Primary General Rules

If positive thinking could make us successful,
Why must we all be careful what we wish for?
If things are as we see, or we believe they are,
Why must we "trust everybody, but cut the cards?"

If the darkest hour comes just before dawn,
If the presence of doubt signals end to waits long,
Irony must be what drives the world on.

Those who believe in a straightforward world are fools.
Just examine its primary general rules.

Little Belle the Impaler

Little Belle the Impaler, agent of fate
Put a stake through my heart and then left me to wait.
Now the tables have turned, and I'm left to decide...
Turnabout's always been fair, but is it right?

The Second Time, Pt. 2

Life, bringer of tale-worthy travels near and far,
Brings also those who show us who we are;
Inspiration grows in what we say, and how we do.
Without it we aren't one, and with, we're almost two.

If you sympathize in this, you're well aware,
Why I must (1) see you again, or (2) despair:
I want to us both to grow, and to depend,
Which friends can't do with just one meeting, and one end.

The Second Time

I know the catchy song whose lyrics make me cringe.
I've seen the way green leftovers leave hosts upon the fringe
Of desperation. I believe I almost know the reason why
That film, which moved me once, may only make me want to cry.

The bragged-of site's disappointment's awkward hell
Is nothing to me. At least twice, I've seen life tell:
“Too pressed, too dull, too bland, too late,”
The age-old story of the sterile second date.
(Chemistry's no science, nor as organized as art;
New friends may burn our catalyst, and then depart.)

I fear that I embellish when I remember lines;
Those characters I loved bear weak embrace the second time.
The standards of the past bring to defeat
Those things that we liked once, upon repeat.

To My Influences Continued

The writer looks to heaven, and more earthly climes
For gifts in poetry, and other sort of lines,
Which means that he both flatters, and plays thief,
As he lifts and pays his homage in his leaf.

A Nerd's Christmas, and a merry one,
When one receives some sci-fi, or John Donne,
Inspires thanks for influence, inspiration's seed,
and for those friends who introduce and network me.

Microwave My Brain

A phone is a shackle.
A network is a chain.
Together, they just grind my teeth,
and Microwave my brain.

I'm too young to be like this,
Too stubborn to retrain.
I'd like to leave this thing behind,
My sanity to gain.

The Movies Are Wrong

Everything is simple in the movies:
Attraction tethers us to morality,
and for those depressed or lonely
Just get up the nerve or ask at a party.
Everything will improve before long.

Don't waste your time.  The movies are wrong.

Sonnot x+3: Tales of Poet's Drivel

Another girl with pools for eyes;
Another girl with pleasing lines:
The muse is a Sibyl,
Tells of poet's drivel.
(Oh read how he waxes and whines!)

This one is sweet, greets with smiles and laughter;
She's isn't the same as the last I was after.
(That's entirely why
None but my interest died
When fate told me I couldn't have her.)

The quickness with which my attractions mend
Shows they only resemble the real.
The world ain't gonna end
Just 'cause I don't tell
My next beautiful muse how I feel.

The Male Ego

(I should like to have outgrown motives,)

I know you can't know me the way I do,
Nor see yourself as I see you.
Can the tug of unknown become the ignored?
Is there really a need to work out a score?
Let's just see, and touch, and be and do,
Create individual meanings for two,
and avoid that whole soap-opera life that I hate.

(But the ego, it can't always hold the mind's weight.)

The Fun Part

Learning the language of learning
(and refining the language of yearning)
Scrambling over paper, green and white,
Before we figure out which is right
For us, and who we are and will be.
Anyone with a heart can see
That whatever molds us is hard

(of course, but that's the fun part).

Strange Things

I suppose it isn't fair
To call you a "strange thing,"
But nothing's more rare
Than a genuine-smiling,

Generous fool
Who won't rush my writing
and thinks nerdy's cool,
But I waste my time hiding

From my attraction.
I beg you to see
That stranger things have happened,
Just never to me.

My Rose

Looking back, I suppose
You were never my Rose.
You pulled, and I froze.
(In my state, nothing arose.)

You were lost in, I out like, a light,
Drawn by forces we wouldn't fight,
In a time when nothing was right.
I'm not sorry I regret that night.

Recipe for Chemistry?

To make interpersonal chemistry,
You need:

Two or more unoccupied persons
With some similarity about them.

Three Cups of conversation,
and another cup of sauce.
Half a cup of mock impatience,
When the thread of chat gets lost

Three jokes, lightly seasoned
With cussing or a wink.
Half a stick of double meaning.
Don't go light on this, I think.

I shouldn't need to mention,
But preheat with a little tension
Sprinkle candelight to make it gleam,
and a soupcon of not-what-it-seems.

Place in a setting
With no getting
Away, but ideally
You still seem free.

Mix liberally;
Wait and see.

Unclear

It's heart-provoking when you're near,
But though provoked, I grow unclear.

Have I seen in you with true sight
Or what I want to see?
Is what I want now worth a fight,
Or should I let it be?

Is greater youth to greater age
A true impediment?
Or will your smile quell my rage
In loving splenic lent?

But most: shall I be kept behind,
Kept immature by sex,
In the island-hopping of my mind
From one girl to the next?

Procrastinate

There once was a student named Matt
Who cut his school-work-time in half.
He'd procrastinate long,
Then do everything wrong,
and then look at his classmates and laugh.

Am I?

Which man am I?  Generous?
Salacious?  Mendacious?

Should I cleave to my comrades,
Or leave off to chase redheads?

