Having my usual beautiful clarity,

Having my usual beautiful clarity,
crash in on me, or rather come clear 
in a moment of notice of absence of fog, 
I welcome your question, and call you
my dear. 

easy virtue

She is carefree with honor, 
fulsome with candor,
giving herself
as a courtesy, 
reckless of slander
and laughing at libel. 

Her reputation
has never been idle, 
but running ahead of her 
in all directions.
Paving all ways, 
and securing her 
welcome.

But it's when you meet 
her that she puts
the bells on. 

Not even trying!

Open by policy, honest 
by nature. She is 
so easy, and everyone
knows it! But no one
could hate her. Effortlessly, 
one by one we're converted
so naturally, sunshine
and fire.

You'd think we'd be jealous.
Stinkeye and ire! From all
that she shows, and just how
she shows it! You'd think that
in spite of her self and because
of her merits, we'd shrink
or we'd shun, or circle
like vultures and ferrets
to catch as she blows it,
and carry the news 
to each glowing ear. 

But no one believes it, 
when anyone tries. And 
fairly few do. No one
could hate her, for all
of her lies are careless
corrected two seconds
later, to very good jokes.
 
Every encounter she proves 
in the test, her act may be quite
the best that we know, but
it is no show. Oh, 

It is quite an act! But
every word scripted 
so true, impromptu. 

Envy has turned,
curded to sweet admiration
once burned by her curious, strong
and purest response. Each new
and incredulous riddled
resentment of stranger,
acquaintance is solved 
each for all, 
just once. 

To never again return. 

Her easy virtue, she
has given us all to know,
plus a thing or two
to learn. 

miss your mind

It reminds me how much I miss your mind
when you pounce and you laugh 
to catch me in lies, well-laid 
before I 

Can punchline the joke! 
You make sport of it, 
what a big lie I just spoke! 

Well it's no good to me, 
just then to protest 
that the joke was intended 
to catch your belief 
for only a moment, to then 
set it free, by ringing in truth.
Good fun, good grief!
All so I could make sport
and fun of you! As life 
and experience tells me 
to do.

Well, it's no use denied.  

You caught me out good! 
And I do miss that. 
Even more, how I miss 
you full-knowing  

the fact. 

You would. 

Whosoever butters

Whoever it is 
who butters their bread 
on both sides is a child, 
or touched in the head. 

If I ever catch you -
my charitable take?

You do it like me. 
Only once. 
By mistake.

Second time, though?
I catch you? You catch me? 

We might have to work out

some kind 
of a plea. 

how often do you think of your own bias?

how often do you think of the feces in the sewers?

Take this as a metaphor 
for 
how biased you are. 
Your bias is extruded 
always
in your judgmental
acts, 

It bulges in you 
and pressure grows, 
forcing its way out 
some aperture 

whether you know it
- possibly you do! You are not 
so unawares maybe. Sometimes
you do, and know you do, but

probably you never
inspect it! 

Or take it apart using tweezers 
and jeweler's loupe - which 
I do always. It's in my procedure, 
and no, not you. You simply get
up from where you squat, 

turn (if you are one 
of the fair few who turn 
and inspect the results 
of their biased acts 
at all!) and inspect, 

momentarily pleased 
or puzzled, 

and flush. 

Supposing that works, 
if not - uh-oh! Run for 
the magic witch broomstick 
for plumbing spells! And 
do your anti-incantation 
lunge and yank 

insisting all along, "no, 
not my bias, it must have 
been" anyway. 

It flushes through 
soon enough. A momentary 
unpleasantness to deal with 
foul. Everyone has those. 

And that! 
Is a metaphor 
for sewer-feces!
Dismissed from gleaming 
tiled room, so convenient 
by commode - never 
to rise again, 

a hidden shitty little
metaphor concealed
in fouled pipes,
ever-pushing through 
in next waves of cess 
and excrement, unseen 

by eyes and out of nostril-shot 
(thank God) deliberately kept
buried by the demands of all! Who 
also do not look deeply into 
it, or desire to. 

A subtle metaphor, 
and if I may say so 
an attractive one 
with a starring part:

played by your very own 

BIAS.  

I presume 
you get 
the point? 

It's no subtle point really. Kind of 
obvious: bias 
isn't much thought about! 
Like sewage, or 
I could have gone with 
the acid language of ants. 
Also not much thought of, 
except of course:

by ants. 

bright ops overt

Allow me to introduce you.
                                             I am 
the bright ops soft touch hard strike 
overt operator for the shadow government's 
badass embedded anti-shadow sleeper cell, 
inserted there - not by the shallow state 
(which has no idea, all denials from 
that quarter are sincere), but well, 
by me.
            I talked to a few of them. 
We worked it over, and...? They flipped 
to the light. Now I'm officially 
sponsored
                  but off-the-record:
I,
and my authority, officially 

don't exist. 

Which brings me here. 

I expect you know why. 
Considering what all we see, 
here? So hi! My name is...I'm working
on 
it,
but
at this point let's consider me solo-coyote
mode, crisis code (bright ops): Vigilant-E! No, 
that sucks. VigilAnt! The ever-wary
High-Hoper of Rubber-Tree-Plant-movin' 
or...VigilAntler, the young ol' unruly buck-prong
deer to all of us! 

I'm working on it. Vigilmantis, Vigileer, 
Vigillain, Vigiloner, Vigilnasty, Vigilstrike, 
ooo.
Vigilstrike. 

Look. 

Why don't you all just...get back to what 
you're doing a minute? I'll go back out and 

come back later. Not immediately, just 
...I like those looks of surprise, you know? 

It's a thrill in this job, but 
things being what they are, shadow 
government, disavowed half-asleep
splinter cell bull shit, me
the overt operator,
only one and all  

and all 
(they don't pay me, is what I'm
- okay) basically, bye!

Catch you. Another time, perhaps 

Keep an eye out!

both your eyes

both your eyes
are perceptible.
Commandingly so.
Unstoppably
perceptible.

When you lock a dude
like me in the eyes with
those, he begins to gawp
helplessly like a fish
punched through the mouth
by a huge skyhook swung
with the force of a wrecking
ball, waft in the psychic eyelight
your doubly-barreled perceptible gaze
wings in zephyrs to whoever's bold
enough to meet that I-beam midswing. 

It's like getting a steel girder right in the mind
at approximately a thirty story velocity
fallen from atop the construction site. Where

all such thoughts are forged
and put up. 

No building like that can hold
up long under the kind, soft, loving
and permissive gaze of those eyes
of yours. Moss-green sacramental discs
of implied grey, gold flickers caught

in stopped time.

assassination act

You stole the fingerprints 
right off the knife, 
as it stood and pulsed 
in my breaking heart. 

But I saw what you'd did. 

Not to be outdone, I stole 
the knife, and the wound 
and I winked. And let out 
a fart -

- that was accident. 
I apologized, still
it seemed a bit rich 
and deliberately done, 

which crushed the trick 
and triumphant effect.
As the swallowed knife 
continued its ruinous,
deepening run. 

Automatic Dang

I start a band 
Automatic Dang 
it's called. 
And I 
sound the call for fans! 

Depending how many 
we get, let's hire a kit 
of drums and a bass,
and hands:
to hold
the sticks
and pick
and plonk boom bash
crash tss doonk doompt
duh -dm. 

The guitar, 
and the primary voice 
you know, 

I'd rather not say. 
Let's keep it hm. 

"sorry sorry sarcasm" Or, "The Epic Ballad & Lay of Bullmouse"

"I'm sorry!" I objected, 
"but I really am going to have 
to respond sarcastically to that!"

