A Pocketful of Poesy was and is again a Poem-a-Day(-on-Average) Blog! For 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and now for 2017 and going forward, you may expect to see 365 poems every year, 366 for leap years.

but aren't they all random?

Wednesday, December 30, 2020

I wish you didn't know how much 
I love you. There's no denial I could use 
to get around it now. It's not as if I don't 
trust you, I cannot help it now. I do.

I'd sacrifice myself to anything 
you would allow, and I can't help think
and feel that means you've got me 

at a disadvantage, well. There's no one 
I would rather have me at one of those.
But I kind of wish you didn't know.

It's more fun if it's a surprise how much 
I would destroy myself, just to make 
you throw a pose. 

Tuesday, December 29, 2020

The Approval Process

I am owed this view. Those few 
rough and jagged peaks, small
in the background, stage left. This 
circular pool of reflected sky, dirtied 
in water and somehow made iron-red murk
and algae-green livid without brown, somehow
remaining a lake (with one mountain's peak 
on tip-toe! Sticking its head in on a hot day).
A hot day so high up there's snow below us
now. As if to incomplete the scene's stark
and spare austerity: a scrubby stubble
of random plants at this height, struggling
to look respectable despite the disreputable 
aspect. Nothing this high could thrive

but in this moment, I do. And you. 
I am owed this view, having taken 
all the long tramp and toil to earn 
it. And you, for dragooning me up 
to this death-hike, are perhaps 
owed something too. 

time flows up

Time flows up. 
Up our spines, towards
the clouds, bleeding out
into space to the stars,
steam escaping our mouths 
as the earth radiates
all this time. It collects
building up in the wastes
of space, which we all
keep in mind. 

Monday, December 28, 2020

love justification

I’d be a little leery of my progress
(if any) if I found myself 'justifying things'
that actually could use any. Those are things
I’ve been much more comfortable sticking
crowbars into, cracking the plates open
and pee peeing on the innards. Then bash
liberally about in there with the crowbar.

If I stand back and when I’m done, the thing
slap-clicks shut again, sprung up humming
and whirring in key-perfect pitch to life,
in complete working order and fighting trim,
well,
as my big brother’s buddy
Rob used to say, “So what
that let you know?”

It seems quite possibly, the thing was well
beyond justification in the first place. Since
tested, proved, a bunch of wrenches dumped
into the works and they all worked back out,
the mechanism found (essentially) sound,
(at least, major flaws of a venture all known,
understood and agreed acceptably risky by both
most concerned). Discovered to be immune
to investigative techniques of the rudest most
hard-eyed and mercifully ruthless kind.

In other words by no justification possible,
whatsoever required. Or employed. Why would I,
and why would anyone?

It must be people don’t know or understand what
they want, with this justification business. The only

justification process that counts worth a damn
in my eyes is the one employed in the scientific
method. You get a big idea. You sketch out (predict)
outcomes, and then you make the most sincere attempt
to destroy the thing every way conceivable or possible,
even.

You attempt falsification. In dread earnest and with
perfectly pitiless precision and rigor, with even undue
diligence, whatever you can think of that even maybe
it can’t take - which is no bar to courtesy, of course.
It’s the idea you’re interested in beating to hell, not
the bright idear. Idea-er. Idea woman, or idea man,
as you prefer.

That’s how you smack a rocket into Mars. It’s how
you translate the entire human genome into Esperanto,
it’s how you fall in love and how you fall out of it,
and break up in the atmosphere into burning shards
of what used to be two souls made flesh, now separating
in flaming plumes, angling down to where their craters
await them.

Whether people realize it or not, that’s what we’re doing
down here. It works. Justification is a shill job, trying
to persuade somebody or oneself plus others to an idea
they can already see the problem with, instead of banging
in at it with every wrench and spanner in reach that could
possibly fit, not to fix but wreck the proposition.

What stands that stands forth. The justifiers, though,
who stand and stall, trying to persuade all concerned
to be less concerned about this, and more concerned
in a course they none of them have even tried to destroy
first -
not in earnest! 

- are quite mad.

Saturday, December 26, 2020

you feel so good and mean so much (dumbest fun)

You feel so good and mean so much
I can't believe this moment's come 
and gone so fast beyond all touch
well that's the way to have some fun
I guess it means as much to you 
and fled as far beyond recall.
Leaving you at least as me. 
This was
the dumbest fun of all

Thursday, December 24, 2020

Daughter of the Forbidden Temple

"Hey dad, can I sleep over at Shyla's
tomorrow?" "Go ask your mother, 
the Forbidden Temple." "Aw dad, 
you know mom never says anything. 
And her priestesses and goons keep 
everybody out - you have to bolt 
the cordon and sneak the gauntlet 
to get to the inner chamber, and 
then all you get's a feeling of deep 
weird peace - like you shouldn't 
be there."

"Well, technically daughter,
nobody should. Nonetheless, you
know - you must ask your mother this. 
I cannot say." "But she can't either!" 

"True," he looked reproachful, self-
and otherwise. "Perhaps it is time 
for you to make up whatever you 
want her to say and just say she 
said it." 

Her eyes got wide 

Holy shit 

"I REFUSE!" she demanded. "Well," 
said dad tenderly, "call Shyla and let 
her know, then."

She called Shyla. And let her know 
yes.

Dear scumbag,

Dear scumbag, 

It's as if you ignored or never got 
my call, my letter, or my text telling 
you I love scumbags, keep it coming 
please keep butting in, barging, reaching 
out into my moments and making
a welcome scumbag nuisance of yourself
with your risible and despicable bullshit. 

Either that 

or you didn't think I meant it? 

Oh well. I hope this finds you well, 
either way okay. I recognize it's your call
after all's said and done whether to drift 
or carry on, and I honor it, scumbag. 

Yours all the way out here, 

Jerkstick 

Tuesday, December 22, 2020

My same damn say as you jzu ul

I want to say gratitude to you. 
Gratitude. 
For our whole reaching tentative
to stretching-out luxuriant association 
of mutual bumpy-surprise joyride, overall 
- which from my side, it has been - I just want 

to say gratitude 
to you. Gratitude. 

Surprise seems unexpected past a point 
you know some person so well it has stopped 
occurring to you that moments in play 
and things at stake could wrong-way turn 
'til you both fly off down unknown roads 
of not wanting to know this person any more 
(let alone better) than you were already forced
to, under false pretexts or pretense. You, they
or the universe (always in on it) convinced you 
they were a dead-ringer for your idea of them. 
Sold you that THAT was who they truly duly were, 
bank on it! 

Well, you did but 

sometimes someone steals the whole bank 
out from under your account - and then
what's in your wallet? A fat wad of dog-eared
I.U.O.'s written by someone who verifiably
never existed: your impression
of who they really were. 

In the rare case you've gone so far 
down so good and bad a stretch of ground 
with someone who gives you always to know 
who they are, so it's always someone unquestionable,
so it never any longer occurs to you, even 

- that some mistake could be made, or was. That's rare!
But surprise in such case is even rarer, somehow,
or ought to be you would think. How can reliable
surprise? All reliable no predictable in the mix?
What hocus pocus focus pull misdirection trick
is this? Surprise ought to be long since dissolved
in the gravy of this savory stew, a definite note
in the flavor profile - can't surprise you then.
You'd be surprised at its absence! Yet surprise
is never far from you, though. Let alone continual
low-level wonder and delight at someone 


who reliably, consistently never is
and never was my idea of you. Just 
a delight and a surprise that defeats it
in single combat every time that dim
doppelganger steps onto the same 
stage, or in the same ring 

with you. 

What shocks me is how responsible you are. 
You are responsible for how I feel about you, 
and even more responsible for how childish 
and avoidant that sounds. You're responsible 
for my opinion of you, always so high, proves 
consistently by degrees low. You're responsible 
for things about yourself that you can't control, 
things about yourself that can't possibly be 
things about yourself, but that no doubt 
belong as features and attributes to my 
idea of you, just hanging around on skulk mode, 
stoopin' on the down low waiting for the foregone
-conclusive showdown where you show up and

They're shown up, 

As you stand forth real, like I knew you were 

just...not that way
which is why I want to say gratitude 
to you. I say 
gratitude. 

I know it's a bit cryptic, 
unconventional use, but 
wouldn't you be surprised 
if it wasn't? 

Sunday, December 20, 2020

widening diamond

She watched her luck like a hawk 
circling slow, her mind calm as diamond. 
Flawless stone, hard as art itself.
Containing depths of softness when held
in shadow, turning always, facets turning
into darkling light sliding cut gleams over 
unfolding volumes inside, into and across 
each other, deepening. A mind deepening 
within an interlacing array in intersections
of hard and softening light. 

She had by just now become distracted again 
by her mind. So empty of all but light and shade;
this moment sliding sharp as hints unplayed.

She's peering in again, in time pulling back
from fade into focus. She watched her luck
leave form, take shape through a jeweler's loupe 

as a shadowy hawk fell over and fled
up the ground ahead. Flew 
like a stain running off
and gone, an illusion caused 
by a sunstruck bird outspeeding itself
to make its inscrutably widening round.
Its piercing song. No omen, no augury
this. Pure reason and rhyme in a silhouette blur
of feathering speed, and if you could catch it:
make a wish. She already did.  

