in the spirit

On Hallowe'en I stand outside
waiting for the carolers
giving out my candy canes
to all the creepy costumed kids.
Decked out as Ol' St. Nicholas.
All ho ho hoing, jolly fun!
Perhaps not in the spirit of this
- but in the spirit of some
Christmas Yet To Come.

The hard, sharp

The hard, sharp
came in from the side
and tore right through
leaving pieces out
and destroying itself
in the process of

becoming the thing

you did not have the chance

to doubt.

'work dress'

First time worn,
seat on the bus
discovered how high
this dress rides up.
Not scandalous, but.

More than she wanted to show.
Her panties are anxious, her legs
feel flush, they don't want to be
so deeply and easily
potentially known
to all of us.
She's not easy to know.

All day sitting down now,
she'll have to trust
to presence of mind.
Another distraction
taking care - as time
crawls slow,
and rides up,
and pulls down
low as it will go.

Angle herself
and catch and remind,
so no one can suss
all she's keeping there
not for them to know.

She liked this dress,
too. It was a find.
So unfair. She can't wait
to be done, and ride
the bus home, shake out
her hair and slip
out of the show.

moving on

Sick vertigo lurch
each thing on the list
I've forgotten once and never since,
as each occurs
to mind now missed, lost miles
behind, now no wait no -

it's packed and safe.
All stowed to go,
which is good, 'cause we gone.
Relief and bliss.

Each thing I call
to mind and know
I've lost, then calls back found
- as I see again, a place for everything,
and at least this thing,
this time
has kept its place pinned down.

treasure mapper

I think you're a merry lass,
and you make me a beamish boy.
I think of we've been through
and done, and to come, and
it's nothing but pretty, good joy.
I think of the treasure lay hid
in you - and baby, you drew me a map.
It's covered with x's and bound by o's,
all settling soon in my lap.

"soft justice"

If my eyes dying
of thirst upon your
tits flung from a moving
dress should catch
in my throat like
a crane-snatched frog,
drawing out in a gurgling whine
and a face horrible to look upon, caught
and pinned
by your narrowed
gotcha eyes, face souring, tits
indignant and ready
to spit accusation - before

you judge,
my eyes
have already conceded all
standing and right
to your tits.

And I bow my head,
ready to take what fits.

"Ornament."

The prize that you won at the tournament,
cheating, has become an ornament
that you wear every evening.

It hangs on your reflection
in everyone’s eyes - and if everyone knew,
you would not be surprised.

perfect ten

Perfect for ten dollars
guaranteed everything
you want or else
keep it for free!
No shipping cost back
No department complaints
No hidden fee

golden child update

The twelvesome blest and golden one
is all grown up - a child no more.
She lost some blessings on the way
gave some away, and found a score.
Some say that puts her well ahead
and others says she's well behind.
Today she'll sit in disarray
and take the makeup off
her mind.

the individual on the loose

Police are on the lookout
according to witnesses
a smart, capable
reformed college professor
reported last seen
in several locations
seen entering seen exiting
apparently without effort
no evidence of entry
no DNA was found
in the corpse
matching descriptions
of angels and dangerous
spirits - authorities
have brought in assistance
from paranormal charlatans
whose predictions have been
characterized as optimistic
at best, and are confident
a televised press conference
will provide further details
directly as they are available.
They can do nothing more
until the press conference,
where serious clues are expected
to be divulged by the assembled press. We have nothing
further to go on. Meanwhile,
panic. Stay in your homes
get out of your streets
keep away from cities, bridges,
lunatics and plastic imitation omens
- one slip and these errors will kill you
kill you
say the authorities
kill you
obey or die, basically
the individual on the loose
we cannot be responsible for, and
you will die, unless
you stay safe
and do it right. Don't say

we weren't warned. Yes
you were.

