the zth degree

I know my mind to the enth degree - but not
to the zeeth degree. You see, the zeeth degree
is the enth knocked sprawled. It's the very
last letter whose name you call, and the very
last letter to variable by
- take the enth degree,
but knocked on its side.
All that vast enth extent,
laid out all skewed.
- both suitably enlightened
and humbled, one hopes,
by the view.

putting things away where they go

pick it up. Hold it in your hand.

pretend you don't know where it is.

Go Look For It.

First place you look is where it goes. Put it there!

Consistently,
Consistently,

this won't help you find something
if you don't know where it is, because
you didn't put it where it goes. But,
next time

And if everything ends up on the kitchen counter, well
maybe that's just where it all goes

Sometimes there's one overpowering place
where things feel like they "go,"

if so - you have to fix in your mind: your house,
in all its nooks and rooms
and shelves,

all the places in it that naturally call out
for things to live there! get a feel
for each of those.

THEN,
go back to the kitchen counter. Pick up the first thing
that needs a new home, and you ask yourself:

"Where's the second place this goes?"

Some people may need to perform a ritual.

You don't have to, you could skip it. But it might
be nice! Could be something like, "Oh candlemaking machine,
you have chosen the kitchen counter as your home. I honor you,
and ask permission to relocate you to your new home
which is a fine and worthy home,
for appliances
that have not to do with food preparation.

I take you now to the hall cupboard.

The kitchen counter is forever your first home!
The home of your childhood as an appliance -
ever will I look for you there, first! And my wistful eye
will miss you,

but

you and I will both recall,
and find you at home in your
better and more suited place:

hall cupboard."

The ritual
isn't because we must debase ourselves
to ask permission of inanimate objects. It's just
a nifty mnemonic,
to set in place and reinforce
all the wheres, and whys and wherefores.

You do have to say it out loud,
though.

And wear a blue robe.

Alas

can you imagine

if the poetry you write. could make
people

the world, I mean

people in general, not just
clandestine cliques of incestuous appreciators

sit up and say

wow,

in a world
where poetry sets stone on fire, breaks
stained-glass hearts, where light -
the light of language used keen and fine!
, like lances - crashes through clouds
and breaks upon crowds in thunder, where a poet's
precious bull shit imagery and stubbed
-toe blood sting sunburned heart-swell pang
can put poetry
and poets

up where they used to belong. Can take poetry
and poets
places.

Poets all over the world are poised to be placed

on couches
of talk show hosts, on the front
page of the "A" section
not "D10" in Lifestyle, a poet
on the cover of the Rolling Stone,
as was done in the days of Ovid,
Percy Bysshe Shelley and
Yeats, or was it Keats,
back before newspapers, talk
show hosts and magazines. Poets
were setting the world on fire,
thrusting their Byronic capes
over and across broad shoulders in a howling gale,
shaking fists at eternity and making the abyss
blink - and the public fucking loved them
for it. Loved it! Ate it up. Ate them
up,

Throngs of them.

Poets were poets, then. Poets
were rolling in mad bitches and tons of cash,

imagine
if today

could be a world like that. Imagine if your poetry!

could get the world at large

to notice.

Alas

a Request for Excellence

please, submit your excellence
to the world by no later
than the drop dead date,
.which deadline will be announced
with immediate effect, upon its
occurrence.

lit up

My first cigar was
a challenge. Offered
by hand, from a friend
who'd become a stranger
over the years - and had
received good news. I took it
in that spirit,

not the other one. Bit
off the end,
spit out the plastic, drew
the thick, slender
stogie from the remainder of its cellophane
cradle, and examined

the end I'd bitten part off. Sufficient? Sufficient,
I judged.

So we lit up.

What happened next can only be described

by means
of rebus
puzzle.

The Purpose of Joy

The purpose of dancing
is first: to enjoy the music.
The beat, when the music
is good - throw yourself,
with abandon! This music
is yours, your life
is the music you dance to:
a choice.
The purpose of music
is to reach and enjoy
the soul. Is there
anything else that can reach?
In a room emptied out, in a crowd
struck dumb, every one
there at once,
all at once
is one

The purpose of the sun
is to set fire to skies
from a million miles off
reminding your eyes twice a day
if you look: there is more to light
than finding your way;
a purpose to life.
The purpose of love is
to enjoy the other:
a music you have never
heard, to dance, throw yourself
with abandon, to give
is to lose - your self, your
life in the one you choose,
and who chooses you.

For she is the music,
or he is the beat,
the sun as it rides
overhead, then sets
and will rise again.
For tonight - just dance
to enjoy what is yours,
given free, complete.
To enjoy what is mine,
given free, given all,
in a universe split
between us, made whole,
made one, made ours.

To explore for a life
what the other can see
beneath these lucky stars

Dark.

