the potential too muchness

Am I too much for you? I never am
too much for me, and you seem
for a wonder to be
sometimes even more into me
than I generally am. You make me
reach deep for things to pull
and you move me still
and I just come out with the darnedest
stuff of dreams and glam and fancy, and
of nothing sham. Like a kid who says
the darnedest things, and who wouldn't stop
now for anything

but I worry - never while engaged
in interaction, while we stage
and set and play our schemes
and skits - but afterwards

I wonder why

I gave so much,
and into it.

preparedness

Something died in my mouth overnight
and I just have to scour away
the evidence
with water and minty foam
and a brush
that I bring with me
for just such events

make me feel

You don't make me feel good
enough. I want to feel
better than this. You don't make me feel
high, or deep or smart to continue
so damn far,
and so far short
of bliss, you don't make me feel
like this
is ever going to cover the spread
it's not a good bet anymore
you don't make me feel alive,
just dead
to hope, and knowing
the best thing ever's just
around the corner. You make me feel
like more of the same, this very good
pretty good same we have

we've had

is all that's ever going to come of us.
You don't make me feel good enough.
And I know that I'm the one wrong
for this hard standard I have.
Trust me, it just kicked in
these past few months and weeks.
It's just as hard on me
as on anyone I have been
alone with long enough
to expose and disclose
all the things that it's
made of. But I can't help
having it, you see

when I was a child I had a dream,
and it never came anywhere true.
But it still needs believing, and it's
too long since I believed in you.

And maybe it's not real,
but if that's the case,
then we both deserve better than this.
And we're never going to find what we deserve
in this same place. Oh baby, you're
good enough

for anyone.

And good enough
has been fine all along,
but it's not good enough
for where I'm going, and I have

to bring all this with me, 'til it's
gone. I have to get better than we'll
ever get, even if

this is the best
I'll ever find, I still
don't know that yet. All I have
is this to hold: you don't make me feel
good enough.
And I need to find out
if anyone anything ever will,

so I can grow old.

deft heavenly hand

I met you on the back
of a two dollar bill
you were built like an angel
with time to kill
and you smiled as wry
as whisky neat.
You apologized,
reached out my heart,
and I was complete.

Lucasflim

Lucasflim
used to offer an official
death star certificate
(suitable for framing)
(frame extra) certifying that
your house (address specified,
so the certification itself wasn't
portable):

- met all the criteria, and
was an official death star

- had been added to the death
star registry

- was not a moon, it was
a space station, and

- the more you tightened
your grip, the more systems
would slip through your fingers

I was psyched
to hang that baby up on the wall,
but disappointed later to reflect
that there were no actual criteria
specified, so the impression created
was that seemingly they would send one
to anybody with an address
who shelled out $199.99
plus $400 for that cheap-looking
frame (looked much better in the
ad, I ended up making my own) but
most of all, because in ornate gilt
letters at the top, they had misspelled
it LUCASFLIM.

An easy mistake to make,
but it made me think of
flim-flam. As if I had been ripped off. Plus
they shouldn't put the address on there.

I have gotten sick
of this place since, and
would have liked to move.

nameless lake

It's crazy how good a big
pile of water looks
in a mountain bowl.
With the sky in it, and
the mountains - top down,
folded, partway doubled,
confusing the eye and mind.
But nearer in, you can see
how the fossilized waterlines
ring their way down grassy slopes
in a gradation. Past times of flush
and drought, marked down
and into and under the surface
in fading contours, greys and greens
- 'til the blue sky
washes them out.

You just stand there

looking at it. Stupid. You couldn't
describe it if you tried, or why
you keep looking. It just
reaches something deep
in all of us, maybe.

Our ancestors stood here once,
and said man, I'll remember this
longer than I'm alive. Perhaps

that's it. Haunted as we are
by long-dead eyes,

sights like these stir up ghosts
in our souls, or DNA, or
some damn thing.

It's such a surprise
that it's always been.

trail of toes

The monster followed
a trail of toes

that led back
to the back
of its cave. It felt
so creepy, so
exposed - these toes

were fresh.

And
there were too many of them.
What hideous creature
made this mess? So tidy,
letting each drop, one
by one,
and toe
by toe? And then, why not
invade my cave? Assuming one has
a bag of toes, why not
trespass
invade

the infamous lair
of the scariest monster
anywhere

all through
the nastiest woods
in town?

Why not come in here,
wreck my day and bring
me down?

Justice on a pedestal

Justice is the stone-cold
chick with the blindfold
and sword, and a couple
empty scales held aloft.

The blindfold helps her judge
as she cuts a swathe,
and those scales

stay empty

whatsoever the cost.
She's a symbol to us.
You have to swing blind
with that stone cold sword
or you'll lose your mind

if you let yourself see
the real human being,
you might have to recuse
yourself from this thing

Go justice
Stay up there, babe
Go justice
Stand tall, throw shade
Go justice
So objectified

If anyone said you were fair,
well they lied.

the electric cord

There's something running through us all
between the empathy and gall:
a nerve that binds us trembling,
which throws down tyrants posed as kings
and reaches deepest things in us
we didn't know were there, but trust
as soon as we feel jolts all through.
It slumbered there inside of you,
but now we're woke, or speak aroused
against each other's turned-out crowds.
The animal inside is freed: you will believe,
or else you'll bleed. There lies between
within us all a cord that binds. We fear the fall
or rush the edge of cliffs unknown: what lies
beyond? Just wreck and moan of flesh and blood
and nerve and gall. If we could pause
before the plunge, we might
find something tugs us back. It's more
than white, and more than black, and more
than male and female, too. Or I am wrong, and it
was never inside you.

But I'm not wrong.

