opaque eye

I keep an opaque eye 
and an obtuse mind 
(acute at one end) and

to keep unblind, I
keep also one lucid eye 
open.
Well, it's really 
translucid, but eye 

keep hopin' 

findings & determinations

There's something wrong behind my ear
it's filling up sebaceous stuff 
I guess a cyst is what it is 
how long's it been there?

Long enough. 

sum empathy

We only want to kill what once
we held and loved as best in us
when consequence held few rewards.
It’s odd the ways we seek to even scores.

It isn’t odd to want. To try, to make the sum
come out. The sun come out, not go away,
but life - was never running sums, or balancing
except by means and ends that we ourselves
have run as cons.

Smell as sweet

Roses are stank
Violets smell 
Sugar rots teeth 
and go to hell

meanwhile otherwise

Otherwise and Meanwhile went 
for a walk: the longest walk ever off
such a short pier. They had to keep
stopping to make things clear. Otherwise,
they'd never get anywhere. Meanwhile,
they kept starting on again, making such
progress as each could stand. Distracted
by Meanwhile's otherwise point, Otherwise
accused sarcasm again. Meanwhile thought 
this was out of hand,
but could not answer back,
since they'd got on a roll
and with heads full of steam
they fell smack in a lake, 
and have yet to land. Meanwhile
we wait. Otherwise,
they crept out
and slunk off just so,
probably as planned.  

breathelike

Working your way through
your crushed-in cares 
Climbing your way down
a pit of stares 
Finding away from the goals 
unset 
Giving away what you'll 
never get 

You can give up
You don't want to 
What's been the point 
of the point of you 
How many ways must 
a you walk down 
to come home again? 
the town's burned down 

If you breathe like a child
If you breathe like a child 
If you breathe like a child
you'll see 
there's no difference 

Fitting so many starts 
to a point 
Working the ache and the kink 
off joints
Searching the roots for the cause 
of its 
Shining a light 'til the cracks 
come together and fit 

you up 
you don't need to 
it's just been this crazy want 
of yours 
to find yourself in a sense 
well-made 
making the best 
of all lineless plays

If you breathe like a child
If you breathe like a child 
If you breathe like a child
you'll know 
just one instance 
and breathe like a child 
if you breathe like a child 
if you breathe like a child 
you'll grow 
up, grow up 
you're not finished you know 
you're not finished you know 
you're not finished 
you know. 

to the people of Earth.

Bury me nude
full of bullet-holes,
just as I am
then.

We shan't
pay the rolling tolls
of bells, of wreaths
and crepe. No casket
or ceremony. In lieu
of flowers? Some
tasteful black
balloons

for who to release
as they wish, and
when. Dig a hole
lay me out, altogether
and all, by the open grave,
by the open bar, and some
canapés - hold a rollicking
wake. And when the last dog
is hung, just roll me in.

Then let night and day
call foxes and crows
to dig in. Let time's
sweet healing begin.

About a week's worth of
me being late, somebody

come back

and fill me in. I will find
the time with abated mind
and breath. Let the dirt rain
down full of worms, and

tally the scores of years
since birth
was bested in death.

Call it
another triumphant win
for the people of Earth, tied
every time at the finish line
for best we get. 

13% one picture's worth

Seriously, could
such sentences ever
not delight? The prose,
the prose! Everywhere he
strews himself sudden
roots a rose. So it goes,
so he knows or at least
thinks he knows. It's
a bit "on the nose,"
and much to expect
of correctness in assessments
so drunk on glows
deeply grown, picked
and pressed into heady
hearty reds, gleaming whites
shone with light deeply
gleaned in the wisdom
of berry and terroir,
and all vintner's arts.
Plus a few choice rosés,
for the sake of the sentiments 
exposed in the starts, and the fits
to catharsis of hearts and minds
blown to bits in the words, 
words, words, words, words,
words, words. In the plucking
and the pricking and the tucking 
and the sticking in the spinning
and the winning and the dining
and the whining of the words.

stone's throw

I am milk
mild
meek ass
wild
bold
brass consequence!
(Presumption of)
all I can see
my way clear to: 
my part - and free
the force
of its
brute bucking thrash 
and quash! 

By which 
the world grows
round the more of what
I could not see - not possibly!
Or know conceivably - the more 
each missing part of mine 
I stoop to find and own: 

The deeper in 
and farther out
a ripple splash 
can crest to waves. 
From pebble toss 
to skipping stone, 
to boulder sunk 
to thunk displayed 
in sea-changed home.
Tucked safe and warm
in algae blanket, coral bed: 
and kissed g'night by social
morays swarming by, 
as is their norm.  

simile metaforce

It's like we are each
other's nutshell and nut,
reversibly. I am the sunlit
spray in space, and you are
the wave curling over me
'til we break and crash
come tumbling in, so
dragging back out to sea
we flow. But this time
I am the wave, and you:
are shining suspense
in air as I rise, to hang
atop you and awave we
go. Much similar, too:
how you are the pin, 
and I am the head 
as the angels dance 
in angles of light spun 
infinitely, while some 
occult hand mends 
somebody's pants. 
It is quite as or like 
some simile jumped 
from her side of the glass 
to see metaphor. And metaphor 
took her literally. And ever since then, 

it's meaning more. 

good sad ways

good says ways 
are better than bad
happy ways, I think.
Or maybe I'm bad 
at telling between, 
but feeling I get 
says shrug 
and wink

Deconstructing Kool Moe Dee's "Wild Wild West"

Mohandas Dewese, known as 
Moe Dee and styled as Kool 
apparently used to hang with 
a dude who liked people to call 
him "Hung Hunk." 

What's more people apparently 
felt it fit and right to honor this 
braggadocious appellation of 
self-identification. That's 

wild. Either that or people just
started calling him that and
he said "Correct."

Alternate
interpretation: SOMEBODY 

I won't say who 
was stuck for a rhyme 
for "We fight with our hands 
and nobody's a punk!" But if so 

in that case, due 
to the situational factors, 
we can pretty much rule out 
Hung Hunk.  

