meteoric

She came down in flames,
having never been shot
and put herself out
where no one could see.
It was only enough
to be seen by the world
burning bright streaking down
as if she'd been hit -
She was just flying free
into gravity well
because it felt good
to plummet for once
to hurtling, fall
consumed by fire,
returning to earth
just as if it was hell.

preamble

I love how "preamble" suggests
that what's to come afterwards
will be an amble

It's rarely so, but at least
we have been forewarned,
and gone forward forearmed
in that knowledge.

Perhaps the afterword
will make up for the lack.
It usually won't, but by then

you've already fallen off
the epilogue

shy stars

The blackest sky, no stars tonight
They've been wiped out by whirling,
warring, colored light and rush and scream
of people whipped 'round by machine.
They call it fair. It travels round
and sucks the kids and lovers in
like old popcorn swept up and whirled,
knocked dizzy, spat out and set down
in nightmare scene to run around
and back in line again, or rush
- heads spun - to stands for pretzels,
funnel cakes and grease and salt
and sugar acid cans. A night like this
goes on stretched time. A night like this
has always just begun
and by the time

it ends
you're gone

across the empty
park you've parked.
The music fades
to glowing dark,

and then - you look across
to who you're with, in this
the strangest place that you've
belonged.

And see a smile, dumb and wide
as yours. Then CRASH! The lights behind
go black as one

And reappear
as stars
re-hung

misread the crowd

I was preaching to the choir -
as I do, with distracted zeal
when suddenly I realized
my act had lost appeal. Perhaps
I was too old-school, too
vaingloriously innocent?
I cued up brassy boomba-tsh
and shucked my long white robe
- to begin with - with a flourish!
With a shimmy-shake and raunchy
hip-thrust bump and bop.
I'm stripping to the choir,
now. We'll see how far this goes,
how long it takes - perhaps
it would be more appropriate
if I'd dressed like a cop?

lovers of absent words

I'm always throwing words at her
that don't exist. Definitions,
senses that I mean to say,
but can't. Despite she's not a dog
to run off into woods
and fetch, she often brings back
just the stick! From how its scent
embodied it, and on
we play.

"irrefutable"

"irrefutable" is the candy coat
we paint upon the things we've proved,
reducing them to math and sign
where they all work so perfectly.
Since we're behooved to make
so sure. Except the things aren't math
or sign. There's more in them
than figured out. When scant details
and unincluded parts can slink
and slim their ways inside,
it breaks. The truth comes out.
The shell cracks wide, like rhyming "rhyme"
with "rhyme" - we find we've only
shown how vast our lack of knowledge
is. What makes the thing the thing
is blown away, with lightning blast. Except
some hard held bits remain! Still valid now,
as we inspect. We'll use them to redraw
the frame and cast the shape we recognize,
with parts impartially correct.
We'll redraw math and sign
in tighter grip and grasp
upon what's real. We've
checked. Replace
the certainty we found
with certainty we'll find,
and never face the facts
that we don't know, the fact
we don't know what we're
leaving out.

Since we are blind,

This is the only way we have
to go. The only thing
that we don't know
is doubt.

Heart's imagination

Heart's imagination is strong
- and often wrong. It's like
"I KNOW." Head's imagination
is like "What an interesting
distraction this is?" Head
goes on trips of fantasy
(including anxiety), but
Heart ARRIVES in flashes
of certainty -
to be so sure
We were never so sure
in all our lives

the word for this

I am that word
in the far back left
of your mind
you can't reach
or catch
or get
or find

Or define,
but you know what it means.
You know there's a word, and
it's perfect.
It seems

but you grope in the dark
and you strain heart and mind,
and it seems just as far
as it ever was

And it starts to feel like
it never was there
to find.