You'll feel it soon, or yet, or now
but it's too strong
to disallow.

It's in us deeper than divides.
If all of us could kill ourselves,
then maybe we could save our lives.

the end of willpower

Let the fade of willpower wash away,
the urge will pass
if we just stay. There isn't a dream
that could end us now. But if we die
in this dream, we will never wake up
somehow

and I know what you'll always want.
It's powerful since, I want it too

We can synthesize, recombine our sighs
and minds, and grow 'til we never
break through

but I'll still be here.

And you'll still be there.

I will never stop wanting you for
myself. It would be for you too, since
that's half the whole point, but

I cannot pretend anymore
this is hell.

renovation co

I hired a crew of hands-on know-how types
to bring ladders and buckets and tools
into my life and do shit right
for once. Get it squared away
and humming, as opposed
to my usual half-ass it'll work
good enough approach. They seem

to like me. We're all affable;
they work all day and then
we crack beers and take turns
cooking. They are every single one
of them nude supermodels, in addition
to their dream job general competence
at shit. All-in-all, a great group
of guys! I guess male nude supermodeling
is a niche sport, doesn't pay
at the same rate scales, so
they take other work
and boy am I glad.

Also, they wear clothes
on the job. Not that job, but
this job. My life has been
never quite so put-together,
so sound at all the joins. I just
wish I'd done this
ten or twenty years ago,

but
I suppose
they'd have been babies.

They kind of still are,
in a lot of ways! That childish joy
they take in a job well the hell done,
the joshing around during and after. I bet

they don't really like me. Don't
respect me, probably but
they put it on for my sake
and for the sake of the business. Well,

that's fair. Four stars
out of five, guys. Keep up

the good work.

transfigural

As we met, caked-on
wet flaws thickly flaked
and fell from us while
we smiled for miles,
not the least embarrassed
by the growing piles
of sloughed-off facade
surrounding where we stood,
enrapt. While deeper in,

Our faults uncracked
and found new fit,
and filled with light
and this
was consummately odd.

As unexpected as
it gets. We laughed
to find ourselves
impressed. Not just
by what had come across,
but all that rose in us
to grin and nod.

personal uncertainty

A grave and serious error occurs
when we have assumed the best and worst
on basis so slim as what one brings
another one in these everyday things.
For all we know, this one so good
in what they give us, we bring out
in them, is a demon accursed
and bringer of harm to the one
who discards that perilous friend.
Or the one who has pushed, and slammed
and pulled us every which way, who has spat
on our name - may yet be a blameless angel
blessed by all who uphold their good
in vain.

shapeshifter

A drop of sweat
just out of view
becomes a bug, a-crawling
down. The sensitivity of dew
in motion through a leg-hair
town. Alerted to this intruder,
I feel creeped out in several
ways. For what if it's a bug?
But what
if forces I dispatch by hand
return with sweaty hand
and frown?

Perhaps it's best a game
to play: fall back, rely
on secondary sensor breach. With skin
perimeter set high, a bite
will surely bring down hand
to teach. And then
with grim set ways,
we'll see the blood.
Our own, but it
had to be shed.

To spare the innocent
sweat-drop

from making us
the fools,
instead.

personal universe

As judgment heads its ugly rear,
it cannot see from up in here.
It knows the other cannot tell
a thing to overcome the sense
that's stifling, constricting us.
Is it a wonder we can't trust?
We cannot shake obstructed view,
and then there is the smell.

p u

the alien

Manly of jib and jut and jaw,
winning and wooing and conquering all,
the alien strode through landscape bland
denying all challenges near to hand,
defying all powers aloof, afar -
and nobody noticed a thing awry.
They'd understood bits of us far too well
and picked their invader. It's just
some guy

detonation

Majestic as a spreading cloud
looming over skyscrapers
of edged and tapered jutting green,
this mushroom cap arose on scene
like atom bomb on rising stalk
to overawe us all, us all.
No thunderclap, no spreading death
just still sunshine and zephyr's breath.
A city sits in miniature, beneath
this friendly mushroom cloud. It just
popped in, so neighborly. It knew
that it would be allowed.

a stopped clock, even

Even a stopped clock is right
about where it always was
on the wall. Mounted
perversely just past
fingertip, arm's reach
above head-high

I guess
for the whole room to see.
But deuced inconvenient
to muck about with
or put right,
given how little
we care

what time it is.

the circus church

The circus church
flaps ope its tent
and welcomes in the congregants
in gaily daily best attire. Children,
grown-ups, laugh and wave and point
as they fill rows of seats, slide in
make room and settle down. And then

the ringmaster and clowns
and acrobats and elephants
file out in grave solemnity

to put bejeesus in these fools.
It smells in there. The animals
- it's not their fault! It's
natural. Some of the kids
complain, as parents shoosh
(they'll learn, they don't know
yet). The ringmaster declaims

in ringing tones: burn! Burn in hell
or else! The grown-ups catch the joyous
news and begin testifying, witnessing,
crying out oh lord good God! Meanwhile

an endless tumble of clowns rolls
from a tiny car - hypocrites! They
were having an orgy in there during
the service! The whole crowd wows
and awes in applause, a miracle!
Not knowing the filth.

In the end, everyone files out
non the wiser. They have this performance
down to an art. The circus church

has the best damn caramel popcorn
and circus peanuts this side
of the county fair, and

all they ask is have a little faith,
would you? Is that so much to ask

for all we give to you?

Top this

Top this: a perfect day
to beach, a skyscraper
made out of sand,
a wave two miles high
comes in, and then
you realize you're
an ant.