Combinations of thoughts confound.
If revealed, it might astound,
How the kind and the sordid
Chase each other around

My preoccupied, unsettled head.
Took the last train of thought
Just to see where it lead:
From soul into body, to adultery bed.

How can I be friends with you,
But be thinking of the things I'd do...

Internal armistice peace treaties
To ignore my senses' entreaties
Leave unresolved identities.

Memory Season

Snow days bring new life
To flakes falling fast, and my mind
To thoughts of the past,
To what's good to see go, or too good to last.
So if you see me smile,
Or especially if I cloud over a while,
You'll know the reason.
When outside there's snow, it's my memory season.

Trouble

She's good, to me and looks-wise.
Is she as young as she looks,
Or an old soul in disguise,
Or casually plotting my demise?

When she comes near, eyes alight,
I have no choice but to put up a fight,
'cause she's certainly something,
(and I'm not) alright.

She must feel me sweat, quick breath-taking,
Knees and voice both near to quaking.
This whole thing's a heap of trouble,
The worst of my own making.

Know You Better

From you, I learned the real way around this city,
and that a man can be a man and still be pretty,
That there are three ways to live:  by words, by deeds,
and by poetry I assume nobody reads,

The difference in between "evening" and "night",
That difference of brightness makes blindness and light,
That life is half metaphor, the other half game,
That we need to be different to become the same.

From you I could learn everything, big as life and small as letter.
I suppose it's just a shame I couldn't know you better.

Winter Walk

Walking home at night
Through whitening wind and bright
Chains of pinprick lights,
(Parades of colors bright)
Joy-hounded sense of sight,
and Lung-prickling breaths remind
Me of our former life.

I love a winter walk.
There is no need to talk,
But when I do,
I often talk
(and think) of you.

Muse News Part 2

The headlines
Come like deadlines,
Hot and scrambling
(Not like gossip's ambling),
and I'm not used
To so much muse news.

My loins confused
Leave Cupid amused.

Innocent

Might I ask you an innocent question?
Or are you just here to teach me a lesson
About strangers or unwarrented trust,
Reaching too far, and the knife's heartward thrust?

I wonder if you might like an accomplice to your sin,
The kind who's not completely innocent of anything.







(Yes?  No?
Hello?
Guess I'll go.
Call me back though.)

Missed

(It's as though I almost know you.)
I know how I looked to those piercing eyes
That I now see right through.
I was just someone you could use,
Just another poet looking for his volunteer muse,
A wallet to cry on and dismember.
Neither first nor last, I'll remember,
From summer's kiss to my last December,
For your lies that enterprised to make me wise.
(That's why we're not together.)

You're back now to pick at the head you can't shrink,
Or the body you said you adore.
You left off taking too soon, you think:
There might be something more.
It wasn't the things you took from me,
But the manner of their giving.
If you really miss the sex and the things,
You missed the point of living.

Another

She marks my mind as ornament.
This re-awakes my pride,
But her life's living poetry;
Her stories funfair rides.

She flaunts that charm and intellect;
They greet you at the door.
For her, facts are but half-effect.
Be full?  You must explore.

As people meet in joyous times,
My eyes greet mind and form,
But wisdom I find behind grey eyes
Surpasses lines adored.

How does she make me feel,
and can I say I love her?
This young infatuation is
Made shallow by another.

Not Usually Like This

Friends made in a time
Often set aside
For unsettled silence:
I'm not usually like this.

A game of trading our best stories,
"I'll show you mine if you show me yours,"
Though I held a little back, of course.

Two tongues dance without touching.

Sonnot x+2: Fools

Your eyes, they flash; your hair, the same.
Your lips in me do kindle flame.
In every shade and every part,
I find the mark of beauty's art.

Once we converse, the flame must grow,
As I delight in what you know
Of letters, bodies, foreign lands
(But how much do you understand?)

Each word you say to me is nice.
Each sentence sparkles, smooth like ice.
You kindly offer things, as well,
Though why I'd want them, none can tell.

That which I chase can never be,
But men are fools for what they see.

No Return

Why should I start a fight
Or leave my path to write?
Life's too easy (when you're white).

"We" won't begin, so "We" won't end.
I like you just fine for a friend,

But what if there's no "home,"
Noplace normal to return?
Would we soar, or crash and burn?

Admiring Greed

You're the moment of humor that punctuates grief,
A desperate dive for a whole-hearted laugh.
I experience sentience' truest relief,
Cleaving together knowing this, too, shall pass.

I am stranded in the dark night, alone.
You are a careless dance in a snowstorm,
A moment of sanity so far from home.
Life's wild and windy 'til you make it warm.

You gave me a moment, and that's all I need
To fall into th'abyss of admiring greed.

Sonnot x+1: My Needing

It is no one part of you that fuels my need.
You are in no way as simple as you seem.
Holding your wise silence, your eyes gleam.

Up nature's greatest artist's form my eyes leap,
Til they rest upon a knowledge-ornamented peak.
(This I know.  Though silent now, I've heard you speak.)

You glisten above and below,
and I would take time, learn you slow.
There is so much I want to know.

Must I reveal, or should I hide
My thorough fascination? Beside
Such a sexual, intellectual being,
How could anyone blame my needing?

Next

The young know a god of heaven and hell
("Verily, I say unto thee
Do not worry,
For this mortal life is just a drill):
A supervising holy trinity
Of saving and damning and free will.

Everything changes as a teen.
I came to know a fertility queen,
A goddess of the earthly flesh
Whose rites I seek to perfect.
(Perhaps today?
I see she's not all gone away.)

