Sometimes music is
just to bring us out of ourselves.
And sometimes music is
to fill where we are
with the stuff that is in us
Other times, who needs music?
There is birdsong, and the soft percussion
of crashing waves, and singing streams
Sometimes only music
can bear our weight up. But
it doesn't have to be just
one tune.
Nature lets you know
reality is bigger than you
if you pay attention to it.
If you go out looking, and spot
its tendrils everywhere. If
you go out
and immerse in it.
Nature all around you
- you find other concerns.
A great weight lifts off,
because
IT'S COOL
A cosmos to look out on
and selves to look in. All
we have to do is bear
a little bit more than
our own weight. That's
all it would take to uplift
each other
Dear, darling, honey the degree
to which I miss you is so much more
than directly proportional to
the degree you have hit me.
How many thousands of flowers bloom
- if not right now, then come their season -
along the path you take a walk. Now
multiply that by a wilderness,
everywhere
you'll never walk.
Actually no. Don't bother bringing
all the rest of the world into it.
Just look around where
you are, as
you go.
Let those flowers
count, and not
by counting.
Trying to get back into
reading nonfiction again,
I realize the book is from
1994
and skip to the afterword,
from the new edition,
to find out how much
of the original take
has become bullshit
since then.
Wildness can fit in so compact
a space
that I’d imagine
a sufficient wideness
will always have wildness
within it. Bring a magnifying glass
if we must! Turn it on one’s own skin.
Sometimes we must be the wildness.
Sometimes you find where
you're at and forget why
you got there. It's okay, just
find some new reason to be
there where you are. Maybe
if you're thorough enough,
the old reason will pop up!
And you'll laugh. Or worse
come to worst, if there is
no reason to be there,
go back. Maybe your old
reason will be there.
All this advice would be
superfluous if you'd get
a fucking grip, yo. But
it's alright! Just find any
reason
There is only one star
in the noontime sky,
always chasing its
playmates around
the earth, never
catching them up -
warned as they are
by the fiery band
of dawn's new birth.
What a lonely existence
poor Sol has found! Well,
the lesson to us is: don't
outshine
the others so much.
You will end up alone
In an endless blue,
a world apart from
your kind.
One vast, black wing
torn from the dragon of night
has slipped loose in the sky
to affront and affright
all the suddenly unhappy
people below. They don't
care for new, previously
-uncatalogued weatherlike
phenomena, appearing
suddenly, slow-motion
buckling above us. A
military response seems
hysterical, either way
Our childhood home
spreads memory wings
and draws us all back
in mind to this day
yet in real life, that building
stands empty, alone.
With a big back yard
where memories play.
I was startled by a non-aquatic bird
which began quacking and walking
like a duck, despite its body was
formed quite differently. I peered
at it, intently. Was this new way
of behavior to cue a metamorphosis?
But no, it was just a lark
Sinjin Bob, the domicile
OK. This is supposed to be
a nonsense poem, so don't
get pissed off if it goes
nowhere. It's called
Sinjin Bob, the domicile
and unfortunately, that
title strikes a dead end.
Basically, somebody
named a dwelling-place
something kind of cutesy
and absurd, and now
Sinjin Bob, the domicile
is supposed to somehow
leap up, and become a
proper nonsense poem!
Proper nonsense, I call
it. So be it. That's it.
That's all I got. So much
for impromptu writing
prompts
A giant magnifying glass
installed by ants in self-defense
is just what life feels like
sometimes. If not by reasons,
try by rhymes.
A picture book of syllogies
that doesn't tell you what
they are. It's not a "syllogism,"
please. You've wandered near
and gone too far.
A riddle of the plainest truth,
a lesson learned of nothing
much. Sometimes you have
to feel your way, and mean
something you cannot touch
and suddenly you realize
that this is just what life
is like.
It doesn't always go
in words. It's not like trying
to ride a bike, on or off
a falling log, but
sometimes it's okay to try,
and find out where you
get, alright. If down is ground,
and up is sky, lie down
a spell and say
goodnight.
The opposite of memory
is not forgetfulness
it is
attention.
Now,
please anticipate
the arguments that I
may make in favor
of this, while
I change the subject
and never bring it up
again
When the sun sits up
and looks down on a partly-cloudy
day, in-between those blots
and aisles of brilliant white,
can it see all the interplay
of brightness and shade
in-between the slices
of layer cake it cuts us
to sever day from night?
