sacrifice day

People who die
like pathetic weaklings
in brave and glorious daring
for selfish gain
- bad risk, bad bet,
didn't come through -
deserve to be honored
for putting it all on the line,
coming up short, and then
being honored for it. It's
we ourselves we dishonor
by forgetting the honor of their
sacrifice, or to honor it. Some
day should be set aside, established.
Making it easier to remember
what the hell
we're all dying out there for.
Making it easier for each of us
to step up, when the chance is dire
and death sure (sure, we're all
gonna), we might remember the day
and say "today is MINE"
and put it all on the line.
If that sacrifice is not honored, then
what the hell

At least you have a place to go.

At least you have a place to go.
Not saying all that you've been
through
to get to where you're going to
was lesser, better, easier
than paths and ways I've had
to find.

You win
the oh so grand first prize
blue ribbon, if you want
a competition, fine. Award
yourself the big bouquet!

For this whateverth annual pageant
pity pride parade, you made
your claim, it is sustained
but at least
you have a place
to go. It isn't much,
but still. It's more
than some of us will
ever know.

stand you

Somebody buying a drink
after a fight
that never escalated past words
is a trivial gesture
of respect repaired and affirmed.
There isn't any reason to feel
that a triumph of human reason
and dignity, amity, bonhomie
has occurred. However
there isn't any particular
reason not to, either. And
the drink has already
been served.

in sum

Far as I know,
depths of my soul,
bottom of my heart
ricochet off the top
of my head to the tip
of my tongue, springboard off
to a twisty, (perhaps) graceful plunge:
we are done. But I could
have been wrong

pleased not proud

It's not hard to be pleased not proud.
Once you have a realistic sense of how
your luck turned out; all the doubt
you've come through unscathed
when it could have gone other ways
so easily, you have spent most days.
Is credit due you for this? Not much.
Yet you must admit you are pleased,
not proud of how you
add here and there
a spectacular touch.

life hack: water

life hack: water
drink 8 glasses a day
or 5 big ones. It's a
trick your body knows.
Don't forget to make time
for urination before
the crisis. This leaves
you blessedly relieved,
continuously refreshed.
It changes your life, unless
of course
you were already drinking
water. Because you knew
the good of it. Once you know,
you knew. Water. Sooner
or later, everybody
catches on.

almost chance

Sometimes whole lives come down
to chance encounters. The person
who you hadn't met. You came in
nick of time, sat down. She'd
just left. Whole lives go by
like that. We dress our best.
Go out. Go work. We are left

unimpressed,
in the dizzying
whirl of potential
and guess. All the lives
we ever saw, ever imagined
unfolding towards
some imagined
best,

always
with the one
we almost met.

known by rote

This moment can never be like
the first time we had it surrounded.
We looked, saw, sensed the cusp and dove
into it vwoosh! Suspended immersed,
astounded confounded. We still don't
know what we found, but we found it.
Everything rang and shone and sounded
and felt all through, like bells
and lights and drums pounding bones.
There was everything to know
and nothing to trust,
And you
Were in command, and so
was us. And I just
was overwhelmed by myself.
And you were as well,
as everything cut both ways
and we each ended up with
the greatest part. Which
we easily each could tell. Which
we proceeded to share and share
alike. But this moment can never swell
in performance, in execution, the way it did
when we were writing it
in ink of separate selves in union.
In a deadly serious kidding
of character arcs, we improvised
chapter and verse of writ. Oh,
maybe

Now and then,
in discovering some gleam,
some angle we'd glossed and teased
but not out, passed by in abandon
then, and now found out in surprise
- some such kernels and fruits remain
to be found. Explored and devoured
expanding now, but still there has come
this growing doubt: the greatest part
of this moment is figured out. We can only
take it out, put it through its paces
and make them run, full knowing
what it can do. Which if
we could be serious about
one moment, is quite some fun
and no reason to pout.

