free

The face on the storm. There wasn’t a
fell into the teeth without
nineteen-seventy-eight, between two
and green - a timidity.

approaching breath

The stealthy breath
and soft approaching
step of death is
killing

me

or maybe it’s
the thought of how
we used to be

or maybe it’s
whatever’s left.

still holding

Still holding on
to the sense memory,
in muscle and nerve
more than brain, I see

and touch you again. The
smell of your hair.
The warmth
of the glow
of your skin
in water.
I told you
so.

"I'll never forget
this moment," here. Right
where we both finally
belonged. We're

clear.

fishing expedition

The most lurid lures with the sweetest barbs
were strung at the ends of our lines entwined.
We yanked and we tugged at our clashing rods,
and finally decided to give up on fish
- and just pair ourselves with the wine.

“The it of”

It
ugh
uh
I
don’t

exquisite specificity

I love you with exquisite specificity.
All your sharpness is smooth curves,
presenting to the world the harmlessness
you would have it deserve. A touch
of pity, only just. Cutting edge
and points rotated inwardly
to play in light and bite
no hand, except and only
winningly. Such bite
is quite a prize I feel
I've won a time or two;
I thank divinity. But
really it's just you
in perpetuity, and
spinning me.

Prepared to be fair

The people start fighting
before the war, declaring
it as if to save face,
or reset the score
for the planned new glorious
vicious charge. Supposed to be
over before too long, but
somehow it never
gets that far.

shining noir

With all the swank jazz glamour swagger
of an age when integrity was cool, he
manfully squared his shoulders and strode
into a world of black and white, wrong
made right, to play the fool card
with one hand

while the other just rode.

The plot
knit together like broken bone,
all set, isolate and let rest
to groan and grow in pains
taking months compressed

into running time messed
with loose ends, knotted up
like a Gordian tourist attraction
and cut. Some test

for the hero of law. Proves
everyone guilty as hell himself,
then takes the fall

in coup de grace. As usual
his impunity proves
immovable.

Back in the day,
that act could play
ball.

body above

Yes, it is
one weird mystery
how a great good thing
- by elevation
in importance to above all
other great goods - is diminished
in state and neighborhood.

The physical aspect of us

is demeaned by being enthroned. Bizarre!
It makes sense. Whenever we disparage five parts
of what's best, we bring down the value
of good itself. Of everything blessed,
in our eyes at least.

And so the sixth part
we’d venerate (some try,
for sure) we find
has actually been bled
of its good. Reduced
in state. If we wish

to get it back,
we can only do it
by letting belittled good rise
a little bit more, stretch out
back to its natural height
and depth. Then

the physical again
becomes sublime, restored
to glorious highs, deep breaths.
It cannot live,

you see

chopped off at the root, cut up
into trunk and limb and crown, and set
on immortal pedestal, for a bet.
Life can imitate art - but
it can't live it down. No,
life cannot live

reduced to art.

Day at the Beach

We are soap, we are water
We are clean
And our minds are rings
dipped in wind,
our thoughts are iridescent things
We are salt
We are water
We are foam
We catch wave back in
Wash up on sand
We are home

the reasonable grasp

If you do, I will personally see to it
that you are permanently inconvenienced.
You will find yourself removed from
further consequence. A sort of impunity
free from cares, if that appeals to you.
You won't be in position to object to
how it feels to you. It isn't a threat,
just an observation of my intent. You
can do as you please, but it's best
to proceed with a reasonable grasp
of what's consequent.

edge of slumberland

The things you say soft
while you fall asleep, breaking
in upon your own thoughts
as they trail and swim,
and seep, and sink, breaking off
and back on, are pieces
of secrets I know
by heart, all wrong.
With each time, each
slip and wordfall
that has come soft again
as if ever before to fill in,
to clarify, to let once
be known for all time: and why.
My breath held like a glass.
Your breath like a page, your voice
falling like pen,
and drifting pressed
indelibly into
memory, telling me
you are mine
in illegible scrawl.
Undressed, and
Incomprehensible.
But it's fine. I'm
beginning to know
by now, for some time
just how to decipher
what you mean to me.
You're falling asleep
again, that's all.
I am still waking up
in moments like this,
in this dream. I'm beginning
to trust how this goes. Let it
be.

