast
not a carefully-crafted
and tended facade -
it goes all the way through
and sometimes it doesn't
rhyme, either

Dear Old Dad

Dear old dad is the motherfuckin man!
He never beat me up but he still can!
and way before the media knew it was cool,
he knew what was cool about Jackie Chan!
Even though dad is not a kung fu dude
- I think he knows karate or tae kwan doo,
and I can never remember what color belt he had
BUT HE'S GOT A BLACK BELT IN BEING A DAD!!

answered

I lie awake,
sometimes
trying to find God

it isn't hard,

if you know how to look
everywhere at once
for that infinite glimpse
of whatever you want

(not really "whatever you want")

well one time, awake at this hour,
trying to find God, I suddenly
quite accidentally
prayed
to you

by mistake.
Well, I don't know -
it's a little bit blasphemous,
I guess

but you know what?
it did
come true

Tricolore

true story cut
from bolts of what

was once whole cloth,
okay? this one time
how it happened: I

met this latinate
senorita, and
I was like "hun, hey 
how's that hot
-blooded stereotypical
temperament
treatin' ya? GOOD!"

I paused
like a champ

"looks like?" I shyly 
averred, if averred 
is the word: it is.

(second sense)
and she
laughed, laughed! because
she had a good and better sense
of humor the further in my dumb ass
line of bulbous, drupelike words
struck her
deep,
but
a little off!
so. pity laugh! 

cool. I can ken it. part
scots, don't cha know and we
were like chi chi chi
and cha cha cha but

it didn't end! up working out,
somehow, her in the front 
burning my cool enchilada, 
dumping so called hot stuff 
on it vigorously pounding it 
in my face and down my throat 
so, yeah.

pathetic 
kind of so
then one time,
with this irish lass,
real irish! None of your
false irish, not this one
time I arched a brow and

"said"

something to the effect
of "kiss me you're irish!"

only far, far more fetching
and clever somehow

(there was drink involved)

and she tasted of Becks
not Guinness which was fine

but I had to draw the line at Bushmills
that's for protestants

then this brit, well
she sure did have a thing
for that thing that the british
have things for, all 
hanging out covering 
their mouths with fetching 
milkwhite angel hands 

because there's all this shit in her teeth! 
no 

no 

oh ye gods 

it's dental work! good job 
ye gods oh I'm so sorry but
she and I
kidded her about
that a bit, you can be sure

she had the most adorable
mouth in every way, so that
I almost hated for to see that
tight, lipped, self conscious

smile

hiding something for breakfast
we had bangers and cheerios

which went together, well,
about as well as 
as you'd suppose

when that other bitch 
her husband showed up
the cur! The cur who had 

made his wife 
bolt and then laugh 
so hard a breakfast best 

left for the italians to mop
and cleanse like 

you 

know

servile dogs! bolting 
and wolving their own 

"dog's breakfast" 

off a French licked 
flag we all know 
was merely on 
deck to tie 

the world
together

once. 

if ever

If ever I said there was anything bad
that you were to me
- I won't say without cause,
I won't say it was lies -
but it sure hasn't stuck
anywhere I can see.

If ever I said how fantastic you are
or went on and on lengthily praising your faults
and your features, each equally held in regard
in esteem, and in love (at the time, anyway)
you should know (if you don't)
that as far as you go
- yes, no matter how far -
it all still applies.

I don't much look behind me,
no need to go back, or look back, or regret
I can carry myself, and the rest
you should know, when you left me
well, you left me changed
for the best.

In my hardest of heads,
it was you who made all
the most beautiful dents.

two haiku

1.

I put pen to pap
er to compose haiku for
you. Keyboard, really


2.

beyond where we've been.
haiku! haiku! It's not what
it seem. haiku! hai-

have you ever seen how much I love you?

have you ever seen
how much I love you?
it passed this way
just moments ago
I'm hot on its trail
- a huge hulking thing!
with great grasping arms -
which way did it go?

uh oh! here comes the flow

East/West coast to coast, I rocks the most, I don't beef - 'cept for cream chipped on toast - I smokes you like cigars, but you don't rate stars, it's just: one puff, splutter then chuck you to the gutter 'cause your stuff is poor quality, I'm aficionado-y, brand X is not up to spec, and it's gotta be, I'm choosy like a mother! my s*** is the Jiff, so if you're craving peanut butter try a sandwich of THIS! I MISS whole dart boards, but yet SHOOT, it scores! The judges give me the awards, my style is better than yours, despite every single triple-lutz my butt hits ice-

-it's how I get back up again that's just too damn nice

I beat a bear

I beat a bear
this was one time
down High Sierra way,
I guess

Just me.