Do not insult my love

Please do not insult my love
Please do not insult my love
Please do not insult my love
Please do not insult my love

I...am standing right here, and
You...are nevertheless, saying these things, so
We...are going to have accidents
Hope you agree
We don't want accidents

Please do not insult my love
Please do not insult my love
Please do not insult my love
Please do not insult my love

You...have just said the very thing
that I...did not want to hear, so
We...have just about stepped across
the line angels fear
it was always right here, so

Please do not insult my love
Please do not insult my love
Please do not insult my love
Please do not insult my love

all aboard

I was struck repeatedly by how enjoyable
your thought is, not only on general grounds
of use and interest, but just its sheer
characteristic quality. How yours
it is. What a well-balanced
yet dashingly tilted-at-will mind
you have
for any kind
of deft stunt, all the way out
yet back to centered and sure.
Past every tangent span of track,
miles by or just a side loop or jaunt,
there's a beautifully-appointed
art deco station with tracks
leading everywhere else
you'd want. Or I'd want,
too. Which is, I suppose
the point of this ticket
I somehow always hold,
yet no one ever takes
as I climb right in
and on.

impromptu

She kicked her slinky leg
up over my shoulder and gave a
sardonic bump with her hip. Her hand
snaked back 'round my head and
her eyes
immovably bored
into mine. "Ha!"
one of us said,
but she kept up
her winding-in
standing dance,
while
I
stood stock still
for awhile, as I stand stock
still.

I was feigning
with a vengeance
indifference with a difference.
Preposterous in such a fix!
Yet she fell for it.
She saw right through me
and thought me insouciant,
impudent, blithe

- and so all of this.
Here we are, how we are.
How are we to keep it up
for the rest of our lives?
We
shall
improvise.

with or without warning

Time
for me to reach
right in through your eyes
and seize your HEART out
by the soul! Drag
your feeling and response
up
all roiling and disreputable!
You can't deny the surge and crest
of vulgar sentiment bursting
bonds of inhibition within you
You
Yeah you, think you're so in control
but this poem has got you
by the unsavory impulse
and SQUEEZE

Next thing you know
with my words
you're like hey that wasn't bad
this guy
he's dominant using language online
it gets me.

well

thanks

I mean you're welcome too, I'm just

reactions like that, it's why I try
so hard. So thanks. You

were the important part of this deal.
I was just going to do it anyway.

It couldn't have meant nearly so much
without you. Your unbridled
almost ferocious response

to language. I mean - to language?
Hell yeah! That's what it

was about,
so.

argument upsides

Is it worth getting into an argument
with an ignorant, close-minded
son-of-a-bitch whose mind you can't
change, can't see their own wrong?
Whose haircut and clothes make
your teeth and eyes itch, and
who furthermore talks
with insufferable smug,
and a fat condescending
superior twitch?
Why yes
Yes it is
Just think how much more
ammunition they give

One's own Poirot

I sit detecting flaws
in every proposition come across,
and wait with patient smile
For someone to raise the stakes worthwhile.
Fine as well, if no one does. Sometimes the flaw
is stakes enough. And sometimes flaws
can quite deceive.
Best not to bluff I do believe.
Yet you may draw me out, monsieur.
Mais oui, madame - or mademoiselle.
It won't take much to prompt the scratch
to soothe my itching little grey cell.

the living requiem

If we die, it will only be because
we didn't waste our lives in studies
of the darkest arts, alchemy and science
mixed in shifting and unequal parts
so that we could replace our hearts
with clockwork gears. Our eyes
with hardened scopes. Fill our veins
with sand, our crystal brains
with light describing endless
arcs, forever dimmed by hopes.
Instead, we lived in breath
and skin flushed rose,
by leaping blood
suffused with ruddy light
and lapping us within
like puppy nose. And so
we'll pass, because of choices
we made well, some time ago.
Back when it seemed quite good
enough to have one life,
then let you go.

opinion's sting

Remember this: opinion
is an onion with a pin
in it. And if you seize
and jerk and work that pin
around, it tends to sting
the eyes a bit. You're working
through the layers, and the juice
has a strong, raw smell
like your breath. It

offends people.
Some people. Not saying
it offends me, but

brush your teeth
and change the subject,
shall we? I put the pin

in opinion. Take it out,
look, there's a hole now. Anybody
can see that. Yet don't
draw the wrong conclusion

and call it holy.
An onion with a hole poked in it
should be cooked or thrown out,

not held

sacred

battleship grey

There's a ship made of mists
the color of eyes that close
when we kiss, and open surprise
in the depths they reveal. Flecks
of green and soft gold set
in battleship grey with banners
aloft, and cannons traversed
to draw bead on my periscope
soul.