She unwinds, sinks back from thought. Returning
to self from mind, uncaught but calm as the space 
in a diamond's heart, returning all light you uncover
to dance and shine, untaught by an unlearned art. 

listen up hotshot Pt. 2

listen up, hotshot. 
Further on to that I got 
the Say-So, the Know-How and 
the Can-Do attitude too, dude. 
While you're letting that cognitive
pot shot drop and simmer, consider
you have another think, coming 
or going - whichever way you like,
whenever you think you can handle it. 
Gimme a glimmer of warning though, 
so I can set myself. Put the switch 
on dimmer, the better to see your
winning glow flicker and shimmy.
Just make sure breakfast gets served
in time for dinner. The menu's bacon, 
eggs and your own sweet self, and I
am not getting any thinner. 

Saturday, December 19, 2020

a pittance

I have this to give you: my whole 
heart, plus associated parts, used,
of worth indeterminate, true - but
You know what? I don't think these
other scumbags (I don't judge - just
look!) will have anything new. 

some allowance

I could very easily be 
not what you think of me. 

I have a fantastic imagination
for strategems, lies, all kinds of fun.
Long cons and frauds. Why, everyone
I tell them to agrees - that one, they'd
have fallen for, cold. Eventually,

It dawns on me: hey. How do we know
I'm not deep in the grip of self-deceit,
with its iron and oh so invisible hold?
Perhaps this shining field of wheat 
is but so much chaff, so much fool's gold? 
What if the one who you love so pure 
is at best an alloy, a mixed metaphor?

Or only a simulacrum coined
and conjured from all the best parts
I could think of me? How would we suss
and spot flaw from join? How do we know
you're impartial enough, detached enough
to be not taken in, your trust purloined? 

An act like that could be easy to do.
How can we really feel safe within 
such warp and weft, so cunningly
-wrought from morning dew and fresh
mown grass? Even I don't know who 
I'm kidding or how, I've become in this 
moment such a prize ass. Oh god baby 
please please say it's not so! It's almost 
too much for me
to allow

but I suppose in a case like this,
pending some hard clue, we'll just
have to let it go. A free pass 

for me. An enduring task
of scrutiny's toil
for you.  

the collapsible lens

When I was young 
I don't think I knew
how happy I was
- and I was right. 
I wasn't. It's just 
the collapsible lens
of time picks up 
and magnifies 
every idiot gleam 
of fun and love
that could never
prove false. I loved
those, then, and I love
them still. Of course 
I do. Meanwhile each
equally idiot glare of panic
and trouble, confusion 
I couldn't see how 
would turn out, or how 
to get through, is lost.
Proved false. Proved 
no big deal, and gone 
now as if they never 
were.

But of course in the living,
each moment, they were.
They bloomed all around 
and into the future, I guessed,
not seeing the end of each - making
me then really and truly miserable.

When people say "I wish I knew
then what I know now," I don't think
they mean how, really, to make things
turn out. I think they just mean knowing
which things somehow all really would.
Turn out. So then if they only knew,
they could fully enjoy the half
of their idiocy that they'll cherish
and keep - the proven big deal - not
noticing or sweating so much 

the half that fades unnoticed
at the time to vanished, making 
the past seem sweet. 

Thursday, December 17, 2020

tidy omissions

Imagine a story
made of the parts

left out from every
other story ever told
where they went to

the bathroom

from Adam & Eve
to King Arthur and
Guinevere down to
Ethan Hunt and his whole
Impossible Mission Force
team, even mighty Achilles
and The Beatles, sure

I hope we can admit
there's peculiar note
of omission, there - as if
we're afraid of something

we'd learn of ourselves
in the telling. Or maybe
we just know that part
stinks! And we'd rather
pass on to the more
interesting strive

and struggling
with shit

Tuesday, December 15, 2020

The quietude and meek peace of one's privacy

Listen I may volunteer 
what fits my comfort and joy 
quite thoughtlessly, but pardon 
my mistake if I gave you to think 

I had a thing to prove to you? 
Like I was trying to cred myself
into some established victim class 
for your nod of approval? 

No. Class off. 

My life's private bits
and homey accents, joys, 
wallowing anguish or other
crap such as you'd like to eat up
- that privacy's to give to who one
likes, trusts, or however much more
- not to some smug superior self-setup
judge of the everyday annual memorial
blue ribbon pity pageant parade. 

You win! I do declare
I wasn't an entrant. 
Award yourself.

Oh why not? You're the judge
anyway. Can you honestly conceive
any one showing up to show you up? 
Oh, I wasn't up for it to begin with,
trust me. I haven't the performance 
instinct. You win you really do, Who
could compete with your proud wallow
in agony, your collection of traumatic
plaques and awards, trophies lining
your mantle, you pathetic and preening 
superior wretch?

You make an actual dominance hierarchy 
out of who has been most destroyed. 

It's no shame what I've been through, 
but the way you flaunt and brag 
and outrank, overrule
sure makes it seem like
it could be so - if I could 
be so perverse a fool. 

Well thanks, to be clear, no
I was not in that race. On your mark,
Get bent

- go. 
 
I don't care what you think, when 
I wouldn't even want you to know 

me. 

the measures test

The amounts that we admire and are fond
and not commensurable. I doubt we share
a unit or a measurement between us, but 
I sense the scales are full by the overspill
that does occur. Perhaps eureka moments 
could provide a clue to hold! Let us each 
drop - oh hey, no good. What's in there's 
already pure as gold. Err err 

Monday, December 14, 2020

hotel macabre (getaway giveaway)

The hotel giveaway 
is one free meal per child 
you bring in
however, don't ask
what's in the meat pie

time's lolly

Two vast and leglike trunks of stone
paused on a walk 'round their beautiful home. 
The desert swept in, their whole body fell off.
Somebody put a plaque up, somebody wrote a poem 
to scoff  

- and between-eyeblinks, between breaths -
those legs walked off again.

They were chuckling low about death.
It was all quite musical. The lyrics,
if any, were lost in the lull.

Sunday, December 13, 2020

it circled the world

it circled the world 
at the height of our eyes 
to pour down our hearts 
from horizon-line spill

it could cross in a blink 
from the edge of the earth 
any distance like that. 
To knock us for all 
we were worth 

out of doubt, 
into will.   

Saturday, December 12, 2020

paybacks

When did this job 
devolve on me? 
Now I do it all the time. 
Seems to me this once
was yours. Once 
you said, "Hey, 
could you please-"

It's since been mine. 
It seems as though 
another of your dirty tricks 
has played out sweet! At least 
for you. For me, I guess 
You've got me beat. 

Well, I don't mind.
I get my own in slick
sure ways of all you do 
unasked and unexpected,
True. Unnecessary, half
the time. Gratuitous, but
hoo, reliable as nudity in
certain kinds of horror films
or sex in porn. I'm sure
you knew. Oh,

I get mine. You're nuts 
if you think just you do.
I've got the sweeter deal
by far, between us here!
Now, please let's not
fight over that. You say
you do, it's true
but you would, dear. 

the march of

It's hard for an older guy 
as his certain age starts 
really going by, to realize 
his life - no lie - was a just 
untruth that he let go unspotted 
to get by. To realize he's been just
a fool. An asshole besides and 
a pipsqueak to. To realize every stranger 

he passed by 
with a slap to the face 
or a poke on the ass 

really didn't deserve disrespect 
in turn. To realize how he's been so 
to blame for every damn thing and yet 
not once learned. To realize once 
when he cursed you out, he was only 

confirming what you already knew 
to doubt. It's hard to realize this 

yet. Give another few years, may be

let it set. 

Wednesday, December 09, 2020

honeypot

I don't know what a honeypot 
does or is, but it sounds ginned-up
and perhaps lacks fizz. Is it some cock
-tail bathroom story they tell? Is it 
omg political or what the hell? 

I confess I don't even want to delve
the term. From context I prefer not 
to find or learn 

Tuesday, December 08, 2020

advert

liquid diamond.
the most pure, hardest
drink on Earth.
Shine a light all through
its rippling facets and
fascinate. I'm sure we'll
agree on whatever you
think it's worth

carry on guessing

I wish this was heaven. 
But it's not I guess,
and I'm not what I was
about to say. But since
you stopped me, I guess
you know.
So let us just
carry on anyway.

authoreal voice update (no progress)

I'd like to improve my writing to where
it's better 
enough
that people don't care 
how I go on
that people don't mind so much
about whether I get somewhere,
just so's as we go
I do that style, that way
that authoreal voice,
I say. I say that peculiar
tilt and lilt and hang
and pang, even cognitive 
dissonance clang
that they've come
up all the way from tolerance
to crave somehow, some way
they accept is my very 

best 
thang.

Or 
best 
so far as words
getting put go. Dang, 
I bet though there might be
a couple few other things I could
try to best. Or better, at least 
but I guess: write what 
you know

is a good place to start 
for success. So here I go:

Write what, you know? So:
What
what
what
what
what
what
oh

...

too literal again like always. See? 
This is why I must work so damn
all on me. 

the trick intuit

Lead with real wants
likes loves as you go!
You'll attract/repel
who you want/don't want 
to know. 

pity case

This hapless sleazebag hypocrite 
only washes his hands of anything 
where the paydirt sticks. He just 
flushes and soaps it off. If there's gold 
in that muck he struggles and scrapes
and comes to grips into, it's a fool
he is, and won't see its glint. It's a shame
all through. What a waste of an act. With
his lack of character, he could have
any lady he wants to tell him fuck off.
Any job in the world, to cut him like loss.
Why he should have succeeded most
splendidly in a number of lines,
by now! But he says 

at least he's free. 

