gig like any other

If I were a DJ in the seventies, 
at a radio station like 'KRP
my show would be Chillrocket Cheese
& The Can't-Miss Princess Baby Queens 
of His Late Night Daydreams, and this 
would be considered culturally normal.
Except I would always refer to the show  
as "a program," and I 

would be Chillrocket Cheese. 

My callers would be mostly
girls, women - a baby now
and then would slip through, but kids?
This is an adult program. Real 
mature. What do babies know 
about rock & soul such as I would spin 

for my can't-miss princess baby queens? 

Of my ongoing never-quite-beginning
on-time late night daydreams. Each caller 
would chat me up a bit, until the first 
awkward lag. Then I'd edgewise chime: 
"So, what can't-miss hit did you have 
in mind for us to spin for you tonight, 
to chase away your country blues or
citified jazz static and frizz, whiling
its wiles into a long, good moment of yours
for us all to share? Why don't you tell us 
about it?"

That would be my catchphrase. I'd say 
that whole thing each time, and she'd 
name that tune, and while I rifled it out 
of my huge collection to spin for her, 
we'd talk some more about what
it means to us both. That song,
that beat,
that 

crazy riff. And the whole wide
world would get a listen, just a deeper
cut in thicker gloss on that song's
sweet-ass deal. And then they all

(plus we: she and I) 

would just let it spin 
not saying a thing 
as we look in each other's eyes. Well, 
eye-surrogates. She'd have
a poster on her wall
either of me (they sell for $0.75) 
or of some popstar, probably
the one in the song - and she'd
lose herself on the wall, in the poster,
in those eyes. 

In the eyes in the poster on the wall. 
That is. Me, 

I'd just look in the mirror 

it works. 

If a dude calls in, which happens, I'm like 
"Okay my fine fellow eavesdropper upon 
heartsleeved deejays, teenyboppers, vixens,
and chart-toppers - what makes you call in?"

That's down to a trademark patter as well,
although I may switch out "vixens" for
"matrons" or "minxes," on a mood-by-mood
basis. Mood usually cued by 
the prior caller.

Regardless of patter-toggle, every time,
the surprise and sincere twinge in my voice
as I ask would be genuine. Huh? 

Every time, I'll about guarantee it's
a whole different reason, and takes about
five-ten seconds to get out. Then as they trail
off I cut in: "Okay, do you wanna talk about
what goes on in locker rooms, give the listening
audience an exhibitionistic vulgar, illicit thrill
of nauseous titillation, or would you rather 
talk a) sports, b) beer or c) song requests?"

This too I have down to a trademark patter, 
which - I bet you could have about guessed. 

They pick whichever option and we let chips
fall. It doesn't happen much, just once or twice
three times a month, but that's when all

the complaint mail comes.

Me and some guy, busting the dreamy-eyed
illusions of the romantic and rock-soul-lil'-bit
-a-disco-lately public with our frank candor
about locker rooms! It does seem a sour fit
for the show's ambience, but what are you
gonna do? These guys call in. The show slips
sideways dimensionally into Chillrocket Cheese
& His Way Past Twilight Zoned-Out Pointless 
Locker Room Confab, and we run the gamut 
through the gauntlet. Talk about how they
smell, various microbe problems, the quality
and different options of lockers and locks,
academic vs. institutional, public vs. private
recreational or athletic facilities, showers
(curtains: yeah? Really?) and especially the lewd,
rude and frank-ass bits guys come out with
on overshare mode in there for no reason.
Overcompensating maybe for hanging out
in all their such-as-it-is glory? Acting all

"This? Oh this is totally normal to me in fact -
what would you guys do if a salacious hypothetical
about a woman were raised for discussion?"

Christmas. Our loyal listeners about can't stand 
the misdirection and blatant cowardice, just because
guys are nude in a room for sports. Some even chide 
"Why do you even suggest that option?" Hypocrisy 
that's why. I'm highly suggestive with my callers, 
all of them. So what? Double-standard much? Is
that what you're suggesting, I should be one-way
suggestive? Nope! Not much not me, sorry - but
I never bridle at the chide since I don't get it.

We pass that complaint on to the customer.  

Before any male caller gets through, we take 
their address for the purpose. Those letters 
fly true! Don't worry - someone reads them first
to redact the return address and name info (the 
writer was not asking to be pen pals with the 
guy she presumably principally objected to)
plus to make sure it's not anything I should 
you know, address

myself. 

If I were a DJ in the seventies, 
at a radio station like 'KRP 
my show would be Chillrocket Cheese
& His Can't-Miss Princess Baby Queens 
of Late Night Daydreams, spinning reams 
of the sweetest and punch-gut rock and soul 
ever bought or sold to pour down the air 
for free, to you, from your radio. 

One time a young woman named Alex, 
an unimpeachable type, surprisingly 
deep and musical voice called in
and I got mixed up. We ended up
talking about locker rooms. 

That, if you remember all my callers 
and listeners? Was that time I almost got 
married! She talked me out of it, but 
I'm the one who missed out there,
I bet. Alex? 

If you're listening, this one's for you. It's a 
little track by an upstart band from Way
Yon Under (that's Australia, folks) called 
AC/DC, and the song is "Baby Please Don't 
Go." Alex knows the story. 

The production subsequently failed.

The production subsequently failed 
after record-setting runs packing houses
and parking lots full of those eager just 
to be near enough
to say they went. Then ambitions unsated,
come back again
and again for more. For
twenty unbreakable seasons 
it ran as the critics mused in wonder, first: 
over the unique - and what's best, novel
features of the play, then:
drawing depths forth and from
and between the characters and relations
and the actors reflected in them, dimly 
(who soaked up such praise as theirs 
by right, birthright even) - while 
the run rolled on increasingly 
like direction on speed. The critics
would play upon new directors
and passing casts picked apart
for contrasts to enrich the compost
and sewage art of this never-ending,
ever-rending banquet. This critics' feast.

