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

Inanity Prayer

God give me the something
to do the something else,
the other thing to handle
that part, and the difference
to figure out somehow.

"the satisfactory"

She is a satisfactory.
She manufactures my content,
well-being and elusive peace,
in her well-meant and consummate
release, by cares she's given me.

I furnish iron will and raw material,
she takes them in and churns them
into finished goods, by flesh and blood
and sweat and something suddenly ethereal

- and both of us are satisfied
in what was made between, above,
beneath, behind - now side by side,
we breathe each other's labored breaths,
and spin them into giant sighs
and tiny grins, becoming shy

despite the business that we're in,
which shows no signs of running dry.

"disrobe"

The world approaches reality
like a supplicant, when your soft gray robe
rolls in tumbled folds,

cinched uninsistently
at your waist, making layers of parting cloud
- and the creamy rose sky of you
lies beneath, invincibly endlessly
modest and proud as the humblest thunderstorm
must be, cloaking you,
placing its stitchings
of lightning strikes

where they must touch ground.

Untrembling hands reach out, to slide
from your shoulders and cast it down
- knowing full well that death is the price,
to tempt to embrace so much life. Let us go,
full willing into that good night, but not yet.
Not now, knowing so much day

remains to be made in this light sliding free
and sleek, still wet from the lowering cloud,
and the glow of you grows as you shine on me,

as if anything this close to paradise is allowed.

"It has come to our attention."

Here in the court of Intellect,
where Sense serves proudly in Reason's thrall,
and bound by Logic's inerrant law -
we know Nothing exists beyond these walls.
We indulgently hear and entertain
all the breathless petitions Perception brings.
These playthings and problems amuse one's brain,
but they must be deemed inessential things,
since they come from what can't be ascertained.

We shall lower our Self to proceed as if,
not because They exist, but because at this time,
we have nothing of substance to occupy mind,
and we see small chance of amending this.

It has always been thus, wethinks,
and protest it's fine: Ignorance
is all we can know of bliss
- going off, getting lost time to time
in the myths of our Memory,
chasing the you I knew,
before we reduced all of this.

We still talk, you and I - you
are just the same.

You don't even know
you may not exist.
You are just
a report
brought in from outside
- the only real thing, perhaps,
in all of that formless waste
of what Is.

I don't know what it's called

What if there was an evil beast
- a monster, I mean, coming after you
through all your dreams? Until, wide-awake
- you thought for a second you saw it
standing there, and screamed.

That is all the time
it would take.

"The Infamous Bitch"

As far as he's concerned, she has
the kind of tits and eyes a man
could get lost in all night and day,
and maybe life. She has the kind
of hips and open heart and maybe legs,
a man could lose himself in wonders
or in wondering. She has perfection
kept within, and advertised
without the sales and marketing.
Enough to beg, to give to her
the humbling she badly wants
or needs from him. She has about
the perfect ass - but
far as she's concerned
she'll pass.

He guesses maybe
she missed what he's offering.
But how could he have made it
any plainer, though? Confused,
he stands firm, resolute
and softening.
Could tenderness
have been a thing to try,
with her? But now he'll never know.
She walks away unwon,
and undeterred - a living symphony.
A prize for which / or which
he'd rather kill than die.
The shame of it is infamy. Who does
she think she is? And why? I guess
she isn't into me. Was I too nice
a guy, not bad enough a boy? What kind
of man does she not want to so destroy?
He turns from her, disgusted with

the enmity.

Get God! Brand Cleanser

With all of the filth in your eyes and mind,

this world can be only a cesspit to you.

So get God! brand cleanser,

and then you will find

how everything can be sparkling,

clean and new!

Some Glory

Towering clouds in sunset hues
against a field of invincible blue,
with their base in shadow and bodies aglow,
on lightning legs they march on the wind

to an end they surely know,
even as they begin. Even as
they began, they surely knew.

This day is to die for, and they will make

a glorious end of it,
before it is through.

"Open Scheme"

I like rhymes
that call to each other
from a ways off, as if
having agreed to meet in a pathless woods, which I
have provided. A place for themselves
to get a little lost on the way
to appointments missed,

but casually determined to catch up late,
as catch can, unguided, or early
- surprised in the wrong time or place,
and not who they thought they'd be,

but finding it good enough - by ear,
either near, nor off. Occasionally
falling in measured step, unvexed
by perfection and setting out

from the trysting place

in search of their still
-searching friends, still echoing
in untimely calls through the wilderness,
no time to keep or waste, racing
or dawdling, falling
in where they happen and choose, or
chance, to fall - where they may,

as if all to the good
could be for the best.
And it can.

These rhymes don't seem much for schemes.
The innocent ends they seek, I guess,
are unencumbered by justified means.
And neither or so am I. I haven't decided
to intervene yet, and I rarely do,
more or less. These innocent rhymes

have eaten the fruit all through,
and consumed the knowledge of evil
and good for themselves, and remain unconfused,
and so say yes.

I look upon them, all asking why
as if already knowing the truth, and I say
it is probably just as well. Whatever day is today?

Let us give it a rest. Tomorrow,
let judgment fall. Let hell.

You dudes are okay,
and this day was well-spent,
and blest. If you let me
I think I will keep you all.

Just as you are,
just as you've fit yourselves
into this glorious, glorified mess.

You have made it a magic spell.

While we can, and before we know,
let us savor success.

Nothing Like.

I've been reading and hearing about boredom my whole life
and it's been interesting. As a child
I knew it well: I identified it with my impatience,
when something good was coming,
and wanting it to hurry up. I was easily distracted
from it, though, and I never seemed to feel impatient

when nothing good was coming.

Still,
I was comfortable that I always knew
what boredom was, from books and people's testimony.
I liked to moan myself, "I'M BORED,"
in those precious moments where time stretched out,
between deciding what to do.

