the lesson they stayed to give

Grow up to the death of your dreams
and play them out in sour pantomime,
So everyone can see,
you never gave up
on propriety.

Mom and dad aren't in love.
They're just pretending to be,
sometimes, and this

is the lesson we've stayed to give
your entire life: oh child of mine,

This
is what love
and adulthood are like.

To believe in so much,
and give up on so hard,
and resolve so strong
to pretend through your teeth

and to teach the young

you must do what is right:
stay. Give your example to them

of relationship.
Teach them how much they must accept,

how little
they can expect from it.

Smile in their faces,
recalling with a tear, how grateful you are
your own parents
taught you to take things so far.

And yet, so near

The Love Of My Life

You took me up,
you made me want to love
to be the fool I always was
to be the fool I always am
It always ends quite badly, ma'am
it seems a case of just because
and I don't need to understand

As long as you're still glad we met
I won't regret how much I tried
I won't regret how much I can
A good thing lived; a good thing died

The love of my life
is right here in my heart
and nothing else
can take my pain apart
and you can't make me bitter,
if you tried. This is the love
of my life. This is the love
of my life.

This is the love

You took me up,
I offered all my life
At least you took a piece of it.
The biggest piece, it always seems
The one that I can't do without,
a hole that nothing seems to fit:
the shape of you, plus room for doubt

But since you couldn't take it all,
I'm glad you chose and took the best.
I won't regret how much is gone
I couldn't offer any less

The love of my life
is right here in my heart
and nothing else
can take my pain apart
and you can't make me bitter,
if you tried. This is the love
of my life. This is the love
of my life.

This is the love

"The small"

The small of her back
is smaller than mine,
and more precious by far -
to me, at least.
I love to draw near
and kiss her behind
the knees, and her legs

- her face, her shoulder
her neck, but the small

of her back
makes me weak.

I want to be

strong, for her. Put my back

and shoulders, my all

into whatever chore

she lays out
to be done

I will thoroughly work
oh so eagerly through,

and patiently wait
on call for more.

I will never be done
so long as there's her,

and there's anything she
would have me do.

"blue balls"

"Blue balls," apparently,
are a real thing. Or
a pair, possibly. I looked it

up on Wikipedia, not wishing
to risk Google Images. It appears
(or they appear) to be some kind

of vascular deal. Treatment

includes sexual release, "or perhaps

straining to move a very heavy object
—in essence doing a Valsalva maneuver."[7]

7. ^ Chalett, J.M.; Nerenberg, L.T. (2000).

"Blue Balls":
A Diagnostic Consideration in Testiculoscrotal Pain
in Young Adults: A Case Report

and Discussion". Pediatrics. 106 (4): 843.
doi:10.1542/peds.106.4.843. PMID 11015532.

I include the citation because fuck that.

Sounds like a prescription for a hernia to me!

Don't go trying to assuage your "blue balls"

with some maniac powerlift session, hurt yourself

and in the process, blame it on online poetry!

I, like many if not most online poets,
strive to be responsible in my
medical coverage.

I'd like to think your balls
are worth a little caution.

Now, good news for myself
and any other men - men, full
in the bloom of their own very
virility! - who previously thought

"blue balls" was either a myth, a tall tale
to do with Paul Bunyan's pet ox Babe (who, presumably,
used to be a Big Blue Bull until something unthinkable
happened to his Big Blue Huevos) or else,

made up by horny teenagers in an attempt
to counterbalance competing guilts - no!

"Blue balls" is (and are) no joke. However,

they are experienced by

not all men.

Which feels like it explains a lot,
but probably doesn't.

"Games of Skill"

The chance of me being here,

everyday in you

You say it's your heart

I have won, and I win you

again and again - like a carnival prize

with one bean bag toss, all the bottles capsize

and you've taken me home,

for keeps, in your heart.

I guess you've won me?

The conditions weren't clear

from the start, and they've grown

more mysterious still.

I've never been happy like this

- but I will.

hypnopompic

I was half asleep,
lying on my back and the blankets
were heavy upon me.

I opened my eyes to find your face
inches from mine,
filled with see-I-told-you-so amusement.

But you weren't there, and I tried
to pull myself back down,
into the dream

with you

but it was gone.
It was time to get up.

Next time, dream girl

We will catch ourselves
before we are through.

bedtime story

The world was roofed
with polished-smooth celestial spheres,
shot through with light - when humans, looking out
saw through them all,
and did not fall.
Good night

glorious requiem

When I'm at my best,
I am something else.
When I'm at my worst,
I am something again.
For the first time now,
I'm beginning to feel
like I know what the Nothing
is like. Oh hallelujah,
Amen,
and oh what a glorious
wreck I am,
with everything I could believe
going down. Should I fall
to my knees and pretend

it will rise again?

Or just lay me now
to sleep,

as this beast with its chains
keeps circling.

Poets are like

Poets are like
metaphors, trying to be similes. They hold
something back, and something
in store. An idea of language in mind,

which they rarely use; an ideal

they rarely attempt to test or prove,

But when they do:
they try to form thoughts
into words, with a mind so focused
that no words appear at all
- except necessary ones.

The right word - not its stranger sibling,
as perfect as effort can make it,
nothing to strike,
and nothing missing.
All that's there, combined
and working together,
aligned to fit: one purpose

(whatever it is; the poem’s)

to justify truth into meaning
by minimum means necessary,
to a maximum of intended truth, and yes,
effect too. In general,

poets these days eschew

limits, except
to explore, fruitfully enjoying
the ins and outs of a bright line held lightly,
or employed more seriously, held in place
to add pleasing structure. And so

sometimes, or
even oftener,

Poets don’t rhyme.

But sometimes they rhyme. No limits?
Why not then? They’ll use a scheme
as a stunt, a flourish,
with meter to drive the beat home
to a satisfying finish,

syllables running through
in even array, or stop-start
choppily strewn awry,

all a technique to emphasize,
to counterpoint, or to magnify
effect, and meaning, and whatever else
the poet has handy to show or imply.

