Homeward travels

Your English soul is starved for sun.
You've summered in the hills of Spain,
and now you'll take all you can get
until you get your fill again. You've
weathered storms upon the sea, poetically
and literally, and now accustomed
to the spray, by waterfalls
you'll stand the day.

As lowering clouds come in
to slake the thirst of over-watered green
for miles around, from where you sit,
you'll wait and watch the windows
running clean.
In time,

the storm will break.
You're well-accustomed to the change.
So different, here. So good to be

around the world
and home again.

golden exception

The golden rule is bad advice
for a masochist, but
otherwise nice.

die for less

the least I could do

is come through for you.

I wasn't put here for any
of what I thought, maybe

I never thought I was, but
in the middle or towards

the end of it all, you found
me.

And I want to be responsible.

I want now to find my potential,
and fulfill. There just wasn't

a reason before. I may be all wrong
about everything known, but I think

I will. There's a reason now, to shoot

and score,

and win it all. Or at least our fill.
It's not just showing off, anymore.

There's a matter of life or death

for once,

there's a thing at stake

that I actually want.

And it's selfish of me,

I admit, but it

would also be quite a stunt,
and I've never been

so thrilled.

"Cautions"

What is it? There, just further out
Beyond the edge - I want to stand on it
and see what paths lead down, into

what I can't even doubt, or question
now, without any reason to.
I want to see
what kind of fools we are,

and I won't let you go too far,
and you won't let me go too far, but
you're the one who wants to
I'm the one who wants to

and I won't let you go too far,
and you won't let me go too far, but
we're the ones who want to.

Just to see, it could be for good.
It could be for better, for worse,
for the best. Beyond the edge,
what paths lead down

and I can't doubt or question now
and I know this is not a test,

and
I won't let you go too far
you won't let me go too far
and I'm the one who wants to
you're the one who wants to

and I won't let you go too far,
and you won't let me go too far, but
we're the ones who want to.

Guesses play out without making them
Ways go on and won't come back again
to tell us where they've gone, or what

was waiting there, to catch them up.

Explorers fall over the edge of the known
I want to discover what they know, and

I won't let you go too far
and you won't let me go too far

terms

There's nothing to surrender to.

No one's bearing arms against
or even for, no one's stretching
arms out towards you wanting

you to give in more. No one's
even in arm's length. No one's
ever close enough.

And you
were so prepared for siege. For
holding out forever

to give up

threshold

The world is wonderful and good
and I never forget that. Just

sometimes I find I've stopped
noticing. Sometimes for a longish
while. I only notice how long
it's been

when I'm conscious again, as if
suddenly awoke from disheartening

and very real dream. Dream logic
obtains, in those situations. Dream
logic explains without saying so:

we know that what's happening
is ordinary; expected. We even
know the rules: we know how

things go. By strange ulterior
mechanism, the dream keeps us

fooled. We need the sleep; it
knows. What's best for us, and so

it does something to suspension
of disbelief. Then on a day

like any other, in the middle
of doing the most ridiculous thing,

we wake up wearing the same clothes
and notice all of it. How wonderful
and good it is, we note! How absurd

to have forgotten? How droll, that
dolorous and stuporific existence

suddenly was.

Must remember to notice,

next time we slip
across

Retirement

I wonder where Calvin is now, and
what happened to Hobbes. For ten years,

every fall, he returned to 1st grade
and remained six. It seems at least possible

that he's still doing that. Or maybe he grew

into a hulking, surly teenager, as he'd
threatened to? Hobbes - faded, dirty,

an arm off, stuffing out along the abdomen

- forgotten in a closet, but never
ever thrown out. Appearing

time to time in dreams, perhaps.

An actual tiger, with not a lot

to say.

the missing parts

It's a story of sorts, in parts
seen partly, perfectly suggesting

a whole. You know it would be -

the whole story is there,
if you could see it
all, in a scene unfurling
uninterruptedly, in proper sequence,
nothing left out - the best ever;
you feel so sure, changing

how you see

everything you've seen. And
you've seen it all before,
you were sure. But in the shock

of sudden unjadedness,

you begin to imagine and believe
you ain't seen nothing.

yet

Christmas Where I Was

It's so weird. It's 2am
here, and I just caught myself thinking,
"One more hour to Christmas!" Like
I'm excited! Expectant, except

I won't be there when it comes.

