not how

There's a man in my heart 
and it beats for you 
'cause I've got you in my eyes
'til I can't see 
the girl in my brain making 
musical remarks at the expense
of the beast in my blood set free.

So red, all these parts add up
to seek wholes, get sums, and
they pull every single which way
that comes and goes, and lies 
up ahead may convince and persuade
and sway us free to believe in such things
as may never be proved. So let's just 
congratulate ourselves now on the dewy 
faith we reciprocally bless, upon some 
idea we'll guess not how. 

the lieutenant again

Columbo's a cop show. 
And everybody loves 
how ruthlessly apologetic
and deferential he was 
'til he solves the case 
in their face, and come 
to find out this shuffling,
bumbling embarrassment
to the force was locked
on like a laser-sight
bulldog the whole
time!

All rumpled
and dogged in a
raincoat every day,
in a city that never
rained - a raincoat Peter
Falk made himself
out of his own grandmother's

slipcovers.

So many treasured legends
behind that show, but
it all comes down
to this quizzical troll
fixing his bright eye
on the killer, confiding
to them in points inched
and dragged incrementally
past exasperation how there's

this one more thing
he can't quite figure out 

sickbed

feed a cold 
starve a fever 
but I'm not hungry 
and she isn't either 
snuggling miserable 
commingling breaths
One hopes one won't have
what the other one gets 

leave the door

Baby I'm gonna leave the door 
on for you 
in case you want to close it 
in case you want to open it 

I'm gonna leave the doo oor on 
for you 
I'll prop it in the frame again
reattach the hinges, and 

I'm gonna leave the door on for 
you. 
I know you love it baby 
you love your doors like crazy

I'm gonna leave the door on for you
I never met another 
who was so into doors, and 

I want you to know
I value 

yours 

doors 

the need to quit

I feel like I need to leave.
To quit. 
Not forever
I bet I’d be back. You'd see me
come back I feel sure.
Maybe later
on, long around midnight
suddenly seems like a party.
I come back through the door
like a sun, all prodigal, baring
my fatted calves, bargin’ in like
a dinghy - as is my wont, showing
my wonton ass (similar to a beer belly
except: beer goes straight to the belly,
wontons to the butt) with an orange ribbon
prize from the county fair to explain
my absence, as if it could. Or else

if I nod off early (actually I heard
there's an internet outage scheduled
tonight from midnight to six AM

- reason enough to quit!), what it looks
like in the morning is…probably what
we’ll see.

I'll either show back up or don't. Do not. 

For now, there are things I need to do. Tend to.

Take care of.

So, take care. 

Manage.

Obviate the necessity of avoiding this further.

I feel like I need to quit smoking, too - but 
do you see me doing it? No, I quit 
furtively. Only because the sanctimony 
of self-righteous and indignant assholes
exhorting me to my own good and benefit
GRATES, and the day I give them the satisfaction
- it's going to be for something else. Fuck them. 
That's your satisfaction. Sexual release. 
Now listen carefully before you answer: 
Want a cigarette?

For now I’m going to go out and smoke
yet one more last cigarette and ponder
the very idea itself, but feels like

at some point, it’s in the cards. You can
about bet your hand, you'll see the back
of me, yet
you'll see me back. 

As the Ace of Spades sitting flush
next to the Jack of Tens. What the hell
Jack, that’s one peculiar suit! Are you
hand-drawn in crayon or what?

Who slipped that in the deck - and
to round out the winning hand: OLD MAID.
UNO! And SORRRRY! I think 

my grandniece Colette got into the cards
last time. I recognize her handiwork, but

that's Fate. You bet the hand you're dealt, 
and if it smells, you make sure your face
indicates roses, as well as a deep, virile 
indifference for roses, which some 
mistake for greatness. 

Point is, that’s the hand you’re dealt,
you either deal yourself another right on top of it,
fold,
up the ante with one of your trademark incredible
bluffs, or play, on sheer oblivious. Tipped
off by Buddha, I choose the middle way.

Yeah. I think I’ll sit this hand out. Quit
for awhile, maybe sit on the other one, but
I’ll be back.

Between cigarettes,
you’ll be seeing me around
big time or small,
as the time grows between all moments,
'til the moments themselves become 
unnoticeable 

would you go?

What would you do 
if you knew for a fact 
nobody wants to see 
your social post. 

Or out in the world,
if you knew - as you're 
getting ready, you know  
- nobody wants to 
see you show up.

Would you go? 

the coolest best

There's this woman 
in a social media site. 
I know she thinks she's a girl 
she's not
she's all willowy in fields 
rocking dynamite shoes 
swathed or scantily ensembled 
in harmonious hues 
in front of huge swathes of color 
on painted brick walls. 
And the shades she's got - 
and the eyes she's got - 
when she lowers the shades 
to peep at the shot, see
her eyeshadow's green 
and her eyes, I don't know. 
Her hairstyle varies 
with improbable length 
and flow, but is usually
dark, dark brown,
whenever it's not pink.
And she's always around
striking blasé dance pose  
someplace real picturesque - 
and trying to upstage it. 

