unobverse

Always a bridesmaid,
never a God. The left
doesn't know that the right
one is odd. Having always
believed
propaganda
reports, and taken it
all in the skirt or the shorts,

It's not too late to see
there is nothing between
right and wrong but opinion
and fact, and neither one

strong,
or sure,
even clean,  
but they're free.
So you might as well flip

out on me and back. The coin
in my pocket is tails,

but if you make the call?
Then we'll see.

definition

A soul
is the damage a body inflicts
on the spirit inhabiting it. What once
was so pure, perfect and featureless
has become as it grows mature,
and you grow into it, so much more
featureful - and less
pure: so how

does it fit?

Do you soar
above yourself, disdaining
this realm, or sink
beneath without care
or qualm, or just go

on and on, and on
and on

Snippets from the Diary of a Rogue Ad Man

When life gets you

down?

GO GATORADE. Gatorade
is like the tits on a nuclear squid.
You start sucking on that glowing
ambrosial nectar, suddenly it turns

your whole DNA crazy
like you're breathing underwater,
staining your bike shorts with black ink
and fighting crime. One time,

I got thrown out of a top advertising firm
for the boldest pitch I ever had the balls
to put over the plate. It went wild, but boy

did I turn a few heads on the way out
the door as I was escorted by an honor guard
of security's best and brightest! When I hit

the street,

I had a Snickers
to recoup my wits
and stoke the flames a bit. Packed with peanuts,
Snickers Is A Motherfucker®. Thus fortified

by that sweet hit of chocolate, caramel
and a peanut crunch, I eased on down the road
with a heart as heavy as all the skies above.
It's true,

I had suffered a setback.

But I didn't actually work for the firm
anyway, and technically
they hadn't even invited me inside.
So I counted it pretty light in the loss column

- while each of the heads that I'd turned
with my bold presentation was an undeniable win.

I was sure to have better luck at the next firm. My next stop

would not even know what hit it.

meditative

These times are so frightening for all of us
what with what's going on in the news
Oh, didn't you see? Better run,
look now. It's worse than

you even can think

trust me

"the final possibility"

Are you the helpless twig
before my powerful storm?
But I don't want that.
I want you mighty oak after.
Are you the gentle slave
of my every wish? But
I don't want that.
I want your mind: Modern.
Womanly. Implacable. Are you

every thing I want in a woman,
ever? I don't want that. You need
to challenge me. GROW UP, woman. Tell
culture and media and peer group
fuck off! Time for you to call
shots. Finally, what I want,
babe. Ace this! Moment is
yours. You got it you know it
for real you know. Thank me

by BLOWING MY MIND

what empathy is

Empathy is not
illusion.

It’s imagination. It’s not hard
to hear words like hooks,
tearing and caught in a voice
you love, to look into eyes
lit with rage and tears - it’s not hard

to imagine yourself in the same place.
You aren't,
but you are.

It’s hard not to be
Wishing you could be
there in the same place
they are, to help them fight,

to pull them out.

Aching with hopeless rage yourself,
that you can’t be! That you can’t help.
Not really help. Not help what’s wrong.

But you’re here, now. With them, at least.
At least you can grasp their arm, their hand

as you both hold on. You can pull for them,

even if you can’t
pull them out.

Pull on
Pull through
the best you can do,
which is pitiful to you.

You feel next to useless,
but you hold on
for whatever it can mean
to them right now,

to have you here,
when they're so much in need.

You can be here for them,
even if you can’t really join them
in the horrible place where they are.
It’s so hard not to be able to.

It isn't hard, empathy.

Just the hardest thing
in the world, maybe. You tell
yourself you’d gladly suffer yourself,
rather than see them go through this

with you helpless to help. And no probably,

it wouldn’t be "gladly" that you'd do it.
But given the choice, you really would choose.
To be there, if only you could.

Empathy is no illusion.

You’ve been through thirty-two flavors of hell
yourself, and it’s pretty damn faint

if you can’t imagine yourself now, where they are.
How it feels, what they’re going through. Especially when

they just told you

every bit of how it feels.

Especially when they made every word tell,
especially as you reel from the hits.
Empathy’s not illusion.

It’s just imagination.
It’s just a very small

amount
of imagination.

Not even a leap! Not when
you’ve been there yourself,
or places as bad. Not when
it’s someone you love.

It’s one small step.

So real you wish you didn't have
to take it.

But there's no way in hell
you won't.

people love "authenticity"

Why do people love "authenticity"?

Is it just
their whole lives through
they've always
heard the word applied so positively,
to some thing

that can't be otherwise
explained
itself? Some deep simplicity:

It is itself,

and true to some tradition of itselfness
it exemplifies,

others can't: others try.

This is the what
you'll have to find,
or you'll never know why
what you've learned
refers to

Modern Man (Theme Song)

Modern Man
can do any thing
with the strength of seven billion

and gathering,

With the understanding, in modern terms
that gender being cultural fiction and all,
or so we've learned
so we can see
that Modern Man is you
and me

AND
TIME IS NOW!
THE MOMENT OURS
DON'T KNOW WHAT'S NEXT?
YOU KNOW WE CAN!

IT'S FINALLY
IT HAD TO BE
HERE COMES THE DAY
IT'S MODERN MAN!

Modern Man's
got active blood
and etherwaves and satellites
It's learning exponentially
It's learning that

it's not enough

to get it right
by increments
takes guts and blood
and time and sense
and money spent

AND
TIME IS NOW!
THE MOMENT OURS
DON'T KNOW WHAT'S NEXT?
YOU KNOW WE CAN!

IT'S FINALLY
IT HAD TO BE
HERE COMES THE DAY
IT'S MODERN MAN!

We just found out the greatest news:
that we control the climate now!
Without our even trying to!
Or soon we will - now we've found out.

What we can change: We can control.
Now that we know - it just
takes knowing how.

And knowing how
has, by degrees, been
pretty much our specialty
- so easily! our knowing goes.

Check out our cars and phones,
and clothes!

AND
TIME IS NOW!
THE MOMENT OURS
DON'T KNOW WHAT'S NEXT?
YOU KNOW WE CAN!

IT'S FINALLY
IT HAD TO BE
HERE COMES THE DAY
IT'S MODERN MAN!

epic interlude with minor exposition

The mighty she-warrior sheathed in tight
and flowing dragonsilk, stood

jutting out like a rock
outcropping,

to overlook

nothing: the hugely-shifting

mountainous drifts of colored glass
sand,

so softly bright,

all that remained of the storied
land
of bottles,
long since upended,
their contents drained, and sheathed

her sword. A

scimitar, technically
surpassed in excellence
by no known blade, forged
in the heart of a lesser star
of a now-obscure reality
show, who had turned
blacksmith after all

his legendary royalty
checks dried up, and only

surrendered the sword
to her,
after much sly banter.

It seemed like ages ago

Now
Her sheaths
both of leather and dragonsilk
were stained by the blood
of her enemies' friends

it's the closest she's ever come

to revenge.

Looking out and down, dully
across the dunes, duly-glittering

as the moon slid up, and off of them like dew

She knows about
what she always knew:

She has not yet gone too far,
and she has yet
much too far

to go.

Before she's through

body anger

body anger,
lately.

The pain,
the falling apart
isn't great, but I can see

or imagine from all stories told
that it's going to be.

It's going to be great.

And oh, the rue and the irony then,
over all the times that I doubled
in tears, laughing at old people

doubled in pain, unable to do
what they'd always done, unable to use
what they'd always used, and unable to save
the smallest part of respect that they'd gained

in a lifetime of labors, trickling lost
down invisible drains. What fun,

after all
that has happened to me,
it will happen to me. I guess
It's deserved.
For making up lies

just a few lines up -
About how I laughed.

For whatever it's worth
I never enjoyed my youth,
not once, at such an expense
while it's flown half past

and now,
knowing I never again
may get the chance, I look at myself

and begin to laugh

humanity more than God itself"

"I love
humanity more than God itself"
I declared, satisfied
and pretty sure

I was saved

by ambiguity, there.
As I always seem to be.
I cannot tell a lie,
in some sense
- no matter how wet

the cherry sap

might drip from the ax
behind the next tree.

In defense of hypocrisy

People who cry "hypocrisy"
are the ones offended by the fact
that others don't even want to be
self-righteous - a game they all think
they're so good at. They say, they see

"First women say they hate being hit on
and then they flirt!" or

"First Dempublicans hate Repocrats
doing that - then they do it!"

As if all of them say it, or hate it,
or do it.

As if saying it's bad could make doing it
worse.

I think that's it. Their self-righteousness

is a nasty, sarcastic, cynical pose. They believe

it is only believing its wrong
that can make an act wrong. As if

in a world without clothes, we would all
quite naturally become prudes.