As I further grow
In my taste for contemplation
I begin to know
A spirit of ultimate inspiration,
Nothing so simple as salvation
Or straightforward as sex,
and I begin to ask the question
"Whence come my answers next?"

Words and Meanings

You said five words,
and my deaf ears heard
Something louder,
A second's phrase
Mulled an hour.

It isn't your fault soft's loud,
That your kind is my proud.
Words have more meaning
When we aren't used to hearing.

I Was Right

On bikes, we pass
At the gas
Station.
I think I see my future,
But know I don't.
I'm sure.

By fantasy forsaken,
Seat taken,
Finding my worst poem
True when I awaken.
Can't complain, can't fight.
Why should I?  I was right.

To Be Friends

How dare you use
Eyes against me?
And to what end?
I don't want
To be friends.
I will ruin days
Once I'm away.
I want you gone.

I want to get my double homicide on.

Sonnot x: Sunshine

My love, your sparkling gaze is like the sun,
So how big must I be before I'm seen
(and might I have a better chance at fun
Pursuing one who won't lord over me)?

My lover's shine is something like the sun
(Though she, in point of fact, is rather thin)
In that she brings me heat and light and fun,
and oft a sense of scorching of the skin.

My sweet's mind's eye may, as the sun,
Penetrate the shady alcoves of my soul
So that I may chart myself when she is gone,
and my knowing of myself may be more whole.

For clouds may come, and sunny weather pass.
For, where we live, the sunshine doesn't last.

Words and Embraces

You are the slope
On which I backslide,
Encouraging acts
I would normally hide.

You are the reason,
and You the excuse
(If time is a resource)
For waste and abuse.

You are my devil,
You give me a push
Toward reading, in public,
Such filth and such mush,

and You are my angel,
You cushion my fall,
Your words and embraces
Redeeming it all.

Candy Heart

One look and he's on,
Employing his social art,
Serious as a candy-heart,
Almost sweet until he's gone.

I'd rather know how you're doing,
How you learn, who you are.
I'm not getting very far,
Getting what I get, deserving.

Boy From Van Horn

There once was a boy from Van Horn
Who stayed home from his school to watch porn.
His eyes got real wide.
His heart stopped, and he died,
By parents and webmasters mourned.

To Erato, Destroyer of Thought

I spare but a single look
To read this book.
It don't take long.
You and I are metered wrong.
We each have different times,
and different time.
We meet only at end-lines,
On slant-rhyme.

I can't be with you if you're just looking for the one
(But is that the reason anything is done?)

Why I Write, Part x+25: Wannabe

I want to be
In poetry,
Not so much as
A business,
But to give words
Force with timed finesse

I want to be
A little muse-y,
Both to inspire
and to demand
Creative works
From now-changed hands.

I want to be
An intermediary,
One who knows
The Muse's call,
Who frees the muse
Within us all.

I don't need to be remembered,
Just noticed while I'm there.

Why, Again?

Why do they need a hundred pop songs
To say the same thing, such a bore,
And why do all my poems
Seem to say so little more?

Why is coffee the only thing I can smell?
No, really, what the hell?
Why does the wind blow?
Why does the grass grow?
Why are questions the answers I best know?

Why is she completely open
In such an airy way?
Why does it have to feel so wrong
To have something more to say?

When the question could offend,
Why must I always ask her?
Why does the weekend leave so fast,
But my foot stay in my mouth forever?

Wet Paint

Our young love is like wet paint:
Always tacky, always sticky.
It colors every one or thing around it,
Yet washes off so easily.

To Buy, To Die

A louse, a mouse,
A loon, a goose:
A white man is not hung, and yet
He wears a noose.

To buy, to die,
To bow, to be:
Can anyone be so confined
and Still be free?

Crying Clown (A "poem-in-dialog")

"How could she do that?  I hate her!  I'll get her!
I'll make her rue the day she left, and then forget her."

"Why don't you write that on a page;
Let fire seal that letter.
If she can't see how bad you're hurt,
Wouldn't that be better?"

"Be half a man and take this lying down?
Be king of wimps, with two horns for a crown?
Be nothing but a tear-stained, crying clown?
Forget all that, I'm taking her ass down."

"What gives, man?  Are you playing?"

"Have you listened to a word I'm saying?

I've tried so hard to tell.
Guess I'll have to yell now!
I'm hunting with my hounds of hell,
Out of patience, out for blood now."

"You can't move forward stuck on her.
You can only lose, then.
Your hounds, the beast called anger,
They stay because you feed them."

Cycle of Life

Someone's daughter
Doesn't see
What I see in her.

The key to building confidence
Is to hammer together evidence:
Counter beauty's violent construct
With words which in its walls I struck.

Of mouths and minds, and how they dance,
Of movement's forms that me entrance
Of seas' great depths within her eyes
(and other poets' honest lies),

Or why I love her.
Once she knows,
Then she goes.
I'll find another.

One Story

It's always she, or always I.
There's always a reason why,
Always a story.
They all end gory.

Might end with me in hell,
But I always tell.
(Or if I don't, you ask,
Keep me on task).

Her tastes are too pricy
To be so cheap.
She had the legs
But I don't have the eggs.

Guts fueled with ale,
Then lower I failed.
There was a headache
Or a flirt-fake.

How long does it take
A fiction to bake?

It's always one story
Or another.
(That's the excuse
I gave your mother.)

Numbers

Age is not a number.
It's an excuse, a reason why.
"No wonder he cries,
He's just a baby."
(Well, maybe)

It's a relative weight of worries.
In life, they come in droughts or flurries.
Weight, as well as cares,
We're losing or gaining as long as we're there.