the jutter

I jut
suddenly
forth into the sky
across the same stretch I always,
over and out above
the sea
washing in beneath me
in ever-eroding crash
and spray, in waves
eating waves.
They are carving for me
a feather-bed
wherein one day I will lay
my dashing and broken head. But

for now, I jut. Irrevocably.
Immutably moved by my inward
thrust into outward hold,
immovably held
in the negative space
that surrounds my must,
my need, my savagely
cutting jib - and they say

I strut!

Don't believe one
lying word
of it.

I jut.
And jut.
And jut and jut
and just as if carved
from living rock, living ever since
in a state of suspense, surprise
and a start of sudden
continual shock,

I am giving myself
in habitual pose
like an innocent cock
in a doodle of dithering fret
and sketch, of constantly weaving
background noise. I stick out bright
into ratio, calling signal to me

in a static grace of dynamic poise.

Autoantagonism

The autoantagonist
antagonized himself
using bits of others'
innocent gift to seed
rain around, hang lightning on,
without ever really
seeing the wrong,
or the need.

He's done fairly well.

He only was sure.
He only could tell.
This person was
fucking with him so well.
"Oh well," he fucked back
"If that is the way
they intended to play" - but was it?
Was it?

Was it always this way?

Ascribe bad intent
without any wrong
to actually pick?
And call it a catch!
And make it a fit,
and throw it at them?
You're their problem, now.
It isn't much match,
and no fuel to be lit.
They're free to protest
their innocence. Hell, if
they can do it surpassingly
well, you'll admit their gift
of concealment and stealth
to yourself, and accept
their apology - which
you supply - for what
they protest they did not
imply. But you know
you were sure. You know
you could tell. You
don't need to find

actual wrong

to smell.

Atlas hug

ignore it while you can,
you two
hold a hope for the whole wide world
when you
come together
to show it something
more, you know - the moment, now
can be ignored,
if not deferred

the moment, then
will fly straight through
and into memory's
treasury
always seems so rich, so
empty
always seems more than it
can be

ignore it 'til you can't,
you two
have known a truth
that cast the real into the shade,
and played an all-star sky
across you each in alternating
night
this world has made.

you hold the world from both sides,
and squeeze. It gets
much bigger still, but still
it lifts
eternity

and makes a space
for time to kill.

and if the worst
can't come to pass,
because we weren't there to meet up
and cast it down -

who will play our part?
I guess, whoever's left
in all these empty towns. And if

the best can't come to pass,
or worse - we find
it's come and gone -

who will play our part?
I guess, whoever's left
to get it wrong

inviolate

The line

around self is absolute,
and ought to be inviolate.
Because it's not the prettiest hue,
(indigo might be) but it's
a better fit. Above, beyond
we shade into invisible. Ghost-lit,
our stains and whites aglow,
and higher still, x-rayed to bone
revealing something miserable.
But underneath, within that line
sit all the colors beautiful,
'til we hit red. Below, beneath
we rise and surge in furies,
freak and pound and burst
from groin to heart to head
in urge by instinct cursed,
keyed-up and beaten down
until we have become

divisible.

"Note to Self"

I am going to take
your life and shove:
step carefully along the bluff.
Do not doubt promise, threat
and wish. I’m going to take
your life and kiss
- air-kiss it ‘bye,
buh-bye, ha!-ha
I’m going to take your life
away.

I’m going to stick it
where it goes. From up
on high, to down below
ten stories down,
so happily ever
all the way:

on broken rocks
a-frolicking we go
in breaking surf.
Your broken toes
and fingers, neck
and ribs will twist
in breaking hurt
through gaping rents
of parting flesh.