Rules for making up rules

All rules are made-up, partly because
all words are made-up. Partly because
all minds are made up so differently,
that people found out they had to use signs
and symbols, drawn on surfaces or blown
like bubbles of sound in air, and meaning
etched in the wobble and shimmer. They had

to agree on certain things. Gok! means
gok, it does not mean hrauwr. Hrauwr
could mean many things, but gok
is not one of them. We had to decide

that we wanted gok to mean something,
and
it wasn't hrauwr. As a rule,
most people understood this easily. Their
only experience with gok was as it was
taught, and the meaning was plain enough.
Hrauwr was harder to grasp. Some of us

are still arguing about that one. However,
we all mostly agree that hrauwr is bad.
It confuses people and fills them
with discontent and antagonism! How

can hrauwr be good? Yet in some cases,
beautiful exceptions are made. When

we find the one who makes us hrauwr,
and
suddenly it all makes sense. Rules

are made-up. Yet let's be honest,
the best things in life cannot be made
true

by rule. Rules work best
when they are about something
that is not itself made-up.

synopsish

A mysterious parcel. A grisly
murder. A hard luck private eye
with his own solitary code
of honor. A beautiful but
inscrutably implacable dame.
A vast, dimly-lit overreaching
conspiracy. A betrayal. A stage
magician with a trunk of secrets.
A driven police detective with
a secret of his own. A disgraced
prostitute. A pithy public speaker
who knows no more than he lets on.
A poisoned bottle of gin, lying
empty. A bartender with ears
too big for her mouth. A sudden
revelation. A film director
with a disgusting past. A reclusive
novelist with a heart of gold. A
butcher knife with a bad handle.
A freshly empty gun without a
print on it. And a lottery ticket
whose numbers would never be checked.
Somebody had to pull it all together,
pick up the missing pieces and make
sense of the jumble. And that some
body was dead. Oh well

skilled hands

skilled hands
make know-how possible
the minds behind them
fall in line, possessed
by what just must be done,
'til step by step, the job's
in hand

my hands, though
don't know what to do. I have
to figure all things out, in
mighty conscious reasoning.
Results show clearly
what I was
about.

devouring

The devourer of souls stepped out
in pinstripe skin and hat-shaped head.
It perfectly fit in
to every benefit of doubt,
and preyed upon
those willing to believe
in human beings
not
in one of these,
instead. But
this thing's close enough
not to be quite
found out.

It's made
of stranger stuff
than anything you'd
understand, but
just to look at it
it's one of us.

Things go
as they are planned

blithe naive

You don't have to worry 'bout me
I'm blithe, naive, sincere
you see.
I never will believe the worst
unless I hear it from you,
first.

I trust you,
'cause I know I can, and guess what
that says way more about me.
I love you,
'cause I know I can. And guess what
you've never said I can't,
or proved me wrong
on what I am.

You don't need to worry 'bout me
I'm blithe, naive, sincere
you see. I never will believe
the worst
unless I hear it from you,
first.

And what I am? The one who trusts
who loves just you, disprove that
if you must, but I have bet you can't.
And I have so much on this hand.

When you go into it

It’s more than a shame,
it’s a pity when you go into it
with high hopes
and open expectation
and find weak, overweening wish
for domination,
pushing and trying to make
and shape you.

Here
is one test
of whether you are capable
of love: you can tell

what love is not.

Unassuming

I am more unassuming than you.
I do not assume so, I know. I am
far beyond zero
in any such stakes
you could sink or place.
I don't ever presume, I don't
ever suppose, I don't
even put symbol or name
to face. I don't get
presumptuous, unless I'm about
to get sumptuous, and that
I apologize is a pun.
I am so unassuming,
that if you assume,
I expect that if that
is the game,

You'll have won.

lost at sea

I have unmanned the oars
on this dinghy of ours
in these valleys and troughs
of seas we toss

Between our small boat
and the sky, like a game
we play catch
as catch can, tossing
carefree and shameless
in easy free grace,
caring not
where we rise,
caring not where
we fall

Except each other's eyes.
If we drown,
we will know
we'll just sink
so deep in

where we've found
we belong, getting lost
would be win.

Still working

I was born to ruin
and consequence. I have
three ears more than normal
men. One by my heart, one
by brain (we all have that),
and one further in
and down, by which
I hear everything
within me that makes
a thumping and gurgling
sound

From which I infer
strange things. Still working
on whatever they may mean,
I guide myself in inscrutable
course, corrected within
by a startling check
and immutable force.

I have unmanned the oars

the me you won't meet

My torrid, fervid,
fervent and ardent ardor
comes crashing in torrents
and waves goodbye
to my rational sense
of you. The truth is,
you don't even know
that guy.

boat senses

When I step on a boat
I suddenly become starboard-handed
but
with senses expanded, topside
on deck,
I spin 'round
- and I bow.

For I know
I am suddenly
port-handed now.
Now my dear, it would be
every bit apropos
if you handed me a glass
of port. Just so. And poured one
for yourself, quite casually.
If that's the sort of thing
that's done on boats? You see
I don't know. For all I knew,
port is never imbibed on board. Perhaps
porter's used, instead? Either
way, I'd take it from you
in my port-hand, natch -
from whichever hand you extend.
Dealer's choice, with a clink
and a toss, it's down the hatch.
I think I can manage that much
just then, as my senses
expand and catch
in the rigging and waves
I suddenly understand.

open question

I never have anything in mind
when I ask.
So "whatever you want"
is a real impasse.
I just thought I'd find out
what was going to be? If only
I'd kept my mouth shut.
I guess we'll see?
Since you would have gone some which way
of your own,
if I hadn't barged in all curious.
Perhaps you can find your way back
to that. But in future?

