the spread

I have no god in this fight
between beasts and machines
I am happy or at least, content
to sit back in the stands
and place bets
on what it all means.

the whole self ish

I am a rampaging monolith,
the irresistible object
and immovable force combined

in a project
of being opaque
in a luminous way.
And
I always wonder how
and why and when
I should face the day.
But not where or who.

The where is undecided
by me, straight through
- and the who is just
this thing looking out
from behind these eyes
I have always been.
Unawares and prepared
for surprise.

You May Miss, My Dear

You may miss,
my dear
the Point.
I express my judgment
with force and clarity,
aim and shock-speed impact,
pinpoint-accurate-tip
-grown-to-needle-girthed
swell, sizing rapidly to lance
as it is driven so well
in and all through you
to unhorse all stance
with a light glancing blow,
that transfixed the core.
Sundered every armor-plate,
parted every leather strap
that you strapped-on before
(whoops! There go your pants!
- unintended, I'm sure)
with a logic ironshod
you can't fix no more
than it already was
perfect-pitch, rough-clad,
hard valid and sound
- to conclusion BAD.
For some. My rung, round verdict
gets progressively ever more hung
'round your neck, and it makes you
SO MAD. The conclusion is:

This.

personal judgment

is

inconsequential.

Except to anyone silly enough
to GIVE IT
(freely)
all of the value

it has.

To them. Otherwise,

none.

Which is fine.
Only if you disagree with my assessment
shall you ever have to contend
with mine.

It's not an arena
in which I'd advise you
to try to shine.

slow pace

Deer
are remarkably stupid
fucking creatures, or
maybe they were fine the way they were
but the world just got so fast.
The new predators aren't interested
in your flesh, dear.
They hate
to crash, rend and tear
into you.
But you keep
crossing through the world,
at a blithe, slow pace
like the worst thing you had
to worry about
was wolves.

frontiers

The problem is
people who can't deal with you
with what you can do
respond with hate,
perplexity, even
admiration.
They just can't back up the truck
so they take a dump on the seat
and call it rock and roll.

It's not everybody who has the title
deed to a ranch on the moon,
or who knows how to get around
at the bottom of the ocean.

There are places
Frontiers

Beyond which human discovery
is limited. Your heart
is one of these.

party at hate beach

Hate, in short,
is a punk-ass beach, flocked
to by moral and intellectual
weaklings who display their enervated,
attenuated sham strength in pose-downs,
their bathing trucks and suits constantly
slipping, often lost entirely in the surf -
leaving them puny and nude before the world!
Still crowing about their superiority
as they desperately grope for sandy towels
(hating the sand on their naked skin!),
as normal people in the sections
to either side love it. Not

out of schadenfreude! Well,
most of us. They love it
because love loves hate
to be revealed and shown,
in all its failed and flaunted glory. Love knows

it’s no competition! Hate needs
ignorance and deep shadow
to hide in and thrive,
breeding in the margins.

We feel bad for all the strutting, ugly
fools of course. We pity them,
like Mr. T would.

But we feel great
for all the innocents
and “undecideds,” seeing
such weak display - and naturally

revolting from it.

Revolution is a revolting process.
It grows out of revulsion
- and away from it,
on stronger, cleaner paths
upward.

The fact is,
hate is one of the most glaringly,
obviously weak
and ignorant things
a person can do. That’s a truth
each of us can easily find
for ourselves, if we look.
In the current phase of humanity,
social media etc., hate
is not growing stronger.
It is not grown more prevalent.
Its prevalence wherever it has always been
- is now being more and more inexorably exposed.

Hate has a hard time finding shade and concealment
now. For within its ignorant ranks
are so many fools who think it’s right.
And they stride forth onto that beach
and prance, as their wiser, more wrinkled elders
(whose wisdom consists in knowing why they hide)
wince, and cover their eyes. Knowing display

makes hate look horrible.