There was no such thing,
just connection misfire,
just deja vu. Just fine.
Giving up,

just

because.
It will come to you
in time.

facets of mind

As a man of highly average intelligence,
a deep, sweet and shallow wisdom,
a more than usual understanding,
a quick and thoughtless wit
shot through with brute force
sledgehammer cleverness,
a blinding brilliance
and a rude animal cunning
that shits everywhere
and sniffs and licks everyone
in a quite fond, sloppy way
they find embarrassingly
endearing, I believe
I am particularly
well-positioned
to observe:

I forgot where I
was going with this.

the other one loose

I am pretty much lack of restraint
personified. I decided
a long time ago
restraint didn't work.
It just made me say nothing,
to think before I spoke. I can't
do both at the same time, and
doing the one first made the second
not occur. Irrelevant, by the time
I'd worked it out. I had to do
something, though, since my mouth
had a mind of its own. So
I decided to make WHAT I MEAN
a shining fountain of molten light
streaming up into the heavens
and showering down as cooled trinkets!
A canny decision, as it turns out. I was torn
at the time you see. Should I make WHAT I MEAN
a shining fountain of molten light
streaming up into the heavens
and showering down as cooled trinkets? Or
should I make it a fierce and hairy sort
of horse-dragon with horns sticking out of it
blowing reveille all the time, all rending teeth
and gnashing claws and beating wings? I think
I chose wisely. But sometimes I let the other one
loose too

instructive

To construct a negative system, begin
with a mirror and find within
your materials to build. There may
require a change of outfit, or expression,
or several changes. Try no outfit,
no expression. Try all of them.
Stretch your face and eyes, get
inside your comfort zone and press
and bang to get out again, until those walls
have hemmed you in. Until the exits
are pretend. Practice until you forget
the purpose of perfect. Then,
step away, and fail to remember
what you were again.

forest for the trees

The trees see the forest
for the ground and rain and birds
and things. Running up their bark
for safety, nesting amidst their limbs.
Sun and air are richest food,
roots drink deep and slow.
Stand in one place and win the race
as up and up we grow.

saw it and I thought

Just a little thing
to make a joke
of missing you
in all I see
Just this little thing
to break the yoke
that binds us where
we have to be

Such little things each day I see
always bring you up and back
and this is something good to me
I have you still, despite the lack

We've shared such pain
and shared such time
You're in my brain
and on my mind
I can't complain
the way you come through
I saw it and I thought of you
I saw it and I thought of you

Just some dumb thing
wish you were here
to see how dumb
and lean in close
To say something
that clicks and fits
completing moments
just like this

The thought of you breaks up the world
in big and little shards
and this is something good to me
I have you still, despite it's hard

We've shared such pain
and shared such time
You're in my brain
and on my mind
I can't complain
the way you come through
I saw it and I thought of you
I saw it and I thought of you

bare feet and balance

Bare feet and balance 
with eyes turned down, the child steps 
from sandy beach 

out and carefully along 
a bleached grey log as long and rough 
as ancient trees it must have known,

or might have been 
in younger age. 

Before the fall 
into the sea, and all its days 

Spent travelling. 
Before some storm rode high and pitched 
it up this beach, then drew away. 
And left it half buried in dunes, and half 
a place for kids to play.

spot of bother

The spot of bother grew
and grew without a moment's
notice, 'til whole days
of bother dawned anew
upon a world of bother.
Ill the wind, that blew
no one no good, the falling
tide that sank all boats,
or left them low and dry
at least and lowest ebb,
and leaning listlessly
towards hope.

moonlit turn

The buttons on her coat,
shiny bright in double row
glowing soft upon the cloud-grey wool,
disappear by turns

like so many silver moons.

She weaves back turning falling light
in and out in pirouette.

The wool goes milk then black
by turns, as rows of moons

remember and forget

In this you are that

In integrity, you are the Rock
of Gibraltar. In compassion, you are
a flaming sword that cares a lot
about everyone and is widely-famed
for compassion for that reason.
In creativity, you are a tornado
that puts towns back together better
than they were before you roared through.
In courage you are an angel, fearing nothing
on earth except to tread wrong. In strength,
you are a bee.
Tiny, maybe,
in your beeness,
yet many of you together
make a mighty buzz - and you have
within you a potential infinity
of all you-bees.

the cottage key

You discover a note
that leads to a cottage
with a welcome mat. Under
the mat it says there's a key

that fits any lock

and can make any door
open onto any other door
in the world. Using the key,
you just slide it in. Visualize
the destination door, turn the key

and open - and walk

on through.

