mr. abyss.

I always saw myself
as more abyss than void.

A sort of dim abyss,
with shifting colors of glow
through the overall dark, made
by drifting party lanterns. Not one
of those nasty-ass abysses
you're not supposed to
look into. Hey

look into me
any time you like!
I'll look back like

'sup.

This abyss gazes
also, lazes
in a hazy drift,
catch me grooving
on my inner party
lanterns like a further
-mucking ABYSS,

.

fishing for visitors

Fish and visitors
both smell in 3 days
they say, but

Here's the thing: they have
different smells. And you
can tell, just

Lean in,
let your natural
breath, your process
of inspiration take
a whiff - nothing obvious!
Just as you breathe
as you normally do,
just paying attention
to the air we share
so close
and coming in -

The difference is
subtle, maybe
but distinct.

Oh,
certain visitors
in certain places may
be slightly confused
for fish
By this test,
but
'nuff said, please.
It's way overstated
that angle, and frankly
I find the whole thing
hugely lacking
in offense. The other

thing is: Folks. Come on.

The saying's pre-modern,
in terms of hygiene taboo
and ritual. It dates from days
when people bum-rushed the tub
annually at best, in a long
family process of progressively
dirtier water, and the soap
was not tops, either. In those
days the visitor shows up washed
- if at all - by whatever rain
they picked up on the journey
in the open air, and perfumed
by the fact you probably smelled
as bad yourself, and had definitely
smelled worse.

It's a new day for cleanliness,
practically to a maniac level
if those ruddy and benighted
ladies, knights and rustics
could catch wind of how we
keep ourselves! Very well,

thank you very much.

Your visitors today

And for the last couple days,
apparently, will probably shower
and bathe their way as they go!
So they may well smell

as fresh as days go by
as they did walking in
the door. That same method

now - for the fish? Baby don't even try.
Disastrous. Soap gets
all into the flaky filet
of that beautiful tender flesh
blown apart by blasting water

- by the time you've toweled it off,
all you've got is a super-funky towel
with cakes of fish flesh residue
toppling off it in chunks

gross.

The visitors, though - hey!
Take a sniff now and then!
Just to check, if it's a concern but

they probably see to it themselves
- while you sleep, perchance. You dream
they're in there with their clothes off,
scrubbing and a-sudsing and a-rinsing
and a-buffing. They've heard the saying

too, you know.
They might not realize
the smells involved are quite decidedly
different, but

They don't want to take chances

Stink up your hospitable home like
some disreputable fishhouse!
The air all through permeated
by a slovenly, all-too-seaworthy
b.o.

People get these sayings
so wrong, some times

it'd be funny
if I didn't hate them so much
and wish they'd leave. Tonight's dinner?

Fish again
hint hint hint

school ball

It's funny, but
school ball doesn't appeal to me
at all.
I know it's the same game, but
basically - I'd rather watch B-League, not
some kids

Doing it for free!
(by rule) (it's not
their fault, but that's not
the point) (who wants to see
a school play?), no

Pay some GROWN MEN
(it could be grown women,
too but nobody seems to take
those leagues seriously, sadly. Lingerie
league? Come on
The players
- forgive me -
seem to think it's some
kind of joke) (even the coaches,
I question their level of interest)
(I question the nature
of their interest) sorry
I got distracted. Pay some
GROWN MEN or whoever!
It's not complicated

To run around
hitting each other
jumping and chasing after
a children's toy -
trying hard in the sweat
and the muscle and menace
to make some point.
I say it's grand!
A game of guts and destiny!
Helmets on, pads
and cleats, a high-tech playing field
surface or good ol' grass - and somebody
just made 14 million dollars
for it! On one play! Well
I don't actually know how it
works, per-play, but these
are the economies at play.
At work,
in that serious job, and it
makes it interesting. I just want
something at stake

B-League players, hey
- that money means something
to them. It's the difference between
getting a job, and
this IS my job. Ok,
second job. Impressed yet?