All this happened in the West,
apparently. Although: West side
of town, or Western section of 
a housing development, we don't 

know. We can infer: sunset's
indicative, but don't go there. At 

the 
wol 
wol 
wes

If you're a clown, they don't mess
around. 

absurd ditty

O, what
an absurd ditty
is life! You buy
a dog and end up
with a wife and you’ve
never once dared to screw
that pooch. It’s against the law
- plus she’s not your type.

It could be worse. 
We surround in it. 
Can't take it all in, 
since none of it fits. 
Who says "wife's a bitch"
intends to die, or at least 
deserves richly such fate 

not I

metamorphosis interruptus

The ugly duckling grew to goose. 
It made its sibling ducks so mad. 

"When all this time we swanned
about you treating you so well
- so sad! Filling you with big ideas, 
calling you the special one, in hopes 
this pond would have a swan 
to look benevolent upon! And 
each of us, proud brother duck 
and sister to a swan so bright!

Just look at you! One gander 
tells the gruesome tale to goose 
affright!" The goose, meanwhile

crestfallen down, to find its future 
held no swan, declared HONK HONK
and flapped aloft, with weight of 
siblings bearing down.

Eventually,

as seasons changed,
the ducks and goose regretted
all. In memories of such childhoods,
so much to look for every fall, so much
to find in every spring. So much to love
in each so grown so foul and fair by turns,

so strong. 

Our goose came back to find its ducks
had flown. They could not bear our 
pond, and all their lives there lost 
and won. They'd gone to where 
the gooses go, to find the goose

 who was no swan. 

self-thrashing # 24,736.5

So. Here's a damn question for me
I'll warrant. Why, on social media 
for instance, am I always (oh, come
on "always"? How often! Irregularly
at best) breathing a sigh of relief

to find someone 

I had random crush-catch pang
or fuzz of hot fondness for, once
- just a pure good thing, you know? 
A wonder and gratitude as one 
tends to have for all truth, good 
or beauty seen in evidence, in this 
far too often gorgeous, absolutely 
factually veracious and right-on 
world! Someone anyone, to come
across again distantly after long since
having drifted apart on separate lifelong
courses, for that matter never even slightly
in any sense "together," or "having" 
(I mean not this particular one) 

- and she has "kept her figure"?

No, arguably I do not think it
in those pig-dog terms, but 
I analyzed the reaction just now. 
Pretty sure that's about the size
and shape of it. Naturally I took 
a step back and said "Yo to self. 
How natural and cool a reaction 
is this, and/or some affront of 
some kind?"

See, I'm supremely vigilant of the fact
that if everybody was a mind-reader,
humanity's population would be halved
every week for as long as it took
for the available supply of aluminum
foil to be distributed as hats. Which, 

unrealistic hypothetical, but thoughts 
lead acts by the dick sometimes (or 
the equivalent), and words can wound. 
I don't say "I keep mine pretty clean," 
that's nonsense. Dirt isn't clean. Nudity 
is not held clean, though if people understood 
how many microbes and mites infested their
entire suit of clothes right now, down to 
the unders, some of them would overreact 
into immediate nudity wherever they were, 
and demand the world find some way 
to scrub them clean 

which it never can, and would stall 
and stall over. Point is. So I had 
that reaction, as noted, and abnormal 
to me I had a thought about it. Also 
as noted. Reaction to a reaction - not 
my home mode, I'm a simple guy, 
but there was this to deal with now. 

I don't shirk that. People count
in my view, and I mean all of each, 
not just a big ogle in the goodies 
and walk on, "mission accomplished!" 
Such things need to be checked and 
why they need to be checked could 
use some checking!   

Okay. So I began in on me by 
second nature, red in tooth and claw:

"Where's the pure glory 
of innocent everybody's own 
good humanity angle in that one, 

buster? FESS UP. You just want 
the once-fuckable (except in practice
with rather a practiced lack of attempt
or intent, only theoretically so) to keep
their honor and virtue 
of hotness,

whilst 'in mind'! 

- you maintain a devil of a 
self-advocacy job! Playing
the dispassionate social aesthete,
going 'Well of course, it's nothing 
to me either way but I expect 
that's a good thing for her 
life, in her own view even,

especially in view of this
hegemony of pig dog eye values
always propagating an as-if sex
objective fixed scale and rank
system hinged on 

- hotness, if posed as a virtue ideal, 
or
- fuckability in consequentialist
or utilitarianist terms, despite 

let's be honest, none of those 
lauded as fuckable tend to be, 

at least by those singing the lauds.'

A natty abstract case of dodge 
ball there buddy but it doesn't fly 
when YOU are one of the ones 
rating so rank, clearly! It's YOUR 
pig dog eye wallowing in the 
'kept figure' of some - one - known
to-you to-be way more than just 

a passel of well-placed sinew 
slapped on a skeleton and organized 
i.e. fit with organs, such as a skin 
to keep it all in and rounded out nicely 
with fat - but as nutritionist prigs say 
'the good fat. Not the bad fat.' 

That's crap and you know it! She's
got a HEART, TOO wait. OK. Technically
you covered that under 'organs.' Is that sufficient
to your so-called and posed heart of molten gold
beating out an unbeaten tom tom to the tune of
a dude catting around kitting out chicks in
mentally applied birthday suits immediately
transposed to one's own bird in the hand
upon the next convenience? Yeah yeah!
You make me sick, atomizing humans being 
to parts! You've clearly got her all covered, 
her human heart - all the glory and weight 
in the world, by your evident hypocrite 
scales! You just shuffle it in with the organs, 
as if it has no folk anatomical value or 
magic at all to you! What happened 
to YOUR heart when you were beaten 
as a child by your own hand I shouldn't 
suspect! Knowing as I do better. You got
her plumped with organs and wrapped up
in soft skin surrounding, heart deep within
pumping blood in more places than she knows, 

or cares to be aware of, I'd bet."

THIS is where one has to just 
step back from the duel of sides 
inside, declare it "overthinking it," 
further declare oneself on the sides
of all the real human beings in the case 
and against all unnatural warping
distortion to be posed and imposed
on any of them. 