"Sarcasm being no main mode 
of mine," I go on, "I find I go on
sincerity and fulsome candor! 
These pack the punch 
with spiked jolt and sweet, 
beautiful juice! But I can't 
help aim what I mean - and" 

Thinking,

"...your remark just now finds 
sarcasm! - alien, unaccountable 
sarcasm rising within me 
to respond!" 

Pause for afterthought. 

"I had to warn you!" 

Pause for impassively-faced 
frantic backtrack hindsight 
thought-train rerail to derail
tangent rollercoaster loop 
and scootch back up the big 
hump clackety-clackety-slower 

and-slow-clack-clack 

Pause for pleading but impudent 

look. 

She felt mercy blow. "Did you
forget what you were going to say?" 

She observed placidly? With 
some fairness. "Should I" 

pause for how-to-put

"Repeat myself?" 

NOW! 

THE OPENING!  

DECISION TIME:

I can respond curt and pert 
serene: "No thank you, you 
plausibly mightn't have said 
it at first." OR! 

"Yes, please. Thank you that 

would be very helpful."  

I boldly chose the ladder
to chute down and feet-first
fall forward, feet and body
fumbling and recovering
poise. Perfect for me!

For that is my deal! Sheepish
and meek as the merest 
bull mouse! So I aim
in courteous deference 
to charge all things bright, clear 
and hard, for the fair response 

I deserve. I fence!
I parry thrust
with a thrust my own!  
I feint no
blows 

by rapier, foil 
or consequence. It's then! 
Pardon me 
It's Now!
I become the halberdier! 

And whip out my poleax 
to find it bent. It is not 

in tact 

that I stay my blows. It is only 
I saw
my gaudy axe-head-spear 
didn't fit
in the crevice-crack
I saw in their case.

I'm too big for it. To cleave 
asunder by crack-artificially-widened so
in pinpoint sundering strike?

Then stand back agape, 
in shocked surprise, and pointing
- "Look how big a crack your case
always had!" And perhaps 

pretending to be distracted 
by something else. Stray thought, 
objects available by surroundings, eyes off
and away, lips whistling tunelessly after,
innocent hands clasped behind back - that
pretentious pose! - poleax vanished by
magician's trick! 

That's not my style.  

Instead, seeing it won't fit in the crack 
legitimately, I shift it hand to hand and
brandish this huge threatening weapon 
they almost saw with cheer! And I chide them,

"It's only a lolly pop! Made of metal and wood,
confected sweet by a jolly grim smith of candies
and other lethal implements! Now, forget about that."

My case complete. 

No one ever discovers what my own crack 
might have been. The sarcastic one. 

It slips from me during fair warning, 
which - it'd be kind of a rum deal, 
me skipping that stage of rapids 
negotiation! That's how boats 
end up riven on rocks! 

If pressed for it, I lamely volunteer, 
"Oh, I was torn between 'oh, REALLY,'
'THANKS a LOT!',
 'PUH-LEEZE,' and

'Well ex-CUUUUUSE, ME!'"

They'll have their pick of those 
to bat right back in my face, 

but if they do, it's on. 

You see,
I am the master of deft, just 
repartee, and I'll never admit
having lost any match I've won. 

Typically I aim too big for that:

Truest, tried-and-bandied pure 
repartee matches end with the big 
WIN/WIN in mutual gain of 

RESPECT. 

Seriously.

Try it and see, it
works! 

a big amount

I want to drink
a big amount of apple juice
or none at all.

This tiny glass 
so far from fills my
likewise eyes and growing
wiselike mind in realization 
huge: in tininess comparison, 
how small such glass gets,
once set down
before throat's want 
(which grows to need we 
contemplate) in hard dilemma 
growing strong in judgment 
town. 

But suddenly! 

Solution springs 
to overfill reaction's mills!

RESPONSE is sown and reaped 
and threshed and all the chaff
discards itself, to fill one scale 

of judgment's boom 

as we pronounce:

"Revise, revise! My order 
please. Please bring me 

three of these. No, three more
plus the one you've given me. 
- I surmise that will suffice.

In judgment town
the call went out
from observation's want 
to reason's need,

the three they come
in range of eyes, 
to table set 

in range of reach  

as I await. To lift and toast 
to Fall! Each one 

a big amount 
of apple juice
to contemplate. 

a case of practice

"You know what's depressing?" She said. 
"Depression." 

Asking another what they think, sparking 
deep things moving in them then cutting 
off the rise of heart to throat towards 
tongue, by answering yourself cheap
and pat before process can progress
in unwinding to undumb, is also
depressing, I didn't say. 

To snark so at someone who may be 
already depressed would be far more 
depressing, I'd guess. Having never

done. But having done quite as dumb
things in my time, I can reckon the mess. 

She went on. 

But not as she always did. This 
was different. Not one of our usual 
fake Catholic darkened confessional 
sessions, with me, some bandit stole 
in to hide in pilfered vestments, hearing 

her 

- the cosplay bride, supposedly fled 
from some faltering, altering altar
that rocked her mind to a realization

or two 

she had to spew 
into some well-trained on listening 
holy ear, with a wholly holey mind 
behind, growing holier by the minute
in virtuous triumph at rebuffing intrusive 
salacious and titillating thoughts, then 

absolving us both, in ritualized 
secular words. Say three Our Egos 
and three Our Selves, my child 

- and it all will go away. No. 

This seemed to mark a turn 
in our longstanding and frankly 
completely unexamined ('til now,
from my side) arrangement. Our 
respective roles in these moments 
I suppose had just naturally evolved, 
been taken as so. Suddenly artifice 
bloomed and loomed, to shove beautiful 
head into ugly rear! I'll forbear to describe 
as to whose was whose, just take my 

word for the impression, my dear. It was
not artifice, perhaps, and yet -

Now I had a pipe, and a whole beard 
attached to my glasses, in classic 
Groucho Marx disguise fashion, 
except this was either clearly Sigmund
Marx or Groucho Freud. Sigh and yikes

- and inner exultancy! FINALLY 

This was a part I could less "play," 

and more "pull off."  

Depression, it's true, so I gathered 
that day, but had already believed 
and known from prior testament 
and experience, is its own known 
and sufficient cause. But 

some other things can cue it too. 
Just not so thorough in hope and 
pleasure loss. See, if - the things 

that depress are ultimately not in 
us, but inflicted, imposed, we know 

we can change our aim, our grasp 
and expect to drop such loss and 

woe. Move on, towards such better
things we know beyond knowing, experience
really does bring. Since it has. But if the cause
is in us? Oh, shit.

It's a bit more far we must go, if ever again
to be glad. 

To see whether and even if we can find 
other things outside - or knowledge's wedge, 
or insight's lever to lift or shift or break
that dismal glow by its crack and edge. 

I hadn't much good to tell. To share, 
of insight or consequence.
It was okay 
still.

She just wanted to share what the 
load was like, in that moment just then. 
Just 'cause she knew she can and will. 
Just 'cause she knew me in confidence. 

Sometimes, it takes us some processing, 
some work of materials through to product, 
before we could ever in self-defense invite
one in 
to see
so much work we cannot add up, in any
or all calculation of purposes intense. 

Prior to that, we hold our own. 

And some of us die in the weight of it. 

I wish I could think a solution through, 
but all the world's problems will never fit. 

dilemmable

I can't let you go 

But it's worse than that. 
I don't want to let
you go. 
In fact, there's no reason 

I should

want to go
and do 
that. 