Well it is horrible.
What do they expect?

spyglass sails

I see you not as my ship
coming in, but a whole armada
in waves and waves
unloading your goods
from faraway shores,
to never stop coming in
all of our days.

too much about dreams

We should not read too much
about dreams. Common dreams,
dreams everyone has - but
you may not have had, and
you will. You will, now

and you might find out what
your dreams mean. And it will
be something quite other
than what they once meant.

They'll come bristling
in response to this new
intent that you've given

them.

pleasure in the sacred

The sacred is not to be touched
except by reverence, in reverence
with reverence - unless,
occasionally irreverence!
- in which case we make fun
of ourselves, for holding
such sacred things -
but not too much, or
the sacred is lost.
It has been profaned,
in the end,
to our cost

as we discover that
not for any price
can this worthless thing
be bought.

sweet reversals

I think you would be
an admirable undertaking
or overtaking. In fact
if you were overtaking me,
I'd be very undergiving about it
- and virtue versa.

where to begin

the most logical place
to be perverse

could be in the middle

then start
going forth
to reverse

first date.

As I sat across from you,
as we sank to converse
I could tell. And I knew
I could get it no worse
than the bad I now had.
Oh, and I had it bad.

There wasn't any obstacle
I could see

to prevent us from spending
as much of eternity
as we'd give so glad
- if you gave.

I presented best sides
as I flew, as I tried
to behave, just in case
you could see it, too.

See anything like it.

I was so brand new
in that moment, I could see
all the way to old age.

My teeth
began to crack
as the entrees were served,
and away they gave
as I chewed, and I tried
not to cry as my flesh
lost tone, fell to sag

and I mourned
at the loss
of this dear old bag
of watery meat, which
has served me so well.

As I swerved in my seat
in a quiet, and carefully
concealed wave of grief
- I reflected

it was going well.

And my bones lost mass,
became delicate things.
And dessert was served,
- my hands were skeletal wings.

But all the way through, we laughed
'til we cried,

'til I died.

You

were never any less
beautiful than when
I first picked you
up,

that night I tried.

When I asked.

When you said yes. And
who knew
where such a funny thing

could be going to? But

they always told me that
I move too fast.

I wanted too much future,
I guess.
Let it slip
to past.

shallowmess

I am a surface
of infinite shallowness,
it's a birth defect, I'm just
lucky I guess. I press
benches and trenches down up
into paths and planes
I journey early late
and always to return again,
and it's all
the same.
And I am all
the same.

I'm just a surface
of infinite shallowness, you can
spend your life in mirrors just
exploring the depths, sometimes
the more well-examined, you get
less profound. Making circles
into spheres to keep going
around,
but it's all
the same.
And you are all
the same.
And I am all
the same.
You have one move more to make
and it isn't a game,
but

your hand is still on the piece. Move it back,
if you want there's no rule against that. But one:
we all saw the square you began to move to,
and it isn't a game. So whose turn is it on?

You're just a surface
of infinite shallowness
it's a natural fact,
we're just lucky I guess
that you happened to give
what you happen to have.
If you tilt it, near and far
are barely points apart
in the satellite nav
of the universe
in any sky you can find,
shining behind each new pair of eyes
in your newly-amazed
or perhaps just
amazing mind.

happenstance 2: the pampas grass

this stuff grew wild
from someone's rich garden, imported
as ornament from the far Orient
here to spread reckless,
devouring miles by inches
and feet, and roots and ears. All
man-high stalk and soft fluffy mane,
a style the eye could get used to
with pain,
or with pleasure.
It hardly can matter
that much. It's hardy
and reedy and soft
at the top
to touch.
With vegetable strength
it embraced
and devoured the length
and the width of the land.
Now waving in winds
and rustling in waves,
by the Bay
kept at bay
by the gardener's toils
it stands.

happenstance 1: the spider

I thought I had stepped through a spiderweb
in my sister's immaculate house,
but instead it was just the enormous
coffee cup
had tipped and spilled
a silken strand
of its jet-black
ichor
out.

