pure reasons

Everything happens for a reason
that has nothing to do with your life
or future happiness. You can find it out

nevertheless if you dig, and investigate

the causes of all things -
they will be understandable, and bring
you no comfort. Eventually,

when something happens, you won't even
feel the curiosity.

hyperextend

I feel like I missed the strongest angle of approach
on this one. Ever get that feeling?
Like a phantom limb,
stronger than your regular limb
but you couldn’t quite inhabit and possess it.
It’s just out there, tingling
waiting to be drawn in

cut to fit

You know God wouldn't give you it
if you weren't strong enough.
This burden only you can bear,
arrived by parcel post today.
Cut tape, pull back the cardboard flap
and see what lies inside.
The sender's name is not germane -
all gifts come from one place,
you know, except for suicide.
So pull it out, and try it on
as tears creep down your face.
And take a mirror picture, showing
all the best you could have been,
before it's all erased.

born entrepreneur

I used to make my own eclipses
all the time, with a tennis ball!

Kids would come running to look. Only two
or three at a time could see, but I

was more than capable
of keeping it up all day, or
for as long as they

kept bringing them nickels. Dream big,

says I. If you want, you can reach for the sky.

Today, I've run so many schemes and scams,
delighted so many with long and short cons,
I can pretty much sit on my laurels

- in fact, so can you! I designed a line
of skirts, shorts and pants
with a circular laurel wreath

right there on the ass, on the seat
embossed.

It looks beautiful there,
for all to see. And they'll know where you sit

sits victory

at luxurious cost.

vengeful spirit

I was a spook
conjured forth by my father
and mom, to drift
in the world and haunt everyone
I touch, from siblings
to lovers and friends, but
I sucked at it, though.

This was not the end.

Her hypothetical

She keeps the scenario to herself,
and whiles away at it sometimes.
Although she knows everything she'd do,
it never gets anywhere she likes -

since the other one in the scenario
is a statue, or might as well be. Stone,

or bronze or wood - the substance may change,
the composure remains: immovably prone.

She can't even picture him come to life,
though she know he's alive as he can be.
She can't even picture just what he'd do,
she cannot presume to decide, you see.

She's decided her hypothetical
for herself, every myriad branching way
every possible future, splitting off -

but he lies like a statue of ash and clay.
So she can't take his hand,
and run down those paths.
She can't breathe her life into him, or kiss
the spell away, and free his will -
as the branches fall,
like a burning wish,

from what's possible.

burthen

She broke the silence of certain things:
she came right out and said it to him.

They'd been dragging togetherness by the neck
each with a hand on the pulsing throat,
with its feet making independent trails

in the dust that was all that was left
of the long way they'd chosen to go.

She gave up to him what was left of their hope,
and he shook his head. So she let it drop

She'd have cried,
if the desert had left any tears in her.
Now released, he let go and they walked

side by side towards the same horizon point,

he occasionally passing the time of day, but she

with togetherness still in tow. She could just

let it go,

but held tight by the throat -
she knew if she did,
she'd stay.

post-

Ok. Now what I did was - and I don't
want you to tell anyone about this
- I destroyed the universe.

It was an accident, but it wasn't.
It was just an idea I had. I thought

nothing of it,

and it suddenly was.
Now there's nothing left, and
somehow I've got to pretend

I love it

gathering omens

Love is a fucked clock
that beats faster or slower depending
on how much time you have now.
Love is a prison without walls or bars.
Love is a metal fish that holds its breath to fly,
with all the world inside. Love is an origami swan
made of the London Times, on a day of disasters.

Love is what makes you realize it's over.
Love is what makes you wish it would come faster.
Love is what makes you sure you can handle it

this time.

You've had lessons to learn, all this time
and who can say you didn't?

There's almost a sign.

The History of Space Awaits

Space

is prehistoric, now. It's one
long age, without any eras
of change, not since

it became transparent.

It's winners
write the history books,
and far as we can see

nobody's lost a thing up there
except for us, some junk.

The contest is ready
perhaps, to be begun.

If nobody else shows up,
we'll have to do everything ourselves.

