The Gods have since revoked my gift

The Gods have since revoked my gift
the clouds had parted,
clear and hard, the light shone down
one chosen one

I

stood in mist,
with halo crown
and raised my head:
disordered skies

I moved and shaped the fog in waves,
from that - progressed, to carving clouds
with two bare hands and scornful gaze
until I'd built up towers high
and pushed them forth,
they roiled and spat electric curse upon the plain
lashed crops with rain
as gales blew flat the humble habitations there.
My cold laugh carried
down the wind
to stricken ears, and shaking fists

the Gods have since revoked my gift.

the Gods do as they wish. Who cares

I want you still

I want you still;
breathing deeply, asleep
by a fire with cold hot chocolate nearby,
knocked over
and you,
all wore out
feelings tender and warm
inside, while a particular smile
I never get to see when you're awake
- keeps dreaming its way
across your sleeping face
and I wait

your arm crooked
across the slim space between you, and me -
your hand - lightly splayed across my face
as if it were my hand, and as if
my smile were there to say "oh my, me!"
- one eye peeping through fingers
like a 1960s black and white publicity shot
of a Jewish comedian,
yes

my mind wanders,
but my eyes stay home.
And I look and I breathe in
and I breathe out and I look on (partly
through your fingers) at your face,
and I wait.

For one of two things:

either

for me to fall asleep,
my eyes never marking the moment
when the dream technically begins, or

for you to wake up.

and never go back

very much lost
from knowing too well where you're going.

have you ever been there?

I have, and it's always
the same,
always

in a different place.

Well,

- I'm leaving it now.

but I guess I know I'll be back.

Without ever once
turning around

lie awake

lying in bed
with nobody there
to be deceived
I'm lying to me,

I'm lying myself to sleep,
to sleep

with all of your favorite lies,
I'll keep.

mixing drinks

I drift in you
the light cuts past
between the bubbles
in your glass
the champagne of your talk surrounds
I'm fizzing in your thoughts, your sounds

and then you switch, your spirits still
so serious - I drink my fill
your thoughts distilled
in such clear light,
I'm going going to get
so drunk

tonight

drunk for days

I feel like I've been drunk for days
I haven't had a drop
I drive around from place to place
so petrified
I saw a cop!
I wake, expecting hangovers
the headache never quite arrives
but still you won't evaporate
my blood is proof
and still you rise

blood in the water

I wash all the dishes
with all my sharpest knives
jumbled, skewed, concealed by suds, you know
it could be suicide
with the water so, so hot
and my propensity to push -
I cannot leave a task, half-done
I must complete what I've begun
even if I have to

red could be a warning sign
red, a call for help

I must complete what I've begun
the world is swimming black around
the visions closing in in front
I cannot leave a task, half-done

it's just a nick, a scratch
he lied

some wear their courage like a badge
I will push through, I'm almost done
and red could be a warning sign

you're soaking in it, madge

the decision-maker

my heart has set its heart on you
my mind has something else in mind to say
my soul sits on both shoulders, shaking heads
as the decision-maker
has its way

last race

you and I can run this marathon we're on
into the ground
or switch, we'll be triathletes now
- dive in and swim, then bike around
and up and over hills we'll chase, and trade first place
and second, too

but once we finish, well
we know

we're through

there's no prize left.

we're through

sudden night

She turned her rounded shoulders round
away, she turned
she turned away
her face she hid in darkness, down
she slid to darkness, there to stay
behind her, silent shone the light
she spurned, ignored its warming beams
and welcomed dark, and sleep, and night
and with a click,
the black came quick
with spreading sweep
of deepest wings

heartful of room

there's a great big piece of my heart cut out
but it keeps growing back, like a cancer cloud
so I cut and I scrape to clear that space,
just in case
just in case
just in case
just in case

if you ever came back, your place is clear
and clean, only emptiness in here

since nothing but nothing could ever replace
the space you took up

just goes to waste

Darling, go

Darling, if
you lose yourself in me,
fret not

for I will go in after
I will find you every day.