Let blue green salt
wash bright red salt
into a rusty broth
of brown. Let fishes
far too small to see
gasp wetly in this
coming out,

and coming down.

a lifetime is like

a lifetime is like
we all deserve to be killed
by being dragged behind
fucking snails. Onward,
we cry, without stopping
taking time for tea, for beer,
for a quick bit
of bite, for company
and for finding good.
Building lasting foundations
in each other
designed
as we should
fit
for eternity
upon this ever backward shifting ground
some stand the pace, as most
fall down

"Prep time"

Softest palest rose expanse,
cordoned off by strap and catch.
Shoulders, neck, hair gathered up
splurging white in palm of hand,
turned to slather on your back.
Slick and slide and evened-in
Glisten, polish down and down
- skipping over boundary string
Then slide up under, evening out
and doing rounds, as morning sounds. Now
further on we go,
like so.

Here we have
the small of back! No one
speaks this guided tour,
every sight is aching lack
and covering uncoverage in greasy,
sliding handsy streaks - so much
as can be neatly done, before.

We've reached the border, now. Do not
impeach this blue-bright line, unspoiled,
fun and slightly taut - but loose
as well! This flimsy scrap
of fabric screen for modesty
and style and hell, for such
a pretty thing as that?
Let's hold our

peace.

A peek or two
was not our fault.

There, done. Almost
well-done. We've reached
the bottom edge,
and covered each
and every naked inch (apart
from strap) above.

Well, to be safe, all bets
to hedge? Go underneath
to length of fingertips, so let's
be sure
we don't get burned,
your skin
so innocent
out on the beach.

We come correct.
And just a little smidgen
more, which after all
is earned. Respect.

last

I'm the last cigarette in the pack
you crushed, when you gave up the habit
of using us.

I lie in the dark, it's crumpled close
and I know I am bent, but still good
enough
to be bad
for someone

I hope.

“Relief Duty”

The watch stood guard o’er golden dawn
to bring in day with solemn song, and then
the guard took up their watch to sing the rain
across the crops and shift the sun on westward
course, ’til dying day relieved their chores.
They then could skulk to some dank hole
and cheer, and hoist their beers so cold. But
it was yet but four O’Clock. The watch caroused
down by the docks, and wouldn’t show for hours
long. The guard stood on, and cursed the watch
and cursed the time it had to tell, until
the watch came on.

nothing succeeds like

The devil's a succession of undersold souls
Each passes the job to the next, as catch can
They drive a hard bargain through a well-looped
hole, and the next thing you know
you just can't understand.

"charmed I'm sure"

Of all
of the men
in the universe, I
am the one with the
weakest curse. The
brightest dim to the
widest depths: a surface
of infinite shallowness
it's a birth defect
of decrypted code
just lucky I guess
I don't even know.
Don't ask how it is
I believe I've seen
the eyes are the windows
of soul gone green. You're
mistaken, there though. This
is no picnic. More like a buffet
for the ants, hand-picked - and you
dear and I are the caterers. All these
things that we planned, but there was
something

else

we forgot to do first.

the trick pt.2

You never know how close you are
to give up on your dreams, after all
that far you've come on fumes, believing
in stars - has it ever occurred to you
that you are? Yes I know, no one knows
your special trick - except
lucky few you've turned on
to it, to their great amaze
and a rave in review, but
that trick's not the only
thing you do.
Is it?

"Sunday Morning cartoons"

“Sunday Morning cartoons”
The gist of Jesus
went out to play
in the world of fallen
leaves and vines. He did
magic tricks and said
magic things, that the rest
of the world thought were
just fine, eventually. But

they did not heed.

So He
gathered the apostles
and sent them forth, saying
"In time of great need,
assemble yourselves
into a giant Robot Jesus
made out of humans
with superpowers! And I
will become the light
behind the eyes, to shine out
and steer, and fire laser
beams!" So they did, and
they all fought crime.
And the people were saved.
"Thank you Super Jesus
and the Apostle Force!"
they said! And it pretty

much
went
on

just that way.