If ever I ask,

It means I don't want to suggest
or steer, or control. I never
do ask if that's my goal. I suggest.
Or I point. I control
myself.
To try to control you
or anyone else is
not thinkable. Doesn't occur.
Undesirable, too.
Distasteful and strange.

How can I find out
where it's at
if the answer is changed
just because I happened to ask?
Insane. "I don't know" "I haven't decided yet"
- these are facts,
and always on-point
any time one asks
and it turns out
those answers are true.

I am not trying ever
to draw my answer out,
or put mine in
when I have asked you.

I have asked you.

carpet tactic

Alas alack a carpet tack!
The plush we cushed our flooring with
has worn and matted down with feet
Until it sticks. Our soles to prick
so unpredictably, despite
the same damn spot
is where it's at. Except
most times it doesn't poke!
You have to step a special way,
and you can't seem
to master that.
So down on fours,
you tease and push
the fibers and the tufts
aside and there! There is
the point of it. How could
a thing so pointy
hide?

ignore the secret part

Whoever comes into my life
I know who sent them
why they're here
and what they want to do to me.
They're trying to make me paranoid.
It isn't going to work, you see.
I'm wise to their chicanery.
I just ignore their secret parts
and deal as open, blithe, naive
as any sweet sincere dear heart.
It drives them nuts, just underneath.
Their surfaces and faces glad
proclaim their wonder and delight!
But underneath, I know they're mad

I've seen the world behind the world
I know it's real. Against it, I am right

As all these agents of the world
behind the world just grind their gears
and machinate in vain
to pierce my starry veil. My tears
are side-effects of yawn, by now.
It runs all through me now, there is
no hidden core of hate, contempt, disdain
- just sweet and yawning, tired abyss
within which colored lights are drifting
as it yawns some more. These neverending

vain attempts these agents make
just widen gaps and pile on points
I always score.

"entreaty"

Cherish your merits
without vanity - they
do you no credit then,
you see - and I'll show you
how to appeal to me
with reason and grace
and felicity
in brute force display
of your character. I know,
you already know those wiles,
but I'll add a trick or two
to your stash, as soon
as I come up with it,
my child.

indescribable

You’re an abyss of forbidden
wonder I’d like to die
halfway through exploring.
Your words conjure awful
and marvelous gods
and goddesses, and
make them at home
in happy country cottages.

So I had
this idea of you; I knew
it wasn’t you, but I figured
it would change
as we got to know each other
better. Strange. How did you
become my idea of you
so easily? I feel like Tokyo
before your gigantic Godzilian
rampage. No actually, I feel
like Tokyo after

Wow
Your mind’s
a stealth commando strike force
working in perfect sync. If a whole
countryside’s worth of bees
had swarmed inside me
to make honey in my heart - that
would be you. You are the bees. Buzz
buzz buzz. You’re a fixed star
in my night sky. I don’t dream
of reaching you, it’s enough
that you shine for me
to steer by.

Know what I like about you? Everyone
keeps trying to set you up as a statue,
and you just keep crushing the pedestal.
Your eyes are surveillance equipment
from some beautiful alien dimension. Peering
into ours
from unfathomable depths. What
do you see? What are you trying
to see?

You are
an outpost on the borderlands. A bulwark,
a fastness. An encouraging sight, for all
who venture near. You’re the funnest party
in the world forever, and you keep
inviting me, so offhand-casual.
I accept. Your mind
and heart are

indescribable

Okay. Your mind and heart
have the finest ass humanity
has ever seen. My mind’s eye
and heart’s tongue are droolin’
like a fool over the ASS ON THAT
mind and heart of yours. In some sense
Arguably
I am calling myself

the finest ass humanity has
ever seen, and saying

your mind and heart
have me.

clown v. fool

Clowns are just kidding around.
They use props to pull gags,
they wear warpaint and go
no-stop. A fool

often simply means so pure
in a cause so good that you can't
quite be sure they're kidding at all,

but you laugh. 'Cause you know
they're a fool. They're not clowning
around with it, though. Cool

the prepared mind

The hour hand shrinks
as the minute hand grows
They continue on around
while you pick out clothes
throwing maybes, noes
and misses in a pile
on the bed, as
the irritation ticks
inside your head.
You begin to suspect
no ensemble you craft
will make this occasion
worth showing up last.
Much later, maybe never
starts to look pretty fit.
'Til suddenly it clicks!
And you climb into it.
This perfect outfit
cannot be denied. Oh
well, you are late,
but at least
you tried.

poetic breakfast

I had a sandwich of omelette and brie,
and thought "What a nice way to start
a poem?" There wasn't much in it,
just butter and bread and eggs
whisked with cream, then fillings
dumped in, folded over:
some rhyme, but not much.
Certain words - some chosen
for texture, some pungency -
and tarragon, salt
and two small birds.
And a murder - implied,
just to shock, you see.
I really don't know
what the omelette contained.
It seems to have been
mostly for effect. It
never existed, except
as a start with a fit
in one's mind one could take
either way, to get: a poem!
Or else, to the kitchen to get
busy cutting, and breaking
some eggs.

But there weren't any eggs.
So a poem it is. I'm pretty darn
hungry, still. There is toast

and coffee, although
it is mostly dregs.

It was a wasp,

It was a wasp,
I think.
It had long legs.
It landed on my cheek
by my right eye. I could feel
its wings on my glasses lens
and I think it was drinking
my tears. Oh, my
There wasn't a reason
I had to cry. I had recently yawned
huge and beautiful,
and this thing has come
to be stood a drink
from my saltwater well,
well I think that's cool!
But I'd like it to go.
It's been

minutes, now.

My eyes have been shut
in denial of sorts. I want
to deny it these pale, glossy orbs
to walk upon (or to sting
of course). So by dint
of sheer strength
of attention
I hold

this beastie in place where it waits and stands
so inscrutably still. We are both growing old,
but I can outlast you, there
my friend.

