"Let go. It's time"

I will never
let go of the past
for as long as I live.
If it takes the rest of my life, I will keep it
always. It was beautiful,
and true, and so other things I'm sure
will be beautiful,
or true. The past, even broken
and scattered beyond all repair, is

the only reason I've seen to have hope

in what life can be, and I am bringing that
with me.

notes to

This is one of those
self-referential poems
about the process of composing
one. I will include

No prose, but a strong
simulated unmetered, near-
rhymed lyrically mono
-tone, female and male feet

traces of old terminology,

notes to self: don't forget to come
back later, and change the part
about her titties
to something less obvious
about her eyes,

for instance:

how they bounce, which is
by far to be preferred to
that time in that boxy Chinese
restaurant back East, way back
, back then? With the saucer
of superhot Chinese

mustard (not a metaphor for anything
but those dry crunchy noodles you dip
into it), and with every single meal,

you bring her here for
the sticks
like white rice,
and the complimentary eye roll.

Do not.

Do not.

Attempt to reproduce

that fake so-called accent
you'd use. Not to self:

Not to anyone else, either. Note:

it was not what you think.

alibi, anecdote

LOOK OUT

In California today, winter
is so close you can smell
the snow that will never fall.

And in the glow of the encroaching dark
that suffuses equally well through clouds
and off smoke, directionless light
that stays, not out of love
for what it barely bathes,
but because as it very well
has always known, there is very soon
going to be nowhere to go. And I am
out,

out of all of the people you know,
who you've never brought home,
the one

to which we can readily refer,
in case of question
or comparison,

out of all those left
out in dark, out in cold,
who has felt it least?

I am the one.

Having had more warmth
bled out of me than whoever we're luckily
going to bring, pulled out of the crowd
to take a quick bow, and thermometer-check
for comparison, the result:

Is known.

Thank you, sit down, a big hand,
cold as stone for you. I was numb
once, but I have long since learned
who the number one is.

Possibility exists of one better than me,
than even me, at even this - though we haven't seen
the last
of me, or the first of him, or

her.

Or her, most like.
Let me be most loathe, if you will
I will be.
I'll at least leave room,
in case you'd like to try. I'll wait

'til then, and see. I die
to be crowned with that wreath,
my friend. Having by then surpassed
all conceivable odds
any fix competition can pitch,
by God. From the pistol crack,
to the ribbon, the end. In the matter
of numbness

I will be so crowned, the numbest.
I wait out
far out in the crowd,
even now in the cold.

The number one goes
out in all kinds of weather
just as long as the forecast is rain,
sleet, snow,
or in vain,
or otherwise. He neither waits,
nor strives to find his two.
feeling less than that? It could be

just you.

"Were She Self-"

Were she self-
congratulatory at all,
we'd have to admire her taste. But since
she is modest, and given
to praise, not boast -
we are forced to deflect
(not bestow)
compliments.

"Insidious Influence"

Somewhere someone
you passed on by
today, without a word
or eye contact
- you made their
day. Just by
the way
you passed on by!