"we still doing"

Are we still doing
this? I could have
sworn off a dozen times,
but I thought
you would. It isn't
as if the good
we found
in the early on
has gone bad, just not
kept good. Kept
fresh. It stales the air,
and sours the breath
of the one we loved. For me
it was you, every
time, all the way. For you
it was me, and
not enough.

smack trash

You make me want to talk smack
and not get smacked for all the
dirty trash talk I call "all that"
with many oh so cocky a brag
and boast, how I'm going to go
to town and eat smashed avo toast
off your lap, you thought you had it
but I'm happy to say - girl, you do
and I'm a give it to you anyway
you like, and absolutely no way
you don't! Where's the fun in that?
I don't see it, and won't.

revocation

To myself, I
mouth the words,
as the sentence expands farther
than the air it shaped, dying out
in the stilling

of my breath.
The sentence
goes on,

but the words left off
can only be read, or guessed.
They don't
mean

or make
what they could
have made, or meant - if blessed
by the sounding voice
I revoked

when I sensed
the rest. I suppose
in the end, we have
had our choice.

case by case

I kinda want to be the corpse
in the tv detective episode,
an easy acting job for me. Just
show up on an angry press conference
on a screen, in the background - Then
sat in a chair, looking dead
for a shot.
And a reverse shot
- the reaction. As whoever came in,
and discovered me: shock, grief,
probably remorse - maybe they
feel guilty about it. I was
killed,
after all.
And they did nothing. Well,
cut you some slack, people! You just
came in. Discovered me! You have
to call in

the main characters, see

what they think. Yup.
It's a case. That's the last
we'll see of me,
except
some photographs, evidence
materials, maybe - one detective
spots something canny
- what can it mean? I think

we might need me for a few
flashback scenes
in case they get hung up.
I could interact with
the main characters,
you know, it could be
the psychic episode. I
could solve the case

and marry the sexy detective
which

would outrage the fans,
okay. All stuck on the whole
will-they won't-they aren't
they? But,

it's a plot twist. No show
has integrity if what you expect
is all they can give.

"division of labor"

I can't complain about the job
the service I provide is good
- not perfect, better, best
perhaps, but welcome, and
misunderstood. Still, either way
we give self up, it's just a choice
of how and who - all others being equal,
I would rather give it up to you.
Not give up in surrender, no
Not give up in retreat, or loss
- just give up certain power,
though. A mighty servant
is the boss.

"iced blood"

The secret held and hid away
itself in closet, shivering
and liquified and gaseous
reduced to masses quivering
and shifting phase from form
to state and back into
some back of mind -
That held it there, too
long, too late. Some one
has come
to secrecide.
To plot and track, to
open light upon our secret's
sensitive and life-drawn
clamped, vampiric skin!
Who opened door, left
window jarred, who
let it in?

survey plan

the alien came
with a survey plan
entrusted to not upset
a thing, but to find out
what makes us tick and tic
and whether the bomb is
worth worrying. It watched
several days, then sent
back reports: on love
and war, and everything
fair. And then the armada
came to evade. They only
escaped by the skin
of their hair.

"the view from up yours"

It's only our best
we do
we strive
we try to wrestle
and feed our drives
that drive our urges
and swerve success! And
starve, neglect, and best
all of the rest of what's
left. We proceed incrementally,
so we know we shall fail by
incidents. Yet in leaps
and by bounds, a hard,
sweaty haul will see us
on top of a beaten down
heap of our mounted
and mounting and
mountainous own
insignificance

"small child"

You dream
you are in a store. On the shelves
you see boxes: "Small Child" each
one says. Different pictures
on each. And you take one down
and get it home, open it up
- and you awake! As dream
logic fades, you wonder
what lesson it all
could teach. What
you could take
away from all this. But
there in your room

you see your small
child.

Its eyes blink wide,
and it says
"It is what
it is."

the natural

Be generous
with your worthless time
practice forgiveness
of injury
as you move and be,
without any harm
love every one
of your enemies,
of which - you
haven't any, but
you're well-prepared
with your crisis face.
In mind and heart
and soul and bum,
steer easy grace
toward kingdom
come

keep your word

A person's opinion's
mistaken if they
think another should care
what it is, when
they came in
holding out:

a doo doo turd!