We just did
We wash our hands of fate
in this.

brag warning to chumps, just don't

In fact,
I'm the big man. When I roll
I run over bumptious chumps
hungry to be crushed by my
superior grasp of what asses
they are - sorry, guys - but
you shouldn't come uppity on
a bum like me who more than knows
how to get down, beat down, give
or take a few and then settle
like the final score next morning.
You should know better, like
every other competitiveness fan.
Bonus round? Don't mind if we don't,
do I? I mean, please yourself!
I'll happen along by and by
to make you look bad,
by comparison, clean up
what's left of you
after so many years
growing ever more decrepit
and disreputable in this grudge
I left behind, but I see
you wear the sash. Winner

and champeen! Well have a hearty
handshake on me,

Walt Mitty! Your day of glory
has finally arrived, as I saw
you and recalled our dried
-out jerky of beef, noted
your enduring obsession with it,

and congratulated you,
on all you'd gained

by our brief but stormy
association. You chumps

never change.

parts to show

a perfect set of teeth
to bite and gnash and grind
- so even, fair (though not
quite white - it's only set
against the pink of healthy gums,
they gleam so pale the pink
turns red in shadowed dark)
sit tight concealed behind
full lips, until the smile
parts
to show

the way it is.

them to want.

We do not want someone
to do
what they don't want
to do. We want them
to want. We want
them to want

When they don't, it's a tear
in our bag, it's a wear
on our sole
a decline
a reject
worth a crying
jag. We want them
to want. We want them

to want.

We don't want ours
to be the control.
We hate the idea,
and we don't want them
to hate the idea.
We want them to love
the idea.

It's no good
if they don't. When they do
it anyway, seeing our need
- this compounds offense.
We didn't want them
to do what they don't

want to do. We want them
to want.

Only when
it is true. Only then
it is true.

suspension span

If bridges depended from attention spans
instead of steel cable and tower and strut
We'd have to get over them oh so quick
before they were doing they forgot what

elegy or prelude

Anyone who wants to
could celebrate what we have.
It would do us no good,
with all we know

for all we know,
it would do us bad.
It's hard to see
from the outside of things
and people mean well,
and want to believe

in something so good
as you and me. It could
be exactly what
they need

it could be exactly why
they deceive. But you and me
know better at least. It's good
that we know all the good
that's past

raising up, but not yet
deceased. We can rest
as long as we like
in such peace.

process of limination

There's only one thing left
to say, but I'm not going to
be the one, and you don't know
just what it is. And so we're safe
Let's have more fun

our pantheon

We invent mythology between us
and dive into it, becoming myth
mid-plunge. I will not be bound
except by will, and only there
where will is good, and yours.
I am set loose upon you like a storm,
because you love storms, and
I know you do. And you love
to dive.

I love the plunge
more than the fall.
When the surface breaks
and envelops you whole, and your breath
takes itself all the way inside,
to hide its shame
from this all the way
in and through
wild ride.

I am Hercules, with his horn
of wine (I'm sure Hercules had
something like that) while you,
Artemis, goddess of hunt, of wild
animals and the moon, say "If you
see me nude, I will oh, never
mind." We are actually nothing
like either of these. We make sport
and turn through archetypes as we will
and please, with conceit left behind
with modesty,

and the greatest of ease.

the scandal of expectation

Expectation is the thief
of gratitude and wonder; the mother
of entitlement; the uncle and midwife
of resentment and betrayal - those vile
twins - the unfaithful lover of disappointment,
dissatisfaction, and dejection; and
the twice-murderer of hope: first
shoved from a height,
then stabbed in its

sleep.