I am paralyzed by 
how banal and pat 
and sensible my
unwillingness 

is. Given how much 
I don't even want 
to not want this. 

So I guess 
I will just 

shift gears and trust 
my business mind 
to mind its biz. 

to my word

I called a press conference. 
In the crowd were the Mayor, 
the Chief of Police, and God. 
I informed one and all 
I was going to step down. 
Then true to my word, 
I did.
How odd. 

What is the best anti-aging?

As a man, I noticed 
a cream. Women were noticing 
men with younger hair than I. I 
also noticed around my eyes: in 
the mirror. It looked like I frowned 
my whole life waiting to look 
like this. And women 

know.

Guys, they see. What 
was the answer? I found 
the solution in the cream 
I noticed. For a $49.99 
supply, I could use all of it

- that much was clear. It went on
smooth and eased in daily with
the trademark circular application
of logic. Soon 
my skin
and hair were
getting noticed! In the mirror,
more and more. Now, 

I just sit back 
and wait for the women. Guys? 
They can see.

I can't wait 

most people hate life

Most people hate life, when they first
get into it. 

But 
then they start to notice certain 
patterns 

:

the pain 
in the gut 
like a stabbing 
gurgling knife, the 

scream of a child 
hey wtf that's me 

the nipple 

some crazy warm ick 
in a gulping, flooding
gush down to the pain, and 

feels good 

?

After that, pattern recognition starts
to click, and - especially once one's 
eyes start to resolve all the blob
and blur to intelligible objects, 

super-distracting,

we start to decide 
it isn't so bad. 

sure we're right

Spent in dissent, 
and finding our worsts 
full-given and broken 
on rising bests, 

each realizing we 
still want this us 

- you reasoned back up 
to redeeming lust 
and make-up sex, 
from a premise based 
in a promise of stirring
lines of blood, as adrenaline's 
fight-or-flight shtick 
dissipates
to endorphin rush,
oxytocin flood. 

Well-being, as thick
as knives 

has begun to glow 
from behind your eyes, 

but 

I won't do that. 
It's a policy. I refuse to reward
and encourage   

fights. 

So, 
again we begin! 
Half-hearted and snippy 
sure we're right. 

compromised

Compromise is a myth 

that we've agreed to pretend 

is real. It's something we have 

to live with now, at least 

that's the way we feel. 

why I wonder

Why, I wonder
does "-ass" predominate
as a suffix, while "butt-"
abuts so much more naturally
to the front?

"That's some mild-ass sauce," I tasted.
"M." she concurred. "Indeed. Butt-mild." 

But you'd never say it the other way. 

raunchy strong

raunchy is such a strong word 
to prefer to risqué
as I do, in my outré way 

but 

your outfit tonight 
in the light of day, 

for just the right touch 
needs both, I'd say. 

coffee tea and thee

coffee is deeper 
but tea is high
so tea takes milk 
but coffee wants cream 
or nothing at all, no sugar 
just pour
all serious bliss 
in morning caffeine 

but tea wants sugar 
or honey, I think. 
its wider tangs 
of flavor unfold 
and unfurl in milk, 
and that sweeter note 
just sweetens the symphony 
you sip 

as across from you 
the coffee is quaffed 
in scalding gulps 

by burning lips 

coffee's a drink 
for high tolerances 

tea has a taste 
for appreciators 
and acceptances.

Principled approach

A principle 
is a premade decision with conditions given
to apply in all cases where conditions satisfy,

or typically 
are satisfied. Then it kicks in. We abide, 
aim decisively from what's embraced 
then. Let it lie 

What was laid, let it rest, 
set and fixed. 

It is Now 
that we act, though. Conditions 
may exist, or persist such that 

conflict, dilemma! 
May ensue. 

Just cast your mind back
all that time, to when you
found the principle, examined
all the factors and the aspects 
found true. And reopen the case 
- just the lid! Just a crack 

to see through. A principle
that can't take peeps 
of scrutiny is whack. 

Human beings going 
doing go-bys like that 

are going to crack,
shift, 
founder
and capsize, 
sink.

Principles all busted,
just 'cause once
you'd thought it 
through once,

you couldn't ever 
pause, stop, reexamine.

Think

jive turkey

Hey,
given the choice
between overthinking
something and missing out
on a scrumptious turkey-bone
teeth-picken’ every last scrap
cleaned off and sucked down
the ol’ ravening maw, I say
yee haw. Flip a coin, I can

do both.

In fact, I'm guessing such questions
pack no tricks at all. Tried my best
to find it! There’s a pretty clean
satisfaction that way actually, once

you catch the taste.

It’s called a sincere
desire
to falsify.

Best use on one’s own theories,
but does not go to waste as a general
reagent, solvent, degreaser and universal
enzyme too,

metaphorically.

In any case dig in! 
See the turkey?

See all the fixin's? 

Hypothetically then 
if you did what would 
you do 

dig in dammit 

facepoem

Your face is a poem. 
Not one of these, dashed 
off on the daily-duly 
in quest of quality 
through quantity, 

but a poem conceived 
in childhood. Tended 
and sprung by pillar
and beam in edits 

of years, growing 
ever so clear, 'til 

we met. 

And I realized,
ah, duh.

She's here.  

I never had need
to do all that work!
Which was just coming
finished when you
leapt up, came out,

stepped in.
And the poem
was through.

Haven't thought
of it since, since
you made it 

redundantly

true. 

You made our bed

You made the bed this time. 

So anything you say, I won't
ask proof. You have to lie,
in bed you've made.

              That's why
we each take turns
with truth. 

Pointed purpose

It is neither the purpose
nor the point
of being, going, or any do,
derring or otherwise 

- to find you. 

But you do so find,
so you find gratitude, too.
Relevant questions come
into life.
Their answers are
gleaned in glimpse
and rip, as the veil parts
by stitched degrees, as we press
forward
in best lean and slip.
In perfect-miraculous accurate
fondle and grope, walking always
further through, further into.

In.

The answer parts
by veils and veils,
if the question is relevant
even at all, to you. In life,
in mind, and experienced heart.

The answer can't matter 
except and unless 

It's true

beyond apple

I'm forced to concede the deliciousness 
of lingering indecisively 

between two choices,
either of which exceeds
in pleasure potentially, 
but the possibility combined 
(even though one must choose)
feels better than both,
or either reduced 

to a line in mind. 

It's the interplay
that makes
the juice

Innersting

The sting inside,
where each we prick
and each we bleed
and die a bit - 
but then we rise
to comprehend
entwining interleaved
to end.

the difficult problem

I think I solved the
hard problem of consciousness
in a dream 
and now I can't even state it 
in plain language. Damn 

I shouldn't have woken up 
until I wrote it down 

We can infer from such 
experience that either 
I didn't solve the hard 
problem of consciousness, or 

it wasn't hard. "The feeling 
of what it's like to be 
something"

- somebody 

Something like 
something like 
nah 
it's gone

penny nails

So I keep writing prose
and my eyes get caught 
by a gap that should be 
there 
but isn't or ought it not 
be? But it isn't! 