I will.

It may have flown off,
but I feel it still.
The shadow impression
of where it stood
still holds its weight

light as memory,
'til my hand flails up
by an act of will

to smack nothing but me.

Why does the sea seem to follow me?

Why does the sea seem to follow me?
Sound of the surf keeps coming in round
I whirl about facing the staring waves
Replacing the path I swore I'd come down,
but no. I'm mistaken. This is the sea.
It's always been here, immemorial time.
Just breathe the salt spray
as the spreading waves
rush over your shoes,
then your knees,
this is fine.

Improv glitch

Sometimes it seems
like you skipped a few lines
in the script.
As if this was a scene,
and we each had a part in it
but what you say does not follow,
it skips ahead. In a way
tantalizingly sure enough
to swallow yet disjointed
- I almost could see
how we'd get to that fork
if you had followed me
or if I'd followed you,
if we'd kept trading turns
like sport, or
if we'd trade leads
jump ahead, answer back.

But you skip

whole scenes, almost. Whole
stages of thought in the track.
Our prints disappear, reappear
like the record was hacked
and just partly erased, but

I lived through that.

And we really didn't cover
those parts. It's just
a dotted line black
with the lack thereof
in the gaps. You lead on
in sudden jump flight.

So,
although it doesn't follow,
and though we missed parts
of where we could agree
- and I think that we might -
we proceed instead in fits
with missing parts

and starts from midair.

Lead on, skip on, you. Your approach
captures some of my heart. So I

will take care. It's
my job, then
now.

As we pause, to swing
back around
to whatever we passed
or skipped or lost
that could might have been
found. I will work

the gaps,
but for now,
I'll keep trust. For you

at least have the script.
And I don't. Let's just
have you direct,
and I'll edit

this mess of beautiful misfit
bits. There's an order in it,
a bridge, a throughline I dimly sense

within which you dance and live

illumining operation

illumining operation
where we dig for light deep down
each of us with picks and spades
of tone and shade gone underground
shafts we sink and reinforce
veins that guide us in their glow
ever brighter shines the tunnel
towards each other as we go

Illegal badass

The illegal badass criminal
has gotten away
scott-free again.
And everyone knows his propensity
to break the law
for foe or friend.
He only breaks laws with no evidence,
leaving suspect trail
of reasonable doubt.
He knows he will never be caught, unless
someone reads this poem
and figures it out

pearlmaker.

I’m happy to pass on
in altered form
each piece
of wisdom I have gleaned
from people. All the world. It must
be changed and tweaked in meaning
from this passing through of
me. Oh, since all the world's
an oyster, then
we must make pearls
of all the countless grains
of sand so keen
that slip in slick
to irritate. We coat them,
mother, in your glands'
secretions, so to compensate.
We make such chere objets d'art
of everything annoying
us, which we so hate. We must
remake the world. It’s all
we know to do. And we remake it
in ourselves, in acts of trust
we must renew. We recreate
all we have held.

the strand

Once a time, upon ago
the father took his daughter dear
and sat her 'pon his bouncing knee
and told her darling,

have no fear,

But times have come
to lean and worse. I'll need
to strand you in the woods.

You'll need to use your wit and pluck
to find some curse to break, or magic good
enough to beat this fix, and make a tale
of happy ends. I don't know how

your victory
shall come about,
but it's on you. There's
no more food to eat,
you see. We've reached
the end. We have run out
of time to spend.

The girl (her name
was beautiful) gave
solemn nod. Said, "Don't cry, Pop!
Just strand me anyplace,
you'll see. I'll set off sharp

and I won't stop until the trek
becomes a quest with some majestic goal
in view. I'll outwit fiends
and pass all tests,
and win my way straight back to you

by dinnertime tomorrow night.
What would you like? Pad Thai
again?"

"Pad Thai is great, my beamish girl!"
Her father cried, with tears and all
and stood

to face the oaken door
the end

Poe, Twain and Eternity

Poe is a mood
turned loose with words
to inflict upon you
- and no very good
mood either,
usually.

Twain on the other hand,
invincibly irascible!
Equally impossible to imagine
anyone beating him at his own game,
or to reckon what the rules are.

These two scrappy titans
of American letters occupy
an especial place in heaven
and hell, but only one of them
at a time in each. The afterlife

could not withstand their meeting,
I guess.

As to which one's which,
a special arrangement was made
whereby they switch.

And they're each always welcomed
with cheers and relief
in either place
when it's time to trade,
so heartily sick
of the outgoing one
that entire plane of existence
has by then become.

So artfully done, such knack
of management displayed! Bravo,
you two. We knew we'd fit you
in some way.

This One Is Yours

Do what you will it's a gift given freely
to decorate your sleeve,
or leave on your floor
You can't put conditions on gifts given freely
Except for this, really:
I don't need it no more
Apart from that do what you will, what it tickles
your fancy is free to,
it's at your dispose
To give to Goodwill or your charity preference
It don't make no difference, you know

It's not my heart
girl, this one is yours
Hold it! Keep it!
This one is yours
It's not my heart
now, this one is yours
Break it! Leave it!
That's what it's for
anyhow

It's not as if you or if I were the wrong one.
It's cooperation
that's brought us so far.
So far from so close we can't see the fork taken
that led us away from
where we gave our hearts
When you took yours back, well I don't know exactly
you pulled it so deftly
your touch like a pro
But I don't need mine, you can keep it for practice
it's really quite useless you know

It's not my heart
girl, this one is yours
Hold it! Keep it!
This one is yours
It's not my heart
now, this one is yours
Break it! Leave it!
That's what it's for
anyhow

I'll Help You Decide

'Cause only you know what's only good
for only you, and you know that
I never would argue
'cause if nobody went through
what you did, how could they presume
to tell you shit? But by that same token
or a similar one - you could not go through
the things that I've done, and surely
our experience has something to teach,
well since we're being so unique -

I'll help you decide. I'll help you
decide, I'll help you decide. I'll help
you decide, I'll help you decide.
I'll help you decide.