That was fun.

It was like the clarion (or closer to klaxon)
alarum, a trumpet call to action and arms,
and having been duly and officially bored (which
I knew was fair and sufficient justification for whatever
mischief) and even wallowed in it a bit, I'd leap
up charged with holy purpose, distracted
by the thought of something unjustly, unduly
undone, and dash off to do it
justice. Typically,
I was of no importance,
and I knew it. Days were full,
and too few - even moreso now.

Lately,
though, my importance grown
to roughly eight-year-old levels
(from my usual seven), or at any rate,
a year or so ago - I was reading

about boredom, and with a shock, I suddenly noticed
it was something alien. I'd easily enough always
understood it through others' accounts, and assumed
my feelings were just the same, but.

No.

Nothing like.

There's nothing to do that's worth doing?
Nothing to absorb the interest or excite
the imagination? Nothing worthy of one's
attention? Not even what you did before,
threw yourself into and through it, came out
even more? I thought it well through,
and felt bad. Ashamed,

maybe, for the first time (third)
in my dumb stupid life. I'd never

been bored.
I was only pretending.
Boredom for enjoyment.
Another fake-ass self-discovery of self,
caught red handed in the act! Boredom
interests me more than ever now,
and I suspect I must try to pretend
to be patient. I must steel myself,
and make of me something hard

to distract

"Needs First"

We put needs first
as needs must, above
desires, wishes, wants

according to urgency,
not taste - it's not pleasure

we need, so much.
Such waste,

to drive ourselves on, obediently
to the yoke of need with such purpose, firm

- and the yolk

of the broken eggs on our face
that it takes

to make an omelette -

filled up with need,
folded over deftly, and left
to burn

'til we're through with it.

the entertainer

Her mind exquisite,
and admirable form and voice
and poise and taste define
a universe full of possible things, behind
the prettiest puzzlement you
are likely (and would be lucky) to find
in so thoughtful, open
and homely a face
- in original sense, homely: with a glow
of hearth and a breaking heart's
worth of welcome to see
- except sorry, I looked it up. It seems
homeliness never meant that. Pity.
And so, retraction and back
we go to the prettiest puzzlement you
are likely and would be lucky to find
on so thoughtfully open and quite
simply lovely a face. It comes

of her entertaining thoughts.

She's seemingly keen to admit them all,
and to entertain them quite seriously,
even the ones I introduce which could easily be
ridiculous.

She fails to indulge in their ridicule,
indulging instead in the things that lie
just beyond, which they've led her to,
and through, and so sweetly and fruitfully on

down low, up high - wherever they lead.
Her serious entertainment of thought
finds dizzying vistas and scenic views
that one could never have found without
her instinct and sense, her curious sniff
and pounce of inner bewhiskered muse,

as you've come to see.
Once you are there - whereverywhere
happiness haply finds - led seriously
along thoughtful paths, it's perfectly
apropos to laugh oneself silly enough,

and be glad one took the time.

Or, rather importantly, two
took the path. And seriously.

She puts me in mind of whatever
we have to do, and how each of us
could take the lead, easily into.

"We'll See"

I want what's best for you
You want what's best for me
So we will never agree
'Cause we cannot see
eye to eye on whose needs
must come first - for the sake of you,
you're gonna come off worst

For my own damn sake,
you defy my will
- well who asked you to?
You obstinate lil' twist
of presumptuousness
and gall - why can't you let

your happiness be all?

Beause I love you more than you know
More than you love me, unless you love me
More than I know, more than I love you

I guess we'll see

I keep an open mind -
maybe you know best?
Except you've already proved
your priorities are messed
by the way you put me first
- when the view from behind
is the one I prefer

I will lead the way,
I will sacrifice
- except you never let me,
no matter how I try
You put your self out,
giving me my way -

But all I want is yours, baybay

Beause I love you more than you know
More than you love me, unless you love me
More than I know, more than I love you

I guess we'll see that it's more than we know
More than we can guess, but let's agree that if
You love me more, I'm going to love you best

I guess we'll see

the circumlocutioner

There's something inside him
he hasn't said. Even though
he has not stopped talking yet.
But he sounds so sure. Certain
of it. He is telling you so,
until you fit.

Insufficiently Narcissist

The seven easy tricks you've learned
online to spot a Narcissist
won't work on me. I'm not

a narcissist, you see. Admittedly,

I've read the list of tips and tricks
and warning signs myself, in fact.

I just don't get how all those guys
(or girls,
but mostly
guys I think)

can live their lives like that.

Superiority? Ok. Entitlement,
though? Who needs that shit?
Need of attention to validate?
Perfectionism and control?

And then,

You get the worst of it.
You have the lacks: of empathy,
responsibility,
and boundaries.

Those are easily three
of my favorite things!

I would not give them up
for any amount of regard
of me.

creative difference

Most people have to accept
what is given them. They
are the acceptions. Others
reject it on principle.
They cannot abide the conditions,
even though no conditions were
even declared - they're implicitly
bad enough. Since it wasn't what you
yourself took on, whatever they give
can go get stuffed. The rejectuals

respectfully ask that you do
and give what they request
and demand, and give nothing
to them otherwise.

In these ways they forge
their self-made lives.
They thank you for what
you understand.

the closing moment

I really enjoy
what's going on
with us.

Where it goes,
I don't know - where it is,
not sure,

it's a moving target
whose pleasure is all
in the drifting aim
through and past all
the purpose and view
that we're taking in

and not in the trigger
-pull, necessarily. Or
at least, not yet.

Besides -

what a violent metaphor
to obscure all the beauty
of moments drunk deep
with thee -
not in purposelessness,
but in purpose fulfilled
in them.
So unfitting
of what you have been
to me. So unsuited
for the game
I hope
not at once,
but soon
to win.