I want to aver or demur 
and I've got just the sign
and spur: it's my buddy 

the comma! Don't tell me 
I'm gonna! I got to get in 

there and pound those nails
'cause I'm driven somehow 

to break up my thought. I 
perceive there's a much
needed gap that I have 

the cents to have bought

Partial Instruction

Cheer up
Calm down 
Grow up 
Pound sand 
Get lost 
Find out 
Eat shit and land. 
Hit hard 
Sprawl out 
Get up
Dust off
Stride forth 
Fall down 
Turn head and cough. 
Fall sick
Get well
Die off 
Live on 
Get down 
Sleep through 
Wake late past dawn.
Make much 
Give most 
Seek weak 
Find strong
Take least
Keep all
Be sweet
Be gone.

menace enters in

Mr. infinite malevolent 
tall, crooked dude 
rolled gracefully 
swank
into a dockside
dive. He looked
narrowly 'round. 

He could easily kill 

all here. The naïve
bartender still dreaming 
of Ezra Pound, or the 

sailor, who's probably 
wise and kind, sat next
to the wanton highway man, 
that rogue, sat next to the whore 

in his business attire. 

A perfect imperfect sampling 
of men.

But then came the fire 

His vile eyes caught hard 

on her. Wholesome 

in parts and whole 
and sum, and
probably hole
and heart, 
and all.
It was like 
he had swallowed his gum. 

Her simple 
sweet good girl 
act was a tease
which was true,
all through from top
to bum, and her outfit 
said nothing at all
on that score.

One of those
thrift store 
quirky jobs, but damn
well-done. 

Mr. crooked tall dude 
bowed sheepishly. 

He couldn't kill the place 
full of all these slobs
with her around! 

And he suddenly knew
he was not so infinite 
malevolent, now.

In fact 

he felt no malevolence 
at all! His whole damn life, 
was it just some passing

mood

he'd been? 

If so, who
was now responsible? 

Team you

Team you
steps up. 
Roll call the squad! 
Well you're the leader, 
in command.
Your secondhands 
takes point so much 
the rest of you's confused 

oh where you stand, sometimes.

Oh roles 
are clear as balls 
of crystal, showing future's warp 
and weft in dim 
lit clarity

you find the best ways forth
you'll get!

As admiration shines,
as critic kicks and cuts,
grand self-Inquisitor hat on. 
And fond devotion has its pull, 
to make your inner fool 
stand sure you've won,
or that you will soon win.
In any event, your rational side 
keeps switching sides 

in quick and nimble 
limber game of musical 
stadium seats, as you 

team you 

collides, cheers on
and taunts (inside)  
and contemplates. 

And part of you sure hates 
this game.
The rest of you is sure it's great,
and anyway 

you have a good bit more 
than all it takes.   

Bad horse.

Imagine if you were dumb enough
to get fit with a bit and tether, too
- and reins and saddle, all such kit,
and rid on your back by a purposeful
sadist fool whose only thought wasn't you.

So in well-heeled spurs, your sides take kicks
- and hard-struck rider's crop, behind
to sow in speed
and reap the wind -
and aim your head
in streaming mane
towards what you cannot find,
without
such guidance brute.

Are you sure this
is the surest route?

As flanks slick wet
with sweat
and foam
and breath cuts
knives in grinding lungs,
as legs beat times
whole long ways home.

Well,
if that stupid beast was you,
that biting bit - your horse's mouth
of truth did not deserve such
treatment,
true.

So are
you so put-out? So lost
for words? Or are those words
a loss?
Spit bit!
That metal gag's not truly there.
Hold head up, give a toss

and stamp that best front hoof
hard down. And tell the rider, thanks
for much
of showing me how hard I ride,
but

yours is not my race to run,
and I'm the one your ribbons crown
with such vain pride. I think

I'll go my own way, now. Oh, whoa.

This neigh means nay, ex-pard.
Don't touch.

This home was not
stable enough. 

Trust is a resting thought.

Trust is a resting thought 
found always in same place. 

I know this one 

we think and rest a bit 
to tether, sure in face. We smile 
just invisibly, collect ourselves 
and start 

to see 

what else to find 
in follow on 
from this 
sure thought, 
in knowing 
won

contrasting thoughts

I'm like flash catch nimble quick crash-click boom fit 
in anything I overthunk
already, through. 

But 
otherwise, 

its slow mo 
slam dunk 
takes forever getting there 
all the fans 
leave their seats 

mouths agape
impatience 
and
suspended 
in the empty air

there I am, 
almost there. 

Life's recipes

We mostly live to eat 
and sleep. And that's 

not much 

for meaning's sake. 
But sleep has dreams 
And food has taste - 
slip in some sex, 
that's perfect! 

Great! 

read intuitive

Jump-ropes, 
hula-hoops and 
pogo sticks 

were invented as tricks 
for girls to showcase 
their developing and 
developed
secondary 
sex characteristics: 

broadening hips, 
and blooming, jouncy 
upper-torso globes! 

Disgusting! 

Get 'em into it
while they're young! 
Innocent wink wink, oho 

"Hey look at me go! 
I can gyrate my hips! 
Hey look
I can bounce up and down
on a pole! What's next?"

Oh, no. Don't ask. Hey, girl 
You'll know enough soon.
Did you see the trampoline?

Yeah

it's that kind of world. 

It's disgusting and sick 
to see girls that age 
keep a bed in their room!

Where they get undressed! 
Have they no shame at all?

I don't know man. Guess 

Seasons rush Pt. 2

Well, Winter is brisk 
but Summer is fast 

As you watch them go by 
you know 
this chase
can't last.

Summer's Rush (Seasons drop in)

Summer creeps in 
like the bandit she's been 

Sand caking every half=inch of her skin 
and a tanline bikini of blinding white 

She's straight to the fridge for a drink and a bite, 
and sprawled on the snow-white couch 
for a laze. 

Somewhere upstairs, a light goes on

but she isn't phased. 
Then steps drifting down 

like snow 

like ice, 
the light snaps here.

O shit Winter's home! 
Gotta go! 

be of cheer 

fading scene

You and I
- with which we 
people this burg
any damn time 
we up and feel
like it - need 
a routine or two
new. 

That same damn 
crowd we always see
told me, "see? We're 
sick of it! It's old. 
We want it new 
like always." 

So I thought
I'd tell you. And 
it made me think, 
we are you and I, 

pretty endless and 
surprising in parts 
we show each other 
- not those! Whole 
sides that crowd 
never gets to see. 

We amuse all day 
when we're home, 
and nights are ease, 
luxury, surprise and 
an embarrassment 
of joys rollicking
and jockeying to fit 
in moments. So 

"Why not?" I thought?

The problem is they 
see one act. This well,
practiced side we've 
accidentally developed 
as a comedy duo, stiff 
and old, creaking in 
the joints from our 
greatest hits. Why 
keep on with that 
shtick! Retire it 

I say. Let's show 'em 
some of the stuff 
that keeps us going, 
sides, parts and roles 
 only we two see?

- no not those!

Our best routines
regardless of risk
heedless of potential 
offense or shame, 

it'll 

open their eyes pop
pow wow omg huh

and then we'll see who
has the last laugh, 

walk over to them cool
as refrigerator glass, 
punch them together 

hard, and leave fast

what do you say?  

appearance > perception

Whatever intent
you may have meant,
all your act and your acts,

your statements and asks,

were wholesome and tart
and punchy, and pure. I've
known you in moments
that couldn't be
any more
sure.

At least, until you 
say so. Or do 
one of your sweet 
gesture shows, or show 
some side that I have 

not seen 

my idea of you can explode 
anything 
including itself 
as the surface cracks 
in jagged zigzag 
and arc, to collapse 
from the light streaming through 

all the gaps that should be 
and were, in conception of you 
to me - then poof! THE EXVANISHMENTS

you appear, idea and all 
made wholesome sphere 
just a little bit larger without 
a crack - because everything fit 

in the light you gave back

and it all made sense, once 
I'd thought of it. Once 
you cued me by such 
surprises and fits. 