As soon as we're done sorting out who's won
down here, of course. We've a couple of shelves

to fill, but winners
are scarce on the ground.

Perhaps we can hire some
from whoever is left at the end
of our next go-round.

rough accounting

We don't deserve love.
None of us do. But

sometimes you're given a gift,
you know? You could spend
all the rest of your life

in earning it. Or you
can let it go.

Count all the blessings that you deserved,
then ask yourself where you'd have gotten them from
if you'd been refused.
Look at what's left that you lucked into -
and if you would earn what it's worth to you,
you have time to burn, to be wasted or used,
'til the bill comes due.

crying wolf in sheep's clothing

Piotr the folktale wolf felt
imprisoned in his role: he must always hunt sheep

by deceit.

Since that is how it goes
in the folktale he lives. He get ups
in the evening and put ons

sheep's clothes

like a deviant, he reproaches us all.
Why not as a wolf? I could stalk and slay
with the big bad worst of them! He cries

hot tears in shame,

getting wool in his eyes.

That end too soon Pt.2

Poems like that go on so far
as they will, not a line or a sentiment
more. When they wrap up neat,
you can't force them on
toward the point that was yours,
just a few lines beyond.
Not for all of your promise
of neat little image to come,
or powerful theme to explore,
or bells or a bow to put on.

Such a poem won't care.
Having come to a perfect close, there is nothing
beyond you can offer it. There:

It has reached its end.

Let it rest. Be at peace.
If you try to force things,
pile stanzas on, or wedge
lines between - it grows
spiteful and bent, and bloated
and tears its clothes and hair.

You cannot recapture that perfect
lull - completeness, and meaning
arising in you to loft up, waft over
and settle in full - by stalking on
wolfishly after a point you already bulled
past, blinded by tears and wool.

That end too soon.

Sometimes a poem, like a love affair
(God I hate that term, so seventies,
so knowingly faux-louche) ends
before it makes the point
it was made to make.

The point you made it to make,
so you thought. The point you began it
to make, but you'd barely begun to lay
your well-prepared plan, when right
or wrong in the middle of things,
or so you thought, it
suddenly twists, and has

stung the hand
that cried and swore it had held
all the strings.

Its own perfect point
brought home in your skin, and stuck

with no way to pull out
or go on, or again begin.

forge of immortality

We stood back from the cliff and looked
like we were being immortalized
in trashy catchy art and songs,
eternally disposable

- then turned and looked: each other's eyes
held something universal truth
could not compete one minute with.
Our poses struck us into proofs,
and ran off prints innumerable

A memory, preserved in bliss

to be forgotten and consumed
by starving lovers of the arts
who cannot get enough of you
consumed in moments such as this,
and me, the sum and parts of all

you cannot get enough of, too.

There's something of sincerity,
such glory to be thrown away
in private moments, torn from love

And set up larger than display.

You almost couldn't look away.
It's hard to look at all, somehow.
But they have seen, and they will be

Forgetting us forever now.

two silences

Silence is uncomfortable
because of what lies underneath.
The topics we don't want to broach.
The treaties we'd be loathe to breach -
agreements forged in silences
that came in after cracks and storms.
We know now better than to sail
where bitter lightnings flash and warn
behind the eyes we're trying to love.

But love grows bitter everywhere
it's been agreed love cannot go.
Love knows that it could triumph there,
if only it would be allowed.

Love cannot stand such lack of faith
- when nothing is unconquerable!
That nothing's going to stop us now.
That nothing's going to take our place.

But silences like yours and mine
are quite a different crock of fish.
Uncomfortable, they aren't at all -
just pauses for reflection, and
appreciation of each dish
served up in neverending course
- made up of everyone and thing,
cosmically or locally sourced,
prepared with effortless aplomb,
considered individually
and made to sing.

And never wrong -
except that we were entertained.
We fall to laughter at the lapse,
and lapse into a silence, that
has never yet been strained.