Probably, no. It can't see
a thing. The source of almost
all light is blind. It only
puts out. It can't take
in. Reflection's too far,
it cannot catch sight.
The bird was at least six feet tall
and perched in a hundred-foot
shrub with skeleton limbs
and leaves like boats,
or else it was me
misjudging the scale
to gigantic fits
Something reached out inside my head,
and set my mind to rights. It's me,
self-conscious, deliberate
but not without a fight
The big, scary thing behind you
loves the back of your head.
Loves
where you have no eyes
Loves
to dart sideways
when you whirl to find it
quick - imagining its step;
imagining its stealthy glide -
but you will never find it,
because it's not there
anymore
It has gone behind.
The push is full
of different things.
And some flow through,
some catch and cling
some stick and hurt
some tickle glee
It all comes through
some point of me,
or point of you,
or point of view.
And then we turn
and angle selves
to see what one thing
we can be, with all
that's in us, sat
on shelves
or caught midair
bat back in play
and so we charge,
or wait,
or stay,
or keep
or give
ourselves this day.
And so we make and shape
so well or poorly
as we might
and may.
I'm really sick of some
of this. It goes by parts,
and never sums to all
or most or even much.
But those hard parts
can grow to crush
when I can't clamber
up atop. That's when
I let myself drop through
to seek and prey upon
the roots, and find what's
well to know. Some truth
Life is like a sailing ship
without the pirates playing dice
with your life, hypothetically,
awaiting their chance for real
over every horizon except
the one with land on it.
Better go back? No.
I am reliably informed
this ship don't sink.
So batten down the mizzen mast
if you've got one, and like, like,
like the cut of jib you cast forth
into the frothing churn of seas
that feels so good,
subjectively. Jut ahoy! Steer
fair by sextant and stars, cut
the waves at an angle,
split the difference
and who knows? Plow into some
friendly, unexpected port
smiling. "Good Luck Jack"
maybe they'll call you there
it helps
if you claim that's a name
of yours, matey
maybe
I woke up with a stomach
and lord knows what else
my arm felt like it had been
caught in a shoulder machine
because my pillow was out
-of-joint or maybe it was
a dream I had. Anyway,
I was feeling almost
entirely fantastic,
fabulous, like a fable
with aches and pains
instead of animals
and I rushed to the room
and caught them all
in apt names.
Tamed by this rough
treatment, I picked up
my spine by the hips,
gave myself a huge, crippling
twist and the whole thing
reeled back to a state
of precision maintenance
which
to be honest
I never could do a thing with,
honestly.
I wonder sometimes
if you secretly hate it
when I go "heh heh heh"
- that 70% involuntary,
30% deliberate and to that
degree arguably fake laugh -
or whether instead, you take it
how I truly intend it, to the extent
it is intended, and hate it anyway
The wind in the grass
is a relay race,
with cloud shadows
playing across each face.
Each blade in waves overtaken
by flying bands bright and dim
overhead, all marshalling
forth from the sky's dark half,
as the storm way over there
drags in.
Still a good way off, well
these sports and games
are heralds with streaming
banners
proclaimed and directed
from trumpets
aloft, and the distant
booms
still too far to hear!
But the whole pageant tells
of it drawing near.
"It will miss us," I scoff
"just a bit to the South,"
but I secretly know
there's a lie in my mouth.
There are
or may be monsters
in the cosmos, even
right here on our watch
we find creatures beyond
imagining, just turning over
our rocks, peering in stagnant
ponds.
Now imagine
those multifarious forms,
many-legged all the way
down to formless and amorphous
flung away far into space - far
as we can in mind! Ack! Get
out of here!
Oh, oh. What if
there are even worse monsters
out there, that we didn't put?
What if there are worse monsters
right here. Perhaps
in some mirror dimension?
Worth a look, anyhow
the fastest boom
isn't sonic, or swung
from a mast, or the bomb
under the table you don't
know is there, it's
when your eyes hit mine
BOOM
We're supposed to watch
our kids. And we do, of course
we do, but at the same time
we have to be aware
a child feels safest
when it isn't watched.
Absorbed in play, in
building some inner
world, best it can
with available external
materials, completely
unaware that we're watching
but we are
of course we are
all creepy and shit
What if we were wrong all along
and the sky with its huge booms
and downpours is a woman? What if
the land, bringing forth such fecund
life, is a man?