And of course, all through: themes.
Significance. They could harp like angels
with demons driving them, o glory hallelujah
goddamn! Every sliver of sly curse struck
a tittering chorus of amen, cistern brethren - but

The general refrain of praise ran "yay" and
"huzzah" and "one for the ages" and "this 
is our defining," cuing endless and echoing 
blah. They dissected all they had to say, plus
oh! The play: What this says, why it strikes
such deep chords all through, what it says
about who it strikes them in. Finally, what
it says about us all, to begin with for a start!
How about the fact that our culture, that we
still, still, keep returning to this tired and gnawed
-off flat, stale feast of picked bone, cold grease
and fat? Isn't that - you'll forgive us - either 
kind of pathetic, or telling of some damn thing?
And if so: don't look in the mirror to answer this! 
What?

Eventually in some quarters it was seen to have
gone past a joke, already. Many years past that
point those quarters had shrunk to dimes, all
the dearer for deflation, and they were sure. 

The production subsequently failed. The public
(who'd never really "got" the appeal) joined in 
with a segment of the critics who disdained
such support and convened an abrupt, long
-overdue by some accounts inquest for sport
on this still-twitching, once immortal corpse. 

You can only be immortal once. That's the deal. 
As the sayers of nay reared nigh and stamped
their sparking hooves, tossed flaming manes
at apocalypse skies and loosed their gifted
teeth, the production gave up the ghost. Its veins

held only water. Its meat tastes of wafer. Its reins
were never as long as they seemed, and its reign
was brief. 

the thing about the gloves, is

The thing about the gloves is
you put the gloves on
your hands become indestructible
and you're out in the yardwork:
a vain symbol of human order
doing no real good for right
and wrong. Just tidy my own
patch of paradise. 

It's important because what if
dr. fucked-up caterpillar comes back
my old nemesis, bright green eye 
drawn in fuzz on his back? More 
tiny black bristles than you ever
felt sting, burn and swell! Well

at least that shit won't get on my
hands. I can gently lift up and pitch
him up, away and down to Statesville
prison, which - I forget which town,
but it doesn't matter. Most of these
clowns don't quite make the trip. There.
Done.
No trouble this time 
to speak of or curse, or carry on.
Time for a Coke, and get off my lawn. 

The gloves are off 

This day is going, but 
not gone. 

harvest of ears

There were four ears of corn in there, 
and I took: the best and the worst, 
and I ate the best first. 
The one who put them in knew just 
what I'd done: I left them two pretty, 
good middle-best ones. Which 
to judge by the praise (self-compliments,
chef!) were pretty damn good 
by standards we mess (which are pretty 
damn high, at that).

If I had instead took the two worst ears,
what then? The chef would feel like
a scumbag, dude. Putting out bad corn
to make me choose - knowing what
a hot altruist martyr I am? Born to bet
it all, sacrifice and lose!

I'd have to be an asshole to pull that move. 

If I took the very two best ears, though
- ow. That doesn't say much about them, 
somehow, or about how I feel. So: 

I flattened the bell. Took the best 
with the worst and I chowed down well. 

That best ear was reward,
like I knew it would be.

The worst? Was okay, good surprisingly.
My snaggle-tooth gap kernel buddy o' mine!
It salted up buttersweet juicy and fine, and 

it occurs to me I could have took: middle two. 

Not my fault. That's just not something I'd 
have thought to do. Anyway, what! I'd never 
inflict the worst! 

Unless I'd tried it out and found how good first. 

 

brevity's house

Brevity is the soul of wit,
as they say. But what
they do not say is: a wink
is to brevity as windows
of the soul are to eyes. Or
as clicking the lights
on and off in the upper room
of the soulhouse is, seen
through the windows by
some voyeur or passerby.
I should think it obvious why
they do not say it. True. It is
a bit obvious.

armor mantra

Never trust no more.
Never make that mistake
again, again. Oh no, not
again. And the armor
goes on feeling
oh, so strong
as the guard comes up
and their vision dims
to a visor slit
they can just squint through.
Imagining everyone bad as you.
You have well-trained another
new warrior, hard.
Leery, wary and cagey,
no - caged and scarred. With
always the guard up and ready
to cry. Imagine the army
you've raised up and running
from you, steadfast on the way
to die? Sworn to live every day
fighting scared with mad,
remembering and cursing
who they once were? When trust
seemed a makeable bet to lay.
You improve and uplift
so many defenses
this way. 

spats bats crickets and scats

"Go climb a lake!"
"Go jump in a tree!"
We have such tiffs, 
do you and I. Or 'rows' 
you might say. But you 
and me,
have decided it best
to row differently. 
"Go piss up a kite!"
"Go rope a fly!"
The rule is no crack
can be twisted straight.
It must be half-off, 
or upside-ways. 
The detached admiration 
it brings is great. 

whimwit

I am whimwit, jackanace
grandalark! The ape 
of an angel, my halo sparks 
from the hard-wiring I put 
difficult in, just to make all this ease
of grace smack sin. Or "smack of" sin
-
I've inadequate sense
to tell between such shades 
and lamps. The whole thing lights
up fine! Just depends how carefully
you so carefree hold the clamps.

Just plow.

Plow forth! Wrestle thine plow 
up, back and cockeyed sideways
scraping out front door
and push whole trudging ways
ungrudgingly out to the fields
you love/abhor.

Now, back into it - frontways, fool! 

Not backwards yank! It's put thy back into
it, I mean! Intuit, next time! That stunt was 
wack! Now! Situate. 