And it's true. No one pays 

All his service is bad 
all his product is hot 
all his brand has as bad a name 
as he's got, and it stays.
It's too late for him. It's too

late to miss 

when you've got no shot, 
just the driving and surging
resentment and
the indignant will 
it would take to win,

if one had any sport. But
you don't my friend. And
he's not my friend. And
he's got no game. His is all
posterized. Photoshopped. On paper, 
thin, unconvincingly pasted in 
and framed. 

No bill. 

For the honest critique! But 
I am sincere. And I hope you could
find all the way you seek, try 
direction: door. Or 

is that not enough? 
I have all the more.  

preparedness (the craziest shit)

The way to handle the craziest shit is 
sane,
sane.
Sane. 
But you can't really grasp all phenomena by
brain,
brain.
Brain. 
What you can't really grasp you mishandle 
a bit, but 
your compass gets spun in the thought of it 
when you find you 
were wrong, right as hard 
as you tried? No 
shame, 
shame. 
Shame in that lie 

Not if you don't know it's false
that time. You're just trying to hold it
all in mind. It's 
plain, 
plain that you shall so
fail. 

Tack into the wind, and ride that sin 
of pride so hard 
that whoops you've lost your sail! 
and your whole sailor-suit as well, 
oh hell. Just sit your bare 
ass (hot damn!) on the sun-baked plank
by the oarlocks, ma'am and 
row, 
row, 
row your cute-named dingy boat 
fast! You ain't sank 
yet, even wet, bare-assed 
tacking without a sail 
past a friendly whale 
to the sure, 
sure, 
shore 
you hope
will be fair
and just somewhere
over the horizon. where 
the bluebirds fly, don't forget to bail 

if the chop from the waves
breaking over you gets salt spray 
in your eye and collects too deep
in that seaworthy bottom of yours 
(the boat) as you man them oars,
take a break for saltwater
and buoyancy! And bail. Oh
snap. Did you bring a pail?

Did you bring one for me?

I know, I'm not there, but you never can 
tell who's adrift at sea. You might 
give me the eye, call "Hey there, 
bob" - as I bob so well, 

you might look, decide 
and aim for the swell where 
I bob so well, calling all aboard 
wait. Hey - what the hell is that 
in your hands, there bob?

Oh, please. What dude 
bobs out in the sea 

bearing two (2) pails

This drifter's not lost at sea 
at all, is he? Oh say, have you heard 

the myth of the friendly were
-whale? It's me. Glad to meet you 

sir. So, 
tell me did you bring any clothes? 
Because br-r-r

pithwit

Brevity is the soul of pith. Oranges, too
are lousy with it - the pith, I mean to be brief
but if
by miniscule bits and wisps you pluck
you could brew and infuse a wit
imbued by such bitter and tricksy 
fits (wit's a class of beer, I believe
with punchy snoot, some say it's
legit), But fuck, let me have a sip!
Bottoms down. Cheers up!  

films with subtleties

I'm sick of metatextual implications 
you can't tease out without violence.
Just by application of human reason
and common sense, I am not dense 

but things ought to come plain and 
explain themselves if you look at them 
the intense way I can, and I do, and 

they don't. I'm 

sick of it. My brother once said 
"I can't stand films with subtleties." 

Turns out you meant subtitles, bro 
but you know? I have over the years 
in my wisdom's growth (I think it's 
my wisdom - no biopsy, though) 
become less and less so inclined 
to disagree.

Pretext glitch

I admire my effortless yet impossibly
belabored efforts in the prose line, and 
I think we could possibly write a book 
if you supply the good character. I have 

a plot 

but I'm afraid we can't, because united 
in such acts of fervid and fecund creation

we would fall in love so fast we'd deny 
we always were, and that 

my friend 

would spoil the fucking plot! Dead 
giveaway city! How does one (or 
in this case {hypothetical} two) write 
(or cowrite) a goddamn book with 
a riveting plot that just sums up 
how beautifully flawless the story 
wends while fucking it up the exact 
same way for real, and get it to sell? 

Notoriety, fame - let's concede - are 
at least two cards in the pack we had 
hopefully shuffled and cut, and dealt. 

But a job like I just described, no matter
how tastefully-cooked couldn't beat 
the smell

It's "fantastic, incredible, too much 
so of both" - scream the jacket quotes 
nope, no: nix. If we can't think up 
a better plot than neither of us wants 
to arc or twist, then I say the whole 
damn deal has skipped out on us 
- and we've only ourselves to kiss
goodbye. Better yet shake hands! 

Deal's a deal, fair's fair, and nobody
understands. Why

sure feeling w/critique

I feel so sure 
about us. It's a little peculiar, 
but maybe only because I am. 
You are comparatively sound, 
sane, normal - sensical, wrung 
in reason and with truth rung
like bells a few rungs up the ladder 
from where I fell - but I emphasize, 

only by comparison could I say 
all that. Otherwise or not at all 
wise, I'd admit (though I wouldn't
have to) the whole thing is odd. 

And it isn't. That's what makes it 
so odd. That I'd admit it when 
it isn't. Anyway, I have to admit 

it is, odd. That I feel so sure 
I mean. About us. 

But I do! 

Weird. 

lucid intuition

I will keep you and I 
very well safe 
from harm. 

By dint of whatever strength 
I have to lift, whatever 
burden we have to give, 

with whatever heft
we could shift 
at our best, 

it will be no contest.

Just a small conquest 
of some consequence, 
to take in and take it
for all its blessed best, 
plus the rest of what's left 

to guess. If you call it 
a guess.  

planned gambit

I don't very well know 
what you have in store, 
but I've asked that you tell me
the truth this time.

And you said that you would.
So dilemma is mine, pluck a petal 
and flip a coin: what are you going 
to say, and do I believe you're lying? 

I guess if you said you would tell 
the truth, 

like I guess if I even could ask that
of you, 

then I must have believed 
it was something that you 
could do. 

Okay. Probability is
we're fine. 

interrupting cow

I doubt that I'll ever remember now 
the thing I was just 
(or not) about 
to do 

or say, let's table that
anyhow - since you interrupt, well 
what can I do for you? you

cheeky moo. Oh, bah 
he oinked. As if

this Old MacDonald
had a shit to give

to fit your bovine ass.
No mind! What is it?
Whatever, forget it I bet 
it too shall pass. 



What Was Today?

What was today? Thurs
day? Weds
day? I know 
it's past midnight.
You know what I 
mean. Fuck's sake. 
So what was yesterday
then? Semantics or not, 
chronology wise 
you could cut 
me a break 

anything "by mistake"

I never do anything "by mistake." 

I do it on purpose first, and then
reap the whirlwind benefit 
of error. Galore, if necessary!
I sure would abhor the waste
of a chance to learn I incurred 
myself. Opportunity does not 
knock like me when I knock 
it upside the head! Eventually, 
 
opportunity winds up dead. 

How come

How come ice sits in the glass 
and don't melt despite 
there's no drink even left 
to make cold? It's like 

a rebuke that I drank the drink
of which I took hold too fast, 
chugged down and oh well.  
It's past. I guess. I won't frown
or hiss or mount grievances
in this town so way out beyond 
what I clearly contain to sustain 
with my song, but I wouldn't mind 

picking a brain or two to know
and find out the deal with this ice. 
This glass, was it too big? Or too
small? Too surreal? Is it all just 
a counterfeit sham? 

Have I been too precise? Or am I 

just the man. 

How come is my song, yo. I didn't 
even write it but it sang me 
so rock 
and so slow 

and so sway
in these arms, and step 
so measurably more into
whatever's left, which we've had 

in store.

Monday, December 07, 2020

fuckin' farmers

The avocado trees
have been staring at us 
from all down the hill
with eyes of green. But

I bet if we pluck just
the low-hanging fruit
we'd harvest ourselves 

in a crop serene, and creamy
and fat

- with only a touch 
of rugose exterior, no 
not much

and you'd crown yourself queen 
of this Town Day parade, and fat 
yourself full on such fruits 

we've made. 

homoerotic.

homoerotic, 
or so they say. Well, 
I hope they would know. I'm

like, okay, "Opposites
attract!" and "Viva la diff
err aunce!" but you know,
just on say-so few to
nobody's like to take chance
on that that tack more than twice.
But once I tack and trim 

my sails on a course that's 
come from within without 
my choice, it's

Nice. But which I
- yes, I! Oh yes
that me 

could affirm it's true? You
bet! And hey,
it works! For me. 

Quite enough to be certs,
and free. Did you spot 
my tell to call that 
bluff? But how?  

'bout, you? I am

innerested! No personal
probes, please until we're 
dead. Curiosity does not kid.
It kills. So, 

stake me up this next hand, 
for a couple of bills? What's

Erotic? But what 
some deep, none-too 
-inscrutable part (more 
for some than others, 
inscrutable) wants? If

that's it, I fold. Look deep
in your heart. I would let 
You dicks and cunts! Win
the whole damn pot, besides 

what I got in my pocket that's 
left, rather than let you see what's in

this hand 

I hold. 