It's worth doing. Overthinking 

sharpens the head whether done
right or not, sometimes. It rarely
-to-never solves the damn quandary,
but sometimes it does establish
there wasn't a quandary. Or as in

this case, there's 

arguably some stuff

it's good to spot. Gawk at. 
Accept, deny, or if
the getting is good as per
two norms and nature sets: catch,
give up and down receive likewise,
lay it where it lies right and
once found, identified for what's
what and good, perhaps? Keep in mind!
Heaped in with all the other stuff in the
keep pile. Congratulating yourself on how 
the keep heap has just overtopped the 
discard heap, equally present and 
oppressive. 

Then, you know, just grab your ass 
with both hands to prove you can 
tell the truth literally, and keep
eyes wise and wildly abreast
of further developments. 

YOU DON'T HAVE TO, 
nobody does 

Pretty frustrating stuff for some, 
and ultimately: who wants it?
Who needs it.

This one? 
I score as a draw, because 
I'm not sure what or whether 
any problem is, but I'm glad 
I checked myself headlong 
rather than proceed obliviously 
unawares into who knows 
what glorious annihilating 
pair of eyes, wrong word, 
right on time. 

I mean, to be honest such 
moments of truth are also 
to be prized. 

But I feel less stupid 
with the obvious 
when I can figure it out 
more wise than otherwise. 

kindergarten righteous

The lines were rote, received as writ. 
When we were kids, we treasured it: 
how right from wrong 
could goodly shine.
How just could cleave the world so fine! 
How black and white divide the day.
 
How bright the line
made sense in play.

How fair, that we 
could see it plain.

Now we've grown up. 
It's just the same. 

Since all between the lines we find
all shades of gray look white or black
depending on the light we play.
Obliterate! Or turn one's back.
Avert both eyes, and call it gone.

So that's a wrap. For every dark is
just a dawn, eventually you'll see 
how long.  

There's no shade too complex
to see it all the way, or not at all.
Our innocence will never lack. 
We've all gone home. We had to 

take our ball.  

outgrained exclination

I thought of you today for 
the first time in oh I don't know 
and realized the way I've been 
was not the way I was or am. 

I'd been unso. Whereas before 
I always was just so. And now 

I'm rightly so. Again 
who knows 
why such trajectories 
and how. 

Life's about

It's kind of about 
this someone with flaws
that everyone knows 
and nobody calls. 

For they love this someone 
some much, some sure 
- their opinion can't stand 
to come or to get to know 

anymore. And 

them's the breaks! For that's 
all she wrote, or that's all he 
makes, to want to care less 
for each other, ourselves. 

'Cause that's what it takes. 

We call it "drift,"
place no blame either way. 
We all keep such shelves, 
and we all catch such drifts. 

They all seem so sure, like 
shining white snowed-upon 
hills so pure, but the crust 
can't hold weight unless 
heart bears it up. So it 

breaks and we fall 
so deep. Suffocate, 
sunshine
buttercup 

PUKE EYE.

Puke Eye, 
the tummer one!
Viscerally insidious, 
insipidly emotional -
cerebrally, though 
he's hideous. 

All of his friends 
are such a mess. Ordered 
and tucked and ranked 
just so, they jockey 
and shift positionally 
hoping to catch Puke Eye
off go. Hoping 
to catch
Puke Eye at It. 
They're sure It is he 
who's ordered their mess. 
They've checked and rechecked
It against themselves, and except
for themselves, there's only one
common factor to guess. 

It is he: "he he,
he he" he says going
gliding by, as if in a deeply
darkling hint: "Correct, it is he!
It's me! 'Tis I!" PUKE EYE! 

They just cannot quite believe 
the tint of their spectacles: 
yellow and blue. "Oh say
can't you see it ain't so, Puke Eye?
Not you!" But they do not say 

any such ain't-soings, yet. 

They're afraid of each answer 
that they might get. "How COULD it 
be he?" One wise kind sighs. "He's 
always so tummer?" "What's that 
even MEAN," some dumbass 
replies. "IT IS I!"

SAYS HE!

PUKE EYE! Had passed by 
and listened in, see? And he is 
in pat fact, the tummer one. 
He never claims tummest.
His ego needs reins
to reign in such rains
as the sky downpours. 

For the sun cannot see
such a crying shame. 

If you want? Take a long, 
damp look. It's yours. 

The well I mean

The well I am in
is infinite
but the water
goes only halfway up
where I bob like a dork 
shedding tears of joy
in bottomless hopes
I could fill myself
all the way to top

heroic flaws

Green Lantern has a thing 
for blondes. They make 
him weak with 
their hats not on. 

Lex Luthor once gave Lois Lane
a Kryptonightie. Shame, man.
Shame. 

Oedipus just limped
through life in proud defiance -
death for dad and mom for wife! 
Exactly as foretold, foreswore. 

Damn your eyes, man.
Fate's beneath us 
to abhor

Chapter Vs

We know you
know these arguments 
of ours

from each
and either sides, 

and I know why 
and I agree 
you cannot seem 
so true or false, 
and cannot let 
either/or lie, 
or just

let be. 

So I pull out 
and cherry pick 
best snippets from 
your scripture writ, 
and
- be the prophet, 
since you must.

Because you are. 

It's only just. But I 
will be evangelist. 

And we shall see 
whose news is pressed. 
And we shall see 

whose good is not 
nor ever shall be left
to rot, or missed a spot,
or hid beneath 
a single bushel
basket, for 
like thieves
in nights 

we come in sneak, 
each baring glaring 
lantern lights 

to put this thing 
of ours to sleep, 
perchance to let
it rest. 

Postponing wake, 
'til mourning must 
and actually comes: 

procrastinate, for you 
and I,
know which of us 

has always won.

pitier and pitier

I badly need to eat
more greens, 
or maybe I need to
get more sleep, or
maybe my eyes
will degenerate
to the point
I longer see
mirrors weep 

For pity's sake. 

I have always said 
that pity is mercy 
that has no power 
to spare. 

And I think that's a
pretty apt sense! Except 
that it seems I no longer
care. 
         Oh,

"Who cares, dares" I know.
Hogwash. Fiddlesticks.
Dumbbell cellar doors
doorbells broomsticks 
bedknobs and awards - 

Take so many wands!
Bundle up, bind them all.
Put spells on, toss bon mots
now we know this too-long
autumn is spoiling for fall.  