You, I could not bear
to lose.

to save for three days before Easter

I wish just once,
as they make that poor guy
carry that cross of his
again

that cross of his, biting in

the shoulder aching,
blood-raw and splinter-bitten from
that cross

of his

that they all say is ours, that they say is for us - well,

I, for one
wish that for just one year, they could tell him: just

stop.

Let it drop.

off your shoulder, let it
fall

and for this one time: just
leave it. And walk.

Go on, get out of here.

Just this one time,

We're letting you off
with a warning.

the good things away

you have to take
the good things away
with you. When she goes,
let the good things stay -
if she showed you
things you never knew before
in yourself, well
maybe she put them there

but let them stay
let some good
stay

a strength of your own choosing

never forget the bullshit they did
hold on to it
hold on to it

carry it on your back like a load -
don't let go
don't let it go

and lower your gaze as you bend and puff
will it make you strong?
or just strong enough
to keep shouldering,

shouldering down the lane,
with your angry eyes
from that load of pain

people don't do

people don't do things
because of what you do.
people do things, because
they're on the way by
and they just passed through
and it caught their eye,
and it entered their mind
to do.

now it's true,
the more a person finds
you a non-waste of time,
the more they find reasons
to come the way by,
and the more things will enter their mind
to do

but it's nothing you did, you fool.

It's you

the challenges and rewards of domesticity

I left the butter out,
to get soft

so I could make bread and butter sandwiches
because I hate

when you're trying to make bread and butter sandwiches, and
anyway,

the butter did not get soft so much as
MELT

and it's not that warm in the house
but oh well

I made those sandwiches anyway
I just felt like a snack.

bread and butter sandwiches,
a bowl of hot heinz tomato soup
(in the blue-teal can!)
and a bread-and-butter pickle spear. Now,

what

in all of that snack

- makes this a poem?

It just might be this rhyme
right
here.

Fun Bus

Sitting reading books on a BIG! STUFFED! SEAT!
you, and next to you it's just ME! ME! ME!
and next to you and me is the guy across THE AISLE!
he's looking kind of weird but he's got a nice! SMILE!
he better not try to horn in! on! THIS!
or else I'll have to tell him something FOR. HIS. FACE.
our conversation's going all OVER, THE, PLACE
and then I lean in and whisper

whsspr whsspr whsspr whsspr

He couldn't hear that now COULD? HE? HUH?
it's just between us, on this whole FUN BUS!
It's none of his biz what your ears just heard!!
Except I want to shout it to the WHOLE! DUMB! WORLD!

fooled

You believed in the best
that you saw in me.
You knew that was not all I am.
A person is more
than the outer surface they show to the world,
for one thing.
A person is far more
than their best, for another.

And my best was not all you saw.

But you believed in the best. You believed
in the best, that you saw
in me.
And
you gave me a chance to be that best.

Dear,
it was not you
not you

who was fooled.

a prayer of you

If I die before I wake,
I hope I never wake / and if
I never wake, may this please be
the dream my mind can linger in
eternally.

Ode to No Potato Salad

alas
potato salad,
I feel thine absence more keenly
than that of a love gone by, gone awry,
gone cold from being exiled
for too cruel a crime
like a picnic with no wine
and no potato salad.

's a critic

Hm, I'd call those artists Modernist
before I'd call them "Modern."

Modern, after all, just keeps on:
and will keep on.
For as long as we people
keep on.

Whereas Modernist - is close to being over.
Modernism - is pretty much done, except
as something that has been done. Something that can be
classified (as such),
looked at,
praised drily,
put into context. Completed Art
is trivia, to any good, progressive, well-indoctrinated Modernist.
It is good for one thing only: to "build upon"

Landfill, in short.

Ostensibly, to build something higher up on.

Which they don't look like having much luck doing! Do
they? When they don't,

which is almost always,

it's because as something to do - Modernism is done.

It's already been done.