Age is a peculiar procession of people,
The living and the ghosts.
(I'm not sure which haunt us the most)
Out of turn, they would mean nothing.
They are our shackles and our wings.

Age is a toggle-switch
Feeling in your bones
That you'll always or never be alone.
(If the temperature feels wrong
Now that you're in it,
Wait five minutes.)

Age is knowing the way out of hell,
But having no one to tell.

Age is a long awakening
From a restless slumber.
You can't count that in numbers.

The One Who Goes Without

Too soft to rest his hardness,
Embracing like a climbing harness,
Admits no weakness, and all doubt
(But with a laugh and not a pout):
The One Who Goes Without.

The One Who Goes Without
Goes within.
Then late, at home,
All alone,
Relives his sin.

Poignards

Every word cuts and bleeds,
As I flail everyone around me,
'Til wisdom dulls me down to size.
For this, I apologize.

Against high walls' boards,
Monoliths of culture, institution,
Humor's neon notes mark my words;
Cutting knife-words turn to pins.

Go unobserved, and points turn inward.
What doesn't kill me makes me stronger.

Resume (Applicant's Disguise)

I'm not over, but we're done.
I forget when stuff means something.
I'm too old to be so young
At this macrocultural seduction.
For two hundred years,
We've been sleeping with
This mythical capitalist.
Who I am, a resume
Who may exist,
May, if you ask, cease and desist,
Navigating the maze, the lies,
Behind an applicant's disguise;
May go nowhere and be the first.

I have not the endowment
To slake your thirst.

Get

Wherever I go
I don't get anywhere.
The best thing about me,
The worst thing about me:
I'll always take "no" for an answer.

It's There

I'm there when a party won't cover your joy,
When the world is your oyster and fate backs your ploy,
When you lose your girl, and you lose your nerve,
When you ain't got shit, and it's more than you deserve.

I'll always be there, so never fear.



You just gotta love beer.

Thirst for Knowledge

I don't "thirst for knowledge,"
I hunger.

I won't be satisfied by
Thin, dribbling streams
Of economists' fantasies
and theorists' dreams.

I don't want something inoffensive,
Only what the bland can't make sense of.

I don't want something you hold
In a glass and half see through.
I want knowledge thick enough
To sink my teeth into.

Healthy

I see the venerable old masters,
Struggling goldsmiths of words,
I have heard paranoid, unknowable ravings.
Wild eyes, wild words, protect the brain's savings,
and I see the genius,
and I see the illness.

Then I look at myself,
See what's not by anyone else:
The ideas in dimensions divine by absurd,
Conceived in secret grace, so awkward
In words,
See the things I say, think, cannot make right,
Foul words I use, wishes someone might die,
A tongue digging graves that might make mountains fly,
and I see the genius
and I see the illness.

and I see
That I've never been, will never be
Healthy,
Only sick differently.

Opposition

I think
I stand
In opposition
To culture's enforced, infectious submission
To so many destructive acts of creation.

I think I oppose,
But you say I support,
For everyone goes.
It's our final resort.

When You Awaken

Forsaken,
Seat taken,
Finding your bed
Unshared when you awaken.
Alone,
You moan,
Head abuzz, sitting
Beside your silent phone.
Are you a fool,
Or I a fink?
Don't feel or think.
It makes your stomach sink.

You never stand where you think.

Creation's Desperate Act

You are fire.
You dance with
The beauty of death.
I look closer and burn.

I see you with others,
The way you consume.
All this, and good sense,
Could not stop my craving you.

I know scores and odds.  I essay,
Creation's desperate act.
We look back, slink away,
Both our powers intact.

Nostalgia's a fair form of scar.
I'm not afraid of you anymore.

Trite and True

God's gift arrives
Every day at sunrise.
That's so trite,

But some days you
Read something cool,
Play the studious fool,
Spend in good company
Full of good food.

Some days you go with
The old trite-and-true.

The Marriage of Sparrow and Snake

You wish to lift,
Bring me to the sun
So I may reflect.
Like Icarus we die,

Or else we fly.

Dully, heavy, I absorb.
I cannot shine,
I smother,
Over-cover.

All ends in a shiver.

I Am Not

Time measured unyielding,
Yet just one day.

I do not shrink away.

Bright light holds steady:
I and my words at the ready

(Snide or trite or heady.)

My gift of energy to others:
Brain-droppings flying fast,

and I outlast.

Dim consequence cannot be far,
For I am not a star.

Why I Write, Part x+24: I Am

I am half a poem:
Begun slowly,
Inevitable though unsure,
Rhyme unpure.

Unsure to begin,
The rest unknown,
Will I sink or get brighter?
I seem to crave for a writer.

Thin Sound

That song is too much.
Its thin sound stabs in places
The living can't touch.
Rhythm hypnotizes, commands
I cherish the mortal regret
For the one real thing
I should have done,
But it's too late.

Take your hands away.
You'll never understand.

Remember Your Nights

You're a decent guy to hang with,
So I mean no offense
When I say
I can't help but notice
The way
You never remember your nights the next day.

I always see you with your girl,
Sweet Mary Sue Griswold
With the face of an angel,
The figure of a model,
and the liver of a forty-five-year-old,
Drinking all your stomachs (and more than your minds) can hold.

I'm more than aware that it's fun to be bad,
But nevertheless it seems
That you ought to remember the fun that you had
When you get old and boring like me.

