"You Don't Really Want It That Bad"

If I could do anything
to be with you right now, I would
snap my fingers, clap my hands
wish on stars until
I found out how,

but
if I could do everything
to lay the ground, to pave the way
I'm paralyzed
looking around
they need me here
"They need me here,"
I say

And every day growing older
every day growing loud
almost audible, now
there's a voice of doubt:

"You don't really want it that bad.
Too bad you can't have it easy.
You can't have it at all, because
you don't really want it that bad.
Bad enough to reach out and seize,
and shake the tree until
everything falls."

I almost burned my hand on a star
by reaching too far,
almost close enough to grasp

or it seemed at the time it was.
I still feel the pain
of that empty hand

closing on nothing.
Unable to ask,

when wishes can't hold
what you're wishing for

there's a voice of doubt
inside, wanting more.

whispered counsel

If you deny all accusations of fault,
do you deny all observations of fact?
The one and the two
are like tit for tat, sometimes
with that.
And you have,

now and then,

to take a step back
from your stance,
where you stand

on a ground too far
for your grounds to support. Do you represent

yourself in life, as you would in court?

You seem just the devil
I would advocate for.

First let me teach you a thing or two
about how to get by with the truth,
you innocent you.

You don't know

how much stronger your case really is,
than the impression all your bristling
defense gives. First of all, let me tell
you why you did what you did. You will find

you have acted as all
of the passionate and righteous do,
who don't stop to think of how clever they are
- congratulate yourself for that fatal flaw!
But before we are through,
you will see your way clear and far

to how your blameless act unfolds.
Thank God you don't gloat, or threaten
or brag too much!

That could have destroyed
all the good
we are trying to mold.

sophisticated domesticity

You can't eat your cake
and have it, too. Unless
you made your cake.

You will then have your cake
to make! And eat it, too.

And if you teach
a man to bake?

You could get fish
for dinner, any night
you cared to scale and gut
and bread and fry the stuff.

And he? He would be mixing up
from flour, baking powder, sugar,
eggs and milk and salt, a batter
sweet to lick and pour and slide
into preheated oven, taking pride
and special care to show
he'd learned your lessons,
leavened with the love
you had entrusted him,
and not without a certain touch
of his invention, changing them. He's sure

he has perfected it. Another thing
to call his own. And for dessert,

you'll try

a piece. It tastes a bit
like burning fish. It takes all things
to make a home.

about your fortune

See, when you go and seek your fortune,
it's like you feel like it's out there
waiting for you.
It's a form of entitlement. But then,
so is destiny. Fate. Are we entitled to that?
I say yes, but
they don't exist.
So we may as well not be.

Still, something
is inevitably going to happen.
It always does. It's happening right now!
And in another moment, another thing - something.
It's inevitable,
in fact, tons of things
are inevitably, inescapably, inexorably
happening right now. Even if perhaps,

with planning and foresight,
tutored by hindsight and previous
failures to plan, many of them

might not have come
to be called inevitable. So
it makes a certain amount*
of sense, to bank on the odds
that the one of the inevitable somethings
which eventually will happen
will be good,
and plentiful, and
have some sort of positive cash-flow aspect
attached to it, in some way - and to call that thing

one's "fortune."

And if that's the case, then
what's more natural than to go out
and seek it? In fact,
in a manner reminiscent of a "time paradox,"
it's possible that your determination

that it does exist, out there

waiting for you somehow, coupled with
your decision to "go out" after it, and
compounded by all the other shit
that happens to happen (what the French call
la coincidence), is precisely

the thing that brings it about

when if you had done nothing (or
something else), it may have never
had happened at all!

This

is the kind of shit that drove Oedipus nuts!