It's a straight up flush. Now 
beat that, if you could have. You could,
but I bet you can't. 

It's standard gold

My son is an alcoholic.

My son is an alcoholic. That's why
I didn't give birth to them. (I didn't
presume my own son's gendersexual
identity choice or preference, just then.) (I
assume my son would be woke like 
me, or that I would correct them 
eventually to the point where one 
of us would woke up. In break or bend,
I don't bet on me! Smart money's
on pup,) but yet, here's more
to the point:

I didn't give birth.

In some ways, you could call me
a traditionalist, and one of those ways
I'd say is this: giving birth is a mystery
ritual which unfolds in an agony and 
bliss (?) whose rites I'd reserve elsewhere,
just now. Not that I'm saying a woman's
required, no! Or has to, oh hell no. Figure
it out! I'm just saying 

Anyhow. I didn't give birth. And not 
because alcoholics deserve not to live, 
but this is my son 

we're talking about, just here. Please. 

Don't speak your turn, if you haven't 
a clue from experience you 
haven't been privy to 
in this, your
life. 

If you do
pop out (of
your turn, with your chime-in
piped-up clout) I might get so mad

I swear,

I could make you my wife. Like that. Right
here. Just how. You should hold my beer
while I kick your ass. Now.
Are we clear? 

O, yeah. That's right. 

Just pass. 

I can see your end from here, 
and it's passable, 
but it's not quite right. From 
a narrative arc standpoint, I'd say 
you've got growing to do. Now:
flight, or fight, or fright, I think 

we should try it your way. So 
what do you say or want to do?

I can't talk you in, but I might 
talk you out. Hey, my man - 

let's call it a day and screw
in the night. There's no cause 
here we should answer to. 

If I had every superpower

If I had every superpower in 
the comic book, I would transform
into a no wait teleport 
myself to 

actually, no. I would make
myself the best damn sandwich
ever made. And I do not mean
I would transform into a sandwich.
No, I would make one. No, no, now 
yeah I know
this may not be
technically canonically
anyone's superpower! But I bet
with all that, it could yet be mine
though. With Wolverine claws
and smell, and Mr. Fantastic's
way around a kitchen, plus heat vision,
superspeed, and whatever the hell
else I need no great amount of ingenuity
to turn all this weird might 

to my goal 

when I know what I like my sandwich 
like, right? 

Right. 

Don't poem hungry. Is the lesson, but 
is there a moral? 

Not quite. Comics, as much as they lap 
corny virtue tropes and pay lip service 
to heroism, are essentially a nihilist 
genre, and morals 

are non grata to super-
persona, especially these days. So

we're out of fucking cheese
well, damn. If I was Superman
or even Shazam!,
I bet we would not be. 

Hey, since you know 
if I was them 

I would not be.

And neither would they.
You'd hardly expect
us to make it to nonfiction
dressed up like that! 

In circus suits, with large
napkins draped from our necks? People

burying noses in those
panel pow word balloon
grid stories and shows
rarely do get in such cahoots
as I do. But who knows?

The Justice League - never
mind. That story stands
closed. They've been true
enough to me. Let alone
the Avengers. 

Have we passed the eve
yet of destruction, yo? Where
strangers turn senders? And who's
in your knot? Your favoritemost
superest hero you got? Yes, "heroine"
is implied, I bet
mine beats yours. But then
mine's got shazam and vision
and colossus in the palm
of a hand. Superdoers, pfft! What's
your favorite sandwich
do for you? 

How does your found good
row, row, row your oars,
oars oars? Anyho, 

you know. 

Let's unscrew and 
deconstruct, or for once:
the opposite. Let's 
screw 
and
construct this shit. 

You know this
and shit are an anagram?

Perhaps 

that isn't the word, but 
you bet I can. Or I bet
you can. I'm just try
to make talk. Work
with me, my dear. Or
for once, against! But
I thought 

it would work, as
coincidence, but
am I not somehow clear? Yeah

I thought it would work.
If we bent our guess so. 
So, what do you say? Hold
your beer? Ok. Let's 

balk. 

Or let's go

it was all so near once, 
okay but I've lost the plot. 
What a stunning array 
we stunt. 

Huh. Works for some. 
Not for us apparently - what?
Oh, you just got 
your coat!
And cape 
and boots on, well

I'm not surprised. Then
Let's just
go conduct some hell

oh, heaven? Wherever
is fine. So long as your hair 
keeps that smell

divine.

our orange tree

We planted 
replanted really 
our orange tree out back 
and watched it try to thrive 
for two years, season follows 
season. It had been going near 
grown already when we got it
- a further two years prior, that's 
young adult in orange time - just 
fresh post adolescent. Dug a 

several shovel's worth of dirt 
right where we stuck it in. 
We pushed all the dirt left 
back around to make a 
pitcher's mound effect. 

Happy Arbor Day, Charlie 
Brown (you said.) That (I
said) has the taste of a scraped 
barrel, but we couldn't stop 
smiling that day. 

We watered it of course, or God did. 

It did thrive, after its fashion, 
but its oranges. 

did not look like oranges. 
They looked and smelled  
and had the textured feel 
of our dreams. Yours and mine 

why we moved here, and 
how we keep waking up from them
every morning. It's like that tree 

is the only way they come true. 

Well the juice is sure funny. Or 
terrifying actually sometimes - strange 
to taste fresh squeezed punch-in-the
-mouth sweet and bright and alive 
orange juice, yet 

it's full of panic and gripping nightmare. 
I wish 
some of our dreams did not come true 
this way, but 
most of them taste beautiful 
and your skin shines 
and your eyes are bright 
and your hair is glossy 
and tonight, 

we'll make oranges 

the straight case of hard ass renegotiation

Look,
in many cases, some
son of a bitch winds up dead. 
Perhaps all cases. Or, 
with a pointed look 
his woman does. 
Pause. 
But I want you to know, 
sure. That's not why I'm here. 
Not how I operate. In fact, 
my druthers tells me both 
you two can just stay alive the whole time 
for all 
I care 'til I'm gone. 

Then we're on our own? She put it. 

Naturally I'm no guardian angel 
on your shoulder forever. But, 

He took his long gun out of his pants 
and blew on it. 

Who the hell is 'he' she said alarmed. 

Me. Don't you change the subject. 
Don't change pronouns she thought. 

But, 
as I said or would have, 
while I'm here at least I'm a better bet
in a scrap than that bewinged berobed
behaloed protector you rent your right
shoulder to, when you're in a good mood. 
Or so I suspect 
and reckon. 

She took face value out of that. Well, 
she bit, narrowed her eyes:
Potentially okay. She nodded 
once,
curt, as if to decide it
but with a slight shaking her head
on the way out. She continued But

I don't know 
what he's gonna say. 

I knew who she meant I thought.  

You let me handle that, I plied. It's 
my job now

not letting it show,
but hoping I was right

Then I noticed my gun. Still
in my hand. Still as a statue's
marble phallus. I had to do
something with it, so I did.

I put it where it goes. Right where
the guy who gave it to me said
I could stick it. Thanks for permission
I wried. Then and since
and for once,

I kept it in my pants. 

I usually do. And when someone asks, 
yes. I am probably also

happy to see you.

self-revenge

Self-revenge 
is a dish lived well, 
best served out in the dark 
and cold of a spell you've cast 
a lot for. Hell, you have drawn 

the short straw. 
Big surprise! Do tell.
It's the longest and only straw

in the hand you offered yourself 
and picked yourself to fall 

where you land. You fell to earth 
here. And now. You took up this stand,
and you won't care how. 

For whatever comes next, you have 
all you have left, and this one vow 
will be spent and discharged, exhausted

bereft and bent. 

For what you have done, unrepentantly.
You will make you pay to the nth degree, 

and it won't be enough 'til you stare
at the wall. Watching the blood run cold

and stall. 

law firm radio ad

Accident? Dog bite? Mesothelioma? 
Some bull's hit you can't pronounce, upon
or otherwise? We have sued karma and won.
We take on all cases you can't make heads 
or tails of. We'll figure it out when you can't, 
and if there's money in it, we won't take dime one 
of yours until it's all ours. Somewhere out there, 
bold and hot in indignant memory or recoverable
via hypnotic release of suppression, something 

happened to you.

We want that. That's our job. Trust us this far:
Somewhere out there the money involved
and implicated by your loss is sitting
in somebody's bank account waiting for us
to slap your name across it and take our cut.
That's fair - the business we're in. We stand

ready to make it boom

for you.  

Maxon, Cline and McFitzheltz have made a name
in the storied business of taking on the big guy
for the little guy and making him suck
the little guy's dick. Watch the teeth, dude
- sounds like a lawsuit. We take on all cases,
women too. Sounds like a lawsuit to you?

We think so,
but. 

Maybe you prefer to bitch out like a punk
and take it on the chin from the whole wide 
world your whole life. So far, you have  
- haven't you? Ever make the other guy(s), 
gal(s), guys and gals or whoever else it was 
PAY? 

Well how about the rest of your life? Are 

you gonna?