And eye the row. It is what seems. It
isn't there yet, yes I know. But eye it
anyway. Let's go. Grip up both handles, and
- plow forth. Lean in and churn those legs,
old horse! Now heave that back! Don't
hurt yourself. These are long days, 
and you slept in, so please expect 

this harvest moon will tan your neck 
from day's red burn. Plow meaning free! 
Now feeling it! Let plow's shear break 
and tear up ground for you to lose 
your footing in, abysses deep. 
Now reeling in breaths of deep, rich
earth you keep not quite connecting
with.

Get grounded, sun! It's yeoman's work
in these here fields, until untilled and
missed-a-spot lies duly tossed! Flirtatious shirt
flung by - big boss, you stud.
This patch you labor
on smells rank
from oily-limned man-limbs!
Oh, are we only writing?

Thanks. 

Let milling crowds of reapers gawk. 
They follow in your dirty wake. Hey wait. 
You guys? We missed a step? AH YES - 
here sowers come! To sew in stitching-time
and seam up tight like fate. Hey wait!
Those are not 'sowers'! They are
sewers, and they do seem uptight
to be called so. Sorry, folks. 
What are you doing here, and
...does anybody else smell all that?

Rhyme scheme askew? Track gone awry,
coursing way off-plot? Diagonal to
the furrows on neighbor's brow, stood
wondering whose field you think
you're plowing now? Don't do me
any favors, buddy! I got this!

Just plow

gush gush

You don't gush much
(though you do enthuse),
but when you do
it's infectious as blues.
With all of the uplift
great blues has - and nil
melancholy somehow,
no jazz.

joy of painting

One time don't you just wish 
Bob Ross came on and hacked out 
some crazy ass Cubist shit? 
Didn't look like anything! And 
babbling happily all the way, 
telling all his fans how to do 
this and that. As if all his fans
weren't choking on craw!
Appalled at the masterpiece 
he just pulled. Looks 
pretty good, Bob! 
Not a happy cloud 
in the sky at all

farmer's blow

I just did the farmer's blow
I know. That isn't a thing 
that you need to know,
and isn't a thing I'm good  
at, too. But this time,
I cleared my mustache, 
it's true. Even hit the brick 
I was aiming at. Is this 
who I am now? And if so, 
how? And who?

becoming modesty

Her modesty becomingly
has clothed her in a mystery
that's plain for every eye to see
- you see, she's wearing clothes!

She's not the exhibitionist
she claimed to be at conference, once.
'Exhibitor's the fitter word
- as everybody knows.

It's for the best, I would suggest.
She shares ideas I do too.
Some showoff stunts go sweetest once
one's audience and one make two,
and one, and true.

Too much and too easy

"Too much!" She said. I love
too much! I thought. I always 
kind of have, I guess I bought 
the whole damn stock and store 
to bring still wanting more. For 

you, 

my love. I won't 
bring less. I won't 
love less, but I shall give 
a better, measured best to fit
- as best I can, your want 
of it. 

Too easy. 

perspectives on willing to kill

People are always willing to kill
ants in the house. 
Not all people - I know at least one, and 
not all ants. You can't. But people 

Look like ants, 
from high enough up 
above them. So watch

out,
and if you can't
casually step upon
their heads, turn your shoe
and crush, try love. 

Try love. And if they bite, 
or swarm your sugar 
or honey, or 
pants, try 
love. Try 
love, try love. 
And if that fails, 

Just dance.
Try dance 

darling around

I just thought "darling" must
be a gerund or present participle,

and the verb "to darl." I darl, you
darl, he or she darls, we's darlent,

(always with apostrophe 's oh
shut up, sorry) we darl, y'all's 
darlin', they darl. 

Like that. The meaning is
too obvious to state, I hope. Darlers.
Darlees. Darlousness and Darlition. 

It scans, it scales, it scopes. 

I mean, have I missed something
or am I just right? What happened
to English that we messed-up this
easy skip, step jump stunt for so long?

Darlin' I might have to write a song.   

unwelcomed not

You were unwelcomed, not 
unwelcome. And this slip 
of courtesy on my part
was just 
distraction,
borne of wonder 
and trust. You did not
barge, but slooped
into my life.
If it 
would not
be too ridiculously 
late? I welcome you well now. 
Your please is my pleasure. 
Your thanks claps fate.
Your greatness never 
grates. 

darling

Forgive my seeming doubt. 
It's just
that if you really were, 

unfaithful, 
I don't really

care about shit
like that. Not any
more. Because within
some fit you find, it
cannot break.

I don't say put
me to the test, but
you and me, to me
define such fit. And it
is, was, will be for
the best.

For darling you
I see and know. I darl
you.

I'll be forever
darling after you,
for sure. I'm your
eternal darler, darling
true. And blasted wrath 
and stupid fool as it all seems, 
I care
quite much
that you don't. Or haven't. 
Or won't. 

But I know I would care
no less if you do. 

coded vessel

Language is operant bits that hit,
flip, mix to switch up modes
or reinforce by wink, hint, shove 
or goose charged messages 
along their course. Stand back 
apaces, love. Just let it
mix in eye, and let
some truth emerge. Or 
beauty, true. Or good. We mustn't 
be too picky with what's served. 

Except we must. For beauty is 
the sensual flow of water in throat 
so parched from deserts, unbeautified. 
It's no cracked vase. It springs 
of hope.
And good
is excellence, or bright
right-wronging difference, 
and shame of each! We know 
we don't

Live up to much. At least 

The truth, we know, can teach
And if it won't, we'll school ourselves
beyond the reach of headmasters. As if 
some sallow expertise could beach 
the whales we are, with all the flukes 
we stir. 