I know right?

I started to talk and she said
"I KNOW, RIGHT?"
I hadn't even started to talk
So I started again and she cut me cold
She said "I said I KNOW,"
right, but what did she know?

Was it what I would have said?
I didn't know, so
I puzzled it out, and
I came to the point
where I had to ask,
I had to confirm

and I looked again, waiting on eye contact
she breathed impatiently one time,
a pout, then turned her eyes
on fair but firm, and said

"I KNOW, RIGHT?"
I said no, wrong
She said "HOW DO YOU KNOW?"
I said I'm writing this song
She said she'd written the short story
upon which it was based,
and I'd sadly misinterpreted
the look on its face,
I said "I know, right?"

This did not rescue things.
She huffed and puffed and blew me down
and called me a pig.
She said she was the villain
she'd been all along,
and I'd cast her all wrong

I said baby, that's your story
but this here's my song.

And then I tipped my hat
but underneath, there was another
one. In bidding her adieu,
I doffed cap after cap,
showered her with chapeaus.
Delighted by a few of them,
we were reconciled, but

she sternly warned me next time
not to stick in my nose.

obliterature

I read
to take you away from me.
Stories I seek
so much better than ours,
and find them. It's easier
than you'd think. Than I thought,
too. I used to be so absorbed
in you, as if you were made
for me, as if I weren't mad
to believe you were, as if
we were so unique. It turns out

our story was commonplace,
with an ending so rote
that we needn't have peeked, but
I think you'd concur that if we had known,
I doubt that we would have written a better one.

With a twist, and some subtlety - and a lot
more fun along the way. Well maybe it wouldn't

end

any differently, but at least
we'd have had our say.

"Shared Purpose"

Pounded into from behind.
Caught by the waist held hard
by hips but soft, each instant
alternates, hard every strike,
then gently caught,
like a game of catch
your whole body in play
is catching my dick in impacts
resoundingly placed, on time,
all day and into the night -
in the moment it seems,
hypnotically paced, unendingly
through - and spreading out from where
impaled implaced impacted direct
strikes hard and true, in you, just where
the universe bends and intends
you to take my pounding waves
all through, upon you
good old fashioned rock
and roll pounds home, sweet home
- ripple up in waves from the back
like a crashing metronome
into you sweet jiggling girl,
slap bounce on my vertical lap,
spanked into you deep from behind
your bent-over back: and building.
Up and up like a honied volcano
the pressure builds in you, each
beautifully sliding hit inside - only
your tits keep your mind quite sane,
swing bouncing in counterpoise
to your spine, an alternate focus
distracting you as your body takes over
your brain, and in case
you hadn't noticed
- long since mine.

"the wise knot"

Have you ever written a novel
that was worthless, completely?
Even in the doing - that gave no pleasure
and taught you nothing? That improved
not a jot the sureness and ability
of your voice - leading heart and mind,
if only yours, and if only home,
only not so very well lost -
on familiar roads and untraveled ways
through the countryside of the language
you dare to call your own? That led
nowhere, past nothing of note,
as you wrote it down? That produced
and contained no ideas of yours
you were proud to have found,
and fix in place? That developed
no useful developments, no striking
or stirring moods, no sense of open space
or constricting time? No views
telescoping to distances
embracing them; No transportive shifts,
no magic of real true things, unbent
by your whitened and straining hand?
You have not? Of course you have not!
No one has. So why don't you, then?

home rules

I ever you take a snack
from the bowl, and you put it back
- even still in its wrap -
you have done the unthinkable.

Litany of Impostors

God loves us for the sake of others.
We're not worth it, but their pain would be.
They can't see the worst that we are.
They love us in stupid simplicity.
But God, Who is Love, is not blind,
and knows. God sees we are not worth love,
but they do. They see us better than we,
or God ever can - not seeing the worst.
They love us because they are true,
and as if God must love us, and does.
And God, touched only by simple things,
loves us on faith and in trust to them,
expressly for all the joy it brings.

locked in confliction

It was and is a fault
in our opinions offered, brains shut
and mouths shot off, let hang, and snapped
in half with sudden grins, hands spread
apologetically

like tofu butter on wry toast,
burnt two to too many times almost
and plated, served up and scarfed down,

then,

finally, after a pregnant pause for digestion,
regurgitated verbatim for belated analysis,
with a concentrated frown
and a marathon chug of orange juice
to stall pronunciation of the verdict.

It sucks.

We can't justify, don't know how to rationalize,
recognize whose rights govern and therefore
must prevail and why
in a legitimate conflict of competing
compelling and necessary goods,
or tell right from wrong where to get off
and stick it up their collective subjective
value judgment so we can go back
to taking the rest of the day off
from our prude pride parade obligations

and revert to our natural state of complacency,

secure in the security of our furtive orgies
of bashful pattycake with the neighbors,
none of whom admit to having a race,
let alone running one.

How did we come this low so far?

I use the "courtesy we" by common,
condescending convention here,
the vulgar magnaminity of butting one's in
with underdesirables as a graciously
ostentasteful display of humility
in philosophical union with human nature,
unappreciated as always.

How did we grow so aggressively,
ambitiously, ignorant, bigoted
and provincial?

Who's asking?

Who guarantees the questions are honest?

Who demands the answers are true? CUI BONO?

Who benefits?

The Edge? Adam Clayton? The other one? Do you dare
believe that you, too can benefit?

You'd better not.

You don't stand a chance.

Not in a world where legitimate power flows
from the will of the people who don't know you well
or like you much. Barricade yourself

in your steadfast homestead, sovereign and mighty
in the strength of your loving arms,
instead: implacable,
courageous,
and cultivating a certain serene and virile
indifference, just as you always tend
to have said. They will win,

but this is not the end.

Narcissist Prayer.