No, thanks, that's okay
- you keep your word.

"in the know"

I wish I were
"in the know"
right now, of
you-know-who
and just about
between and up
one thing ensconced
within the knowingest
of nooks, discovering
the plural it, and
what it wants.

Scinterella

Scinterella slept in light
if bulbs went out
she changed them quick
and screwed them tight.
It was her task.
If she delayed,
her stepmother was cruel
and strict, and quick
to ask: "Hey, what's
the deal? You have
one job! Is it too much
to do it fast?" "How many
Scinterellas does it take,"
observed mean stepsister
"To change all these damn
bulbs?"

It couldn't last. One night:
the ball came due. They tried
to keep her back, but somehow
she, equipped with gown and shoes,
showed up, charmed Prince -
next thing you know,
their executions
didn't even make

the news.

"pushpins"

Without the map
there used to be,
or all the postcards
that went with,
this empty corkboard
seems quite fresh
and waiting for
a journalist, or
some detective
to connect the clues
no longer here
and there, stuck in
by pushpins
all since gone
packed up, shipped off
to travel worlds
beyond our care.

codependency

The trick to codependency
is don't do all the giving,
see?

"brain-bird"

I bet I could think like a bird. Just shrink
my idea of mind through those beady eyes
with a head bop around

- and a trill of hope
whatever birds hope for, I think I've found.

Twelfth hello

No offense, but your eyes
are dancing with light just now,
and you don’t seem to mind
how much I see. I wish

the whole room were alight
in this glow - but it’s not,
so there’s only one place to be.

Hi.

The ruins grow up

The ruins grow up
around me like weeds.
I push up the ivy
in climbing vines;
as one more tall building
cracks crumbling down,
I make it look ancient
in fractions of time.

"blind process"

imagine there's another sense
as key to truth as vision is
as far above it as to touch
- imagine groping, fumbling much

by feeling ways with open eyes.
We make do in reflected light.
Discerning shadow, realize
that no amount of this is right.

And sleep, and dream
of deeper highs

birthright

We love these kids
because they're ours.
We grew up hoping, hoping
them - when they were born
each one was made of so much

hope

We can't even pretend
that they could ruin it.

We'll always love them
just like so. Because we know
kids turn around, they don't
keep going

where ours go

"a list of wrong with life"

My eyes aren’t as good as they used to be,
but keener I think
for what I've come to see.
The flaw’s what I’ve always been keenest on
- there’s no way to right
like finding wrong.

But I’m never ambitious.
I’m shameless, too.
I only find out ’cause it's cool to know.
You hold things right-size? Get them up
right-way held?
You can ring a guitar
just like playing a bell.

Still let’s take it as granted, an exercise:
it could be somehow good
to list wrongs with life.
It could be somehow right
to lay out all the bads.
And not to appreciate
goods you’ve had!

No, to see what the bads and the wrongs
have to teach!
Like some educational trip to the beach,
like you did as a kid: in a fun place,
to learn.
At the least,
you won’t have
to avert sunburn.

So what’s wrong: I still write
to no purpose of earthly reward
or renown.

That’s okay, I don’t kid myself
I could have found.
That takes luck, and hard work
and desire for that.

And I’d much rather pet the cat.
And I don’t even have a cat.

I still hate yard work, which
I used to love, somehow. I know
that I need to get that back.
I still have to poop - which some think
is a burdensome lifelong slavery
to the bowels, which is funny.
How much that attitude stinks!

I still rhyme, but indifferently.
I could carelessly drop
off or near, or entirely free.
I don’t really have all that much respect
for meter, either. Or authority.

Potential can only fulfill in success,
and success cannot be any other’s goal
- but one you desire, and set. And bless.
It’s okay to help someone dig their own hole,
but a shame if you’re digging their hole
for yourself!

There’s a difference between living your life
to help, and acting out others’ dreams
in hell, while they sit in the wings
and the halos and sing you on.