After Roger Ebert

"Poets put lovers under trees, and nobody asks
where that tree came from." The tree was there.
Just backdrop glimpsed in distances, in views
well-hung just underneath the sun and stars.
And lovers pull each other, drawn
to just such trees
nobody planted them. And no one knows,
or maybe someone does. Or anyway,
someone long dead
may once have known.
They did it just because
they thought a tree would look
quite good just there. They planted it
deliberately. Or just some squirrel,
who squirreled away a hoard with pride
and care - that's what squirrels do! -
and then, as promptly as you please, forgot
just what it did. Or where. Had done. Went on,
depositing such hoards as it could find
and fit, against the day
that it could find just one.

poetry tips #5

What I do when I write a poem is
find a woman to make love to
and a guy to hit! Then

don't. That's when I sit
me down to write. Those poems,

fired by primal natural urge
of fight and soaring flight
are quite the shit.

The question is
whether such fine outcomes
channeled in a literary way
are worth as much as what
did not go into it.

It's the ruts

I just saw
half a dozen plus squirrels, easily
swarm up the same tree.
They did it easily.
They made it look easy.

Up the trunk in a rush
of beeline or diagonal spiral,
turn and swirl out over and under
around their choice of projecting
limbs,
forking out
to twig and branch,
shaking the canopy
in their dance. Barking
all the way. As squirrels
do bark, in a sort of a "chk"
or "chuck" crossed with
"hmp" or "huh,"
"ihh" or "ooh"
or "uuh," "uuh," "uuh,"

And they do not let up.
There must be a dozen plus
squirrels outside! Racing
and jumping each other in shifting
and tussling gangs, solo
breakaways through the grass
and other pursuits. Watch out!
That guy's on your ass! Chasing
each other, tackling and tumbling
through limbs and leaves, catching
themselves and each other
- the first, with ease.

I suspect Darwin and Freud would agree
on this one. Something's up for sure.

The bushes are shaken by squirrels
inside - who bolt out in chase,
alive with ire and driven
by squirrelish pride.

There is nothing impure
to my eye about any of it.
It's the ruts, I think. One
squirrel jumped the porch screen
and clambered along - you should see
his BALLS. He was showing them off
just as proud of them as if
they were acorns or nuts,

which would never fall.

hard lessons

Some bad ass hard core ass
son of a ass
mother
took me up on my bull shit
and whupped my dumb ass
once.
"Outside"
he said so we went, I
for my part pretty cheerful
And
it took a full twenty minutes
whupping my ass
in increasingly ludicrous
ways while I made ace
quips, before
honor was satisfied.
If it happened today,
which it no doubt should
I would video it
so I could replay,
time to time.
Study the lesson
again. It could stick.
It doesn't quite seem
to stay with me, at least
not to keep in mind.
Some lessons don't seem
to be mine to learn. Ah haha
check this punk ass out!
Here comes another one,
folks. Just watch
how it's done -
this sick burn

secret paths

Her mind is like a toy to her
that runs the world by secret paths.
Or takes a lengthy holiday to play
toy boats enthusiast, full knowing
all the full size boaty people
stifle grins and laughs. She doesn't
mind too terribly. Amusing others
doesn't last.

opinionweight

Every single opinion is worth
1 unit of opinionweight.
If two people hold the same one, it's worth
1 x 1 and so on,
no matter how many accumulate.

Opinion multiplies
in confirmation of just one
times one, times one, times to
infinity - however far
it's spread and gone.

Its weight is just exactly all
the worth of merit it contains
in judgment made, interpretation
drawn, value assessed: upon

The matter to which it pertains.
For only force combines in strength
and by addition, forces ways
to ends that we can only guess.

Opinion refrains. At least
considered reasonably,
which is best.

fault with you.

I really do want to find fault with you.
Not competitive, no. It's just how much
fun you are, disagreeing - which you would
do! If I found half as much fault with you
as I wanted to.

