the comeback kid

final seconds tick
down to zero,

click

game over - or is...?

she's dropping back, kids!

it's a Hail Mary pass
a Baby Jesus football, caught
in the end zone, defenders
breaking down in tears

pandemonium

as the cheers
erupt
for the home team
Final Score -
- unbelievable!
Saints: 21
Sinners: 23

what an all-time upset

victory

Death

Death
sometimes hurts,
sometimes, they don't
say

I don't want to know
either way

The World Curved Wrong

the sun set down
on a world curved wrong
the horizon buckled back
for one good look
at the colors and light
that faded from our faces
as a darkness rose up
from between blades of grass
the shadows climbed our legs
and reached from low to higher
places. But before the end, I guess
we had one hell
of a time in heaven
and that was the last
that there was.

no further lessons to learn

but one.

I Drop Rhymes

I drop rhymes
like a watch ticks times
like a clock tocks hickory docks and then chimes
I drop rhymes
like Mama Jong drops tiles
and I gots more styles than a model's got smiles

black, and red

black,
and the night
are not owned by the dark
there is glorious light
that pervades every heart
on a frequency past
what our searching eyes see
still our searching hearts fill with it,
luminously

red,
and our blood
are not ruled by the blade
are not bound by the cruel
not by violence enslaved
for blood's strength is in life
not in spills, but in flows
in its unspoiled bloom
on your cheek,
like a rose

from venus

There will come a point when you will just give up.

And then, there will come a point when you will
believe
again

in defiance of all that you told yourself,
your hysterical vows,
your infinity-dog dares
to do without

to say to love:
"go screw"

and you, a foolish shoo-fly sap
drawn down the lip of that needle-toothed trap
once again, you fall in
and it's

sweeter than it's ever been

as you willingly dissolve

into him

karma's bullshit

bad things happen
to everyone, eventually
even assholes

and the fact he got his
has nothing to do
with how many times he gave you yours
and laughed, walking off

unpunished

he remains unpunished

had he treated you well,
like a saint, this would still
have happened anyway, to him
the same exact way
- or something worse
eventually

and so he remains, unpunished

and in that same period of time
you collected twenty comeuppances
you did not deserve, while he waltzed free

is that your cosmic balance?
what a shit head.

and he'll waltz on from this, too
while you curse and wait for worse
to befall

all it does
is make your soul mean, and small
to sit around waiting for it
and then crow
when it comes

the size of your soul, now:

there's your karma

my problems

my problems accumulate in private
then I work them out
right here in public

right here in these poems
where you can smell it

"hey, what about those problems, Joe?
that you were talking about?"

Well, you know
sometimes I feel sort of
wrong place-y

and other times "is this
skin mine?"

and then I might wonder
"HEY! What's going on?"

but for every damn problem I have:
a poem

the rosary

we pray to thee
to take this prayer,
so round, and small
and hard, we've squeezed
with fingers white
and all our might
which isn't much

another bead

like days slide by
so full of grace,
we fail and try
to know our place
and oh, our father,
glory be

please string this out
another decade more
or so,

to live to see

another
sorrowful
mystery

if you care

if you care,
I don't know why
you care

if you love me, I know
you do
but I don't know why,
I swear

I'm not worth much
but I am worth love
I'm not worth much
but I was worth more
than what

this was

not that into that band anymore

I guess you're not into that band
anymore, that you recommended.
Not into their new stuff

it's a shame, it's good

no, not a shame for you
you had them when
they turned days into
anticipation for you, and nights
into eternities,
straight into your memory
for forever, at their best

well a band like that, that
can capture the moment, can
be perfect
on the night
- a band like that, will
never be as good again
in anything they do

especially if it's different

until they can do it again.

Hey

would you like to go see

a show?

superbia

alarmed
by the middle-class plastic swell
that budded, split and swarmed
suddenly into bulging pods and forms
identical in all but their designer colors,
the trees shrank back toward the hills
that were themselves soon infiltrated
by an unchecked growth

larger,
square, tall,
and with tall, squared, staring eyes
lit from within by hardwood paneling
and framed original art, the ridge-line
sprouted fat blocky towers and undulating,
smooth-stone walls, defined lawns and gardens,
with here and there nests of round stones like eggs,
selected for their large size, pleasing shape
and harmonious color. Here and there, trees
brought in singly from elsewhere, planted
in place full-grown already,
sending forth self-satisfied sap and pollen
the bees and hummingbirds love

the old trees stood
wherever they were left,
and grew,

sad

an award

I wish you saw how I see you
wish you knew how much I
wish I could

I want to give you an award
for everything that you meant
but it wouldn't mean much
to you

nothing means the world to me now
nothing means the world to me now

but you showed me what it could mean,
though

and so I give you this,
award

for a lifetime achievement

or at least,

that's what I would

have
thought

and under the tree...!

she was wearing a scarf,
and a hat, and mittens
and bootie socks
and that was it! Oh,
and a ribbon
with a bow upon
right about where you'd think
the adhesive might smart

but the knock on the door
- "Come right in!" she calls out
as her big brassy smile
falls crash from her mouth
"Oops! Wait! I'm getting dressed -"
it isn't who she expects
well it serves her right! Really!
What an impudent tart.