As if it's a curse to be able to choose, if
we also say why we choose?

As if the worst is to even presume
we can know why we choose, or say why we do.

What offends them is that you can tell right from wrong,
at all. Not any amount of the wrong you do.

The sin is to tell.

The sin is to say that there's anything wrong to do.

Well I guess we're all sinners then. Big surprise?
Not so much. But we're better off able to tell, I judge.
And we're better for hearing the arguments, to decide

for ourselves,
in consequence,
which of them make sense.

We feel our way up by touch.

And sometimes judge poorly, do badly, do wrong.
Do the very damn thing that we knew all along,
and said as much: it is bad to do.
But at least,
to be able to know all along.
At least to accept
where we have gone wrong. And confess

to each other, come clean. Try again,
and tarnish anew.

Instead of complaining, in rich, dripping tones
at any who dares to suggest to you
there are things that can stain us at all,
or that we could amend, or atone
where we fall.

To say there are things we should try not to do.
It's offensive to them, to hear this
from you, or from anyone else
who they know is wrong.

Which is perfectly naturally, everyone.

You must practice perfection or not
preach at all! Say these bright Pharisees
of high dudgeon and moral appall.

The doctor whose practice consists in advice
took a hypocritical oath, since he smokes!
But he tells others not to smoke!

That's not right! That's not nice!

Yes, he knows it's not right.
So he tells you it's not, you dope.

Make up your mind, hypocrite,
imbecile:

Do you,
or do you not want a light?

At the end of your rope,
you can hang, or mope, or swing
as you please. You can say what is right
or is wrong, you can say why you choose. Yes,
even to me. For my part, I can tell you
what's right from wrong, myself.

We can both compare notes,

easily, in bottles or staves
and drink to intoxication, in time

to the music it makes
where we disagree.

For who are we, anyway?

To tell right from wrong?

You are you, of course.

I'm me. Who else?

If you don't mind my asking.

And if it's important, what matters most
to you, why wouldn't you tell?

Afraid, to be hung by your own decree?

Charge! Try, be acquitted
as best you can

of hypocrisy.

limits of conception

perhaps the worst conceivable thing
would be falling asleep in the light
of God's love, and waking to find
it had all been a dream.
I say perhaps
the worst conceivable
partly because who knows
what conceivable things one may
conceive at some later point,
to disturb one's peace, or
dreams, or waking serenity,
which one has never had
in the first place, and partly
because I'm not quite sure
it's conceivable at all. I mean,
going to sleep in the light
of God's love, and waking to find
it was all a dream? What the hell
does either part of that mean?
Perhaps it's a mistake
to think one can conceive it
at all. In which case
it could not be the worst
conceivable. Anyway, one feels
one could always do worse
than just what's real

usual sci-fi gloss

A lot of people fear me
because of how easily intimidated
they are. But when pressed
and pressed hard,
they admit:

the truth of it is,
I'm such a thoroughly
admirable and stainless
human being.

They just didn't want
to admit it at first

because it seemed wrong
to them some how,

that one guy

could have it all: brains,
minds, hearts, hands, STAVES,
CUPS AND SWORDS! It's like

I'm a walking Deck of Fortune,
sometimes, like Rick Deckard
at the start of Blade Runner, speaking
his easy patois to the noodle guy, everybody
after him 'cause he's always on the CASE - next
thing you know,

some huge origami gaffe is misconstrued
as a unicorn dream hint, and people start

saying the guy's a robot. But fuck that
no, he's not. he's
ALL MAN.

And I know what that's like,
as people will readily concede
when pressed.

consequitur

Consequences are immense. The only things

that hold us to.
Potentially, and make
us great, I guess. If we accept

they do.

Novel

There's nothing left of this life
I want to live, sometimes
except
there is more to experience. Even if
it's the same as was previous
in experience.
There are more
different people
to touch, I guess
to touch, with life
with light, with whatever

I have

to touch them with?

There is more of that.

There is more of it.

I am ready to go, you know
I have done enough, but

I can see there is probably more
to do.

It won't be new,
but to someone else,

it might be good
to do.

For them

And I never did give
a fuck
about something new.

Or did I? No,

oh well

Amen.

duh

food is POOP by the time it's through,
so where'd that SMELL come from then,
HUH?

Guys it's just a scent that your body adds to
that food. So that you don't eat it again,

duh

If you give up on me,

If you give up on me,
I will give up on
us

But I won't give up on you

I trust you too damn much
if you give up on me,

I will take your word.
And I'll never stop learning
from what you meant

From me, anything else
would be absurd.

ditty ditty doggerel

I love you
almost
incomprehensibly.
You understand
me perfectly.
Between us and if pressed, I guess
we couldn't even
question we.

practicing

I flushed my throat with chords and tore
my veins with words both raw and burnt
sung hallowed, hollowed, sanctified
and vulgar, vain and profane, love

I thought that I had had enough
but I had only had the one

three songs a day
there's time for two

more yet before
this pain is gone,

and I partake
in all the promised

perfect

practice

doesn't make.

But for some sake
besides my own,

I'll discipline
these steps I take.

this chick's tits are the business

this chick's tits are the business, and she
don't mind how I mind her business, in fact
she's an entrepreneur of décolletage
her initial and public offering's large
oh,
but oh so discreet and modest, as well.
She keeps all such assets well-wrapped,
you can tell if you make her an offer,
she's not going to sell.

What kind of a business is that?

I don't know, but she's doing quite well,
apparently. She corners the market
with ease and grace, and each presentation
she makes is high, and proud, and firm
and fair, and not at all in-your-face.

One could only wish. But really, it's better
when everything's kept
to its proper place.
Isn't it?

It is. But there is no accounting
for taste,

in this biz.

"the thing with wings"

You get butterflies in your stomach
when your heart gets in your throat.
The butterflies fly up your butt
and poop out eggs of hope

And when they hatch,
those caterpillars
eat you from within

You're all filled up with hard cocoons
a metamorphosis
to begin
Soon

soon.

You're growing wings in places you can't fly
But soon,

Soon.
Soon,

Your hopes matured
in acid bath of undigested
questions why

will burst from you
and fly,

And never die.

And you'll lie there, an empty husk
with just enough of moisture left
to cry,

with your open, staring eyes

chasing butterflies

"larksmith"

Sometimes
I become almost painfully aware
that I'm much too much aware
of trivialities, but then

even as I do, some fruitful almost
ludicrously abstruse connection will spring

between the triviality I was working on noticing
and some huge, cosmically comically life-governing fact
I'd always lived peacefully with,
or without, blissfully oblivious, and I am

consoled not more than distracted by this
- how do other people notice such things?
- or, how do they not?
- Until the next.

Anyway I couldn't really change, because
it isn't really like that.
Something like,
surely,
but something isn't me. How many ways
I like to think of myself
aren't really true?

Surely I'm aware I'm not really
so oblivious as I like to observe.
I exaggerate the extent

from the surprise, every time
it hits me yet again, yes

again.

I put it in words others wouldn't
(I've scarcely heard anyone rhapsodize
their density or inattention) and the effect

of well-disposition over something
I don't control cheers me. I realize
or decide, I like this thing about me.

It's an important fact of why I am this way. Then
heartened and boldened, I lean
a little into it

and stalk forward into life, to see
what I will catch in this light. Except

it isn't an important fact. It's some kind

of triviality, isn't it? And to go forth
boldly in it, living as if
significance were birdsong
and who knows what else,

vanishing back into the jungle
of insatiable discovery (as if!)

- it's some kind of stunt, isn't it?
I love such stunts! But we must honestly admit
that whatever they teach us isn't much. Honestly
or dishonestly. It's faint and small,
and - apart from the consequences
of our embrace, reckless and breathtaking

- inconsequential

strange consolation

Reading a library book
is like hanging out with a friend
who has end-stage cancer
and it can't be long now. You linger
by their bedside while they whisper

out their story, afraid
lest a single drop be lost.

And then, their time has come.
And then they are overdue.

It's amazing what a little hope
can do.

But eventually, they're gone.

And you're back in the library
again, looking for a new friend

who will not be yours for long.

feelings left out

My feelings for you
don't appear in this poem.
I've left them all out,
this time.

They're already known,
and some things
don't need to be said every time.

Or that's what I'm saying right now.

Later, I'm sure
I can rely on you
to show me how.

"times that come"

I want to rest in you
as you rest on me, after
the labor of love is spent
and we're holding on to
the wonderment, wondering where
such time has gone,
and thinking to follow
wherever it went.

beginning out

We think we know each other very well.
You know. I think you do. Our time will tell.

I know. I won't say what. Don't want the jinx.
I'm confident we're more than either thinks.

We won't end up a disappointed wish.
Middling never began so well as this.