Come see us. Call first. Set up an appointment.
You will find we do not set up disappointments
- and your first and every meetup with us is free.
Not dime one of yours shall we pocket, 
'til the windfall comes to cover us
all in our money. 

Yours and ours. You, I expect 

want yours. 

Sunday, December 06, 2020

Slef-Croretc

Are people
aware that living their lives
may be a turn-off

to a repulsive segment of the populace?
And that if they do,
if they don’t watch it
and shape up, the consequence

may well be: a reduction
in unwanted

attention

from repulsive people?

See, I really don't think 
I don't really think 
some of the people involved 
in this equation have
considered this, 
or 

If they did, if they 
had - they probably wouldn't 
have mentioned it. It's 

a bad goals-fit, and 
a bad sales pitch, but

- it's kind of legit 
for who's into it.

self-worth exercise

I think it's about level-setting. Fr'
instance. You've got your self-worth. 

How much worth could a self-worth 
worth
if a self-worth could worth
worth? 

Zero, right? Bupkis! Correct!
Or at most, one - but no more
than one surely. This, folks,
really is binary - and whether
you assign it value zero or one
says only a little about you,
and nothing at all about how
integers work. How can self

Be worth to self? The only worth
it has or could, conceivably, have 

is one. 

One (1) self. 

Convenient package! 

Go with one! Forget zero 
- nobody needs one of those. 
Nobody's ever had one 
of those. If they had, they'd
have had zero of those, 
exactly. 

But - you've already got 
one. And

you don't need 
(however much you
might need another's self, 

you don't need) another one 
of self.
You have all the one
you'll ever need already! 

Go for two, if so - three 
if adventurous or some-say 
perverted, but as far as the one 
you are, really, that's all the one 
you need to be or could ever 
amount to. However you work it, 

(which is all to the good or 
could be, depending) 

it's still you. One unit. Recommended 
service size: 1. 

So serve, why don't you. 
Be of some use. Put you. 
Do something, whatever 
- might as well! Could be 
fun? We're stuck here 
'til one of us dies, mate. 
Get busy living or get 
lazy lying. 

Sure, that amounts
to something, but what it doesn't
amount to is self. What you can do
with your can-do 'tude
and your know-how
amounts to all kinds of canny
or uncanny stunts, tricks
and routines, with that thing
you got, that thing, that thing.

That self you hold so yours.  
(it all runs to routines eventually,
repeated as needed) but what
we see is one: just you. So what
does the sticky and fluffy bluff
of these stupid human tricks
you do add up to mean? 
Worth-wise? That's not
about human being better! It's  
just human doing cool or tricky
moves and maneuvers. Great! 
Ta-da!

The crowd roars! 

Done! Next?

We're through?

Okay! And what are you worth 
to you after? Same same? 

Yeah, that's my take. Me too.
I tell you, I rake it in daily  
all day and it comes up one. 

So there's my level-set: self
-worth default level one (1). 

What's the fucking crisis 

realization process

A person's true self 
is just what they give. Mask on,
mask off, every bit of it
lives and breathes and has blood
and brain and behind. It is all

the real

you will ever find.  

Because you see,
of the strange natures 
of what beings really are, 
which it seems, they be. 

So they are! Just what
they can be, or try 
- and proceed to do.

To enact that guy 
or gal or pal or enemy, 
love. 

Now, realize: is to just bring up
what's real into mind: also,
the reverse! To bring up 
what's in mind, and in aimed,
spent drive, to fashion
that purse of silk from the mind's
sow's ear. When you've realized, 
Ta-da! Then it has appeared. 
Or else, you daydreamed. Go, 
realize now all the best that
seemed. For to make-believe

Is just as much who
you are as you want
to be. We are not quite
dreams, but we're made 
in just such stuff
as we gleam and glean 
and steer and stroke upstream 
to the meadows and hills 
and bluff for broke. And

wherever you go, 

what you give, 
there you are.

Yes, 
it's you. 
It has all been you. I guess
that there was your best 

so far. Well, 

be good 
as like, but at best 

be true. 

The differ.

I'm the differ. I do not beg, 
but plead for you to recognize 
this non-discrepancy between 
you and me, for we two 

don't match. Like an egg
doesn't ever quite match
'til it cracks. Even then,
kind of hard to peg. All runny
and drippy and stuff, with sharp
fragile fragments of shell mixed
up. It's no break of deal, no flag
of red.

Catch! 

A different kind of interplay, 
snatched from the air instead!
Of or just scooped off of the turf.
The pass gone long, caught short,
somewhat worse for air, and then

run like a truck all the way!
To the zone where we end
as friends, someday 

you and I 
go home. 
Together, all blushed 
and coy. It's a key quite
distinct I have stuck 
in comfort and joy, 
and have found it fits. 

My philosophy is
Differism. That's it 

I am a Differist 

- as well as "the differ." 
Oh say, I suppose I could say
I'm the diffest, but hey

I wouldn't care to dither 
over such dumb tits 
as hierarchy notches 
or scores, or hits. 

And that's why you love 
me in so many bits, 

And that's why you moan 
and yell at the sum 

all my parts get up 
to sometimes. Un
Yum 

I'm so sorry 'bout it, 
not "sorry not 
sorry."

I can't seem to truck
with that kind of lorry but
I hope 

that I do 
make it up 
sometime

in the end, either right now 
and bam pow zoom, we are FINE
or by I.O.U., down the road. 

Or by not-and-say-I-did (pretend), 
unwind and unload all the burden,
and just call it borne. Or eventually,

by dint of main strength
and my ever-loving spend,
fulfill and exceed all conceivable 
need for scorn. 

If I don't, if I can't, 

well, 

go. As you will, as you must.
You know best. That's the differ! 
He only knows better, never 
best, so. 

That's about us. 

It is good we met. I'm the differ. 

Please tell me we shall never 
forget 

for I know I shan't

your difference. So long as I've got
a live. Your diff and mine 
combined, have made all 
kinds of sense, plus 

distinction fine. 

Why my brain outperforms yours in theory

My brain outperforms 
all known others in mind, 
but then - that's the angst 
and pang of alienation, 
isn't it? We never can truly 
get inside another's 

head 

to wrack and wrench, 
separate and tease apart 
by individual ganglion, 
suck up a sample of 
the neuro electro 
chemical think-noodle 
simmering broth 
in an eye-dropper
for analysis, (drop
by drop into naked
eye - see what happens!
) then chop up, sort,
weigh and assess 

what's left
of their mental process,
and if we did, even
if we could? 

That's a maniac murder move, 
for sure, dude! Not too smart there 

were you

Well. 

That's the difference between 
us, too. I knew that already. Oh? 

So did you? 

talk's easy 

prove it

That burden of proof 
is so light, I find 
with the big ol' bag 
of my oh-well-meant
mind flapping wide-open
as the breeze, and empty
all the time 

in an active meditation 
on this never-ending
never-rending incoming
surge of sensory slime 

straight into a conscious 
awareness that now 

In the moment, there's 

just no time. Only reason, 
perception, deception 
and the too-cute baby-coo
pudgy-hands clap approval
of similarity noted,  

Which delights us 
sometimes 
in rhyme. 

So you see. 
We are different. 

I know it. 

So do you. Or if you don't:
let's at least agree 
that we do differ, 
there. Be 

reasonably. Since we're stuck 
with or without each other, well 
viva le differ! And let's admit 
(or in my case, confess) (or boast) 

that between us two, I am the differ! 
Far differ than most. I won't say
the diffest. Modesty abhors.
Might as well appreciate mine
while I get yours, though eh? Might
as well appreciate what
we can't quite 
share. 

At least, not without 
a pretty big if, 
and an and, 
and/or

one fantastic but. 

the bible-thump habit

You know in those days, I was a real 
bible-thumper, and by "real" 

I do mean literally. I would thump 
and thwack-clap boom that thing 
like a rectangular bongo, and man! 

It had a sweet thunk to it. A deep 
boom, resonant and sound. Noise
or sound - it's versatile by how
you pound. At any rate. I could
make a sweet racket 

on that book!
A lot of people have, 
but I did literally. I am,

I find, 
the real biblical literalist. 

When it comes to making a sweet racket 
out of the bible. I didn't care! It was no 
sign of disrespect then, and no one 
could mistake it for such. Not 

the way I went on, with such 
tone, boom nuance, deft rhythmic
staccato phrasing and cadence, 
my trademark pitter-pat WHAM
-tssh! (I'd riff the pages a bit
for hi-hat) routine. People 

(if I ever did it around anybody, 
which I don't believe it occurred 
to me to do) wouldn't mistake 

my too-obvious ode mode of joy 
and exuberance for anything but. 
No sacrilege, barely any irreverence
- let alone blasphemy, forget it. 

I was an imp with a halo cocked 
rakishly at an angel in those days, 
and hoo. Was she sweet. 

Kind of broke me of the bible-thump 
habit. You see, 

she was more of a fundamentalist. 
Suddenly my literalism seemed a tad 
naïve. Well, 

I did school her, more than half again 
as much as she surely educated me. 

Now where's that bible

Should we follow the bible or what?

Wait, what? 

