veins

I love your sober quality.
Your thoughtful, serious 
way with words. Although 
you're adorable fun
when drunk 
or just
on a playful kick, absurd, 
your sober quality
is threaded through 
like veins of golden sense
intoxicating 

all my...sense...veins...gold 

OK, "veins" there is kind of gross. 

homecoming

Take me home 
to the place we'll be from,
forever now on
if anyone asks
Just take me home,
and I'll look around 
and believe I am
home at last.

I bet there's a dog 
and a beach out front. 
I bet there's a door 
and a key to it. 
I bet that the whole world 
fits inside,
or all of the world 
we'd want to fit. 

Oh, I've never been home.
It sounds like a beautiful place
I'm sure it will be, on the day 
you take me home 
to the place we'll be from,
if anyone asks, 
forever now on,
okay?

mouth full of punch

You took a deep sip
of colored punch, 
then suddenly laughed 

it went everywhere. 
I said don't mind! 
This is abstract art. 
The color completes 
my shirt and hair. 

Besides (I thought
to myself) if your mouth
could punch me in the stomach 
like your words do, I would suck
in my gut, and pull in my breath,
not giggle or squirm a bit until

your mouth was through. 

Then perhaps
you could lay your head
on my chest. 

I might need a clean shirt, 
but the sound of your laughter 
is everything. A bit of a mess 
in the right place

can't hurt. 

cut glass

Her mind is cut glass 
and diamond.

The former is
thought.

The latter is 
reason, sense,
or taste - whichever
is called impeccably
to the fore to cleave facet,
cut shape and depth, set face.
You can tell by a trick of the light 
besides, which of all of this 
is which - in a twinkling, 
a pinch, she will switch 
it all up and present
you  so many
gems, 

forthwith. 

It's 
a knack, 
an aspect of hers 
to amaze. She is eager 
to show and to fascinate, 
but her focused intent 
is hard clarity. 

She aims 
to extract something 
so exact, you 
can easily

see.

See? 

aikido the bird

If I had a pet seagull, 
I would set him free 
to be above the law, 
hard to kill even on
deadly ground, and out, 
out,
over the waves. Out
for justice,
maybe.

I would name him 
Steven Seagull, and he 
would be big, fat and slow 
but I'd improve his ungainly 
flap and dive by editing
and camera tricks, 

and I'd set him free. 

by eating it

Sometimes cheese  
smells like feet. 
That's so you know: 
don't eat! Don't eat! 

That one time we 
made nachos, though. 
If you put enough stuff 
on, how would you 
know? 

Why do poets sometimes

Why do poets sometimes 
write poems about 
writing poems? Well, 
the secret is 

we don't know how to.
And we're hoping 
to find out. 

The problem is, 
this was/is a poem. Right
here. That you're reading.
Hard to justify, no doubt 

about it. Maybe in another
poem or two the secret will crack
open and take a crap on our 
heads from above? An 
epiphany that can't 
ever again be undone! 

We'd be reliably able 
to write poems after that, 
without guess or stretch 
or mix or switch,
but it never does

(come)

Yes, yes we know 
it's boring! For anyone 
not interested, but 

you could say the same 
about anything, duh.

Tutorial blues

Step one: it doesn't have 
to rhyme. Step two: 

unless it did. 

That's fine. For this
and further steps 
"near rhyme" will do. 
"Off-rhyme," that's if

you have decided to. 

If you have indecision, 
sure. You can rhyme off/rhyme 
on. Read it out loud. Let
each stanza break be a breather,
and let the next line find
its own tempo!

Or just displace the beat 
a line. Or several lines. 
When the expected rhyme 
hits one to three beats 
late, it can be a sweet 
reminder! Your shuffling steps 
could be a song - but watch 
the gait. You don't want 
hallmark treacle

sneaking in. Such doggerel
is not your style, 

unless 

well, unless it is.
I suppose. In which case, 
go on, get on, shoo. Cease 
this waste of our time! 