A poem

is an example of language distilled
to specific purpose, using any
of several unnatural means
to lull us into its dream logic,

to learn and feel whatever the poet
is trying to be, or prove, or feel
themselves, that day. By an art

more artifice than otherwise,
the poet attempts the natural,
by sneaking in under it, usually.
And often - some say, too often,

in an act far more sloppily, lazily done
than focus or discipline well describe.
More exuberant play than a focused work, or

- maybe that’s just the effect conveyed
and contrived? Which would then be deliberate!

And if so, deserved. Earned. For whatever
it’s worth: when it works,

all in tune (so the poet hopes)
with intent, and all their effects
pulled together, and meaning

- nothing at all? Maybe. Or
something worthwhile, perhaps.

When it’s over, you wake
safe at home, and
you shake your head, and
decide (maybe not) to smile.

That's about all the poet hopes.
A lapse of some moments, to sink
in a world, composed of words,

in which you might spot something
worth taking with you, into the air,
clumsily, like a fledgling bird

or elegantly, like the sophisticated
reader of poetry that you clearly are.

You won't be shaking, reduced
to emotional states they have expertly
crafted and given to you, to become.

That can happen, true! But it's not
something poets expect to pull off,
or get away with, as a rule,
To change someone

uncertainty tales of indeterminate moral

In the dark,
She was wearing Schrodinger’s Clothes
She was like the Empress everyone knows
to be decent, and wise, and true

and with the Event drawing nearer,
I knew I would settle for two

out of three. And She

would, too. We were so out of sorts
that eventually,
we couldn't observe

our position or course

without everything getting confused,
but we knew
in due course,
we would cover all possible states
and places at rates
simultaneously fast, in fact

it appears that we're already there!
Miraculously, it is holding, and it

appears to last!

indeterminately?

the picture of pie

The people who sneer they are getting less
wherever they go. The picture of pie
and the one that arrives. They sneer
at the difference to show
they have not been fooled. They know
that this world is not as it's advertised.
So they advertise themselves, but I
am not fooled. They feed
on the difference that lies.
They live
upon what they're superior to,
and they are getting less,
wherever they go
than you and I
used to do.

creative realization

Sometimes you hate what you have to do
get ready
and go
and be there
and stay
and wait
while admiring views
and the view
of people saying what they think,
or pretending to

why can't this be easy?
why can't it be wonderful
like it sometimes is?
and you go hoping this
will be one of those times,
which it never is,
since you've been mine

And sometimes you think
what we have to do
to get through,
whether lie
or quit
or screw
will be fine

sad, anachronistic hijinks

Your full-on commando panty raid
was spoiled by lack of underpance
You bungled it in the planning stage
Your Intel did not give you a chance -
For they
are full on commandos, too.
And now you're at bay, and they
have the drop on, and rather
a bone to pick with you.

arise the weresquirrel

I now believe in sleep debt
And the possibility of paying
it back.
The zombie I've been for days
is dead.
Instead, there's a living man!
In fact, eager and quick
with suspicious bright eyes
and rather a bushier tail

than I recall, going into
that nap.

identity ninja

you think you might kinda have that thing
an online test or two or three

the self-reflection and respect
it brings to take up disability
so you can stand in solidarity

with those
who weren't given any choice

when you barged in, in matching clothes

to be their voice.

bye felipe

To broadcast an assumption
that your sexual content is welcome
When You Don't Know it's welcome -

that's an act of passion aggression
with a side of presumption that comes off
as reckless disregard of other, self and both,
or something. Why do that?!

Why destroy so many chances by presuming
what you know you don't know, you know?

Well, guess.

It's an asset test.
Some sorta Pass/Fail wager: she hates,
skate.
She tolerates - green light
for hot tail pursuit,
calling all points she is
in cahoots and
axsing for it!! This!

Is why they will

never

stop.

We think they're coming unclued. They think
this test works.

All it loses
them is the best of times
they could have with the waste of times
#wait4it brigade.

Which in theory, they would rather skip
than delay.

So they theorize,
Keep walking in guns blazing!
This max action tactic has to work

some day


i read it in maxim

Judges

I am
the living sibboleth
Your judgment is to be
pronounced
as soon as you step over me

I'll seize you by the tounge
and mouth the sentence

that will set you free,

if only you repeat it right,
for if you don't,

you'll send to rest
some forty thousand Ephraimites
avenged,

at last!

Who overstepping Jordan
slew themselves by speech defect -

could not appease the sentinels.
Now,
Try
to say this sh** correct.

Mnemantra

Soon, you'll be alone
with the memory

of all

your sincere regards.

And I'll

shuffle off the deck, discretely.

This cruise

Has been free of charge,
so far...

But the price of admission is guilt
There's a series of fiction confessions in you
and I'm sensing the scent of a new career
When you fly off the cliff after it,
won't you spare me one glance in your rear
view
Mirror,
you?

Re

MEM

BER

my

SHINE
This abyss that i have been
is not the worst fix i've been in RE! MEM! BER! MY!
SHINE
once you've seen the last of me
that's the worst of it you'll have to see RE! MEM! BER! MY!
SHINE
if you've let your vision swim
from the too much light that you let in,

re mem ber

mine

my
mind, somewhere
over the spectrum

and heart

in a cool, dry place

where you

have been trapped in graven image

by the lines

as it desiccates,

in an airless space
as the heiresses r.s.v.p.,
they regret to inform you on bended knee
that you'll soon be attending the banquet alone
with a change of address, it is now your home

sweet home

re

mem

ber

MY!

SHINE
as you wash the world in light
from the one thing you got right, RE! MEM! BER! MY!
SHINE
once you've seen the last of me
that's the worst of it you'll have to see, RE! MEM! BER! MY!
SHINE
if you've let your vision swim
from the too much light that you let in

remember mine

This abyss that I have been
is not the worst fix I've been in -

since you've seen the last of me,
having left behind the best you'll see -

if you've let your vision drown
from the too much light that you let down,

re mem ber why

re mem ber our

re mem ber my

time

why

why.

WHY?