You just recohere. 
It was always you. 
I knew you were more,
soon as I knew you.  

hypothetical heart

Even when I crush
I do not want love 
from the one 
in whose reach 
or sway or tread 
I am crushed upon.

I just want her!
Not all for my own, just
how we occur.
Growing groaning 
in laden freight 
cars coupling 
in gathering train 
to a cute caboose, 
chock with goods galore,  
with a headful of steam

- how could one want more?
and just what would that mean?

Unless I was single. Her, too. 
Then, sure. Aim away! All 
hands on deck, shoot! SCORE 

but, who cares? 

that's rarely the case. When it is, 
it's no problem! Takes care of itself
like biz. More commonly, I just dig  
however we've come to this. And
however we shall go finding out,
pure me in my usual beautiful
clarity bliss of however things twist! 

I was curious, 
man, from the age of three.
By seven I'd concluded 
let's make the best.  

Put whatever we have got to be
or to give! Finding out is
my jam check test. Plus
getting to know! So if she has a crush 

on me, too? WHAM 

I might like to know, but 
I don't want to know, you 
know? Not really, though.  

It's not our business, and 
it might not apply. 

This ain't that kind of friendzone,
darling. You and I, two people 
and we both have a crush? On
each other, and both are like "nah,
let's not"? 

Actually, that sounds hilariously cool! 
Hypothetical huzzah, but the far 
more natural rule: is enjoy
who you are, who you're 
with. And all you each bring 
to become in the dance and give.

It's as good as reality sways. I don't
want no daydream fantasy play
through a forest of pine you can't see
for the needles in your eyes every 
time, while you ache and your 
longing grows only ever more
hard yearn to gulp down,

grow up. That's the childish shit, 
sad clown.  

 

"chicken visit"

We used to have a code word 
she and I 
"chicken visit" it was called 
and I'd show up sly 
with some KFC 

having not got the code

it was alright with us
she loves greasy
and fowl I'm told 

bird said to bee

Bird said to bee, 
I like your style. 
You get along sweet 
in the clover fields, 
and unlike other bugs 
I hate swallowing you. 
It swells in the throat 
with a sting I fear, 
so I've had to hop 

taken aback, some 
detached. And it's 
given me a chance 
to get into you. 

How you flit 
in beelines, making 
breezy and madcap dash 
to the hive to communicate 
through this crazy dance. 

Now, me, I can fly! 
And so can my friends 
- how did we, how did I 
never really occur to such 
sweet routines? I guess 

we got lost in song. 

Same beans. 

But I love you bee, 
bird sweetly confessed, 
and I'm glad I had a chance 
to make this clean breast. 

retrospect callback runaway snippet aside

Years ago, 
when we would interact 
I used to get 
(and I won't say from you) 

a sense that I had you 
sometimes 
taxed. 

Now don't. 
Interrupt when 
I've finished this thought! 
Please, cool - oh okay! You weren't
going to? Sorry and 

sweet, then,
although 

I should say 
the taxation occurred 
between two lines 
I perceived dimly-drawn. 

The line below: what 
you were willing to invest. 
Whether 'cause you should, 
or some other reason found best 

and the line just a neat or a tall 
stretch above: the line of what 
you wanted to invest. 

O love, no don't no don't say 
it is or isn't so. It's none of my 
business I don't need to know! But, 

in any case, no or small vexation 
occurred, just as far as my keen 
intuition could blur. 

Just one line combining everything 
else you should do,
and a higher line:

the specific thing(s) you might want to - or 
definitely did! - but at some point, one must
dismiss frivolity
at the point 

of a gun 

and demand back to work 
back to life 
back to things that, if done 
actually, bear fruits with wings! 

Not some wallow in a mire morass 
of made two. Turned up to molten gold 
in a cauldron so cool, just because 

it leaves a glow 
that could sure, get you through 
some things. 

It's the others we were put here 
to do. 

Okay. That's it! Now, I maybe 
so bold? 

It's only the impression I got now 
and then. No, not from your tone! 
Your tone was fully-given and shone 
like ten! In your voice, I would glean 
subtle glimmers of this. Which includes
also tone, but in only subtle ways 
and shades that flit, and in power
of selection: in concisions 
you'd cut, to contrast
with every fanciest 
flight of your smoke up my

- no, not "butt!" 

Behave, grow up! My idea of you, is 
where that smoke flew, I assure you 
I don't keep my idea of you up there. It's
a realist depiction in accurate limn and
limb and form of someone whose reason
and judgment holds win. Plus okay, a few
strokes of sentiment's art, in the jagged 
beaten halo glows that array 'round that 

sainted head of yours, in which lurked 
fair play, goaded on and powered by
that animal mineral cognitive
subliminal heart. 

Oh sure, a foul play or two, whether
glimmered in the edges of intent, or
cracked through! But that's all in
the rules. It's all part of the game
inferred in what is surely sport, cavorting
in pain and leaping in costumes to fields
like champs! Hot after whichever children's
toy has been tossed in-bounds as-if legal
- or legally introduced, let's say - by mutually
feline houndish offer, accept (balls, pucks,
bats, wickets, hey - whatever the heck
or fuck may be deemed or deigned cricket
by a judge!)

And we have two of those, and
they both seem fair. Wait. 

I lost my point back there, and
will have to fudge forward as if
on a dare! 

My point. I forget which way I'm trying 
to break, sometimes. The biggest point is
it isn't, never was a game, but I suspect 

taxation, when in consequence of a difference 
between gotta and wanna give, is no nuisance 
inevitable on the way to death, but an actual 

benison! Anyway, whatever it was I saw 
I was always grateful. And double anyway, 

I rarely saw it. Just a flicker and ricochet 
shine off some high-gloss surface in mind, 
from a laser-point emitter (that's you) 
playing not tricks or treats, but true. 

It all builds up in pattern recognition
at some point
and you go "wait - HUH?" 

Usually false alarm. You were saying?

The citybuilders

The citybuilders 
put forth their minds.
They plotted in plots 
and drew in lines 
and the lines became streets, 
and the plots grew land, 
and buildings 
in sheets 
vertically at hand. 

And we all bowed heads, 
never noticing it 
As we streamed and we coursed 
where nobody fit. 

And we asked 
for parades, and banners
and parks, and they gave 
us two 

of the latter. So stark

Mack the Knife Revisited

So apparently, 
this guy Miller, Louis
took his money out and got 
stabbed Saturday night
pretty late, stuffed 
in a bag and carried off 
to hang drop off a tugboat

by that bum MacHeath, 
with a jack knife. 

Out of sight. Next, 
Mack's spending like a sailor 
and all these babes, loose 
as we all are one presumes 

- are suddenly composing 
themselves in an orderly line!

Where's the mystery? Sheesh 

When we react

When we react
all out of plan 
the instinct juts 
from stimulus 
as best we can 
from stroke inside 
to crack, to boom 
we flail,

and hide. 

inviolate

She always dressed 
in violet and 
never was she blue. 

It was a color style pun 
of sorts
and cut 
and stitch 
and skew, 
and every day 
she drew it on. Her amulet 
and talisman, 

and walked the world 
in skirts and flats
and sometimes,
hats. Inviolate

she was
at that.

the coming due

We motes
grind stones,
roll wheels, sail boats,
and make much mulch.

You role, I act.
Ad hoc, no script.
Life longs, death looms.
Dumb ass. Quick wit.  