You're confident I'm more than myself knows.
We know enough to guess where this won't go,

and take a leap or two into abyss.

Untitled

I WANT YOUR ASS.
TO BE MINE.
FOREVER

I WANT YOUR ASS.
TO BE MINE.
FOREVER

This is a song for a woman to hear,
this is a song for a woman to sing -
some kinda figure of speech, I know.
it's either synecdoche or metonymy.
It doesn't mean literally only "ass."
The part is named to stand in for the whole.
'Cause I don't want a piece of ass, of you.
I want body mind and soul

I WANT YOUR ASS.
TO BE MINE.
FOREVER

I WANT YOUR ASS.
TO BE MINE.
FOREVER

This is a song for a man to hear -
this is a song for a man to sing.
it might not mean as little as it appears
it's gonna mean a whole lot more for me
'Cause I want your love
I don't mean now
I do mean now, stretching endlessly
From where I stand, panting for eternity
it's just a consequence of you and me

I WANT YOUR ASS.
TO BE MINE.
FOREVER

I WANT YOUR ASS.
TO BE MINE.
FOREVER

with a wheel missing

There is no subconscious.
It's an outmoded, made-up, beat-up
old-timey bicycle Psychology Today
peddles to deliver issues
to piddling, self-interested
people too shallow to suspect
or vain to believe
there's nothing

less boring

under the blank
and endlessly bland
self-reflection of their
worthless, and far too
earnestly burnished

surfaces.

irreconcilable

What brought us to this is irrelevant
- unless? If we choose to learn from it,
uncover the causes whose dire and shining
effects, so seemingly, irreversibly wrecked -
If uncovered, if understood, could help us -
not help ourselves,

perhaps.

Some causes are lost. But such grasp,
with intent, might help us each
steer a clearer and nearer course

through consequence

than the one we steered,
to our own 'shipwrecked grief,
our mutual, consensual detriment,

our loss.

Of us.

And of ourselves.

To the point we are both
too mad at fate and what's left
of life, to weep.

What brought us to this
is irrelevant,
in terms of the damage
and ultimate wrongs: not acts,

but facts of nature

- and incompatible - between us, that you
nor I

could overcome, ever. No,

and not even we.

Understanding what happened to us,
and why,

cannot save one single damn thing
we see, or together, or even apart
have ever seen, that there was
to see.

But for going from here,

it might save two.

Maybe we can't help we.
But I could help you,

and you could help me.

If we wanted to.

dick pics are empirically not a problem

If my growing-respectable sample size of years
of experience forged in tears and in sacrifice
are indicative,

dick pics are empirically not a problem.
I haven't seen one, except those I've sent

I don't think they ever occur in real life
or if they don't,
then that proves me right.

But I never got one,
is the point.

That's life.

sorta boiling

"A watched pot never,"
and I caught it at just
the inopportune time

as it almost tried, but -

thwarted by folksy, truistic laws
that by common consent reflect cosmic cause

it hangs perfectly poised
at a point between.

And I stare, like a staring-contest

was on. To see for how long,

we can hold the suspense. I have

so many recipes hanging on this,
which my feverish mind (capturing

loose heat) ( - nothing to do
with the circumstance, it always
does that) coming up with such ways

to make food come alive
in a pot held in sway
by my steely and vigilant

STARE

- it would surely make
some difference to how
each ingredient comes alive

to the taste? I have caught

an epochal moment, and poised
for epiphany -

I am watching this pot.

It depends upon me.

This pot shall not boil,
not on my watch.

Or I'll know the reason why,

and for the first time in ten months
of ruthless search for the lamest excuse,

crack that bottle of fifty-year scotch.

reasons to comment.

You can justify it
a couple of ways.

You can use a base of accurate,
clear-sighted well-wrought praise

to cover for the urgently-needy
need of a trenchant, or piquant or lucid
point of critique,

or two,

or more. Or:

the converse is good, as well!

Whichever works best for you,
by all means: indulge

in letting it out.
It may be just what

they never knew,
they wouldn't have thought,
or some other surprise

that removes from them
any irksome or painful kernel
of doubt they have lodged
in their teeth,

as to whether or what
they've done's worth
noticing.

- surprise

is the small, hard seed
that grows to hope.

And it's also the key,

but there isn't a door, in this case.
I should draw this now to a close,
before mixed metaphor

is acquired by taste.

But the point is, whatever you say

they will know that you cared enough

to risk egg on your face.

"a straightening"

Alcohol
is a volatile mindless
volitionless chemical
that puts no sin or ugliness

in you.
It's simply an
excuse you use
to let whatever you've
grown in you out,
and then,

in reflective mood, groan
and excuse your self
by blaming the spirits.

The blame and the fault
is all in you, all along,
for everything you can't hide
in the moment it doesn't seem wrong,
dissolved in proof. Let it settle

and set,
and accept its truth
is a fact about you,
if you don't want to let
it ride.
If you want
to be pretty and good,

you can.

Forgive your evasions,
forget your excuses and face
whatever kind of a man,
woman, or child or beast
you've been keeping inside.

Quit letting it out on a drunk.

And don't even think to apologize.

Let it out sober, instead. Stare down
its bloodshot eyes, and try coming to grips
with the need or pretense, this bent

in you

that has had you masking and covering it,
with so few believable lies.

If you want,
be yourself.

It's the best thing to be,
but you have to own all of it.

Hoist glass! And: Raise to the light!
And let shine, through every ebb
and mote. And then, full-knowing all

that lurks in the dregs,

drink yourself down.
To the last, clung drop!
And prepare to glow.

Next time, propose a toast.

cleanest cleaner clean

I wish that my mind could be water-shaped,
and I would pour you a bathtub, full
of my thoughts so clear

you would never suspect.

Not once in your life
would you ever have got
so
thoroughly clean
or
soaking wet

Declaring the Enemy Pt.2

modern justice politics

the way to win a war
is to declare the enemy all around,
each of them boxed and checked off,
transfixed unexpectedly shocked

to be so declared

it must be on immaculate irrefutable basis
by the same established principles

they had themselves just
been cheering, and learning to use

feeling themselves just.

the way to win the war
is to make sure everyone on all sides
knows at any point

they could be marked out,
crossed off,
pariahfied

so WATCH IT

is the watchword.

Weren't you just explaining righteously
enlightening someone about the disgusting
inhuman anticompassionate 'them' you
have so summarily been welcomed to?

This is how we will win.

We must amass

an army

disgusted, confused,
indignant and disorganized

swollen ranks of the summarily-deputized
enemy, and then

we will walk right over them.

"declare the enemy"

In anger, in ire
we shall rise above
and see all of the field

and who has turned out, and who
was just there,

and our tactical outrage
pours out through the air

to blast where they stand
every one,
everywhere:

(except for the pure of us)

for what they have done, for what
people like them

have done.

It is for them,
that we are

declaring the enemy
punish you royally
turn you against me
YOU are the problem

YOU are the enemy
turn you against me
everyone now can see

who.

It is you,
and those like you
and everyone else who likes
those like you

you,
all of you

have decided yourselves,
and marked yourselves out,

please consider yourself
divided against us, and cast
from humanity
pretty damn well

it's not me, it's you.
Your own actions are loud
Your appearance proclaims

which box you're allowed
to be fit in, and
we fit all you in.

So we check you off.

Now shall we continue? Begin,
Again,

Declaring the enemy
punish you royally
turn you against me
and all I stand for,
trod upon readily.

Here's
what we plan for:

This is war.

And you are the enemy.
Because you deserve it.
Because what you've done
you, or people like you:

your time has all come.
YOU are the problem
turn you against me
now everyone can see

who

this is for.
This is for all of us.

We didn't start
this war.

"the story of my"

this tiny sign, just

above the box of pens, said
and says "take,

but don't keep"
How perfect
and apt that is,
to me.

It is good
advice given imperatively.

These pens

are yours,
or one of them,
to use - but

it is not yours.

Make any words you like,
such as "mine,"
your not-yours pen
will pliantly humor you. Draw any line,

but you'll be drawn back: return, relinquish,
now we are through.

That comma,
a sole mercy,
that sharp slack tiny transfixed lull,
means so much to me.

That moment
deliberately interposed,
given to say: it's okay,
you can have,
you can hold,
you can take,
you can use - cradle this

in mind, you can take that
with you - but you can

not keep.

Walking out of the building,
my breast pocket cried
from the empty place in it,
where nothing can hide.

"great gobs"

we sat
so close

I bit
into the egg sandwich you made
for me

you leaned in
eager to see

me like it.
I knew, held
as I held it,

pregnant with unbroken yolk,

it could spurt great clinging gobs
all over your surprised face,
a soft hot rorschach,

crowning your blush,
bejewelling an eyelash

- one of those things that happen.
It didn't. The hot flood was mine,

filling my delicious mouth,

and the blush was mine. You saw,
and approved.