Let's revel then. In language, 
and make these tidy pieced-in words 
commend! Before we recommend.
A proper order ladies, sirs. 

tain't

'tain't 
with the apostrophes 
is taint in some quite 
shining eyes. Whereas
without, it's plain and pat:
a stain spread through. 
Apologize. For me, 
'tain't either! Either one. 
I guess my standards grew
too hard and far to stoop 
to such fine scales. I lose 
in that, and all such lossy 
fun. I've won, 
and win, 
and run 
so many fails. But I 
ain't half begun. 

logic-solve operator rockstar

Most problems are figure-outable,
if you don't sweat correctness
but accuracy. Fortunately or un-,
that means you might get solutions 
you don't care to see. 

Who owns these waves

How do you paint a breaking wave?
You've got to be quick as shit 
with that brush! The next one coming
won't behave, identically or any such.
It won't hold pose to fix the light. 
It won't take clothes off of itself. 
I guess, 
you just paint only waves 
that intermittently fix, adjust 
in mind, approximating the ideal 
you want to catch, because - it caught
your eye, some days ago. And won't 
be bought off, sold, or even caught. 
You sit and watch the waves come in. 
You paint each only one 

that helps you drag your streaming nets 
from this real sea, to cast upon 
the shore, well-caught: one perfect wave 
(for purposes of thought and art) lies 
beached in canvas set in sand, 
and gasps in air. It played 
its part. 

corresponsive

As correspondents,
we partake in shining gift
of perfect fit and no mistake.
For all misgiving that we find, 
we just assume the other had 
for their part no misgift in mind,
and open eyes correctually (no need
to open mind or heart) (at this late date!).
As we respond, we question thus and such
of we that rose in us, as bother, fuss 
or wonderstuff - and so, 

await the brave reply. We know
surprise inevitable, but also know 
surprise will fit in by degrees 
to make ideas whole. We only ever have 
idea of someone we know. But by and by 
in leaps, betimes - we know each 
corresponsible. 

So who owns this? The blame, the gift,
the credit we uplift to shine? Appears 
to be an accident. Okay. Let's call it 
both. Yours, 

mine. 

I too

I too am alone
in time. I shake
this blade of grass
from my body
of dew and for once
the morning light plays
all the way through. I fall

like a nail to the pavement
at the verge, and am a nail. Waiting 

for the thinnest of margins, a bicycle tire
or - no human foot. That would be cruel.
Plus I lie flat and unweaponized. I
too
am alone in this world. Waiting
for someone to pick me
up, angle me at,
and pound me 

flat. 

Then
only then: hold.
Hold in and altogether
to be of use 'til what binds us
burns down. Such purpose
and fit, but fantasy now. I too 

am alone. In time. Thin,
and pointed and dewy
and fine. 

fecal decal*

This bright clean shit sticker 
some kid slapped and smoothed giggling 
on the rear window of my piece-of-shit 
wash-me-please car was gift surprise
and tyke-sized dick move, all in one smooth
motion. Damn thing's

purple practically. The brown's 
so vivid with sparkles embedded. It's 

a cute poo, too but 

kids can be cruel, 
as we see in what this sticker 
said: rounded about that cartoon turd
in blocky-squat letters so solemn absurd 
it says: "REAL-PIECE-A-SHIT"

I assure it, it's not.
Magritte would have 
something to say about that
inaccurate crap. Stick that 
in your pipe and dream, you
brat. Picture yourself shit-hot
and too-cool as you think you are,
except with reason to. Spot 

what the difference is, missing 
from real. Design yourself a plan 
to add that shit in. Good deal. 

*pronounced "feekle deekle" 

true poetry reviews #11:

Man! This poem’s central
figure’s
got all the deadpan moxie
of a film noir gumshoe narrating
some downbeat offhand just-facts
myth/backstory to fill idle spaces
between cases.

Great tonal shifts.
Tension in it.
Flaws, pause, causes and all.

Thank you for putting it so

illude/elude etude

It's because you see
illusion is so immersive
and prevalent. It pervades,
past the point of notice or
remark, and is so unelusive
and ineluctably
unelusable

that rather than even trying

to eluse it, we lose ourselves
in it.

Between it and what
we call real, it's scarce
we could pick
a point of difference.

It is
it seems
how we feel

waxwing

I see her shape,
inside her mind. 
From outside, too: 
the two align in every 
moment guard is down, 
so naturally rapport 
is found. Undone 
in frown, with every
flick distrust snakes in 
by fault and crack 
of whip. The two 
diverge again. In 
painful stretch
the distance
bends.

But who am I
to say or see? How
she sees this, or self
or me. It does seem 

plain.
She's beautiful, 
and knows it, too, 
when we wax full.

erotica botch job pt. deux ex macho

Vera tightened her nipples
involuntarily and became aware
with an inner wince
of a lengthening depth
to her crotch canal.
"Need" she identified
the feeling as. Pathetic!

How can one need 
what one doesn't even want?
More to the point, how
can one unwant unwanted
or unwonted need? Seamy
as unseemly. Naturally, 

Mal noticed. Observant
as a painted brick wall,
that one - but not one

to miss this.

"Yo babe!" he unremarkably
remarked. His eyes almost cross,
unsurreptitiously misaligned
the shortest distance of least resistance
between these windows to a dimlit
dimwit soul, and not just any 
but particularly two given
points. 

"It looks like your id's set off
the superego alarm again?" His face
and voice grew in sympathy, his eyes
met hers. "Autonomous or autonomic?"

She melted like a bar of platinum
sent next to a hunk of lead. "Suddenly,"
appalled as honesty, "both." 

"Hot damn!" he cackled, breaking
the spell and - would you believe it?
Rubbing together clasped hands! His own,
at least. "So what's the deal?" he grinned
like a diner regular with the whole all-day
menu laid out laminated, hinting about
specials. His eyes grew thoughtful, and
grew more, to accommodate 
actual ideas. "One-shot? Or,"
he did not pause, "Open a proper
trial series with an eye to buy? A
futures speculation, inclining
towards bullish?"