School ball, hey
- keep your grades up kids.
Maybe even go out for the
school play. You want to
well-rounded, right? You're
preparing yourself
for life. Maybe even
a serious,
serious
job

biggest builder

No one is safe from
the country's biggest builder
of homes. Whole tracts laid bare
of any non-ornamental trees,
non-decorative water or other
features - all this land
and more the environment stupidly
wasn't using - homes! Where there
used to be a wasteland! Homes
on top of older homes, even:
insufficiently built-upon
and maximized. Vertical real
estate, airspace to be taxed
and deeded, bought and sold
to rent or own, used and new. We
are sending out trucks, surveyors
and architects to sketch and plot,
spot opportunity, speculate and lay
wise bets, in a word: to improve. Hammers
and ladders and nails, oh my power tools
and grim, cheerful worksong-singing men
(and women!) in rough-hewn coveralls
to cover all the spaces with substance
and detail, to touch-up, back
and fill, lay floorboards and pipe
underneath and on top, to carry water
all over the house, plus wires
for the houselightning. That plus sand,
polish and finely-grain the wood (both
true and false) to a gleam, as a service

to you,
we will

fine-tune away all questions
and objections your neighborhood
or municipal board will be happy
to be paid not to have, and together
- for all we get out of it is
a huge booming business, you get homes!
- we will shape together the future
of where you'll lay your head
to sleep, and fuck and shit and eat
all in the same place. A future
of gigantic hovels or teensy-tidy
minimansions jammed and crammed
cheeky-jowly in the coziest
and most modern possible way,
on top of what used to be
not homes

that about

I can't believe or understand
a thing. What does it mean?
Should I try? Who says so, and if so
and who says how? What if I do it
wrong? Whose fault is that
for trying at all, when
I wasn't going to? When I had
to be talked into it! Doesn't
someone have to talk me into
it? Don't they at least have
to try? Why doesn't anyone care
what I think? Who sets themselves up
above to judge me from a chair in
the sky like an asshole? What's
that about? Anyway

Rap battle

Emcee point stepped to the mic
and said a bunch of things
on-beat, on-rhyme, on-point
sans hype, and directed
foursquare and fair,
straightforth but with flair
at his soon to be (defeated,
presumably) opponent. Only to

drop the mic

how embarrassing.

So emcee counterpoint
swiped it up and delivered
a fusillade of hey, w'sup
party party y'all in the house to be
- it was just a lot of garbage!
Didn't reference a thing
emcee point
had said or done, albeit
it did diss his trademark hat.
Something anyone could have done.

So guess
who won?

Enough of my poems

Enough of my poems
are rejected attempts
to reach out to you, but the thought
involved
is not sufficiently eloquent
of thought, or it's something
too much like I've meant
before. Like currency spent

Enough of my poems
are rejected songs. They lack
certain structure and form, so
that music does not belong. But maybe
if lucky, some music does. Just
not the kind of music
that makes the kind of song
I like, just because.

Not enough of my poems,
arguably,
are rejected poems.
The standard for that
isn't well-defined, and
poems are always
sneaking through loopholes.
Setting precedents for what can pass
from thought to finished work
in mind. At least,
in mine.

the edgy competitor

Playing Scrabble
using Urban Dictionary
for challenges is
a debatable way
to increase your vocabulary.
But if both and all agree, then it is
fair play. I wonder who will
play Scrabble with me
this way?

flowering awares

What if a flower
had a brain? What
if you could dissect it to find
some cerebral mass
lying hid
under stamen,
enclosed at night
in a petaled embrace
awaiting the next day's sun
for a thought to pass?

flowering unawares

A flower
cannot smell its beauty, or
delight in the spread of its petals

It's all for the birds and bees,
and the flower babies
that it hopes to get
to compensate in some sense
for the nettles.

It has a sense:
of sunlight and shade,
of passing breeze,
of vibrations made
as you step close to stoop,
perchance to sniff
perchance to pluck -
make away with it!

The flower exists,
serene in it all. Pressed
between leaves, or left
to breathe in the pause
between spring
and fall.

problematic usage

She used her body on me
and I was like, is this
the proper use of your body? But
after a minute or two, I realized
dumb question. I could tell
it wasn't and it was and it
wasn't and it was. Various use.
I didn't need to ask
Which
is good, because
I didn't ask.
I was just like that. I didn't
say it out loud. I was
too busy, I guess, to put
every dumb thought I think of
in words

into words
when there's body-using going on!
Especially, on me. I tried
using my body on her, too, but
it wasn't the same. So I was like
fuck it

These uses
are pretty odd. But
as long as there aren't
two space aliens visiting, looking,
trying to figure it out, hey
They make sense to us,
in a direct and sensory
way. It doesn't have
to be rationalized, sometimes.
Sometimes, it can be fun!
The rational faculty is an
easily-pleased beast. As long as
both people are on board,
or one is, and the other doesn't mind
being boarded - preferably
loves it
- it makes sense. It doesn't
even have to make sense,

when it does. The only thing to worry about then
is: are we just a couple of users? I don't like that.
It sounds too much like "a couple of losers," and
that's a bad association. Besides, no one likes
to be just used. Which is strange, because
no one likes to be unjustly used either,
and almost no one likes to be useless.