Well, it takes patience to follow 
the bible, and not necessarily 
the saintly kind. It's a fine, fine 
line and a good book, they say 
- but it doesn't exactly follow

well, 

more to the point it mostly sits
there. On the shelf, the bedside 
table, in a trunk, stowed in a backpack 
for ballast while you hike, wherever 

you put it. Assuming it's out, and 
you want to follow it a stretch, 
pace yourself! You can't follow 
unless the mark you've chosen 
to tail makes first moves, and 

the bible habitually doesn't. 

It sits. 

Well, so we just stand. Patience comes 
to those who wait. He who's lost 
will hesitate, and we do. 

Waiting on the bible, eager to follow 
some of us, others of us tailing off 
after people who claim to be bible 
followers - but where's the lead? Seems 

to me (and I'm not alone) that lots of those 
"followers" are taking their own leads 
and going their own ways, with good 
intentions - and you know what kind 

of handbasket 

that ends up in. Still, lead on 

bible. 

I've got my eye on ya. Oh
wait. Oh
kay. 

I guess you have to open the thing. 
Go on a journey in your mind, 

maybe hearken to something still,
small, and at least allegorically 
audible. I hear ya Lord! Loud 

and um. Well, 
loud. 

What.

Saturday, December 05, 2020

good food left to rot

Good food left to rot. 
That's a way to say "leftovers"
and feel guiltier, I guess. 

But 

how good was that food, 
if it didn't tempt us
to ingest?

All cold and bowled 
and clumped and 
congealed, sitting 

in the fridge, what's left 
of a meal to serve as 
another meal, 
perchance. Or, you know 

we could have hot dogs 
and dance

non-quantum branching

As we know anything's possible, 
We can't rule out that I may have 
both deliberately and accidentally (plausibly)
(It's a Schrödinger) killed myself
the day before 
the day before  
I turned seven, and everything since 
has been faked by the government 
(a government, not necessarily 
the government) to perpetuate 
(or I guess at that point, originate)
my myth. Which they could see 
even then, somehow, could be 
hugely advantageous to the greater 

order. Which
I can't really tell you 
about, right now, just 

you know

in case

Responsibility Day

Responsibility 
is the thing with feathers 

like the modern Tyrannosaurus Rex
of legend, only better -

and it flaps its tiny arms, 
takes flight to big bad wolf down
big huge beasts of consequence 
to fruit into orchards
of blossoming trees. 

That's a bellyache, 
at the very least

but it's all in a day's voracious
feast 

The pause that agonizes

I swallowed a whole unchewed ice cube 
it stretches as it rips down my guzzling throat
the Coca-Cola soothes and refreshes the wound. 
Oh boy, I am glad I'm alive to note. 

Note to self: in the future, make sure the ice 
is all melted like you thought, in this glass 
you forgot - and grabbed like a maniac 
to drink down fast 

before it can warm 
even one more degree
towards hot 

ahh

requiem for a hierarchy

Hi I'm not alpha not beta
I'm omega. I came to put an end 
to that shit, 

I will,
Later

Friday, December 04, 2020

The onus

Some say it's bogus 
when the onus is upon us -
but I say, stick it up your anus! 
Onus is bonus.
When it bears down 
and we get to decide, we got 
to decide: do we just let the consequence 
for not doing this violate us? Or 
do we step up, flip the situation over 
take it on and ride! Call's all y'all's 
if you've got enough balls, might as well 
bunt, hit some fouls and curves,
take one for the team and walk
or charge the mound, here comes 
every pitch you will ever be served:
fast or as slow as they shoot or glide by.
Right over the plate: it's all yours.
Cut loose, crack boom watch that sucker 
fly, or add one to your count of strikes 
and balls. The onus is upon you now 

- how shall you score?

It's all y'all's. 

Friday, November 20, 2020

mr hot tips on the fly

First: Don't volunteer denials unasked. 

Second: Don't catch yourself
believing yourself so fast.

Third: Quit giving me that look! like
"Who the hell am I?" 

Fourth: I'm the cook
  
with the recipes! catching
all the chickens in the kitchen -
it is way too hot for them in there 
but I'm a bout to stick 'em
in my big, black boiling pot 
and call it all "kettle." Too many cooks 
spoil the broth,
but I don't!

I got the mettle and the will 
and the fettle and the skill 
and the waddle and the bill 
so duck! 

I got ill

Uh! 
Uh huh-huh,
huh-huh, huh huh 
pardon me "cough." 

That's more than what you asked I know,
you didn't even ask, I know you didn't
speak at all, I know. Sometimes

I go off 

Oblige.

Listen. I have almost no inhibition. 
It's been winnowed to unstoppable blocks 
or else full-blast gaps, and so many much
more of the last. So any inference 
or deduction of yours
based on "people wouldn't
say that unless" is just gas.
Sniff it all you want. Go 'head, 
fill up a bag and huff.  
I am prone, but not bound to laugh
like bells. You can see into me 
all that you want,

but it smells

When you take it for real, 
by not taking me so. 

Well, so what can we know?
You know? 

I think it would be better 
for each and both
if we go 

a little further on down this lane. 
In my experience, no one ever
comes back the same. You would have
to be much less sane 

than you appear 
to doubt me over any course of ground
in this game-not-game.
Or believe
I don't mean 
who I am in fact. 

Be is mine. Not seem. 

I'm not trying to convince you, though. 
I'm just sayin' 

a sound. 

There is action, 
but no,

no act. 

different dreamers

When I wake from dreaming as I do,
I prize and pry and correspond
to the real as far as I’m able to.
The ideal remains a guiding star. 

spiraling out

I wish everyone who loved me would go
away. That life is over now. We talk
for hours, different days, different people
catching up and finding how
to not let go, I guess. But if

They would let go, maybe I could.
And I'd say now: they tired of me,
and went off spinning into lives
of good and better greater good.

A glorious mess.

But since they don't, but since they keep
on reaching out, and drawing in,
I'm forced to know their better lives
are pretty much the way they've been.
When I was there, and we would come
together. I could really do something

I sleep and wake, and so do we,
and now I'm where I can't. And still
They reach, and draw, and so I cling.
To nonevents, eventually.

Spiraling out of orbits now, unnaturally
this gravity holds. The farther out we go
we see: the sun we loved is just a star.
We know. We knew it then, but then
we walked out under it and saw
just everything. Togethering,

With so much future left to stall.

Serious As

The question, you'll forgive me, 
is too basic for seriousness. I take it 
as serious, mind you - I am not 
the sort of dimwit who finds insincerity 
in ignorance! One should never be skeptic
about ignorance - it's too easy to prove. 

And we gain nothing by such acid tests. 
You are serious, your question was serious, 
and I am sincere in response. There. You'll 
forgive me, though, one can be perfectly sincere 
in unserious matters. In fact, it's even easier! And 
this is one such. Let me lay it out for you, now 
that I'm done with the obligatory obsequious 
apology for my own sincerity! I shouldn't 

Apologize like that. I know. It's offensive, 
but I must sometimes. It is the price I charge 
myself for my abundant, high-quality supply 
of sincerity. No I'm serious. 

Who the heck would joke about that?

Thursday, November 19, 2020

breakfast feast

Bacon and eggs!
Eggs and bacon
Everybody's smelling
this food I'm makin'
Only enough 
for just one man 
Eight strips of bacon
six eggs in the pan 
and 
no one home 
Nobody's home but me
Just one to feed
I don't have to share 
my delicacy

Bacon and eggs!
Eggs and bacon 
Everyone's smelling 
this mess I'm makin'
Who's gonna clean up 
all these pans?
It's almost too much
for just one man
I should have made less, but 
the bacon is almost bad

Wednesday, November 18, 2020

the weather

Coming home we step
into melancholy and memory 
and the world where we lived,
now transformed by our travels. 
Then stepping out the door again,
we find we are under those same
emotional skies, no matter where

we go, the rooms we have lived in
remain within us, and the weather
we've walked out into and lived under
- we've brought it all along. Tiny objects
set sail and get nowhere, huge stormclouds
we've weathered are shrunk to the size
of armchairs we settle into, as

the affliction settles over us, everywhere
we go. 

We live in a world haunted
by rain and loss of home, nomads
wherever we roam or settle,
with only the roof of the blue sky
above it all, above all the storms,
forever over our hearts:

and unconquerable.   

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

the interconnectedness

I am happy to live on periphery, sworn
(well, I swear) to pipe up or chime in 
when it needs. I am borne and bound
to respond when it calls, "It" 

could be you, or just me, or just all. 

Fate or coincidence

When two luck out to such degree
it was destiny, or something much like. 
We can't
imagine ever missing
each other. Not past that point
it became so right, 

but of course! Someone knows 
there were so many points 
along this way

we could be deranged. 

Humility, now. Is indicated. 
Strange indeed it would be for we two 
to estrange. Fate

or coincidence work about equally well
in our case, as our course has took. It may 
have been writ in advance, but if so 

it takes nothing away from each page 
of this book. 

What We Have Here..

This blog is written in English. That 
is no insult to lovers of other language, 
lover. Yet 

to comment on this blog in another language 
strikes me as ignorant, if not necessarily 
disgusting, presumption to say 

the least. 

If you were capable of receiving meaning 
from what I wrote, such that you could
meaningfully comment upon't, 

then we speak the same language. It 
(the language itself) would behoove you
to continue in that proven vein.