His whole manner said either. Decision 
all hers. "Mal, why don't we start 
with one of my classic not-a-date
coffee lunches?"

"A quiver of disappointed suspicion
ran down his lengthened member as
Mal took this in. He spoke cautiously yet"

"No! No no no no Mal." 

Mal froze. Self-consciousness caught
like light 
in a jar. 

"You cannot do the narration 
out loud." 

Mal brightened, abashed. Only he
could do that. "Bah!" he said - surprisingly
convincingly sheepish. "I'm still learning, but!
I do want to." He looked open. Naïve. Even 
gullible, but with a hint still of seagull
to it - raffishly, ravenously scavenging 
from atop graceful wing with plaintive
and insistent cry, high-pitched. 

She loved him like this, and flipped
inner polarity in an instant: fondly
hating such obviously needless
want. Pathetic! - she again diagnosed,
and correctly. He was beneath her, 

already, or 
good as.

sense of reason

I used to be emphatically reasonable,
but the closer I get to mortality,
I realize my senses have been surer guides
all along every path. And with reason to be.
So now I consider it sensible
to choose to prefer my sensible side.
And reason sits glowering, shunted askew!
My reason knows it was the surest guide. 

you're not unique

You're not unique in the scheme of things, 
you're actually far outside that frame!
Suffused all through, it's true - but I 
can't locate you apart from name 
and essence, and some sort 
of tone.
It rings
and tintinnabulates 
on levels sub-molecular,
and binds all things,
with so much room 
to hate. 

hard to get

This assassin-for-hire 
without a master, 
never advertised, 
and refuses to kill

except only one way. 
Some killers-for-pay 
do "accidents."
He refuses to sham  
and shill such charade. Too
drama-wan gay. He won't kill

For any cause less than self-defense.

- he sets up his "patients"
he calls them - at will.
It's all word of mouth
in his business routine.
He worked his way up
from a nothing start.

Declining all jobs they
come begging him for
with a hard, clear eye.
"No thanks. There's no part
for me in this play. It just
doesn't call my heart's mind's
balls. Not obscene enough
in the pay. And the scheme?

Lacks in interest.
Please go."

They all know why,
and there's nothing to say. 
His standards, completely
unspeakably high.
Which we knew going in,
and we had to try. Word is 
he's the best. And word

does not lie.

life's rich grubs

Love is a butterfly,
made for treasure. And the hunt 
your eyes were enlisted in at birth 
never ends, never ceases gobbling 
bugs, flowers and dirt. Getting 
our grubby fingers so near 
the caterpillar it squirts. 

We do not grasp, even touch, but 
such mystery is in us, we do not 
mind. Just the sight of this long
fat bug going wriggling up some
stem, some leaf. We will wait
to see, and find out
what it finds. 

service interruption

I slipped today from dreams
without a break in thought, 
without a seam.

The images just went away. 
I marked the point in retrospect
where they'd all been switched out 
for mere imagining. From visuals 
to visualized - we're running daydream 
apps now, boys. Despite my eyes,
securely closed. Despite my body
had as yet no hold in gravity, on
sheets. I hadn't woken up yet - but
it's on the way.

Dreamsight's gone out. I realized
I'd have to eat, to piss, to defecate,
to rise - ideally, not in order named. 

I always feel in moments just 
like this, not yet awake, a strange 
presentiment in retrospect 

that you

were due just then, right soon 
to show. If I had stayed asleep,
that is. 

A daydream's not the same, you
know. 

untitlement

 Forever holds every moment

we've ever been in it But most of our moment's disposable. Most every moment has nothing to do with forever. We have to step back and pull

procrastifusion

I just don't feel like doing this
tomorrow. Maybe
the day after that, or today.
Tomorrow I want 
to do nothing at all. 
It's nice to look forward to
pause in play. Some whistle 
blows stop, or go, or help
- we'll come then a-running,
regardless of which. We'll 
busy ourselves and each
other as well. Tomorrow 
I just need a break from 
the scratch, to let myself
itch.
Or at least 

today, that's about how it 
feels
it's going
to go. Perhaps 
yesterday, I'll get up
to dig ditch. To pitch 
in with both feet to my neck
in the sticky flow, but 
somehow, I don't 

think I will. I don't recall 
anything quite like that. Let 
yesterday be, I say. Let's go. 
Enough has been done 
to the past. That's a fact!

dance off

I assure you, you’re right,
and I don’t have to. If I had to,
I wouldn’t! I never much do 

with commands. I don’t do
compulsions, I don’t
even dance

on strings, or do
line dances - anything fixed
choreography-wise

- I move
how the music moves with.

As if for the first time
- this moment, alive -
As if conscious instinct
and conscience collide
and align into aim -

- I’m just not cut out
for the grid. When they broke
the mold, I just came
pouring out
and formless down,
kept streaming into it,
unhid.

Unprincipled, yes!
But I have overthought
each guess and every bid
that’s come through in values
by consequence bought, owned
and run. To gouge forthwith,
to refine in seeking next flaw

I have in, or put on. To give finding wrong
its every shot to find me better
each time. It does come true.

And so,
please take
the assurance. I do,
go and say all as sure as
I’ve wanted to. Not a thing
except where I’ve desired to be

the one who brings this bring
to any party's offering. A gift

that we all make and shape
and which you give the world
for free to take each day
you stake - for whomever
you show.

You’re a pearl, and I
am as one big grain of sand
in my own mind’s eye,
with room to grow.

Point is. The reason is. This stand
or this song or this walk, I want to be
this: just the one who does this stuff,
who’ll get this biz better and best enough.

(or at least do no worse)

If I'm good to you, or do good to you:
please be it known. This moment is bliss.
Could I do anything that I wish? Just to be
who I am doing this
is my bone.