And I guess I'm not quite here
yet. Soon,

it will be New Year's, and
I will try to find my present.

pretty much

You're considerably more beautiful
than would be appropriate, in terms

of the effort it takes to keep my mind
off you. Which is effort

I don't intend to waste. Anyway, who's
to know? Besides,

your freckles

make my eyes ache - constellations
across the milky way

of your face,

which, salt-kissed
and sunblushed, leans down
from above where I lie flat
on my back, having been
pretty much laid out.

In the hushed and closing space
between us sounds an ocean. You
are all I see.

You're amused. Just a touch
of a squint, as if
you could be as dazzled
by your smiling eyes

as I.

Which you could be,
I suppose, if you ever really looked,
and had an ego the size that you looking at me

makes mine.

Days without you are like memory
instead of living. But I know reasons why
it's worthwhile to live them.

The sun is going. The only falling star
we expect to see again,
and I wish on it

daily, except when you're here.

I wish
your seawater sunshine eyes
were there, because even a sunset this beautiful
suffers without its perfect frame:

your face, so all that soft blue glow
and rose glimmer of gold bands
can catch flecks and flickers
in your limpid eyes,

and I could just stand there,
agape

at the world's most beautiful view. And I know,

because I intend to travel that world, and to take
that view with me, with days and nights
flying after each other.

I wish

you were above me here,
shining down now.

I would look up
to the heavens, and see

myself, amazed and reflected in them -

good as eternity.

things

I wonder about us, sometimes.
if there was such a thing
I mean.

If I were yours, and you were
- would you be mine? Some
don't care for the implication

Let's say it was great, and
would go on for years with no end
in sight, I won't say "forever"

that's premature,

but what would our things be?
That grew up between us,
in the strange shape created
between just about any two people
who let it

beginning at random, and continued
as a joke you fall in love with,
that gets funnier each time you find
new ways to tell it, or just do it

the dumb old original classic way.
With an ironic dull face like "duh"

What would our sayings, doings,
rituals be?

Would we always enter parties
simultaneously through separate doors
with elaborate battle plans, contingencies
and signals drawn up?

Would we grow to love commercials,
as we each look pointedly
to the other, for their
sober critique - themes and motifs,
comparisons with other campaigns
and brands, social significance
- perfectly serious,
and occasionally disgusted
like a pissed-off film critic, or
disagreeing on merits, with unbelief
in the other's sudden lapse of taste?

Would we develop an elaborate system
of cuddling with steps and progressions,
and joke about publishing an illustrated
manual? Is "The Kama Sutra of Cuddling"
taken?

Would we over time develop one of those
private babytalk voiced cutesy goo goo
languages? I swear I will be vigilant
on my guard against it.

Will we always look around for stolen
moments when we can snoot our noses
with no one any the wiser?

Will one of us occasionally force it a bit,
an awkward, unsuccessful attempt to get
this or that approved and adopted?

As a thing. As one of our things.

You can't really force those things,
though. They have to happen

or not

seemingly by accident

borderline predator

Do I reassure you too much? That
you're safe

from me, that the thing I want least
is to be

unwelcome, to do or offer any thing
unwelcome to you. You tend to laugh

it off, or not laugh, but

no, not scoff,

actually, you're just
appreciative. But with a hint

of nothing else.

Still, maybe I push that note
too much. I mean, which of us

am I trying to convince? I assure you,
it's not convince, but remind. And
me.