And only you know what's only good for only you,
and anyone could tell you see right through
all the lies and the bull shit they strew about
still you can't spy the right way out
so you're spooling out your whole big boo hoo tale
of all the things you've done to no avail
you say you're standing at the crossroads
of heaven and hell, well
I've been standing there as well, and

I'll help you decide. I'll help you
decide, I'll help you decide. I'll help
you decide, I'll help you decide.
I'll help you decide.

You could complain
all your worldly life
or you could abstain
let it slip right to the side
the pain that you feel
is cause you don't know which way to dive

I'll help you decide. I'll help you
decide, I'll help you decide. I'll help
you decide, I'll help you decide.
I'll help you decide.

There's a lie in your eyes that belies all doubt
You could always find the wrong way out
You got a rack of knacks and talents like that to draw from
You never really cared whose bell you rung
Well I'm coming to the door, got an apple for you
It's candied and sweet just like I knew
you been waiting all day for what you can't resist,
well we can get from that to this

And I'll help you decide. I'll help you
decide, I'll help you decide. I'll help
you decide, I'll help you decide.
I'll help you decide.

Left Lucky

You left me so lucky
You left me so lucky, you'll never know
You left me so lucky
Since you're gone
I've been on a roll,

Honey you
were the one sure thing
in my life
And I grew
'til you fit so snug
so tight
Then you split
left me naked and wet
to the skin
So I grew
I am growing yet,
into all I've been

You left me so lucky
You left me so lucky, you'll never know
You left me so lucky
Since you're gone
I've been on a roll

I was new
now I'm feeling so old
and strong
I was right
'til you told me for you
I was wrong
And you left
Leaving me to my own
designs
Which I kept
working out and upon,
and they work fine

You left me so lucky
You left me so lucky, you'll never know
You left me so lucky
Since you're gone
I've been on a roll

To be I guess

Whose minds would I cross
if I never exist
again? Whose hearts
would I tear out, then?
Is the pain hypothetical
in those I love
enough? To keep me
neck deep in this stuff

Pretend that it's not.
Now how does that feel?
Imagining they meant so little
so real

And I guess I must be
as real to them.

Shall we live on a guess?
I guess.
Amen

Hated and hateful

Hated and hateful, he strode the land
or stood around in the way of all

Never giving a shit who found him vain
or amusing, or else insufferable.

Within himself in sufficient strength,
he knew to his core how good it was

To be so full of hatefully
hated hate. No reason at all

it just feels how it does.

kindness and secrecy

I laughed too much
at the secret you told.
I wasn't because I knew,
oh no. It wasn't because
you'd built it up
with dire secrecy oaths
and bloody-cut palms pressed
tight, it was just
that I knew
it wasn't true.

This secret of yours.
It was something that I'd
told you,

and I guess you'd made it
your own. And got it
not right

in the process of knowing
shifting to known, with just
a few flips of perspective
and twists of insight.

Don't fret. I won't
tell a soul. I'm afraid
I could not keep my face
controlled.

void vs. abyss

The abyss is not the void. The void
has nothing in. An emptiness
without an edge or end to it.
A weightless waste of sentiment.
No air to breathe, no peace to fit.
Say, have you been? How did it go? And
how did you come out again? At that, how
did you first get in? The void's mysterious,
my
friend.
One vast
unsounded no.
All yesses vanish
without consequence.
All nothingness, no room
for doubt.

Abyss

- say, have you been? Is full
of solid dark and moving glow
of colored light without
a source. You feel your weight
but have no course, since nothing
pulls. You strive in thought
unclear - no force. And things
unseen emerge uncalled, and can't
be sensed at all, at all

- but you
can feel them
when you look.

You don't have to,
though. No call,
and there's the hook.

obligatory social response meltdown

Thanks
No pleasure. My problem.
I meant to do that.
My welcome! Worries.
Mention it. I mean

anytime. It
was something.

Yeah If

If I die,

then I'll have done some thing.
I crawled across
a desert of mud baked black, until
I wore out and cracked. Like
everything.

When I die

I want to take myself. But I know
you can't take it with you, when you go
you're gone as well. Whenever
I die.
I always
do some thing.

To mark the occasion
in special ways, for any one
who has marked my days,

I
die.

Like we always do.
There's a reason why
we came here, and dying
is always the thing
that makes it true. So while

I die,

please don't
forget something.
I know you're going to any way, I
just had
to throw in a plea

to make this ring.

Ambiguity burns

This moment has
dramatic space,
unexpected shifts
and pivots like
a waltzing sentry
on the walls
of memory. Things
as they are and as
they were
are passing in, and
things are passing out -
and best of all these things
is ending, which
has all the feel
of midair, and
of doubt.

We hang suspending
with a twinge of hope.
Optimistic melancholy. This
is nostalgia
kept in now.
So let us

maybe not

be jolly.
It
will all
turn out
somehow.

And nope,
it shall not be
nor have been
folly.

thwart not foil

I want to write
a mighty poem
I knock the door, the muse
she is
not home.

ho-em

Let's assume

I don't understand how dew
comes about, but it does. It is there
by the time I go out. I assume
that the mist of night decoheres
into drops from evaporate state
as the morning nears. I assume
no motive for this. It could be
a physical yearning
for surfaces, and grass
spreads its surfaces wide
to collect and cohere all the vapors
that pass. So it ends up atop,
and occasionally underside
as well. There is dew.
I don't need to ask. We don't
need Netflix documentaries on this.
Let's assume that the mist
loves the blades as they cut,
almost motionless through
the night air, 'til the water's
seduced and brought low
like a drink
to a cup.

