My next car

I want a car 
that does it all.

I want a car that keeps 
announcing at random times
in a hostile, female robotic voice
"The computer has taken over.
The computer is doing it!
Fuck you!" but it's totally
a fakeout!

If I take
my hands off
the wheel, my feet
from the pedals,

nobody's driving! 

Whereas, if I keep myself
physically engaged with the
control interface, though, I might 

be like "Wow. I am totally in sync 
with what the computer is doing.
Let me try to anticipate
what the computer
would do next,

given this situation." 

It would be so nice 
to have the backup, or 
I guess 
when the computer announces 
it's taking over, to be the backup. 
Ready, alert for anything, doing it 
but not really doing it. 

This is a dream car I know 
but I'm willing to wait. 

To be honest, 
I kind of drive
like that anyway

big flap

I'm responsible for the universe. 
I just don't fight anybody 
for the part they claim. 
I figure it's taken care of! And 
I know who to blame

if it isn't. 
Me.

For ceding that part 
without a fight, 
so easily 

My fault is large 
in a case like that, but 
somehow I still do survive 

the flap.

I guess there's enough fault 
to go around, and blame enough 
for anything found, but the strange 
thing is: no one seems to hold 

me responsible for what I
don't 
directly 
control, even if it's the universe!
Which I am in claimed fact 
responsible for!

I've never once
fallen down on that.  

You'd think we could trust 

each other
more.  

in upper air

The skyscape is
the most documented,
lavished scape we've found,
but its monuments shift
away from fame, never
celebrated twice, never
come to ground

In upper air, supported 
by breeze and beams 
of light, indifferent 
to all our upholding 
gaze 

and gone in night 

the sky goes ways,
and we look up,
and find it's right. 

The problem is (with monsters)

a monster doesn’t know they are. Which is stupid
given the hooked claws, protruding fang, horny
projections from the head, atypical number of eyes
and hard, flexible scaly hide - like a rubber suit.

Fake as hell on the outside, that’s what people
think. Who the what-?

Yet the monster thinks it can fit in.
Wants to.

The monster knows hey I'm just this way.
I know I am.
I give me true just how I do, and I look
completely normal, trust me. If you knew
me you'd know.

I can't help what other people think looks

fake. These claws, these horns are true.
Whatever.

The monster doesn't know
it’s one. "This is how some people
are. Grow up, bud."

Other people
think the monster is
that weird person

who goes around like that.

They all think the other's wrong
and in this case, are all

right. 

sole responsibility

You're an impish force
of the universe's
knowing of itself.
You let on all sly

In fact, though, you
are a white hot swirling
molten core of mystery,
incandescent and on the fly.
Incarnate in human female form,
as usual you sway sweetly shy
and impudent and bold you hold. 
Yank everyone in range of yo'
electromagnetic field.

No one's any the wiser
but you
on this mystique
you might
just
have
to wield. 

upsideways

It sounds like you’re nearing
a breakthrough
though.

A lot of the time
when the sum and balance
of life

piles up
to intolerable,
to a breaking point
in the weight of all things
not working great,

or at all -
- that’s the break.

That's 
when we fall,
in collapsing shape 
to the smallest thing
we can be.

And let go
of all
of it we cannot

hold. 

Which is 
everything now,
and nothing free. 

We see clearly.
More clearly,
enough. Because
each spike and blank
of pain picks out in sharp
unrelief, or limns a line
a difference before we
could not see. Between
harmless and harm. And
innocent grief, and shame,
and blame.

Whatever may be.
What’s harmless could even be fine.
Could even work. With enough
stronger things in the mix!

But it’s killing you,
everything out of sync.
Imbalancing force.
Contentment's thief
has cleaned you out,
left nary a scrap. 

When nothing is working
you can't tell the cat from
the bird from the dog, or
the ground from sky. You

can’t tell the difference
between harmless and harm,
or live and die.

The whole machine has gone
out of whack. Some call it rock
bottom.

A terrible place to reach,
but there is a bottom,
there.

No farther to sink.
And clarity finds us up
and around what, who and where. 

We see what we need 
all the clearer
with everything 
removed. The mix
and morass in which

we bleed. 