However
in the modern age, we know
it's not that simple. It's not all
prophecies and oracles, with the exact person
we flee town not to fuck
ending up pursuing us to the town ahead
and having been in fact,
a completely different person all along
so we can conveniently fuck them and gouge out our eyes
when the cosmic joke is revealed. No,

the truth is more modern and "hip"
these days. We can express it best
using pseudoscience: The Present is
a binary probability wave,
passing over the Future
at a constant rate of Now,

converting all possible events (events
with some nonzero probability of happening)
to events with either a 100% or
a 0% probability of having happened. It
happens in an instant; it happens Now. (Note:
"events with a 0% probability," not the same
as "nonevents"! Nonevents happen,
but nobody cares). In that moment,
100% probability events happen, and 0%
probability events

do not.

There are no in-betweens, as the great probability wave
is collapsed into one or the other, by Now. By the Present,
rolling over what was until just recently the Future. The Present

is the measurement reality makes upon possibility, seen
or unseen by we
mere observers.

And the probability wave keeps rolling,
passing over all Possibility,
collapsing each possible event's quantum
indeterminacy state into a zero (0) or a one (1),
and flipping each from Future to Past for the ones (1s).
It all happens in a moment, and when it happens, it happens
forever. It's a moment that never stops happening, and never
stops having had happened.

This is what Buddhists
and surfers are talking about. A lot of the time.

*0

asterisk mind

My sense of proportion has terrorized me.
My measured response
must be measured, not once,
but again and again
'til it's found to fit.

By then it's too late to be offering it.
It would make too much
of a comment that passed
without comment, objection, correction
or fuss.

Besides, the conversation has run
considerably past

where I thought it was.

what we forget about the best times of our lives

Remember how much you've forgotten
before you decide how much of life
to give up on, and throw away. Remember

how unexpected almost every one
of all of the bests
you have ever had,
really was at the time.
How you couldn't believe

it was happening to you,
while it was happening.

Please note, at this moment
you do not expect
anything like that, ever again.

Just as you didn't then.
So when have you ever?
Now as then,
you can't ever believe

that it was or it could be happening.

That's how it is, in the time between.

But who
knows what
tomorrow will bring?

Clichés, most like.

More of the same.

Same verse,
Same verse,
on the way

to a different refrain

You Be The One

Turn the corner, here right
about a hundred miles back
and I don't know if the map
really has this part.

Let's call it a road trip
and see what comes,
if we drive
towards the light in the sky

Whether we get there
is half the fun

Just you be the one,
please, you be the one.
I know I am two, if you
could be who I was counting on.
Just you be the one,
then I will be two,
and call it a song.

With a one and a two
and the way we've gone,
Between us, do we have
the math for this?

But simple is best,
in ignorant bliss.
If we fly to the heights
our fancy can kiss,

Whether we find it or not,
we'll have this.

Just you be the one,
please, you be the one.
I know I am two, if you
could be who I was counting on.
Just you be the one,
and I will be two,
and call it a song.

What time is it, girl?
Are we almost there?
Let's just sing along
at the tops of our lungs

And trust in the fates we don't admit
Have found us half-way

to the start of it,

And move on from there.
We'll be moving on
to wherever you say,
I'll turn, just

You be the one.

sunny not sunny

You're not at all smiling in this picture.
I've looked at it full dozens
of times, and just

noticed now.
I always thought you were

smiling, here. This moment snapped
and taken off, to save. Why

have I always seen you
smiling, just then? Just look

at you! Maybe you had just stopped
smiling. Maybe you were on the point
of starting a smile. Or maybe you
were going to continue standing there,
with your face more or less
composed in the sun. But

not smiling, clearly. At all. In fact,

you look a bit like someone

who's been told she should smile, or

she should smile more.

That suggestion
is frowned upon.

elephant

The elephant in the room
leaves copious turds,
which must be quickly cleaned up

while each other's backs are turned.
We have to take turns. It's worth it

to plausibly deny there's a pachyderm.

soft shoulder

Please
don't

this is sad enough

without me having to hear it though,
unable any way
to change
the circumstance or fix

your pain, I know

sometimes it helps to just
share
how much it hurts,

have
someone

to listen and
watch their face,

Oh
Please

not me
please not me

it can only get worse

for most of you

I wake up in a body
I don't know how I found
but I've worked my way into it
inside and out, and
I still feel the reaches
I can't wiggle all the way
to fill