We eat the universe by turns,
in perfect leisure, at our ease
as if we know I'll never find
the end of you, or you of me.

no gardener

I discovered that I am no gardener.
I like to put on my old favorite
t-shirt, now holey, my old favorite
Chucks, now riddled with rips and
no longer maroon; I like to put on

my soft, tough yellow leather work gloves,
and pull, slide into them, fap and thap
between the knuckles, working them on,

I like grabbing the tools I plan to use,
and I like planning to use them.

But several hours later I have been frustrated
in my active meditations. I have not gloried
in my bodily exertions. My mind spent the time
in confusion and regret, thinking "is that also
a weed?" Reaching in and grasping long stems

of twined vines, woven through the bush's branches
and pulling them through and out, like
entrails. Making piles of them.

Thinking "Why must I cleave this poor
vigorous, green leafy blossomlike shoot
just to be even with the others?" Working my way
all the way around the house, over and through
and into the bushes. Killing a spider, who
was in her home, not mine.

She had glaring, neon orange rays
on her abdomen, like an alien death's head.

Thinking, near the end, "I think I only love
wild plants,
that grow and thrive without being tended."

Thinking all along, maybe it was the weeds I love.

Work done, gloves sweat through in patches like
cow spots, standing back and looking at the
now-tamed hedge, I think: I bet this whole thing

could be a weed if we let it.

advice from one's self-image

Instead of jerk,
be the True King in this
ex-relationship!
Make your move with sure
and honest. If Question comes -
beat it with truth.
She will be the one amazed,
and not blaming you
for a thing. Breaking up
with her was in ways,
a gift disguised.
Now you reveal it.
Surprise!

aftermaths

You held your finger in the flame by accident
and so you burned it even worse
than you would have.
And you'll be nursing it all day
like a baby
too young to have learned any lesson
beyond how to cry.
You refuse to cry.
You wouldn't give yourself
the satisfaction. And

you love the pretty lights
dancing. The candle isn't worth
the game, maybe, but it's worth

The candle. And the pain of it
drowns, growing wrinkled in the bath,

as the wet block of book
that distracted you,
that you dropped in surprise
lies spread open, and sunning itself

in the window-light.

RIPE

I saw a girl at Walmart, she was RIPE

or so her baseball hat said
in spangly letters, pink on green.
She had
those eyes,
and
that hair,

and denim butt-shorts.
Her t-shirt proclaimed
"Thank GOD

when you see me,"
So I did. And
I prayed for humanity.

subjectivity

Isn't this nice? I don't know what is

if I have to ask, I guess. But this
is nice to me. And to you, I hope

you can see what I mean. I am not,
after all,

a dope.

And if you agree
this is nice? I know
other things I'd guess

you would like, just as well - or
well, almost. It could be I've led

with the best thing I know,

just to mess with your head.

alphabetical order

I want to read you in alphabetical order.
Meticulous from A to Z, look you up
sequentially and deeply read you
through and through, from literal
to subtext, you with all your hints
and innuendos - nothing would be skimmed
or missed.

Every part of you, perused, pondered in
and deeply kissed. Poked and probed,
I should suspect - though some parts
maybe more than most.

And some of you's been doubly,
triply named - quadruply, even,
up to sextuply and more! One hopes

that you won't mind, but all such names
shall count as separate parts.
Each to be treated unredundantly,

to be read through again
with interest fresh as first time through,
a chance to skip around through you
and make innumerable starts,

then to resume sequentially
from where we left off breathlessly,
in perfect order to pursue.
And once we're done, begin anew?

We'd not be finished for some time,
if you approve this plan of mine.

I wouldn't take you in one go,
but rather set some time aside
to take you up, luxuriate
in stretches as the hours go by,

or sometimes snatch in fits
and starts what times we'd steal,
snuck guiltily from times we'd set
for other things we had to do,

now spent in we,
perused by us,
in every part.

At least, such is what I'd assume.
You'd read me as I'm reading you,
not lie back learning what it's like

to be a book read through,
stripped bare by candlelight.

Can you share your personal destiny/legacy in a haiku?

I will try. Ahem.

Haiku to commence in three,

two, one - GO!

No.