She's the coolest best 

daymare

A daymare
is a daydream 
you're not entirely in control
of. We're all lucid dreamers 
in waking hours, usually
and near continuously, whenever
attention does not fully occupy
itself, and seeks elsewhere,
inward, greedy for stimulus, but 
a daymare has internal logic
of its own. It is no mere
daydream for you to direct
pleasantly. It won't respect
you if you violate it, and 

its respect matters. For some 
reason, maybe because daymares
have vividity and weight
that push out the world, 
unlike daydreams. Usually. 

Not always. Sometimes. 

Anyway. You want to see 
what happens, and you have 
less than the usual control,
so the subconscious asserts 
according to rules it has 
been given, which you dimly 
triumphantly sometimes sense, 
and can play, but which
weren't provided
to you. 

Most of my daymares lately 
have been about you. But 
the nightmare is, I know 

it's not really you. Even though!
I'm sure you'd have told me just that,
just then. Like you did. Just so

Lying to the doctor

Lying to the doctor
again. 
My vision is normal.
I don't lose sensation. 
And I can catch my breath
without breaking a sweat. 
I can't even answer 
about palpitation!
'Cause all of the questions 
you're asking of me. 
A checklist of things I don't want
to know! 
Not gonna look it up on the internet.
Hypochondria is easy to catch,
you know

In fact, I'm lying
about going to 
the doctor at all. 

I haven't been to see her 
in years and years 
of unbroken, unbent, unbowed health.
There's really no point going 
if you're just going to lie,
I fear  

swerve

I never know when to distract you
from all of the shit, and when 
to dive into it. I hope my 
infallible instincts serve. 
But whenever they don't, 
I trust you to swerve. 

The well that I wish you

The amount of well that I wish you
is deeper than drowning,
and lighter than light,
and cleaner than air.
No rope with a bucket
attached could touch bottom.
But it would be drenched
before it descended
below the top rim 
overflowing all care.
You won't need a dipper 
to drink your fill. 
Just stick in your whole 
fucking head and blow! 
And yell underwater,
and shake and toss back 
flinging streams from your hair, 
and gurgle, refreshed. I hope
you could be refreshed,
you know.  

naïve skeptic

"naïve" in this context just means 
a fresh, direct apprehension of the world
(which from our point includes the universe)

that accepts what presents may indeed be 
real. 

If you've suffered by such, 
I don't know how you feel. 

But I bet it's worse

last hour's light

It's hard to go wrong with the golden hour.
As everywhere the eye alights,
the dawning dusk throws orange gold
and lavender and rose t'wards night.
Blooms like paper lanterns hung, lit 
within for just this hour's party light.
The thick grown trees, their canopies
are bonfires burning down to coals 
aglow on living and deepening green -
until the shadow-deep penumbra colors 
steep to chiaroscuro. 

just to think of you

I was thinking about you 
the other day 
it was fucken great. 
I was like "this person, 
she's so okay she smacks
the dial all the way 'round 
back past okay and up to fine."
(Which if you think about how 
many other readings she just flew 
through, is no mean feat.) Anyway, 

I was thinking about you. You see 
too how respectful! Calling you shit like
"this person" and shit. People don't even know 
sometimes how I honor them in mind. It's like 
preposterous, but the thing I can't even get across

is how great
it was

just to think of you.  

jeez gawd face

"I'm going to kill you," 
he said after a long, thoughtful 
pause. "Look." I said.

"I don't know who told you that, 
but they lied to you." 

"No," he seemed confused. "I'm
telling you that. I'm the one saying
it." Across his face, frustration and
irritation played chess. Pause. "Are
you calling me a liar?" 

I thought about that one.
Technically I wasn't, but this was
no time to be conciliatory. Perhaps
evasion with a dash of mixed signals.
I shook my head and said "Wanna
make something of it?" 

"Yes!" he erupted. "I'm going to kill
you!" 

"Don't make such a big deal out of it!"
I made a huge jeez gawd face. "We all
die!" I reverted to resting curious face. 
"So, when were you planning to get 
started? Killing me?"

He broke evilly into a grin. "Oh, 
now and then. By and by. You'll 
see." 

Dang. I hate surprises

bee informant

I found a bee 
it danced at me. 
I understood 
every bee word. 
It told me of 
a clover patch -
the biggest,
sweetest 
in the world. 
And I ran off 
in beeline charge. 
Over hill, and left 
by tree - and there 
it was! As advertised. 
I stood there wondering
hey, who was that bee?  

posterize

I love how movie posters are. 
I picture all our lives like that. 
You're standing front and center 
staged and smiling in fedora hat! 
Or grim and bold, or cheeky cute. 
You freeze in action pose, or laugh.

Your outfit tells a tale itself. 
The background tells another half.
You advertise what kind of flick
we're in for, here!  Adventuresome
or fraught with peril, my oh dear! 
Through thrills and spills, we cry, 
we laugh. 

