duh

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

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

duh

If you give up on me,

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

But I won't give up on you

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

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

From me, anything else
would be absurd.

ditty ditty doggerel

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

practicing

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

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

three songs a day
there's time for two

more yet before
this pain is gone,

and I partake
in all the promised

perfect

practice

doesn't make.

But for some sake
besides my own,

I'll discipline
these steps I take.

this chick's tits are the business

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

What kind of a business is that?

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

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

It is. But there is no accounting
for taste,

in this biz.

"the thing with wings"

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

And when they hatch,
those caterpillars
eat you from within

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

soon.

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

Soon.
Soon,

Your hopes matured
in acid bath of undigested
questions why

will burst from you
and fly,

And never die.

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

with your open, staring eyes

chasing butterflies

"larksmith"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- inconsequential

strange consolation

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

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

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

It's amazing what a little hope
can do.

But eventually, they're gone.

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

who will not be yours for long.

feelings left out

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

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

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

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

"times that come"

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

beginning out

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

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

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

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

and take a leap or two into abyss.

Untitled

I WANT YOUR ASS.
TO BE MINE.
FOREVER

I WANT YOUR ASS.
TO BE MINE.
FOREVER

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

I WANT YOUR ASS.
TO BE MINE.
FOREVER

I WANT YOUR ASS.
TO BE MINE.
FOREVER

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

I WANT YOUR ASS.
TO BE MINE.
FOREVER

I WANT YOUR ASS.
TO BE MINE.
FOREVER

with a wheel missing

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

less boring

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

surfaces.

irreconcilable

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

perhaps.

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

through consequence

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

our loss.

Of us.

And of ourselves.

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

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

but facts of nature

- and incompatible - between us, that you
nor I

could overcome, ever. No,

and not even we.

Understanding what happened to us,
and why,

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

But for going from here,

it might save two.

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

and you could help me.

If we wanted to.

dick pics are empirically not a problem

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

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

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

But I never got one,
is the point.

That's life.

sorta boiling

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

as it almost tried, but -

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

it hangs perfectly poised
at a point between.

And I stare, like a staring-contest

was on. To see for how long,

we can hold the suspense. I have

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

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

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

STARE

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

to the taste? I have caught

an epochal moment, and poised
for epiphany -

I am watching this pot.

It depends upon me.

This pot shall not boil,
not on my watch.

Or I'll know the reason why,

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

crack that bottle of fifty-year scotch.

reasons to comment.

You can justify it
a couple of ways.

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

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

or two,

or more. Or:

the converse is good, as well!

Whichever works best for you,
by all means: indulge

in letting it out.
It may be just what

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

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

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

- surprise

is the small, hard seed
that grows to hope.

And it's also the key,

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

is acquired by taste.

But the point is, whatever you say

they will know that you cared enough

to risk egg on your face.

"a straightening"

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

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

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

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

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

you can.

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

Quit letting it out on a drunk.

And don't even think to apologize.

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

in you

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

If you want,
be yourself.

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

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

that lurks in the dregs,

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

Next time, propose a toast.

cleanest cleaner clean

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

you would never suspect.

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

Declaring the Enemy Pt.2

modern justice politics

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

to be so declared

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

they had themselves just
been cheering, and learning to use

feeling themselves just.

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

they could be marked out,
crossed off,
pariahfied

so WATCH IT

is the watchword.

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

This is how we will win.

We must amass

an army

disgusted, confused,
indignant and disorganized

swollen ranks of the summarily-deputized
enemy, and then

we will walk right over them.

"declare the enemy"

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

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

and our tactical outrage
pours out through the air

to blast where they stand
every one,
everywhere:

(except for the pure of us)

for what they have done, for what
people like them

have done.

It is for them,
that we are

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

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

who.

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

you,
all of you

have decided yourselves,
and marked yourselves out,

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

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

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

So we check you off.

Now shall we continue? Begin,
Again,

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

Here's
what we plan for:

This is war.

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

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

who

this is for.
This is for all of us.

We didn't start
this war.

"the story of my"

this tiny sign, just

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

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

It is good
advice given imperatively.

These pens

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

it is not yours.

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

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

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

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

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

not keep.

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

"great gobs"

we sat
so close

I bit
into the egg sandwich you made
for me

you leaned in
eager to see

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

pregnant with unbroken yolk,

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

crowning your blush,
bejewelling an eyelash

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

filling my delicious mouth,

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

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

with one slightly wrong
move.

TMI poem #1 scabs

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

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

the healing process,

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

gun but no!

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

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

The scab

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

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

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

"Two Halves"

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

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

to spend

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

gladly

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

and make it come out for the best

in the end.

apportation

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

I suspect.

stringlessness

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

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

"Misdoubt."

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

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

you do, too.
Some thing

has you thinking
of me, the way I

still think of you.

We were fine.

Were we only a way
to help ourselves through

all the things
that we'd have to do -

our new starts?

Or did we go somewhere wrong?
Maybe

we shouldn't have blown apart. But

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

So what.

Every one since then has been true.

"No Fault"

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

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

though I am not owed you,

so,

it's kind of a risk.

It's not virtuous, smart,
or deliberate

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

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

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

they could hold you to.

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

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

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

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

To burn.

I can not lie.

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

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

Until then, let's yearn.

road song

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

"Piety"

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

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

to do what I'm told.

"smilelike"

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

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

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

"Good and Bad Use"

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