Time for bonfires! Sorcery,
horsery piling on
to on high, let
chivalrous
wizards
catch hell 
and die, all wrong 
by dint of main strength, 
puissance plus wisdom 
dexterity spent.  

Magical realists as well: 
yes. You. 

Let us have us a pyre,
with tunes to dance, too.
Set the light and smoke
mystery show between us
and dance, 'til the flame
turns blue as around we go, 
until our last breaths - no.
Save two.

Just in case we each
think of one last word.  
So concise. Lock eyes,
let beelines be,  

and dive in 
one time: on
a count of three. To see
who burns first, 
and who

in this merriest hell 
were we.  

jubject matter

I shamface confess with a pirouette turn through carefree air: I thought it was funny, too! But thanks too for the backup and test. 'Cause I doubted my judgment. I do that the best. I have reason to. It's pretty much what reason's for! In the critical faculties (observation, reason, judgment) doubting judgment is reason's primary almost sole function galore. Meanwhile observation's off like "doot-di-doo" not minding the store.

If you rock that balance from the top of your object mind, slam down to the bottom of heart, and let it bounce back up! to your hand-clap catch?

That's pretty much you in the sane. Some match

but it fits as it does. And it misses galore! 'Cause the way that aim kisses all targets is pure whether score is awarded, or wins handed out - you know by the target what the doubt of your judgment's about. See you've had more than share in that stake. More than most of good reasons to care, dare, doubt, brag, boast, shimmy-shake, but

when hindsight looks back and winks?! We get mad.

That ain't how I act no way mom dad

hard karma

Karma is the world
you make for yourself,
of people who know
how you really are,
in what you give:
of yourself to know,
for them.

Shine on,
consistent star. 

hint of horror

The ugly fancy fits and starts,
in unmade bed of senseless parts
to settle into rumpled sheets,
by stimulus we incomplete
in pattern-recognition spurts.

In children's minds of innocence,
hard-lit by cinematic light,

we spot something.
It slides right in.
It didn't hurt.
It's made-belief.

We're never even noticing,

until the world adds
one new piece,

and context keyhole finds
its key.

So sliding in insidiously
to hit
the back and turn, and turn,
as tumblers fall and click:

we learn.

The purpose of our knowing this

was all this fit, to turn to start.

Ignition switch has fired spark
to ramrod course down slippery slope,
desensitized to all off-road, we rocket

from the starting line. Abandoning
all prior hope, intent upon how horrible

the world's revealed to be,
oh no.
Not us.
Not me. It's all this stuff,
those understandings cracked,
misspent, I see
I have. To straighten out,
now
sorry!

go

and so
each story went. 

boubakiki

There's a problem in America. 
The problem is those black or dark 
gray things you see littered or strewn 
on sidewalks, by curbs, or just over 
the curb in the street. 

What are those things. 

They're little teeny tiny and 
some of them if you close-inspect 
run to spiky, others far more round 
and bumpy bulbous. They appear 

to be just 

shapes of some kind, nonliving 
- where do they come from? Some 
by-product, side effect? Do others 
see them? I ask surreptitiously but 
they do not answer. Do they answer
others? Who would put them there 

and not tell why? Is it part of the 
natural world, or another quirk 
or consequence of artifice? It's 

even possible it's not a problem. 

If 
there's no solution, 
it's not a problem.
Just another feature
of reality 

epiphany slip

For a minute 
no
a second or two, tops 
I gave in. Didn't 
even know 
I was fighting it 

I don't think I was,
but 
I felt
the strange edge 
of a feeling like

what if I cared?

About what people 
think? About me? 
People I don't even 
know? 

I didn't so much 
imagine that mattering
as let the edge bleed in. 
And it felt so bad. 

like pain.
It was not 
like the pain
I knew, 
so 
the sheer
unfamiliarity 
made it almost worse! 

Hey! In that moment, 

I teetered on the brink 
of falling further maybe 
all the way in. And then stopped. 

And it all fell away. Mind-blown.  
What a weird bad rush.

Surely I have felt that way
before, 
as a child, maybe 
not. 
But I
feel some epiphany, 
now I know. And I think 
that I do.  
Compassion ordering.
I need to level up 

The question was

The question was
which pleonasm bothers me most.
Me, you hear! That’s rich.
I’m the superfluity express!
The paragon of excess
plus twenty percent gratuity, bristling
with gratuitous tips and tricks.
I sing the tangent electric! I jump
tracks on trains of thought, rail
and rerail all the way back
and recouple the left-behind cars
with a jolt that carries straight through

to the misplaced but suddenly regained
prodigal caboose (“oh yeah, that’s what
we were talking about eighty minutes ago!
Thank you that was killing me!”). Then

full steam ahead!
All aboard all hands on deck pulling
on down the line through direct
to the station.

Freighted
with more meaning
than strictly necessary, overspilling
all over on all sides - we done ourselves
proud, and the people
can take what they want!

The rest was necessary. But
we’re hardly interested in that.

the moralist

Betrayed by his enemies, 
stabbed in the back by foes, 
he turned to his allies and colleagues and found
acceptance. Succor. Tolerance. 
Love. 

Faith, 
hope and trust 
in humanity restored! He 
returned to his enemies, lesson 
learned: I must just have 
to trust these people. 
That's what did it 
before
That's what does it
always

cineaste business

The troubled production 
of this film classic is 
sheathed in layers 
of myth and mystification,
anecdote and dogmatic
tenets and decrees. 

The original director 
- so his story goes - was
brought on under false pretenses,
and made the film what it was
so far. When the star signed
on, the whole focus changed 
and the people became cynical, 
not expecting such a move. But 
the new director, once engaged,
brought a reputation for short,
brutish, underscheduled production 
way on top of the budget 
- a cinematic assassin,
much approved by the suits, if
considered by critics the greatest
and most technically-proficient hack 
in the world - and she'd brought 
her own screenplay, for a 
different film. Reenergized, 

redirected, restarred and revitalized 

by the addition of a love interest 
and an entirely different story,
setting, and much improved themes,  
the film was prematurely released 
before principal photography - a 
scandal that remains treasured, 
discussed, tut-tutted and mocked 
by all those who saw the initial 
theatrical run.