In the sudden right moment 
of everything wrong, sometimes
we come 'round fast indeed. 

blind reckoning

It's better to find your way blind 
by feel and be thought a fool 
then turn on the light 
and be revealed 

or is it 
I guess 
only one way to tell 

who's the fool now 
and 
go to hell

So plausible

Some memories are like time machines,
 returning us to the moment we saw
such futures unfurling, hurrying on
- still ours for the taking, achievable!
 So plausible, then. Except for awe.

no good way

You make me crazy in a
good way
And then I realize there is 
no such thing 
I must be crazy
Because I really believe 
something 
And I don't really know 
what it is 
It seems less to do with 
reality 
And more to do
with you 
I just hold onto my 
sanity 
I don't think I have to 
choose between

Shooting, wracking pains

Whenever I experience shooting, 
wracking pains up my torso, down 
one hip and both legs, I take distinct 
pleasure in the jaunty insouciance 
by which I continue to traipse, 
strive, stoop to conquer and stride 
in aimless grace, giving no sign 
of pain. I consider myself stoic, 
not impervious. Mere impassive. 
I draw a line in equanimity and 
respond straight down it without 
veer, pause, wobble or keening 
wail. I consider all these things 
valid, despite technically I never 
have shooting, wracking pains 
of the kind described. This is 

how you inhabit hypotheticals, 
bravely to face and confront 
worst- and worse-case. This 

is how you know what you 
would do. How you would 
behave, should you ever. 

Mighty well, I reckon 
and reconnoiter. With 
a brave, indomitable 
grin or similar. Perhaps 
a placid innocence, or 
a harsh, barking laugh 
like cathedral bells 
tolling rude joy all 
through the town! 

I am 
I confess 
no bad ass. 

I am more 
or less good, as aim 
strikes true. 

As to "ass," 
I shrewdly prefer 
the term fool. 

The outstander

She looks lonely enough 
in any field, but it's only 'cause
she's outstanding in it. In fact 
she is lost in focus on real. 
Not overly conscious where 
emptiness fits, since she 
always outstands. It's 
kind of her jam. Above 
her beneath her it's 
never the same. 

She sees how it is
and what as well. 
She plays by the rule 
that it's not a game. 

It's the online age. 
You can be a farmer 
from anywhere. You  
have to locate a farm. 

Then I log in, check 
the rows. I compile
some folksy, homespun
code to seed, weed, everything
but reap! Come harvest time?

I do jobs dot com or similar.
I pay pals of mine newfound online.
They do the hard work for real
in the sweat and sun, pulling in
a bumper crop - all from home!  

In this age, days spent easy 
with a bevvy and a tab open 
on a keyboard, checking the
chores, the sun, the rain, all
pouring in before a screen, 

you can be a real farmer 

in your spare time. A farm, 
though. You need at least 
one of those to pull it off. 

But

If you want, you can probably 
just run a sort of a "farm
simulator" deal to get 
a hand in and your feet 
wet, while you build up 
the confidence to go full-on 
rural agribusiness baron.  

What a world this day and age 
has made for us to race and chase 
and never catch up 
 

no easy epiphany

I think of people 
sometimes, or no

say something 
- and it feels like some 
great, deep hovering

truth 

out there
suspended 
suddenly swings
just or almost in reach,

swaying or bobbing
invisibly. And so as a
matter of course and habit
I reach, grope, probe and flail 

fondling my thin air mind.

Trying to pull solid rocks out of it 

with substance
and weight 
like I do.

And I do 

but 

it wasn't what 
I thought I was trying 
to say 

or find. Produce 
something to show
and tell between with. See, I thought 

I had some guidance prong 
or justice gauge, maybe! 
Felt like, coming in focus - 
or just a big real feeling made 
of words. You could put it.
Question it, explain it, you could 

do anything 

with a thing like that.
If you could have it. If you
closed your mind's-eye's
hands upon it, and felt  

shape, heft and point

made yielding real.
Anyway, 

most times,
turns out nothing.
Or something 

elusive, 
out of reach, 
beguiling in its 
intangible almost-caress 

My tip?
When that happens, 
what can you do? 

Just make up some
deep
shit. 
See how it sounds 
on the light and air 

in their eyes 
and between their ears 

They surprise you sometimes 
and it makes you
realize 
something
real about humanity. 