Too Much

"I'm so alive.
I'm so enlightened
I can barely survive
A night in my mind,"
Doesn't begin to touch
A way to describe
How much time
I spend thinking too much.

My poetic personality presents that problem,
Though my two-line-a-day habit
Is hardly too hooked to quit,
It's at least a part of who I am.

I was, before I wrote, but somehow less,
and if not more, as much a mess.

I grabbed the wrong plans,
Or Something's Missing,
Or some men just weren't made for kissing
(If you can call Telemachus a man).

Shipwrecked

She comes  to me with problems of the heart,
To reason, not to whine.
I lend an ear and do my part,
Though her heart troubles mine.

It's what I do, and who I am.
Falling in love wasn't part of the plan.
I've got nothing to say and no one to tell.
Wouldn't talk if I was going through hell.

All the world's an Odyssey,
and Men and Women merely shipwrecked.
Come get me off this island
and I'll make it worth your while.

Why I Write, Part x+23: Verse Puppet

I am not my writing.  It's bigger
Or smaller.
I write with my head in atmosphere
Or lower,
Animal desires,
Finding new ways to speak the passwords
To a culture
I've grown to believe such hatred for,
Invoking old masters
Of my infant forms,
Doing honors perverse
To my teachers,
Friends, pretty favorites.

I am The Pretender,
Verse puppet.
Pick a string and pull.

Beside

You beside me
Sweat beside skin
Skin beside ecstasy

Touch beside desperation
Words beside breathlessness
Calm beside inspiration

Nowhere to go beside nothing to do
Time beside time beside time
Beside you

Awkward Situation II

The things I say to you, for you,
Or hear you say, grow,
Live a life of their own.
So I write them to my muse.
Thus grow the vines of conversation.

It's an awkward situation.
The muse
Is so much bigger than you.
It is no thing,
Or many in combination,
Imagination's spoors.
But you, the real friend,
Mean so much more.

Awkward Situation

I saw you again this afternoon,
Said “long time, no talk,” but it wasn't.

Either that's the joke,
Or I missed you that quick,
Or I missed you that quick,
and That's the joke.

I know that we're just friends.
Life's an awkward situation.
Think I'll make myself at home.

Running Leap

You told me to take a running leap
As if you knew I long to:

Long to leap any way, from anything,
Twist anyhow, land anywhere,

Long to feel the thin-line rumble
Of wheels underneath me
As I throw caution (and the brakes)
To the wind in my face,

Long to walk the razor edge
Of Death's scythe,
To see the drop on either side.

I learned long ago
You're never too old to test your balance,
Test your balls,
Until you learn what happens
When you fall.

Introductions

Thank you for introducing
Me to that band.
They cover most of the things
I feel.  They suit my
Emotional range,
Unless they defined it.

Thank you for introducing
Me to that music-man:
Songs that, for a second,
Make me think things can be right,
Even if I'll always be wrong.
Tonight, I'll sing along.

Thank you for introducing
Me to that style.
You said I wouldn't like it,
But it's worth a try.
The music is the best thing
You gave me, those nights.

The memories that aren't my fault,
The music, is the best part.

No Accounting

Open the door,
Search the store,
See sales, price tags,
Ask "what's the catch?"

Except for books.
When I get a good look,
All I ask is
"Have I the cash?"

I'm sure everyone does that
Except when they don't.
There's no accounting, for taste.

I Chose Not to Act

Embarrassing stories of things that I've done?
I'd gladly tell them all.
The list of the worst times I chose not to act?
Line one leaves me appalled.

No Season but Summer

I remember when
Summer took it easy
With baseball on TV
And Everclear on CD.
Sat back, put my feet up,
Gave my legs a shake.
Back then, summer was like
The world took a coffee break.

I remember the summer
When I learned to drive,
The hubris of feeling
That free and alive.

But summer these days
Doesn't make any sense.
How can cash be the object
And time the expense?
Why spend four whole months
In the worship of money
When books and my time
Are more precious to me?

In all of my life, and the
Dumb things I've wished for,
In no season but summer
Do I wish to be younger.

Release

Soft and warm as fleece,
Your smile brought me to my knees,
Brought my passion to demand release.

My desire is now the same, only moved.
Release my heart.  It's time to go.
Don't ask my why, or how I know.

Ardor, Alchemy and Chemistry

My desire is like the sun,
Consuming everything light
In my heart, making it heavy.

Everything looks lighter for it,
My burning from the inside.
Wanting you heats the edges of my world.

My need for you is chemical and alchemical;
I crave the heat, the bond, and
I want to be transformed by your presence.

My ardor for you is arcane.  It portends of pain,
But how could I expect wanting so badly
To please you would be pleasant?

Ancient State of Mind

Cavemen laugh at our schedules.
We work longer hours
To support an economy (a man-press)
That thrives in a sea of distractions.
Those tend to provoke mixed reactions.

The future might hold the same
Old same.  That would be lame.
Still better than a waterfall
Of P.C. apologies
And misused technologies,
Where the hive takes liberties
With us and from us,
'Til we bust.

Escape the present, dull and dreary,
Or dreaded unreliable uncertainties
To the past:  truth behind a curtain of mystery,
To ancient cultures, long forgotten,
Tribes to teach us what we should re-learn.
Let's go back further, to a world full of fossils
(Or for a diversion, to fantasy novels)
Where you need only dig in to make anything possible.

That's why if you're looking, you will find
Me in my ancient frame of mind.

Is It Enough?

You want me to promise the moon and the stars,
But I'm not sure that we've gotten that far.
Is it enough to adore and respect who you are?