Every shape half-glimpsed has eyes
unseen within its silhouette
of different shades of gray and gloom
and purple black that make this room
a place of glowering counterfeits
- strange stationary animals
or person, persons quite unknown -
whose frozen forms all hold their breath
and hold their pulse, as you hold yours -
you hold their gaze.

You know if you could reach the light
they'd disappear a dozen ways into the glare
replaced by - shirt, or ironing board
or closet door or huge stuffed bear
but still you can't quite make out some
of what these shapes would turn into
if you could only reach the light -
you wouldn't reach, would you?
Would you?

up

Hope, hope
is straight up, pretty
delusional, huh? A reaction,
not knee- but heart-
jerk, I guess. There's more

to us. And it's not gravity
that's pulling us close


but a reaction against.


A reaction within us,
against all of the forces
that lawsy, hem us in
until we're crushed
by the last straw - or
was it the first?

the first instant of all, we began

- catching up to us, fast?
We will die

but
we know we are better than that. Though we know not how. We have
raised our eyes


We react
against.

down

Reality is down. Galactic down, a cardinal
direction established universally every
where by the mass - infinitesimally
tiny! That exists pinned in place,
in the middle of spaces

comparatively vast

- but pinned so hard, that each point anchors all
of
the
force
fields

that we all see, and call
solid objects.

Reality is down. Drags us,
pins us - down.
And me, myself? Oh,


you better believe I'm down.

catch up

time to catch up, from falling
behind. Too many times speaking my
empty mind, I find I'm found out.
My doubt redounds
to the benefit of fact and my love,
that
is that.

I love that
a flat, satisfying,
observed or observable
act

can establish a truth
you can and should shout to the ends
of the earth

and further, further
more, get out
of my sight.

From your birth
in this life, you
are the worst possible distraction, and I

've got to catch u
p

to the test

Am I supposed to do something?
I should check your message
again. I forget what/if instructions
are. Is there a prove myself
clause? I just
was struck with the

poetical,

my memory,
and my inability to help
myself.

It could be the greatest fact
that I mean well - but
who does it help? Well,
OK, arguably, me. And
you too - arguably? No,
hell, not arguably -
I won't argue.

It's your call,
isn't it? I hope

my words don't seem insincere. Ever,
really, but that's just a hope that I have!
Because they're not. I mean every bit of that
shit. But if you doubt it?

Well, let's just
say, I won't be crushed.
Should I be? I mean,

How I seem -
- I'm not in that business. Never had the necessary
skills to pay the bills as far as others' eyes and
- especially - jaws, jut forward as if to say "I'm
from Missouri!"

Well shit I'm from Jersey. Did I miss the part where
I was selling you something? Go home and make dust
on your plot of land, my good sir. Show thy self.

Should a person give acts, give words, give gifts
wound about with strings, to pull and cling, and
require you to take them some set way? With belief -
or with trust, with skeptical cynicism held hard
at bay?

That's childish. Fuck off, with that, I say, and if
you rode in on a horse, ride off on it while checking
its mouth for missing teeth and suppurating ulcers
- and welcome to it! Doubt and be happy, require
of others whatever proofs you wish, demand them
and don't forget to rub their bellies, see if a genie
pops out. See what it gets you - no harm in asking!

Don't worry about demanding any proofs of me, though
as I said. My hand's not out for a handout. Shake it
if you wish, no need to make it a grip contest either. Don't
hold so tight on your hopes! A bird in the hand is worth
two in the bush, they say. What is the worth of the bird
you crushed in your hand? Withhold
whatever it is you think you're holding on to,
pending proof.

(Chances are,
I've either got it already, or
no use for it anyway!
So we're cool, okay? Why
we must be cool.)

I've made no demands on you.
Requiring, demanding, proofs. I dunno -
"The truth is easy and pleasant to say," I've
observed. So I'd rather (and it's easier)
to be not so unnatural, as all that requirement
requires. Damn the demands of being so demanding! Why,
I wrote my own contract the day I was born, so to speak
- or maybe it was the day I could speak, anyway,
- or the day I could write. But nobody but me
has signed it yet. You're on your own,

with trust,
my friend. I mean
well with all my means,
and with those means at my disposal, I trust you -

to justify ends.

in the willows

Ah, willow,
willow, a willow's natural
manners keep trouble swept wide
from limbs unbent, but swooping out
and up, an embrace of air, cool
brief respite from summer's
trumpets, as the season comes
on, the willow provides
a canopy of strong limbs,
hung wide with party streamers,
for the party, yes
no -

- there is no cause to weep, in
or around or under this tree.

I am early again, the first guest
asleep on the grass

just me

the dao of glow

don't push past glow
is not a rule. But just
a Way - when in control,
you like it there. And
feeling good! You've got

a glow.

You like? You
should. And shouldn't is
a dumb concern. Who shouldnt's
you? Some person? God? Your
self? You shouldn't even
burn
one moment
in a self-made hell.
Who cares about
abuse,

and rules?