Thank you for all
that you'll do for me.
You can't even know
how much it means.
It's going to appreciate
so fast, the moment you see
how you've given me all
your dreams, to believe in
and pick what's true,
for only what's best for us.
And you should enjoy the ride
that you're already on -
a runaway one-way train of trust.

"renfair airshow circuit"

The monster flew itself,
making unsteady passes in empty air
preparatory to coming in, to land
on its back, or side
sending crumpled and flying
aluminum skin-deep limbs in pieces
as shrapnel souvenirs
to the loyal crowd milling
round half-sloshed, who suddenly
all expected as much
and were not let down, any near
so hard as the skidding and juddering
dragon's corpse, just thrashing its last,
being very put out in
smoke and foam: our hero's
glorious horse.

And here!
He emerges unscathed!
By great mistakes,
mighty knights are made,

and cowardly hordes
are put to rout.

Plot development fail

Can't tell in the dark if this wet is

blood,

but it makes sense. Next
to and under the pain. Location,
deduction. Knife-like

stitch

in the side is not a knife,
but to run flat out at this point

beats hide off trying to, considering

your

two

intact legs, and her

knee,

or what's become of it.

She'll live. Will we?

You're slowing down, but not

really

trying to consider it. Where

am I? How far off can I be? The

light

no there's nothing ahead. You're running

with steam from your lungs

and stomach

that can't be good. Is it okay

to

run

when you're bleeding?

You

think you should.

Presentation Matters

It's a problem, coming across
you don't want to be a miss, construed
It's a simple case, of question and choice
- and nothing too very wrong or rude

Inspiration comes everytime,
until one is tired of perfection
Repetition crosses a line
Exception does not allow more than one

It's all lighting and angles and art,
I suppose, it's all lighting and angles
and art

Presentation matters!
Presentation, matters
Screening your heart,
'cause you're so exposed
Call it style for sure
that it's not your clothes
Presentation matters!
Presentation

matters.

Imposition of theory and eye
it's best when you love the whole result
There is only one opinion at stake,
Regardless of who thinks they've taken hold

Repetition is all that they want
just give it to me again like that
But what's been done would be wrong to do
the second time you try to, in fact

It's all beauty and truth alone
you expose, just beauty and truth
alone

Presentation matters!
Presentation, matters
Screening your heart,
'cause you're so exposed
Call it style for sure
that it's not your clothes
Presentation matters!
Presentation

matters.

"bigger picture"

We grow forgetful, because
we grow. Because we expand.
Our minds cannot hold
the suddenly-smaller facts we used,
to understand.

"On That Day"

I'll be chasing after you,
over my dead body.
Coming up behind in spirit,
trailing near to you.
You'll be looking back to where
you left me stiff and cold.
No, you don't believe in ghosts,
but neither do I, boo.

chrysalis

Every time
I get full of myself,
my self expands
and I'm just a marble
in a giant's hand, and then
I have to grow again.

"a naturalist"

All counting is collection,
or recollection. Collecting
each glance and touch and
tearless cry of yours now,
I know which I really prefer. But later
I'm sure I will prize the best from both,
as the one piles up and the other goes forth
in hope; the two may blur.

You have me on fire - not
in nerve endings, but from roots
and beginnings of them. The glow
shocks out into blue red flame,
in the aural effect of
your one true name I know.

Beyond ken, we can classify

all
these phenomena, but one day
we'll have them
to let go.

At least, we'll have
to try.

So let us be free
for this time we have left,
and let it command
what we wish to know.

For whatever turns true
is the only what we need,
and how is the only why.

And you

Are the only life I've found out
the knowing of which is worth more
than my own,

and I wish you to pry,
prize open and sound
beyond all doubt
all the secrets I have,
and am,

'til they've flown.

"10 out of 12" Or "Comparison as Ode"

In this brief snatch of space
and this stretch of time,
you have become ten
of the twelve best fucks
of my suddenly too-short life, and I
am in physical awe of you

so fine

You are generous, and I'm
being kind to the other two slots
on the list.

Oh,
it was on merit
they earned their place,
but it wasn't necessary
to go beyond ten
such rolls of grace.

"Natalia"

There's someone else who
I think you should meet.
She's a lot like you
and a little like me.
I'll need half your help
to bring this about -
it is all your choice, of course
- but I have no doubt

When the three of us meet,
you will love her as much
as you and I love each
and both of us, combined
and complete. It would
all depend. An enormous
trust.

But - on the other hand, she may
decide that she's really a boy.

HEY-HEY! CIGARS ALL AROUND, MEN!
whoops oh joy

hoo-ray!

"Free Will pt.2"

Internally most powerfully,
but informed by sensation as well
we live our lives in tidal waves,
or walking trickling streams,
or steeped in wells, or wade
down riverbanks, or give up
presently, and sink a while
or drown in mirey bogs
of influence.

But will we push against
or go with flows we do
or do not sense, that buoy up
or carry us, or suck us down?
We will
indeed.
And freely choose - including
in our choice, the flows
that surge or cataract or tease
- each force we do and do not know, or notice
helps us choose with ease,
or agonize, deliberate
in only one of many ways
we are directed strong and weak,
as we see fit

to ford the mix and with our pick,
uncomplicate.

But mostly one, to override
and countermand: the way we seek.
The world of light and currents,
wave and rock and wake and sleep did not
convene to choose for you a plan, except
a sample representative of each and all
that you've been gathering in
and going through, that meets in you:

in congress hall

where you preside, the Anarch
- and you always have. You chose them all. You chose
the influence you took, and sorted
everything that moves in you,
and moves you to a closer look,
for well and good,
or wrong and bad.

One's single biggest influence
is Will. Informed by every view,
and guided by experience: which you
yourself betook you to, and wondered why,

because you knew.