You didn't seriously think 
I was going to rhyme 'treacle' 
did you? 

overhang

The biggest drain upon
energy 
is something hanging over 
I have to do. Surprise tasks 
- I leap to accomplish fast! 

But a thing sunk into 
my future flesh 
like a nail 

bangs into and through, 
and holds me stuck. 

I guess I procrastinate, 
but really it feels much 
more like a rut, that 

I can't get into 
until it's too late. 

sales pitch dark

If I keep giving it away for free, 
maybe someone will want to buy 
the cow. I'm not interested in 
who drinks milk and cream. 

Meat and leather is all 
that I'll allow

The Bat

I bet
Batman never realized 
he wears eye makeup 
until 
that first movie.
A few test fittings,
checking the light: "Damn, 
that looks terrible," 
he thought. "Campy, 
like the tv show."

"I can't glare balefully
at people like this. I have eyes 
that float ghostly in the darkness
of my cowl, damn it!" 

Thank god for prep time, 
huh

magic circles trick

You are always there, 
wherever you are
doing things so characteristically 
you.

Any time I chance to sweep by,
peep in, it is never same,
but it's always true. 

I'm reminded of that old magic trick.
The magician with circles interlinked.
With a metal shoosh and a swoop 
of hands - link breaks! Yet somehow

I can't help but think we remain
thus enlaced. Call it anything.

Call it quantum entanglement 
if we like. No matter how physicists
stamp and fume
at our ham
-handed mis
-struck metaphor,

it's alright. 

Call it ours,
call it shared
or joined. Scratch 
a mark on the board. 
+1 to the score. 

Call it just how I am 
sees just how you are. 
Always there. Sometimes here,
and come back for more.

upbraiding

Some people might say 
I write too many poems 
about poems; what might 
be called "meta-verse."

Well, skip those then, 
fool! Poems are for skipping 
and skimming lightly, a traipse 
one makes through words 
that stay - perchance 
to pause and plow 
a furrow, if the rich, wet loam 
is agreeable. Found a good one?

Sink into it at sixty to
two hundred kilometers per hour, 
right up to the hood ornament!
Back out and come back in. 
Read it aloud. Poems 
really do need this 
intake and measured 
spread of breath, like 
angel wings working
overtime in a whisky
-stacked warehouse. Don't 

get a reference? Leave 
it! Knock it like a rock 
and plow on, or keep 
wandering in whatever 
meadow you find smells 
well, or beautifully, or 

even vividly horrid. Poems 
are for that,
even 

if they are a bit too much 
about themselves, sometimes.
It's a hazard of the form. Skip it, 
fool. No one asked you 
not to. 

Did they? I mean, who knows 
maybe some do

confessional verse

I really only have 
two gears for poems:
sing-song same-same 
meter trucking on down 
the stanzas, line breaks 
playing tricks to make 
the march seem free, 

and 

shuffle. Same as above, 
but put the rhymes on 
unexpected beats, just 
so they're all there. 

Oh, plus my standby:
conversational prose, 
pretty much how I speak 
- like this one. Same trick 
with the line breaks, 
but 

I don't really call that 
a "gear" - would you? 

More like coasting in 
neutral, down the slope, 
crash off or through any
available guardrail into 
handy ditch or over a cliff 
and back up again. Just 

so it's written down all 
even-uneven, funny-
looking - it counts. 

So, I have only two 
gears, really. Two gears 

and a mode. 

gearshift

Stutter and pause all you want, 
but what you're saying 
is inevitable, now.
Gasp, stutter-stop,
backtrack or ejaculate 
and sigh: once begun,

there is no other way 

those first few words 
were ever going to inevitably
complete to sentences. Life, truth, 
love is an option, deathlike, 
unavoidable as it happens,
although - sometimes,
it never does.

This is no crapshoot. 
No toss-up, potluck 
chance to spot
and execute. 
You have not 
yet 
begun 
to speak.

You caught 
the trip before
your first step, and now 

you will have to decide 
whether to take it. 