But you have to leave the key behind.
"The key is yours," the note says.
The note gives you all
the rules.

So you have the note.
Do you go to the cottage
and lift the mat, take the key
and if so? Where do you

open the door through to?
How will you explain
where you've gone
when you go?

the flatlands

My nearest mountain is in my heart
it's only small but it aches so high
I'm afraid I will never ascend to the peak
because it is there
Stuck in my throat all the time
just as if
I care.

jacket blurbs

'This modern-day equivalent
reads like ancient literature
on steroids.' 'Readers kept on
the edge of their seats
will explode in suspense
and purr for more!' 'This
latest outing is the first
ever. The others don't count - the master is back!' 'A
real-life thrill coaster could never deliver this kind
of ride.' 'Taut, logical and tautological. Fanatics
will be out for blood, roaring for the conclusion
of the series.' 'Another first-class mockery of
expectations sees a complete series reinvention
explode on launch and on continuously into orbit,
returning safely to earth
still exploding.'

the obelisk implied

Well there was this woman
I liked, we knew
a little about how each
other’s hearts fit into each
other’s mind. It was
an interesting start, but
how to make it go?

And did we want to,
and if so,
where?
How

fast?

Foolishly,
impatient as usual
(although in my usual
defense, not for anything
in particular - just “to find
out”), I was wearing pants.

In fact we both were, and I
- for reasons of my own, which
are none of your business - kind of
wished we weren’t. I wanted to
decrease the general wearing of clothes
in the situation, though at that moment
I could not have said why.

Pants

just seemed gratuitous.
We two don’t need these.
Then I remembered
from the movies,
sometimes a woman
will spill wine, or get
a lot of water

on her blouse
or dress, or in more
modern movies, blood
- and that makes her want
to take it off.

Right.

It’s not entirely clear why.
Or somebody suggests
she take it off - "it’s mussed"
- and she says “great idea! Thanks!”

Sometimes the gent involved, perhaps
the very suggestive one, will (after her
removal of the offended garment), doff
his top and hand it over - but not before we,
(the viewers) get a fascinating glimpse of
implied nudity underneath. Or more likely,

let's be realistic. Underwear!

This is the “payoff.”

Then in a stunning double standard,
it is the topless man who stands revealed
as a hero! More or less cut, but: buff in honor
for sure. Admirable. Concerned.

And now she’s wearing his shirt!
To hide her glorious body shame
in his presence, still untried. It’s
the tell-tale sign:
he hasn’t gotten any.
This revelation implied
or otherwise builds the tension
through the roof, boom, like
a sudden church steeple
jutting to high almighty
in a still-quivering obelisk
penetrating the heavens - only
more obviously profane, in

this case.

Now as you can imagine,
I immediately saw the potential in
a subversive gender-flip of the above
scam. The ol' clean-for-dirty clothes
swap scenario. This would clear away
the offensive and hackneyed stereotype
aspect completely by running it backwards,
against the bias. So

I shit my pants. In a huge, stunning
way - absolutely noiselessly! And
they were dark denim, so, you know

at first

...no one the wiser.

The smell.

She was enjoying herself
enormously, which was why
I did it in the first place. I figured,
dare greatly where you see the chance,
mah man!

But...
her enjoyment
seemed to be dropping
by detectable levels as some
weird change in the air became

oh, too real. “Did you...fart?”

I thought about that. “Possibly.” Rude question!

Her skeptic expression only increased
the desirability in my eyes. The uh,
hoped-for desirability.

It seemed to be doing something
else in her eyes. Her face, too
was distended in a dilating rictus
of dawning horror. Which, hey,

we all know that look.