"Free Will's a sham"

I was urgently required to use the bathroom
wash my hands don't make me laugh.
You can kiss my ass
We rebel in such small ways we can,
but Free Will's a sham.
Don't ever ask me for an autograph
unless I get to keep the pen.

"frontier."

On rude hills, bare but
- with one huge tree like a pylon,
smooth but with bark-like veins,
stripped of all branch and leaf,
the top clipped
by a lightning bolt
so long ago that there was no pain,
way out and so long
into solitude, deep in-country
sunk in dreams without cares
- the only ones there,
we stood wondering what
we're supposed to do under sky so blue,
into day so fair.

It didn't seem practically natural.

A change in the air. We had crossed into realms
where humans are innocent animals,
tenderly superintending themselves.
We interpreted signs as coincidence,
uncivilized thoughts
into wild drives, and

predictably, we got lost.

When we came to ourselves, we were
so far gone we began new lives.

The cabin that sits underlooking that spot
is the same one we built with our four hands,
and we know we don't own this land. The price
it has paid saving us was dear.

The debt will stand.
We belong to it.
Our credit is good, here. For all this time
and as long as we breathe, and can eat and drink.
We've abandoned all claims upon this earth

except I am yours,
and you are mine.

"last letter"

I tore open the letter I wrote you,
again - going through ruined envelopes
and a waste of stamps, to read the words through
- since I shan't get them back, I don't suppose,
all let fall by chance.

Funny words like "shan't" that you can't really use,
like Gregorian Chant in Victorian mode
- on stilts like harlequins,
lovely they glowed,
mischief they played
and pictures they were,
in their ongoing bygone pagaent parade.
They giantly stepped and gingerly strode,
with pantomine horses brought up
in the rear, rearing like acrobats
clumsily made, with seamy and capering
conjoined suits for gear - each frisky
and riskily gamboling, in parody
of an old army drill.

Laid to rest now, but soft. No use. The ink
has run off with the pen, vamoose. The age
paper writing recorded is gone. Dead language
found new forms to kill, and has taken them on.

Critic without a Movie

"Looked at as an artistic success,
it is a disappointment. As a mass-market
pop psychological thrill-ride, though,
it smells like a shrink-wrapped plastic
fruit gift basket sprayed with canned
holiday spice potpourri. The characters
were believable, but you didn't.
The situations were vivid like
an unpleasant dream you laugh at later,
then can't remember. The special effects
were limited to fake dramatic rain and sudden,
interminably jiggling frantic nudity.
The foley work was excellent."

proud special suffering

Congratulations! You win
the blue-ribbon prize
in today's big pity parade.
I wasn't even going to enter,
but now that you've dropped the hint -
no way, you have got it made.

proud special suffering Pt.2

We can't possibly know
what it's like to be you, oh
Nobody knows what it's like
to be that.
"OOOOOOOOOoo."
Aren't we special! NO.
YOU'RE FUCKING NOT, NO
MORE THAN THE NEXT PERSON
WHOSE PROBLEMS YOU DON'T HAVE
OR UNDERSTAND, SO NEXT TIME
BEFORE YOU GO CASTIGATING
SOME INNOCENT OF WHATEVER
YOU HAVE - BUT WHO HAS
TO DEAL EVERY DAMN DAY
WITH THE OPPOSITE OF THE
GOOD YOU GET TO LIVE -
FOR COMPLAINING ABOUT IT
SPECIFIC WAYS, AS IF

ANYONE COULD KNOW
WHAT THAT'S LIKE, TO BE YOU - GO FUCK
YOURSELF. GO CRACK A THESAURUS
AND FUCK THE CRACK, AND SEE IF YOU LIKE
ANY OF THE SYNONYMS FOR 'HYPOCRITE'!

HOW ABOUT THAT?

DIPSHIT

HOW ABOUT THIS?

THE PERMANENT, ABSOLUTE
UNBREACHABLE ALIENATION
OF INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCE:

"GROW UP!"

deal with it

rectangle lamp

Typing in the dark
keyboard lit by the screen,
all the letters disappear
into squares, unseen
but your hands

know their place,
and your fingers keep
time at arm's distance to
the place one projects one's mind,

but I cannot log in. Complicated
passwords

are too much guess, poke
hunt, peck to expect

perfection
to occur

So, experiment fail.
It artistically succeeds,
but at cost of hotmail

lucky coincidences

I broke three,
almost four glasses today.
Caught one off my foot, kicked
back in the air and snatched by hand,
to replace with care. That's glass

number four.

The first three fell
in several ways, separated
by hours, knocked jarred and slid,
each tumbling out of phase
in sudden turn. Almost caught

at least one, one I thought I did

- I hate the way time slows down,
so you think you have all day to save
the day - over a moment you slowly learn:
you were slowed down, too. You begin
to react with all the time in the world, but
urgently, since you barely can move - like
a dream come true, you're suspended stuck:
the sole witness of doom
as your luck breaks hard on linoleum,
and begins its stage

of flying apart, all over
the room.

The kitchen, in fact
(but of course it was, right?) And
nothing much left
but to fish out the broom,
and sweep all night

then mop up the microscopic shards,
and plan to step gingerly for a bit.
Which you never quite did, since right

JUST THEN

AAUUUUGH!! There went yet another one!
AARRRGGH!! CRASH AGAIN! "too slow"
by half. After the second,
you had to laugh. After the third,
you don't sweep too hard.

And you still step gingerlessly, off-guard.

But your lucky pink feet so far: glass-free.
I know! Pretty hard to explain your luck!
The best explanation is: glass number four
bestowed a special blessing on feet like yours
when you kicked it back deftly

up

and away


from the floor.

"reappearance"

I never remember what I have lost
before or after it's found again.
Everything turns up as if like new,
and then you decide where it fits in.

