holiday home

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

to steal holidays in
from your far-flung lives,

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

Image problem focus group

Biggest compound problem in the world?

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

Anyone I've decided against,

deserves my worst
plus whatever else they get.

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

As if the people we so easily are

- our worst -

are not
related to us
at all.

Really.

News: your worst

is who you are really.

And:

the only one who deserves it

or who you deserve

is you.

"Caretaker"

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

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

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

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

your bosomy

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

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

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

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

exploring the shape of a dream

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

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

'cause you're mine.

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

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

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

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

so I could disappear,

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

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

'cause you're mine.

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

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

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

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

so suddenly shy

...

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

bosomy, bosomy

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

that you've given me -

You're mine.

"the whole shebang"

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

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

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

still right there, holding my gaze

and breathing my air.

"Observance"

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

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

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

of our people, you and me,

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

See how it goes?

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

something,

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

as if one were enough.

"thinking of you"

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

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

layers deep

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Favorites"

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

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

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

To pretend to ignore
all the opposites that
attract the likes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

correction

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

in my eyes,

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

that seems to indicate

dispassion, reserve, equanimity, but

in fact is a broken submission to nerve
and whatever else

is enflamed or strained,
or has been so disturbed

as to shoot this pain out
into blameless neck,

and straighten me up
upon pain of wreck.

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

naturally,
until someone says something
I unexpect,

and I look up happy, surprised
then impaled

to suddenly realize

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

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

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

the anguished face,
the dismay:

I was incorrect.

I am going to bed, now
because.

The Beautiful

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

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

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

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

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

- they weren't that important now, anyway,

guitar solo.

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

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

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

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

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

not ignorance, this bliss.

welcome bag

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

just leave this
upon your porch

no push, the bell
no clack, the knocker

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

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

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

and speaking of which,

And furthermore
wow,

WHAT

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

Really stand out.

Anyway, for you

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

leave this bag
on fire,

which

is actually appropriate,
if you think back a bit

please do.

findings

At first this poem
was intended as a controlled study

of the effects of poetry upon
the statistically representative sample,

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

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

without reported side-effects
and the whole thing, really

had to be viewed as complete success

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

and everything one might imagine

a poem is capable of

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

itself suspect. In which case,

we must concluding: funding
must be secured immediately

and gigantically,

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

occult motion

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

or profess to believe, but

Do not take a hand

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

for the rest of your life
you can already see.

It was not unplanned

"Gift of Sight"

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

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

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

For catching up on sleep

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

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

"Same Love"

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

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

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

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

"Wine & Roses"

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

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

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

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

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

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

And I

will bring wild roses
And you
will drink red wine

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

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

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

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

And I

will bring wild roses
And you
will drink red wine

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

but you haven't lost your shine

And I will bring wild roses, And you

will drink red wine.

"over it"

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

Your

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

get over it.

And tell me what
that's like.

psychic surgery

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

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

was there. An attribute

you always had

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

No one was playing catch with you
at all.

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

your sin. You were the one

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

There was no wrong,
just phantom right.

Of which,
they were the champion.

And won, somehow

- Just every
single
time.

but

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

or how.

So everything
is just as was.

No wound to close,
no stitch, no fuss

You can't make up the difference, now.

"your earring," Or, "the visitation"

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

It is on the sill.

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

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

as a sign?

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

It would be divine.

"Pleasures in prospect"

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

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

innocently
with the evidence.

"manifesto, no"

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

"Preparation for enjoyment"

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

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

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

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

"mixed blessings of protection"

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

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

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

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

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

and the sound

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

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

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

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

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

classic forms

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

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

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

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

he brightened, serving the paranoid solipsist's drink,

"What will your hallucinations have?"

sublimation

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

what's that

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

mind blown

start using it for fucking everything

- THAT

is subversion. Specifically,
it's metasubversion.

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

but

no dice.

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

You're just being the arriviste

of subversion - the uncoolest subversive
there is.

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

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

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

meanwhile

what you're doing?

Good work!

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

it's cool

a dream of more

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

More from loved ones
More

from life.
But

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

doesn't crack the facade

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

maybe the next, keep trying

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

Nothing specific, just

wanting more.

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

galore

She is not lost.

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

instead,
all along
Not lost.

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

without.

She is not lost.

age of effigy

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

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

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

so small
so simple

such voodoo dolls,
after all.

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

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

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

- such pathetic excuse
cannot exist.

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

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

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

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

in such sway.

But I wish
that they weren't so impossible

To understand
To reach
To hear

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

Light an effigy, then dance circles

around your fear,
my dear

- it's the only way

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

another day,

you'll see

about what you think it is.

respect the past

Could you please

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

Not

just dipping back
to when things sucked, but

then sneak, bolt off
and live in the imagined futures

that then still seemed
bright? At least,

enough to bask in.

This is not
living in the past.
Respect the past

if you're going to live
there,

live

in what actually happened.
Live in how it was.

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

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

as possible,
as probable,
as plausible now

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

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

unlikely now,

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

at playing pretend.

nocent

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

- we were each put on notice:
our presence here

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

we swear, and kiss.

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

but no one will cheer,
or ask for more.

As their finding of truth,
they will show us

The Door

outsize

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

well above six foot

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

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

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

resurrection theory

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

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

- it is not a democracy.

We are burning
in the friction of our separate
divine,

and some of us are consumed
utterly, in agony -

and all of us
go out like candles, eventually.

But there is a memory

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

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

we could be.

- and will be again,

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

At least, it's a theory.

twinflames

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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