What are our other options?
Should we explore them?
Maybe

later!

mark. No point

How many exclamation marks!
Go in a single poem? It all depends
on how much you meant - your feeling
gives it form! But sometimes what's put
is not enough. You have to add a kick!
Our friend, the exclamation mark!
It could be just the trick

Why I'll never write an Encyclopedia unless I get hired by space aliens

The Dutch
(I believe Dutch)
city of Antwerp
is great. It sounds like
any other city, maybe
except like you're calling someone
an ant and a twerp! Imagine living there.
You'd be an Antwerper, or something. Perhaps
you'd just be an Antwerp. Someday I'd like
to go, but for various other and more subtle,
cultural reasons surely. Well,
those plus the name. It's
such a great name
for a place
where you can go
and listen to all the people,
speaking in their funny little voices!
I consider myself a broad-minded world
traveler, considering the world goes
around and around, and I pretty much
hang on

good book

When I want a book around,
I use the bible. It's good
for thumping, a doorstop,
ballast in a backpack
during a hike - it's important
to exercise your self
for reasons. Also,
for views. And sometimes
a book
is just the thing! You can
burn them for warmth
and publicity,
which drives up sales
and supports both publishers
still in business, plus
your local bookseller - if
you have one within a couple few
hundred miles. If not, there's always
the internet, but it's not nearly

as good
for some things

pretend contact

Sometimes I want to reach out, but
- it's just a feeling, wanting to.
I haven't got a thing to say. I just
want to refresh your view. Same ol'
same ol' again, though? - THAT
is not the view I wish to give!
I mean, it always plays quite well, but
why? It's something I can't tell,
or guess, and I don't want
to ask. So please forgive
my absences
from your unique view
of this world. It's stupid questions
just like that
you'd always end up with
if I were not so high, exacting
with my standards for what prompts
this contact, girl. There's life
or something like it here
to live.

Self-image

She's just the type
to make other women jealous,
or envious - she's not sure
which, or why, but sure
she's seen the looks
trail after her
as she goes by.

impress of teeth

We only bite the hand that feeds
no other hand comes close.
For texture, flavor, delicacy
- the one we love the most
is always just the one we'll bite.
Four out of five mouths
all agree. If not in words,
exact, precise - at least
in teeth, the marks we leave
so nice to see.

Strangerism

I met a man made half of lies,
and half of clothes,
and half of knives
like eager teeth.
Three halves is nice,
because you can
at any time drop half
yourself and be complete.
So he explained,
and smiled wide.
My end was neat, until
I saw the half himself
that he had dropped
straight into me
was made of lies.
I smiled back, full
of deceit.

Dream anatomy

You don't have any teeth in dreams
unless something happens to make you
think of them. Your body
is the same way. Not assumed
to be there. Not assumed
at all. The parts just appear
as they're called into play

The people cross into view
to fill gaps or take parts,
and the parts appear
to be taken. It is
without art, unless
something makes you think
I could be mistaken.

book report

This is a book about travel.
Several of the stories
deal with this theme.
All of the stories
have people in them. Travel
loses its meaning without
people. See? You can hardly
imagine it. The End

artifice imitates

So many poems are dying in me.
Too busy to set them down, as a budding
leaf or petal or a seed occurs,
a bit of root, a twig - there's just
no chance to give it ground. And so,
it rots
undeterred I suppose.
And sinks deep,
collapsing its spread
and unnamed parts,
relinquishing itself
into the loam.
The deep rich dark
in which all things
inevitably find their home,
from whence they spring.

The Story of Cynicism.

The people don’t trust the news.
The people have been told a Story.

The story is that journalists are venal,
shoddy, driven by ambition, unconcerned
with ethics or truth, except as weapons
and tools.

And politicians? Same story.
Public servants? Same story.
Lawyers? Same story. Businesspersons?
Same story. Academia? Same story.