It's because I'm secretly a borderline
voracious predator, not like

a
wolf,

more like
Gojira itself or something, except
ok,

that dude has never been seen predating
anything; the mouth parts, the rubber

teeth, yes

that's me, and
I hope you appreciate how great a feat
it is, for me to hold back my rubber-suited
fury from absolutely devastating

your Tokyo
of personal
dignity and respect, I mean

actually, it's no effort at all to me.
I put all the effort in

in the costume-design phase, and
yes,

you're safe from me.

what we had to ask

I hope we talk later.
There are some things I want to ask you
that I'll have forgotten by then,

and in the agonizing reaching after them,
we'll end up talking about everything
else. And that will become

the point. Always more than
good enough. But days from now, maybe
I'll remember what I wanted to ask. It's sure
to come up again, since it's about you,

maybe about what you would do, or what
you wanted to do that time, that thing you said
or started to, but distracted as we were
already moving on, and since

I don't know it.

Those things always come up again,
and part of you smiles and waves, like
oh, there you are, thought! I was just
thinking about you the other day.

I'm going to tell you something
quite creepy. In general, I want to know
everything about you

except the things you want to keep to yourself.
Not those, but just everything else you'd want
to tell, if you thought anyone else was
interested. I find it a little weird myself,
that I want to know that. What good

is all this knowledge of you? What is it all
leading to? I want to know that, too, but
I think somehow all the taking in and adding up
is part of the answer. No single question
could get there. It has to proceed at the pace
of the questions that come up on the way, and
the answers given out without any question
to prompt them. At the pace of everything else
that comes up

in the course of trying to remember
what we had to ask.

Revenge Warning

Warning: I want
revenge.

More than anything.

And no one's really
done anything to me
yet.

A denial, a frustration
that cries out
to be satisfied
with revenge.

The more time passes,
the more ideas
come

and the more revenge
I want
on someone. Will it

be you? You'll have
to do something

horrible, first. But
I'm warning
you: if you do,

revenge, revenge,
revenge
will be mine!

And the longer you wait,
it will be worse.

"White."

it goes
with anything,
or under it

without saying,
but you can still ask

and you might be
surprised, or
surprise someone

and your mind
will be clean and white
all day

or as long
as that memory
lasts

terrible and difficult art

Writing terrible poetry is a difficult art.
As much as you want to make fun,
truth and beauty break through
and it begins to mean something. So
you throw in awkward body parts
and pretentious, tin-ear spirituality

trying to drag it back
to the terrible ways
that poetry goes,

those times you've loved,

that mean so much when you're trading turns
reading it, straight-faced on a dare
not to laugh, drinking moscato
that you very much wish
not to snort

through your nose. Perhaps
with some kind of challenge involved,
as risky as you like,

and coming as close,

but such poetry is terribly hard
to write. You can't, quite.

Some things
are best left to the acknowledged
masters. How they do it,

who knows?

"Spirit Kisses"

Sending spirit kisses to your womb.
Where your womb is. A chaise
throne for your recumbent goddess nature,
masturbating in repose in a glorying
that goes on and on oh! god
and I am one. Standing and wise,
in understanding of my
masculine principle, which -
ok, may be a bit obvious
and I'm sure you understand
it too. We can't all contain
hidden mysteries within us
of cosmos unfolding. It is
the Yin Yang of existence
and I am sending spirit kisses
to the very nexus of embodiment
of whichever yours is; Yin,
I think.

the abundance

By the way,
if you ever were sad
to think that I don't
have a crush on you,

it's not that I don't.
It is that I do, but
I'm never troubled by
crushes, anymore. Their

fierceness, their sudden
surprise, the pang, the punch
- falling dizzy to catch yourself
and righting the world

before it can crash -
I'm an old hand at this.
A bit too old, and
in fact,

quite a catch.

And you, yourself, yes.
Most definitely. Don't
trouble yourself with
the slightest doubt.

But it isn't a problem
between us, you see.
It can't be, because

where affection,
fondness, respect
and love are concerned,

we don't keep our souls
in a state of drought.

fictional authority

I get into you
like your favorite character
in a book you just started
reading, but you're already
in love with and can tell
you'll be reading it
again. You go slowly,
not wanting the end, and
you keep going

back - to experience
a passage so beautifully told,
like the author stole a peek
at your living soul - and that's
an effect
you have.