“OH MY GOD DID YOU”
here her voice dipped low,
but not an insinuating way.
More a please insinuate it
ain’t so way, "...SHIT" (this
was no more than a shhh!
-it hiss whisper) "yourself?”

My face

became as stern as my mind.

It’s the face Superman makes
when he disapproves, I’ve been
told. Anyhow, there was no going
back, at this point it would all have
to come out in the wash eventually:

“Yes.”

I grinned. Heroically, I had once again
owned the truth, humbly as always. How
do I do it? I looked sheepish. WHOOP - no,
that was wolfish. I dialed it back the requisite
number of animal panels to sheepish, on my
inner Mattel Farm Animals See n’ Say,
and pulled the string.

Baaaa. Better.

Her horror was now abject.

Perhaps this was the wrong tactic
after all?! I swooped to the rescue:

“Perhaps you’ll suggest...
...I should take my pants off?”

She didn’t even demur. Too
demure, maybe. She just let
her face widen farther past
horror into a sort of past-aghast,
barely-entertained hilarity.

Progress!

I continued, soberly. Well,
convincingly-soberly. I think.
“And then, seeing my shame
might motivate you to generously,
heroically swap me your pants?
Which, well...” I trailed off
a bit.

I was not her size by a longshot.

“Nah, no, I think I’ll just

go now. Amazing to interact with you
as always!” We shared a look

of unspeakably mutual relief
between us. Her pity
was not admixed
with a certain pleasure.

Neither was mine! But mine was all
self-schadenfreude, which felt pretty awful.
You can imagine. I hadn’t really thought this
through! I didn’t really want to take my pants

off

in the middle of a crowded bar.
That’s a good way to be immodest!
For one thing. In the end, messing
my pants
didn’t serve
the purpose I thought
it might.

I suppose that
happens a lot.

But if you were with me
the whole way through,
I think you’ll agree
there were a couple parts
where it could have gone
either way?

It was worth
the daring recklessness
to test one’s mettle so foully,
all for the sake of some
greatly-to-be-desired prize:

The potential sight of me,
dance-hopping around with
golden-fouled drawers (found
out later), trying to get a leg or two
into some svelte but generous girl’s
unforgiving pants!

- all the while she stands there, knickered
up and disgusted, holding my jeans

at arm’s length

like the proverbial bag.

Not something I’d like to have happen,
mind you - but
a pretty moving prospect in the abstract,
huh? Wow.

There should seriously
be more Romantic Horror movies.
Where the horror is not some foreign,
fantastic, injected element shoehorned
unbelievably in - but flows,

naturally,

from Romance Itself.

That's what I think.

Man apes

Man apes the angel inwardly
And outwardly grows curvèd horns
To honk and toot incessantly
To merry-make, he thinks! But mostly,
He just warns.

slight shocking sour

I'm starting to detect it now
a distinct note of sourness.
Pungent, sharp and deep of tang,
growing on the palate as we go,

as we find out
I have become

slightly sour,
without noticing.

Suddenly I tried
to speak, to see, to say
- I always have so easily, so
readily. So clear

and sweet.
This sourness entirely
shocks. The last thing I
expected is to feel, or
taste, or

be.

Like this.
I thought I'd tend
to bitterness.

Her beauty is

Her beauty is like blocks of wood,
primary-color painted shapes
a child could grasp, and put to good.
Such towers teetering, fall down -
inhabitants make slim escapes,
imaginary as their town. Her beauty is
like bouillabaisse. A rich and savory
stinky stew of fish that warms and
nourishes. That's not a tithe
of all her beauty is.

help a brother out

What's needed is for black people
to contribute a uniquely black perspective,
rich in black culture and views
that are black. That way whitey
can clue up, do a better job
with the duties and responsibilities
privilege entails. How did we forget

this burden? Well, time to white up
and go to town on it. It's what we owe
for our skin, and the powerful privilege
it confers when racists against others
than whites look upon us, size us up
and give us a pass. And because of that

(which is a pretty sweet advantage, by
the way - half the time you don't even know
it's a racist! How would you find out?)