You have won,
but it could have gone
easily either way,

with one slightly wrong
move.

TMI poem #1 scabs

OHHHH, NOYEAH. Scabs,
man. They tighten up
and pull at the skin, sometimes

there's itching under there
as everything knits itself together...! Also
that PRIMAL URGE both to "hasten"

the healing process,

jumping the gun as if it's already done (but
it probably isn't and we probably know) (yet
SO SATISFYING when we think we're jumping the

gun but no!

All new pink skin!
Nailed it!) and the
perverser urge to interrupt it, to spy

on its secret workings while they're still glistening
- setting back the process!

The scab

is the hat of our body's secret doctor,
and it fascinates us
to see him or her working on the surface.

We want to peek under there!
And all the right/wrong
warring sensations slowly
pulling at each other
under that scab... they're

just calling
and calling at us
to pick them off, to intensify.

"Two Halves"

I'm old,
and stained by use, and sprained
by overuse and maybe tamed by abuse,
misuse, some small neglect, miscalculated
interest, risk, benefit, and debt. And darling,

I just noticed it.
I kid you not.
It all came crashing home,
just thinking of you, so shiny new

to spend

a lifetime's worth of never once wanting
to roam. I'll give you

gladly

everything I have left, this half a life
on loan,
if you think you can take
what you've got, add all that is mine,

and make it come out for the best

in the end.

apportation

I don't even know how I got
in the house.
I do things
forgetting, unmindful
somehow but the door's
always locked,
when I step
back to check.
It's the only way I
can ever get out
of the now

I suspect.

stringlessness

This observation is worth nothing, now, but it's true.

And so truth
is worth nothing now,
but I give it to you.

"Misdoubt."

I return
to the words
and the sayings
and times of ours,

and the good that we were
still shines.
And I know

you do, too.
Some thing

has you thinking
of me, the way I

still think of you.

We were fine.

Were we only a way
to help ourselves through

all the things
that we'd have to do -

our new starts?

Or did we go somewhere wrong?
Maybe

we shouldn't have blown apart. But

I've always known,
since we did.
That I could depend on you.
So maybe we're guilty
of one misstep?

So what.

Every one since then has been true.

"No Fault"

I want
to possess you
utterly, because all
I am is yours, and all I have
is for you.

I'm so lost in you
that my only chance
to find myself is when
you give you back to me;

though I am not owed you,

so,

it's kind of a risk.

It's not virtuous, smart,
or deliberate

to have thrown myself so,
into all of this
- into your heart. It is rather
the lack of all those things. It was stupid

and dumb,
but I've come
to trust myself
when I want to give all,
from the very start, or
at critical points
along the way. It brings

a sense of well-being,
that comes
when you trust someone,
enough to say
- anything

they could hold you to.

But if anyone ever
could break me of it,
it's you.
I know it's you.
Through no fault of your own,

and through all of those usually mine,
we'll find

if a lesson is due in time. And this time,
if it's due,
in honor of you,
I may not refuse to learn. Those dice
are thrown. That one crack die

And then when I do,
what if
every piece of my self
that I've lost, came back to me?

To burn.

I can not lie.

There would be such a bonfire effigy,
as all of the world
could come out to see,
and warm its hands, in turn.
And I hope
you'd be standing somewhere in line
to warm your hands,
while I shine. Since you know,

I would. By then,
you'll have well
and truly earned
whatever I'll have had to find,
and both of us
will take it for a sign.
And then you'll be mine.

Until then, let's yearn.

road song

What if all of life
besides out on the road
is a dream? And we always wake up
where we've always been:
somewhere on the way.
Destinations await,
but to linger in them
is a dreamlike state. Whether pleasant,
uneasy or downright unreal,
it's all fading away
in the call
of the song
of the road
passing under the wheel.

"Piety"

Oh my god, this girl
the assistant waitress
at the Thai-German place
was a goddess. Her tits
all trussed up in a bodice
and thrust at us,
and she had six arms. Lord
some guys like to fantasize
about a threesome, but a girl
with six arms? Get me some. Her eyes

flashed like lightning,
I held back a perfect gentleman. She was too young
and innocent
- couldn't have been
more than six thousand
years old. I said to myself, obey this one's
recommendation,
and I did. I know when

to do what I'm told.

"smilelike"

This half-gift of smilelike expression you have,
to put someone off or on their guard
depending on what they wish to take
- I wish I could learn. It doesn't look hard.

A person could think you're faking it.
Another, you're trying but can't quite reach
a happiness that they don't quite give.
The harder they try, the lesson you teach.

You're not holding back, or holding out
false hope, or any. You're looking outside.
I think of you balancing razorlike
on an inner calm stretching miles wide.

"Good and Bad Use"

I really just want to use you for sex,
love, and conversation, which covers
the bases of wants and needs
as long as it's done adventurously.
All over this world you've given me,
I want you to use me however you please.
Your motives and purpose are fine and blest,
so long as I'm any good use to you. Let's get used
to being each other's best
advantage, and take it for all of the worth
we've granted,
for every good purpose and use, just as if
we planned it
- and the bad ones, too.
Let's not forget those. You really look
far too good in your clothes.
Could you use some help getting out
of those? I suddenly must be of use
to you. You know what that's like yourself,
I guess? You always are, and you always do.
I just hope that I can be half, or all,
or half again as much use to you
as you are to me. That would be
success.

"Decisions"

I love you fresh from the shower
with nothing on, showing your haircut off
with aplomb, and wondering what
or whether to dress. Your face
says you're open to suggest

don't explain

It's not the thought
that counts the words
I've meant too much to say
to you how much I feel,
but I don't have the first idea
how to make you see. It's real.
I can't explain in any way
that's making any kind of sense
that anyone has ever known.
You've blown my mind, in my defense.
My mind is blown.

"provocateuse"

You melt my heart of iron,
alchemize it into gold and cast
it in the shape of every face
and form of you that I behold.
Commedienne and muse, and model,
artist and provocateur:
every inch of you disclosed
just keeps me wanting miles more.

top half of paradise

The sunrise here goes on
for hours
at least,
We pretend to keep
seeing rich rose tints
in the brightening clouds, as the colors

the colours
come deepening, lightening

out

So incomparable,
every day like clocks
go on sweeping round
their hands,

cobwebs of night
asunder and flown,
knocking back stars
like a round of drinks
so the ceiling of day
can come over bright

to protect what's known,

or so you'd think.

Wherever I go,
I love the sky.

It's probably my
favorite half of the world

especially when I
am here,

with you,

Our backs to the rest,
on the grass
like dew,

and drawing out sunrise with crayons
of peach, rose, gold

and blue.

spirit sense

no more beer no more wine
no more whisky for me
I'm just going to drink
straight gin,
'til something makes sense,
again

it's the one spirit left
that's still speaking
to me

I'm just going to drink
straight gin,
'til something makes
sense, again

breathe in

pour out

breathing.

vodka has not
any character
that I care to witness,
these days.

At least, not in me
or that it gives mine
I'd rather not bother
elaborate

tequila just tastes
like sperm and defeat.
If I told you, I'd have
tequila

The less said the better,
on so many scores.

breathe in,

pour out

breathing.

One more

restless and wing

The birds in the stands of pampas grass
are rustling about
like motherfucks.
There's a bunch
of them. It sounds pretty
wild. They're making a living,
I have no doubt.

Hey. Jealousy sucks.
Could you teach me how?
To rustle and hop so
to and fro, and have more
to get by, and then to fly?
It looks easy for you!
It's not; I know

wash away clear

It really doesn’t matter
when we hit truth. Humanity
is water running downhill,
eroding the silt
of our fully-owned ignorance

by sheer force of our passing
and contact with it. Exposing
eventually
the bare limits of reality. I’ve always said

geniuses don’t do a damn thing

for us,
not in the long view.
They goose us a bit. They dislodge
a prodigious clump of sludge
here or there, that nothing could ever
have prevented
from being dislodged, from being
dissolved

- because ignorance is soluble.

Reality is not.

And we are the water. We will
wear down to it, regardless:

for everything knowable
is inevitable.