If you comment while unable to receive 
my meaning at all, you 

are not commenting at all. You strike 
at random, apparently, commenting 
not at all upon what you did not 
receive. If at first you did receive, 

and chose to respond in incomprehensible
ways, or in ways you have no cause to regard as
comprehensible (I've given no such indication),

you are simply being coy. 

I hate coyness in all its repulsive aspects, as much as 
I love it in all its cute, hot, adorable ones.

Keep being coy, language lovers! If you wish

For I for one get a kick 
out of your unmeaning squiggles! Yet 
this personal sentimental value 

of mine, which I value, is one
I find I cannot inflict 
on the readership, 
such as it is. 

So I delete.
Trash-can it.

Not sorry, 
sorry

Shared values.

When someone you didn't know loved
something you secretly love, openly confesses
they love that thing, it's like they're kissing you.

When you tell them this, and they disagree
that that's what it's like, it's like 
they're not kissing you.

And it's like they never did

Saturday, November 14, 2020

incomparably, but

I love you incomparably, but 
that being the case, I must say 
or admit there are some
who could never compare
to you. And the converse
is true, I don't know 
what to do with that one. 

decisively.

It's an effortless match we serve 
and volley, and score without boards
or lines, or net. Someone's keeping track, 
I'm sure - we both are - but incomparably, 
without numbers or bets. When each 
of us win, I'll defeat you at last. It won't 
be a tie, as you triumph withal. The fans 
will leap up from the stands in a rush 
to the court or the exits, but we 

will just stand there 
and breathe, and smile, 
and stall

the too-long dawn

As the millennium grinds to an opening, 
one of so many along the way, we sting 
and smart so much harder and wiser 
and sweat at the task we've been offering.
Before we can knuckle and hunker down,
reckon the score and decide not now
but soon just which of the jejune
and vacuous pule that got us here,
which planks of the boat we all rowed in 
should stay, which we should keep, perchance 
to rule, and which we should blast as not ok
- there's a bigger decision bestride us now. 
We all have a sense of it in the ribs. We all 
feel the need to go back to school, kill 
the teacher and ask whose class this is. 

Wednesday, November 11, 2020

kink risque

Hey babe, 
if any man wants to fuck you 

Tell him yes 

Then knee him in the balls 
and run 

Unless it's me. 
Then say no 

Trust me 

I'll be thrown off 
you can pretty much do 
whatever else 

besides knee me.
You'll already have
in some canny-competitor sense 

won

identity jag

Oh my goodness look 
who it isn't! Thank god, I thought
it was you. But it's not, is it? You're
somebody quite the else. Nor am I
the one to mistake you for who 
you aren't. It was only
 
a momentary sense 
of misplaced self,

not mine, but yours. Or rather, not.
A misplaced face, and body, gesture 
and manner, posture and grace, and art,
all poured into who you
could never have been.  

It could never be you, 
from what I've seen. 

Some start!

Monday, November 09, 2020

Boy's Wonder Book

There used to be, 
apparently, a British periodical 
called Boy's Wonder Book of Science
I feel as if I've lived that Book. 
Albeit, in an abstract way, 
upon which we should place 
no great reliance. 

Thursday, November 05, 2020

lamentation song

To me, it feels most like lament 
for the fact that perfection, without 
any flaw at all, can still run its course. 
And nothing could ever be anything wrong 
with this thing we have found and grown
from source to some starriest pinnacle, still.
Lament for its plunge to some passing abyss. 

It could not
be anything but
what it was. Let us
rejoice, then. We must,
remembering this. 

Wednesday, November 04, 2020

the unhealthiness

I think our relationship has become
unhealthy for one of us. Which one?
Not sure. Is it you? If not, could be me. 

But if so, the unhealthiness seems to be 
in the feeling itself: our relationship has 
become unhealthy for someone in it,
unspecified. 

Despite it's not me.
Despite it's not you. Well,
who else can it be?

Something doesn't fit,
or somebody lied. I guess
now we've had this talk, we should: 

just soldier on wounded trust
and pride, with injured resolve
towards fractured future good, until
we find out the real problem to solve. 

Maybe it's nothing. That 
would be weird, but hey 
it's a good thing now and again 
to check under the hood. 

Let's forget it for now, 
and just knock on wood 

the pit

Self-awareness is like 
trying to put a pit in a plum 
after it's already grown 
full and ripe without one. 
With glossy-deep skin 
like a surface abyss, 
and beneath it is gold 
or red in its bliss 
of juice-laden pulpy 
flesh. And you say, 
hey wait? Why put 
any pit into this? 

And that's when you 
find yourself 
the pit. 

It was always in there. 
It was worth, perhaps,
not knowing it. 

Yet finding it centered
and hard and dense, 
you regrow your flesh 
to untouched skin, drink 
deep in the knowledge of juice 
and sense, and begin
to act from within.

My diary's last entry

My diary's last entry, 
more than ten years old,
was "I think it's going to work out.
I'm coming to some grip, somehow 
- but I don't think this helps
me now. I'm going to lay 
this pen aside. I think it's best 
to leave my thoughts unfixed 
in ink, to wander free invisibly 
and without shame of what 
some future self might think. 
Dear diary, I think we're through.
In testament to all we've done,
which I have duly set down true, 
dear diary I'm leaving you. I 
might come back to jot a line,
or write a song, or some perverse
repurposing of thine blank page, 
but something tells me your way 
isn't mine."

That was the last entry. 
The first as well.
And I was more than ten years old,
when suddenly some thing took hold
and broke the spell. 

Tuesday, November 03, 2020

You have done enough (just now)

Do not worry yourself
about tardiness now. Creep about
warily. Observe the shadows, and practice
merging with them. Occupy yourself
as a watchful spirit haunting this world,
whose emanations glow
and penumbras deepen
in the hearts and minds
of all who know you, even
when you are not an active principle.
The shape and furrow you've left
streaming through only reinforces
and encourages us
in our wake
from you.

Halloween trick

On Halloween, I went out in mind, 
in costume - not 'out of mind,' just in.

I was dressed in mind (not really though)
as the avatar of a deadly sin. 

Can you guess which one? Guess 'Pride'
you're wrong. Guess 'Lust' - please leash
your gutter mind! Guess 'Gluttony' or 
'Wrath' - come on! Such rages spoil 
healthy appetites, I find. Guess what? 

The whole thing lied. I did not go 
in mind at all, in costume, sin 
or otherwise. My mind needs no 
such fancy dress and ball, 

And 'Lie' is not a deadly sin. 
You'd think it could be, though

Monday, November 02, 2020

pine model plane

I pine for the days when wistfully 
I'd wonder if you and I could be 
a thing to take off and fancy fly. 

Perhaps come apart midair, and die 
- or just crash land. Walk nonchalant off. 
Away from the scene with nostalgia on,
and a melancholy cry, but soft.
 
We'd say it was more
than worth the try. 

the imperious breeze

The imperious breeze came coolly down
some far green hill, and passed us by. 
It would not turn aside for us.
As hot and sticky as we were, it was
that chill, and that aloof - but just.
We saw it ruffle blades of grass
not twelve yards distant, as it passed 
- but there was no hope in a rush
to reach that spot. There was 
no breeze for us. 

bargain struck

If you ever had uh
If you ever had a 
If you ever had a notion
- not a "notion" exactly, 
but an inkling, a sojourn,
a presentiment or otherwise 
sentiment - not a "sojourn,"
a sojourn's just a way of saying
a journey you'll be coming back from, 
or think you are - you'd know some things
can be put in words but never taken out. 
Which obviates some part of the process, 
arguably: tell you what. You keep reading, 
I'll stop writing. Enjoy the uninterrupted flow 
of lines, the kind you read between. See, 
what you read between the lines - you 
are the author. Credit is all yours, 
and I can't stand in your way. 
Fair enough? You know 
I neve could stand 
standing in someone's way. 
Not in the ordinary run of things. 
They might be on the way 
to some good stuff

Sunday, November 01, 2020

triumphs

You can't do it like we both
loved last time 
You've got to improve 
on the perfect score. 
You've got to innovate 
the recipe. You've got to go 
one ingredient more. 

It's triumph we crave, not mastery.
Finding new ways to not fuck up.
For you, perfection could not be enough, 
unless you had tried every trick in the world,
to return to the thing you long since knew 
and say yeah, that'll do. Oh hey, that's
the stuff. 

Saturday, October 31, 2020

Classic song critiques #4: The Church

"Under The Milky Way"
is an overrated gem. They
shoved it down our throats
in the old days 'til it dissolved
inside us in a barely-sweet spray 
of stars. When we went to
the bathroom it never came out!
It is still inside us
Play that one again 

Sometimes when this place 
gets kind of empty

Your adorable mole

Your adorable mole 
is out of control 
I see it everywhere 
on other people 
when I look in the mirror,
there your mole is.
Oh how did you get 
on my mind like this. 

vampire pedophile

We had to change the band name

Somebody already had it. Anyway 

it was dumb. We came up with something 

worse. Spite works wonders as a muse, 

and what's the big deal? Everybody 

knows vampires. They don't exist 

so how could they be more horrific? 