...we need to seek black validation
on our approach to what we've done.
If we can't forgive ourselves, maybe
their points are points we can sign off
on, weigh well, and give full agreement
to.

I sound the call to all black people:

some of use are ready to stand and take
criticism for all it's worth, agreeing all
the way: "Oh yeah. Fucking white people, man."

Only in this way can we skirt the issue
of some huge cash payout to settle it
for all generations to come, ending

the problem of racism.

But we must seek deeper. Women too
must finally be acknowledged as white.
I don't care if they are or aren't,
they deserve recognition for what
was done to them in prior times

by male assholes. Only by this elevation
to status of full white can we open up
our minds and ears, hear their grievance
and nod, nod, nod. Don't mistake me,

I'd recommend we recognize black people
as white, too, if I thought there was

a chance in hell that'd go over. The old white dream

of "colorblind"

has been laid to rest. People are rightly
casting about for some substitute, some
way forward. I'm not saying my solutions
are for everyone. Mostly,

they're for white people.

I sound the call to all white people:
if you're not part of the problem,
get on board. All aboard,

everybody

precis sans thesis

So, I want to write a poem that starts
"I'm late to the hate parade as usual"
and then it's like, the guy (the speaker)
is always coming too late to the hate
bandwagon - by the time he starts using
the insulting buzzwords they've all been
demonized, dropped en masse - he looks
like a tool! "Why" he wonders "can't
I get on board in time, back in the glory
days of a given hate, during the free
and easy acceptance phase?"
and then it would make some point.

Thing is, this
would be a pretty minor poem. A gem!
Maybe, but nothing to hang your hat on. Who
hangs their hat on a gem, arguably? Weird gem -
and that's just what I'd be shooting for. A weird
gem.

But the unpleasantness of the subject matter
- hate - that's a hard dodge to pull off
without people getting offended like
they will anyway, despite it's pretty clear
whatever. Is the risk worth it for a weird gem?

I guess in the end these are the kinds of question
we'll all have to measure ourselves by. Do you
sacrifice your principles and chicken out? Or forge
ahead boldly on a venture of dubious value because
you don't know how to, and finding out seems
like half the whole point?

Anyway, just a little insight/update
on the creative process,
unspooling apace

fault tremors

You've got to let yourself crack
and weep
and fret sometimes
to get out what you're going through.
The cracks form along weakest lines
at points where you have fallen to
the dark and deepest depths you've known
and broken through the rock you thought
you'd bottom out onto, but no.
The cracks like that

you hear the snap
as gravity gives way
you ought
to
know
what doesn't kill you
first, before you let it
go.

Escape hatch.

I woke myself up snoring
There wasn't any warning
My dream went on without me
and I had to face the morning.
The dream was very crazy
You want to have my baby
You sprung it on me sudden
and I wasn't saying maybe

like water

You have no idea how much
I like water.
Imagine how thirsty you are
when you haven't had any
now double it
now picture a huge metal
travel cup filled
from the fridge tap
with three ice cubes
knocking around
the water circulating
getting chilly
now down it in one long pull
now draw another one, same cubes
and down it that fast
now another one
and another one
I like water,
half that much. See
I knew you had no idea

Your welcome, and welcome to it

On behalf
of all our customers, we would like
to express our thanks
for your tireless
efforts over the past
twenty years

to come in
and paw through all this
shit we put out, and
buy some. You kept us

in the business! And it is our vow
as we move on bright-eyed
into a clear future,
together, never
to lose sight

of whose behalf
it behooves us
to remain in cahoots with. For our sake
and yours,

we salute you
you salute us

everybody wins. Thank you

for the support we give you
which you take, and vice-versa.
Let us inspire you, as you've
inspired us to. You're

welcome

to our 20th anniversary celebration
of you,

the customer.