"me together"

I never knew the back of my hand
like I know you, but I'm getting there.
My parts of the body never knew their place
or maybe, they just didn't like it. My hands
are always trying to think. See how they cradle
my head and can't get in. It's okay you two.
You don't even know what you don't want to.
My feet want to fly, instead of be walked on.
Why I love hammocks, but feet
no part of this body does that. My eyes
sometimes wish they were elbows,
the hardest striking surface
we've got. Only my belly
and dick seem content,
and only then when their needs
and wants are pleasantly met.
While that's going on, every part
of me wants to be them.
That, or when I'm dancing -
the feet don't mind at all
- or drinking and talking to you,
and my mouth pretemds it is for
those things. And each part of me acts
like it knows what it's for,
and is waiting in wings.

you two love birds

And here we have the wild love, the lesson for the rest of us
in glory full revealed, an object to be much disgust
For this is how the world could be, if only you could find someone
Oh wait I think you did. Still the lesson lessens on

You two love birds!
Just chirpin' songs together
You two love birds!
Get a room
You two love birds!
So glad to see you happy
at least the one of you
at least the one of you

It doesn't seem like anyone could be a better fit for you
And I'm not hanging on, wishing that it wasn't true
I do sincerely hope you both mature and deepen, deeper yet
perhaps mature beyond these sickening displays we get

You two love birds!
Just chirpin' songs together
You two love birds!
Get a room
You two love birds!
So glad to see you happy
at least the one of you
at least the one of you

You two love birds!
Chitter and groom each other
You two love birds!
Get a room
You two love birds!
Or maybe chimpanzees
So nice to see you happy,
at least the one who was
the one for me

The happiness I'm seeing now is happiness I used to know
I'd rather see it going on and on, just let it go
I can't feel angry now, I can't even call it regret
I knew you once, so well. You deserve the good you get

You two love birds!
Just chirpin' songs together
You two love birds!
Get a room
You two love birds!
So glad to see you happy
at least the one of you
at least the one of you

You two love birds!
Chitter and groom each other
You two love birds!
Get a room
You two love birds!
Or maybe chimpanzees
So nice to see you happy,
at least the one who was
the one for me

roundly, in parables

for the kingdom of Heaven is like a soup
that hat a savour in it as of something burned,
such that the chefs declare one and all "it has burned,"
but the master of the house tasting it, declares
it has not burned, and lo it is served
to the praise of all the guests.

Or again, it is like a bird, high in the air
who maketh only so much way forward
as the wind push it back. Making no effort
it is hung suspended, drawn backwards
toward its origin. Yet with mighty efforts
of its wings, it keeps its place.

Or again it is like a soot, where chimneys
used to be. The chimneys are no more, still
the people look upon the soot, remarking
one to the other.

Or again it is like none of these things.
It never was. Strain not your understanding,
lest you be cast into the soup and be burned,
and tasted, and be declared burnt, and again
tasted and found to have been unburnt. The guests

will consume you with praise.

at last, the dregs

We mixed these cups together, once
and sip by sip, contented us.
But up you rose, before begun
was barely underway. You left,
and left me yours to muse upon.

I looked in mine: it was yet full.

I drank in deeper draughts, from then
but still it runneth over lips
to stain each day's shirt, donned anew,

and put away,
ruined by you.

Or no. By my own greediness,
to taste again from cup so blest!

At last, the dregs.
There's barely left a stain
of our sweet bitterness

to whet the tongue,
remembering you.

And all you gave,
in our brief pause
between the wars
and chores and pains,
and all we had to do
with them.

I lift it up, upending all
this last that slips and drips
in me, of what our love

forgot, forgave
in our brief cause,
so long since lost,
so long before,
to which we gave

our lives, for once
but not for all.

It's happening.

My cup is done.

I reach for yours.

Procrastination Angel

The angel of procrastination saves me many a broken fall,
by all the paths I do not fear, but do not tread at all,
at all.

Withal, I often see myself
gone so far down so many of them,
it is a comfort and a strength
to come back to myself

amen.

World News Forever

More than 150,000 people were killed
yesterday in a bizarre coincidence
involving organ or systems failure
for which no one underlying cause
has been established, tragic
and accidental trauma, senseless
assault provoked or unprovoked,
and savage attacks by animals
including beloved house pets,
wild beasts and sea creatures. Authorities

have as yet given no explanation. News outlets

have not reported on the story. Further bulletins

as events warrant.

Captaincy

Whoever does whatever's next
from here on in gets

all the blame.

Inherits the entirety
of all that's done before,

for shame.

That is the price
to take it on
to set the course

and cast off ties

- you must take on
the whole of it,
into the hold

and not capsize.

So let's hold hands
and take the wheel

there's just enough
to fight over

You push, I'll pull
the way we feel

We'll lay such course between us as
our smiling eyes can stand to see
between the glare of breaking day

and fade of last night's revelry,
into this morning's hangover.

one's druthers

darling,
I would rather be with you
than locked
in the deepest cell
of the darkest dungeon,
shackled in irons hanging
from stone walls, left
without water for days
or air or light, to starve

without your delightful ways.

I would rather be with you
than slapped in the face 'til
I throw up drunk and realize
all of existence is a simulation

run by a sound and furious idiot,
signifying everything

I would far rather, far better
have all your love

than be shot through the heart
by a chimpanzee
who could not be blamed.

He was badly trained, or
it all came about accidentally

- that's assuming I die. If I survive
that would be one hell of a story,

right?

I wouldn't mind that. But you,
though - you. I would still rather be
with you,

no question at all
about that

From first sight.

fruition

Pears. Eat them up! They are past
their prime, kind of grainy

and mealy, and none
too sweet. We held off, we
forbore to partake early, awaiting

peak ripeness. And lo! Their time
of perfection has come, and gone,

and they remain - lovely

as a bowl of wax apples.

But they are not delicious.
Did we miss their moment

of fruition? Or maybe,
it was just

these were not good

pears.

the grand canyon: bull shit

The grand canyon's fucking
weak, ok? It's bull shit

just so many aspects of it,
I don't even know

where to start.

Ok: the Colorado River,
right? That thing

flows all the way down
all that way,
from up wherever in the Rocky Mountains
all the way down
to whatever bay or gulf
of whatever, wherever way down south
it empties to the drink. Except

it doesn't dig a big stupid fucking hole
all that way down, does it? No,

it doesn't! So what's the difference
where the grand canyon is?

I say the ground there is weak. I say
we have a case of weak ground, to start with,
and then some big fucking puddle comes tear-assing through
for about a billion years, carried all the dirt away with it
and suddenly,
now we've got this hole

which we're supposed to celebrate?

What is there to celebrate about that? fuckin'
WEAK GROUND, cause for awe
and tourism? Fuck, how about

we celebrate the land both North and South
of the so-called "Grand"
canyon - how about we celebrate

THAT?

Let's praise the ground
that stood its ground! That held firm! That demonstrated
the true grit of what ground's about? But no,
instead,
we waste our laurels on some damn hole
that basically had as its main achievement,
that it wore away. Basically,
we praise the fact that the dirt there
couldn't hack it, couldn't hang.

Took off.

The grand canyon represents all that's worst
of the American Landscape. I say

we quit making such a big deal out of it.

It's damn hole, okay?

podes

the world is a pebble we loom around,
placing our feet so awkwardly not
to trod it down

holiday home

This childhood home which you've all outgrown
has been stretched too big for what's left
of your parents to keep and mend.
But it's kept for you,

to steal holidays in
from your far-flung lives,

a few more times before the end.
It was all they could do.

Image problem focus group

Biggest compound problem in the world?

A huge personal insult that anyone doesn't
trust
like
pay immediate full attention to me, and

Anyone I've decided against,

deserves my worst
plus whatever else they get.

Meanwhile, though, we expect people to
trust
like
pay attention to us. Immediately,

As if the people we so easily are

- our worst -

are not
related to us
at all.

Really.

News: your worst

is who you are really.

And:

the only one who deserves it

or who you deserve

is you.

"Caretaker"

This garden
where I prune my wild love of you
is just a plot
that I cleared out
of wilderness within myself.
I found it hot and overgrown
with undergrowth, set fire to it
with my own hand,

then planted fruiting vines that died.
They can't abide the canopies, regrown
so thick with birds all eating leaves
and spreading wings to shade beneath,
remaining deeply undisturbed,
as I am not.

For all my plans lie now unmade.
I cannot understand, so I let
nature claim its course again.
I only weed what's poisonous;
whatever's left

is only yours.
Come see.
Give me your hand.
Together, I'll explain
what I've been doing here. Or maybe
I'll just say that I forgot.
For you, my dear

your bosomy

With your toes curled up
and your beautiful legs drawn in,
lying in my embrace

With your perfect sweet seat
making promises snuggle in
- my arm across your waist

and my one hand strays
where the promise of union is kept
like a secret between

as my other arm, under you
cradles you back to chest

exploring the shape of a dream

you are
bosomy, bosomy
I don't know what it means, it's just you
you’re so bosomy, bosomy
I imagine you turn and gather me in,
and you do, to your
bosomy, bosomy

And I know that there is no sin to find
in your bosomy bosomy
just another part of you,
that you've given me

'cause you're mine.