Your purpose is yours, or it’s wrong.

I am too far content, perhaps
with what’s good. Some call it
“just good enough, that’s all”
yet much of the time goes entirely
without flaw.
And you know
what that means, y’all.

Is perfect indifferent to better?
Perhaps. To what some think I should
or could easily gain? To fill in the gaps
that cause them pain, sympathetically
speaking from cautious brain
and empathy-laden breaking heart?

Oh that’s a bit much. No one’s heart
breaks for me, but perhaps would just love
to see me seize
some improvements?
That they’d like to name and choose?

Things they know I could be, which people
like to be and to do. Then they’d be
very proud for pointing out. I’d share
in their joy for sure, no doubt! And someday I might!

No that’s just a stall
I put out, ’til the chance
I don’t want can pass. And I can relieve myself
in good sigh, for one and for all.

There are many things wrong, by
some peoples’ lights.

I feel such relief this is not their life.

A woman who keeps herself up.

A woman who keeps herself up.
She looks nice. For herself,
it's a plus without sacrifice.
Just an effort - a touch
On the way she goes!
It's herself she keeps up.
Not for you, you know.

Good Regret

You know there aren't any places
I've ever lived
I can picture now without regret.
Just a little regret.
Not that I've left, just
I'm not there anymore.
I don't get the chance
anymore
to do all the things
I used to enjoy.
I do not forget.
It's good done
gone, and it

kind of stings.
But it's beautiful, too.
We live in such places
and bring on so much
of what we live through.
We'll wake up years later
from where we were,
and see where we are
and what it brings.

"fish food"

How do you catch
a specific fish?
There are so many
in the sea - delish!
The trick is
to haul in all
you can catch -
take the one fish
you want, throw all
the rest back.

“automatata”

His automatic
robot tits
- automatata -
give him fits.
He can’t control
himself around
their sleekly gleaming
drooping down

the Anticlear

The Anticlear makes free
with an opacity delightful
to itself, while from
the other side, they
see right through,
and cannot tell.

The Anticlear turns words
against their natural sense,
and calls them names. Arise,
a rose, and smell as sweet
as lushest bull-mown grass
remains.

The Anticlear has many points,
just none of them line up
or match. Hand flies to quiver,
thence to bow: but what's drawn
back is balderdash.

we, the prepared

Fortune's folly is to favor us,
instead of keeping all the luck
and destiny locked tight, and held
in trust - for its right heirs:
the just. Instead of the prepared.
It's just as well we get it now,
but we know karma favors them.
As our debt piles up in gains,
The balance will come due somehow,
and we would like to lay some plans
to be prepared for when it rains.

spirit hares

Ancient wisdom
runs its race
today and still
at its old pace,
and never stops
to drink or breathe
- we shall not beat
this beast, we seethe

the pip

The pip of the gist of the crux
has a list that we must, but
we don’t abide by this. Instead
there’s the tip of the tongue,
the head (off the top) from
the hip and alas, we’re dead

begging for it

In my experience, if you ignore them
every woman begs for it wait
cause-effect tweak, that's a reverse
you have to get the steps
in order or the technique
flops
- every woman
begs for it,
it being,
me ignoring them.
And I do it. You
have to. I ignore them

let them beg

sometimes moaning "Oh
God"

hey baby you only
have to beg once
for my ignorance
of you

is complete. I ignore you
better than you ignore
yourself, obviously

just don't come begging
for something else! I'll be like

excuse me? Sorry
I had my invisible earbuds in

listening to a podcast about
ignoring
you

the bill

Our rights are established in fairy realms, made real
by blood and steel and lead and bone and flesh
and sacrifice, 'til everyone opposed is dead.
Tyranny and force indeed. A menace, threat
and warning dire to all to whom we give it up:
thine power isn't much, messire.

one too many times refined

You must realize,

to the self-owned man
these days, such statements

as these have a deeply, richly
amusing character. One cannot

help but ha. Ha! Ha, at the
sort-of person who'd be

insulted by an accurate
description of them, in

these sincere
regards.

Yours.