Our love has turned up, looking barely used.
Can you even recall where we lost it, dear?
Is its place still available, or filled?

by whatever it was we've been doing here

"A great and human Psychopath"

A great and human Psychopath
walked out with his dear Narcissist,
and everyone they met was charmed,
gaslighted, and/or sliced to bits.

Said Narcissist to Psychopath,
"Do you know seven easy ways
to recognize me when we meet?"
"I do! I do," he said, amazed
that anyone could give a shit.

"sounding bored"

Why can't it be explained, what everyone
knows is true, or so they say they do -
And act as though they don't, when all is done.
At least I can explain it all to you.

You wisely nod, and grin your innocence,
protesting I make nothing but good sense.
And endlessly you're charmed, and must agree:
the world could learn a thing or two from you
and me.

And bored,
we spin our stories for awhile,
through worlds where people truly know these things.
Til' back again, concede with sheepish smile -

It's much more fun to sit here,
just about the only two
left wondering.

"shared plot"

Oh what shall I be known for, what eternal ring
Shall sound in hearts and minds each time my name is struck?
What shall they thank me for, their praise untiring?
What great sufficient gift? Or would it be enough
To pack it in, and call life's long day done, for once.
And dream the anonymity of lasting fame,
Where all the worthies every passing age produced
To crowd the bursting world with truth, for common gain,
Are crammed into one Heaven, much confused and shamed
By virtue of well-worn and famous names of note
- So many tags mixed up to sound the same, attached
Or drifting loose from what one made, or hatched, or wrote -
A vast, untimely brood descending everywhere.
Such is the thanks and honor one begets, bequeathed
To all the world, for all one's cares: a laurel wreath
Upon a grave and monumental plaque inscribed:

To someone else,
Whose name we praise,
Confused with you
- Who also died.

"left, right, center"

My DICK
's all flopping around!
These underdrawers
have reached
an age of contempt
for the trust they hold,
within the shorts. I grandly
pull and twist, thrust hips, hitch
my stride and roll, as the bird
pops out like a whack-a-mole
by the eighteenth hole
of a putt-putt course
- and it's not its fault!
It's the drawers, at play. Sporting
and slipping all out of control
and sorts - But you'd best calm down,
my friend, settle in - or the beating
you catch today will be yours,
and brutal,
and hardly brief. You'll be held
every inch responsible. Dignity
and shame are at stake - good grief!
They've been burned for less, you know!
Oh! that these too, too stretchèd
elastic gaps would firm,
resolve, to catch and hold
this blind rampaging fugitive
- arrest his course, drag his bold
unruly will to live
back to the fold! Divert
his rude progress, redeem
disgrace, come to rest
nice and slow and remain
at ease, before we
have to sell tickets
for this kind of show!
Be amazed! Be shocked!
- when he rouses and riles
like Hercules!!!
Be appalled! As he bulls
his way right straight out of the place
like some mythical barn in Greece! Which hey,
maybe fine by them, but ever since Eve
and Adam pulled the Golden Fleece in their eyes
- to fool the wolves - the culture evolved
has been more than a bit and a touch refined.
By this quite civilized late date, shall we ape
the toga commando antiquity days, with prodigal schlongs
gone wild for women and boys?

It's my heritage, yes - I'm a Western Man,
and Science's child, I use words like "equipoise"
- but I hate having labors galore
to atone for these stunts
he's so impudently o'erjoyed
to pull with impunity, fearless
of consequence to me, of who's going to look
ridiculous, of the punishments
he stands proud to face,
never making a fuss - and receive
the full brunt! You can't tame this one!

Refusing to bend or to take a knee
(of that, I approve) - neither brooking
nor suffering fools like me, staunchly refusing
to shrink, or to shirk
or to know his place - until finally beaten,
collapsing -

He's won.

Bursts emotionally out
with unseemly relief, and
weeps a pathetic deluge.

What heart could refuse to break?
Here's a tissue, son.

Buck up, little dude.
But: know your place. You knew
you'd be thrashed, asserting your rights.
Snug in, all's forgiven now - please
sleep tight, and tomorrow: act right.

Today's
controversial drawers
will have been replaced.

thing true

I am lovable. I can be
loved. People

have loved me.

It's possible.

If you've never been
loved - I'm not saying
you're not!

But I am
lovable.

It's all that I've got.

deeper yet

We'd make a great team
if we ever got started
on anything we could dig
out from the earth.
If there's anything there
to dig out - I suspect
that there is, but who
could say what it's worth?
We'd make a great hole,
at any event. Sufficient
for speeches,
and ribbon-cutting.
A pompous affair, we could stand
there and bow, maybe scrape
a bit more,
all but spent at the depths
of our undertaking, and proud
of this great, big hole
that we haven't been making.

"couplets"

As many years go by in shock
at how many years it's been so far,
I fail to regret the efforts we've spared
on anything less than the way we are.

justice must be pursued

You've betrayed me, again.
The unwritten rule! Oh when
Will you learn to read those things?
Every time, you protest that you
Weren't aware.

I have to acquit of the charge
I bring

On the grounds of all this
Invincible innocence of yours,
You produce in endless supply
At the drop of a charge, I reflect
The defence

Is a kind of insanity plea, the judge
Is completely nuts over you,
The devil's advocate might as well be
Disbarred, the expert witness tells
Bold-face lie - but we do what we can.

We try. Sometimes black, white and blind
Doesn't suit the case. Oh, what a neat
Little travesty it makes. Take a bow,
have some tea & cakes.

a burlesque of synonyms

There's a fine line
between travesty

and satire.

Satire knows where
it is, and crosses it. Travesty does

neither - never
pleased with itself
unless
it can pitch a fit.

policies

There's a fine line between a cliche
and its paraphrase, of which let us say:
honesty is the highest road. Go high!
Just say the damn cliche, and I
'll take the low.