It’s me. Pure rescue from helpless
and desperate plight.

No, not yours: mine! For every time
no maybe or might could thwart the grief
that I could not right. Someone who could never
deserve what I see, but what's coming to them
- I have no way on earth to spare
by decree, or deed, or care.

Chances come
either never or late,
far too many times while I stare.

I assure you I get more from this
than you do! Or at least, so I’d guess:
I get no less. Please believe me:

you’re right.

I don’t have to.

I love to, though. Got to be
some reason why
we’re all in this mess

compel, compel

I had to be good to you.
There wasn’t any other choice
that I could see. To treat you any
worse than best just wasn’t me.
My still, small voice inside spoke words
of clear command. My moral compass
broke its glass, its needle grew
into a lance in steady hand:
it’s always doing things like that.
It points to you. That is the fact.
There is no doubt, my duty here.
To serve: and what I must shines clear!
I offer all, and wait upon your word
in case there is no need. I sometimes
do misjudge the call. As all is offer,
all decline is free. However, hopefully?
There might be something I could do!
That you would want. Things do not need
to answer need to be well-done and true.

to you, such talk makes (occasionally)

Sometimes I desperately need
to talk to you. But not enough
time is past, and anyway it's
not as if there are things to say
that need saying. I hardly can 
press the point of such need, 
when I know it's just real, deep
want. And there's nothing to say 
about that. 

But I thought it was something
to know, anyway. And I know it 
quite real, and deep, and stray. 

To you, such talk
makes (occasionally) sense
but by thoughts return rather more
than you do. To be fair to us, 
and somewhat dense, I bet 

you've exactly the sense 
I do. A time 

or two. Plus occasionally. 
Just not the same times we 
clasp to connect, or not 
always those same last 

times, which we get 
and forget, and recall 

like a long-lost bet. 

Leave Our Love (alone)

Leave! Our! Love alone 
Leave our love alone! 
You're trying to bust 
the foundational trust 
in the very best thing I have ever 
known 

You big bully quit lookin' at it
like that
Quit pickin' at it, all teasing spat  
and abrupt take-back 
Start knittin' at it! Why don't you 
just mend? We both see the means 
to meet these ends. 

There's a thing or two wrong 
with me or you!
But nothing at all with us, 
and that's true.
Just 

Leave! Our! Love alone 
Leave our love alone! 
You're trying to mess 
the essential and personal best 
I have ever even seen to try 
to achieve, let alone believe 
just leave 

our 

Love 

alone! 

Please 
please 

Go home. 
Yes I know:
we're home

come home
just leave our love 
alone 

And you and me 
can just in time 
leave selves in stitches 
you save mine, 
and I'll save yours 

and let us leave.
And let us run,
And let us grieve, 
While just we two
left here make do. You know?
Without us, you're
damn cute. And I'm
astute. Make love,
make up, make each 
believe. Leave us and ours
alone, and see:

What two believe
is anyway real 
as either and both 
can make, or steal 

so let's let our love 
run its race. Leave it 
alone. Just you and me 
have all our lives 
to find and find again 
this place. 

changing shit

Why do they keep changing shit?
I figured out the way it was.

Got used to it, because, because
that's just the only option, cuz.

Now it's the other way. They just
invented it up a substitute to foist
with warning unexplained: try new! Improved!
You'll love painstaking gains you make 
to learn this shit! Again from scratch
until you've hit and settled in
to some way close to understood. Just
not as good as was before, but not as bad
as some of those worst features were. Enjoy
the awkward clumsy stretch! You'll find
the difference one day soon will blur. 

It's just a couple of your favorite parts 
were done away. Just wait! 'Til you perceive 
the reasons why we think it's good this way! 

bottle's got your tongue

The imprecision of language
is a problem somewhat aptly 
demonstrated by the figure 
of the asshole genie. This 
mischievous to the point 
of malevolent imp, irked 
and resentful about this 
existence of its, made 
in long periods of 
incarceration punctuated
by being "set free" for a bit
of forced servitude, wants 
to make a point: language
matters, or: what if it did?

Do you think you can make it to
let alone past your second wish?
You will rue the innocent way
you word your desperate or fondest
desire, your dream-to-come true
in lakes of fire and bound tight
by hooked chains, in the wince
of each endless clinking link
you forged in tongue's too-hot
crucible, now spent forever
bitten and cracked and dry? All the worth of words
misspent forever now in one utterance
you were so proud of just then.
In just how you put

what you wished so much for.

For every interpretation is valid 

to the degree it can be supported
from with the text. And did you not
know? All genies were born (or
whatever) with advanced degrees
in semantics and its correct subversion.
It's 101 to them. Basic stuff, and a lesson 
to us all if we think: before we speak. 

The genie almost never plays unfair. 
The rules it lives don't allow for it. 
It's only a blunder on the tale-writer's
part when that happens. What we wished
so innocently, our very words - perverse
servants! - really did say just and justly
what came to 
pass. 

Pass.
I suggest. Or else,
bone up on semiotics!  construct
yourself a construct
so intent in painstaking
focus as if it were your own
life sentence you passed, 
like stone from gall. A construct
whose meaning and means lie
just-so. Already set in a fit
not merely literal, but clear
beyond possibility of all
but the most very lame
and transparently false
deconstruction. Which

no duty-bound genie 
would sink to. They don't. 
They admire such acuity 
tremendously, having it 
themselves in abundance -
but unaccustomed to humans 
so sage or shrewd. They give you 

just

what you want, then. Yes, grudgingly
- but with admiration ungrudged, 
unforced. Like a truly satisfying,
gratifying out-of-nowhere loss 
at chess. The lesser opponent 
pulls one out of the ass and 
scores! It's an austere vindication 

of the game itself: its worth. 
But it doesn't last, and 
you're up. Wish two. 