Chronic pain

Chronic pain
is one hell 
of a m***erf**ker
to steal your productivity 
or stunt your capability. 
That's why I'm glad 
I never have any. 
All my pain 
is acute

brand-new, like 
never anything 
I've experienced 

stabbing, twitching 
back, burning in 

easy there, hot stuff 

are you sure we've 
never been introduced? 

Yup. Pretty sure 
pretty much sure

Uneven meter

I find I've had 
a number of loves, 
arranged in ways 
innumerable 
at various times 
available 
to drop a plumbline 

down all the way through 

by angles and light,
by shape and form
by velocity and impact point,
and crack and surface sheen 
through depths

to stir up a memory I never
had

that runs and pulls through
several that were. I tug.
If it holds, then that's
a verse.

I find the refrain
rings familiar, sir
- eventually. 

The danger of writing 
things this way is that 
- while they end up 
believable, plausible
 - they have 
a disconcerting chance
of coming true, like
an augury medieval
only seen to match
just now, too late
to do anything about
the coincidence.  

Curse of Nostradamus, 
maybe. Given interpretation, 
anything sufficiently vague
might specifically hit a number
of future bullseyes, sticking deep
enough
to  
quiver in the hand
and draw blood. 

Retrospect, hindsight! 
The worst-case and next best
thing to omniscience, or 
at least clairvoyance 
or prescience. 

If you drop a heavy line
plumb true down through 
enough feeling, meaning,
value found in experience, 
it is practically bound 
to clatter around 
and become
autobiographical 

at some point,
some day hence,
future tense. 
That's if you keep 
taking risks for real, 
which I do, too. 

So any time I write 
a really horrible line 
or terrible verse - old sense, 
both terms - I shudder a bit 
lest the risk I take
to profit by creatively

find recompense. 

ground rules for a given moment (unspoken)

I won't bother you with pressing 
questions or needless details 
unless you let me. Let's 
call that a deal, but you 
can always declare 
a tangent lopped
and dropped, cut 
short or off - a way

closed 

and I won't mind at all. 
The interest in it was 
joined or nil. It wasn't 

small talk, no, but 
it could have been 
large or deep, wide 
or far, long or short 
- it would have to be 
joined. Ours,
or nil. No one's.

So you know,
I don't engage 
in talks with you or 
anyone to drag along 
dawdling after me 
by obligation or threat! 

Honestly

Who does that? 

Who says that. 

So let's call that a deal, 

and you  
at any point

can always call it off.
I won't bother you, unless 
stung by a jolt of hot interest 
shared, you find you want 
to be bothered

for some reason
momentarily

mortal equipment

The dead are always 
fully-armed. Reduced 
to ash, or buried embalmed. 
We dress them in some Sunday 
best, let fire or gravestone 
do the rest.
They strike at us 
from vales beyond
by poleax, spear, or
sword of flame.
The dead 
are always
fully-armed. 
Sometimes,
they don't even
need 
a name. 

They stand in warning 
by dangerous paths.
What happened to them
could happen again. It
has happened before. 

So we stand transfixed 
warned off from risk, 
and love, 
and pain

galore. 

dock stench

No amount of tidal 
wax and wane can even
make a dent. Can ever
wash away that smell 
- a stench of tarred 
pilings, and what 
you imagine is fish, 
even if the boats 
are all pleasure 
vessels; even if 
there are no boats. 

There's this deep wet 
wood, wet dog smell
that just exudes
itself. You can't get
it out of your hair 

and clothes 

It brings back 
memories so fast
you need to get
the hell out 
of there. 

Even now, some 
people reading this 
are saying "Oh, yeah." 