A cultural touchstone
unique in the annals. Upon deep
explanation and apology, the film
was re-released - this time shot,
but essentially 

the same film 

and was hailed

as an instant classic 
forever - last year. Now.

A hard-hitting new
documentary and expose dares
to ask: can its legacy 
survive daring revelations
and trenchant critical reassessment
on this, 

almost the anniversary? 

Of what became the most epochal 
influential paradigm-shocker 
the film world's seen since. 

For the answer? Wait 

for next year's installment 
of what
has been
inaugurated as 
an annual reexamination
of this 

deeply-seminal workhorse 
of a film. Popcorn anyone? 

bad balance

I have no bad feelings about you
No bad feelings surrounding you 
No bad feelings towards you

Just a bad feeling without you. 

It isn't a palpable negative, 
just comparing the state 
when you're here, versus gone 

and noticing all of the differences 
in values and balances
missing you
strong. 

extraordinary effects

Music is really
amazing. The first
purely abstract art.
All this sound, never
before made. Sometimes
we stir in echoes and apes
of natural noise, but

for the most part
it's a new creation.

As really, was language. 
But with so much life 
at stake to begin with, 
its arts were not meant 
to be abstract. Never 
the less and more galore, 
we achieve with it some 

extraordinary effect. 

Advance

During the Civil War, 
given widespread opportunity 
to test the most modern understandings 
of psychology and psychiatry in the field 
in the field, measures were implemented
to ensure those who participate in war 

are sane. 

Benefits were immediate, 
far-reaching, and 
I just made them up, but 
they had long had ways 
to find out who is insane 
when everybody has guns 
and you tell them charge 

over there 

where everybody also has guns, 
being as threatening about it 
as possible. 

It doesn't take a Sigmund Freud. 

Besides, Sigismund 
was like five at the time. 
He hadn't even got his 
doctor degree

ollie ollie oxen free

All ye out, come in free! 
I, the monster hunting thee 
to trace and spot and eat alive 
am harmless, now. Come in 

and hide 

the truth set

The truth will set you free 
but specifically, not generally. 
And only from stupidity

you've discovered your error in
-definitely. 

hey sailor

My beard is become a sail 
to set self into wind. 
I tack to the point it most resists, 
and it fills me enough to grin. 

The pressure and flap 
against my chest 
lets me know that I'm 
not wrong.

My beard is
become a sail, and I 
am a sailor of hair 
so long. 

found missing

The relief in being 
with someone you missed 
so long mind and heart 
had given up, gone on, is 
palpable. Even if this once 
most important piece 
no longer fits, you've 
grown so without 
within 
that you see clear 
- first time - 
why you valued it.

thirst vs. pain

Thirst torments me 
even in small amounts. 

I cannot get water. 
My tolerance is abysmal 
for wants I need, 
and I grow one goal. 

But pain is interesting. 
It fills me in one moment 
whole, and I have no need 
or want but to make it go. 

While it stays though, I find 
it compelling to know.

Coherence Critique Part IV: drip, drip

This is how
I determine
my writing
coherent.

I observe:
each point made, from basis to claim,
on merit:
of correspondence with truth,
discernible and demonstrable,
or that support's inane, unsane.
Unproof. 
I measure: between and against,
by eye,
and I test

for conflict
inconsistency 
discrepancy 
contradiction 

...with the whole, 
with all parts
- in any and all
to see: 

where I was unsmart.
If no point at any point catches
to wreck or distend the case,
or otherwise tends
to undermine, and supposing
some overall point is tended
towards and actually made,

it’s coherent.

An abysmally low bar! Really, coherence.
A case can be coherent, yet
- utterly wrong. That’s where
you bring external consistency 
in. For coherence of a work, a case,
on its own: internal
consistency's enough. 
For use in life, probably not! 

Anyhow. I apologize for
my discursory manner. I recognize
in it a certain aesthetic wrong, by some
well-founded critic’s views,
and personal taste of gut and tongue,
and what’s more

I can’t disagree
with the justice
of their claims.

I understand the virtues in which their criteria
found, and are founded. There are, however,

other virtues. These, too have merit
and substance. Aesthetics, being
a matter of such taste, is supremely delicious
in my vulgar and screamingly bigoted view! I must

have
variety

or the equivalent! Or my palate grows nasty. 
I must be the variety I lack in the world. Otherwise,
hey,
that
works too.

COHERENCE, my loves!
Let COHERENCE be your watch-word!

Mine is: “Doot-di-doo”

coherence critique part III: the revenge of mercy justice, OR, the balance of a runaway twain

Criticism can only have positive value. 

The substance part
is no aether, but hard
correspondence to reality. Truth!
Which is of use, potentially! Even
Bad truth is good to know. Without
that correspondence to reality,
you've misclassified. There
is no substance in't.

Separate substance
from sentiment!
Know which is which!
For if you do, criticism

can have only positive value.

Accurate, itty, bitty, summy party (whether
“positive’ or “negative” is what's immaterial)
is therefore useful! Or else it is useless, worthless
- harmless. Let worthless be harmless, and let 
harmless be. 

The sentimental part
can only be good. Who keeps bad sentimental
value, honestly? A neat little row 
of golden poo trophies 
up on the mantle 
for solemn regard? 

No room on the mantel
for such doo doings. Even
a box in the basement for them’s
a useless waste of space, get it out
by the curb - displayed proudly

before the world!

Better yet, don't even pick 
that shit up in the first place. 
Let it drift, nothing there for you 
- no substance! Let worthless 
be harmless, and

let harmless
be. 

coherence critique part deux: el response

Still.

I can’t quite dispute
the sheer, yet diaphanous force
of the steely beam of just light 
you dropped out of a dark cloud,
clonk
on my throbbing knot. 
(Head)

It’s a fair cop.

“Coherence” is not really what’s being critiqued
here, but:

a lack of elegance.
Simplicity
is the sprung prong of elegance,
and must be observed. What is present
should be present for a purpose, and serve it.
What is present should be

what would serve in that place best, 
the purpose of the whole. Each word

the best right word and none lesser. All
needless words omitted, as per Strunk
& White: all that does not serve, all
that is purposeless,

should be gone to ghost before any other eyes
than author-omniscient’s ever beheld such right,
mighty work.