Surprisingly easily, but arguably 

the point wasn't worth being made 
explicit

Friday, October 30, 2020

bumper cropper

I sense in you a generalized 
comfort stemming from and 
stalking a deep-rooted security 
that leaves buds to bloom into 
fruits without tending to pick 
any. 

body mnemonic

If I never get to kiss your chin 
again, 
at least I'm not sure 
if I did before. Apparently, 
it left not so much as a mark
on my memory, but damn 
if I didn't? I'd wish
with my whole 
full heart,

and if I did? 
I would be so contrite 
to have missed, slipped, lost 
from my memory

so sweet a kiss, 

'pon a target so well 
and shapely made, 
just under your lips 

where my lips 
should be laid.

Exuberance par excellence

I am the exuberor, and I warn you. 
Don't bring, cite or invoke the exuberance 
if you can't exube. I will zero in on you 
like a crosshairs convergence in a scope 
you hadn't considered at any scale, and 

I will exube you. Just
so you know next time 
what it means 

to be exubed. Really, really
exubed, and maybe then

you won't throw terms around 
like you can't
understand with exuberance
sufficient to bring it home. 

To make us believe, like
the bystanders we are, trying
to dial in on your vibe. Which you claim 
is exuberance? Hey,

try ebullience next time.

It's bubbly, it doesn't have to be
much more. Long as it bubbles,
you can lay and stake a believable, 
bubbly claim to ebullience. I suggest, 

though, 

leave the exuberance to people who know how 
to exube. And just what it means 


in fact,
to be the exubulator.
Wait, fuck

sorry, not the "exubulator!" 

I got out of hand on that. 
A function of my exuberance, though 
I think 

we can me cut off a chunk of slack
in fact. Fancy what shall we do with it
after? Hey, revel maybe. Exult.

Don't exube. 

Not unless you know how to know 
how to.
It wouldn't be advisable, and so 

I couldn't advise you. Some things 
can't be born or taught, just 

done right,

or not. 

I warned you. 

Thursday, October 29, 2020

disgusted by waste.

Why are we so 
disgusted by our waste? As
the waters stream through 

do we brook no creeks?
Are the rivers of the world 
and the lakes not to taste? 
Do the oceans not circulate,
or the land not recreate 
in this recreation? As if food

- used food, good in creation 
of strong bones and teeth, hard 
muscle and fat, had been nothing 
whatsoever to do with us, or 
with that? As it surges through
our canals. Do we disown it 
when we know we've had done 
with it now? Does humanity

no longer value its source?
It has served, it has done,
we're on to the next course.
We've expunged and spilled
all our toxins available, down
this hill, into waiting streams 
as the river runs foul. It is only

we, now. Just you. Just me. Just  

us here beings. Are we not it, now? 
When it once was us? Shall we turn,
in abhorrence of what we cast out?

Make water, make way for the revolution!
No, there never shall be any way than

this, here, now. If you think
you're the shit, better 
learn 

how to piss
and not hate yourself 
for the turn. For the service
you've done. Yourself.

Relieved. You are equally all 
you've begun, plus me and the rest
of we humans being and doing
and soon to be done. All birthing
and screwing, and all of you
all of we will come 
to eventually.

Don't ask 
how this bell was wrought, 
or wrung, or wreaked, or 
this hymn was sung. 

No need to freak. It's
a common event! 

If we must, let's be 
infamy, with intent. 

What a piss-pour fart joke, 
though. So bent, so what's wrong
with this stuff
that once was us? Go
slow, and just squeeze all 
the sweat and pus and just 
everything else, 'til it comes 

out of you. Reason yourself
to a natural point! It's true.  

Why is such shit foul, when 
you ate
that joint
of beef, that slab 
of tofu ham? That brussels
sprout sauté - oh hey, man 
with the scallops? That's my jam!
This smorgasbord spread 
is before you now. Cafeteria style.
Buffet, you can all 
you can eat, and you are
the one who tucked in. To - all this?

Why, though?

Were you not complete?
Is what's good on the way into you 
so bad? So foul, so nasty as hell 
in the end? Is it just 

you're an animal? Can't pretend 
that you're not?

But you want 

to be human, though. 

So pretend.

Job three four teen

We don't need to be tested

Our faith is strong, except 
we've never believed in a 
thing
or
a one we could not understand 
in experience. By trial and err, 

it all makes sense, but 
there's no need to send no err
our way 

If we haven't encountered it yet, 
let's stay here with best grasp and hold 

it's empirical, you 
have it all to unfold 

and a Job 

to do. 

Observable reality defined.

Capital O, little r, as
to the theme itself: we should

not
define
Observable reality
too narrowly.

"Observable" = all sensory input
counts. Minor caveat: testimony
is not the same as the event it
ostensibly depicts. Like many motion pictures,
a person's testimony is a separate, new
event! Marketed as

Based On A True Story.

or 

Inspired By. 

Take your pick, but

"reality" is a hypothetical medium
through which one individual interacts
with another (hypothetical) individual.

There it is. 

This definition was started by accident,
and is being continued on purpose, confirmed 
("proof" = one {1} instance of affirmative result 
in the test) either in or by experience,
in aimed intent with sincere desire
to falsify - same attitude I strike

towards life. If that isn't any good,

at least it's the best.

Do you remember when, we

No I don't, my
green greysilver,
blue-eyed hazel
girl.

I don't ever
remember what we used
when we used what we used
to sing. What we used

to be.

What we

'We've used up
what we used.
To be'
 
- Peter Gabriel

I draw the line.
The line of strength
that pulls me through
the fear. Here comes
the flood.

It's in your eyes

that I was loved.

Suicidally,

Suicidally, 
I tempted fate 
and tested you 
a bit too late. But you 

have won this joust, this round 

and I will never take you down. 

You are my better. Best, in fact 
I cannot fall where you hold back, 
when you make bank, or check
at chess, to mate. But at your contemptuous,
contemptible ease, I hate 

sometimes, the fact  

that you could lay me 
six feet thick, oh 

please. 

Not that. Unless,
you want. At that, it isn't coy. 
Not droll. It's fatalist 
inevitable, and that's 

the sound, as I fall down. 
I am, or should be 
to you 

as
a vegetable. 

Except 
I was much more than this,
at once. Or relatively.
Comparison's a bitch,
and odious,

they say. 
But I 
can't 
see

even 

one way. 

A detective show, has

A detective show has to kill someone. 
Or else, 
it's a trivial exercise 
in solution of crime, 
of fraud, of theft, another 
somebody done someone wrong song, 
well. Some one, some real individual one 
(or at least fictional) has have 
to have met their, his, her 
end. To justify  

My emotional stake 
in this excellent friend 

of justice, deduction, or (sometimes)
mercy I've found. In this high-stakes character. 

But by justice mere, or compassion sheer, 
I wish they could have some 

margin to fail. But they don't. Even 
Sherlock Holmes missed, times. 

And he wasn't even real, 
but he was 
sublime. 

A show to live up, to that. 
The rest of us have 
to make livings, 
stat. 

Or shat. 

Diagnosis. OR, A PUN: Die, agnosis

I am slow and dense 
with anything blessed with 
anything less then previous overthinking 
and consequence, 

in examination digressed, dissected 
deformed, re-warmed, undressed 

I have expertly messed in everything. 
Except what I haven't encountered upon. 

For everything that, 
I misclassify. And treat it as if 

I had already won. And found out 
and known all through - it's that thing 

I've pondered upon, 
and won something. Of course, I've 
a vested interest in 

every found good, and proved 

I have been. But 

It's grievous fault 
to misclassify. I have done my best, 

but I always try. 

House of horrors

House, or sometimes House M.D.
is like a horror movie every episode 

except the monster is you, 
or could be

Whereas House 
is the Greatest American Hero 
forgot his supersuit on the way 
to what I remember (as a halcyon
child) as a surprisingly-excellent 

comedy horror film, a thing 
- I honestly hadn't considered, 
accounting for the high-value 
novelty (I ignorantly considered 

novelty a value in those days) (we 
all did), but the point is: it had a 'Nam 
flashback guy played for not comedy 
relief, but straight tragedy relief. Ralph 

Hinkley was going through all this, 
buddy, missing child and all. Probably 
an ex-wife, who was no Connie Sellecca
(née Concetta Sellecchia - is that sexy 
or what?) but she couldn't possibly be, unless
she was dead. In which case, forget it. Point is, 

In that movie, as I recall, 

that poor guy went through everything he went 
through. And 

you felt bad 
it was funny. But 

some part of me 

wishes Father Hugh Laurie 
would have walked in 

to perform his patented exorcism
-via-sardonic irony routine 

to make you, 
or somebody 

well. 

next time, sunshine

They say nothing's perfect, but
I seem to recall every day with you
in incident's sprawl, and even hindsight
and monstrous critical faculty finds
not a thing wrong. Which by definish 

Would be perfect, y'all. 

No detectable flaw in these days of mine
which were times of yours, as well.
So heaven is made in the absolute
lack of hell you forever bring
in me to dwell. 

These times that come in glorious
ongoing spurt and surge that runs
all together inside of us, reward
all urge and bring to fulfillment
all drives and such. We were made 

to serve such purpose and want,
in suchlike loves. So much like
need, we push to shove and crowd
ourselves into each wide space 

we have made on this beach, in time
to waste all our unspent speech
in a kiss that gives pause 

to the air we breathe.