Huge, true and just 

out of reach 

People love babies for reasons

People love babies
and the reason we love 
babies is that finally 
here is someone 
I can feel superior to. 
In about every way 
but youth. Intellect, 
I can solve math 
problems. Baby 
thinks 1 + 1 =
FEET! Which 
is clever and quite
true, but falls far 
short of the applications 
possible. Strength! Size! 

I am a brute huge individual 
capable of throwing baby 
over a low wall with ease! 

I won't, of course. Huh huh 

huh, 

for I am merciful. Mercy 
is indicated upon the helpless, 
stupid and weak 

such as you, baby. 

We love to condescend and talk 
to baby in rich, syrupy goo goo tones, 
lording it over them, gloating 

in our almost unimaginable superiority
which baby is too stupid and naïve

to even imagine! Let alone understand. 

When we roll time forward to imagine 
"Ah, lord it while I can, kid! For you"  
(we pause for gravity)
"...will one day surpass me." Thoughtful
pause. We don't much like the sound
of that, but too much experience
confirms. We decide to embrace 
it as real. We feel the full flush
of magnanimity emanating from
being core, and our virtue becomes
a guilty pleasure. Yes, 

I, the big one!
I am the one who builds 
the world and paves the way
and shit. 

For you, little one.
I make it possible for you one day 

to surpass me, infant! And in so doing, 

I prove all the more truly 

my innate greatness. 

We love babies 

because 

they're kind of the only ones who 
still take shit like that at face value,
or anyway, act like it. None the wiser 

While we are at least some 
the wiser, 
we reckon. We can always depend
on babies! Babies make
a great and favorable comparison,
on all metrics but

youth. 

There, we're big enough to admit -
they have the edge

babies scream to let us know they're noisy

babies scream 
to express a loud noise 
they connect somehow 
with the throat. 

The only throat 
that baby knows! Others 
have necks (baby sees) 
and can yap, shout, gurgle
and coo (baby feels this 
stuff all over and in), but
it's clearly not the same. 

Baby's throat is mighty 
to produce noise, and can 
do it! At will or emotional 
cue. Others do it for no 
reason, or some other 
reason. The noise doesn't
make baby's throat
hurt or feel 
at all. 

It is sound only. Baby's 
scream is more! Babies 
scream happily, or in joy, 
pain react, fear or sadness, 
anger - infants are consummate
expert and authority on indignation, 
and some never grow out of this. 

It's one of the most shock uplift hits 
sound has in its arsenal, the happy scream 
of a baby. At first you jolt bolt upright - 

baby is screaming! Fire, foes, awake! but 
before the sound has even completed itself, 

you note the note. Obviously happiness
joy
delight 
some confusion in, maybe, 
but all good confusion. We seem to lose 
as we go 
and grow 
the capacity for loving our incomprehension 
anyway, for nothing makes sense - but this 
is good. Adults oft let "WAIT. Does not make 
sense" block judgment and deflect good 
that is confusingly right there, but

confusing. And 

we abandon on the way
the practice of screaming to indicate 

how happy we are. 

Which is fine. 

We may have babies to remind
us sometimes.

mutual benefit

YOU and YOUR
ASS! Can go anywhere
your headbound mind
and spine and hips and legs
can take you, and I'm fine
with whatever that makes you.
I'm fine, 'cause it's fine, 'cause
you are evidently fine, but
it's none of my business
except
the part you have made
my business, and yes -
that's art and subterfuge,
and everything else that went into
this partnership
we delve and execute
and negotiate, so huge.
Yet somewhat tentatively,
as we rampage and stamp
and snort and rear. I guess,
bet and reckon eventually,
we'll find out that all
our needs

were here. 

the history of horses

Horses have really huge heads.
There's this super long part above the nostrils
It's crazy how long that goes on. The thing is
though, it's beautiful -

a beautiful arrangement somehow,

Even though objectively,
a head like that?
Seems odd! Yet
you look at a horse
and somehow it's all
balanced in a sort of gorgeous,
outsize proportion. 

I just wanted to tell you. Partly
in case you hadn't noticed. 
Partly, if I'm honest,
in case you had. 

Maybe you can explain it 

rap caution

Don't waste your time 
tryna draw the line 
when a man like me 
is always on time 
(metaphorically) 
you don't want to have tried  
wasting time when I'm on it.