I have never known
anybody so well-formed,
and so well-informed

'cause the way you know me
is like no one has known
since the day I was born,

it's like you kept me warm
through this world of distance and drought
a world without you near

then with the nick of time on your side
you swooped me out

so I could disappear,

in your
bosomy, bosomy
I don't know what it means, it's just you
you’re so bosomy, bosomy
I imagine you turn and gather me in,
and you do, to your
bosomy, bosomy

And I know that there is no sin to find
in your bosomy bosomy
just another part of you,
that you've given me

'cause you're mine.

And then we draw back,
and your eyes are up here, dear.
For me to fall into

like two perfect seas of grey
under skies so blue,
it's all coming clear

and your face was framed by an angel,
carved in stone.
I see it come to life,

with your sea curls tumbling down
around us both, I look down

so suddenly shy

...

And you're bosomy, bosomy
And I don't know what it means,
it's just you.
You’re so bosomy,
bosomy - I imagine you reach
and gather me in,
and you do,
to your

bosomy, bosomy

And I know that there is no sin to find
in your bosomy bosomy
just another part of you,

that you've given me -

You're mine.

"the whole shebang"

I slip the entire
cookie in my mouth.
It's a common procedure
I learned from a man
whose grasp on life is simple and light
and sweet - even more than you say I am.

I sip the whole beer
down in one pull.
It's symbolic of how
I drank that beer.
It's meant as a beer on our life and times,
and I think it succeeds. It's strong and clear.

I'd like to take you
in just this way.
Not to consume
or devour whole,
but to slip me a taste of you self and all,
and never stop taking you in 'til I'm full,
which I've never been,
but I'd like to see.
What it's like, how it feels.
So much you in me, and the whole full all of you

still right there, holding my gaze

and breathing my air.

"Observance"

I feel from afar your trouble
and wonder: Why do you not call?

Surely some long call with me
could lift your gaze from
too present woes, help clarify
between disparate desperate paths
laid at your feet, which is the least
inclined or exposed, and which

of the fruits stretched out
to your hand, the most forbidding
or ravishing? Such is the custom

of our people, you and me,

instituted in our wisdom
and honored greatly lately
by a long breach, after which
shall we not lapse again to observance,
of ritual raptures and throes,
one of us call and catch up
together, practice and preach?

See how it goes?

I do not say that it must be you,
but the fact it is not is troubling.
A doubt and a cloud drift over my mind.
Perhaps you can no longer give me a ring.
Perhaps all your troubles were undisturbed
all this time. We only thought it was worth

something,

and the bitter gall of that cup
would be too much to raise again
to health, and drink, and lift up
one voice to sing,

as if one were enough.

"thinking of you"

My mind has gone under your clothes,
where you softly and barely glow,
under the veil of what you wear

- which I can't really see,
though light filters through
to there I am,
one, two

layers deep

- skin deep - getting lost
in I'm sure not where,
but it's warm and close,
and closer and still

in a dark rosy glow, with
a rise and a fall of you.

I am least and most
in this moment, you keep
me hushed in a holy awe
of you unrevealed,

in this secret cloaked,
about us both. It is ours,
I feel.

Not wholly blind, I grope
my way disembodily on,
seeking some way in -

to embody myself
enfleshed in you
and take utter possession,
at last. Win-win?

"Favorites"

Where I stand, beauty's no
kind of competition, and
I've seen them all

And I think I could speak
for a lot of guys, but
I think I won't

Let me say, in this cold
sexist world we live in
it would not be right

To pretend to ignore
all the opposites that
attract the likes

of all of the beautiful girls
oh all of the beautiful girls
oh I love the beautiful girls,
but I play favorites just with her

I met her, by a pond
with a million fish in
when we both fell in

Then we saved, both our lives
it was kind of fun and
it has not worn thin.

I see girls, lovely girls
all around me but I
just don't compare

I mean they don't compare
but then neither do I
I think that's fair

ah all of the beautiful girls
oh all of the beautiful girls
oh I love the beautiful girls,
but I play favorites just with her

all of the beautiful birds
all of the beautiful bees,
of all of the beautiful boys
she plays favorites just with me

You can say you've got eyes
just for only the one
you call your own

But strike me blind
if it's wrong to appreciate all
God's creation

Just pretend, if you can
that we live in a world
where love is free

But then come back to this world, and
keep your hands off my girl,
'cause she's with me!

ah all of the beautiful girls
oh all of the beautiful girls
oh I love the beautiful girls,
but I play favorites just with her

all of the beautiful birds
all of the beautiful bees,
of all of the beautiful boys
she plays favorites just with me

correction

I probably slept
on it wrong all night.
Slumbering through the warning cramps,
waking up to a struggling light

in my eyes,

And the stabbing twinge in my neck
has trained my body to hold my head
a certain way

that seems to indicate

dispassion, reserve, equanimity, but

in fact is a broken submission to nerve
and whatever else

is enflamed or strained,
or has been so disturbed

as to shoot this pain out
into blameless neck,

and straighten me up
upon pain of wreck.

It has trained me so well,
to hold myself
- I soon forget. I carry my attitude

naturally,
until someone says something
I unexpect,

and I look up happy, surprised
then impaled

to suddenly realize

I have made a false move.
Not such as have narrowly

been approved. On no, wasn't
you, wasn't

what you said. In fact, I don't know
what that was. It was me

the anguished face,
the dismay:

I was incorrect.

I am going to bed, now
because.

The Beautiful

America! Is the land of milk
and honey, you're the cream
We'll tie you up, on a pedestal
the better to be seen
around the world

- they will cry your name,
and face the sun
a blaze of red,
dying in the West

And all the world is so happy now,
the change has surely come
America, we can't do without
the thing we have become

So hoist the flag,
run it up the pole, and let it fly
so pure and white,
you know that it was bleached

And all of the world has its problems
You've shown us how far we can solve them
Declare them all equal, passé,
and then let them all - pass away

- they weren't that important now, anyway,

guitar solo.

America, knows exactly what
the purpose of it means
it's how the world looks to anyone
about the age fourteen

Past the point
you can always stop
yourself from going,
growing blue - from how
it should have gone

We all want a share in your progress
We all hold a part of your hope
The American Dream ain't what it used to be
When we could of woke

America, is the land of milk
and honey, you're the cream
give me your eyes - individual
and complementary,
let's grow in sighs -
appreciating all
that is in you,
it's only me - and all
that we imply

So let us be - we'll be so unique,
nothing special, nothing hard -
Be you! And let me be me, for
all it's worth, let's go so far
We're lost.
Therefore let us find
ourselves in this - it's innocence

not ignorance, this bliss.

welcome bag

Hey new neighbor
maybe you remember me, so
just
in case you do, I'll

just leave this
upon your porch

no push, the bell
no clack, the knocker

really, there's no urgency just
whenever you get the chance,
happen to notice, open

the door, maybe later
you're going out
pretty much like before
like you always do

like a bitch? you would demand suspiciously
but I'd quell that bull shit suspicious shtick
with my patented COLD EYE

and speaking of which,

And furthermore
wow,

WHAT

a huge, beautiful brass
knocker you've got! This door
should have two of these

Really stand out.

Anyway, for you

in case you don't remember who
it's me, from before and I'll just

leave this bag
on fire,

which

is actually appropriate,
if you think back a bit

please do.

findings

At first this poem
was intended as a controlled study

of the effects of poetry upon
the statistically representative sample,

including a subset who would be force-read
a placebo.

The results were shocking. Nobody
showed up. All symptoms vanished

without reported side-effects
and the whole thing, really

had to be viewed as complete success

to be understood in its proper context.
In the history of poems, it proves nothing

and everything one might imagine

a poem is capable of

to be either true, or substantially
capable of supporting such interpretations
as render truth

itself suspect. In which case,

we must concluding: funding
must be secured immediately

and gigantically,

so that the future of poetry
vindicated by the findings
may proceed assured.

occult motion

In that perfection that came to truth so easily,
there is nothing to sacrifice, nothing to
misunderstand. You can study on it

or profess to believe, but

Do not take a hand

unless you're prepared to take the stand,
and be sentenced free

for the rest of your life
you can already see.

It was not unplanned

"Gift of Sight"

Unveil your lamp,
o goddess of moon!
Loose the fasteners,
let shutters fall
and light spill out
like pale champagne,
as all mankind (at least,
all yours - all mine)

grows drunk from the light you play,
so generously as the shadows fall
from eyes aglow,
eyes that know,
and can never again see obstacle
or obstruction, or veil

your naked light.
Eyes can never be blind,
that have had such a gift of sight.