Most each and every day,
I've been turning my head around
inside and out, and
I can't decide what everyone
is talking about, but
it's easily enough
done and said, to play
my part

Almost each and every day,

And I imagine for most of you,
it goes the same
I imagine for most of you
it goes the same
Imagining you're the only one
stuck in a brain, born
a little too close to sane

For comfort, I will carry myself
everywhere my memories serve me well
but I still can't handle it
I was born with intuition but
I've backed my way out of it
staring into the abyss
where I used to fit,
and I look back

Each and every day almost,
to a soundtrack of all the greatest hits
that somehow missed every one

so close

And I imagine for most of you,
it goes the same
I imagine for most of you
it goes the same
Imagining you're the only one
stuck in a brain, born
a little too close to sane

to get all the way out
or all the way in
you get just enough of the joke
to make it sting
you get enough of the rules
to know
it's not a game, and therefore
you can't win.

but you play

And I imagine for most of you,
it goes the same
I imagine for most of you
it goes the same
Imagining you're the only one
stuck in a brain, born
a little too close to sane

BEEP

Whenever I think of you
it's like you beep my nose.
And no one's ever really
beeped my nose, so

I don't have bad associations,
forcing me to tell you "No!
Please don't!"
"You shouldn't have anyway,
without asking! Some one
used to beep

my nose like that. I hate it"

But in my case, no. I know I don't
have to tell you that. I'd have
no excuse, it isn't true. And how
can I expect you to ask, before
you come to mind? BEEP

there it goes

I find
I like it fine. But how about

you?

CRACK

The crack in a broken heart
is a lightning bolt,
to let the power out you've held in for too long,
and known too well
to not know how to let it go,
and how and where to aim.

You learned
to hold it in,
and now

you learn to let it out again. Your enemies

- their chance is slim.

emotional labor

Trying to find all the ways my life
is beyond my control, so I can let go
of those, and concentrate on

educating everyone

as to what the conditions are
when dealing with me, and everything

they should know they're responsible for,
which I never chose. It's exhausting,
though. First,

to find out the facts to explain,
second, explaining them over again

every time they forget what they have
to do. It's excruciating

I wish everyone knew

a servant shouldn't smile

A perfect servant.
Never says a word, except to agree
when spoken to.

This hint of a smile
could threaten us both.
You shouldn't enjoy
what you're bound to do

- not visibly so.
At most and always,
a deep satisfaction
in job well-done

as evidenced by
a placid face. Not such a grin
as I've got on.

some secret agency

It's ok. I'm not going to find you out.
You don't have to worry. The impression
you've made, that you love to make

that I love to get - the way I see you,
making all these days -
you're not going to slip

and give it away.
You will never betray yourself
to me. I will cover for you

every time you trip, and no one will know
but just us two. I won't even have seen

it reflect on you.

one more person

If one more person lacked my way with words,
I think sometimes it would be free
and clear, and life

could go unspoken

oh so easily

at least,

it would easier.

belief and comprehension

If you knew how much I love you,
your head would explode
inside your heart
from knowing,
and your heart would hold
it back together, then
pop your head back up your neck
with the most amazing smile.
It would be a happy ending, but

baby I don't want you
to go through that. Your smile
is the most amazing already I think

maybe you found out

the big reveal

Some things it's best to just let lie.
Some people, it's best
to just let lie.
Some loves, it's best to just let die.
To just let go, and say:
There is no why.
Some lies, it's best to leave
unsaid, some questions unasked,
some thoughts
unread.

But sometimes I wish
you could read my mind,
lay every little bit of it bare,
every corner exposed to light and air,
and tell me just what you think
of what you find.

What do you think you would find?

I want to explain
all the things we don't know
could be in there
that could be upsetting
to you. And maybe there's nothing

- but maybe there's
something, as well. I wish
I could open myself, to let you inspect
everything that's there

before we're through.

"unmentionables"

My mind has gone. Not blank,
but white - a picture of you
fills the frame, but
I am stopped from seeing you,
by all the things that
you're not mentioning

I've had enough of your bullshit

Listen, I've had enough
of your bullshit.
I'm not sick of it,
really, or angry,

in fact,
I have been enjoying it
all this time up to now.