Just seems like
a conflict of some 
kind.

Avoidable and regrettable. 
So I'm telling you don't, 
please. Bad news move. 

If I'm always on time -
and you're wasting it? 

That's like playing strip 
poker with Doctor Who 
while betting time chips, 
'cause it's money, yo. 

Time is.

So they say. 
Hence I'm on it,
and down to my underwear
but baby? I just don't play 

So you know, what I've got 
in my hand is a royal bluff 
of some such. I don't know 
how these particular cards 
add up, but I trust you each  
hand to tell me, "Oh hey!
That wins!" and I feel 

my luck is about to spin,
dip, land - though
it's anyone's guess
how that winds up. 

I'm about to luck! One 
way or the next. Anyway, 
this has been a worthwhile 
bet. Just - next time, please?
Do not 
waste
time. 

It could be important 
or just damn fine
to test.

enmeshenment

Prioritize minutia.
It's one thing so many
forget to do. Just let 
your mind wrap around
sensory stream's incoming
sights, sounds, smells and tastes,
and especially balance and touch,
and feel as you lean through the world 
touching things. Finding place, you
manipulate some object. Now.
You test its heft against
your bodily mass 

- Don't rush past and say "What's 
next? I lifted and put the damn
thing some how! Big deal. We
know how this works." 

No. You don't. Not unless
you really open the aperture
of attention beyond the compass
of awareness. Draw the ligature
loose, and let everything else
and all coming in swell it full.
You want to pay attention and
take this object in mind many
times at once, in eyes and breath
as you reach your hand(s) slid and
caught on its surfaces, pressure 
and friction, purchase and hold - 

NOW lift.
Feel your midline sway,
as you pivot on one foot
so butch-ass bold!
NOW put.
Like a stunt! Like a sport. 
Will it stay? If you picked 
a flat surface, you bet it will! 

All day. Now do everything
that way. Just immerse
in this moment 
now
and see
what everything has 
to say. Just everything in
you, and things all around in a
what, where, how, synchronicity
play. That's how your can-do
know-how peaks why. 

That's meaning and purpose 
to life, tough guy.
It's: 

prioritize minutia. 
Your mind opens up 
to be filled all day 
like a dumbass pup
yapping happily, 'cause
you learned you can. 
And wagging a tail
you don't have mah man!
But that tail-wag throws
your whole balance on.
So soon the world wants to know
what planet it is that you're from. 

OK, maybe hold it in just a bit.
You don't necessarily want
to fit out! Just build it up
holding and knowing
this shit. 

The open mind knowing it all 
don't doubt. Well, not the experience, 
anyway! Out to the side of that,
in theories and reports from afar,
we all leave room for doubt,
'cause we just don't know. 

tiny oceans

You're kind of like oceans
in human form. Or anyway
that's one place my mind goes
in you. It's oceans plural: an 
interconnectedness of salt 
waters with landmass askew 
in you: currents and drifts, 
and endless depths. Your 
form and your surface 
suggests such things. 
Despite you are small 
- one human being - 
you compass the world 
and bring life on wings. 

Or maybe 
you're every beach on earth. 
Or maybe 
you're just one girl in the world. 

And this is our beach. You 
next to me. You are 
oceans, girl 
- to drown is no way 
to be free, But sometimes,
looking at you I think

free is no way to be

The method (explained)

He never knew how to handle it, 
except how he handled it. 

This time.

It's case-by-case basis, and 
catch as catch can. But catch
can catch everything in snatch 
and grab and run, and ran, and
angle-correct, and rhythm and
rhyme, and reason

in any case. 

In any event.  

There is no prediction of how 
at all. It's how it's bent, and 
nil to waste. It's just

know-how, 

can-do. 

And some one's call. 

In case it's yours, 

make sure you 
went. 

And gave some 
fair proportion 
of all. 

That's all
the method there
is. Besides 

what we invent. 

tradeoffs

Gravity's finally working again
for me,
and I hate it.
'Cause I could fly.
I wanted to ground in reality,
forever, as sane as can be
'til I die, but I knew
if I reattached to ground,
I'd have to let go my wings.