Elegance

is above all spare, there is nothing extra
in it. Every spar
and strut bears weight,
in such a balanced way
the resulting edifice - rises
as if weightless! Borne up
in the light streaming through
its clear and unstained three-story,

clerestory or howevermany windows.

Now that’s a prose-job! Gotten up
on the populace for the express
purpose of their edification
whether they like it or not! 

When you yank out a lead-weighted
sap like that and clap it across the back
of their skull just-so, they can’t help 
but drop
like a sack of wet asparagus. Beguiled
by your elegant prose. Bravo,

author!

I won’t say I do it, or have ever done it.
I won’t even say that’s my aim. I will say

I’m a dab hand at blackjack.

My problem is I amble a bit too much. I love
too much
the view and the way, maybe. I love
finding ways out, and tumbling down
off them (it’s a bit of a bluff).

If all I say
does not conflict
or contradict with itself,
within its parts, if the whole
hangs together and is not at internal odds, then this

technically

suffices for coherence.
Incoherence is where no
point is made at all, where
parts are disarrayed
to no discernible aim, OR
where parts actively torpedo
each other to undermine the whole.
Psssh! Psssh! Psssh! BWOOOM

*glub glub glub*

That is not my problem,
though at a cursory examination
- due to the flourish outré
here and all through the oeuvre,
the tell-tale touch of elaboration present,
the as-I-call-it discursory 

(portmanteau of “discursive” and
“cursory,” naturally, which means
whatever it suggests) character
of the progress as a whole - it may
be hard to spot the scheme's design.

Too much opulence. The diametric 
"other end" of luxury's pole,
from the end at which 
elegance simply sits. 

There is a design, though, and it does
hold. If it doesn’t I should know the reason
why. I should be surprised to find
the point of direct conflict, pointed out
- surprised and gratified, and grateful
by the way, everywhere curiosity and wonder
are indicated!

No workman even so projectile-workmanlike
as I ever has so perfect a mastery over
his own gaffes and blunders as to doubt
even their possibility. I’m sure

awry and amiss
are not omitted
to perfect degrees

from my self-ostensibly kickass body
- of work that is, which includes
my body and brain, but more vision
and voice held in mind by aim. Yet

in a given piece of ass-kicked,
or slapped, or seized upon
and smothered with kisses
- I kick ass at that, but
call me no "kiss-ass" please
unless you want a smack

and know where, and
are prepared to bear
and bare it without shame,
shamelessly. I am,
though,

reasonably satisfied
in my monstrously critical eye: it hath
its flaws. But it does make a detectable case,
and it does not conflict in itself.

Not habitually, and fair reliably. 

It is coherent.

Still. I’d hardly fault the critic whose eye
rests more heavily on those ungainly-to-some
surface deficiencies of style and ornament.
That opulence too profuse to be called tasteful!

This bareback riding of the living language
in a rude display of high-horsemanship too
unruly and indeed, uppity, to be called
"ennobling" to anyone. This ostensible

"super-equinimity" - as if to ride on iron 
U's roughshod upon a horse above! 
Or making flourish and bucking panache 
in as-if a "higher horsemanship" 
then the common! "Extraordinary!" 

All call it who read that far! But 
take it apart! Extra ordinary 
is no more and no other than 
abnormal!  

Indeed, I’d thank such a critic profusely!
I’d offer him or her my shaking hand, fumble
out words of perfect true gratitude - sincerely,
I’d hand them a brimming and wobbling chalice
or goblet (their choice - the vessel with the pestle’s
got a kick to it!), overflowing with bright and

staining libation. Whoops! I done ya proud, there,
sorry.

Always happy to receive criticism. Criticism
is the ape of art, and makes away with it
as if rapaciously - yet the result? In defiance
of all the world’s mores - is a happy and lasting
union! And the baby they (art and critique) together
produce is a monster.

Hi

coherence critique

Ah, geez.
One rude glance up and down
the extent of this
is enough. The eye

picks up the tell-tales
- deeper scanning confirms the verdict:

This is discursion. Cursory,
digressive. A stream-of-consciousness
bilge-barge that slides
continually past us out in the harbor

as we wait by the raised bridge,

hoping for it eventually to be over!

Distracted by impatience,
examining the haul. Good
point made…other point
made, strong development
…sideslip into irrelevant
and soi disant “charming
or amusing” tangent…point A
made again…point C introduced,
relevance unclear but seemingly
-independently valid…point B
made again, far more strongly
…tangent
…PARABLE? An…apparently
parodic quasi-bible parable, which
illuminates the central case, if there
is one, only in the most garish, cinematic
German-Expressionist lighting and deep
startling shadow. Point C

made again! Relevance established
by some unsuspected back-door, point
A made again and we end on point B!

Bridge lowering! Go go go drive!

What did we think? In short,
it goes on too long and says both
too much too many times, and
too little too well - though to do it
justice, the too little it says too well
it does say too, too well. Almost
a little too too-too. Its preciousness
offends and belabors the eye! The

author

apparently

intends to make us the audience, japed
from the stage, by a magic trick far
too obvious to even bother spill the secrets
of! We know. He or she (in this case, he he he)
is frolicking and gamboling in the annals
and canals of language analytically, and
in top hat, cape, and combat boots to boot, and

- nothing else!

So arrayed, in foray far too often straying
into and through available ditches and mud-holes.

What is his purpose?

To entertain?

To self-indulge?

It’s bad enough to use English
in a masturbatory way to gratify
one’s own performative urges.

This fool
seems to think
he’s got a hand on
not his own but the language’s
junk! And is riding it like a hand-pony
to ignominious victory in a steeplechase
where the stakes could not be more low.

Or be more concise! It’s maddening.
Maddening.
I should not have had
to read all that
to get what I got out of it. If someone

clearly can write they ought to have 
some obligation to quality. This

is not literature,

it is vomitus ejectae.

Yeah.
You and me both,
buddy. Nice fake Latin,
too.

Who dies in a place like this?