Do you think you can think 
that fast?

the moon in dog years

When I stepped out to light 
I saw her clothes had been tidily 
laid on the rocks and things. By 
a river too cold all day to wade,
she stood idly ready to know 
something. If a rose could be pale
as the light of this moon, I would
blush enough blood back up its stem
and into dim petals to wend and uplift 
every soft silken folded shape
with a gift of burst red flame 
in a light made anew. And the thorns 
would be blackest green in that glow.
There'd be nothing but words, soft 
and empty as dew - since I
already knew. We already know.  

addiction's edge

Keep it on the edge of addiction 
I never say
I can stop at any time;
I just do.

Not every time, though.
Selective select.

Every time
it's just habit.
No thought: I do not.
I unelect.
No bother, no need
- no want. 

So then stop. 

For now, for me
habit's just not enough
to amount to real urge 
to reap like a crop.

It's just maintenance, then.
Neither art nor craft. Such
procedure won't serve. 
I would rather sustain

On water and breath,
and grin and laugh 
and wince, and pass
until time's glass fills.
'Til sour and deeper materials
salt with ache to pain, and sweeten 
the bitter pills 

of nothing at all. 

I can hold me midair for some
time, 'til I choose 
the moment
so fair 
to fall. 

To let go. To use. 

While I wait for real urge,
I prefer to wait. It's a selfish 
and disciplined mastery. Bate 
one breath unsated and sure, 
and breathe out. Take the next
as it comes.

I'll appreciate more
and more - when in finally no doubt,
temptation occurs. 

I will nurse it and let it. I'll draw 
it out as it draws
me in.
I could stop
any time, but I never would
stop any time 

like then.

I like to appreciate 
more than habit
and laziness has 
on it to spend. 

I keep it on the edge
of addiction, to ride so much
sweeter for all that I walk.
I look up in the sun, again
and lengthen my stride

at the edge of addiction,
just 
a little inside.  

blessing zephyr

And so the trees scattered like leaves 
before the gentle zephyr.
It kissed and cursed them
gracefully: be never any
better. 

the ingrates

Gratitude is a gravity well
that shapes all the space 
beyond and between 
and within all our orbits 
of sink and swell.
We proceed in straight line 
towards understanding
as we arc and we curve
round the center of things.

We know which way is up:
it grows as we go. Well,
we couldn't be anymore
grateful for this! To be 

so held down 
and held in 
as we wish. 

As we shoot in straight line 
all straight through and around 
such discerned and describable,
curved and recurving
curvaceous flow. 

Gratitude is

the shortest distance 
between any two 
points we know. 

soft heavy steps

Directly behind me in darkness 
- it's night. I don't have to look
It would just be more creepy
- soft, heavy steps. The snap 
of some twig or leaf, a body
(presumably alive) is moving.
Not as stealthy as one would
suppose, for anything evolution
and instinct-honed. And I 

am alone out here

with nothing but a porch screen 
with some bird-holes in it 
between me and my friend, 

who I don't mind much. It's 
a little weird though, friend 

not knowing who you are.  

One time, 
something quite large bounded out 
from the distance behind and ran
in a grey blur from the deck-light
along the side, out of range 
in a flash,

chased by nothing. 

See, I play it cool 

'Cause I don't want to end up like that

Kind regards

My regards, 
I should like you to note 
are kind. Even 

"Kindest regards" - better than 
you'd be arsed if you sought 
to find, these regards 

are quite
a bit more
than deserved, 
in each case. But kind.
For a peon like you,
I thought "What they hey?
Let's observe the proprieties kinder
than most, and tack "Kind regards"

at the end. It isn't because

you're so special, you know.
My regards are always
so kind. It's the way 
I intend. 

the soul taster

She was made of men.
She had consumed something
like one-twenty - don't worry. Only their souls,
which they didn't seem to miss. Her name
was Ailee. The "l" was silent. Mostly, so
was she. People always ask,

"What was she wearing?"

Today she was wearing flats. 
She pretty much always was, 
until she got back to her flat 
and kicked them off. Her hair 

was dyed its natural color, her 
eyes were eternally hard with shine. 
Her intent was on her next target's 
soul. 

Eventually, she will get round 
to mine. 

forever plus

My meanest love - you are not cruel, 
unfeeling, you just mean it all. Do not 
be mean in stingy sense, with so much
meant - unfathomable. Be generous, 
please. I will as well be generous in 
how I take each thing you've well
-meant (or so I'll see). So dear to me 
your love is spent, and I will buy each 
word and look, and pay you all I owe 
and more. My dearest, sweetest, 
meanest love, I'll spend on you  
forever plus much more. 

Jewel! Gem of my soul

Jewel! Jewel of my heart who will save
my soul. I can't go off without you 
even now, my hair will part 
at the thought of you
the way you like,
like always new. 

Gem! Gem, you are truly outrageous.
Truly, truly truly your eyes 
have eyes of ice and your tongue 
has tongues of flame. Gem 
is your name, no one else 
had called, but you came. 

L'unique

Her name is L'unique. 
(named after her mum!) 
Her friends call her L'ou. 

She's made a good sum. 

They see she is strong, 
and smartass and wise 
- with deftly-drawn difference
between on the fly, in her eyes,
and occasionally vocal tone. 

She mostly is deadpan, though.
Thick-skinned to the bone, selectively
invulnerable, and of sensitive bent  - unusually so.

So most people don't know how to take her.
In how she gives why, or even so far
as to ask. They resort desperately to rules 
they've made up to make her suit
some custom-fit case, so loose
and fast.  

Not because she's a threat!
Or imposing, badass.

Just 'cause she's L'unique. 
If you know her, you'd know.
Some truths shift and slip, and some
truths last. She plays hers to keep.  