It is the Story of Cynicism.
Its moral: people are pretty bad, and you
are pretty naive to think otherwise. Cute,
you are. Funny you are. Oh, and the cause
of the problem? Is you, for buying in. You
enable it. Like as if

to hang back and snark instead
of grousing that it's all irredeemably
lame and ruined is a public service.

It breaks my heart. For me, and for
the general public, but above all
for the shining shards of light
raining into these dark clouds, bright
with youth and enthusiasm, not innocent at all
- to be journalists, leaders, cops, advocates,
bringers of brightness, in open-eyed plunge
we are going in! We'll try hard as we can

to keep what shine
while the whole world tells us how pretty
bad we are. Including the general environment
we’re trying to work to best.

You would have been good
as a journalist. You would have stayed
good. And accomplished, probably

some good.

dealing again with one's peers

Remember the key
is to regard the would-be
imposing, presumptuous
or impudent intruder
with a vast and pleasurable
sense of benevolence. Sincere
curiosity "Why I wonder
do they behave as they do?
Is it child vs. animal
or a case of the
dichotomies?"
And your face
carefully composes into
a composure of caring, powerfully
judgment-neutral.

infinite boat

There are children you see
in the world, hanging round
bars, swinging like monkeys
they once were, all grown
if not quite up, no longer
mom and dad to blame
without looking pathetic
They are nobody's children, now
They are nobody's children, now
and you have to talk
just as if you are one
of them yourself, but

you don't
know how

There are children you see
in the world, sizing up
trying to look down or knock
down each other's cup
'cause it's too half-full
for their envious eyes
so thirsty for worth
they cannot value why
They are nobody's children, now
They are nobody's children, now
and you have to talk
just as if you are one
of them yourself, but

you don't
know how

Here is the trick
If you want to come off
fit in
pass as, without clash
or scoff:
Just be who you are
uncertainly so
- a tenuous, tentative
vicious vindictive better friend
than foe

And they'll see it, and sense
the shape of some hypothetical
infinite boat you're both in.
On these shapeless seas
you have never seen,
but the pitch and the roll
of the deck make you wish
you could swim

generally fond

I am fond as hell.
Just generally fond,
and a lot of the people
just cannot believe
how I mean so much,
and so effortlessly!
Well, the joke's on them, 'cause
the joke's on me

lax.

We are in abeyance, which
has expectancy that hiatus
lacks, but

is nevertheless also a state
of pause. Awaiting some action,
which currently

ah

crap. I was going to say "lacks"
again.

Lacks.

double standard

Imagine being a woman: aimlessly
wandering around all the time,
seeking seed for your womb - WHAT
a horrible caricature, you say! True.
Then why is it OK to depict a man
this way, thus-backwards? Aimless
wanderer, seeking wombs for his
seed? "Because it's true"? Oh,
no. That won't do. That's unfair.
Double-standard, when your slanders
are excused because they are true.

meditations on a waterfall

You know, this
is beautiful.

But it fills me
with wondering why
it's beautiful, too.

It must be something
very deep in us, because
looked at in a detached way,

it's just a lot of bullshit
sitting piled up, spilling all
over and growing out of itself. Yet

we call it "nature"
and have quiet moments
gazing into it, calmed and
somehow, for the moment -
satisfied in our wildness.

What the fuck? Arguably
what the fuck is all
this crap

extreme clarification

I don’t necessarily mean
armed response by government enforcers.
Yes, that - everywhere it rises to cross
the line of crime! But let’s do a bit better
than pawn it off on hirelings, please. Each
rightstanding, well-meaning, okay occasionally
upfucking one of us ought to stand forth and howl,
when we see such bestial behaviors. Where people act
like you wanna go what the fuck at, where people put

you

in the place of I can’t even, where no one else
is there to do it - and no one else ever is - WE
must be the press of question. We must be the brunt
of disapproval. We must abhor the abhorrent. We must,
you know, stand up and call BULL SHIT

by its given name. Can’t let it stand
in a room you’re in. Can’t let ’em say
or pretend to think it was okay
- in any room you’re in.

I don’t mean you, dear. I propose
this more as a social norm. Imagine if
everybody else were GENERALLY responsible
to do it. Imagine if

even ten to twenty people in every room
of fifty or so felt strongly about the
One Ass currently assing it up! “Gee, I
should say something, shouldn't I?
That’s utterly fuckso.”

YES.