Go down to the docks 
if you want to know. 
Come at high tide, 
it's an undernote 
to everything, but 

for the real thick 
experience, come 
at low

be in advertising

We want to go for hearth 
& home - that rising up 
and slowly settling down 
feeling. Cauldron of soup 
like a witch's brew! Memories 
have got me reeling. Less 
like a home than a B & B
- we want that cutesy 
kitschy coo, like that time 
you walked in on me with 
that guy - totally innocent! 
But I stood there yelling, 
standing on the bed,
brandishing a frying pan 
- first thing that came to 
hand. Like that, but not 
that. That sort of offhand
but lived-in woof and texture
in every room. Hearth & home.
This campaign is gonna slay 'em.
Let's see your preliminary ideas 
Tuesday, same time - remember
it's hearth & home. Good job 
paying attention, team. I know 
you can do fine. Probably 
anything you come up with 
will hit the mark, with 
an overhaul or redo 
or two 

positions

I'm largely against absolutism, 
except in the case of specific 
idealisms where the idealist 
knows: it is aim, not goal - 
and isn't kidding self or us
about that.

I have generally no use
for solipsism, but solipsists
are endlessly engrossing 
in their posed-unique way(s). 

Determinists, I am okay with. 
They probably can't help it. 

Sophists, my position varies
by specific sophism.

In fact, take that qualification
as general. There's probably no
position that can't be done well,
originally - or by personal and
peculiar development - so long
as the one so posed, so positing,
so positioned doesn't cross 

some line
to full-on bigotry.
Long as they don't,
I'm like "Hit me with the whole
dog!"  

Bigotry, though. I have a huge
bias, there. I am I confess prejudiced
against bigots. Don't worry, though!
- that isn't a hypocritical stance.
You might think it may be,
but in this case, no.
I can walk you through it,
sometime if you like. It's
kind of fun, or

it could be. 

Everything else? Assume I'm 
cool with it! If I'm not, I'll 
say so in the form of saying 
why. Or as the case may be, 
why not? 

Next-gen clickbait prediction

What if clickbait articles
were about You? All snark 
and snide, grabby headlines 
that the copy never quite
lives up to - yet leaves you 
feeling smeared all the same!

"[Your Name] astonishes 
entire Sunday brunch crew 
with epic, unprecedented
fart," (click to read)

"[Your Name] commits 
indefensible breach of
friendship by accidentally
telling gossip story to
the target of the gossip.
Thought it was about
somebody else!" (click
to read)

"[Your Name]'s claimed goals
for the next five years reveal
[You] have learned absolutely
nothing from the previous
[Your Real Age] years," (click)

(to read)

Then you click to see, 
all pissed, and it turns out 
to be a whole bunch of 
bullshit. Some slideshow 
that takes forever to get 
nowhere. Click. Click. 

Click. 

It probably wouldn't be 
hard, what with AI and 
everything you type, text 
or search. 

Let's all get ready 
for the next generation 
in interactive content, 
huh? Just in case. 

Can't hurt to be ready 

"Not A Test"

You excite me so much, 
if anxiety counts.
It is pretty exciting,
in strange amounts 
- and I have no idea 
what we would be for: 
together forever, or 
never to score 

But let's hang on with hope 
so long, so long, so long
as we've got nothing better 
to hang on.

Let's hang on with hope,
so long, so long. So far,
so good, so I guess 
let's hang on

There's a part of me gone 
and missing inside.
I found it when you first
met my eyes, and it seems
like you fit there, naturally.
It would be so insane
not to check and see. 
Not to wait and see 
where we'll end up soon, 
or late, or never, whatever 
comes true.
It would be pretty strange 
not to hang on for that. 
Whatever that turns out 
to be, in fact. 

Let's hang on with hope, 
so long, so long, so long 
as we've got nothing better 
to hang on. Let's hang on 
with hope: so far, so best 
so I guess let's hang on 
and hope for the rest. 

This is not a test

the broken spell

We are stood on a cliff.
Facing backwards, 
hand in hand. 
We can see every step 
we came up unplanned,
and there's nothing
to do but take a bow.

No need to fall 
backwards. I trust 
you now. 

We have nothing 
to prove. We've
been everywhere.
All over each other.
We know who cares,
and how much
we've dared.

So let go, now. Split.
Turn in towards each other
and part. We knew
this was it.

Don't fart - for God's sake!
Or we'll break the spell,
fall out laughing and crying,
hugging as well - and there's
always the chance that leads on
to more. We came all this way,
love. 