Whoever laughs

Whoever laughs 
has abandoned rationality
and exposed themselves low.
Base. Animal. Puny, like
a laughing ant. A laughing dog,
or bird, or bird-dog. A mere beast 

making vain and meaningless vocalizations
- like there's something funny about being
in thrall to the diaphragm and lungs shot
through in spasms by some wrong-ass
dumb-ass absurd-ass stimulus from
a mind childishly (like an animal
- immature) surprised, delighted
by stupid, naughty or expectation juked
and suddenly in startled need of dumb relief.

Laugh then! 

Serious people disgust themselves 
at the sound and especially repulsive sight 
of such spectacle and paroxysm.

Rationally,
there is no need to laugh. No reason 
either. Animals laugh. Elephants. 
Sharks. Dinosaurs. It wiped them out 
when that meteor came swooping in all
huge. They were like "Oh, that's so WRONG" 
- and: "It's funny because it's true!" and so died
laughing, is my theory. NO. 

It's true that it ISN'T funny,
that's what's true! It's just that you 

like an animal you are 

stupid, ignorant, insecure and vulnerable,
poorly-suited to your environment 
and unsure what this niche of yours
even wants from you, and so like 
the overconfident, boasting braggart
you are, flourishing yourself in vain display
like a cockatoo you laugh it off! Every time

you laugh 

you laugh it off.
You try. You try to lift off
all that innate biological terror and mortal 
threat and cast it from you. Hooting and snorting!
Cackling and gasping like the legendary banshee,
gurgling inarticulately and barking your way
to a flushed finish, relief hormonal at best.
Suffusing yourself with an artificial
all-is-well-being prank. "Joke's
over," you sniff and grin, wiping
your eyes. "I can take it." Nonsense. 

When you laugh, you are the joke. 

A rational being 
would be perfect, absolute in rationality 
in logic consequence of everything, and 
would not find it funny. Be more rational 

please. 

Don't lower yourself to some laughable 
beast, slave to the bone to some shit 
you think is so funny you can't explain. 
"It ruins the joke if you explain it" you say. 
NO. It exposes that humor is logically void 
of anything but incongruity! Especially
pattern-recognition error correction, wherein 
we suddenly see to substitute the correct
pattern for the previous incorrect one! 

Which, I admit, is kind of funny. Only 
because it's correct now. 
But don't laugh! 

It's seriously beneath you, please. 

Instagram model ditches

Instagram Model Ditches Her Top
and Rocks Jeans with Huge Bum Split 
in Sexy Shot. I kid you not. The headline 
was that, and I was like? What the heck
sort of head-split bum looked at Instagram 
and found this news? Ran to the syndicate
"Snap this up! It's a story! It sells! Never 
once before seen! Her bum split huge 
in a ditch between jeans and rocks, 
nothing tops that!" Dude

you are new on the beat, methinks. Go. 
Beat it some more, and come 
back with a fucking story or something  

Instagram's ditches are brimful to the top  
and overspilling with huge, bum-rocking
models shot and ditched, sexy on the rocks 
with jeans split. They want you to beat it, too. 
Come back maybe when you have sense 
and experience, and can contribute more 
than eyes agog and saliva 
to the story. 

Something 
is going on here - fundamentally maybe. 
Tease that out if you can, and we'll have 
a good look, ya bum. Now split!  

Correspondence comes

Correspondence
comes between us 
like a raft 
between the sea and sky.

Stop. 

As one waves up, excitedly 
the other's raining down reply. 

Stop.  

Til' this small craft fills up
with gift of purest mixed
with salt and rainbow spray,
and it capsizes not.

So borne it is in pull 
from either way.

Stop. 

Born to End
that it knows not
first glimmers or beginnings of. 

Stop. 

A thing of natural force, it goes 
afloat at rocket's pace from slightest nudge
and never comes to shore
or comes to shove, with every push
so well-received and well
-thought of. 

Stop. 

So correspondence comes to much, 
perhaps too much, but what 
is not to love?

Stop. 

I popped a zit

This poem's about something else,
'cause man, that's gross. How old 
are you? Still with the "acne"? Well, 
no, not noticeably. I haven't really 
lately, but it just popped 
into my mind. Which 
was gross, man! You 
ever have a zit pop 
into your mind? It's 
the kind of thing you kind of can't 
not write a poem about, that is 
if the mind were mine, and the zit 
 - were purely a literary device! Why, 
there's probably a technical term 
for it. Don't ask me. Still hurts 
a bit

Tribute to Webber's Evita commercial

I remember back in the day 
when they used to advertise crap
like Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals
on television - maybe they still do. Point
is it took balls, blithe-ass pure brass
intuition, and a set of assumptions
I'm disinclined to examine
to drop a spot of Evita on telly
in the middle of Kung Fu Theater.
I was captivated. 
I kept my promise! 
You keep your distance!
And to this day I have,  
but even as a kid I was like 
what is this they're pitching us?
Do they get any traction from this? 
It seemed impossible. Maybe as impossible 
as some of what Evita Peron herself 

actually did. 

Whatever that may be. I look at it 
as between her
and howevermany adoring fans, 
and Andrew Lloyd Webber. That man 
made history come alive in song. 
Don't believe me? 

See Evita. 

Let me know then
what you think. 
Any good?

immemorial

If I could only choose just one thing
to remember about you - and forget
the rest - I would choose 

it all. It all.
All you. 

Out of everything, you are 
just one thing

I love the best.

Into Darkhouse

It wasn't Mephistopheles 
who handed you those crooked keys
It wasn't Satan's contractors 
who gave this house of darkness floors 
It wasn't old Beelzebub 
who hacked and hedged such tree and shrub -
it's just the power's not turned on. 
That's why this house is so damn dark,
no more. Come on.