In a book, we say

"the characters seem so real!"
even though, in real life -
have you noticed how few
people strike you this way?

The best part is
you

aren't a book.

So while we don't have to
rush, we also don't have to keep
holding up, doubling back, just to stave
off the end. There's nothing to stave.
We get to immerse and converse and
behave, with never a thought
for the needs of the plot.

The story may suffer, true,
but it's all that we've got,

and it's shiny new.

shrine to you

Every picture you make
is a memory saved
and he takes it all in,
taped in place, and arranged

Right where it has to be
where he can see your eyes

tucked away where no one knows,
there's a cell where he sighs

it's like a shrine
to you
a shrine to you,
it's a corner of my mind
I can keep,
candle-lit
it's like a shrine
to you,
a shrine to you,
I can go there anytime
it's filled with pictures
and shit,

He's got a diorama
of the moment you met -
with a miniature of you,
perfect in all detail

Well it would have to be
for him to recognize

every perfecting detail
you realize in full size

it's like a shrine
to you
a shrine to you,
it's a corner of my mind
I can keep,
candle-lit
it's like a shrine
to you,
a shrine to you,
I can go there anytime
it's filled with pictures
and shit

You have no real idea
how hard the rest of life is
because when you appear,
he loses track of the rest

And it's how it should be
But he should know full well

how hard the rest of life is
for you - he can't tell

He's got a working model
of the future from here -
except it doesn't work.
It's missed a piece or two

Well it would have to, though
Or else he'd have to come

And show you how it perfect fits
And why you need to sign on

it's like a shrine
to you
a shrine to you,
it's a corner of my mind
I can keep,
candle-lit
it's like a shrine
to you,
a shrine to you,
I can go there anytime
it's filled with pictures
and shit,

If he asked, he'd have to stand there
waiting for an answer
that he wouldn't want to stake his life on
pretty sure he knows

So he goes back inside,
Where he can be alone,
and bask in all the ways
you make this life worth the loan

He's got a perfect place
inside a troubled mind
Where he goes to find a piece
of the only peace he's found

it's like a shrine
it's like a shrine

freestyle rap #numberidontknowhowmany

When I step to the mic with my kick step twist I snap
grab it from the stand and I flick my wrist
and spit

words
such as verbs or nouns, I announce
to the crowd in a fit of such syntactical precision it frowns

and by "it" I mean, "crowd" yes, you followed it

correctly from the first and now please let me reverse
for the remainder of the verse,
back it up,
back it up

ow shit - got my ass in a ditch, but
I'm not worried, I got triple A protection for this
pick-up truck, I yell

"YO!
YO!
ANYONE GOT A PHONE?" but
there's no one on the road, anywhere in sight, holmes

so just where in the hell went
the so-called "crowd"?
Or the mic
or the stand? Did I hallucinate?

Wow

tongue and tooth

As I age, I've begun
to do some things automatically. Every
time I drink something cold, I find
my tongue,

without being told,

rolls left to lie
upon the facings and cusps
of the first three molars
in the upper left

of my mouth.
So they don't chill and ache, which
they never used to do.

I remember some years back I was drinking
something cold, when
that unaccustomed ache began.

I couldn't account for it.
I always drink something
cold, I love drinking something
cold; it's never been a
problem. Anyway

the problem just went away
mysteriously, shortly after.

I just realized now, it was my tongue.

Rolling
over, without being told,

sensing on its own
what comfort needs

like a faithful dog

barefoot vigilante

passing birds drop cockle-burrs
at least, I can only assume that's how
they get back there. In my back yard,
there aren't any growing. So with gentle,
barefoot pace I'll walk in thoughtful
rows, make my rounds and keep
my vigil, as religiously
as I can manage when I step
on one. Wow, they hurt

As you stand, balanced
on one foot with the injured
one held up, leg crooked
across the knee for stability,
like a Yoga master with epilepsy,
and seize and try to pull it out
in one go, without counting
or anything.