I have had
a pleasant sufficiency,
and
I think we've reached
a good stopping point,
for today,
for your bullshit.

Save some bullshit
for a future occasion.
Quit
while your bullshit is ahead. Leave them
wanting more

of your bullshit.

But I don't, though.
I've had enough.

I emphasize
that it was exemplary
bullshit. Just what I've come to expect
from you, and thank you

when you're through.

Please don't take it as a slight,
or rejection - not after
so much bullshit from you
was just welcomed and accepted!

I've enjoyed your bullshit
more than thoroughly. All day,
to a point.

This is the point
I think we ought to focus on,
and move on from.

a packet in my pocket

I had a packet of butterscotch krimpets in my pocket
a packet in my pocket
a packet in my pocket

I put them in my pocket as I went outside
with a big cup of coffee and a plate
of Vegemite toast. My hands were full,
so I put

a packet in my pocket
a packet in my pocket

and I settled down with everything
into the reclining chair. Leaned all the way back,
with my coffee and toast, and cigarettes
and lighter right there, and the krimpets

carefully withdrawn and placed
on the chairside table, all set and cozy.

I didn't have a packet in my pocket at that point
I didn't have a packet in my pocket at that point

And I was reading Joseph Conrad
to complete the scene. He was of racist times,
for sure.

After the toast and during the coffee,
with deep satisfaction I picked up the packet
of butterscotch krimpets, to open it

and I saw

It was open on one end. The cellophane
gaped wide. My mind considered whether these krimpets
were safe, or had been tampered with.

By what means? Some chemical, brushed-on?
A solution of deadly germs in a spray?
Or a needle

stealthily injecting an injection
for the unsuspecting to ingest?

In that case they needn't have opened the packet,
though. And these butterscotch krimpets

were the last. I ate them, reflecting
that they had probably come open in my pocket.

probably come open in my pocket

But just in case of my mysterious death,
this poem cries out from beyond the grave

(everywhere is beyond some grave, surely?
look at all the cemeteries) and points

a slim grim sepulchral finger
accusingly at the truth

bless my soul

Our cause isn't even a cause,
but it's lost
The effect on me
is something I need
but the cost isn't something
that we can pay.
Maybe someday,
maybe someday
we'll say.

And you believe it
but you're not hostage to your belief
And I can't see it
Even though it's all I see

You
You bless my soul
You give me proof
of things there's just no evidence for
And I don't want to know the truth
unless it's you

I found myself in things
that weren't there,
or anywhere apart from you
The times in my life I was so sure
Are pulling me back
pulling me back,
and through

'Cause you believe it
I am hostage to your belief
But you don't really need it,
And it's everything I need

You
You bless my soul
You give me proof
of things there's just no evidence for
And I don't want to know the truth
unless it's you

unless it's you
unless it's you

You're making aches in places in me
I'm not sure even exist
So maybe you've created them
They'd be all the more real for it
You took my soul in hands of clay
and sculpted shape, and gave it breath
and hid a light that went away
I still see all the world by it
there isn't any less

careful who you compliment

I love this. It's like
what I imagine German Existential
Film lighting

could be like, if they were in color,
and happy. Though of course (as we all do)
sometimes the color

would play ironically

against our sadness. You know,
this was probably not your intention,
but you could revolutionize
modern clown makeup

with effects like these.

The risk of what you just said being wrong

The risk
of what you just said
being wrong. Doing damage

to what you tried to mean,
damage that will be irreparable,

and far outweigh what potential benefit
you thought (or were sure) there was,

when you caved
to the instinct to speak, because
There was something you meant
to say. Something
good. Something you thought

this moment needs. That's a risk

you have painfully learned to foresee,
and now you avoid it easily,
and speak without risk
of calamity

or consequence.

But sometimes it's hard
to endure the face

of someone who's run out of things to say,
while you're sitting there just full of them,

unable to spare much meaningful
In your own defense,

over all the times

you had run that risk: saying something well
that you meant to be good,
that was taken so wrong

you felt bad for it.

big believer

I'm a big believer in love -
but really, it's up to you.
If you don't believe in love,
we can find something else

To Do.