Fake arts, real tries.
Parts whole.
Sums part, knees jerk. 

Prose flies. 
Halts grind. 
Breaks heart. 
Blocks break one's mind. 

On you. 

Hands cry.
Face rests.
Chair falls,
door flings steps skip mad blest to fly. 

Winds sigh
night's wings upheld,
moon looms starshine
warps weft, blind
delves. 

To you.
Your room. 
Once mine.

So far, long lost.

One last long view.

Before the cost. 

subjective reality check

The problem is people 
think what one tells 

will work with the other 
one 

but 
that smells. 

thanks No thanks

Netflix and chill? 
Not on my binge watch. 
I need couch to myself 
and full-immerse! No, 
no interruptions as cops 
and babes
and smart dialogue  
goes off, with a curse 

I 
have 
to sit riveted! 
Following, as
developments fold 
origami-style, and unfold 
again in twist-turn sting  

I can't react fully, 
with company. I'm self 
conscious at that. I can't 
yell advice, and 

the characters might come untimely 
to deaths
without me throwing popcorn 
and slurs
at the screen! 

So thanks
but no thanks. 

We okay? 
You're the best! 

pretty big if only

If we could only go 
to the bathroom. Once 
or twice a day! That 
is all it would take. 
I don't know what 
we'd lose or gain
or do in there 

not bathe 

but I bet it could 
somehow relieve 
the pain 

we bear

worst case conjectural prompt

She confessed to me 
this kink of hers 
to do
with nudity and words. 
And sex, also
- that was ex-plic-it! 
And with photographs,
and such

evidence
into which
everything
all so gratuitous 

makes
sweet sharp,
hard warm slick
sense fit. With dreams
as well. Right in public,
too! And with fantasies, 
from her point of view.  

But she never got around 
to confessing her kink. 

I guess she got shy, 
girls do 
I think 

motive and opportunity

Why would I want to kill myself? 
Unless...
I mistook me for someone else 
And I can guess who.
It's you

isn't it? 

No, that falls apart. 
The resemblance 
won't fit, this
theory is shit, 
and I can 
it. Now, 

who else does that leave? 
Let's plan this out,
and how!  

Alas, 
I don't know no one 
I could hate that bad 
plus confuse for myself 
by mistake, so 

back to the drawing board? No 
no. Call it quits. 
Didn't work. 
I'm done

and bored. 

I'll just have to live on, 
and learn. From this. 
A mistake not made, 
well-done, well turned, 
well and caringly dared! 
Grit, vinegar and piss
displayed, only in the end
I showed my ass
only half-way,

good enough
for a kiss 

knife murder torch swing bullshit

that Mack
"The Knife" Last
Name unknown, seen 
slinking 'round the corner, maybe 

like a knife

punch-driven home
(but that is not a knife's "home,"
baby - or

is it, though?

The point unclear), it 

seems The Mack
is superstarred!
In jazzy minds, strewn points afar

all smug and snide, ironic; kind.
Such-fancied selves, 
and hard
as marbled fat in mind,
and mean
as penny nails
in salvaged boards.

A slinky, vile predator

such as the world quite right 
abhors 

just as the world quite wrong 
regales 

itself on takes and shimmied tales, 
such tails at peace, 
now stilled
forever: murdered whores
and laborers, stepped wrong
cut short, 

lives unexplored, 
and no one seems to know 
or claim that body, alley-found.   
So pearly-white and sharp
she was. Once. Oh, her?

Oh once, she ruled 
this town. 

Oh, no one seems

to know her, now.
Her name or nickname, 
even gender/sex  
object, once oozing life  

now caked and dried. 

No one's upset. 

If she was going to run

If she was going to run through the dark, 
you would think she would choose 
something less showy pale 
than her flowy white dress 

oh, a night-dress, yes. So 
appropriate. 
Let's say, but how

could any coincident eye 

miss that pale glow? It's okay 

she decided not to, 
anyway. 

No.

uncalled but there

Every 
t h i n g 
you 
hold in mind 

as you pick up 
offhand to find 
it is about just 
so much else
unfurls in curls 
to stretch itself
and radiates 
in immanent, 
transcendent shade 
and light. 

Penumbra, emanate: 

out far in deep! 
Through depths
unplumbed, 
distance outstretched. 

No rule of thumb, 
no paradigm criterion. 
Uncritically, we think 
so dumb
in instinct, patterns
recognize

our interest in 
how they arise, 
and complimented, 
actualize  

in arcing lines, 
horizon spans 
enfolding worlds 
of all the things,

untouched by hands  

this 
one 

of each and every
thing 

unplans, holds fast - if thought 
would just recall - 

how much it spans. 

Was dumb luck the cause?

Was dumb luck the cause? 

...or just the case? 

Our ignorance of causality 
is that which we give the name to:

"Luck." 

To say it's the cause of anything 
is a bit of a fuck in reasoning, 

but who gives a fuck? 

The lucky do. 

They have reason for praise 
and gratitude of their own dumb 
ignorance, you see. How did I get 
it so good? For free! 

I don't know
I can't see 
I can't tell 
it's great! 

It is in the effect 
that all praise must be.

Or hate. 
For those whose ignorance 
doesn't break so well 
in the ways of Fate. 

Florida man

A helicopter buzz-flapped
low 
overhead

I saw a guy 
make eye contact 

with his shirt off 
starting through my back yard, 
as I sat drinking coffee and gin 
out back. Well,

He turned right back 

and disappeared.
The helicopter kept 
coming closer and far 

and I suddenly put 
all the pieces ajar, 
and a door opened up 
that's me, like a star! 
So concerned with my rusty 
shovel in hand
(just in case) 

there's the guy making time across 
the common depression 

("flood basin" it's called) 

as I stand, waving shovel 
at the copter I call. Pointing 
jolt jolt finger point! 

"There he is!" Hey 
Who is that guy? And what 
did he do?

He grabbed
a big damn shovel 

and ran outside 
That's what he did. 
As two cops ran by 

one with machine gun 
and both with yells. 

Get on the ground 
Get on the ground 

It's a bit of a tell 

edit or incessant perfect or

Edits are so urgent! 
It just stuck you, 
jumped out clear in mind 
and struck itself fait accompli,
GO! 
Fixed and perfect form,
you know.

In perfect mind
this glorious
and perfect tiny
niggling fix 
will pow

align and polarize,

if you can rush,
and you can chase,
and you can track, catch up
with it in time, and
tackle! Jam it in! 

Then all this work

will be okay,
fine. At least 

unless 

it really is perfect. When you
gasp sigh exhale breath, step
back and find. Well, 
that's the best

?

the wanna be

Sick of dying
unwilling to live
I'm easily best
at what I won't give
but that's obvious all
and sundry know.

They have praise for me
wherever I never
go

I don't wanna be
praised for shit like that
I don't wanna be
talented at math
I'm okay
I'm okay
I'm okay with all I can
but it's not even who I am

Sane and accomplished
at drowning in pairs
or breathing the sterile desert airs
of a salty beach now
in solitude

I have acclimated
to life so rude

I don't wanna be
praised for shit like that
I don't wanna be
walked when I won't bat
I'm okay
I'm okay with all I can,
but it's not even who I am

I'm aware this is
nothing special man
everyone is unique
and so, I am

Safe and as clean
as a body can be
Kind as a mind and a heart
so free
Naked as anything hid
by clothes
Strip it all off, only
more is exposed
Bartholomew Cubbins
has nothing on me
my whole outfit's
infinite regress,
progressing to stage
never quite undressed
at what I won't give

I am easily best. 