You want me to promise things, always and never,
Times I have never been to, and don't know.
Is it enough to promise you tomorrow?

Eyes and Ears

I enjoy the way she looks at me
When we talk of her hopes and fears,
But I know she isn't in love with me,
Only my eyes and ears.

Tomorrow I'll Be Sore

Sitting alone in a room full of strangers,
It's too dark to see and too light to hide.
If I said I want to be here, I lied.

Sitting too high for a toilet, too low for a throne,
I hate it when my feet don't touch the floor.
Tomorrow, I'll be sore.

I take another drink
To ease my mind.
It doesn't.

Times of Weakness

I know in times of weakness
Fair face and figure, plus tantalizing touch,
Present particular perils.

Sometimes foreknowledge is not warning enough!


In mind, I rise to meet your eyes,
And should I find I want your days,
I must picture you and I grown old,

Because perspective changes everything.


I suspect you did not do the same,
And should you choose to hold my gaze,
I'll soon see you as someone to hold -

- And you would dare to poach my soul?

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fond

It's hard to see you when you're gone,
And baby, it's been months.
Was I not good enough for you,
Or just not great enough?

I'm too aware of all my faults,
But it's still hard to see
What I might have been or done
That you'd want rid of me,

Or maybe you meant what you said:
You had to leave, and then
You truly mean to keep our pledge
To reunite again,

But in those months, I met someone,
And we can't help ourselves.
It's true that absence makes the heart
Grow fond of someone else.

Invisible

Do you know the pain of being invisible?
I don't think you do.
My unnoticed movements mean nothing to you.
Your kiss would be sweet;
Your hate would be better than nothing.

Do you know the price of being invisible?
It costs nothing and all.
What wouldn't I pay to be rid of it?
Any thing, any choice, every moment, every breath,
To be seen by you, seen with you.

Do you know the worth of being invisible?
It is freedom.
It as good as brings me life.

Ghosts

I was fourteen.
I wanted what I could not have,
From whom I could not have it.
Never again did I want that badly.

It made me say terrible things.
I'm sick just thinking of it,

But I did not stop wanting.
I'd hardly started.
So many times saying three little words
To get what I wanted.

Those lousy lies to lovely people.
I'm sick just thinking of it.

My wants take the form of serving a self
Who then can't be devoted to somebody else.
I'm just showing off when I offer my coat.
Chivalry's dead, and I don't believe in ghosts.

And it only took me five years to see:
If I can't be devoted, then why should she?
I'll be through thinking of it once I know:

Am I forgetting or never learning?
Is my heart broken, or missing?

Marks of Wisdom

Her eyes sparkle as younger ones,
Surrounded by marks
Of wisdom behind.

I gaze too long, but you
Do not turn away.  You are not
Like the others. You understand.

Teach me to be a proper lover,
Mature and venturesome,
A holy man.

I am your knight;
I am your helper.
I am your sucker.

Nostalgenfreude

They live every day and night
As though it is their last,
Unaware that there's a future or a past.

Unawareness is their shield,
Their coat of arms,
Oblivious to their and others' harm
As they tear tiny pieces from each other,
Searching for what they want.

Ah, to be a teenager again.

Dedicated to a Violinist I've Never Met

Her hands move as if sentient,
Sprightly-fingered things.
Her bow deftly draws music
From two sets of strings.

See her dance, understated,
Lithely keeping the time.
Her notes gust through my vanes,
Driving meter and rhyme.

Her red lips and white grin
Are almost too much;
Offer passionate music
With a jubilant touch.

Oh, to see inspiration
Shaped by her hands, so sure.
This show might look contrived
Without her presence pure.

She's more than a body
To warm some man's bed.
I want to know her
-The Performer- instead.

Draught

She and I go together like drugs and wine:
A draught of destruction that tastes just fine.
Must resist this desire I cannot prevent,
But the loins want what the loins want.

Thawed

You were as spring:
Bringing new foliage.
You thawed me.

But you were not for me.
As spring brought mud and rain,
You grew unappealing.

It was never you.
It was never us.
I was infatuated with hope
For more than infatuation.

As Seen On TV

Contrary
To reports of its beauty,
Infatuation is hell.
It goes like this:  I'm Angel
Or she's the Mother Confessor.
I'm bound to come apart if I chase her.

I know that Mulder did have his Scully,
But I know that life's not As Seen On TV.

Of people who say I need hope to go on,
I've had my fill.
Sometimes hope is the thing
That keeps us standing still.

Defeat

The only things sicker than those I've done
Are those I've planned to do.
I want to purge the disease of me.
I strive to be worthy of you.

I hate the world outside of us.
They'd pull us down if they could.
There's so much to hate, but the worst of all:
They convinced me to doubt in your good.

I want your help getting free of them all,
And you've shown me the best weapon.
I use my horror of the dark world without
To beat back the darkness within.

Two Seconds

A dear old friend in
No small distress
Came up in a flurry and
Sat at my left.

I could see by his face that he
Needed to vent,
With no word of greeting, he began to
Plead his lament.

Knowing well the old tale of the friend
On my left side,
I chanced a glance at the
Girl on my right.

"Don't you hate ignored passions, the
Way they explode?"
I hadn't ever, today, until
Two seconds ago.

Why I Write, Part x+22: Release

My pen, heart, and mind race
Over the page,
Hurry through a flurry of fast-fading ideas.
Completed, hand, heart and mind release,
Conquered by peace.