Well
I'm just saying, don't you think
to be polite - we'd better ask?
A big, white and soft gray man,
whose big dark sneakers light up
by insect steps (as he crackles
and rolls towards us, growing
and towering)
is coming in from the sea today.
He is bringing rain and crackaboom,
but don't worry
we need the one
and we can always find use
in oohs and ahhs
for the other.
I keep on, writing
the same poem,
or
maybe the same
five, or six poems
tops, but
really it's the same.
And
I'm going to keep
on writing it. So
FUCK OFF, dear
reader, I mean unless
unless you
unless you like it
for some reason
I do. If so, if you do
too - and you don't
have to - by all
means, welcome.
I love when I go check something
to refresh my memory and
it's all new things! Totally new.
I never remembered these things
at all
it isn't when or what I thought,
and in fact, I was completely
way off.
But I know now, though. Now
I know
There's something behind every shadow
that flits at the corner of eyes, and
it loves you to bits.
You walk along conscious of nothing
unseen, but the glows in bright tones
leave subliminal sheen
As you're checking your screen
for a picture to take
That could somehow recapture
this world that you make.
The cat of the house
slinks about on inspection tours,
finding everything in pretty good
order or at least - nothing to get
worked up over. Long as a nice
slice of sun hits
the top of the couch
or
a wide span of carpet
or hardwood floor,
the cat will find it not worth
getting involved much.
Your efforts are sufficient
He stood hands on hips,
blue shirt, red bib
flipped to the back
like a big baby in a cape
and let the bullets
bounce off. Apart
from invulnerability
and strength, flying
and all kinds of eye
and ear acumen,
what's he got
that I ain't got?
Oh, okay, a full
head of hair.
Some guys
get all the luck
We drank red that evening
as night came on, we thought
it was rosy. Rows and streams
of pink gold grey cutting through
invincible blue going going gone
to violet, to sparkling black and
on towards midnight, eventually.
We caught the shape of every cloud
in each glass, and by the time we
were drunk, it was not the wine
so much as all the color
we imbibed.
As a small boy I got shot in the forehead
and fell down in a dream. I knew
I was supposed to lie there, dead, but
the other kids all kept running around
in the wide-open maze we were playing in
(a lot of freestanding partitions. Not really
a maze, but enough to provide some cover).
I think one team of kids had guns
and the other did not.
Pretty sure I did not.
Anyway, after a while lying there
I tried the edges of the hole with my finger
and came away with blood. I even probed
into it a touch.
It was freaky cool. Past a certain point
all the other kids running, yelling, playing,
shooting - I got up and started running around
again. "Fuck this," was my thought
though I was too young then
to know the words for it.
They all complained. "Lie down!"
"You're dead!" "You're doing it wrong!"
A while later a kid at school told
the other kids all grave spooky serious
how if you die in a dream you die in real life.
I laughed out loud. The kid was all look of accusation.
I couldn't explain. Too much.
I was just like "I'll chance it."
Another (dream) time I was ambushed, engulfed, suffocated
and totally dissolved by the Blob. The movie monster
the Blob. My worst horror monster, though slugs
were actually worse, fear-wise. Slugs were real.
The process was gross. There was nothing left of me
after. But apparently the Blob miscalculated. I was still
aware, and with no body left ("my poor body!!"
I remember thinking - it was ineffably sad,
the whole thing) I was, by default...the Blob.
So I rolled my murderous amorphous mass
away from the scene through tall weeds,
feeling them stick and bend under me, leaving
a smoking trail. I was determined that nothing like this
would ever happen to anyone again. That night,
that dream, the Blob became vegetarian.
We're talking guys who
to hear they themselves tell it,
their only chance
to touch vagina in their lives
was if
they didn't get
a C-section
on the way in.
Because why? Well, to hear
them tell it, life is set up
unfair. Well, who's fault
is that?
How they were born
Yeah, but it's also in what
you do with it after. And
How people treat you
each time, again and again
has something to do with
how you treat them. In science,
it's called a repeatable experiment.
Same results get telling
over a long streak
Maybe change the formula.
How you think, how you
act, yeah! Seize power,
but
what you change it to
matters.
The many overrule themselves
on any given act
they band together in hard mob
to get offended at
The strong abuse the weak
who pose as strong to cow
the weaker still. It's either
high-bar drawn in law, or
where you're perfectly at
will.