Did we know what for?
Or is it too late, now to go? 
Then stay. We can say 
we just went for a walk,
let's say. We can back away
all the way back, if so.

In case it's too late 
to find separate ways
to go. 

partial harm

A piece of a poem
curved inward and hit
to the left of my heart,
now I'm sick of it.

An almost-glance,
almost grasp, almost
kiss. Sometimes
the worst hits
are dealt by near-miss.

And yet we seek on,
reach out, try to catch -
until every lesson that taught
we were wrong to try
has gone past

unlearned, unshared.
Unheeded in every
moment we dared.

"Back On My Bullshit"

I did a 360 
and doubled my speed 
right straight at my usual 
want and need 
with a purpose to strike 
out and miss or hit, 
as usual
here I come

I'm back on my bullshit 
Way back, back, back 
back on my bullshit 
Are you a fan? 
Take splat 
'Cause I'm back, flat, 
pat on my bullshit 
back, that's-that,
just call it a knack,
here I am! I'm back

Don't call it a comeback 
I'm here all the time 
doing this bullshit 
so specifically mine
You could write out a script 
if you follow along 
this is word-for-word 
line-by-line, back on 

My bullshit,
Oh yeah. You see
I'm back  
on my bullshit, 
call it a knack -

you've got tact
Unlike my bullshit, 
arguably - that's wrong. 
Inarguably's more my style 
I'm on  

me bucko

From now on, I'm calling you 
"me bucko," but of course 
you're free

to push back on that.
Free to buck 
it! So to speak, 
me bucko. Q E D. 

needs must

Someone tells me what I need 
- but I don't even want! 
It seems we're at cross-purposes. 

I know. Let's each agree to hunt 
and peck and charge and quest 
our own.

That way, if I don't need something
that you need very much, there will
be all the more for you to seek!
Perchance to find and touch.

Have all your fill! 
Take all my share
of what you say 
I need, as well. 

Truth is, I wasn't going to 
anyway. For anything one
really needs, I think
we each can tell.

Your need is neither seed
nor feed to me, so
what the heck,
or hey, or 

hell. 

solipsism's hitch

The problem with life
being all in your head,
is
it's all in other peoples' heads 
too.
And they all have found 
a very different idea
or two. 

This difference is what 
we essentially spend 
most of our lives 
working through,
trying to predict,
and trying to deal with 

when we do. 

lie about the weather

I never lie about the weather. 
But now that it's occurred to me 
as a possibility, I have the sudden 
urge

to describe 
the stoop-backed
giant raincloud sidling towards us
from the north (possibly) all afternoon, 
until suddenly it broke open the heavens
above. A deluge of fresh, sweet gallon
-sized tears, as soon as it got near
me. 

I have that effect
on rainclouds. Sometimes,
I think they just want
a reliable confidante
who won't judge
them. For displaying 
vulnerability. Weakness. 

Not surprising!
Who among us
wouldn't want that?

But it is a bit disheartening
when you know you can't
do a thing to help, except 

what anyone could do. Go out
in it, and take it all on
the shoulder. 

why eight's great

If infinity
is sideways eight, 
then all eight needs 
to do is stop trying
so hard. Lie down 
for a spell 

and abracadabra, 
infinity! 

So much for "big
number nine," huh? 
Can't beat that sleepy
eight, not with any
number of zeroes!

Take a rest, eight. 
You'll earn it. 

humble meditations

Being naturally quite meek
(a close cousin to timid), I
don't sweat intimidation, 
really. Humiliation as well 
tends not to impress much 
upon the foot-thick galvanized
tin of my deep humility. What 
really
gets me impressed is 
encouragement. Now, given
my base state of courage,
you'd think it almost
impossible to encourage

me! And yet, 

it's not. It's
so easy 

zoom tune

Drive my drive 
and I'll ride your ride 
If we talk the talk 
walk side by side 
might as well pick up 
all there is to pick. 
And I promise you 
I won't trick. No trick