WHY are Blood and Sweat saluted and glorified
yet Semen, joyous sweet peace-loving Semen,
Maker of All Babies (until relatively recently
) is treated as a mark of disrespectful, a most

shameful stain upon escutcheons of one and all
men - "not all men," some lie and pretend with each other,
but it's true. All men! Are the target of slingers
seeking to make the shame of our Semen ridiculous

upon us! Shall we let them?

I say thee Nay! Fie upon such foul sports! Time has come

To release fair play from its hidden glens, and let it rush forth

in proud spurts onto the field
and raining down upon the stands
in a tumultuous exultation of excruciating joy
that will by glory holy and innocence baring,

washing away all stain of shame

from the suddenly truth-laden face and eyes

of all who will bare their share of discarded modesty

humbly flaunting their honest nature before us all to see what is
right in public!

And take up the strangled cry of triumph,

a triumph of the human sweetness of joyous, obsessive,

peace-loving Semen. Finally

we will not tolerate the giggling!

her poem opening

Her poem
was

A visually-pleasing block
of
text,

opening out 
and down

.

It was nice, how it all di
vided up into positive neg
ative space alternating -

Almost as if
You could tell what's

next

just by looking at it! Interpreting 

shapes,and I told her
what I thought of it, and

she thought that was o.k.
She was very polite and in
terested. Neither of us

had to be nice. We were two

completely free
grownups, 

discussing and
relating as we chose. I
work in a daycare, so -

breath of fresh air, you know?

We stood there, at her poem opening,
At the Marja Tivot McRose-DeVeau
Immortal Soul Memorial Coffee Gallery

talking, I with a smooth and huge elan,
she,

listening animatedly, 

chiming in assent, suspension 

of judgment, or question using

a singular, singularly bell-like demisyllable: 

"Hmmm,"

interspersed with the sharp, clanged brass
of her laughter,
When I blew it.

Asked her

how she thought I could go about getting in,
a booking. An exhibit. "Oh,"

Her face fell, or maybe
ten years slid from it

and I was facing this
child's guarded and sensitive
self. All the ambitions and emotions
poets are prey to, the moods
- the competitiveness - "You're a poet?"

You hear it? The hesitance?

If she finds out how good I am, I'm screwed.

But I will not lie. Betray my
self, my work - besides

She already knows I asked about how
to get an "in," a poem exhibit! Why

is she

asking,

if I'm a poet, then?

Who does she think even
goes to these things?

Non-poets?

No. No, not statistically. No. It's poets.
Just looking for their opening, plus
assorted significant or interested others
of poets, some poet dragged into bed
to get them to come - but honestly

not me! I wasn't

looking for an opening

I was happy just to be at hers. I was curious,
is all. That's all, so I asked. And a poet

should always be

curious.

the least bit peculiar

sorry

"Yes! I am." I said. "Sorry I drifted off, just then!"

"Composing a poem...?" The wisdom and years
returned
in a beautifully-turned smirk.

"Ah,"

I hesitate, shift to the present tense
and deliberately

blush, that plus a touch
of the flutter of a bird

in my voice as I answer,

"Yes," - as if abashed!! Terrible, 

but I can't help myself, 

really. It's just to put her back

at ease, instead of up. It's

her poetry opening
and we were getting on
well, and all. I'd like

to keep it pleasant this evening.

"Tell,"

she says,

"Me the poem you're composing."

Sorry guys gotta go

The Wizard of Low Moane

Tall, stooped
supported by a crooked staff
of accountants, ranks of filing
clerks, research assistants,
a tenured professor of absolute
ignorance and other bookkeepers
and custodians of the unmentionable,

the Wizard of Low Moane stood lonely vigil
in the high gabled picture window
of his lone tower,
where he was wrongly understood
to be not disturbed,
and gazed down from quite the height
well over the bordering gothic
picket-fence-reinforced briar hedge,
into the neighboring grounds, where he saw

grounds

for disgruntlement. Clear signs, from which
he interpreted with a shrewd indignation,
they were not keeping up their share
of the required landscaping maintenance
commitments, spelled out clearly and insistently

in the deed-restricted community agreements
everyone had to sign! "If I have to, so should all!"

he all but bawled, ignoring conveniently what one
and all politely ignored: his considerable booming,
flashing and smoking unprofitable business,
which he had been running out his residence (often
with his hair on fire!) in antiheroic defiance

of not just community agreements, but zoning codes
ever since his workshop lease had been terminated -
the result of a disgusting wizard-hunt, a campaign
engineered by the JayCees, and in particular,
Barbara.

"I'll give you a disgusting wizard, you witch!"
he shouted, more than usually aloud.

Then straightened, belatedly shaking his fist
at the signed and framed photo of Walter Payton
which he'd won at pot-luck charity auction - a ridiculous
alternate prize! A farce! Not at all what he'd bid on,
which really, was only to be nice in the first place!
He'd been caught by Barbara's eye a time or two many,
was sick of feeling so guilty about a woman who could look
like that - he only attended to placate her, catch her
attentions perhaps, give her an idea of who she'd
ignorantly refused to dicker with, perhaps
over dinner? He was being charitable! It was a
charity potluck auction! But by the ways the rules
were written - Barbara again, no doubt - he'd ended up
with just a picture of sweetness, instead of the
Lovecraftian collectable desk set towards which
He'd done his bidding. His high, lordly, keening
and vainglorious protests, and the grotesque
banality of the whole episode, sealed the rift
between Barbara and he,
but good.
Her loss.
Weird, vindictive, Librarian
-CEO-looking trust fund aquarium docent bitch!

If it wasn't for her inquisitiveness, her open
and cheerfully vicious wit and that time he had let
her share his (enormous) cup of coffee, that time
Corner Joe's was closed for the fire and she
was desperately fighting her caffeine fits with
nicotine patches she didn't even need, but
had borrowed from a fellow docent who had no
longer smoked for ten years, despite a callowness
that put him no further than twenty in anyone's
generous estimation.