So much room left for cruelty,
for callous forward drive.
It's really neither here
nor fair. No one
deserved
alive.
But fairness
is a thing we saw.
Saw possible, and made.
In system rig-job, or dive in
to intervene and wade.
We go in over heads
sometimes. We are
washed out, and drown.
As others, too afraid to see
turn every way and frown.
We know we risk all things
we stake. In every act of gift,
earthquake and cataclysm of reject,
rebuke, rebuff, accuse, correct,
and it's
Not fair, but we'll risk life.
In every step, misstep lies hid.
And so we take it every way,
because we care more than
we kid.
Because we dare
more than we drown.
Because we all live in this town.
Because we know what fairness
is.
It's
just the thing that makes the biz.
Some daft idea that we can
be fairer than life. And
do you know what?
That's not hard, kids.
Is the day half-empty or
still half-full? Walking out
high noon, I would say
it is rather more hot
than cool,
but the sweat
feels nice.
Now excuse
me, I have to go try
some advice that a dear
friend gave me for hot, hot days.
If it works,
I will be the last one amazed.
Years go by in a week sometimes. Her parents
kiss you on each check as you go, heavy with
baggage, packed happy with sadness. "Thank
you so much for having me!" You say - and,
seeing their daughter,
of course you roll out that ol' in-joke again: to
them. That slip that cropped up once and stuck:
"And have a happy and blessed Imogen."
"We will." Deep gratitude, always
somehow
Real.
Apart from Imogen.
The only preteen girl
anyone knows who can
simultaneously glare and roll
her eyes. All who know her know
it: "Merry Imogen!" They announce!
To each other as she shows, turns, goes.
Are kids cruel?
It's hard to tell in so joyous
and mysteriously sacred a case!
"Why am I
the walking occasion? When
does it stop being funny? When
it never started?"
There's an Imogen someplace, sure. This
story
has an Imogen.
I wish you all the very
unseasonably cold glare
if you so much as dare to wish
people that
around her.
Picture the big hero
of truth
getting all sweaty
in comments queues.
To convince who
will never admit it,
ooo.
This shining one lives
to attack doo-doo.
Is it admirable? Are
we here inspired,
big time uplift
- should we hold
our applause?
Make sarcastic
heckling sounds, or just
go? Moving on, nothing more
to see here, yo.
The chipmunks are called
bonk-bonks, and the marmots
are all Gus. That one bear we
saw was Bruno (of course).
The birds each have their own
unique name, despite sharing
most songs. You can tell them
apart, if you sit eyes wide,
and take it all in.
Now and then, exclaim
and do not explain.
Look. The most adorable puppy
kitty video really isn't enough
to make one's day. Is it?
The whole day, clicking
and watching that thing?
Dying from the darling
glow it brings inside?
The whole day? Really?
Well okay. Let it make
your day, then! But
come on actually, yeah.
It's a pretty great
heart-melting share
these two fuzzy things
have right here, right
there
Now. What good
are you going to do
walking around with
day made and heart
all melted?
Get up. Go do things!
Day made already, yes,
understood - fine. But
you can if you want,
make it some more.
This day has room
in it now to explore.
You know, honey
you are the ocean
waves and the sand
they lap throughout
all my days. I remain
on a blanket, right
next to yours. I wake
up hot pink in the sun,
and adored. And so
are you!
So we'll both leap up,
plunge and cavort in waves
like your curls, 'til the sun
cools off. Let us just lie here
hot, salty and soft.
You can trail your hand on my chest
and cough. I will look sidelong sly,
with a wink and a shrug, and a smile
and a laugh
from a long way off, but
this moment will last, and
I think what comes next
is enough.
It's a coin toss
with a life at stake
in tiny ways, every
day you wake
not knowing what's worse
between nothing to give
and no one to give
it to.
Oh, as if
It isn't that there isn't
any one. It's only
you've ruled them
all out. Gone. Done.
Since they each
proved no fun
by the final exchange.
You wanted something else,
not same ol' same, and
it always does seem
to pan out that way.
To be string free,
or knot.
Well, which is it
today?
Trust me, I do exaggerate
but I have my reasons.
I mean to give you huge
things back, for all you've
given me. Right-size,
enormous, more than fits
in available words, normally
and so without even meaning
not to, I stretch - reaching
too big, perhaps! And yet
at the end, in
the moment of gift,
it fits
like a magic trick.