Trying Mountains On For Size (early draft)

dibs on this as a poem title!!

terra cotta

we seem too deep
to be reached
and when the thoughts
seep through, through the sponge
to the cracks
and in drips and drabs
they collect in the pan
beneath,
well, it's nearly brim
-full
now

we will have to pull
and switch it out
for a new, and empty
tray

and set the old one
out to harden

like

clay

I'm there

I've got a standing rendezvous
with destiny and she
always stands me up

no that's ok, that's ok
no problem

so I'll see you next week huh
destiny? yeah, pencil it in
next time for sure

hearts that melt

hearts that melt
need heart-shaped molds
to freeze them up again
or else

you wouldn't know
they're hearts at all
just dark red puddles
drying out

to set.

the convenience of winter

ah, the convenience of winter!
easy to open, in the convenient pop
top. Ice and snow: galore! And you'll
have a capade or two of your own, in these
stellar rubber boots and this all-over sleek
down-padded winterized rubberized vulcanized
thermal-insulated snowsuit with inner moisture-wick
and convection-assist! Slide-plow down mountains of white
slipping, sprawling, falling forward and glide for tens of feet!
your face chafes red with cheer and your hands,
fully-begloved, nevertheless do freeze quite through
and you must pound them against objects, hard, to restore
feeling and tingling vigor to tips of fingers. Oh! The fun
you'll have as you scrape and chip ice from necessary surfaces!
Push and plow open-topped tunnels out, so that others may walk,
dig out your car so that some other son of a bitch
can be parked in the hole you made,

so cozy

when you get home

concrete circle, driftwood, sand

I want to affectionately tousle her hair
with my lips and chin and kiss, and this
is not all I want to do

but it's a start,

hearts in worlds of their own, apart
but adjacent - the universe next door
takes fire and wing, we watch the blaze
whisper, hiss, sing

as my arms, in fleece, encircle her.
our faces forward, eyes alight
the dancing fire we face breaks wood
and cracks its walls and crisps its grain
to ash, and dust, and flame
and night

tomorrow the smoke
will be on our clothes
and in her hair

the fire will be
- where?

my inner kirk

My inner Spock said

phasers on kill

My inner Kirk said

fire at will

My inner Sulu said

your shields gave in

My inner Bones said

HE'S DEAD JIM

curved back

straight
and far
along a line
that's drawn across
the furthest distance between two points
that I can find

away from you

but curved
and bound
by circles, weights
and gravities that bend our shapes
right back into

yesterday was a summer month

yesterday was a summer month
tomorrow will be spring again
today we drive 'round back behind
the dark side of our time
we spend in mourning, slow
alone, consoled, each cling
to each, we hold the road
and hold to some remembered sun
we're driving for and driving on
I want to spend our time like this
the bad as well as good, the strong
wells forth from us, though we grow weak
we each enfold the other's dawn
and as the cold and bitter night
so winter-long, slips into gray
the grass awakes,
is turning green
is growing long
and we are day

uninformed

I knew the things you told me of
after you told me,
I knew my mistake
but you did not scold me for it,
though. I have been
uninformed,
slowly,
by time and weight
and drape and fade
in space,
form made unformed
shapelessness made
out of what I'd been so sure
I surely knew

and memory folds
its pure and crystal shape
and weight unchanged, it
holds its sharp place
grows strange
where I can't get it
or get at it, at all
and all I know
is that I was once more true,

I was truer to me
in that one remembered moment, then
than I feel I will ever
be now

or again

the circus was awful

it smelled bad
from exotic animal
shit, and the clowns
seemed like the kids
who thought they were
class clowns, but
really weren't. One
threw a bucket of
"water" right at me
and laughed - square confetti,
square in the face, and paper-sharp
one corner got my eye,
but I was not going to let that bastard
see me cry
or react
or see that he got me
I kept my smile
painted on better than his
and tried to look past him
I tried to pay attention
to all the boring shit
going on in the other
circles - three rings
of in-between acts.
But the acts themselves
interrupted nothing

I lied
the circus was not
awful

I never got to go

our plans for next year

we knew what we'd be doing,
already ago
it was stupid to drive
all that way in one day
and then back, just to work
we decided we'd take
Friday off, and we'd book ourselves in
at our favorite place
up the coast
and use that as our base
for a much shorter skip
to the holiday bash
and then perfect,
skip back
just together
just us
perfect plans
have a way of not
coming to
pass

circles around you

my tide circles round you
you don't even know
that it's me who is pulling
the ebb and the flow
rushing in 'round your edges
as I circle round
and retreat, rushing back
when I set, sinking down
no you've centered your orbit
on your shining star,
it blinds you with daylight
burns sky, and your eyes
with a fiery blue
that leaves me wan and pale,
but as night falls I rise
and I shine over you
in my light, you are cooled
in my tide,
so high
I renew
I am full
I will rise
without fail

blackmail

there wasn't much dry land left
once humanity's best
had finished crying their tears

over what we had lost,
the once hard-won cause
that no one ever thought

- not in worst-case guess,
not in wildest fears,
could we have ever foreseen this cost

but we have paid it

off

visiting hours

visiting hours
come round to call
with smiles, paper-thin
but they can't stay long

no they must go, soon
now, they must go, then
all these hours, passing through
as
you -
bent,
broke,