She saw that trademark enormous mug

of his, and knew exactly what it contained,

or thought she did. It was why

he had come in to the aquarium all that day.
He knew full and well about the unfortunate blaze
that had deprived precious Barbara of her all-day fix.

He was in there all the time in those days! God,
how he loathed aquariums. If it wasn't for Barbara's
hard-to-describe cerebral and symbolic qualities,
and ok, her mere physical appearance as well

- which as a wizard,
he knew full well, better than most might know
how these could prove merely a trap! A deception
to fool wiser, mightier wizards than he,
more fully and well than he'd ever be,
he vowed. But he was honest enough to admit,
they helped. Those mere, physical appearances
of hers. Unexpected, out of a corridor - bump!
Hey! "Hi, Barbara!" "Hi Zoarander!" Such insolence!

And when paired with her mere, but hardly slight
physical form, so bumptiously asserting rambunctiousness
and rollicking possibility, without so much as an aside
from her in those directions, she'd taught him
a charm or two.

He didn't even like coffee! Well,

With the discipline honed by many a long spell
of personal and professional disappointment,
he recalled his surroundings to mind
and banished the memory of her to a spiked,
blazing pedestal that he carried in a far-off
but always visible hill on a corner in his mind,

where it served

As a torch. To light his way the hell away,
and so he straightened again,

nodded curtly to Walter Payton.
Head high, looking smart (as he thought)
reflected in the picture glass in his recently
-adopted custom wizard fedora (which did him
no good at all with guess fucking who,
apart from being gouged by that hipster toad
of a milliner!), brow lowering under
like a hesitant storm,
with eyes flashing threats of lightning
at themselves from safely behind glass,

He steeled his leaden mind, and slid
out the concealed French doors
onto the widow's walk, whose picturesque view
and melancholy name led him not for the first time

to review all the ways he should have been a widower
himself by now, instead of what he was: proud, powerful,
locally held in disquieted awe, and really, an excellent
manager of people, if clearly not the best at seeing
and planning around the huge detail of business.
Really, morale among the crew was always surprisingly
high! As to his deficiency on the business end, well,
here's where he'd seen Barbara come in.

What a mind!
She'd given him
really such excellent advice,
all those times, in the process of which
absently gathering all the details that would
come in so handy later, screwing
him over. But you know what? 

Somehow, it didn't matter
now.

It really was too bad.

He shook his head, looked out and around and then -
down, high over the hedge at the neighbor's yard,
and scowled, hard

composing his mind

for the call that he knew

he had to make now,
before his resolve
could fall through

this time.

bone dry

finally! My dry humor
has come into its own. Leaving
no mess whatsoever,
and barely a guess
or two to suggest

why I'm smiling, and why
it took me so long.

Everyone's always known
"his humor's so dry,"
but my heart and my brain
had such seas and fens.

No more.

I am cleansed.
I am hollowed and pure, and now
I can see what was funny for them.

Holmes 1999

In some far-flung future,
Immortal and beloved exsanguinator of crime
Sherlock Holmes! Assisted by his unimaginable
mechanical devices, stalks languidly,
relentlessly on the scent, now and then
mourning the absence of his prodigiously
bated rapier foil, the good doctor, loyal
and constant companion, late
and lamented these many years.
For reflections like these,
We have no time.
Holmes, bent on the job already,
locked in a neverending battle against
his unyielding foe: boredom, and idleness
contemplating the courses of coquettishly
unsolved cases of crime. Bouncing sigma
beams at transponder dots, he traces arrays
of A.I. algorithms replicating all the
innermost thoughts
of all history's worst
most predictable criminal minds,

to contend with them. "Moriarty,"
he sang at the hologram, in a peevish
and discontented tone. "Is it me,

or are things too much
the same as they've always been?"

Sat back, and awaiting response,
he already knows will be sullen
silence, drawn out and broken

eventually

by sepulchral groan.

The scene from a scenic and overlooked view of the falls

The mighty detective, twice
his own size at least, struggled
thoughtfully, effortlessly at the brink

of a precipice, a trap cunning-laid
and only awaiting assailant's soon-to-be
cue, to spring his deceptively iron
thews, and pause

in slaying the beloved beast,

To bid it adieu.

Looking back, looking down,
from abyssmal heights

of the rarest air, he was struck
by the shape and tone of the
rainbows made, in the vertical
maelstrom mist of spray. As he always did,
he observed the rocks upon which

they played. "I believe,"
he let slip, uncharacteristically aloud,
"I forsee a rather excellent quarry
down there, one day."

This was all many years before
the moment of fatal test. He could visit,
revisit, previsit the place every chance

he gets, knowing inevitably,
there will come the curtainfall,
the close of the act. After which,

he will never come back.
One never much needs
to return to the scene

of resolved and accomplished fact.

Nobody's Holmes

"Holmes," Watson correctly observed,
"The people begin to think we're Gay."

"Well, I am a wizard," he drily replied.
"And an Ace detective to boot! What business
of theirs is all this to bring

to one such as I? Not much

of a case." He mused. "I must have clay
to make bricks to lay! Data! Watson. To theorize
without it is criminal! Why, I would catch myself
in an instant red-handed, laying about in a funk

on a stack of unmade bricks erecting such
unsupported structures as these. Such buildings

should be condemned!"

"And you are," John soothed, seeing his master's
unvoiced guess. "No one begins to find fault
with your elaborate stretch of conscientiousness,
but," he hesitated savoring a bit lip, "is this
your answer?"

"YES!" the detective roared. And Watson subsided,

reflecting mysterious ways

We all are blessed.

a Moving Ode to Sherlock Holmes

I really have a good handle on this
"Sherlock Holmes" character. It should be played

as broad comedy, He,
he: the only one in on the joke.
In reality, that's exactly

what's always been going on. For
the sake of the play,

Watson should bellow "HOLLLLLLLLMES!"
at each distinctive display
of our consummate anti-antagonist's

(well that's what he really is, you know)
obsessive tics, each flowering outbreak
of habits perversely tossed in fits.