But I flew so much missing
the draw, the pull,
of gravity

It was worth something. 

dream woman accuser

I dreamed I went to the DMV 
and a banner proclaimed white 
supremacy.
Posters of nude women
glared from the walls,
and placards of big hairy
homophobe balls. I laughed. 

A woman turned to me and glared.
"You think this is funny?" she asked,
appalled. "It's all just a dream!" I explained.
"It must be?"

"Whose dream is it then?"
she accused 

I dunno
not me  

sense memory

The pleasure of constricting throat, 
as stuff pours down in beverage time.
In pulsing cadence, gulp and gulp - 
I am what I put in me. Mine.

It's some sublime accomplishment
most barely give a passing thought.
But I am in most moments now.

I notice subtle things I've wrought. 

I take in full, responding fair - 
attentively to all at stake, 
and all in store. I welcome it 
receptively, this me I make. 

But sometimes I distract myself. 
For instance, what was this I drank?
The glass is empty; taste is gone. 

I take step back, detach and thank. 

Is Are.

light should not be made
all there is is grey
all the colors bled
all the textures fled
All There Is Are Lines.
everything's defined
nothing tones or shades
light should not be made

remodel job

I'm a remodeler, I 
take people who used to be models 
and make them models again, I 

do a detailed teeny tiny representation 
of something big or huge, well, maybe
tabletop size. Teeny tiny relatively! And
then I sort of make another one. It could
give me a chance for improvements!

A lot of the time first one's better.
I got a little too wild, maybe 

I remodel all kinds of things, 
cosmology 
society 
(especially the behavioral parts) 
what's in those black holes 
I do that one a lot 

a lot of the time I take an existing model
- perhaps the best grasp and conception 
humanity has - and declare "do-over!" 

It's sort of my model. My modus
if you will. It's how I operandi.
Only one I've ever had! Can't see

me changing now 

wow attract theory

You will attract beautiful things 
to your life 
the moment you start 
accepting 
it's bullshit 

there is no universe 

it's all huge right here, 
and elsewhere it's just 

infinitely teeny tiny 
bullshit.
You call that 
a "universe"? Accept it!
Accept it's bullshit, then, 
then you can maybe 

sit back and open yourself 
up 
to accept the abundance 
of some
bullshit 

Critical dog evaluation

My favorite kind of dog is dog -
and that's the kind of snout dog has! 
And dog is right about that size, 
and that's the kind of tail dog wags. 
As to color, length of coat: this 
coat does it to a "t."
Just this dog.
My favorite kind!
I wonder if this dog likes me?

Joe effect

It always annoys me a bit
when I meet a Joe, but
I’ve got to admit. Most
of us seem pretty decent. 

Part of the puzzle

Yet people value things that others fault.
Or find worthless things that others love and prize. 
This is the secret key
to the puzzle box combination lock
that guards the hold of the tugboat torpedo
that storms the fortress of every heart from the inside.

Or…possibly it’s just mine.
Have you a setup like that? On
the inner-window garden view?
A sort of a “tugboat torpedo”? It’s interesting,
because it storms the heart’s fortress from the inside
- wild. Anyway,

you know what I mean if you do.
You don’t know if you don’t.

"wrong job"

Very few kill themselves 
with an ax. 
A clumsy and inefficient 
method in fact. 
It really was not 
designed for that. 
But something about
the challenge attracts. 

forensics witch

A car was towed
from the shoulder of a road 
and a body was found
on the bare ass ground

Then the shoulder went missing 

and the ground was gone. 

All she had was the body 

and the car to go on, and 

she sure had the body. 

And the will to go on.
Plus a mind like 

a ravening, slavering wolf 

on a scent-sense track

of aimed purpose intent
upon so much wrong

she was fury unspent. 

 

Spoiling to be spent
in hunting out blame.  

She will bring this home. 

She will give it a name. 

She's got mad detail 

She's got acumen 

with an eldritch flair
for discoveries grim    

not to make things right 

just bring this home.
And give it a name.
This is all 

she's known   

the other wisdom

This is crazy in a sane way,
with all the reasons found to stay
and everybody's night but ours
is about to be ruined

for good

By stars
Of disaster
And signs
of Luck
which cuts all
our own way, and leaves
such lacks of fucks
by all waysides,

And every shine
is in your eyes
as you reflect
on mine

so wise

one moment now

We get old so slow, it's 
intended as a mercy
so that as we go 
we get used and used 
to it.
But each moment, 
it strikes us so fast - 
looking back on our time,
in one moment now past

and we can't 
get used to that. 
And we can't 
get used to life, 
'cause we can't 
get used 
to bliss. 
And that's all we have 
to get through this. 