I love going out
after rain, to walk on the slimy stones
in hiking boots
through mud
and grass,
over miles of paths,
'til I finally get to the top
with you,
and the sun has dried
out, oh everything.

And just look at the view. I love

flying kites,
on a kite-flying day
where you're feeling the steady wind,
and it makes you say suddenly oh! This is perfect -
how perfect would this day be,
if we had a kite? I love

the beach, so much.
When the water feels like
coming home, and the crashing waves
feel like love's overwhelming
welcome, and
you come out amazed
to flop on a towel,
all worn-out in the sun.
Already thinking about
your next plunge

and if you don't believe in love, can I ask

have you ever had one?

I know! Sometimes it's bad.

And sometimes you slip
and crack your head
on the rain-slick stones,
and sometimes you get yourself caught
in the string,
and pulled straight off a cliff,
by a kite

who wants to go wandering. And sometimes,
you go to the beach and drown. And

so often, you end up alone.
But you know what? I want to go out.
And go in,
and if need be, go down. The surf

is calling me home.

two paths diverged

We haven't had a falling out
But a falling away still gets
you down, and leaves you

feeling a pang of guilt,
that keeps you from ever reaching out,
and keeps you from feeling
I ever will

And I feel just the same. And
so,

I don't know how
anymore. Anyway,
not now.

And maybe we've both decided
- as if with the last gasp and twitch
of that synchronicity shared, that we used
to astound ourselves with - that there
isn't anything left

that
we want to be there.

one purpose

Feels like I'm coming around,
so finally

To see everything is how
it's always been. But now
it's for me

It's mine, you've set it aside, and
you're showing me

So if life really gets to be
like this,
why were we even complaining,
let alone
so mightily?

And I want to believe,
it's true

all of it,
not just the good parts.
But I can't find anything bad
to even it out to believable

I feel like I've missed half the world,
half my life, not knowing you

I want to spend the rest of our lives
dancing to
each other's music

I think we were meant to

So tell me
what you think of that,
and of everything

and everywhere
The same view I've always looked out from
isn't there

I'm seeing it all as if this
is a world

in which I could live, with you
It's making me think all the people
are secretly good
they're just waiting for me and you
to be in on this

And I want to believe it's true

all of it, not
just the good parts.
But I can't find anything bad
to even it out
to believable

I feel like I've missed half the world,
half my life, not knowing you

I want to spend the rest of our lives
dancing to
each other's music

as if we were meant to

And this is one purpose in life
there may be others,
but this is surely one.
And everything could have led up
to something else, entirely wrong.
But in fact, everything has led up
to this, and this
has made everything fit,
and make sense, and work,
and come back. I just wish
that I hadn't had
so many defenses built up
from trying to live
through the lack.

And I want to believe it's true

all of it, not just
the good parts.
But I can't find anything bad
to even it out
to believable

I feel like I've missed half the world,
half my life, not knowing you

I want to spend the rest of our lives
dancing to

each other's music

and I mean to.

If you mean to?
We are meant to

"missed a spot"

Next time we meet I want you to
identify every spot where anything
or anyone ever hurt you

and if you do,

I will take the time it takes and more,
to kiss them all, and kiss them well,
until the good and pleasurable outweighs
all memory of bad and pain,

and overcomes in sweet relief
all anxious thought
of ever being hurt again.

Apathy & Ignorance

A lot of the people who believe in me don't know me

Not like they think they do.
The me they know

is the me I actually show them,
unintentionally, without knowing
or even trying to, not

the me who represents
my best intention, and true
capacity, which

I ought to mention,
in fairness to us both,

I haven't given a moment's serious thought to,
either,
yet. Still, that me is out there,

in me, somewhere,
I bet.
Probably.
And these people who believe in me

don't care.

Well, we shall see,
my friends. Yes we shall

see

one weird trick

I kind of want to trick you

into doing everything I want
for the rest of our lives,

with a disciplined goal
for myself, as well -
to do everything you want,

every time.