Oh, you knew it would always
be there. When you get up
that early? It's hard
not to care.

You assume
that your feet
will be wet, walking out. Well, what
has drawn you to the lawn?

Same thing
as has drawn the dew,
no doubt.

It isn't fair.

It isn't! It's not fair. But
you know what else isn't fair?
The waves.

What's so unfair about the waves,
you pursue.

I didn't say unfair. Just not fair.
There is no concept of fairness in them.
They pull themselves endlessly in
their moon-drawn wheel, blind
to her loveliness, heedless
of all but the draw
of her endless weight
and the pull of their fellows
calling them in from ahead,
urging them on from behind.
Never to act or turn aside
in their courses inexorable
but not deliberate. Unchosen. Reacting only
when cloven by boats or broken by divers
and surfacers. Blown and stoked by wind.
Chased away in brand new rings by a breaching
whale's crash, fading out to ripples
drawn into new rising and combining
ripples, ringing the world with waves - but you

are not a wave.

Yes,
you pursue, insistent. Intent.
I'm not.
It isn't fair.

satan was a bird

The first angels were all birds, eventually.
Oh, spirit first, shifting in light and
coursing through patterns and spectra,
but as matter awoke and took form
and they saw
the pulsing and wriggling beings
proliferating in variety and abundance,
they were like "gross." 'Til they all saw

birds. Dinosaurs, even soaring pteranodon
didn't do it for them. They had already invented
kites, and were flying them from heights. This flesh-kite
with bone struts seemed ugly but functional. Interesting,
not fascinating. Then they all saw birds.

Angels used to pay not much attention to the world
for millennia. They understood they were messengers
of God, yet this function was somewhat mysterious.
Understood to be more for later than now.

Then they saw birds, and the whole scheme became
clear. As starlings take off en masse
and murmuration, flying in twisting, shifting
synchrony upon some cryptic signal to launch,
they all became birds. Some swooped down
becoming feather and flesh, eventually
a death dive.

Others simply took that form in spirit,
an idea of self that became fixed, because
never surely to be broken. And ready and alert,
they waited for the messages they'd take
to these beings,

who were surely God's image.

Later, there was an outcry: "Aw, MAN!"

"THESE things?" Okay. Most
of the angels

contorted and warped their spirit
in painful wrench rearranged - but
they were not giving up those wings.

Some angels, though

were not having it.

At all.

banana bread calculations

I eat more banana bread than
if it was going out of style.
I eat banana bread like gangbusters
eat banana bread, and let me tell you
back in the days of Prohibition
those courageous, clandestine dudes
in their insular little cells
having to trust no one with their lives
but each other used to consume
enormous amounts

of banana bread to fuel
their righteous crusade. I eat

banana bread like a house on fire,
and I am the fire, and the house
is built of banana bread. Banana bread
and me
are like
two peas in a pod,
very shortly to become one
larger pea. I eat banana bread
like probably an ape would. Because
I can't imagine that ape doesn't love
bananas! Or wouldn't recognize this
supremely efficient improved delivery system
for that banana-y goodness

Banana bread makes my mouth wish
it was my stomach already, and my hands wish
they were my mouth, and my eyes wish
they were my hands.

Some people don't like it,
banana bread. They have no taste
for it, or perhaps none
at all. I dismiss such fools
from my calculations - except
possibly as a source of additional
banana bread, when banana bread
is distributed to all
and some want none. I can perhaps
take that off your hands
for you

storytelling

Like anyone else, I can sit for hours
telling stories. Regale the whole room
with an easy, off-kilter grace that swoops up
everyone there. Then as it winds out and down
to a perfect close - the unexpected surprise
that makes the whole thing fall in place backwards,
and mean something completely else, something
it had to be; inevitable really

Then - like anyone else,

I can look up at the room and smile,
seeing. Knowing
if anyone else had been there, well

they'd have had to be there.
These stories aren't hard to tell.
Anyone can tell them. We all
have them in us. All we need

is the room.

bird-minded

Birds have smaller minds than ours
and so they fit reality
inside.
While we
capaciously make room
for anything we think, plus
all the things we think
to hide. For any sense that we
can make, for all this made-up
make-believe. Plus some small
bird-sized corner of reality
- whatever fits - that jerks
its eyes incessantly,
and sets itself at any flash
to start into the sky,
but can't. So sad. We have
so long since lost our gift
of flight, which we
have never had.

Impression of Tom Waits

He’s himself incarnate, or so
it seems, so seamy. Most of us don’t
even try that trick. Full disclosure - do I know?
I never once met or talked to the guy.
But in the meantime, though - I have
a pretty good idea, of the man and it’s pretty
personal to me, so. Just gotta ask.
Have you heard him sing? His voice rolls out

from the gap left in the emotional spectrum
after all the blues have already been sung, his larynx
a damp rag
-wrung-dry, and there just ain’t none,
no more left, no more blues - except oh!

The echoes.