Coming in home 
from a longish trip, 
I found a body 

in my house. It was mine, 
since nobody else lives 
(or lived) there. I figure 

if it ever used to be anyone
else's, it was mine now and

I didn't want it. My responsibility
ends nowhere. In all my life,
it's been mine to deal with, 
like a cross or a burden of proof,
always. This fucking thing 

won't be doing that anymore, 
I guess. 
The scene
of the evidence 
keeps changing, since 

every room I go into 
the body is there. 

Sometimes 
it comes back to life, 
making it all the harder 
to explain. Stiff limbs 
limbering and it feeds 

itself automatically. 

It gets by, apparently, 
with a little help from my 
mind and heart, and 

I admit it's a little sad, now. 

I picture it still alive, 
whenever it's not. I just feel 

like that would be a happier 
way to look after it. Keep it 
going, and fit, in between 

rigor mortis bouts, where I 
assure you. 
Dragging that thing around 
is no joke. 

Even for a man my size, I 
could use a little cooperation 
from any body 
that expects 
to be in every room 
I go. 

Honestly, I 
don't even know why it wants
to. 

low animal cunning

Squirrels, 
squirreling things
about by hidden 
hoard, in secret 
nook, apparently 
forget their place.

So cunningly do 
mental notes slip 
mindfully as leaves 
from books. 

And so our hungry critter
starts! In frantic scamper
of unknowns, in hopes
to find some fund
of nuts

Some squirrel hid
stupid, careless, 
klutz. He finds! 
But does not recognize:
he found his own,
and that -

is what 
makes such a prize.  

So busy squirrels 
take stock and sock it 
squirrelly ways,
to fill the world 
with so much nuts 
it really doesn't matter
whose. Whichever role 
you play: 

All-wise and miserly,
discovering another's
hoard - right where you
left it! Every nut here's
yours, old bean. All present 
and accounted for. Or 

You could be the wily thief.
You case the joint 
where tree limbs split, 
and slip right in 
to find their nuts! 
Exactly where 
they've always been. 

Ever since 
you put them in. 

Squirrels leave presents, 
squirrels play games
and tricks in secret ways
on selves. It's just 
a neat adaptive twist 

to keep the world 
as stocked as shelves. 

seeming eyes

I want us, instead of focusing 
on the wants we had, and that 
we have still, on all of this "what 
we could be to each other" - I want 

us 
to step back, 
and take our fill 
of all that we are, 
and have 
and do not have to give, 
but may wish! Since it's already 
ours. 

Right here in one's gift: 
to another, to two. 

No analysis. 
No further examined reexamination 
and inspection for suspect feature 
perchance to flaw, perchance 
to fall - and then scrambling 
what do we do? No more. 

None of that. No sequence, 
no aim, no scales held 
in balancing light, all wildness 
and nothing to tame, to train
- not even of thought! Not even
a track to switch tangents 
from. Just us. Just this.
Or for truest test:

only you. 

From your subjective perspective 
of course, only me. But that's 
jejune, inutile stuff to point out, 
dwell upon and eventually in, 
raise not so much from foundation 
as basement ("de basement" where 
we like to hang out and giggle),
towering battlements and star 
scraping spires of conjecture 
fed by intellect shoveling heart 
into soul's furnace and forge, 
hoping for some homey, glowing 
coals! Waste and disregard of 
the real energy expense 
and the power outpoured! 

The intellect's a free king pyromaniac! 
Whose scalpels are licking tongues 
of flame, whose scopes and lenses 
flicker and shift unpredictably, lost 
in firegazing, consumed by ash 
to smoke, and so to wood! - wait, 
that's backwards. But so the intellect 
goes in motions arbitrary. A backwards
reverse pyromaniac, subtly reasoning 
back to cause: watching it all 

unburn. 

Let us seize the intellect for kindling! 
Throw IT on the first available fiery 
place! Dissect it! Subject it to rigorous 
chemical and spectral analysis! Find out 
what it's made of, and why it loves 
pissing on the flames of emotion so, 
and why it - it - wait. 

Let us not and say we didn't. 

We already did, between us, and 
we have found to our woe: that 
transcendent and annihilating 
conflagration was nothing 
to build on. 

What I'm saying is, let's ditch 
all that school biz and hit the beach, 

to find what it is and why. 
And what good it is. 
What good are you, 
I trust you already know, 
but in case angles and aspects 
escaped you into me, I will 
let them out each in turn, 

as I am struck again
by your seeming eyes. 

Sudden knowledge

I suddenly felt like I knew it all. 
I hadn't felt that since the day 
I left school and came back 
the next day for a decade 
and years. That 

was the equally sudden, 
decisive feeling like I
knew all I could take, 
and 
would have to make room 
for so much needless more.

This was different, and make 
no mistake on that. This was not

my usual beautiful clarity, 
that knows in this moment I find 
I am suddenly able and readily
willing to dive, fan out, ascend 
and in fresh and direct apprehension 
find out, into and all through 
whatever there may be to comprehend, 
full knowing I may not find what I see, 
once just what I saw is revealed to me. 

No, this was more full of such full
shit. Seamless and whole, I gasped 
and grasped all of it, and began 
to take it all in: by eyes, mouth, 
ears, nose, anus and skin! I felt 

quite suddenly 
I knew it all. 

And suddenly so, and so full 
of myself I started at fits, 
and bursting at seems, 
so seamy and seemingly I 
had to melt, and I felt 

I must take up and sound 
some call! To press little buttons 
and hang upon rings, to belt 
and to pelt some poor hearer 
with all of the knowing I felt
- they could reach out to grasp, 
and finger and thumb the softness 
and nap of the fine-find felt 
that I'd pelted them with. Admire
the color, inspecting the width.
Put it on, forthwith! They can belt it
themselves if they wish, that's none 
of my business attire. 

At least I would know they'd go
'round better-dressed, or at least 
best-equipped in the wardrobe, 
sire. 

The feeling was lost, almost 
at once. I otherwise than so wisely 
began a poem, to capture and rapture 
it whole. And then - my mistake! 

I laughed my ass off! At myself, 
so the frame fairly cracked in the first 
place I saw (in retrospect) had to break 
and fall, to bell-like shards. 

Still, too late. I have that frame 
in me now, known just as it was. 
I had it at once, and you know what?

It's really not hard. So I guess 
and bet, suspect and reckon that 
if there's some use or purpose 
that fits - I'll pop out in the yard

and play with it! 
Until it clicks.  

