"She hates birds"

She doesn't feed seagulls poison,
or sic predators on pigeons, but
she hates birds.

Always has?
Who knows! She does now,
that's for sure. Even those
little cheeper peepers hopping,
finches or sparrows, even the hovering
hummingbirds. She hates the musical
riot of calls chiming in and under
and around each other,
outside her window, every morning
she wakes dreaming of
murdered birds.

She hates them.

The bald eagle, soaring
majestically, the extinct dodo
too, comes in for its belated share. Doesn't
she know? Birds are only dinosaurs
that got scared of meteors
and had to hide
under feathers.

To survive, we all have to figure out
how to fly. And some of us, eventually,
find other livings,
lose our wings, and look
hatefully up
at the sky.

To jihad, a hijink

I hope you are not at war with me!
Though in God's name, we disagree
- yet God agrees with God, you'll find.

Our trouble lies in troubled mind

and tribal strife: divide and conk
each Other on the head, and kick
each Other in the tail. The Other:
not like us, disgusting! Ick!

The enemy of all prevails, until
we love our enemies. The Other
won't believe or do or love like us,
so as we please we call it:
less than human. And deserving
every bad it gets.

We call down God to take our side,
to say we're right, to settle bets.
I say such judgment's premature.
I do believe God will decide
what each one gets. Or who's most pure,
if that's a big concern. It's not

my call. Although I have a few
of my own strong ideas, as to right
and what is wrong. Don't you?

Let's talk on these! With open
eyes, and valuing the other's self.
Oh sure, we'll give each other heck
on points we must insist and sell.
But I will not damn you to hell,
and I will not condemn your life.

I do not judge you worse and wrong,
and worth some death my team deals out.
Those who deal death aren't on my team.
I know who'll judge, and it's not them.
I know who'll judge, and it's not me.

I still believe our strongest call
is that we love the other side.
So what if there are human beings
wrong in their belief or guess?
If we know better than some wretch,
how shall we treat the least of these?

As enemies: and
love them, do.

Peace on earth.
Good will to you.

And God bless paths
you trod upon. Keep looking

left, and right
and wrong.

could use

I could use a pack of fucking cigarettes, right now
I could use a woman too, but I guess I don't know how
I could use two-fifths of bourbon
or an ounce of cocaine.
I could use things I have never tried
- a dram of heroin, a dose
of acid, or a bullet or
whatever means - are necessary,
to shut off my brain.

when you're in town

I can never believe when you're in town,
except when you're right there
in front of my eyes, defying me
with how you clearly have substance
and shape. I never imagined you.

How hard I try, when you're not around,
to believe you exist. And you do; you do

It's when you are close, somehow
I can't even accept there's a chance,
however remote, that you'll come true.

contemplation plan

Old Buddha was in bad need of rebranding.
Transcending all attachment?
Finding oneness in an existence void of self?
Boring!
Too complex, too commonplace.
Nothing unique in oneness, nothing special, nothing of value.
Enlightenment? It's been done.
Streamline that shit for a newer age, a sharp hook
to puncture selfish souls on. Let them dangle,
caught and strung on a line of barbs, until
they glimpse the truth as they drift, truth
that has always drifted upward
like bubbles through the greenish pond murk
they've chosen immersion in. The river keeps
flowing,
regardless,
and it isn't as if we haven't seen the universe.
It's as real as may be. We'll judge whatever may be realer,
once it's available for comparison. The river keeps flowing,
regardless.
There's always new fish,
eggs popping open,
ready to be convinced
how unique they all are,
how simple everything is:
precisely as advertised.

unexpected tenderness

Lately, I've been experiencing
an unusual amount of affection
and tenderness
towards myself.

This morning, I awoke
and saw my arm, and I
looked at my arm. And I said,
"awwwwwww,
- arm!"

and I reached out, and began
tenderly caressing its hand

short con

Does your heart know where your head is at,
and what your mouth's been telling me?
It's clear your eyes and hands as well
are in on this. Conspiracy

a pure act of

Bragging or show
contaminates the act.
Makes it a secondary thing.
Something to hang your glory on.
In my view, if you keep schtum, that
is the only way it can be pure. Selfless,
or purely selfish - either way, the act
for its own sake: to feel good. And
especially if you are able to help,
to change the course of events
without the beneficiary
ever so much as noticing

the degree of what you did,
deliberately.

How sweet is that?

the blind

in blinding light we live our lives
unseeing any future states, we squint
and leap, each step we take
we help each other through our fates
and every one of us is cut -
cut short, cut quick, cut down
and dried. It's meaningless,
unpurposeful. It's beautiful
among the blind.

"something other than pictures"

Lately with you,
I find that I brag a lot
about my breathtaking coping mechanisms,
my groundbreaking interpersonal and professional conflict
resolution strategies, I feel like I'm
one of those sidebar ads, shilling "This 1 Weird Trick
to make everybody HATE how awesome I am!" and then
I'm making as if to recommend these clever ways to you.
For your use, and life. Like
OK. That makes about as much sense
as you giving me tips and pointers on how to look GREAT
in the photos you take
of yourself.