I swear - though
no one saw
- I beat that bear
at chess

phantom leg

ever since we were as one
and then came unattached
we're like each others' phantom leg
the itch persists
- nothing to scratch

I feel sensations tingling
where I can't stretch my arms

a flow of blood through phantom nerves
where you should be,
but aren't

suddenly struck

suddenly struck
and again and again
by repeated hard blows
of how lucky I am

to have you, your heart
and your head, and
the rest is too good
to describe

I'm in love
with the best

War and Peace

the summer we read War and Peace
was long and uneventful
please, how could it have been otherwise?
we spread our blankets on the beach
and let the tides run up our thighs
as we shared chapters back and forth
we each gave voice to characters
now: you be Peace
and: I'll be War

tricky way

I wish that I
could find some tricky way
to make you love me

I know you love me anyway, though
so
kind of maybe a waste of effort?
or a waste of a wish,
because it's not really effort
just making wishes!
Plus, you love me now,
already

But still, even with that,
even with things already
as they are,
I'd still like
some tricky way

to hold reserved
for just in case

and then:
if you were wavering,

I'd go for it.

pull out that sweet, tricky way
of mine, and spring it on you -
very nonchalant.
and you'd be all

whoa

"I love you

I don't even know what I was thinking about just then
because I definitely love you"

and me,
well
I wouldn't feel bad at all, or guilty

because you said I could trick you if I had to
right?

If I was bees

If I was bees
I wouldn't care
if I was here
and you was there.
I'd serve the queen
'cause that's the thing
bees does.

If you was here
I'd build a hive
and dance to welcome you inside
and then we'd buzz,

'cause that's the thing
bees does.

make me die

if you make me die,
it will be from good

too much life gone by
in a look, or a mood
that lasts ages and years
in the space of two beats
'til my heart says: "that's it!
that's enough,

complete.

just crazy

sometimes I suddenly think
that I must be too ugly to love
but you love me
you love me

sometimes it hits me, how far short I fall
from deserving you, but then
we all do
(you love me)

sometimes I don't know how long it will last
before you see it too
see through me
'til you do,
though -

you love me

and then, I realize that you've seen
all along, all through me
you're just crazy

you love me

poem-in-one-go #darned-if-I-know

runaway train
running right off the track!
runaway train
running right off the track!

uh oh wait, that's not a poem
you can't just do that all bold,
call it a poem, when it's
just - a blatant swipe
of an AC/DC song refrain!

AC/DC song refrain
running right off the track!
AC/DC song refrain
running right off the track!

give it all give it up
come on give it all you got!
AC/DC song refrain
running right off the track!

that's that

When I let you go, I was
pretty much sure of the fact:

You were either gone for good, or
you'd be right back.

It's looking more and more as though
you'll take
the latter tack.

I'm more impressed than surprised,
by that.
But you know what I'm enjoying the most?

the lack

rough draft of a pass

Are those your eyes?
Is that your hair?
Can one lay claim
to face so fair?
is beauty's truth
lock-uppable?
ah, surely you
belong to all!

one wish for everything

to wake in such arms,
to walk in such fields,
to live in such light
and then to die

I only wished once
it never came true
if I could wish again,
well
it would be a lie

faith, no leap

it's too easy for me
to want to believe you're serious
or could be.

What we want to believe is the easiest thing.
It proves itself, no evidence required.
Simply to want to believe:

a miracle.

is it not?

easy enough to explain

Look.

Even if I might ordinarily
be inclined to fall in love with you,
I can't. It's not you, it's
her.
I'm telling you: this one's
the one. She's not only
got dibs, she's also
got
and/or
is
any and all of the following:
She's...
"like whoa"
"all that"
"double-extra special plus luxury tax"
She's abstract math
that makes all kinds of sense
every link in her chain is of
consequence
with such good and sufficient cause
and effect
and such plain intent
and it's all so very, very much
meant.

and
I've known all that
for years. Known it
every day
more than the one
before. I know it
till my brain can't take in
any more, the sheer knowing of it
has replaced the usual trivial certainties
of gravity and evolution. She's become
self-proven, a first principle in her own right
a clear truth revealed, soaked in its own light
an axiom,
an inalienable right, albeit
one I can scarcely be said to deserve.

but one from belief in which, I find
I cannot ever again swerve

So much for my head. And honestly,

there's just not much room left in my heart
with her
in there, every day expanding it
and then filling up the new capacity again. She makes me
more and more
of what I am. What
can I say?

I'm taken.
shazam

fingernails

I've made considerable headway on these fingernails
they had gotten so long, and I
finally
took the clippers to them
I have been at it for some time

I don't know how I let them get like this
let them get away from me. but now:
shorn
snapped
by metal mouth with only two sharp teeth
but perfectly aligned - no overbite, no underbite
just fit and grip and squeeze
and

click

cut off.
soon, they would have been curling out
into swerving separate trajectories
like waterpark slides,
now - gleaming hard sharp short angles
like exacto knives

all except the right hand pinky