From which he croons a deep-throated
porn soliloquy, growling raw
and as wretched as anyone could ask. He didn’t ask
for whatever gift he has, he’s just worked it
for all it’s worth. And he seems pretty pleased,
pretty cheerful, given the blasted landscapes
he paints. He seems well-adjusted
to such dismal scenes. I think he knows the worst

that’s in him. I think that’s a key to his insight. Have you heard
the lyrics he draws out from there? The seediness
of dim-lit smoke-curtained rooms, waking
with a stain on your soul the size and shape
of somebody’s face
stolen from a blackout memory -
but it looks good there. There are pills
for it, anyway, and whatever’s left in bottles. It’s

like some demented Catholic saint
decided to get all his Purgatory right now, which
is insane
because pretty sure his upbringing skipped all that.
But somebody’s running a penance, or at any rate,
some inhuman experiment in shameless absolution.

He’s like a scientist, worse,
a Frankenstein and Frankenstein’s monster
in one, reconceived as a vaudevillian
vivisection routine: an outrage,
up self-dissected onstage, revealing
the most sensitive and delicate structures
like an obsessive inward exhibitionist - people wince,
cringe and stifle cries as he runs electric charge
through twitching, exposed parts with wires, the audience
crying out in sympathetic pain - to his deadpan enjoyment.

You don’t see such workings normally, but
you can feel them in you now. Thanks! Then he jumps back,
slapped all haphazardly back together again in a cheap suit
and plunging into a rollicking barrelhouse waltz-time rag!
With inappropriate jazz-chord flourishes and voicings
thrown in just to show you. Just to smack

every forehead in the room back
in its seat of consciousness with something wet.
And he finishes the number, and, sincerely curious, asks
from the side of his mouth, “Djya like that one? I got another,”
with a drawl from no other region on Earth.

He’s one of us.

A lounging, rangy and rawboned shambolic raconteur
of triumphant woe; prettiest, pettiest betrayal, crime
and skulking, skipping guilt, and
lip-smacked sourness. He might as well
be naked in a drawing class, holding a pose
till we’ve gawked our share
and given up on any resemblance. He’s just there.
Human nature incarnate - just his own, thanks much.
The piano and voice noise he’s capable of making
rings out like the gong of a hollowed-out soul. Man,

I don’t know if he’s a Bodhisattva or what,
but if he ain’t coming back, I don’t care to be reborn
to a world without his semi-cocked view on things.
Most of us have missed something,

and Tom Waits caught it.

He seems willing to pay the price,
too, but I don’t know who’s equipped to tally it
up for him. He holds a position of unique
and uncomfortable authenticity. People
are mostly inclined to leave him to it.

In Rock and Roll, Tom Waits is the power
behind the throne, except he doesn’t care
what the royalty does. He’s back there
for his own business,
and it smells.

A more human man you will not find alive.

I don’t know if he’s a great artist. He’s
an artist. Rankings are for critics to chew,
swap the taste of, puzzle out and crow over. This

man’s apart from the game, in that sense. He’s got
all the integrity of a lump of coal. It doesn’t take
Santa Claus to drop that in a dirty sock, give it
a hard and vigorous squeeze and call it a diamond. Superman,
maybe, but Superman wouldn’t come within Mach 3
of a Tom Waits song.

Everyone in those is vulnerable.

But Tom Waits? A nice guy? Sense I get is,
he knows his own heart. Something few descend to,
and I suspect no one can know their own heart
without taking full possession of the consequences.
Owning to what they’ve done. Knowing your own heart
takes a scraped and scathing life. If you had a complaint
for Tom Waits, over some way he treated you? I suspect

you’d find him answerable. I suspect his answer
might astonish you. A scathed-simple humility. Not
meek, just well-abashed, and long since over his own
bullshit. Not keen to shovel any more on himself,
for your benefit or mollification.

I’d guess he’d treat you fine. I doubt he’d consider himself
"nice" over it, but maybe, a better man than the worst
he knows is in him. The man who doesn’t know his worst
is just the one who later says he couldn’t be responsible for it.

He’s not wrong.

All men are animals. Most men are babies. Some men are monsters,
too. Waits is a self-tamed wild menagerie and hard-knocks nursery act,
but the wildest beast of all is the one keeping the others in line,
the whole scary and harmless routine, doing amusing tricks
for the wowed-insensible crowd. The love he inspires is terrifying.

Is it any wonder?

He’s a pretty consummate professional,
whatever else he is. Wary as I am, and I am,
I would trust Tom Waits with any con he wanted to pull.
I’d consider it a debt of honor paid, whatever he bilked me for. Yet
I suspect he’d leave me with his own lucky silver dollar in my pocket,
for my trouble and profit.

He strikes me as a pretty great cat. Pacing himself,
leery and amiable.

dream logic

When something happens in a dream,
a memory appears, within which it
makes perfect sense.
You understand "Ah, yes.
I know the deal for this
well-lived experience."

Immediate. No question asked.
All scrutiny has been bypassed:
because it is from memory,
and feels well-pondered,
grounded fast.

So it proceeds, skips on apace:
each thing that happens comes prepacked
in random frame to fit its case.
Explained, because we know it's that.
These things, recalled in retrospect,
considered having woken up - do not
all seem so well-conceived
to fit together as backdrop.

Some real things, with real backgrounds
are dropped in. Verisimilitude,
you might forgive yourself to think
- but no, they're picked at random, dude.

The dream leaves us to suss it all.
To choose our acts and paths between
these elements already known,
each just a case of some known thing
- where some are real, and all feel real.

It doesn't even take a blink.
In life, we're used to misfit sense.
In dreams, we trust our memories.
Dream logic knows how blithe we are,
how little we trace consequence,
how confident that makes us feel.

love robot

I love when I am robot.
My feelings are still there,
but I activate above them
with mechanical clarity,
detached and inquisitive
lenses and blades. It is so
very rare.
It's usually the other way.
My feelings activate above
me, all around and all through.
And they peer and cut dissecting
everything I care to do. And
they analyze and calculate,
and thoroughly conclude:
feels right. Feels good, and
does not compute.