We are all our own best photographer, perhaps
though some of us use something
other than pictures.

letters in war

I see you all the time, and feel good. You make me.
I remember we were such cohorts once. But maybe
it is just the general feeling of disconnectedness
that sweeps in, changing my perception of how
close I am, and was, to everyone - and that
means, maybe we were never any more connected
than this. Anyway. I miss feeling like cohorts.
But a cohort disbands after war, after all. And
though I'm never sure whether we enlisted
or were conscripted, I feel our esprit de corps
like a phantom limb.

I think of you so highly you make me proud.
You are part of me because you make me know
what I could be, you make me proud of what I could be.
Your secret demons don't scare me. Mine
are far worse, or at least - they bask in that
opinion of themselves, as they tear red weeping tears
from my insides with whatever parts they can sharpen
into their inarguable points against. However close
we may or may not be, you are an ally. You strengthen
and fortify my defense. I think of you as a friend
I'd gladly stand as many rounds
of ammunition as were headed your way -
as many as I could stand, in front of you
or
as many rounds of libation. As many as
you and I could stand together.
For me, the difference between the two
would involve no hesitation.
You and I could stand together.
I hold you dear, though perhaps
we were never close. It is no bother
to me, that we may not be close.
We may not be. We barely know
each other at all, after all.

What we do not know
of each other is surely enormous, and valuable
- incalculably vast and unexplored.
It doesn't bother me in the slightest
to know such a sprawling expanse of wonder exists.
It makes me happy to know you have all this
unknown under your care, and will manage it.
I trust you to, and I too have my wonder to deal with.
The world is far richer for all the unexplored we know is there.
People who rush to say "I know you" - they do not know a tithe
of you. Nor do I. And if we knew each other better - I feel
convinced, I am convicted - whatever wonder the universe
has, that you show me through your eyes, or whatever
knowing you reveals of the things you have inside,
I am convicted and convinced I would know no more of you
than I know now, really:

That you are good. That your pain and mine
were closely allied. That I am on your side. That we
were always closer than we knew.

Important

It's important
to fall asleep
at least as drunk as you wake up
dead sober
eating everything
in sight, until you earn
your fill
- you learn
to kill
the universe, until
you finally
give
up.
it hurts
Defeated,
you beat everything
can come to terms
in time, you
will

boots my size

Deftly handled,
sir. There's only
one of those answers
where I would ask you to

"back it up,"

if pressed! But...you know what?

Because you are right, and I do stand
for justice and for the forces of good,
I prefer

to leave it be. Let it lay, put
things in perspective and focus
on the eternal verities,

the broad, smooth panels of concrete
that make up the firm sidewalk upon which I stride,
rather then the cracks between

- which do not after all present any tripping hazard
for any dude in boots

my size.

Jeez

that last one
some poems, man
look
writing poems? I'm not saying every piece
has to be a masterpiece,
some dream within a dream-come-true, but

look,

poems,

poems aren't the problem! It's just

look, I don't even

just forget about it. Forget about that

last
one

this girl so much

I love this girl so much
I don't know why I love
this girl so much.

There is no why, because
if there was a because
I'd love the because
not the girl, I know
because

I love this girl so much,
I don't know why I love this girl so much.
I love this girl so much, I don't know why
I love this girl so much.

if I said I loved her, "reasons why,"
I'd be saying that the "why"
was dependent on whatever
"reasonable" factors, and
that if those factors
(severable from her, who
she is) were removed
(or proved not to be true), so too
would be my love;

proved void, my love
proved false, my love
proved wrong, my love - because
not you, but the reasons
failed, the factors failed, the why,
the "because"

failed.

Why,
I would never have been
in love with you at all!
But instead, in love
with a lot of reasons why,
with a trove of because,
in love with the factors
to consider, to contribute,
that - weighed in the balance!
- tallied up a total, and that
paltry calculation, some
soulless, emotionless, emotional
accountant

perhaps

calls love. Such shrewd and calculating
lovers know why.

They are in love because.

But
I love this girl so much,
I don't know why I love

this girl so much.
I love this girl
so much, I don't know why

I love this girl so much.

the love of a life not to be

she was the first person
I saw myself getting old
with. And loved
it! Loved
what it was all going to be
With her.

When we
broke up,

the entire
continent-sized peninsula
projecting off from in front of us -
the future
- a future
- our future. Nothing

more. It cracked

at our feet,
and wrenched rumbling off
to one side, into and through a
dark, foamy, sparkling
and angry sea, and then
slid behind. She
wasn't on it. She wasn't
beside me - just gone. I can still feel

inside of me, the shape
and details of a land
mapped and plotted,
that will never be trod
or tilled.

We had it
made real,
together. Real enough
to go live there, and know the way. But
that whole span of land
has now foundered, and sunk
behind - and you

are somewhere,
gone.

The part of me that stood there that day,
too shocked to speak,

stands here still refusing to weep.