Architectural charge

Sometimes, the surging, thrilling lines
of ordinary buildings
seize hold of me

in an open space
like a parking lot,
with a five-story tan thing
on one side
and a quasi-Victorian office
pub
across the front

an inexplicable colonnade
or something,

to see. And it's

a cool day. Dazzling
as I step

into shifting time

Looking suddenly up and around,

electrified

like I'd trod on a mine
and the sky's gone blue
as the sun comes clear.
The breeze holds its breath

and I lean up

and into revolving space

Just a touch of fear

just fine
in the middle
of all of this

erupting place.

Having finally now noticed this.
How unpredictably right all this
just is.

A completely meaningless epiphany
breaks
In

just this spot

before I take
one more step, and convergence

slips free and undoes

the momentous pause.
At peace in the calm
and rest

this was.

again the question

Her question was disturbingly familiar. It was
metaphysically one with the questions I had
been asked before, tormented in a moment
that passed forever, unable to answer
as the gears ground and wheels spun
and by the time my mind - in either
a fugue state, or a sort of loose
federation of fugue states each
considered free equals with a
technical degree of autonomy -
by the time I returned to
the moment, I realized

I had already answered.

And
I dunno.

It seemed to
have gone alright.
Been received well. But
what the hell could I have
said? I returned to myself

to your question.

to now.

For the first time,
I trust someone else enough.
I have already answered, and
you seem happy. Satisfied, so

I ask you, "Could you say that
back?" "What I just said?"

Perplexed, suddenly
suspicious

of being made a fool, you
sharply change the subject and
from there it all goes wrong, I should

have let it lie
or if it was the truth, I don't know
let it rest. Next time

Next time

the punishment again

People who eat shit
mid-trip
back from the corner deli, which
has the best damn sandwiches
in the world, strewn and scattered
from here to the curb
as your palm heels redden
in cross-hatched drip,
and your elbow throbs
like it wants to give
birth - people like that
are pathetic. The worst.
Should have watched their step

not ruined everything!
So happy one moment!
Skip-strutting along
with proud bag bearing food
of true beautiful worth

People like that
make everything hurt

In a fury of helpless
and
just deserts

Deserted
oh why, have you really oh
abandoned us? To this
godforsaken stretch
of concrete? Where things

like this

can happen so sweet, so slick
it's like a trap sprung
right or wrong
at our feet

the world only makes sense
in moments like this.
It drives home the cost
of how cool drooly beautiful
everything,
sometimes,

is.

question trick

If abysses were wishes
they'd look me in the eye
and I'd ask why they haven't
been granting themselves. They
would reply: "And is that your
wish?" And I would say yes! And
be granted abyss

concerned party

Snatches of words, underheard
understood from tone, vowels
rung and wrung, consonants
sifted by distance, obstructions
between, comprehension
coming undone, we tilt
on the brink of abysses
absurd stretching depths
unseen - but as emphasis
rises and falls, you catch

just enough to pretend
what they mean

And be satisfied: everything's turned
for the best. These lives of not yours
have met their test,
and reached through, across
a rope ladder of words

that were faithful,
and did not break
so far as you heard.

the visitation

Being with you is peace and calm
and adrenaline rush,
and life going on
Unfolding itself in dazed arrays
Enclosing us both for hours and days,

And being without you's another poem.
I will deal with it once
I've lost it all.
Once I've lost my heart,
and without you,
my home.
My heart is
here, now.
My home
is small, and full
of whatever we'd always need.
Bursting with plan and with recipe,
and all the ingredients
we'd want in. Let's make
every dish we could wish,
fill every glass we could drink,
raise every toast, and clink
to each, and dig in.

buyer beware

To save up to 25% off everything
fuck off and get out! Your money
's no good here, scumbag! If I ever
see you in this store again, I'll
call the cops! And report
myself for attempted murder, and if
you're still there when I hang up,
I'll have to call them back
and tell 'em: upgrade the charge!