Ideally,

this would be
unspoken. Just done,
intuiting wants,
with a need to please

and fulfill them all.
One hell of a stunt,
if we pull it off

with such consummate ease

So Clear

You're basically a creation of my mind
I mean, I know you're not

The same as my idea of you.
For one thing, every time

they interact, you just surprise,
revise, revise the one idea

I hold

most dear

You've been creating it,
and all this time

it's never been so clear

the critic's gift

More has been read between the lines than
ever was written there. You have,

like everyone does,
the ability

to take from that whatever you want,
even if you put it in
yourself.

But what I meant was
less relevant

than what you have brought
to take out from it.

Interpretation is
creation as well. Take credit
for what you have done.

It's a perfect fit
you have given yourself.
And like everyone else,

you can step back and see

how much
is supported within
the text,

and how much
of yourself
you haven given to me.

Sing

Sing to your baby
all the time in the womb,
so when she comes out

it will be amazing
that same loud voice
she's been floating in,
which was all the world,
suspended all around and echoing,
that her consciousness came to light
by focusing on, took notice
of each new song, made favorites
of every one that she'd hear
when you sang it again - that

same voice, so quiet now!
Leaving room for a much bigger world,
And coming from someone else -

so perfectly clear

verities

There's a front coming in
and it's kicking up wind
like you wouldn't believe
the ancient gods had
some kind of hand in,
and neither would I.
It's the trees

They are beating the air
at some blue and uncaring sky
as the scattering clouds run along,

not wanting to get in the middle of this
kind of conversation,
uncaring of why

it started. Just
wishing it wouldn't go on

both and neither

Despite my arrogance,
I would rather be grandiloquent
than vainglorious. This is because

"grandiloquent" sounds like
I can talk both big and well -
true, too true. But "vainglorious"

sounds like I charge into battle
vainly, in a vain cause - one I'm far too sure
to lose - and purely for the sheer
and utter glory of it.

Which I don't do. Ever,
in fact. I pick my battles
meekly, never selecting

vain ones.

Complicating matters,
neither word means
what I think it does. I can tell,

because I looked them up. I'll look
them up again, after this moment
is done, but I expect

they'll still mean some bullshit
that doesn't describe me at all. Sucks,

because what a couple of great
-sounding
words

miracle practice

I've been praying for
predictable things, to see
if my faith is strong enough
to work.

And it isn't so far. But
maybe I'm in the control group.

That would explain
quite a bit, but I'm not going to
quit

like
the obstinate jerk
I've always been. With something to prove,

I will plot the results,
and conduct the tests,

and

at some point I lose.
I believe I'll win.

seer and advisor

I grew up in a great big house
in a tiny little room
on a small island
in a dream I had once,
where the pizza was topped
with playing cards, and I
was expected to read my future
from them.
I drew:
the two of jacks
the heart of spades
the queen of ones
the ace of fives, and
when I woke up, I still

had one left to turn over, and
I hadn't had a bite. I was starved,
yet relieved.

I didn't want to see

that last card's face. If I ever do,
I would have

a lot to explain.

With not a lot of time,
or very much space.

o to be guiliest

If you have guile - and I do -
but what does that make us?

Are we guiley? Are we guiley
guys - with which of us the guilier,
and how shall we agree that is to be
established? And then maneuver,
and feint (and if either should faint:
disaqualified), like falcons
in a widening gyre, vying

to be falconer.

fighting for the hypothetical

I am going to give you,
hypothetically,
my love, under every possible
branching scenario this twist,
turn and shout out loud
life could possibly go, and
under greater than forty percent

of the impossibly branching scenarios
as well, or better. I think,
therefore

if you check the math, probabilistically
speaking we have an infinite chance
of making this work as long as
our finite odds hold steady

- something they are projected to do,
by the way we make cryptic shadow-puppet
animals pounce against the living-room
curtain with our hands,

dancing in the beam of this flashlight. Wait
until they see what we do next, after

lights out. They won't see it, and sadly,

that's not believing. But for me,
and you kid

- the show must go
off without a hitch,
or else it's
wild improv all the way on
from there! And since when
have we ever run plays
off script?