And as the deduction begins,
a canned fanfare of whacky, zany
Benny Hill style music only maybe
with a little more Goodman swing
kicks in - like a Popeye the Sailor theme,

where all he needs to do is even
*think*
about spinach. That's how we, the audience
begin to catch on: Holmes

is about to get his shit off,
by the end of this song.

useful employ

I am full of my powers
like Sherlock Holmes
with way too much foot in the game
and no need in the veins
for illicit stimuli

with a case at hand to crack
with my mind. The best damn consulting
Detective you'll ever find.

I am that guy.

What's this!
Who's that at the door?
By the heft of a step
in inevitable chains
to cause, from effect
and the hesitant knock,
I deduce a whore, or
rebellious priest at the very least.
Or a ghost.

Perhaps, of a stevedore.

Oh, let them come in! Omit
thank you, please. What need
you must have of my services
in times like these.

Advantage you

I am well aware, yes
of your flaws by now. If I haven't left
if you haven't yet guessed,
it's because they're wow

Part and parcel of what
you attracted me to in the first place,
there. Back when we first met,
I could already see

it would be unfair.

You can have the advantage of me,
which you freely won and took.

You can add it to all the advantage
you have, every place

I look.

the very spot

Threat lessons pay off
in caution that lasts us the rest
of our lives. Refusing the risk
to be victimized, by what
we were spared our chance

by sheer dumb luck. We were there,

on that very spot,

untouched in a happier time, now stuck

in a prayer, where everywhere there

but for the grace of a God gone by,

we have gone, you and I,

we don't have to fly

'ta!

Her ta-tas
have gravitas
and levity

the angels sing
in praise of them
celestially, with
perfect objectivity

but down here with my
male glance fleeing everywhere,
especially, to eyes up here

so well aware

which catch, and throwing back
a knowing look or two,
right through me, and

the judgment they pronounce
could send a message
to eternity, or

drop me from the heavenest height
to bounce, a touch

too flirtily. Or say

"Let's bounce,"

Get out of here!
I'm killing me

sandwich gamble

Is everything we pile on
really going to pay off? When we put it
to ultimate test? In the mouth

of an innocent wish, unspoken
For bliss, but already so full

of a gnawing regret. Should I even

have taken a picture of this?

Now everyone's seen what cannot
be unmade, but only consumed

by grief. Oh bless us, oh lord,
for this,

was not what I need.

involuntary thrillseeking

The lesson of risk
is to danger it up a bit
for the kick of adrenaline rush
through the blood pounding through
fro and to, stampede all around
in a screaming search
for the exit they wish
would be never found,

but they desperately need.
Finally, the lights come back on,
they open the pores and breathe
their energy spent in escape,

and the blood
is everywhere

beginning to calm

and raking back in the chips
where they lay, insensible
to the risk, the take,

And the fate of all of the hands
they hold, they know when to fold
unprayed, and leave unplayed

to add to a debt they intend
to remain unpaid.

the alibi killer

Anybody who wanted to
could have had themselves an alibi
for whatever it is they wanted to do
just by saying, confessing their willingness
to be alone with me, for a specified stretch
of time. I'm willing to trade
some honesty

just to have them swear up and down
and rely on my company.

And if that's a crime?
Let's get together, work details out

So everyone knows it was neither yours
nor mine. Return

to the scene of reasonable doubt
it can't hurt to know
what they won't find now.

I'll bring the weapon, if you
bring the wine.

Between us,
we're innocent
somehow

listen, pickle

listen, pickle
we've got a sandwich between us
that thinks it's the star of the moment
and that deserves to be true,
but it's not. Between us
I only have eyes
for the side attraction,
the main distraction
I have in mind.
I've got to admit,
I wish there were two
of you. And you sit
looking just as if
you already knew

you're the only one.
Hey, pickle

let's take our time
to savor what no one can take
away, what's yours
and yours alone
that you have

to give.
And you have.

indispensible you
You are mine

this day

signature blank

You need to give yourself permission to love
there's a hidden downloadable form to fill out
to convert yourself to a PDF,
with conditions to check and approve
timestamped
and a digital signature blank

just waiting for you
to frown,
and pout.
Delaying a benefit, and
a doubt.

all we little engines

effortless rhyme is a curse
better observed in the blessing
than in counting the steps from better
to worse. All it takes is one increment
to bring us down.

And why would we consent to be such
an audaciously made-up clown?

These rings are not necessarily
a circus arrangement of non-overlapping
failed attempts at Venn diagram.

They could just as easily be entertained
as irrelevant, when and if

we believe we can.

three point goal with assist

I will take your word for it
and all, and whether and which,
I will drop the ball wherever it fits
in squarish, roundish hole,
and sit. And be comfortable.

"c.v. draft (revised)"