It's a price to pay,
this vigilance, to prevent

bad things

from getting in

all innocently as if

There are things I don't know how to do.

And things I do anyway.

And things I do not do - they didn't
occur to me.

There are no other things,
except those three,

on any given day.

Except, of course
where you're concerned. Your path

being strewn with exception petals,

I've learned the easy and painful way,

one has to buck up and take the broken,
sprained and dislocated rules

you leave behind as you sashay

apprenticing

You stand by the fence,
with fingers of one hand
through. And up
to the masters in canopies,
listening, you sing out
with whistling lips,

as clear as bells, as clear
as you can - and
doing it wrong. So

one by one, and tentative
(as if wondering oh,
what do we do with this
one?) each begins

trying

- gently, with patient repetition
and insistence, singing back to you -

to teach you its song.

A beginner's
symphony begins,
each master weaving
its perfect and simple song
in and around
and over each other,

with you

adding always your guileless
part, so perfectly artless
and wrong, the coaching

and correction of which

is the object of art.

"Windshield note"

live your life outside
the lines. Refuse to fit in.
Stick out, undefined.

comprehensive

It's ok to joke, sometimes

it's just,
most of the time it's just funnier
not to.

Some of the things we say,
I wish
I could share with the world
like now, right then
in that moment, with everything in it
they'd need

to understand - but

even we don't have all of that.
Even we don't have all of that,

and we understand. Or, unspoken,
we sense we do, or

at least, no one's questioning it

and we both seem pretty smug. You know?
I think we do. Understand,

It's quite lovely and magical
to go around understanding
something that doesn't

actually make sense.
And we do,

so deep it hurts,
and we laugh

at consequence.

azimuth

it depends which way you face
the world, and how high up you aim,
or low, but by degrees you find
you've seen

so much less than it all. Or else
it's all too much to bear, too much
the same, like you've been there

it's almost enough to make you wish
for other worlds, to come and take
you away from this. But

you're not done with this one, no
you're not done with this one yet

you're ready to set your face and go

you're ready to set your face and go

so many directions, angles to plot
by degrees and courses to set and
scheme,

you're not done yet with this one, no
not by a long long way to go

there's so much out there you haven't
seen

make a disappear

Nudity is a kind of
magic trick, that people do

using their clothes. Clothes
are essential. The stage
must be set and dressed.
A flourish, a sleeve
- to show nothing's up -
then presto, wah-lah,
magic words aren't really
necessary, you know.
It isn't clear how
they pull it off,
but suddenly - TA DA

The magician, clearly, needs
no assistant, but often
they let you help. A misdirection,
no doubt. You
look here, but there
- you have done
the same trick, yourself!

How is this?

A pledge, a turn - the prestige
of it. You want to stand up
and clap! Maybe whistle, or
yell - but in such intimate shows
as these, what the etiquette is
can be hard to tell. You feel

like a dupe, or a plant. A willing
stooge, to be so taken in,

and you want to see them do it again.
To catch in the act, perhaps, or just
to be caught, and exposed - a gull

in the hands of a charlatan.

a word for that

n. the amount of life you give up in trade
as you fondle and dote on the choice you made.

slip to the side

My ego's role
is typically to observe, detached
and critique the fantastic job

my id
does, running things
however its fine and implacable
urge sees, feels, senses and
makes fit. As only it
can, apparently.

My superego

meanwhile, is off to the side.
Well to the side, with my ego
and id

laughing

at it.

holiday scene

deflated santa, waiting
face-down for days, for
whatever key piece
of resuscitation equipment
has been misplaced. While

all around him, methodically
assembling, a Christmas
Village lit up like a crime
scene

investigates

exponentially recipiential

I will
take
take
take

what
ever you give, you know
I won't even ask, I'll just wait

for the gift, and I'll take
take
take

what
ever you give, you know
I can't get enough, but
I can kinda
try to
live

without.
At need, or in
doubt of whatever
you don't
happen, think
or care
to give, offer,
or volunteer
so far, or
at least,
just yet, I

will bite
my lip, knowing
all that you give, feeling grateful
for it -

it's the last thing I want to do,
to ask,
Especially when I do, all too often

it's yes

To a delightful week-end

let's get drunk
on large ciders
and come up smiling
in a couple days,
like a derelict couple
of reprobates, out for
a hike, chased all the way
back by the lowering sky -
there's a cottage half-lost
on the way through pitch-black
rains and wanting

something's flesh.