Pinocchiess

i had a dream where you were a puppet on strings
refusing to do most everything,
as my hands on the crosses
you'd tangle and wrest,
loop strings around fingers
like tourniquets
and draw it all tight,
in interpretive dance -
a mockery of choreographies I had planned
for you - you've become a real girl!
With a conscience that chirps,
keeping up with you on an epic quest
- and a nose for detection
of dreams come true. You can wish
'til it hurts,

I will let the stars fall
without counting, and try
to get some rest.

visionry

There's this weird,
almost mystical sense I have,
in a slowly-completing picture of you
- it feels like you are
ineradicable, before
my eyes always. You: just you.
Not burned, not
carved, nor etched,
but never the less
present - as if my eyes
were remade,
with you in them. Behind

every blink, or if
I just shut my eyes
and relax my breath, you swim

in view,
before me

in waves
like an ocean of one
overwhelming thought

in living color, like new - and I
am wonderful, blessed, and impossible
to deceive. Such a sense

as cannot be bought, only taught
in the ways you have given me.

It does make it hard
to fall asleep,
sometimes.

But for me, how much better it is
to see, and believe

what could not be believed,
but cannot be denied -

every part of this. And I

have only begun
to open my eyes

since sincerity

since is a function of sincerity, or
sincerity of since. To speak
sincerely is to speak of what is
- and in consequence. A sincere being feels
the necessity of what must be said,
since this is true. Whatever this is,
we must try to be gentle
with so consequential
an innocent ewe.

sterner stuff

I'd like to be made of sterner stuff,
like Superman - with my fingernails,
I would pluck off the tops of bottled beers
whose caps had been firm: "Use Opener"
And I'd toss back a swallow,
suppressing tears
for all the mere mortals, who looking on
supposed it to be some trick.
But no,
their distrust
would bounce off me like bubble gum
from the skin of a man made of bullets.
Some day,
they'd finally accept and realize
that this nature of mine - half-cursed, half-
blessed - has put me above
their tricks and lies.

But I'm not, so I guess
I will say the same
of my blood and my flesh
as originally planned.

It isn't a trick, how I open
my beers - and you'll never be able
to understand.

"tumble and play (a hypothetical autoerotica)"

If I were you, I would touch myself
whenever I noticed I was alone
full-clothed and potentially unobserved
I'd slide my caress across my breasts
feel the tightening points of scrutiny
beneath flimsy layers of modesty
so ill-deserved.

When away from home, I'd take
opportunity every time
to straighten and smooth the bird-print dress
I'd put on to conceal what is rightly mine:
alone, such hips and thighs, and the rising waist,
all the curves of around and back
I would stroke and occasionally smack
in place - as if ever they weren't - and occasionally
pluck, quite lazily, with distracted thoughtless mind,
as if at a lute, or deliberately, as if to scold
some too-intimate creep and cling,
astutely, discretely slipped in
and fondling parts that are mine to hold
oh, mine alone.

Each day home, finally,
I'd fling my wayward impetuous dress
away, and cast off every underthing,
repudiating their too presumptuous grasp and sway
- glancing once at the window, just to be sure
I would stand in a state of sweet array
then fall back onto pillows, with spreading locks
and my safecracker's hand would tumble and play.

What else did I say?

What else did I say we needed?
Oh, well. I'll probably forget
if I remember again. Then need
will come - the reminding angel
- to tap on right shoulder,
and whisper:

"What have you done?"

That, at least, is the plan.

"Sword & Sorcery"

I want to make of you a fantasy
of all my own, dipped in hot flesh
to redden, whiten under hammer blows.
Brightly banging pulse and singing breath
of anvil and surging bellows:
You, the holy forge
I work and sweat and slave upon an age
Until with bursts of molten urge and will
We shake, collapse and I draw forth - the blade!
All droopy, now unsuitable to kill
The finished sword! Revealed, reforged, remade!
As was foretold, now finally fulfilled
- yet maybe, let's again
just to be safe.
Let's forge this thing.
Some prophecies were made
to come to pass
But once, but some
are more for everyday,
and some for more.
To stand at call, at need.
Stand forth and play! Stand fast
and strike as fair in love as war.
Or fairer still. That wouldn't be
so hard. Yet sometimes that's
quite perfectly okay.

dispossession

You were never mine.

You gave yourself greedily in generous acts
that left nothing after but breath and damp,
and the wait for what's next
- which eventually,
not before long but after it, became nothing
but emptiness,
and too much to think of it.

As time stopped spooling out,
like a broken string
tied to a sky-lost kite, I realized
at last that you'll always be mine,
which you already knew.

(You were always
right.) You learned too fast,

considering all we had planned for you.

hop skip

I always love it
it's exhilarating
when a book skips ahead a little bit
between chapters. They

were in England. Things
were shaping up, and it was looking
like a promising lead in Gascony
or some damn place bam

eleven

They're in Gascony! About
getting run over by a car
in a hallucinatory, descriptive scene. This

is terse, tense writing. This
is narrative economy. They kept you

smack in the middle of it. They skipped over

the packing and boat or plane schedules!

My friend, though
dislikes when they do that. Skips. She thinks

there should be an immersive experience.
The packing and boat or plane schedules,
the voyage over so lightly skipped

could have been used. To reveal.

To illuminate. She has a point, but
on the other hand bam

twelve

We're in Rome! How about that? Not
a bad way to travel

just a hair

I have a hair in my mouth
- towards the back of my tongue
but not quite to my throat -
from I don't know where.
I have spit and I've scraped
with a fingernail, and I've
gagged and I've coughed
'til I'm not sure it's there.
Then I try to distract
and relax, think of some
other thing, something else
something comfortable -
so I started a poem. And
I think that it's gone.
I think that it's gone.
But I want to know.

dichotomy tease

Your loveliness,
or your love - I don't
know which is more precious
and immediate to me.
Your love, perhaps, is more lasting,
even eternal; your loveliness
more to be seized.
But since lovely you
loves me, I find

no dilemma,
no forced choice between,
no divided mind, just peace
and ease -

and disbelief.