Unprofessional Songwriter.
Freelance Insultant (Undeliberate).
Professional Debtor.
Amateur Authority (Unchecked).
Independent Contractor of Idiopathic Psychosomatic Asymptomatic Illness.
Double-blind Well-designed Placebo-Controlled Experimental Test Predicate,
Chief Neologian, Synonym Differentiator and Professor of Dialectic: Semantics Division.
Social Justice Worrier and Unrepentant Unregenerate Privilege Apologist.
Anti-meme and Universal Mnemonic for Whatever It Meant, and So Mean,
So Mean I Mean It All. I Mean Well, Wouldn't You?
Reality Checker with a Checker's Checked Past.
Designated Filibuster in the Sexual Congress.
Online Poet of Note (at least one), and Full Service Proactive Muse to Self.
Reverse Marketing Analyst and Idea Manque.
Neighborhood-class Martial Arts Critic.
Passable Iced Water Preparation Specialist and Tolerable but Intolerant Cook.
Given to Wild Innovation in the Marketplace.
Constant Gardener of Zen Procrastination.
Shining Example to Criminals.
Tells Right From Wrong By Means of Why.
Disavowed Bodhisattva of Body-rockin'.
Literalist Man in the World, I Swear.
Willful Observer of Obliviousness (One's Own).
Enlightenment's Just a Cross I Bear.
Apparently Human, with All the Implied Advantages.
Possessed of Jaw,
Daring of Jut,
Caring of Am Yet Heedless of Seem.
Jib Cut Like a Bludgeon Gem-set in Opposition to a Blind and Cumbersome Juggernaut Which Never Forgets It Ain't Seen Nothing, Not Yet
but I Digress.
Dweeb, Stooge and Boob Enthusiast.
Fool For, In, Around, All About and Through Love.
Abstract Naturalist, Modest Nudity Apologist and Overall Coverup Artist Specializing in Coincidence, Cryptoconspiracy and Synchronicity.
Aspirational Harmonic Convergence Choirmaster and Living Wind Chime.
Non-Star General Officer of the Global Disarmy.
Dab Hand.
Rational Fabulist.
Crack Die Survivor.
Wrongly-Accused Disingenue.
Author Unawares of Own Subtext.
One-Man Brawl, Stowed Away Aboard His Solo Rowboat Armada.
Mercy First. Hold Harmless Third.
Women's Auxiliary and Dedicated Distaff Tool of Opportunity.
All This Happy Horsemanship.
Devoted Gentile Judeophile w/Philistine Envy Samaritan-Style
Quantum Plausibility Anomaly and Living Embodiment of God's Will for Me (if any).
Skeptic of Monstrous Order.
Humble Servant of Mastery,
Gallant Scoundrel,
Arrogant Prick with a Heart of Throat and a Soul Sold to the Highest Bidder.
Curious in Both Senses.
Person of Concern.
Magnificent Wretch.
Director to the Assistant.
From the Very End,
Loyal to the Beginning.
Voider into the Abyss's Eye.
Not a Nice Guy. Sweet.
Extravagantly Even Dealer.
Accurate of Praise.
Dodgy.
Sincere.
Peculiant.
Increasingly Unlearned.

References available by demand.
Recommendations are in: completely unqualified.

"Near Noosa"

*Ahem*

(*clears throat)

"Near Noosa"

A POEM.

sung perhaps to an old-timey music hall ditty of yore,
such as might be appropriate to conjure an ambiance
from the Home Country, of a cheery yet dilapidated resort
named something by-the-sea

Oh if only I,
could be -
Near Noosa,
Near Noosa, with yoosa,
oh yessah, I'd surely be
there,
or anyway, near -
Near Noosa, Near Noosa,
and if you've any yoosa
for meesa,
I swear,
I'd be right at home
Near Noosa, Near Noosa,
or anyway, on holiday
And if I could be
Near Noosa, with yoosa,
I bet we'd enjoy it so much
that we'd go all the way
to Noosa, to Noosa,
and probably,
we'd stay.

you'll see.

Who are the Golden Dinosaurs?

The voice talent
in the jewelry store radio ads
around here can't enunciate for shit.
It's not even one store, it's

two, at least. Are these employees?

WHO are the Golden Dinosaurs?
How many times have I marveled in wonder
at their mystery? It's "gold and
diamond source," moron. But who's the more
moron, the moron or the mrmnmn hwn mrmnmn
nrmnwm? Take your fine custom diamond
crusted ball gag out, maybe.

And then this, from some other place
I don't know:

"But it's all worth it, when
you see the look on her face when she sees
herpes for the first time."

I shit you not. Emphasis unmistakable:
"HER peas." Pointedly not "her piece." Yet

call 'em up, I bet they'll solemnly have you believe
it's all worth it when you see, when she sees herpes -

- for the first time. Oh, give her her peace.
For Seek's Pate, the look on her face 
will say it all. Now all I want

is a beautiful dream:
to journey fantastically to a land where if I look,

I might find the leader of the Golden Dinosaurs - wise
Ankylosaurus, resplendent in her hairpiece.

The look on my face when I see her piece for the first time -

will be worth it all.

ingredient panel

A lot of these poems are partly inspired - yes
I know, you know that, don't interrupt, please
- by one real person

in every poem, and sometimes,
none. And many of them repeat, with some
frequency, like series regulars
who never meet, who never appear
together onscreen - except

that no matter whose turn it is,
the others creep in. Or sometimes
do. They may; they've been given
permission to, under strict
supervision with firm, stern glance!
Wherever it serves the purpose planned
or keenly observed, made up as we go.
So maybe they do. They sometimes don't,
too, although - who'd know? If they do
their part? As needs must demand,
Fate is brought in
to help Destiny's hand
absently smooth her pants
while Lady Luck stands in the wings,
surreptitiously flapping them
with a certain art. The play's the thing,
quoth the Bard - who knew what he meant
by that, having written so many of his own
and despite what you may have heard
or sown. (You Know Who You Are) but
where was I? Oh yes.

The poem.

A central viewpoint, a character
who whoever she is or he, has been
subjected to diabolical surgery, not
always - but there's a tendency. Situations
or aspects of character merge, because
of the point of the piece

this time, whatever it is, it needs

a twist, a shifted perspective

to correct the line,
to blend into the singular view intended,
and say everything from the heart, from a place

I've never been. This particular heart,
anyways. We need some help to get in!
And as stage manager and magician's slave
to my own cruel stagemastery, I need some props.
Motivations and things, so it all rings true.

Why wouldn't it though? If it does,
wouldn't you? How can anyone know?
If it does, then hey! Everyone wins

a snake. Plush, stuffed and fake,
from a carnival stand where you throw
tin rings at a popsicle stick, while
someone's still sucking on it. Who is
that masked man? Or is it a girl
in a masked-man mask? Even if
it's not you, don't tell
in case sometimes it is. You

know, you're a person, not a cheap gimmick to trick
up a poem over, but hey, I'm aware so
very well. Where conscience intrudes, imagination

excuses itself - and rightly so. Somebody has to.

Oh, no. I'm totally lost! I forget whether
and what I have tried to explain. Honestly,

it's been so long since my stalker
stopped stalking me, I forget
I was never the one to get obsessed.

Extra explanations are extra suspicious!
Yet truth is so easy, and pleasant to say.

To recap, I make much of this shit
up out of whole cloth of high thread count
and good quality, and now the rhyme scheme,
too has gone out the window. How long

has it been since I started this poem?