 

wandering trees

There was an amazing tree 
in our garden last week. 
I don't know where it came from!
Out of gathering dusk I suspect, 
it gathered each beam and glow 
of light up into its canopy, 
sure and bright 
by warming degrees 
of dusky gold, 
and oranges limned 
each branch and limb, 
and rose bloomed forth 
as the sun unrose - 
from all of the light 
it had kept within. 

It vanished, of course. 
Such trees always do.
But I bet if I catch 
the garden awares
this evening or next, 
by late afternoons 
stretching out by degrees,
I'll find it there. 

best advice

"Grow Up," for up 
is the way to grow, 
and growing you are
and shall be, you know.
For so far as you go. 

For life, 

you'll eat it by eyes
and mind and skin,
by scent and taste
and sense within, 

to find you have never 
arrived
where you've been.

Just growing up through
all the where and when 
you have ever seen, and

what's best - perhaps!

Bend your aim? And veer in, 
and you'll see it again, 

intact. 

Or perhaps,
you'll find something else
so very much like. So lifelike,
so kind, it can't be otherwise. 

So likewise, it could be selfsame 
indeed!

In fact,
perhaps this

is the very place
where the difference lies
gasping, beginning
to bleed.  

Only it has grown,
too.

It too 
has the why. 

It too has the need.

rereadable you

I can't change the book, 
or put it down. 
No matter how many times 
through, immersed 
in such moments, hope 
grown invincible, page 
by page. 

No matter how many times 
to the same end inexorably
we come, and always came, 
and always would come. Again 

and again. 

You'd think with foreshadows
dogging each path as we dart 
in memory, winning and beating 
odds all the way, same as us, 
same as us always - you'd think 

I would have or gain a sense 
of what was always coming. It
never comes, because if I'm honest
- I had that sense first time through. 

I do have a sense I am honest. And you 
are more honest still, every each time 
through - since we always were. 

Eyes accelerate, pulse overrates 
the stimulus again as I near and reach 
and grasp the end. The End. Same as. 

Each time

I put the book down, lay 
myself aside and I say 
quite sure: it can't 
end like this. 

It can't end like this. 

And I reach for the book
once more.

first base forever

Foreplay is fine. And 
one should always clue 
to the other's cues, to go on
- if I am one. And I am. 
And,
she is too.

But we know
between us  
the worth of a dalliance. 

This 
here, 
now
what we do,

is no perfunctory stone. 

To skip lightly across, 
or entirely 
on the way to go
jump in a like. Take 
up kite flying instead! 
If that's your leer - 
long string, short pier. 
For we are long peers 
and gaze,
and approach,
and consummation is 

a step itself
which can be placed 
in many ways. 

remembered walks

Drunken wind 
and sidewalks furl.
Upon all sides 
the darkness shines 
as I reel in 
my moorings still. 
A long way home, 
and feeling quite 
at home 
adrift 
the whole 
long way in parts 
forgotten 
past recall 
in starts that fit 
by puzzle piece, as 
consciousness
closed into 

kill. 

Sharpened moments, 
gravity 
shift and catch 
necessity 

between long instants 
unabsorbed. Rolling off 
like tides off shores. 

Not even feeling slightly
ill.

Nor touching sleep,

not here, not yet,
it's not the place
for that I bet.
In motion still,
we can't
forget. 

Until front door 
blooms huge and real
and green, 

and key snicks in to turn, 
and pushing through. 
Straight out to yard, 

safe under stars! 

So long I yearned. 

taste theory

There was a theory that people
have taste that varies
beyond accounting,

because

their tongues

actually taste different. But

this theory was disproved
by sufficient kissing. Nope.

Gotta be something else.

If he says
"it’s delicious," and you
don’t,
that’s not “lying” for
either of you, 
or me.  

It’s just a difference in personal
taste, you see. You scent. You feel.
I hear. Anyway,

It's free. And that 

is why there is no accounting 
for it. Or ever shall be. 

war cute

Cute as a button.

that launches nukes
that burst into flowers
and candies instead. 

runaway transom

My transom outgrew my bailiwick 
and flew away under aegis 
that grew to dark cloud 
hung over domain, 
where you stood
impassive, 
examining it. 

Between
all our breadth
and compassing, 
in such own experience,
bounds and all! 

In all of our ambit 
and sweep and scope,
this realm between us
has grown to demesne, 
which having no limits 

cannot ever fall. 

But having no limits, 
horizons extend beyond
all proportion and circular sense.
So stood at approximate opposite
ends, we can't cross it all -

to meet on a hill 
become our domain, 
looking up at dark cloud, 
hung over and growing 

so tall
with rain

Garden of Inconstancy

A garden falling down needs
a gardener to pick it up. Here
and there to make and shape
the growing things to someone's art.
Respecting one's materials is all
the gardener must do. For nature
calls the gardener to artifice
in beam and dew. 

Some of us aren't gardeners. Not
much at least, we hear the call
- but something in us wilder still
would like to find what nature
does, no gardening at all. 

driving my heart away

A pretty girl 
so you say 
rear-view mirror eyes 
I can't recognize 
and all your points 
have shown my way 
shown how stupid I was 
to come or stay 
in every direction 
no need to pick one
driving my heart away 
driving my heart away 
all of my guidance 
lost 
in outer space 
driving my heart away 
driving my heart away 

home sweet humble 
be it ever so 
I can't find the pride 
to meet your compromise 
when all your signs
say wrong way 
I keep on ahead 
with heart thrown away 

in every direction 
no need to pick one
driving my heart away 
driving my heart away 
all of my guidance 
lost 
in outer space 
driving my heart away 
driving my heart away 

journey's end 
is off the map 
there'll be another one 
to take up so much slack 
I won't arrive 
finally or otherwise 
someday I'll just stop 
I won't break down to cry 

whenever I look back 
that's where you'll be, dear 
driving my heart away 
driving my heart away 
making my way lost 
making my way clear 
driving my heart away 
driving my heart away
all of my guidance 
lost 
in outer space 
driving my heart away 
driving my heart away 
at least one of us 
knows how to navigate 
driving my heart away
driving my heart away