"The Whole Load"

Part of me hopes
to leave you stuck for words
transfixed by the truth
in my eyes, and the hurt
And prick your conscience a bit
'cause your conscience is a prick
it won't climb on your back,
not for me, not for this

I got a whole load of questions for you,
I've got a whole load of questions for you
I got a whole load of questions for you
I don't mean one or two,
I've got a whole load

But part of me hopes
you'll have the answers for all
you can fit into place
just like bricks in a wall
and I won't see any cracks,
and I'll have to say I'm wrong -
I'll apologize to you,
and you'll say, "no harm"

...trust doesn't mean not asking
...trust means believing the answer
...trust means, you look me in the eye,
say whatever you like, and I
will believe it, I'll try
I'll believe it I'll try,
I believe it I'll try,
I'll try - I will swallow my

whole load of questions for you
the whole load of questions for you
I got a whole load of questions for you
I don't mean one or two,
I've got a whole load

Is now a good time?
Could you sit yourself down?
Yield me the floor,
'cause I need it right now
baby, please don't interrupt
you'll have your chance to talk
but there's air we need to clear,
'cause I can't breathe at all

nonexistential dilemma

What if you were in your life
a most unwelcome visitor
unable to excuse yourself
without offending anyone,
and always bruised and reeling from
a constant and obscure offense
against your faith and reason,
or your dignity and common sense?
And so you'd linger, watchfully
and wonder how the others try
and bother how the others fail
despite you see the reason why,
and wonder why the others can't.

Well, what then
would you try to do?
Fit in as best you could,
stick out, or absent just as much
of self as you could pull from view?

wilder

I'd be wilder
if you'd bewilder me
it's bewildering why
you don't, apparently
see this chance
to be wilder too, or
maybe it's not
what you're born
to do.

breakthrough delay

There are people who hate you.
They don't understand you.
It's easy to say that.
It's easy to guess.
We hate and we fear
what we don't understand.
You don't understand why
or what, or for that matter
them, or for that matter
you, but
it's all for the best.

ways of having known

There are seven ways of having known,
and I have known them all.

The seventh through the first,
I've lost in order to recall

the joy of finding out again.
To find and get to know.

The truth need not be memorized,
it shines out as you go.

a life tucked in

I want to live
at the mercy of land and sky,
hang on
to the world
as it turns itself
without money or love,
or anything else
reputed to make the time of day
stand by. Essentials
and fundaments.
I want to look up at a crown of stars,
a fine-threaded diadem of light
in gems stretching billions
of ages apart, and pulling now tense
in a circlet band - now lifted down gently
to place on your brow. You, standing
in spirit and flesh and blood,
implacable as any storm at sea,
inexorable as the moment at hand,
and I will go down
to you
on my knees, before you
and after - you'll join me
for tea.

It will be all things,
such as we allow. We shall
nibble down mountains in dainty bites,
and in sips rivers-wide and deep, we shall drink
a flood. And finally,
love
and be sated.
And dream our way back to sleep,
for a night. Somehow.

ill-planned fates

The all nude glitter tits traveling
garage sale filth and judgment show
rolled into town stripping morals
right and left out in the rain
down to the bare ass minimum and
holy shit. You should have seen
how pure puritan indignation just
about rose up, and hollered more
than pretty much what you'd expect. This was
turn back the clock time, mind you -
somewhere in the twenties
I'd guess, so in those days
the town sheriff was all
-powerful, had created
the universe in six days
and could turn entire streets
to wine. He basically took
one look at that crowd of
innocent interloping misfits
and charlatans and says "hell,"
thinking right-enough
that was plain. The people,
seeing nothing happened,
drove spikes through the eyes
and hairdos of the vile ones,
fed them to dogs and cats
and buried the remains
between the pages left out
of history books. Now, I am
come like a judgment upon
that town. Because it was my pa
had tickets to the show and
got so pissed it was canceled,
it falls to me to figure out
something. Some fitting, nasty
bit of business for the kids
and kids of kids of those
hypocrite scumbags, well

don't blame me much. Once
you kick off a cycle of blood
and vengeance, you better be prepared
to jump every damn truck
after the ramp. 'Cause brother,

I'm ready here I

the brief goodbye

Calissa came back home again
and everything was where it was.
Just where she had wanted it.
Her fame and fortune up in jars,
love and romance neatly boxed
and random chance in candy bowls
in case of visitors from mars
who'd like to sit and have some things
explained by one who's known too much.
Who's taken part and come out whole.
Whose every move tomorrow brings,
and always with a tinge of hope
that lately seems more decorative
than serious. It's interesting
how little changes make you sane,
when you were once the moonlit night
- a flying ghost in tattered cloud.
A spirited and haunting sight,
now watched by you through windowpane
with wineglass full of shining light;
you'll stay up later than allowed
and turn into a rose-gold glow
in flight.