- And there we are! The rest of us!
Your friends and foes, case all
around. Your background stars.
We round you out. Perhaps one,
full-sized at your side? A bit behind,
off-center? Sexy pout! A few full-figure
posed, reduced to action figure size
depicting scenes of consequence.

The rest of us 

Are floating heads off to both sides, 
some swelled, to see they loom 
so large! Some teensy-tiny.
How they sigh. They thought 
you were the one in charge. 
They thought they took up
much more room inside. 

I look at you, stood center-tall 
with all these funny goings-on. 
My eyes stray frantically, minutely 
through your mugging big head throng, 
down into background gallery of figures,
faces, bodies, heads. My eyes

keep straying through them all,
but I keep tearing back to see
your face, instead.  

failure to bond

I could never love chemistry 
with you. Never share your
evident, effervescent joy
in bonds and covalence - oh!
What wonderful, strange
lovely words your love 
of the stuff we are made of 
has! But all I can do 

is enthuse with you 
on that. 

I could spark the surfaces 
and dissolve confused thought 
in acid wit and mis-re-purposed 
sense, and perhaps you'd laugh,
enjoy or humor me, but this

deeper down love of yours
is too rare and noble a field
for one so slow and dense
to grasp your outstretched
invitation fast. Besides 

such bonds are bound 
to last. 

deep revenge

Sometimes I want 
revenge on a world 
that refuses to value 
people who refuse 
to be conventionally 
valuable, not for my 

own sake 

mind you 

oh no not that. It's just
not fair. Or, it's fair -
but not just. Either way 
fuck people valuing shit 
like people as if those 
people were shit! I say 

what we can do about it 
is live exemplary lives 
to uplift and inspire, 
take full and personal
responsibility for all 
the outcomes of our 
chosen acts and courses, 

disregard 

the worthless opinions 
of all who'd find others 
worthless, and then 

once they've taken the bait 
and valued us for such uplift 
and example and responsibility 
and invincible self-respect, then 

then 

the revenge. 

Revenge. 

We don't need to plan that part
yet. Just get started on the front 
end, we'll 

see how it lies. As opportunities 
arise. 

come to think of it

I watched a dream
and it seemed to be happening.
There was a debonair spy in it, 
who was me. And 
he knew impossible things,
and so did I. And you were there,
Susan, my wife of some years 
back, and our son 

oh, our son 
was the same
as he never was. 
It transpired he had been
replaced by faeries, and so
we set off to get him back.

My hulking debonair robot
manservant, (whose personality
had been restored; someone else
had taken over) (backstory), cheered
and encouraged us, singing my 
theme song: "Oh, who, better
know, that it's the Rose?" I 

was the Rose. But so much else 
happened, and we got distracted 
by another plot, and I forgot I was 
a spy, and you forgot you were 
my wife, and as to our child, 
well, I have heard the faeries 

aren't so bad. We sat at a red 
metal table for two in a Formica
plated café, and a slot opened up
in the floor. Straps shot out
from our round red stools and
in some novel way cinched tight 
about our waists, and the whole thing
lurched and slid away. Into a tunnel 
of menace in the far rock wall
of the café, which - come to think
of it, had always been there.  

direct from above

If you would be so kind as to condescend,
I am pretty sure once your error's clear,
we shall let you make amends.
For we've always been magnanimous
to all who condescend to us.
But enough of this noblesse oblige.
Pray tell, what have you come to say?
If it's anything pungent or piquant,
please cut the crap. That's what we want.

so many ants

Just after
I have killed an ant,
I think of you,
and I repent.
It's happened oh
so many times.
If only I could think
of you before,
so many ants
would have been
fine.

reciprocally unawares

She was a bare-faced lie-about 
sprawled in sun, limbs
artlessly arranged 
with grace.  

 
I was a
shameless-assed truth 

throughout hurtling dark,
body guilelessly flung 
through space. 

Together we never met 
everyday. In uninterrupted 
streak.

In fact, I'm pretty sure
I'm not aware 
she exists.

And 
she's never been
one 
to peek. 
 
 

absent tactic

I'm going to insult your intelligence, 
which is easy for me. I'll just tell you 
something obvious. Which you already 
knew; which anyone does. Because 

it's true. I will trust your intelligence 
to buck, to rear ugly head up ugly butt 
and to snort in the darkness, parading 
yourself like a dunce cap jammed down 
the head of an elf. 

For what a rank insult I must be. To tell 
you a truth, excitedly
that was news 
to me. 

the statues of you

the statues of you my 
idea of you keeps
casting
in bronze 
and carving
in marble, stay
put. Where you leave
them.

On hillsides in mind, down
glens and up canyons. I wander
in sleep and broad waking light
'til I could go blind,

And still see every feature
and angle of you, wherever my eyes
chance and glance. It's like 

my idea of you 

has a job.

Making legacy scattered 
through my every thought.
I don't mind at all.

Who do you think 
brings in all this marble 
and metal and clay, 
provides all the meadows
and valleys and cliffs
to serve as background?

We all do the part 
we think we ought.