Go in, go in! Let's

a daring leap

Time has come, I feel, to take
a daring, death-defying leap. Unfortunately,

I find myself upon a vast and level ground
of grass and dirt. Pretty soft, even if I
took a running start to build up speed
and tripped and sprawled, there's not
much chance of hurt beyond raw scraped
palms, an elbow, hip, or bursting ache
of lungs from wind knocked out. Or if
I didn't trip, I'd only

safely land. A distance I could have just
walked.

There are no ditches, cliffs or even trees
to climb, which would anyway look dumb. Climb
a tree to daringly jump out of it? Landing
where I was. No, the sort of daring leap

I feel the need to make

is one that will land me
where I couldn't possibly get,
except by dint of great risk
and heart-in-throat vertigo,
seeing where I need to go,

imagining myself across
already landed, soft
and solidly

before I hit the air.

I guess I'll take
a death-defying walk or something, daring
the landscape

to jut
or loom
or yawn

in present
obstacle to

somewhere

I couldn't have
gone.

The pause before

The pause before
you answer me

- some question I
should not have asked,
unless you answer, hovers

in suspended time

as moments pass, oh
really, only one moment.

But it contains such different
things. How easy it would be

for you, to pull me up short,
wondering, and leave me there

trying to make a new arrangement
with my mind, at peace with rights

I do not have. All right with peace
I'll never find.

last ball of autumn

Individual leaves are dancing
on a carpet of others
lying still.

I wonder if
they take turns

or if the dancers
and the carpet just

both love what they're
doing? I wouldn't mind

being danced upon
by those twirling
sylphlike shapes,

which then fall back
like crowdsurfers
into a multitude's embrace, but

I'd kind of love

to see everyone get up
at once, go nuts, really rock
this place

in wild melee
of colors flying,
twirling, giving everything
they've got to give,
and living
every motion and
emotion they can make,
every moment they can take,

before I've got to rake.

Home sick

Came home last night. With a cold,
apparently - woke up with it. Not
too bad. It only hurts

when I cough, which is mostly
when I lie down, which is what
I'd prefer to be doing, big
baby. Anyway,

my voice is pretty deep and sexy,
and it's a dear, drear gray day
outside, with sandhill cranes
cluck-honking and Christmas lights
coming out. In all,
not much

to feel too bad about. And I
don't. Except

this meaningless shock of
anger and despair, that tears
my fucking heart apart and
fills my eyes with tears,
tiny spittle flies through
clenched teeth, head shaking
in a transparent attempt
to add drama to this
poem.

things of ours

It's not entirely certain how certain things
became things of ours. Like love hearts
and bears, which surely belonged

to the world, before. Or birds
and bees, and other things
I can't see, or even have occur
to mind without thinking of you,
too. Which I find
revolutionary.

But as to how it comes around, that
someone could steal in and stake
such claims on random and lovely
things lying about to say "Hey!"
with their presence,
perpetually

in your face,
any time when you least
suspect - I look round and find

the world is ours.

It's mysterious, since,
before - I don't even think
it was mine,

and it certainly never stretched
so far.

with Josey

But that was the way it was
with Josey. You never wanted
to disappoint him, because
he only saw the good in you. What
would you even be, then? Not

invisible. He'd keep looking right
at you. He wouldn't pretend not
to see, but you could see the hurt
there, too. Self-recrimination.
His fault for not seeing you,
for what you were. No shred of blame
left over for you, for your part.
"What you done." And he'd go right on
treating you right. In memory of who

he thought you were, maybe. Who
was just the neatest and coolest
person.

We all went through it,
with Josey. It kind of made you want
to hurt him.