"Twisted Individual"

I came to get up I came to get down, I came to get
back drive forth chase your forces around the block 
double-back, bite you in the ass and retreat.
Strategically, but you know me I wouldn’t ever admit defeat!
Even if you could pull it off, but you’re soft -
you talk loud, while you swing your little itty bitty stick around
(blatantly ignoring Presidential advice) well I suppose
the only history you know is Miami Vice, like
old tv shows, in syndication
Well I’m about to bring you up to speed with information
you ain’t seen yet, heard yet,
it’s not on the net,
in your online chat group live on the world wide web,
because the only place you’ll get it is here!
I am in your face, from the nose to the ear
so it’s clear you need to focus
I’ll conduct you to the chorus
weed your mind like it’s a garden and arrange it like a florist, ‘cause

I’m the original.
I’m the original Twisted individual!
I’m the original.
Come on come over baby and twist a little with me

I’m the original.
I’m the original Twisted individual!
I’m the original.
You get all bent out of shape but you’re cute that way!

I’m bad to the bone, I’m good the - last- drop,
I rock the players and the haters alike and I won’t stop
competing on the field contributing to the scene
I come clean and I play a clean game, but that don’t mean
I won’t hit - hard - knock out your mouth-guard
you come tardy, I roll over ya for ninety-nine yards
so it’s score 1 for the visitor
here comes the inquisitor 
Sit back in the comfy chair and just watch, as I get busier ’cause

I’m the original.
I’m the original Twisted individual!
I’m the original.
Come on come over baby and twist a little with me

I’m the original.
I’m the original Twisted individual!
I’m the original.
You get all bent out of shape but you’re cute that way!

lost plots

When I was a child once
I made up a story to tell
grown-ups, about
who I actually was.
I wasn't the hero
just the one stuff happened to.
There was narration
like a pouty detective
on a missing case,
and a trusty cap gun
for standoffs
before it was dumb. Most
of it wasn't in the
story. I told them

other endings, or
about cases I'd solve
if they were mine. The narration
would go

"I'd really like to hit that guy.
He needs it"
but I didn't. Or
"That girl's sure pretty and needs
kissing!"

I didn't though. I was my own
sidekick in those says, self-
sufficient. Urging the hero

on. I don't know what he was
waiting for. You never saw

a girl needed kissing
so much in your life.

How dear you are to me

I know how dear you are to me, it's just
that sometimes, all my feeling goes away
except
I know
intellectually, at least
how dear you are to me
has held a better world together
than the one I see. I wish

sometimes my heart
could fly away, instead
of apart, leaving me to

the lurid, lucid, detailed memory
exhumed and charged, by imitating art

to life. Then suddenly, it trickles
back to flood, scablands caressed

one million tons of meltwater
rush crushing, hurling grinding rock

the ice plug of some glacial lake
gave way, on tick of geologic clock.

You wait an age for tock, and

fuck, how dear you are. To me,
you are the line I hold

against the flow, for dearest life

to me, is yours. I see that

everywhere I go,

now. I don't know how
anymore.

Whenever it steals over me

I'll take my sleep
whenever it steals over me, I might awake
for water, end up lighting smokes
and closing windows, but
I know I'm being called,
and where, and when:
I'm bound for down,
my time has stalled
and all too soon, it must
start up, again.

And so, just now
in fact:

I wish you good morning,
and I'll chase through night
after you 'til your dawn has broken,

over me,

to get it back.

the lesson they stayed to give

Grow up to the death of your dreams
and play them out in sour pantomime,
So everyone can see,
you never gave up
on propriety.

Mom and dad aren't in love.
They're just pretending to be,
sometimes, and this

is the lesson we've stayed to give
your entire life: oh child of mine,

This
is what love
and adulthood are like.

To believe in so much,
and give up on so hard,
and resolve so strong
to pretend through your teeth

and to teach the young

you must do what is right:
stay. Give your example to them

of relationship.
Teach them how much they must accept,

how little
they can expect from it.

Smile in their faces,
recalling with a tear, how grateful you are
your own parents
taught you to take things so far.