Only five percent at best, of that
would be anything close to true.
So we're talking
two-point-five percent? Not counting
all the fault that I love, so I don't
count as fault. Plus all of the fault
that I miss, too distracted
by loving you
as I do

in such carefree,
regardless amount,
measured out in kiss. I guess
I should probably stop trying
to find fault. However, I do
have my faults, too.

the farms of childhood

When we were kids you could go
to farms
where they would just let you
take bites
out of living animals. Now that
was something
These days, people some people say
animals are unethical,
or immoral to eat.
Now maybe I've got this wrong, but

I don't think that's the world.
Not the one I grew up in, came of age
plying my offers and trades
leveraging my Darwinian charms
for job offers, companionship

- how is any of this possible?
Without the absolutes

of morality? I don't think meat
comes into it at these stakes, but
I could be wrong.

Lying.

Lying comes into it, maybe.
I lied about the farms. I never
got to go

pretty plummy

She's pretty plummy
Mellow-toned, as deep
enjoyment lurks beneath
a tart, taut well-taught
glossy skin. She's taught
herself to settle in.
Seems surface tender soft
but no, one's tooth does
not sink in. No break.
The surface stays
in place. Uncut,
uncloven - not a dent
you make. Her secret core
inside is sound, and flesh
all through suffused
with who knows what
in terms of juice
or bruise
she smiles
through it
all, amused.

the mysterious case of one's virginity

Somebody took my virginity.
Mea culpa, I'd left it lying around
unprotected. Didn't really value it
or treat it right. I abused it
repeatedly in fact, and in

The actual event,
I smuggled it in unawares! Wait.
She was fully conscious. Soberly
interested and into it, she just

didn't know that's what it was. Guilty
as hell for the subterfuge, I made it
my business to make sure she'd never
find out! What did that have to do

with me? I thought at the time.
Just an accident of circumstance,
could happen to anyone. Could have
happened any number of times, if not
for the embarrassing fact. So

she took it and ran
off like a bandit, no idea
of the suspiciously blank
provenance of this particular
piece. She took it as given,
unconcerned in implications
and ramifications,
prior associations
or lack thereof. She just

took it. Woo hoo

Thanks!

time-honored

You've been around so long by now.
The parts and sum have equaled out
to some beloved whole, or less
or more. You stand redeemed,
we guess. Your flaws are just.
A part of you. We know what comes
along with, too. And this effect
somewhere along the way becomes
a comforting, dependable relief
in life, and so you stay.

And so we say: three cheers
for you! Whose worst
we've long since learned
to miss, to duck, to dodge,
avoiding this. And scoop
your well-known goods
in bliss. It isn't

ignorance.
It's innocence
of some strange kind,
aligned and reconciled
to all the good of what
we know, and long-since
find.

We turn towards you the eyes
of partial blind - the wrong
so long-burned in it sticks,
persists in vision,
but dismissed.

You can do no wrong, miss.

burnt overture

Within, I burn
like tomato paste
left too-unstirred
over too much heat.

By the time I add
all the rest, and check
what else it needs -
it's a waste of time,
complete.

Serves two.

One who'll complain of the burnt and salt,
and one who'll assuage and reassure: "No it's
perfect, it's fine"

It's not, you insist.
It's burnt. It's salt.
It withers the tongue
and throat. Let's have
some more.

Who then?

That information's
classified.
If
we told you we'd have to
kill ourselves. Real man
-seeking-woman, long walks
on the beach with dogs shit.
Top secret, since dude's married,
probably. Says he isn't, but
isn't that always the business?
You've learned, way too much
to look into this and if
you're smart, wise or otherwise
into self-preservation, you'll just
walk away and go
come back in again fresh,

blithe and self-assured,
like you were never here

before you sit back down
to finish your beer.
And say "Hi. How are you? My name's
still Stephanie. Who are you
meant to be?"

Who can say?

You know,
you asked me that before

and I suppose you don't recall
the answer, maybe not, response
you got. But I have grown
no more

since then, and have
no more to give. I'll give
the same: and this is true

I cannot tell you what
I meant. Who can say?