For catching up on sleep

For catching up on sleep
so far
this year, I've got
so far ahead, my waking life
will not catch up. I've lapped it
twenty times in bed,

in chairs, on beaches, under stars -
the harshest sun could not stop me
from following my dreams right down
to where they live, insensibly

"Same Love"

Why's it always got to be so hard
When it's always so true in her eyes?
When you can tell he means every word?
But the truth
works out to a compromise
Why's it always got feel so wrong?
We have to fight all the way through
to agree
Is one of us not honest at all?
And is it me

Well if it ain't two in love
Then how could it be you in love?
If you're not in the same love
You're not in the same love
Well if you say it's understood
Then you better agree for good
'Cause if you're not in the same love
You're not in love

Why's it always got to be so dumb
Like the same stupid thing always tripping us up
and in the end, we agree to be wrong
But the truth is - we take it on trust
'Cause baby I can't believe that you'd lie
And your faith in me, so painful to see
But we can't see what's right to save our live
between you and me

Baby if we ain't two in love
Then how could it be you in love?
If you're not in the same love,
you're not in the same love
If you can't share the same idea,
then you better get one thing clear:
You're not in the same love,
and you're not in love.

"Wine & Roses"

One day we'll quit our jobs and live like kings.

Or you can live like a queen, if that's your thing
And poets will cast all our thoughts into rhymes,
and artists will paint our views
And the artists, and poets, will each be us
And love will be our muse

and I'll make love to you, every chance I get
And you'll continue to go straight to my head
And boldly we'll stroll where no one has before -
the sun shining in your hair

and we'll spread our cloth and lay our picnic out,
right there, and I

Will bring wild roses,
and you will drink red wine
And days will pass like moments,
and nights will freeze in time

And the world your heart encloses
will be filled with love from mine,

And I

will bring wild roses
And you
will drink red wine

Said I'll make love to you, every chance I get
Our lives will be saved, our futures will be set
Horizons will open as far as the eye
can't take it all in at once

And the world will provide for all of our needs,
and satisfy our wants, and I

Will bring wild roses,
and you will drink red wine
And days will pass like moments,
and nights will freeze in time

And the world your heart encloses
will be filled with love from mine,

And I

will bring wild roses
And you
will drink red wine

And when I think how I've longed to hold you, dear
And now you're standing in reach, now you're right here
And maybe we've already waited too long

but you haven't lost your shine

And I will bring wild roses, And you

will drink red wine.

"over it"

Please
don't tell me to
get "over it," when "it"
is the shining best
love of my too-short life.

Your

too-short life, will be over
all too quick. When you have
the chance,

get over it.

And tell me what
that's like.

psychic surgery

To amputate a phantom limb
involves a certain suffering
in finding out how little pain
accompanies the sudden loss
of where there never was a gain,

or really, anything at all.
Just something that you thought

was there. An attribute

you always had

depended on - and never let
it let you down. But now you know,
the drop,
the ball.

No one was playing catch with you
at all.

It's just
your mind, that it was in.
So all along, it was but prayer
or placebo - your faith,

your sin. You were the one

who counted every win, in game
no other joined. About something
no other cared.

There was no wrong,
just phantom right.

Of which,
they were the champion.

And won, somehow

- Just every
single
time.

but

it was only you,
to cheer them on, and
they did not know why

or how.

So everything
is just as was.

No wound to close,
no stitch, no fuss

You can't make up the difference, now.

"your earring," Or, "the visitation"

Wasn't somebody looking
for an earring once?
This was ages ago,
looking everywhere.

It is on the sill.

In the entrance nook. Come by
when you can, you will find it
there.

Or maybe you did come by, and you put
it there yourself, on the sill

as a sign?

That you had been there,
but not who you are.
Please come by again

It would be divine.

"Pleasures in prospect"

"I am willing to forego many pleasures,"
I reflected, absent-minded, as I do "To
enjoy the enjoyment of others not deprived
thereby." Truth, in a present meditation
on the beauty
of the orange juice, cold
from the fridge, disappearing
almost all but the jigger's-worth
of a big half-bottleful
into my huge glass.

Then, wryly
(as I often am)
returned to some semblance
of mindfulness, making off

innocently
with the evidence.

"manifesto, no"

Poetry is more than just a
bunch of thoughtful touches stuck in
for assholes to appreciate!

"Preparation for enjoyment"

I wish I had never come in,
for you to tell me now
we have to go and do. I was enjoying

thoroughly out there, no going,
no doing - now I have
to not shift gears,
but wreck the engine! Break
it and bend its flanges and pound,
whack, bang on and otherunwise
detool its just now cracked, twisted
block into the deprecisioned unfunction
machine needed

to process enjoyment
and enjoy the process
of this perverted love
of unscheduled purposeful action of yours,
that you have - and I have in you. Stand back!

I am the master. Only I
know what I am doing, here,
and - perfect! We can go.

"mixed blessings of protection"

Out of most of the doors,
almost in the first real, beautiful day for weeks
and enjoying the sceened-in porch
by yourself,

the sudden,
dancing retreating advancing whine
like a siren, a rotary saw, into
then out of the audible, middle
then near in the distance - is recognized:

one of the bugs you have found
getting happy and fat on your blood. You know
the kind,
and it pricks
your ears

and your nerves thrill sick, every sense
on alert looking out for it
as your blood takes up
the alarming whine like a populace
trembling at the crime - but surely,

safe?
In here, screened away?
Behind metal walls,
solid with billions of tiny squared holes,
in perfect array to let in the sun,
and the breeze,

and the sound

just the sound of the siren's whine? Just to remind,

how good it is - to be here,
screened off, almost in the day
so fine. Just to call,

for to tempt the blood. Just
for suspense, to build release. Just

to madden the mind with rising red,
til' you leap from the temple of sacrifice
and burst out with a yell of crazed defeat,

to acquiesce to liquidity,
consent to become the elect,
as you join the feast.

classic forms

A nihilist,
a misanthrope
and a paranoid solipsist walk into a bar. The nihilist
says to the misanthrope, "Cheer up!
These people you hate are meaningless.
Yes, even me." The misanthrope replies

"Ah, if you only knew.
The hatred gives them meaning." The paranoid solipsist says,

"Will you two
shut up? Since
I first imagined you
you have persecuted me! It is like
some bad joke." "There is no joke,"

rumbled the determinist bartender,
with an edge of regret. "Only each of us,
playing out our inevitable nature
against a backdrop of convincingly
illusory free will. Now,"

he brightened, serving the paranoid solipsist's drink,

"What will your hallucinations have?"

sublimation

There's a fine line between subversion
and what you're doing. Subversion is cool!
When you stumble across the word, say "whoa

what's that

look it up, remember
to close your quotes belatedly,"
learn what it means and

mind blown

start using it for fucking everything

- THAT

is subversion. Specifically,
it's metasubversion.

You're subverting the word subversion,
by using it for fucking everything
and trying to get the subversive jolt

but

no dice.

It isn't subversive at all, that way.
It's not genuine or authentic.

You're just being the arriviste

of subversion - the uncoolest subversive
there is.

Sadface subversive, realizing
how much joy
you took in it, and everyone
looking at you, appalled grimaces
eye rolls

didn't notice - didn't hear - too late

"She's RUINING subversion! Or
He is" - suspiciously to each other

meanwhile

what you're doing?

Good work!

Subversion is for fucking morons and losers.
Keep ruining it!

it's cool

a dream of more

So many people
have come to a point in their lives
looking for more.
More from themselves

More from loved ones
More

from life.
But

where do we find this more?
From Scripture? Scripture says
"Hey. Don't look at me!
That's all she wrote,
chapter and verse"
- memorized don't lie.
Wherefore then seek more?
In some weird, easy trick
- a life hack? Some Social
Viral South Keto Beach Blanket
Bingo Victory, where the biggest loser
humiliates themselves to inherit
the Earth's worth of followers
and likes? And if this shot

doesn't crack the facade

of Earth's pretended indifference,
(we know you love us, secretly
sure) and if this shot
does not, and if this
shot does not, then

maybe the next, keep trying

don't ever give up on your dream
of more. Your dream
with nothing
in it.

Nothing specific, just

wanting more.

Don't give up.
You will get it
soon enough.

galore

She is not lost.

She is not lost.
She's not who you thought she was
She's not who you said she was
She's everything she has been

instead,
all along
Not lost.

She's just what you're finding out
Since you took the room to doubt
The picture of her you snapped,
and colored the gaps,
outside her lines,
to proceed along

without.

She is not lost.

age of effigy

We live in the age of effigy
We construct straw men to set afire,
and dance around them, feeling exorcised

in righteous and satisfied glow of ire.
Then return, disgusted, to shaking our heads
teeth clenched, flying spittle, demanding of all:

"How can they continue to be this way?
The way that I say they are,

so small
so simple

such voodoo dolls,
after all.

They don't stand for them - what they say they do.

They stand for me. I have set them up.
I know them like they don't know themselves,
from a point of view that is incorrupt

And they all mean exactly just what I say:
so terrible, petty and vile it is!
And no matter what they say they mean
and believe

- such pathetic excuse
cannot exist.