I don't know why you thought
it was so 'essential' for you
to come barging in here, fouling
the air with your air of superiority,
"just browsing" as you call it -
nattering questions at me all the time
over this or that curious article
you have no more than an idle
interest in! Your arms

should have been loaded with wares
in your first beeline trip
down the aisle in line with the door!
Drop 'em off at the dressing room
and back for more! Our goods aren't
good enough for you, are they? Our fine
wares not fetching enough to festoon
your ignorant form? Tasteless! Tacky!
The worth of your judgment is displayed
in how badly your haircut frames your
face, its dye job a lurid parody
of your eyes' more wan and insipid
hues.

Get the fuck out of here

You don't want to buy. I know
you. I knew it from the moment you
walked in, all stupid and ugly. Types

like you

make me sick and mad. That's
what's done it. You're lucky
I'm drunk at the moment, or
I'd have acted with far more
alacrity in the matter

look of you

I really like the look of you

if you looked like somebody else
but still behaved and thought like you, I'd

get used to it.
I tell myself

dewlap

Lizard sticks
his dewlap out
and bops his head
like metal fans.
He's showing off
for lizard babes
They love that shit,
I understand.

The other end of the movie

I thought you loved the end?

"I do. Just not this one.
I love the end the writer
and director dreamed
of pulling off, and giving
life, but couldn't
though. They couldn't see
their way clear
through. But afterwards,
it came
to me,
apologized
and disappeared."

I asked her how
it ended,
then.

She told the end
to me.

I cheered

Pastimes

Pastimes,
the great American
cried. Get your pastimes!
Before you die

second delay

Next time you
come through, I have a few
things to say
which I won't, but you know
I so easily could. They'd be sweet
to the ear, and tickle going down
and choke you, dear.
But
it's better to know, isn't it?
In the end, what you don't know
can't make you stronger,
friend.

The personal dimension

The personal dimension
is something we can explore
together, or
you by yourself
if you want

I bet if we combine
our explorations and insights,
manage our expectations we might
invent and construct a
construct
of some kind
to explore the personal dimension
or
who knows? There could

be more than one

lesson loss

How true is the lesson you learned
when it's gone? Does it go in true

is reality altered in recognition
or does it spring back, resilient

to what you'd assumed before

the epiphany

listen
if it isn't
something you can redraw,
recall, pull back by tracing
the shape left empty
in your mind,

then maybe you lucked out
this time.
At least,
you can't tell for sure

so
it's fine.

dream loss

I woke up with who knows what else
and turned my back
into pain. By rolling
over, I was able

But all I thought was you
had been a dream, and it made me

weird

arguing over how was best
and whose baby it would be
anyway, which

is weird
because I'm pretty sure the dream
wasn't about that. It made me

realize things
that would never change

except I forgot
how dream memory writes
to a different tape, erased
within minutes of waking
if no further action
is taken, such as

explanation
journaling
thinking out loud
- something
to fix it in place
in waking memory.

The serious kind. I failed
to do so
so

Now I wonder,
will the things that would never change
remain?

Sucka emcees get off my tip again please

Sucka emcees get off my tip
on a regular basis, they appear
to have gripped that there's no benefit
to them being on there. How

many sucka emcees can fit?

I DON'T CARE I drop beats
into bins like a neat freak
on a clean binge. I know that sounds
like my beats is garbage. They is

I mix

dope ass tracks across the carpeted floor
like a dog with an itch in the rear,
I scoot scoot on the fuzzy patoot
with my tail trailing my behind

toot toot
GALORE

I find much cause for rhyme, so much
all the time, I keep reason off-leash
running wild and fine, I spit
whole beach's-worths of coarse-grained
sand. Well of course I do.

I'm a freak in the land
of the free! I speak brave bold words
I've made, calling for bold times
this week, hoping some parade
might come through to celebrate
my reign

otherwise I'll just stay indoors
with my pain. I hope

all my sweet peeps
can hang in there, yo

I know how hard it is
not as hard as me, though

id entity

I am made of id
my ego don't mind
my superego
thinks it's all just fine. So
I surge in pursuit
of every urge
with drives all aligned
to degrees absurd, I don't
sublimate much if at all
these days. I never really
did but you'd be amazed
how little I miss
what I used to be.
Jump back! Kiss m'self
Ha! Ha!
It's me.