The things you don't think you do

These things you don't think you do, 
let's say 
are accurate entirely,
But only some of them are. Oh.

There are some others, plain to see
but not to you, apparently! And 
others still, I'm sure I miss. Oh! 

I do see the things you do! But 
I don't know you don't.
That kiss

...we shared, you
never noticed it. That
time you jumped upon my 
piggy back, I carried you
to where my piggy front 
and yours made lack 
our lackey, to undo 
itself in want and need 
to realize in have and hold 
- eternally? No, 

you don't do those things, he 
lied.    

spokespersonal.

Ow 
I said 
(again) as glass 
in hand - a bottle, 
thick, impervious 
and huge, of spirits 
strong - and consequently 
done no wrong - impacted 

on the cupboard hard.
I lifted up, and BANG
it jarred. Swept from  
its rightful place
to bang!  
This Tanqueray
did not quite fit
in space-swept hang 

it was the angle of my hand 
and in the wrist, I think 
misplanned or underseen. 
An oversight. 

So I said "Ow!"
It seemed like ow. 
It sounded ow. 
I spoke for it! 

It felt alright. 

Actual redactions #11024.0

My understanding of the Zodiac killer case
is largely based in the ambience
of things forgot. 
But this piece
has tickled the embers 
and breathed light into them! Jeez. 

That's not even purple prose. It's 
like over a radioactive click or twelve 
into the ultrapurple or iridescent mauve

range.
Sorry 

c o d a

Sometimes in life,
the answers may charitably be
presumed to be roving the cosmos
beyond range of all human senses,
sensor and instrument augmentation
included. Otherwise,
what’s the point?

C h e e r s

stronger you are, stronger we are

It's selfish of me, 
and purely too. 
The pure energy 
I pour into you 
and only the kind 
you feed and like 
I calculate how 
to make all 
alright. 

An ulterior move 
to be sure, and
you know. Full-open
and shut, and disclosed
for show 

I am making 
of you: 
a masterplan. 
You cooperate full, 
and away we ran 

Stronger you are,
Stronger we are. 
This is the deal, 
and you bet -
it's dealt. 
My weaknesses all
complement your strengths. 
Your meanest of motives 
redeemed by my 
intents, 

We melt 
to molten and forge 
our pure elements 
to strong alloys 
we cannot examine 
or analyze, or maybe 
we just don't care! 
Surprise! 

Stronger you are,
Stronger we are. 
This is the deal, 
and you bet -
it's dealt. 
My weaknesses all
complement your strengths. 
Your meanest of motives 
redeemed by my 
intents, 

or so 
we have always felt. 
And are willing 
to always feel
our way up 
Adjust as we go 
- if not on the fly, 
then out to high seas! 
Or down dank burrows

however we please

Stronger you are,
Stronger we are. 
This is the deal, 
and you bet -
it's dealt. 
My weaknesses all
complement your strengths. 
Your meanest of motives 
redeemed by my 
intents,

and purposes 
always so
intense, 
but of course 
you know that it's worthless 
if we can't come
to each other's defense. Lend strength
and encourage in innocence.

For my part, it's selfish
and pure, good sense. 
Stronger you are? 
Stronger we are, 
my investment in 
this 
is
the evidence. 

pyrophile or pyre

You've got the fire in my eyes 
any time you gaze,
any time you 
move
in view

you grip, twist
spigot and spray

- drench me wet, hose me
down! Soaked through! Wow,

I stand 

amazed and fuming 
with accelerant foul,
knocked flat laid prone 

Like a predawn lawn
wet and whet for the sun,  
with explosive drops 
all strewn and bedewed,
all set to be done.  

As the fire in my eyes 

spreads down 

look out! 
hey careful 
hey watch 

out

watch that,
now

you look just like a match
to me. I'm struck.

I have many a book 
under my belt,
and 

well, fuck
this could be luck! We have found
ourselves, but 
I'm leaning towards bad and good. 
Can you tell between?
Me too! 

let's take
some would, then and
pile it up, 

set should to it 
and see what could blaze
to bon, bonfire
perchance to dance!
To roar, to crash, to sink
to spent coals and ash

and if that's not a full enough
chance, well
habits are good. We could
bring it back. Establish a groove 
and wear it to rut  

it's habits like these 
that make one jut 
and another uh 
"slut" 
is not the damn word! 

Just shows the pervasive shame
of these prude-pig bitch-cow 
mother-bugger judgmental
turds. Apologies 

for that misplaced word 
My mind and mouth burn 
at uneven rates, 
when stirred. 

Or stoked. 

Or piled high 
with so much would 
you could should for the sky, 
but 
you end up aiming from 
some home base 
just a little more low 

than your beautiful 
face 

unless 
no, wait. 
Nevermind, sorry 
I did digress 

Although maybe it's all 
for the best?

Honesty, 
after all 
as a policy sure 
makes a mess! 
As one's discretion 
watches valor undress

Ignorance abyss

Ignorance isn't bliss, it's
innocence that is, and
ignorance is not. Whether right

on the spot, in the moment
spinning wheels, locking gears
or alone, in the comfort of
one's home. Grinding wheels,
rolling stone.

Permission not to know
what you mean
doesn't fly.

We all expect a flash-bang
miracle from I, I the finder
and the knower, who has
known so much! Just

to put it all together
without thinking, but
touch.

Is it too much to ask? Not
even half the time. And we
do, as we grew, we flew rings
'round our mind, but

We're grounded long since
by our staunch-averted eyes.
Knowing ignorance is weak,
don't expose. Just deny. Don’t

ever meet the gaze

of ignorance. It's bad.

It's as bad

or the same
as your own dear dad.
It is Nietzsche’s own abyss,
which he kept quite tame.
Looking into any time, stuck
his head right up (shame!)
up the fundament!

Where it always lived
and reigned, and forever
we can stick our necks out
there. Find them very
well-cupped by the buttocks
- of the cosmos? Well,
it's probably just us
taking pains and care.
It's ourselves that we give
all this gaze-also trust

when we head up there.

Ignorance? Let's ignore.
Could there ever even be
anything so apt as that? Snap-fit
set-fixed, set free! Flat, pat!
Just ignore ignorance. Just
deny. And demur.
And demurely,

we shall find what it's like
to no end, to know only
a blur

in a lifelong lie. No, unfair.
Say untruth. Say mistake

err err

(& die)

rocket dive

Bottom of the heart
ricochet off the top
of the head, drop down
to springboard off
from the tip of the tongue
as words fly unbidden pirouetting
to plashless depths
what you’re giving.

impromptu shoot

In selfies
do you cover your face,
with one hand placed
between head turned away
and the greedy lens
and share anyway?
Because
I have seen your true face,
and I think
that could be a good look
for you

At least
'til the camera breaks,
for however a count
of bad luck years,
and you buy a new one
a new phone with gun -
Killer app in the gears
and a 1-click download
of one very real round

When we meet, by surprise
you will lift up the phone

and turn it around 

Therefore "Trigger Warning"

I'm not talking about this or that
gender or political fine-cut dice
No, I’m talking about something
far more primal, elemental and
(obligatory) objective. So some
say "not nice." Objective, therefore
inevitably to some: objectionable.

Therefore “trigger warning.” If
you have a problem with some guy
strolling bold through reality’s meadows
picking rank weeds and wildflowers,
calling them equally beautiful (in the
olfactory and visual senses - important),
and proceeding to a thorough ardor
in naming of parts and identification
of flat, pat, that’s-that features, if things
like that pet you in the peeves, skeeve
you in the triggers and otherwise cause
you to react in a way you may later call

“over,” - WATCH IT. Just such stuff like
that truths* ahead on strut mode.