Cannot ring true, or stand
- not once you rightly know
who they are,
what they signify.

How can thinking beings go on like this?
So far,

it doesn't make sense to me at all. The lie!
Their sick motivations, I've given to them,
and refuse to consider a thing they say

- for I know what it only would mean, okay?
They haven't a chance taking me

in such sway.

But I wish
that they weren't so impossible

To understand
To reach
To hear

I don't see how they can act like this,"

Light an effigy, then dance circles

around your fear,
my dear

- it's the only way

to turn the earth over
unconsciousness,
and make the sun rise,
to illuminate yet -

another day,

you'll see

about what you think it is.

respect the past

Could you please

not live in the past, unless
you were actually happy back then?

Not

just dipping back
to when things sucked, but

then sneak, bolt off
and live in the imagined futures

that then still seemed
bright? At least,

enough to bask in.

This is not
living in the past.
Respect the past

if you're going to live
there,

live

in what actually happened.
Live in how it was.

Yesterday's futures -
You can just as well
pretend all those things now,
as then. It is the same exact

chance. They have not dimmed
one iota; they are every bit

as possible,
as probable,
as plausible now

as they were at the time.
Even with all of the people involved
married, or dead, or moved away now -
who were not so then -

the specific futures you believed in then
are not one bit more

unlikely now,

then they ever were. You
were just so much better yourself

at playing pretend.

nocent

in a way that connotes, but does not imply
we were too much knowing of dangerous things
and not unaware of all that transpired
which since has acquired a shameful sting

- we were each put on notice:
our presence here

would continue solely at our own risk,
and we would be on our recognizance,
upon our honor

we swear, and kiss.

If we're found out again, in suspicious state -
there will be no shame spared upon our case.
We will strip and frisk, full disclosure galore
- giving absolute proofs, we'll protest innocence

but no one will cheer,
or ask for more.

As their finding of truth,
they will show us

The Door

outsize

It will all be okay when he's around.
'Cause he's five feet fucking eleven tall
and monstrously huge in his looming stroll
- the closer he gets, people lose their minds
because how can one man so god damn monstrous
be contained by the visual cortex? And they make way,

because they know now he's here, it's fine.
Whatever way he goes is his - best
to get out of it, on principle.
His intimidating presence
reassures all.

They know what he says
has pretty much already come to pass,
or it might as well,
and he says: "It will all be okay."

Imagine if somebody pissed him off.
Ho-lee shit. He might flex his burly extent, flick
his baleful gaze, mournfully
upon them and mumble one or two
of his two or three pet threats: "If you say

that again I will take your BALLS
and tuck them into your asshole," or,
"I'm about to pull your head off
and go bowling with it." From how everyone dives

for cover and averts horrified eyes, dipshit who dared
knows he fucked upwardly, and must needs consider a swift
retirement from the field.

Nobody can believe that guy.
Who messes with the king of the place?
His gigantic tyranny's security's ensured
by the mere enormous menace of his presence alone,
since everybody knows it's in no one's best interest.

He wills ill to no one, but
he brooks no rivers
nor trucks with truculence. Nevertheless one time even,
he suffered a fool eternally. Everybody was like
"what the hell?" but we had to admit, it was
the craziest thing we saw all day.

For the most part though, his sweet temper
is second only to the threatening presence
he can't help, being terrifyingly gigantic. People claiming

well above six foot

look up to him considerably,
so what that let you know. Man's huge,
and his rule is "Don't start none,
won't be none." When he's around,

that goes without saying or else.
But people can tell, ultimately.

It's all okay, or it's gonna be.

resurrection theory

You are the one
who planned out your entire life
beat by beat and step by step
before you were born
and since.
You stepped
into it with a will.
God's will

is not merely God's, but
also all of ours, combined

- it is not a democracy.

We are burning
in the friction of our separate
divine,

and some of us are consumed
utterly, in agony -

and all of us
go out like candles, eventually.

But there is a memory

more perfect and detailed
than ever was reality. Holding
not only all of all we are, but

all of everything we ever thought
we could be, wanted to be
or tried to be, wished

we could be.

- and will be again,

eternally -
since all this is known,
of each of us
who wish to be.

At least, it's a theory.

twinflames

i was in your heart
when i saw a bear
but the bear was really you

so i jumped on you
and we both flew off
to visit my heart too

we were in-between
when we lost our way
and you turned into a goose

but i loved you just
as much as before
the goose was really you

we are twinflames
we are soulmates
it makes sense to us
always

we are twinflames
we are destined
i enflame you
you are my twin
we are burning

well the world is just
an enormous sign
that's pointed straight to home

pointed straight to us
and with other signs
that point our way to roam

did we each agree
before we were born
to meet here in this place?

looking at us now
I would say that's just
the kind of plan we'd make

we are twinflames
we are soulmates
it makes sense to us
always

we are twinflames
we are destined
i enflame you
you are my twin
we are burning

sentence without possibility of

Listen, I hope you don't think I

There wasn't any point in time
What you even mean to me, I can't

Without you, there isn't anyone
Can't you see what I'm
I'm
not the one
who can finish all these

without you
to interrupt

me.

beggar's cant

The only reason I don't beg
- it isn't pride.
Chuck that, I'd gladly beg
all you would gladly give of you.
'Specially if you'd want me to, but
I don't know that you do. If I
abase myself, is that a thrill?

Or would I have imposed?

I won't! Unless you like
imposing men. If that's the case,
I will. I am

too often told, for my taste
anyway, I can be quite imposing
- and I flat refuse
imposing this on any but

who'll welcome it.

I know - sounds like some
kinky shit.

disgusting horror poem

Disgusting horror poem. What
do I want in it? Body horror

like blades erupting out of
our own poor bodies, or
your feet slowly turning
into hands.

Supernatural horror, like
eldritch, occult holiness
might be responsible beyond
all comprehension, the hints
are terrifying and
inconclusive.

Psychological horror, like
clues building: maybe you
did it and don't know?

Things I don't want in it,
unless they slip in naturally
accidentally:

trashy teenage exploitation
slasher flick horror, with
horrible punishment for
dispirited, impersonal,
indifferently-acted
gratuitous sex and nudity
doled out like clockwork
by a U.S.M.(unstoppable
killing
machine)

Gothic horror, except
in atmospheric touches.

Love horror. I don't know
what that is and I don't
want to know. Except oh
shit. Maybe

that's the
only kind I ought to be
exploring? Perhaps
in a separate poem, more or

less disgusting

"sentinel and observer"

When you wake up to your waiting world,
I hope the dreams that slip from you
are happy ones.
I would stand post
inside your mind, alert
and watchful as you sleep,
to ward anxieties and troubles off
so you can order things as you would wish,
in slumber deepening your hold
on every treasure that you keep.
So wakened safe to freshly-broken day,
you can refresh yourself
and take your post by windowlight,
and watch for me,
to wish me on my way.

twin flames

shush!
superstitions must be shushed
or it's bad luck and won't come true!!
what if we're not twin flames?
what if we're not
twin flames? Don't say

that we are

it's bad luck, don't tempt

the fate

we agreed to this before the universe, maybe
so don't get all haughty now,
presumptuous,

just

accept it like it was,
smug smile, if you have to,
self-knowingly and

you and I

aw, baby?

you know we are don't you?

secretly?

don't say it
it's not good luck

but maybe we are

"Far as I can tell"

Racism is an uncomfortable fact.
The only thing people hate more than that
is the fact it exists, so hard to deny
without people making assumptions of why
you’re denying it.

And then there’s sex. Or genders
- which, come to find out, there’s twelve.
As an intact male, I’m fine with that.
The pronoun I go with is “you,” myself.
3rd person is strictly for gossiping.

I never had much to say on that score,
I’m just keeping it straight,
and white,
and male
- which is just about as hard as it always was.
certainly no harder than it was before

far as I can tell.

"The Curse"

You used to worry me, and now you don't.
Should I be worried about that?

I used to think of you as someone close.
Now I can't get close enough,
in fact:

I want to live with you.
I want to live for you.
I don't want to die at all!
You know I used to,
but you have cured me of the curse
just as if I deserve it all

You used to humor me, and now we just laugh.
- we never had to be careful.

But there isn't anyone who'd take such cares
There isn't anyone responsible,
out there

But I'm responsible,
and you're responsible
You're the one who filled me up
'Cause I was empty once,
but you have cured me of the curse
just as if I could ever be enough,

And you

have my heart. And I

can barely hold yours

There isn't anyone could even begin
to make such a start worth finishing,
For sure:

I want to live with you.
I want to live for you.
I don't want to die at all!
You know I used to,
but you have cured me of the curse
ever since I began to fall,

for you