And that is very serious, to a Modernist: "Having been done"
is a cardinal sin,
a capital crime,
a hanging offense.
Modernism has blazed its trails
and then sealed them: a sign posted,
"Keep off, this path already traveled." "What are you, unoriginal?"

And so
has Modernism exhausted its avenues, and disappear'd up its own Post-

(-erior),

and good riddance to it.
Modernism was a mistake in the first place.
It was a mistake, to elevate theory
(to elevate novelty of theoretical conception no less!)
to a place above art. To say that art's purpose was

to push an envelope with something
new!
Rather than to fill it, with something
good

Novelty has no taste,
whatsoever - except that sweet tooth
for whatever it hasn't tried.

What has Novelty done for art?
Where has Novelty gotten art?
Novelty has eaten its future to shit on its past.

Now, I say: let's go raid the landfills. Dig
all those discarded masterpieces. Some of them were
pretty
damn
pretty
to look at.

Let's say: maybe
paths were blazed to be followed.
Not to be ruled out as off-limits to all,
artists who wish never to be branded: "follower"
(whether or not they have a place to take us!)

Let's say: maybe
art is not for dilettantes
who don't know how to call a thing good,
unless it can be proven to be Novel.

Let's say: maybe
Novelty can go find some new way to go fuck itself.

Novelty has run out

of ways to fuck art.

"The Trouble With Me"

The waters have all been so placid and calm,
the season for storms has been gone too long
up here on this cliff, thoughts of you, my love
can't you come up behind me and give me a shove?

I know that you're trouble: you told me enough
and you warned me I better not fall in love
well it's easy to see - I don't scoff, I believe
that you're trouble enough to keep

I want you to be
the trouble with me
you're the trouble I want to go through, always
I want you to keep me up sleepless nights
and put me through endless days and days

I want you to be
the trouble with me
I want to take all of your trouble, and stride
I won't lay you down for the rest of my life
I want you to be

the trouble with me

it's too long without trouble or burdens I've walked
If you don't cross my path, well I might as well stop
these arms are so empty, they might weigh a ton
my troubles alone aren't enough to go on

well I'm not the kind to go looking for strife
but I know I've been looking for you all my life
and as soon as I saw you, I knew it at once
I will take all of your kind of trouble that comes

I want you to be
the trouble with me
you're the trouble I want to go through, always
I want you to keep me up sleepless nights
and put me through endless days and days

I want you to be
the trouble with me
I want to take all of your trouble, and stride
I won't lay you down for the rest of my life
I want you to be

the trouble with me

and trouble shared is trouble halved, but I'll take double, thank you, please -
and all the trouble you can spare, I want it right now, here with me

I want you to be
the trouble with me
you're the trouble I want to go through, for keeps
all the trouble you are, all the trouble you have
is the trouble I want to be in
too deep

visibility high

far apart, we are
but we drift on one wind
the planet below us spins and spins
we're tethered to it by too-short strings

and you are a kite,
and I, a balloon
just barely in sight of each other - soon
we'll be making a break for it,
too soon

if your string should snap, you will list, spin,
crash

while if my string breaks - I'll float high and away
'til I am overwhelmed from this pressure within
when I break -

there'll be nothing of me
but skin

what the moment wanted

we did what the moment wanted. And when we were done with it, the
moment was left wanting
nothing.
And when we were done with it, we were left wanting
it over again. And, nothing preventing the same,
the same
came

true,
- to pass,
- to repeating itself,
surpassingly well

until we both felt, well,
a bit too much. And you bit,
but not too much

for you

and we fit
like a pair of shoes. Brand-new,

but broken-in.

two

the lesser lights

My love, you had a great love once
and god knows, so did I.
We see each other's far-off smiles.
We hear each other sigh,
recalling heights our hearts have flown.

But it's your day I want to warm, now -
yours; now, no one else.
Your eyes meet mine, we
have our understanding,
and it helps.

Your love is true: for me. My love
is true for you, and we have found
together we can see our path
by lesser lights, and walk as fast
but closer to the ground.