It's not a rule,
to feel so good
that every one around
you
loves
that you are here.

You got a glow?
Well, good.

You should.

Don't push past
glow
is not a rule!
You're in
control.

You like it.

Cool.

abortive

hints build tent cities inside your brain -
furtive messengers,
this poem sucks already.

lessons

like riding your bike off a log
you could never learn to forget
a thing like that. Like learning
the way home, how to drive
a point home, say her name
three times out loud, and
you're set. Your name is like
walking off cliffs, or right
into walls,
like selling a soul
like banging a skull
on the beats of a heart, like
never forget what it's like, my love.
I will never forget what it's like.

more unsolicited, mind-boggling, well-meant advice from the apparently sincere sexist next to you at a going-away party

son,
friend, I mean
there's a lot of pussy in this world
and if you don't stick your dick
in your share of it, that means
some other dick is getting stuck
in your share of pussy.

Because women of the world
are apportioned all up into shares
for the world's men's cocks to fuck,
and sure - some women choose
to remove themselves from the equation,
which just goes to reduce
the overall size of the pie.
But we honor that! Men,
we honor it.

Which is bad enough, to reduce the supply
of what's good to go around, but son,
if you take your bid off the table,
then all the other hungrier ones of us
men - we're going to snap it up. Fill
the gap you left to us. I won't lie
to you man - I know I will. You might
as well dive in - that pussy is going
to get fucked regardless! You see
that girl? Yeah, you see what I'm
talking about! Turned me down. Yeah,
I know. But see, that's why it's ok,
too - I know who's got my back. With her?
Eyes shooting fire and that ass? Every man
's got my back, or will try. She'll get hers

and like it, not all dudes
are to all women's taste, and
that's a mystery we try to honor,
too, as part of our code. We help each other
out, to reach that potential all together
and for the sake of the beautiful goal. The goal
which really wants so badly to be met. Yes, it's
is for her sake too, dude. You think there's
any other story being told, all over the world?
Sure, from the other side maybe, but her side
and mine, same story. You're a character
got to put yourself out there, get next
to the plot and put yourself in
the game there, son. Your side is
counting on you, you've got our half
of the chromosomes under lock and key
and bursting to get free, and man
you know where all this goes.

Go ahead man.

Go talk to her.

Don't try sports, though. Just a tip

hate mirrors

I'm not happy with the shape of your body
or the tone of your skin, or
your voice. I'm not happy with
your hair. Please shave
it is - off-putting, why
would you want to be this way?
On top of the ways that you can't help!
- look. I was more than willing
to settle until you rejected me. But
no.
So now,
sour grapes, "pal"!
Now you get to hear it! Sorry. Maybe
it's for the best, and your
taste in wine - don't make me
laugh. There is so much I could
have taught you. Like how to breathe,
soak in a hot steamy bath,
like how to love smoke
and hate mirrors

no shame on the way

doing it wrong
is a good way to go. If
doing it wrong is wrong, I don't want
to learn about doing it right, except
through proof in the truth of each wayward step left

on the path to wherever
its going is to. Preposition!

on the path to wherever
it's going to go.

quoth the hatter, madly

You and I
are legendary lovers. But
should we therefore doubt our love? Is
the stuff of legend
substantial enough?

I think not
to the first question, and to the second,
So very so.

For the foundations of legend
stretch down deep, deeper
down through the mists of mere myths to strike
a substrate of bedrock,
a sweet truth

that underlies us all,

singing lullabies
that lull and soothe
us to sleep,
to sleep -
to a dream
we know is true,

because falling asleep to it is like
waking up to you.

You, love,
are the real
world.

I've waited on dreams
my whole life, only to find
a better waking than dreams
could wish!
An innocence that's bliss
to wake up with
- to wake up to. You
and me.

I meets thee.

The eternal story.

The stuff of legend.

Shit

Facebook: a poem

Facebook I am ascared of you
I joined you only because my sister
and sister and other sister, and mom
had put their foot down: no more
sending me family pics! by email
"Facebook is good enough for all:
so why not you?" So I was forced to.

Then I realized it is weird
and then I realized it is dumb,
and nobody is on there who understands me
Facebook is a loneliness in the universe
a connectedness with ugliest sides
of what people say, not caring who hears
- when they'd never say that, in a room!

"Politics and religion," we always shy
away, same people, when in a room
where an eye can catch them - they
are tact personified. On Facebook, though
it is like they must show their ass. Does
it bother me? Fuck

Not really. I always knew what these dicks
and dickesses believed, pretty much. Same shit
half the country does, whichever side you care
to look. Nothing to be surprised about. But
my people keep tearing my people up! Myself,

I don't know why I'm even on
Facebook.

Oh yeah. look

pictures of family.