the pain

imagine if I had pain in me
all through, unidentifiable
pressures and spasms and shooting,
piercing, throbbing pain
pounding with every pulse and I went
to the doctor and she was like TAKE
YOUR CLOTHES OFF. ALL OF THEM and I'd be
like BUT DOC, THE PAIN and she'd be THE TESTS
ALL CAME BACK LIES! There is nothing wrong with you
EXCEPT the pain! You're FINE!

many people live this and I'm
not one of them. Don't think
for a minute I'm not gratified,
grateful and

eventually
afraid

grown wise

people tell me
I've grown wise. Actually no

they seem to think I already was
wise. I think
I've grown wise enough to see
how wise I've grown
since before,
when I rebuffed their appraisal
of my wisdom on merit,
and now, when
I accept it.
Really,

it's probably
likelier I've grown
unwise enough to accept it. However,
the barometer on crap like this
is subjective. I prefer
to honor the benefit
of the doubt
in such case.
Wise,
arguably.

spiraling strong

Whoever kills you, if
first, they made you so strong
that it could take you years
to die by the blow,
just spiraling down -
so strong, any moment
you could pull out,
if you wanted to
you know.

Might as well
call it even. You know
you never were that strong
before. In your whole life,
the strongest you've been
was the moment she
walked out the door.

frequent and fond

A disturbing pattern
begins to emerge. I look back
on my life of connective drift.
My attempts to reach out to someone
lost - and explain how I care,
and think, and miss,

and

it's always the same. I assure them
how

They come to mind, now and again,
as friends - and I welcome them in
and we reminisce. But

I never do call, despite
keen wish. "You are always busy,"
I chide. "In my mind, and I don't
want to interrupt your stuff. I suck
reaching out. I'm bad at it. But

frequent and fond

are the times I suck."

My attempts to reach out
are not carried through.
So no one is reassured. Things
change. They probably know.
They could easily guess, but
they probably suck just as well

at being estranged.

like lists

If I made a list
of the things that I like about you,
half of them would be me. Because
of the things you do, and what they
bring out.

Just the person I always was,
but with far less doubt
in these ways and subjects
touched. Risen response and honed
so much, and grown
to the point they can bear
much more
without groan or protest, except
possibly - in attempt
not to run up so gaudy a score.

The rest
of the list
would just be you.

But all of it
is to your credit,
dear. In all
of these points,
you are ever true.
As each becomes
ever so much
more clear.

matter at hand

Whosoever
Took a turd
In hand and squoze:
It hath occurred.

Precaution.

I forgot the last thing I was worried about,
but I feel like it happens a week from now.
There were mental notes of something to do
- foreboding forearmed by a month or two,
but it's gone now, straight off the to-do list.
Only a feeling is left, perhaps. A definite memory,
caught in the catch of a worry that's flown,
leaving only a sense like a bodiless chalk
outline on the floor. No plea, no defense,
no broken latch, no clue, no idea who's
meant to lie down
and let out their blood
as evidence - and patiently wait
for a knock at the door. I suppose,
next time I should jot down a note
so I'll know what to worry about,
just in case it's you. Not you,
surely no not that! I hope

curator

It is not the past
we're nostalgic for,
but the masterpieces
that memory stores
of moments with flaw
tastefully painted out.
We stood facing futures
and mucking about
in the joy of a now
that has gone so bright!

It's not worth recall,
disappointment and doubt
- but so much between
those omitted details
glowed so right.

With a once-treasured
friend, we can mount
in a flash, exhibits
and galleries stretched
for hours. From spare
back rooms, stacked
crated and safe, indexed
to an inch of our lives,
we have kept our fate.

It is ours. It is just
and fair, we omit
a few lesser works
of our cares

and truths
to fit.

Now when we look back,
there is no other place
that we'd rather be
than this version of it.