Not I.
Not you.

tooth for an eye

A knocked-out tooth, by underfangs
inserted deftly in offending eye
to hang in puncture, leak -
will make us all think twice
next time we speak
to be so literal,
and get our parts
mixed up as well. It's weak.
It's underjustified. I just
knocked out one tooth! You have
most of a mouthful, still! Whereas now I
can see at best one-half
the truth that's left
to me, to see. An eye
for tooth
is one bad trade.
You escalated
unfairly

The wild of the call

Remember, animals and plants
and fungi and germs and shit

are basically bullshit. They do whatever
they need. It isn't a question of ethics,
they fucking do it and boo hoo if you're
the nutrient source! Some mother fucker
comes roaring out of the weeds and cuts you
in half with its thorax, leg-plates chattering
all the time in mindless glee like a fucking
zombie, a killing machine. Answer the call.
Answer the call. It's not about survival
or propagation just need. Or some fucking

hungry root busts your protective covering
and snakes in, looking for a free meal
and next thing you know, you've become
a bunch of berries. It's cycle cycle cycle
- always uphill, and in the end what've you
got? Same ol' grim and dispiriting death match.
No wonder the ancients used to turn to thoughts
of reincarnation. Who'd want to miss the next
round of this? Fucking morons. They all became
mushrooms

Biology's the nasty science man. Nasty business,
and any freak or specimen you see you may
be assured - that fuck knows better than you do
how to make a living. Chilling, chilling shit,
this

Human speech cycles

Human speech does not live
at night normally, but must scuttle
and dissect in a darkened room. Two
sides to every story but this. Fade
out to begin, sleep cleans everything.
In the morning we boom out whatever
we wish

If a man can't take

I figure if a man can't take care
of himself and what's important,
using his own two hands (one's
okay - don't show off) plus
a mind to grind and a heart
as big as most outdoor settings,
he's got no business calling himself
late for dinner or otherwise. That man's
a disgrace to the ace who walks by unconcerned,
figuring "he'll shape up. He has it in him" HE KNOWS
- but what if he won't and doesn't? What if he ISN'T?

What if he doesn't know?

Whose responsibility is this? His? Yes.

Not because he's "a man," though that's
part of it - a small part, to be sure. Look
at his car for pete's sake. Not because of that,
but because he has it in him to shape up. Or if he doesn't

That's a nurture nature problem. And guess whose.

My observations in this matter may smack
far too gently of compassion, but just you wait.
Wait 'til I get riled up

I'm working on it

Not hard.

What a piece of work

Oh what a piecework man this is.
Some quintessence!
A real paragon express!
A little angel-action,
godlike apprehension of things
on the side - the usual.
Out on the promontory, barking mad,
fretting about with golden fire
and a case of the vapors.
In the end, forgoing all things that go heavily
for a customary exercise of hanging about
in pestilent congregations, disporting
one's goodly frame in form
admirably moving, noble in mirth
and infinite in disposition,
or potentially anyway.
It delights not women -
though by your smiling
you seem to say indeed.

boring isn't bad necessarily

What if everyone boring
decided to get together and kill us
for being so charming and exciting, so
winning and interesting and funny? They
wouldn't be so boring then would they

What if everyone boring decided
to open up and drop the guard a bit,
let out what's on the inside in full,
glorious tilt? Boring tilt
maybe

What if everyone boring - hey
I'm boring right? To some, sure
what if I decided! What if

we could get a movement going
you and me, come on
let's do it

don't be a mudstick

velleity

'velleity' is slightest wish;
volition in its lightest form,
degree; a force diaphanous,
which may not act - but does,
we see.
vĕl ee ĭ tee

occult pendula

Within us there are pendulums.
Hung and balanced weight and force,
momentum grabbed and dragged and swung
to and fro and back and forth.
Fro and back and forth on course,
all these weights swung differently.
Direction, pace and rates untied
- such askew machines are we.
But once an age we feel approach
some great conjunction zeroing
as all the factors factor out.
We feel the forces gathering
within us no one's ever seen
and set ourselves for one big swing
- but that's not how it comes about.
For just one moment, eyeblinks long
all the lines lie middling.

For Every Contingency

I think most
of those time travel infant Hitler
assassination plots would fail hard.
The fucking disciplined hand-picked
chrono-assassin would get there

and be like "I CAN'T DO IT"

Mission control: "WHAT'S WRONG?"

Chronoassassin: "I THOUGHT HE'D
HAVE THAT LITTLE MUSTACHE! HE
HASN'T GOT ONE - THIS IS JUST A BABY."

Mission control: "Hold tight, C.A. Check
your left breast pocket, we've planned
for every contingency."

Then he checks the pocket
and there's a little stick-on mustache
in there. Perfect for baby

Happy ending aw