Confess Me

I'm tired of hiding
Behind lies,
Cowering from someone
I love.
Pull off the mask; take me to task;
Just ask.
I want you
To give me an excuse
To confess the ways I think of you.

Do Something

I started a fight;
Leaped from so far up
It felt like flight.
I chased you.
What else was I to do?

I skied straight down that gully,
Pursued you, a geek's Aphrodite,
Ran so far I'm still dizzy,
But I healed.  It just might be
Time to do something crazy.

The Breakup Song

We were like soup.
Too soon,
Too hot
Became too cold.
There's some left in my beard.
It tastes weird.
This thing that I feared
From the start,
In my heart
I told you so.
I knew all along.
That's what I mean when I sing
Our breakup song.

Spring in Montana

Spring comes like a redhead here.
It's freezing you out
'Til it burns your skin.
Violent swings we blame
For the dissonance within.

Spring comes like a ram,
Horny, hard charging,
Woolly shoulders packed tall.
It's fertile and violent
If it comes at all.

Springtime in Montana
Means snow in your convertible
Or boiling in your coat,
The only perfect time
To be a mad poet.

Your Health

For the good of your health,
Don't drink yourself dumb.
Smart people don't have thoughts
That have to be numbed.

For the good of your health,
Stop looking so close.
It's knowing too much
That will damage us most.

For the good of your health,
Just do as you're taught.
Never open your mind
To unorthodox thought.

Spoiled

My mind fully boiled
Making connections.
That's how my mind spoiled,
Succumbed to infection,

Thought my self out of time.
I act young and feel old.
I'm the mis-metered line, slant-rhymed,
A square peg in a round world.

I despair for the square hole
I might finally fit.
My mind pushes and pulls,
Won't rest 'til I find it.

Benevolent Guardian of Knowledge

No clown,
I've never seen him frown.
He wants to be liked,
But needs to be right,
Insists he's as open as he can be
As long as we look at what he wants us to see.
Benevolent Guardian of What's Right,

You're in for a fight.

Good Qualities

She'd rather talk to a stranger than me?
But I have lots of good qualities!
I may not look good, but I know how to be bad.
I just never went to her with all that I had.

I'm free with my money, a generous dude,
A dynamite poet who can't carry a tune.
I'm about laugh-a-minute and story-a-day.
In class, I always have something to say.
I'm pretty smart even after that shit that I did.
My mind's too unsettled to ever have kids.
I was kind of an athlete, then my knee fell apart.
They'll remember my name if I finish what I start.

Wait, I've got more! No, that's all I've got?
I guess she was right.  That explains a lot.

Fall and Be Shattered

I can almost remember trust,
Faith that people and life are just,
Before hate.  Broken vows
Aren't the only thing shattered now.

I remember faith in myself.  Belief
In future and worth
Broke down in horror,
But now the questions are routine.

So long I hid holes in my minde.
I could fight as long as my body was fine.
Both parts must fall and be shattered.
Flesh, too, fails me when it matters.

I am not what I once was.
I stand before God and men, broken.
I will never be whole again.

Knowing This

Define me, perhaps:
Pedant, poet, people person?
Pimp, philanderer, porn producer?
Longwinded Linguistic Layabout?

What people know about me
Is what I let them know.
What people know about me
Is what I let them think.

Knowing this,
I know nothing.

Something Different

When I was near you, my stomach was swarming.
Being with you caused personal warming.
The next logical step was habit-forming.

Then from smiling lover to laughing fool:
Our warming habit broke and cooled.

I guess I'll have to try to find
Something different next time.
I'll look for a map, or some sort of help.
I do it wrong when I do it myself.

Better Than to Say

The honeyed time I spent with you
Ends as such things always do.

Yet I have begun to discover
That I have begun to recover
Because I knew better
Than to say "forever."

Playin' the Role

Why should acting
Be one of my fears?
I've been acting a part
For the last fifteen years.

What kind of role
Do I play?  You must ask?
This guy that you know
Isn't me.  That's a fact.

That smile, for one thing,
The smile's a mask.
Short of song, nothing's
As dishonest as that.

Then there's the idea
That I'm a smart guy.
I talk lots, and test well,
But the numbers will lie.

And what can I say
About my faith in God?
If I do, and stop saying,
I'm marked as a fraud.

If none of this reached you,
That's too bad.  I quit.
I made this mask because
I prefer wearing it.

Punt

I don't know how to start,
But I know when to quit.
If there's anything I know,
It's a brush-off when I see it.

Tired

We're not going out tonight,
Alright?
You can tell your girls we went for dinner,
Or don't bother.
I can't wait 'til this is over.

I'm tired of pretending you're her.

That's Not How I Remember It

On route to Bio 201
A young man says "That night was fun,
We got to dance and got to drink,
We ought to go again, I think."

The girl replies, no, fairly spits,
"That's not how I remember it.
You got too drunk.  You hogged the keg.
You danced too close and grabbed my leg.

You were so loud, so very rude.
I'd rather not repeat that, 'dude'."
The boy says "Don't be such a prude.
You have a total buzzkill 'tude."

"You weren't just buzzed.  Behave yourself.
And spare some buzz for someone else."
Her words, they cut.  His pride was harmed,
And he spared her his further charm.

Eleven Words

Four words I've heard before, but not like that.
Five words make me feel like I'm worth something.
Six words crown me a miniature king,
But seven make me feel like I can do anything.

Eight words changed my life, for better or worse.
Nine words tell me finally I belong.
Ten words are just enough to lift a curse.
Eleven words make a strange, flattering song.

Words will never hurt me, but sometimes they help.
How sweet to hear the things I can't say to myself.