- mend

it's getting so

it's getting so
I don't remember when
I knew when I was right
it's getting so I
can't see why I thought
I was someone to like.

it's getting so I can't
believe I'll ever feel
that way again
it's getting so the worst
is the part I can't forget
it's getting so, but

it's not there yet

one foot wrong

you have to have faith before
the water holds weight
stretches taut underfoot
pulls firm, takes shape
of a wave-shaped floor
moving under as you stroll
baby, miracle or not - you need
to balance your roll

because one foot wrong
is all it takes to slip slide
let your gravity glide
off its center, good-bye!

because the faith that it takes
to walk tall, and stand proud
on the surface of a lake
without a ripple of doubt -

well, that's a piece of cake compared
to keeping your faith in place
- to keep the miracle intact
while falling flat on your face,

and then splash to black.

bright side blind

she casts a blue shadow
in a black & white world
while the gray sun shines
in a disc overhead
that burns into her eyes
as they close, tears roll
down her face, smiling wide
'til the circle grows cold

what harmony

we sang
heads together
pretending there's a microphone

we sang
heads together
into the same microphone

what harmony
then
what harmony
then
we had

we paused
heads together
for breath

and lunged
once more
unto death

what harmony
then

we had

purpose
like a laser,
focus
heat

and

we sang
heads together

what harmony

sweet

we had

someone to live for

I miss having someone to live for
I've got myself, I guess but then
I already had myself

those stakes are pretty low
I can't lose myself
at least not alone

I miss having someone to lose myself
in

I miss having someone to give myself
to

and hold nothing back
and have nothing left
in reserve

I miss having someone to live for
but

it's so much better than having to live for
you

and everything you deserve

the lost ring

the happenstance was happened out
what's left to tell, there wasn't much
while each of us from backs were turned
you cut long cotton swathes, and such
to kiss-cure fingertips I burned
while fingering the metal ring
that glinted between boiler plates
I couldn't quite get at the thing
we don't know when it fell between
or whether gold or brass or steel
when it cools down, we'll prize it loose
and light will tell, and darkness yield

paranoia fail

"When was the last time you stopped
to pick up a hitchhiker?" she asked
"I never have done did that shit," I replied. "You know why?
Because there is a subculture of people,
who wait by the roadside
to murder me. Specifically,
me."

"So,"
"why'd you stop this time?"
she asked,

with a suspicious rise
in her eyebrows
in her voice
inflected,
in her pulse
in her smile
in her eyes

and I had no choice but to realize

dammit

she was one of them!

(sighs)

with time to spare

I want to live
with time to spare
to have a chance
to catch a breath, not
just to breathe, for oxygen
I need to taste and hold
the air

and so I go
to do just that
but I'll be back
before you know
or wonder why

when time has passed,
there's always time
to catch us up
however fast
we fly

the Empress of Forbidden Realms

The Empress of Forbidden Realms
extends the invitation call
to cavaliers and hero-kings,
to jesters, rogues, and pirates all

each dashing, strapping man and lad,
to come to the Engagement Ball
to dance, and woo, and win her hand
- and who would fail to heed that call?

They set their shoulders, gird their loins
to set off on the grueling quest
across the Razor Mountains climb,
or brave the Fens of Suddendeth

From every compass point they come,
from every land within her sway.
Planned far out in advance, well-planned.
They've all been living for this day:

provisions measured, routes mapped out
retainers put on notice, steeds
and ships and carriages, balloons
by every means, the call they heed.

Down highways, waves and skies they throng
- each suitor is the only one.
In each stout heart and mind, one thought:
"My life for her, or I'll have none!"

So each by each, along the way,
by different roads and ways they fall:
One struck blind by zealot's curse.
One wakes legless - witch's thrall!

One lost deep in Endless Dell,
one drowned in enchanted well,
one well-gnawed by trollish maw,
one struck down by Baron Kra!

The Empress waits, on bended throne.
Her distant palace fenced by threats
and dangers, ringed by heroes' bones
if none get through,
she'll dance alone.

She'll dance alone

bless and keep

go soft my dear
please don't forget
the way we met
the way we loved
the way we left
and why

God bless and keep
you in good health
until you die,

and far away
from me

I can't let anyone win

I can't let anyone win
if they're wrong!

that's just betrayal of truth
to let it slide
I have to put it in the best way
I know how to prove

I have to step back and dispassionate,
cut through the roof
and let in the light
and the reason
why

or if need be, let in the rain
as well, to pour down drenching
and cleansing the smell

of their b.s. point
or whatever they say

it's no favor for them
to keep thinking that way!