Identity Fraud

I pretended to be
myself for a week. Here's
what I discovered: people
don't care about the extreme limits
of human beauty and intelligence.
If they think you're someone you are,
they make all manner of insulting
assumptions, such as "Who's this
guy?" and "Who does he think he is?"
Right. I decided then and there
to unmask and humiliate these
fools, but was astonished
and humiliated to remember
I'd left the mask at home. You're
pretending to be yourself this week,
remember? Oh yeah, yeah okay
Some idiot prank, such as we've come
to expect no more, but okay.
One last one, big hurrah
no encores. But after I was able
to extricate myself from that one,
I bustled home like a fiend
and went straight for my mask - right
where I'd left it. It

had grown an entire new body.
Now I have no idea
who this fool thinks he is.

Seems basically okay though.
Not gay, either. Big surprise

so,
pretty useless.
I won't be doing that again.
Will I?

makeup

You scatter my mind
all over the place
with your made-up mind
and your made-up face
and my made-up line
doesn't even pretend
to hook you and string
you along and in. Well,
it seems as if you
took the bait as a joke!
Which is probably true,
in a cosmic sense. I will drop
all pretense, and abandon
all hope. And put this second chance,
this maybe-last line, this next line
around the heart in my throat.

the heavy weight

Your God would cut your throat
for ten dollars,
and I wouldn't lay odds
on what your devil would do if he knew
what you've said he can do.
I don't know the devil
you know, but better you don't
I hear. Yet there you go,
thumping that bible like it was
a punching bag, chapter and verse
you bob and weave, and it's some knockout
maybe, eventually. Only technically, I
don't believe you believe.

pair bond mystique

Some don’t have any practice at all. Some
really great people among them, too. Some
have great motives at heart, but couldn’t
describe them. Not if they had a week to do
it in, and someone listening. Most have
a half-ass map of confusion inside, held
wrong-way up more than half the time, and
can't tell the difference when they open it
right. They are not necessarily
bad people
because of it. Let’s face it,
a lot of us haven’t really ever
thought it through. Why do you want
to be with someone? What does it really mean
to you? Sometimes it’s just something
people do.

conversation prompt

The answers to questions about love
are different for everyone. They are drawn
and built in early childhood, family
interactions, ideas gleaned from movies,
storybooks. From adults you see “in love”
as a child, providing good
and bad models.

They burst into evolution in wild development

into and through early experience
with love - daring failures, mostly
spectacular embarrassments, chances
lost to hesitation, disappointments,
cowardice and courage. And if we’re lucky,
triumphs. Summits scaled and conquered.
A real joyous work of love discovered,
hopefully ourselves thrown into it
heart-first.

Boundaries, even and reasonably fair
found and cherished. Surfacing flaws.
Difficulties resented. And when it all
fails,

a crushing loss. Sometimes it feels like
we've been running flat out the whole way,
and haven't had a chance to catch up
to ourselves. No, love

is not a thing that “shouldn’t have
to be talked about.”

People like Prince

When people like Prince
and David Bowie start dying,
it's time to rethink
what immortality means.
Prince, let's admit it
is a scumbag. David Bowie,
not much worse. I say is
not was, because these guys
live on

in us.

Everybody
is a scumbag. Everybody
is a world-famous genius
musician. We're all

gonna die.

We're all
people like Prince
and David Bowie,
someday

thanks guys
to show the way

"The Tired Refrain (Reprise)"

We heap our heart’s hearths
With dreams piled high
They burn beautifully

A light through the dark
Towards where we’ll die
Eventually

And if sometimes it means
too much, at least
We know soon enough
it won’t mean a thing,
And we sing:

The tired refrain, again
We sing the tired refrain:

We want the good without the bad
Well where’s the harm in that, you ask?
We want the right without the wrong
Is that so wrong? You have to laugh

You want the light without the dark
Is that so bad, to make a wish?
Is that so wrong? You have to ask,
Although you know it is