What the heck did I say all the way
up there? Are you even still reading?

For enjoyment, I hope? If not, come on,
just a little bit further. We're almost done,
and your patience
- I promise you this -
will be rewarding.
Thank you, oh
so very much, with whipped
cream and a cherry on top,
to believe in.

An Accompaniment

Anyway, I still think you're as cool
as the air from a glass of ice water
just before you sip,

to plagiarize Katherine Mansfield's "Miss
Brill," and probably
inaccurately. That
was a sad story, but really
she got off easy. She'd have got
socked in the eye if it was
Flannery O'Connor writing!

That was the main thing
I wanted to say. The part
about you being cool. Not adulation,
precisely, but not cold, clinical
assessment either. Where you're concerned,
I have acquired a marked (and valid)
bias. In any event: it's gratuitous
surely, but complimentary,
like an egg roll
when you're dining at the good Chinese place,
or frequently enough,
an eye roll no matter where
you're dining, depending on who with.

Some people

cloak their true feelings
in an elaborately-woven prose web, spoken
with a soft glow
and, they hope, passing
the goods safely undetected. Cruelly,
I mimic these clowns with a mocking twist: I throw
all my true feelings naked and exposed, quivering

into said woven web with same spoken glow,
and see just what the fuck will be taken
from that, pray tell? BY GOD,
Typically,
I needn't have worried, since
who takes anything seriously when
it's beautifully worded?

People don't talk like that

seriously, do they? Oh, do they. With my
or rather with this sweet trick, you can
and I do
get away with saying everything
one feels,

from the deepest of heart through
the backest of mind to the toppest of head,
springing lightly out from the tippest of tongue
and going in swift, sweet and neat by the ears
- the chimneys of the soul - down we slide now, hello!
Yes, it's Santa Claus, or someone
bearing big sacks of gifts
and some stuff to knock your socks off, flying forthwith
nailed to the mantel suddenly (and the lint from them
nailed to the lintel), as if in haste, as if
that's an excuse, in anticipation of peace and joy
stealing over you,
not quite able

to believe you're awake, but
it's well past midnight, now - and everything

they told you was true,
it's all really true.

Not literally, though.
But still, not fake! If you look at it
from uncertain point of view.
It's a metaphor, or very like
a metaphor. An allegory
perhaps, or a simile of one,
a parable, possibly - but if so, one so
deep and crazily cruelly right, you'll swear
some fundamentalist pulled wool from your eyes
like a street magician, "See! Presto! Eww." How long
has that wool been there? How many people saw,
and knew? And said nothing. Oh well. At least
you can see it's a miracle. It's gone well
beyond belief by now, and it's all free

for one easy gift! If you act how,
like a methodist? Or no. A method actor.
A real Shatner type. If you can act
like that, right now, I will beam you up,
look at you slightly askance, muse
"Fascinating," and then we can rip
our Starfleet uniform shirts off
and fight! Or,

if you prefer, reason it out in some fucked up
triple-decker chess match. However many we win,
or may lose, you must admit

we're kind of a catch.

the means

If you want to make an omelette
out of human skulls

you have to break a few skulls,
but that won't be enough. Try
tarragon, and maybe a nice
gruyere. And a couple three
eggs, for the body and fluff

beloved of omelette lovers
everywhere. Why, you may even find

that you didn't need skulls. But
thats how we learn these things:

As we go. The horrible mistakes

we all denounce. Or renounce,
in your case. It's the lesson

that counts.

emily dickishness

If You were Bare Nude Naked,
And I had Clothes -
I would take off my long Shirt
To tickle your Nose

words when they die

Thine is a word no longer
ours; it is Thine.
Together with many a finer sense
wrapped up into parcels
of syllable,
and posted

into eternity, lost
in consequence of refinement,
of evolution, never to think

of cost. In old yellow books

- how they could talk! Like angels
of eloquence, listening. Apprehensive
a bit - as angels are, but in vain

- for the words were like flowers
arranged, each blossom and bulb

pregnant with meaning, and glistening.
They knew secrets then, and spoke in them.
As the years passed through, word by word

they fell. They knew them no longer, as they passed
out of habit and daily use, and this usage
- brutally cruel! Made strangers
of beautiful words.

They were no longer theirs,
and they never were ours,
so we leave them to you.

a few eggs

you know what the world
needs?
Vehement, gay Incels.
Hanging in Incel discussion
groups, talking

about the butts they're owed.

beyond the pale

I am so sick
of seeing people who aren't me
or my desirable female counterpart
represented and depicted in commercials,
film, tv, print advertising and
viral online media content! And porn, but

that's less an issue. It's purely personal,
and people have their fetishes, so ok.

Yet they dare say "White Privilege!" Well I daresay
"Come on!" Show me the caucasions!

Is that how that's spelled? Dumb word anyway.
A pretended ethnicity - intellectual cowardice
wrapped in pseudoscience!

It's not enough we have to have black people
- and that is enough, I love them! For them,
I make an exception. For noble and admirable reasons,
such as you should know and admire. But now

we've got clean, respectful, successful-looking
people who look like terrorists! If that's the case,
haven't they already won? And what's with all the

vague, generic-ethic people you can't even tell
what they're supposed to be? It's an attack
on the validity of stereotypes when you

can't even tell which ones to try applying!

I have no problem with the people who already
look like that, parading around in real life
trying to live, to get by, to pass
unimpeded. But

shoving themselves in our face
as we're trying to surf our hugescreen content
in security and contentment, straining our eyes

for any sign of the world where we are,
unquestionably,

the ordinary and expected norm
- that's beyond the pale.

A backlash is coming, people.
The ones asking for it will be told
"knock it off." So before this gets any
uglier, please: Let's all get along back

to a world recognizably sane,
balanced,

and fair.

the favorite band

People who love
the favorite band
you used to love more than anything,
when the world was young,
and they were good

- they have lost all proportion
from loyalty, well-founded in songs
that meant the world then,
and remake the world still,
if you listen to them.