*Not “lies.” Truths.

Immediately following the preceeding
and aforementioned warning. Proceed, 
therefore, at your horrified risk
and forewarned, forearmed, educated
titillation or perhaps 

not at all

either way 

step small

bee and bear

I bear up and down 
like a fuzzy one 
only now I have wings 
and antennae on, 
and my hivelike mind's
making honey in combs 
swelling up so sweet 
fit for queens and drones.
Yet it's only me, here, 
and I'm only me there. 
I am huge and astute 
with omnivorous care. 
And the honey that rises 
and courses my veins 
is pumped by a heart 
that just bearly remains.  

Often away

Off and away, 
often at sea - 
Sometimes I'll find 
what you meant to me. 
Out in the wastes,
off in the wild, 
I'll hear the coo 
of our thoughts' lovechild 
Things never done 
and things never born 
are hard to bear up under 
through these storms, 
but gardens and groves 
we'd planted in mind 
- still I do tend
and bear fruit, 
sometimes. 

rolling eyes

Rolling eyes 
come oft in pairs 
upon the chance 
of poor-laid bet 
in gamble conversational, 
in gambit careless of regret. 

Of all those eyes, by twos 
I've rolled like just as many 
rounded dice, I bet on yours 

most every time 

to show my hand 
and win my price. 

bullshitter anthem

Don't bullshit a bullshitter, son some say

...but that's buuuuuulllshit 

A bullshitter loves to bull-shit all day,
and be buuuuulll
-shitted. 

Now you don't have to guess
how I know first-hand
I might be the best in this ol' land 
so put it to the test, 
if you want to, man 
but it's buuuuuulllll

shit.

party interpersonal

What about people who gotta be 
partying all the time? Can you 
get along with those people 
without partying all the time, 
or do you gotta? I mean like 
relate on a deep rapport level 
with trust and joy and shit

You've got to admit 
it gets to be a challenge 
like a mental challenge 
but 
come party a bit, 
you could be up to it 

primal offer

I have the power
the ability, 
and the capacity 
to service you sexually 
with no questions asked
and no money changing 
hands. 
All I ask
- not a question! 
But a request: 
please be more discreet 
than I'll be. God bless

bite size life

Life is a bout the bull shit 
that gets you to a pre she ate 
the good shit that is all so there 
and stops you pre she ate ing it 

recreation myth

For before the moment
and after, 
when nothing better
is on, 
when all you can do is think
over and down
into everything small that went wrong,
into everything leaving you bothered, 
intrigued, or simply at losses and odds - 
in these loose, lossy intervals, ages ago,
we finally discovered our gods.

Ballad of Web-Forum (Excerpt)

We came here all in one same cause,
in polarized intake. 
It shaped and bent like nature's laws 
our purpose and our make. 

An ethos and an ambience, 
a character and mood, 
arose as one spontaneous 
equation, while we cooed.

We'd filed in like filings.
We all became as charged.
The field was wide and ripe and clean,
and everything writ large.

And then there came the latecomers.
With theirs, they swelled our rank -
And soon the whiff was in the wind,

And all who breathed it stank. 

Cog

My mind it seems has open doors, 
and policies, and gleaming swords,
devices of Rube Goldberg type, 
where slowly-rolling boulders fight 
by increment, inertial inch, momentum 
built by decade spans until they meet 
to clash between on one smooth point 
- becoming rough, by impact chance. 

I let it be. These things will set 
eventually in rounded circled 
rolling paths, the dust between 
has trickled fast: and in the patterns 
that emerge? I scry the shape 
of thought's white birds 
who spread in wings 
and poke by beaks

I get the point. In me, 
I think.  

stately parades

Another trip around the world.  
Another dip into the tide. 
Another sky goes flying past. 
A hundred stars each tick

have died 

to be reborn anew
today. Once baby Sol
has settled down, look up!
You'll see each rise again. 
As other stars go
underground. 

"Alright Son"

I'm pure
I've been told
But pure what,
they don't know
Still I think
that they're on.
To something
that ain't wrong

I've been sane 
more than sure, 
and in pain so secure, 
I've drawn confidence from 
every step up my front,
and down my back -
I knew more than I'd want 
of how I deal with that.  
I have known myself flat.

I am the keeper of the masterpiece
Steeper in the mysteries
Finder of epiphanies
Better off lost

I'm the alright son
the greatest good's my only one
I can tell you all I've done,
except for the cost 

I've won

I will use, 
I've been told 
impossible words 
to say what I mean 
in a way no one would
yet it works like a spell 

Which is good,
since I'm only an average mind, 
all caught up in a trick 
of good luck and well,
charmed fate. About what you'd expect
to never much find. And the time's
ticking on, now it's half-past too late    

I am the keeper of the masterpiece
Butt of curiosities
Flounder in iniquities,
deep down dark.

I'm the alright son
Happiest when overcome
I can see the forest for
the roots and bark 

it's fun

(spoken) it's fun
to bark you know,
root around a bit. Have you
ever done it?

I like to roll in the sand
like a wave. I like to fling
into the ocean like a starfish
stranded and picked up. We've 

all got to stoop sometimes,
but it doesn't have to be
to conquer. 

cartoon soda

Did you ever have cartoon soda? 
It's beautiful, like solid color 
and cutout bubbles. 
And if you shake it up it foams 
pure white with a thick black line 
around, like a thought balloon 
of improbable force. Everybody's 
soaked, and - purple, of course. 
Or whatever color. No one knows 
when it foams up white, where
the color goes. 

In classic times, it tasted like 
pure cane sugar and whatever 
color ink. These days it tastes 
like computer light, in about what 
magenta, yellow, cyan mix 
you'd think. 

In olden times, it was always 
grey. From light to dark, solid 
tones would play in a bottle 
or glass. I never had 
one of those, but I bet 
it was not so bad.

stitching spacetime

Travelers knit the world
together in stitching tread
and track and wake. If we all
stayed home, where we were born,
those gaps would widen and separate
and we'd all end up living in separate
worlds. 

Because of you, the adventurers,
the world is held in a web of tread
and searching eyes that have known
other lands and seas and skies, and you
hold the thread of it in your minds, and this
is the love that unwinds and binds. 

language lost

When you think about it
it's really funny that two so 
eh...rational types as we 
are so continually grabbing at
and riding each other's bodies!
Penetrating and being so, grope
and slip and push and stroke, 
fumbling astutely 
and obsessively learning 
and knowing each other's flesh. 
When we love language! But 
we are lost for words in this, 
and there are other languages 
than words. And when you 
think about it, we don't really
think about it. 
It's really funny!

burning tense

As the flames lick the wood away, we piled this fire so high for kicks. But as our eyes grew mesmerized, we knew we're burning up in it.

different courtesy

Truly you are a marvel to me 
Your taste and poise and eye of care. 
My belief you could say whatever you chose
Is built in the weight you give each dare 

Really I am a marvel to you 
All carefree blurt in purest aim 
Your impression I could say anything 
is built in midair without thought or shame. 

And either of us could say anything, 
full knowing the other would probably love 
- and at worst laugh, or understand -
what moved us to say it, whatever it was. 

But effortlessly and painstaking in cares, 
We each will converge on each other's style. 
Eventually, if we keep this up 
I'll be weighing each dare a thought-drawn mile,
while you flip carefree for a fulsome while.