Wondering how
you have said
you're mine.

- yet trust, feeling
paradoxically lost
in the shadow of
pure relief,

as I see you shine.

blushing day

Oh how I long
for your skin's soft glow. White pink
and ripe peach in daylight's gold,
with shadows like sunset
and edged with snow, you dazzle
and spin with stories untold.

"stormkeeping"

The distant flash behind my back
this dead of night makes shadow plays
upon the fleeing clouds that ghost
so grey between the stars
in soft array.

We none of us can hear
the thunder break itself
from where we are.

This storm-thrown light on candlesmoke
is all we have to know, so far.

Unworrying, the clouds fly
running off, away, and safe -
while I can only half-assume

the storm is dragging after them
its heavy wings, to sweep the sky.

this literature

I love how apt your allusions are.
You pluck and re-present to me
the choicest bloom or weed or stick
in all our garden's memory, from where
it grows in scattered nooks
and grassy hilltop overlooks,
and ocean cliffside succulents
so thick with what you mean to me,
and taking it, I see and know
it means as much to you,
with all immediacy,
afloat aglow

in playful drift of what we know.

necronomicon artist

he hints as if your sanity
could not withstand the things he knows.
with tentacles of writhing mind,
his occult hand moves undertows
of eldritch implication, and

he smiles

for your sake, it's best
if you'd content yourself to learn
why some things stay mysterious
at his behest.

domestic

The servant
half-seen, sometimes invisible
and shared between us,
busies itself unmindfully
with care, on automatic tasks
we hold ourselves too high
to share, and yet
somehow these things get done.
When one of us hides half ourself
the other looks away, or runs
and comes back later, smiling
to find each other quite at ease
amidst the ordered everything.

dream convertible

Let's go on a road trip
to catch up on sleep. While
you drive, I will dream,
then we'll switch. Every night,
we will stay up 'til deep
into dawn, spinning tales
of whatever we'd dreamed, and
where we'd push it next
'til lucidity fails.

We'd pull over for breakfast
- some bleached desert dive,
and we'd order the specials
and when they'd arrive,
we'd bow our heads giggling,
grateful enough to have come

through alive. And then,
freshen up

and drive.

self-restraint and modesty

I think about you all the time
But something's always in the way
Imagination chaperone
swooping in to save the day

filling in what's not amiss,
leaving every room for doubt
in pictures of you on my mind -
always in your modesty,
with nothing left remotely out -
I wouldn't ask for any more.

I can't imagine any less.
Some things are past imagining

Which in my view, is for the best.
Or could be, anyway. At least,
to try, we must be very wise.

I'm picturing you naked, now
and looking at your eyes.

night sky claustrophobia

This starry walk
under millions of eyes
I prepared myself
for what you will say.
Or I will prepare, once
I decide.
There is only one way
this will go, and
if only I knew what it was,
I could plan.
Arrange better for it
- not to change anything,
no. Just because
I would rather react with aplomb
than surprise.
When you catch me there.
It's wretched enough
under all these eyes
between empty fields
waving chest-high grass
towards the river bridge,
where I know you'll wait
'til it comes to pass.

Kafka, according to lovers

Of Franz Kafka's novels, I have read
none. But his short stories, I have
read all that were left. He wanted

them burned. But good old Max Brod,
confidante and literary executor, best
friend, told him "I will burn none of them."

Kafka apparently kept the guy on, so.
He'd protested sufficiently, it seems.
I am glad for the cordial betrayal

that played out between these two.
The stories are quite weird. Theirs
is dream logic. People remember things

halfway through that had never any sign
of happening, or reflect upon laws (as if
of nature) that obtain where they are,
that cannot make sense to anyone,

apologizing, "If things were otherwise,
how could we go on living?" Eventually
it seems anything could happen at all,

so long as most people remain cheerful
under the brutal logic of it, which they
at least can see. And

they do. That's the thing. It's much
like life.

Kafka wrote originally in German,
in an elevated and formal style -
ironically, I'm told. The effect
of his voice,
reporting such
embarrassing facts
as he could come up with,

with such exaggerated courtesy and dignity,
is supposed to be magical by all reports.

But one can't very well learn German
well enough to appreciate Kafka
just to appreciate Kafka.

Very well.

Instead, I make do in English,
in translation. I am angered
at the introduction to this book,

informing me of Franz's adorable Germanic
magic tricks, inimitable in any other tongue
- taunting me with the inadequacy of what

is to follow, but assuring me
they did all they could. By John Updike
no less! I bet Updike pulls such hatchet jobs

with every introduction he writes - trying
to get out of being asked. I call it passive
-aggressive. But the translations, I thought

were lovely enough, if alas! I hadn't
known better. A real life of dreams
still waking in stages, where attacks
of pain to make one's eyes water
break no spells, and unpleasant things
intrude upon the notice of practical,

serious,
ambitious men
and dogs, and burrowing creatures,
and one big bug, and some mice,
and women of course,

who all scold themselves
for their ridiculous anxieties
in the process of disappearing
increasingly into them. Abandoned
to self by self, alone and naked in the night

under an infinite sky of stars crowding close
to the point of claustrophobia:

In a world of Free Will, only not yours -
and whose, then? Each of them bedeviled

by a question, not the sort of question
one asks, if one isn't ready to die more or less
alone.

And after each story, a duo of translators
is credited: always
two. Either:

Translated by Tania and James Stern

or

Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir

or once,

Translated by Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins,

- who must have been lovers. Yes, they were.

Perhaps translators always pair up this way.
The only way to cross through, maybe, and

safely over.