And each word weighed,
and each word true. If
you say, "too much!"
don't worry.
I do, too.
No, not all have awaited
such a light. Plenty
have all available glare,
plus ample inner lantern.
Simple not stupid. A childlike
grasp, nothing to do with maturity
- but not weak nor false.
Not all await. There are many such
inner lights, not just one. We each
are a light unto each, if one shines
and the other willingly sees.
A monk in a cell,
with a face like a mask
is praying to God
to avoid this task,
while across the sea
the prisoner there
is counting the days
'til the end at last.
Doesn't matter him
her
or their,
not to this.
For we all have
a name,
and a million
things to-do
at the end of the day
we will find
were not on the list.
How many people realistically
do you have room for in
your life? A dozen? Two?
Just one? We always find
ways to crowd each other
out, don't we. If only we each
had all and only the people
or person we need,
there would be billions
left over. All somehow
knowing, "there is no one
for me."
There is a hand out
for whoever needs it,
somewhere, dying
to lend itself,
but it's too late
when you've walked on
by. They'll go on
dying at every step,
wishing things different,
helpless to know
why
I have read this.
It wasn’t hard to see
my eyes
must’ve been filmy
the first time I tried.
They get that way. I’m not
sure I can understand why
this ends in unbelief
rather than belief.
But then
I’ve never been so acute
or astute at direct interaction
Whenever I should be
I'm not shy
A sudden heft in mind's hand
has dragged your still-hot words
down to stomach and beneath
What I thought you meant
was bad enough, not great, but
this (the sudden meaning) could be
also, and
I don't know how to ask. What if
I ask and you skewer me for even
thinking that of you? What if
you freeze like ice, realizing
how little I suddenly know
of how you know me?
What if I shut up to hear what
you follow this up with?
What if it's nothing?
You dumbell! Why the hope-smoked fiery
beehive fields of hell would you think THAT
was the sensitive, introspective thing to say,
to her,
right there just then
in all our face!??
Didn't you prevision the
wince-cringe wave that would
coruscate around all our eyes
and innards like the groaning stands
of your own personal arena, where you
just scored a touchdown FOUL?
Refs be like, oh, yeah...?
Perhaps next time you plow right into THAT
minefield of yours, all sails ahoy, breeze blazing
shot full of holes without a doubt in sight
in the world, you might want to FART
LOUD first. Maybe THAT restores the
inner balance you've neglected.
Maybe not. Every asshole's opinion
is right where you look for it, arguably.
Ouch.
I'm not this thing of hanging skin
and empty flapping bulk arranged
on plastic bones for all to see
I am
not this.
I'm what I
used to be,
just temporarily
estranged
and waiting for
the key to fill
and stretch me
back to real,
which will be you.
When deep into
your eyes, I'll
steal
And you'll see me
just as I was. And I
will be, for you
just 'cause.
I kind of love the face
I almost make
when suddenly
I'm not so sure what
I'm trying to do will work.
Already midstream in
the act! No thought
of going back, too late
to shirk, it's
kind of sour - stupid,
huh? That stone is
not so near to step.
This soup du jour is
not as you'd envisioned it,
and so much more
in bigger bowl
than you'd expect.
I know
that face,
because it feels
just like it looks, and
I will catch a peep
in mirror's face
when trying to trim
my beard.
It goes too far,
too close, so there's
the look
I almost make,
right there.
Right here.
It says oh fuck
it. I'll just shave.
The path of least
resistance paved
all clear
Sometimes when I reflect
upon all the people I've lost
through drifting apart as life does,
I say hmm,
and consider all I've gained
by not having their needy bullshit
to endlessly service and maintain,
and I am sad,
because.
Some of those people
were worth it.
There's really no way to barge
back in now and tell them that
...everything everything'll be just right,
lil' girl you're in the middle of the line,
stuck like rhyme, put awkward up
to twist in time like slow motion
vomit, which, unfrozen, turns out
to be a too-truth spiked pint
of party punch. It just takes
some time, little girl you're
In the middle of
my life, everything
everything
To folks who know us but 1-way,
they'll find we lack integrity
when we do what we always
do, as
those who know us best
would say.
When the wrench turned
and flew in my hand
to crack the bolt's housing,
I swore revenge. And
having
made good
on my threat, this
thing
will never work again.