They are listening still,
and it is just as if
they can hear what they wish for,

in wishing for it.

The new album comes out,
and then comes out again,
as the gaps between fill
with such lengthening years
of discontent. And where

are the songs?

The others can hear them,
they say. What is wrong?
You listen, and listen again,
right through. You bar all distractions,
as if you had nothing better to do. Because

if they gave you one song, you'd know
in a faith restored - you could have
nothing better than that! And you
would so desperately love
and want more! So you play it again,
as if to show how much more
would mean to you. And
you listen again,
all the way right through.

And you let it go. As rituals go,
it's less a communion or wedding
or funeral than an exorcism
that doesn't quite take.

There just isn't anything there
to possess or haunt, but you are -
by the ghost you've been,
listening for echoes of flesh
and blood you wish your prayers
and faith could make somehow solid
and warm, and live again,

but there just
isn't anything
there.

And the people who love

the favorite band

don't seem to care.
Are they the real fans?

The ones who can't tell
the difference?

The new album comes out, and these people
all name their favorite songs. They compare them

favorably

to songs that unmade and remade the world.
And with some great imaginary hope for them,

for the people who hear, and say they love,

you listen. You stop the whole world,
and you listen again. And again:

something is terribly, undeniably wrong
with these peoples' ears. You know,
but you don't know what, so
you listen again

in an act of defiant charity,
fighting back against doubt and fear -

And if there were anything there, you would hear!

But there isn't, you know

And you let it go.

"praise your body"

I have spared you so much.
These details are mine,

you're welcome for that, and
thank you for them.

I like to keep it general,
and very specific. Each thing
I could say, without reason
except the old saw about beauty
and truth, which though beautiful,
doesn't prove true, sometimes

even for those

whose face and form well deserve
immortalization upon a Greek urn,
or in verses commending its notice
to us.
In practice,

our words prove mortal: they or we
die in the utterance.

When they are proved

rightly unwelcome,
and so, wrongly given -
and naturally, wrongly received,
we learn to retreat,
to leave truth unspoken
and beauty unbreathed.

It is not noble to fail
in ignoble attempt. If

you do not know
how they will be received,
if you are not sure of your target, then
every arrow you loose

is poorly and wrongly aimed and spent.

And you shouldn't have. You should have been
content

with how much it means,
without even being meant.

Let alone being said. I speak now

for others' sake than my own.
Myself, I don't find I stray
from the mark, much
but much luck

and the graciousness of others
should not be assumed. And so,
I have struck common cause

with etiquette, when I noticed it,
and agreed, with myself,
for the most part
to shut the fuck up.

And so, you must guess

I have spared you so much
such truth, on the theory you already know
all the beauty that it would try
to embrace, perchance to fail
to describe. One glorious,

disgracefully ungrateful mess,
meticulously unmade.

Whole passages of your arms,
how they drape gracefully tapering
from your frame and form, or project
forcefully in showing and doing
your will; how they make angles
and attitudes together, cradles
and swings, traps and bars
and how they draw me in,
without saying a thing,
in the way of wishes
which must not be said aloud,
to mean everything. Of your legs,

I have oh God already said enough,
let alone the between and behind - but
this

is not, and surely should not
be allowed.
And the willowy torque
of your torso
and hips,
and the tension implicit
in shoulders and neck, and back,
which my hands would give hours
to knead, and need, and fix -
all of this can too readily be
imagined

without my needless
and kneading words.
Your face,

from
and over which

the loveliest spirit
dances and plays, is yours alone

and amazingly, mine: on whose face
all these lights have shone,
and been changed, and made
sublime. It doesn't take me

to give this back, to you
to whom everything belongs -
and in whom it already finds face

and immortal form. Or if not
immortal - then worth being made
so, in image and song, that could try
in play an eternity,
and fail, and fail, and fail
to succeed, to capture your lively
and springing grace, but oh!
What an epic they'd make of the chase
while you stand, cross arms,
foot doing impatient ironic
not-impressed slow tap,

and look on.

So wrong, to think

it takes words - of which I have some -
to see why we find it all strange,
and would wish to share what we find
with the one who gave, to make it
familiar again. It is so,

so good. See good, say good,
we think - but you know, it's a question
that you should ask of you: does the source
of such good want it back from you?
Want to hear your opinion
of their own good?
Is it for their own good, or
for yours that you bend

your great bow of yew? With great
quiversful of arrows true,
you have burdened your back.
And oh, such release to loose them
streaming, blackening the skies
with your multiplied shaft -
every one striking true!
Glancing from rocks, clattering,
sticking from every tree, while
slightly cowering but mostly perturbed,
your target and object stands
perforated by compliments,
pincushioned with praise, penetrated not

in the least, as your arrows
vanish

from her body,

leaving no trace
but scorn, possibly.
So.
You didn't know how she'd take it?

Then you shot wrong.

It cannot be heroic,
daring greatly to fail in a cause
that you don't know is right,

only strong.

"Sorry"

golden corral

You have to get much more than you really want
when you dip the big spoon at the golden corral,
And give a big downward wandlike wave, hoping
just what you want falls off. This works

great with the mashed potatoes, not
so well with the stuffing. The whole thing
came off on your plate. Oh well
.
You have not made
a study of consistency.
At least there's the gravy,
and the human beings here
parade, a courteous more or less boister

of grown adults waiting their turn, weighing
their plates while kids of all ages
wait their turns more impatiently,
and young adults, too old now to know better
take their turns as they come, stepped
around and between and ahead of others,
careful of the little old people, stoic
or timid, who've been here before

and so have learned
that to be unperturbed
best suits their dignity,
if you can't tell whose kids

are whose.

The whole line forms, and scatters
and reforms accordingly, according
to collective wishes and wants,
so overly satisfied,
so underly fulfilled,
centered seemingly on the meat items
and desserts, leaving scant attention
to the first part, the salad bar
. Their faces are intent

with hope, remembering how good
these things can taste
elsewhere, wanting that memory.
Their faces straining
with the power of love
,
by huey lewis