Well I have come 
from the afterlife to tell you 
there isn't one. It's just 
a small prank, called a lie, 
called a con. And it starts 
so long, 
but goes on so short, 
that we look up and find 
we've bought it each day 
as we build our fort 
and deepen our well. 
At the bottom of which 
our well-being feels sound 
as a bell that can't ring,
treading deep and dark waters 
without any swell 

and we can't 
get used to that. 
And we can't 
get used to life, 
'cause we can't 
get used 
to bliss. 
And that's all we have 
to get through this. 

As the bill of all goods 
comes slowly or suddenly due. 
We look back on the sunrises missed, 
and the morning dew left undrunk, 
unkissed, and all the undoing
unknowing of everything we
could have had 
of this 
within reach 
of everyday through. 

We strove with such urgency vain 
in a fuzz of the fuzzy and lossy 
mad logic of life, which all traces back 
to why 

because 

we can't.

Get used 
to this. And we can't 
get used to death. 
'Cause we know that this moment 
this one moment now
is all we had left 
all along 

we have blessed

as much
as anyone's blessed. 

circus door

I always approach the circus door 
uneasily knowing what's inside. 
There's knife-throwing going on in 
there. There's elephant smell. There's 
acrobat husband and big clown bride. 
There's bleachers and straw and it's all 
in tents. There's echoes of childish 

screams,
and more. I know all of 
this. It's no 
surprise 

I always approach the circus door 

cute about kangaroos?

We think there's something cute 
about kangaroos because 
evolution fucked up 
in the pouch 
down there 
but 
you know what? 
That sort of matted, 
tufted fur of theirs and
the head shape, generally
along a pretty agreeable pattern
- plus this alien bipedal bounce-lope
locomotion style they rock

more or less astutely? 

They got it. They got something, 
and it's going on, clearly. I say 

Cut 'em a slack
and given 'em 
some break! They may 
pull this out yet 

the kangaroos. 

I'm pullin for em. 
Teem roo in two 
zero two two  

old lilac wood

Old lilac wood
has deep streaks 
of purple inside.

That's the kind of thing
people want to know who 
purchase incense, scented
candles and soaps. They buy
organic maybe, and sell
carbon footprint remover.

We get along fine, because
I know things that wake curiosity 
in them. I used to work for
a natural products 
distributor 

Anyway 

Just thought you might like 
to know 

Enough.

I was an only child, once 
At two, I had a twin 
By seven, I was triplets, 
and quadruplets at age ten. 
All five of us by twelve were of
exactly the same mind. So when
the sixth of us showed up,
we killed him in good time. 

Holy shit! The Caspian Sea

Holy shit! The Caspian Sea
is home to a wide range of species!

Known for its caviar and oil industries!
Pollution from oil industries and dams

on rivers draining into it
have harmed its ecology.
Oho, oh hell. Ah damn alas!  

The Caspian Sea!

Hoy-halloo! The Caspian Sea
is the largest inland body
of water on earth! It's salty
- about one-third
as salty

as full-on real oceans.

It exists 
in an endorheic basin, which means
basically water flows in, it don't flow out.
Swamps or evaporation do the job! Like
the Great Salt Lake, the Dead Sea, or
Lake Corangamite in Victoria! Ho! Holla!  

The Caspian Sea makes all of these 
look like a piece of shit, size-wise. 
It's huge. The biggest! The Caspian Sea! 

Still

The Indian Ocean
is probably over there, 
like "Go fuck yourself, 

Caspian. You're no Sea.
You're a fucking mildly-salty
lake, see?"  

The Indian Ocean 
's fucking huge, guys 

The Caspian Seas
of the world?
Are on a whole
other small scale next
to that Indian Ocean. 

Ohai Ohey!
I sing this praise! 
I sing these ways
for all these days,
in praise of the Caspian Sea! Ta-ha!