So it's go, then. Shall we? I declare it is now
The End of Regulation. Time
to show this show the STOP sign, give
each other call signs, use them exlusively, flash
stolen signals - you! Call an audible, anything
that pleases your sense of humor,
or wonder, the occasion, propriety,
taste and smell, because baby baby baby

I'm going long. All the way, just in case
you pass.

But you shouldn't, because

I have mapped it out from here to the Nth potential, and

This doesn't end well.

This thing, with you?
With me. It does
not end well.

It does not.
Well, it doesn't
end any way actually,

It goes on for a spell

find normal

Find normal
where you normally look for it. Normally,
it's there. If you don't know where that is,
say if you've never looked before

for normal,
Then go someplace else. Someplace
you've never been, someplace
where you have no idea
what you'll find. Pay

close attention, while you're there.
Go back many times, and see
what's there. Get used to it. Grow
accustomed. What you see
when you go there, what you grow
accustomed to?

That's normal. That's how it normally
works. You can go there to find it,

and normally, that's just what
you find. It's a matter of you
establishing for yourself,
through observations,

some norms. These are valid
to the degree that they obtain,
and that you can obtain them.
Validate through further observation
repeated at all different times until
you can say: "Yes. These norms are quite
established, with an assortment of familiar
deviations within easy-to-accept ranges. I am
comfortable with this," without stumbling
or blushing. Then you will know

Everywhere you go, of course, a
differently-dressed maniac will startle you
lunging out of nowhere scream-singing
unfamiliar nonsense, brandishing
a festive folk weapon - this, or
the local equivalent, is liable
to happen everywhere; it can't be

predicted, no one's saying that

normal

is the only thing that happens,
in a given place! Of course not.
Vanity. But

the point is, by means of this process,
you do find out what normal is. You can separate out
that other shit. The Human Constant.

The great thing is, this process works

everywhere on earth, so long
as you're willing to go there first
many times to find it. Just one visit -

you don't know! Maybe none of what you saw
was normal! And you will be the fool,
describing it authentically to your
worldlier friend who knows. Maybe
they all turned out to put on a show
that day - and you knew no better? It
was Wear Folkic Colored Silk Turkic
Burka-Looking Thingsday

- something they wouldn't be caught dead in,
normally! But worn to exagerrate the importance
of that age-old day when not-quite-enough (you'll fume
- having been duped!) of their ancestors
were unexpectedly caught dead in them.
They could've been filming a movie of it, even
- or rehearsing one. And that, my friend

is not normal. You need to go

back again, many times,

until you know the difference. Just so you know,
though,

normally? People don't.

dream jobs

I had a dream

I was a dental hygienist.

it was probably because I went to the dentist
this past Monday

The experience at the dentist's was fine. "No
Cavities, Ma!" But

this dream was horrific, and maybe you
should skip it.
I was a dental hygienist
as I said, but as the dream progressed,

something weird

was happening with my tools, or
with my patient's teeth. The first couple
patients of the day

were routine. Then

I got to my third patient, and
my scrape-hook was finding all these
tiny holes.

The patient was in tears

- she'd never had a cavity
before! My next patient

was even worse.
It was like his left upper molars
were literally crumbling under my tooth
polisher! Another patient's incisors came loose
as I flossed them. It was awful,

it kept getting worse

and worse, and I was just like
(to the dentists), please,
send me home
I am having a bad day!

But the dentists were like:

"We're too busy. Hang in there."

Meanwhile the patients were wailing
from what I was doing to them. And in
the waiting room,
on the way out as I conducted them
to the receptionist, to schedule the elaborate followups

that would now be necessary,
and tried to comfort them,
they recoiled
from me.

It was clear
they blamed me. But how
could it be happening? What
was different from every other day? Why me

and not the other hygienists?

Why would they not just send me home!

I was having a bad day

I can still see the trembling chins, the tearful
red-rimmed eyes
glaring with fear
and accusation, hollow cheeks
and collapsed lips shamefully hiding
the remains of ruined smiles.