And yet, so near

The Love Of My Life

You took me up,
you made me want to love
to be the fool I always was
to be the fool I always am
It always ends quite badly, ma'am
it seems a case of just because
and I don't need to understand

As long as you're still glad we met
I won't regret how much I tried
I won't regret how much I can
A good thing lived; a good thing died

The love of my life
is right here in my heart
and nothing else
can take my pain apart
and you can't make me bitter,
if you tried. This is the love
of my life. This is the love
of my life.

This is the love

You took me up,
I offered all my life
At least you took a piece of it.
The biggest piece, it always seems
The one that I can't do without,
a hole that nothing seems to fit:
the shape of you, plus room for doubt

But since you couldn't take it all,
I'm glad you chose and took the best.
I won't regret how much is gone
I couldn't offer any less

The love of my life
is right here in my heart
and nothing else
can take my pain apart
and you can't make me bitter,
if you tried. This is the love
of my life. This is the love
of my life.

This is the love

"The small"

The small of her back
is smaller than mine,
and more precious by far -
to me, at least.
I love to draw near
and kiss her behind
the knees, and her legs

- her face, her shoulder
her neck, but the small

of her back
makes me weak.

I want to be

strong, for her. Put my back

and shoulders, my all

into whatever chore

she lays out
to be done

I will thoroughly work
oh so eagerly through,

and patiently wait
on call for more.

I will never be done
so long as there's her,

and there's anything she
would have me do.

"blue balls"

"Blue balls," apparently,
are a real thing. Or
a pair, possibly. I looked it

up on Wikipedia, not wishing
to risk Google Images. It appears
(or they appear) to be some kind

of vascular deal. Treatment

includes sexual release, "or perhaps

straining to move a very heavy object
—in essence doing a Valsalva maneuver."[7]

7. ^ Chalett, J.M.; Nerenberg, L.T. (2000).

"Blue Balls":
A Diagnostic Consideration in Testiculoscrotal Pain
in Young Adults: A Case Report

and Discussion". Pediatrics. 106 (4): 843.
doi:10.1542/peds.106.4.843. PMID 11015532.

I include the citation because fuck that.

Sounds like a prescription for a hernia to me!

Don't go trying to assuage your "blue balls"

with some maniac powerlift session, hurt yourself

and in the process, blame it on online poetry!

I, like many if not most online poets,
strive to be responsible in my
medical coverage.

I'd like to think your balls
are worth a little caution.

Now, good news for myself
and any other men - men, full
in the bloom of their own very
virility! - who previously thought

"blue balls" was either a myth, a tall tale
to do with Paul Bunyan's pet ox Babe (who, presumably,
used to be a Big Blue Bull until something unthinkable
happened to his Big Blue Huevos) or else,

made up by horny teenagers in an attempt
to counterbalance competing guilts - no!

"Blue balls" is (and are) no joke. However,

they are experienced by

not all men.

Which feels like it explains a lot,
but probably doesn't.

"Games of Skill"

The chance of me being here,

everyday in you

You say it's your heart

I have won, and I win you

again and again - like a carnival prize

with one bean bag toss, all the bottles capsize

and you've taken me home,

for keeps, in your heart.

I guess you've won me?

The conditions weren't clear

from the start, and they've grown

more mysterious still.

I've never been happy like this

- but I will.

hypnopompic

I was half asleep,
lying on my back and the blankets
were heavy upon me.

I opened my eyes to find your face
inches from mine,
filled with see-I-told-you-so amusement.

But you weren't there, and I tried
to pull myself back down,
into the dream

with you

but it was gone.
It was time to get up.

Next time, dream girl

We will catch ourselves
before we are through.

bedtime story

The world was roofed
with polished-smooth celestial spheres,
shot through with light - when humans, looking out
saw through them all,
and did not fall.
Good night

glorious requiem

When I'm at my best,
I am something else.
When I'm at my worst,
I am something again.
For the first time now,
I'm beginning to feel
like I know what the Nothing
is like. Oh hallelujah,
Amen,
and oh what a glorious
wreck I am,
with everything I could believe
going down. Should I fall
to my knees and pretend

it will rise again?