It would be a sea change
the likes of which would
take a quantum leap
to explain. People

would be so on board with it
if only a very few more were.

the selfish benefit

We only see the outsides
of others, but some
know how to give from within
and they teach us to, too. If I had
to answer why you were here? I could only

answer in terms of the selfish benefit
you provide. You take things in and do
things to and with them, so that when

you give them forth, there is insight
and point
and purpose that wasn't there before.

Not everyone can do that, but more
would dare, encouraged by your example.
And find ways they could.

No one gives as you do,
from your angle. But you
help us find ours.

Compares to desire

When I was a child
I compared myself to geniuses
angels, false gods, monsters, heroes
real and mythological, grown-ups
and animals, and other children,
and I found myself wanting
more. Plenty more
of such beings. "Aw yeah,
what a world, to harbor
such things in't, even if
only in rumour," I thought
"Wait 'til they get a load
of me." My assessment proved
prescient. I did wait. I wait
still, though many have already
gotten "a load" (so foully
and sweetly to speak) "of me"
- pretty good effect, so far!
I got no complaints, and still
I compare myself to goddesses,
wizards, demons, ghosts,
archetypes, stereotypes,
and other wouldn't-be saints.

death pops

Whosoever shares Death Pops with Death
DIES. Not now, maybe, not eventually but
SOON. Now available in essentially sixteen
sickening and injurious natural, artificial,
accidental and/or deliberate flavors, including
the new Killer Combo - always changing! Always
a new chic and banal mix. The trick is

don't share your Death Pops with death.

Enjoy them separately

Best of Luck

“Luck” by the way,
is not a force
or a cosmic principle. Luck
is just the name we give
to everything that happens
whose cause we didn’t see

coming. Just good or bad,
lucked into it. Luck is
essentially ignorance of causality.

Which is good.
Because we’ve
got tons of it.

between metaphysics

The difference between metaphysics
is this New Age woo woo shit
and the old antique wah-wah
philosophy have together conflated
to pretend to be
"beyond physics"
when in fact, those books
had simply been placed

after physics

on a shelf
in someone's library.

precocious

I could tie my shoes since
before I was born, it's just
that I hadn't
had any on. So
then, when I was -
born
- distracted at once,
I forgot for a while.

A bit
of a dunce.

I've been getting ahead of
myself ever since, never
failing to notice much
later the proven points
that I'd earlier missed. By then

convinced,

it was locked, knocked loose,
pulled back together
and fixed.

I have
always made
time for this.

before a fashion

Adam and Eve and I
woke up one day

and Eve said, this fig leaf shit
is fly as hell, Ad-man, but whaaat

if we cast our nets
and webs
a bit farther and wider for material
source? Draw inspiration and muse,
of course, and invent ourselves

better second skins?

I took one look at Eve,
and I said
"That would be a sin."

We can just drive

We can just drive
and you can think about what
you want to say. No

tunes, no

need. It's silence
okay? And companionable,

between
such two as we turned
out to be.

Let's go home,
you fool.

Or just drive for hours
and miles, and see

where we've ended up.

It must
be better than here,
flying by just above

the limit of speed
toward the edge of all things

as we disappear.

more There Ought To Be

There ought to be

a movie or tv detective ace
who shows up with partner
in tow, and they both
just mingle and mix
grinning wide, chatting up
the place. Get the party restarted,

because

the body showed up! Killed
the vibe, kind of. They need

to restore the spirits
of all. Put every one easy
with lowered guards. They put
on the music, and pour the drinks

HARD

while they rock that body
for clues,

wethinks.

Their names are John Scotland
and Tina Yard, and
they're quite unattached
to official police. I suppose

you'd have guessed as much.
At least

tactile interiors

I accidentally swallowed
an entire half of a mushroom
cap. Had it in
with a mouthful of soft
sweet potato, and only
chewed that

somehow. When I swallowed,
the halved cap slid down whole;
I could feel it glisten
all the way down.

I almost threw up
my hands in delight! At
this wild sensation
I'd found.
How droll.

The smaller potato

The smaller potato,
the bigger steak. That's
what I get, but it's not
what I want. Yet
someone's been generous.
And I couldn't bring
myself to the ingrate's stance
upon any such thing. It's why
people love me, I guess.
It's not why I do it.
It's kind of a mess.
I don't know why
I do. But I don't
care to guess.

In a case like this.
Where they gave me

the best

they knew, or wanted
- and left themselves second
to one. But took

the potato of generous size
to console themselves. It was wrong

as a guess, but
I guess it was right
to lie.