The look that says: "You did this."

chance offering

I was just passing by.

I saw you were in,
I saw you were up, I
thought I would ring

I thought I would ring.
I sure wouldn't knock

that would be too much.
I never had time for
regretting what I should

or shouldn't have done,
so I don't do what

I shouldn't.

Sometimes, I think
I can probably overdo that.

A chance offering
can be taken or left.
I thought I would ring.

You can still call me back,
I guess

missing

I wish I was missing,
I've been missing you so much, and
I just want to be where you are.

Wherever you are, and whatever may come
I wish I was there,
I wish I was gone

I look around everywhere, all around
all the people I run into, I wish they could just
walk through the space where I was,
because
I wouldn't be there,

Too busy being us

mindfulness practice fail

I like to try practicing
mindfulness. You know
what it ends up always
being?

The flood of the senses
The flood of the senses
The mind is just gone,
far as thoughts concern.

My thoughts cannot even form
a shape
upon all the shades and the shapes
coming through, from moment
to instant, the breeze
and the skin it wafts upon,
the sky
and the trees coming crashing
down
and in,

and up through the grass, on my poor bare feet
in the rich, deep
earth.

And the scent of all that exhales,

and the sound

of everything. So quiet,
it hurts.

I get too distracted
to be mindful. And it goes on, I don't
know how long, now.

I forget
to wish, for a pinch or a slap

to prove I'm awake, for this.
Okay! Somehow, I have failed

mindfulness again. Now,

time for a nap.

Less of me

I wouldn't have you think less of me.
Call
the surgeons, cut me off wherever you
think
less of me. Those parts I cannot
slough, myself but

wild and amazing what
they do these days, if you just call
them in. And I

would have you think
no less of me

than all I am,

but

if you do,
then

I can see my way quite
clear, and
in, and

cleanly, off. And

with whatever help
I need, I'll take the help,

my flesh is soft.

positive.

Relentless push
the positive: It's power,
shutting off the dark
to sit and feed
on darkened rooms
beneath your heart.
Let your mind be
a chambered place
of prismed glass,
with light streamed through,

and not so much as any corner,
shadowed
now.

Come out from past.
Let darkness be apart

from you. Let darkness find

its own way out.

Whole

Would you still love me if my arm
was cut off,
both legs off at the knee,
half my face gone
- let's assume it was an accident,
for the sake of the narrative

Would you want me to live
like that, and be bound to me?

I'd be trying to drive you away,
you know. For your own good, I'd say
and think. I would say and do

all the things that I pause
and stop myself, now,
out of self-control

for you.

while I'm whole

inhabit

The cold in my bones may never leave.
The sun had the sense
to stay down for this,
but I'm up
like a drift of snow,
like an icicle ready to fall.
I'm ready to fall,
but I won't
while you're looking.
As if you would care.
Running past and around
and across the ice,
As if no one's there, I've gone out again -
I'm out running races against my breath
and against my heart, and in time with
my bones, and I'm feeling them.
My blood's pumping numb, my ears
are exposed to the aching air -

I do this for me.
I do this for me.
I wish I'd appreciate
the sacrifice that I make!
to show that I care.

Approved reversal of power

Her eyes
were everywhere, and all of our eyes
were her eyes. She entered the room

as if we'd been warned. We hadn't.
Her face was like a table,
all of us gathered around it
waiting, late. To begin

Her breasts laid claim
to our minds, in a delicate
plunge of decolletage
from parted collar
to her top ununbuttoned
button. Cute

as she moved in, eyes
were all over her blouse,
her skirt, her leggings - different-color eyes.

Our eyes,
hers. She crossed the length
of the room, her legs like scissors - her hand
speared a chair, pulled it out.
Maneuveringly, she slid around,
stretched her back, and sat. Her hips
ever so shimmied as
she tugged her risen hem
and eased in comfortably,
excused by our struck silence.

"So," she paused. "Shall we begin?"

Our mouths had been hanging open
all this time in answer.