Or just lay me now
to sleep,

as this beast with its chains
keeps circling.

Poets are like

Poets are like
metaphors, trying to be similes. They hold
something back, and something
in store. An idea of language in mind,

which they rarely use; an ideal

they rarely attempt to test or prove,

But when they do:
they try to form thoughts
into words, with a mind so focused
that no words appear at all
- except necessary ones.

The right word - not its stranger sibling,
as perfect as effort can make it,
nothing to strike,
and nothing missing.
All that's there, combined
and working together,
aligned to fit: one purpose

(whatever it is; the poem’s)

to justify truth into meaning
by minimum means necessary,
to a maximum of intended truth, and yes,
effect too. In general,

poets these days eschew

limits, except
to explore, fruitfully enjoying
the ins and outs of a bright line held lightly,
or employed more seriously, held in place
to add pleasing structure. And so

sometimes, or
even oftener,

Poets don’t rhyme.

But sometimes they rhyme. No limits?
Why not then? They’ll use a scheme
as a stunt, a flourish,
with meter to drive the beat home
to a satisfying finish,

syllables running through
in even array, or stop-start
choppily strewn awry,

all a technique to emphasize,
to counterpoint, or to magnify
effect, and meaning, and whatever else
the poet has handy to show or imply.

A poem

is an example of language distilled
to specific purpose, using any
of several unnatural means
to lull us into its dream logic,

to learn and feel whatever the poet
is trying to be, or prove, or feel
themselves, that day. By an art

more artifice than otherwise,
the poet attempts the natural,
by sneaking in under it, usually.
And often - some say, too often,

in an act far more sloppily, lazily done
than focus or discipline well describe.
More exuberant play than a focused work, or

- maybe that’s just the effect conveyed
and contrived? Which would then be deliberate!

And if so, deserved. Earned. For whatever
it’s worth: when it works,

all in tune (so the poet hopes)
with intent, and all their effects
pulled together, and meaning

- nothing at all? Maybe. Or
something worthwhile, perhaps.

When it’s over, you wake
safe at home, and
you shake your head, and
decide (maybe not) to smile.

That's about all the poet hopes.
A lapse of some moments, to sink
in a world, composed of words,

in which you might spot something
worth taking with you, into the air,
clumsily, like a fledgling bird

or elegantly, like the sophisticated
reader of poetry that you clearly are.

You won't be shaking, reduced
to emotional states they have expertly
crafted and given to you, to become.

That can happen, true! But it's not
something poets expect to pull off,
or get away with, as a rule,
To change someone

uncertainty tales of indeterminate moral

In the dark,
She was wearing Schrodinger’s Clothes
She was like the Empress everyone knows
to be decent, and wise, and true

and with the Event drawing nearer,
I knew I would settle for two

out of three. And She

would, too. We were so out of sorts
that eventually,
we couldn't observe

our position or course

without everything getting confused,
but we knew
in due course,
we would cover all possible states
and places at rates
simultaneously fast, in fact

it appears that we're already there!
Miraculously, it is holding, and it

appears to last!

indeterminately?

the picture of pie

The people who sneer they are getting less
wherever they go. The picture of pie
and the one that arrives. They sneer
at the difference to show
they have not been fooled. They know
that this world is not as it's advertised.
So they advertise themselves, but I
am not fooled. They feed
on the difference that lies.
They live
upon what they're superior to,
and they are getting less,
wherever they go
than you and I
used to do.

creative realization

Sometimes you hate what you have to do
get ready
and go
and be there
and stay
and wait
while admiring views
and the view
of people saying what they think,
or pretending to

why can't this be easy?
why can't it be wonderful
like it sometimes is?
and you go hoping this
will be one of those times,
which it never is,
since you've been mine

And sometimes you think
what we have to do
to get through,
whether lie
or quit
or screw
will be fine

sad, anachronistic hijinks

Your full-on commando panty raid
was spoiled by lack of underpance
You bungled it in the planning stage
Your Intel did not give you a chance -
For they
are full on commandos, too.
And now you're at bay, and they
have the drop on, and rather
a bone to pick with you.