shadow-dappled

The negative light
opens and closes in
leaf-shadows tricking
the played-upon stones
and the eye alike, that tries
to alight on the path - prophesying
next steps in the gloam.

towards a pun-based morality.

puns
seem to operate
on different scales of right
and wrong, where wrong
is understood as worth
appreciatory groan -
as good! Rewarded
by bright laugh begrudged,
and condemnation
afterwards to firm cement
accomplishment. A kinder way,
it seems to me,
to judge.

I'd like
to flesh this
model out a bit.
A touch more of the ol' begrudge
- admiringly! Extended to more normal
moral modes, foul acts of wrongly-done
objected-to, so long rehearsed,
well-practiced and accused against.
Why not just groan! Break out in grinning
grimace, waggle finger (waggler's choice),
or worst-case instance - if one personally hates
just hates that thing, as some hate puns
- get mad and seethe! But conscious
of the childishness
in finding wrong
so bad.

I do believe
it can be done. A pun
is just a play on words. Well,
aren't these other things just plays
on acts? It could perhaps

- be fun? Okay, it needs
some working out. But arguably,
we're well begun. And puns
shall lead the way.

Of course, we must exempt
the worst of criminal acts
from this. But that's okay,
it's bound to take

some time to change.

It always does
for mores, norms
and attitudes to well-adjust
as people reach acceptances,
as new and changing forms
come in, introduce themselves
- and we approve.

old norms and modes

Some of that jazz
is awesome, though, but
just 'cause I love films
noirs
doesn't mean
I feel driven to write
one, or make one, or
worse, walk around
all black and white cracking
laconic quips, calling babes
'dames' and opening an office
where I hang out a shingle,
learn how to whistle
'til the bell

rang.
I looked up.
The door was trouble for some dame,
but in she walked. Had a bad case
for me, so I opened it. Inside
was a missing diamond
the size
of the depressing
dent in the cushion. I lifted
my eyes
to meet hers.

She declined at first,
demure no doubt. Actually,
there was

some doubt

as her eyes met mine. "Sorry,
sweetheart," I lied. "I only
investigate clients."

finding the middle of nowhere

Find yourself in the center, by turning
slow round
and pick out direction as far
as can see, and every road out
- cross it out, strike
it down. You will find yourself
here,
eventually.

"Away With It"

Darling don't be surprised,
I've known for some time.
I don't really care any more
I still kind of mind,
I can't quite decide
just what you think all this is for.

'Cause you're cute,
and you're slick
and it all kind of fits
with the image I've bought,
and you've sold.

Overall it's amusing
and true, my dear
but don't swallow it whole

Just 'cause you got away with it
Don’t think that you’ll get away with it
'Cause you got a way
A way of letting it show
Wherever you just got slick
That’s just the place where you’re going to slip
Yeah you got a way
A way of letting me know...

...like a while ago.

I’m trusting and innocent as you please
I hardly suspect three parts
of the three-point-one-four
you’ve been keeping from me,
circling back to start.

And it’s good
when your bad,
you can pull it off sweet
It’s part of what’s best
in you.

But don’t flatter yourself
the illusion’s complete
’til we’re seeing it through

Just ’cause you got away with it
Don’t think that you’ll get away with it
’Cause you got a way
A way of letting it show
Wherever you just got slick
That’s just the place where you’re going to slip
Yeah you got a way
A way of letting me know...

...like a while ago

lost language

this little body so discomfy
hungry feed me gassy dumpy
pissy change me cranky nap me
so expressive when not happy

openings

a human being - unawares
as lurking, swarming dangers
that the audience can see
encroach - is standard fare,
as openings go.