All Romances

What we had was good, for once, but now it's gone.
You didn't let me say "I told you so," or even say "so long,"
But it's nice to say I learned something through mutual travail:
That all romantic stories should be cautionary tales.

The Ballad of The Writers Three

A poet swore to unmask the world
And a pitiful man was he.
But in his youth, this man of truth
Was one of writers three.

A novelist was one of them,
An earthy-moraled guy.
One found esteem in academe.
The poet, he is I.

Our stories draw a tale of paths
Spread wide about the earth.
Now look upon the space between
And see what you can learn.

That first friend chose to print on pulp,
A pragmatist was he.
He wrote of violence, sex and mirth,
That holy trinity!

The word is work he would not shirk
As long as it would pay.
And at his keys he'd sit and type
All through the live-long day.

So many series he did write,
Of sexy youths and dames.
The stories were old, those tales he told.
He only changed the names.

The names were those of soldiers, cops
And pirates, pilots, ghosts.
In romance, danger,war or crime
All parties might get lost.

His pen he wielded swift and true.
The market was his lord.
His novels sold 'til he grew old:
The value of his words.

That dough he made, it could not pay
A loyal, loving wife.
He went through four and a string of whores
In his long, prolific life.

But wealth and fame and honored name
Have been enough for him.
The doctors' drugs will ease the pain
For one whose time is slim.

The second writer stayed in school
And dammit, he worked hard.
He studied novels, films and plays,
The poets and the Bard.

His studies drove his writing on,
To subtlety complex.
There is no abstract knot of meaning
A suffix can't correct.

And thus he wrote his thesis,
Unblemished and unflawed.
He plead his book, his written case,
Before the ivory god.

To class at University
He took his expertise.
The books of Homer, Shakespeare, Frost
It was his joy to preach.

This doctor was kept writing
So tenure he would gain.
In class or journal articles
Gilt texts he would make plain.

His pay's a modest sum at best
For house and kids and wife,
But somehow on those green-lined streets
He made himself a life.

He's with his family now, you see,
As he looks to the sky.
And in their warm embrace he'll be
As peacefully he dies.

The poet chose his honest art
Of no apparent use,
After a moment of raw experience
And years of drug abuse.

He cast his pure ambitions wide,
Like some poetic net,
Searching for some greater truth,
Or the closest he could get.

He wrote of friends and wild woods
And matters of the heart.
His ego and his motives pure
Were with him from the start.

He always kept his mind alert,
His notebook, just the same.
He felt that if he wrote enough
He could those wilds tame.

His writing, great in quantity,
Was read by very few.
Not many hear have heard of him.
I haven't.  Now, have you?

He should have seen that coming,
But was surprised instead.
His writing grew by length and breadth
As rarely it was read.

Into the metered rhymes he wrote
He poured his heart, his brain.
Until he felt his essence melt.
Onto his page he drained.

Now all that's left of our poet pure
Are notebooks on a shelf.
In pulling the mask off the mortal world,
It seems he removed himself.

A Moment

I didn't know you.
I still don't.
We could be different,
But we won't.

We were leaving
Before we even met.
Let's be alone
Together for a moment.

Of Libraries

Beloved by a suckling poet,
Here I find my mothers,
The generation before me
From whom I gain strength.
Then, on lined fields,
My strength is tested,
Before entering a keyed arena
Where I can display myself,
Compete on screen.

As a suckling poet
I live whole lives here.
I spend days only
Because I cannot spend the night.

Christmas Rush

The hunger, the Christmas rush to I-must-have-it
Is decried as America's fall to the hell of poor habits.
If you're awake, you pay attention, you know this isn't true.
The ads tell us that's just the thing that we're supposed to do.

Fight or Flight

I thrill to life as fight-or-flight
Speeds me up paths of little gain.
As all of life's great pleasures, it
Invests in future pain.

Sleeve

The twelve shots of rum,
The half-bottle of vodka,
The supernova relationships
(and others, dead in a slow, cold drift),
The acid-and-bile-flavor words,
Those two guys I pulled out of their car,
The knuckles with spiderweb scars:
They are the sleeve where
I wear
My hatred for myself
and Everyone else.

Hate

There's a reason I smile
When you get so intense.
Hate is the slant-rhyme
Of compliments.

Coming Back

It's the rage at what
You've done that thrills me.
In self-defense, you'll
Have to kiss or kill me.

We're so wrong already
That we'd never be right.
That friction keeps
Me warm at night.

We can't grow old together.
I'd have a heart attack.
You get me going so fast,
I can't help coming back.

What is Poetry?

What is a poem?
A mosaic in rhyme.
Prose outside the lines.
Music without the noise.
A prison of windows,
Where one is temptingly free
and Beautifully confined,
As long as (s)he's poetically inclined.

Timing

Should I move early or should I wait?
Good timing has never been my fate.
I choose between too soon and too late.

Idiot

If the idiot smile has you wondering, I'll explain it.
I'm an idiot.
The kind who will wait,
Then engage
In shall-I-compare-the-to-a-summer's-day
For four lines, then go away.

Breathe Again

It all started when discussing TV.
I confessed to a fantasy
Of a beautiful, literate blonde who watches Buffy
On DVD.
What could my friend do
But mention you?
"Yeah, but she's completely unattainable."
I will breathe again when I'm able.

Choosing

All the choosing we have done
You did not name as such.
Should we go out and have some fun,
Or stay, and have too much?

Why I Write, Part x+21: A Spark

This royal act called writing
Grants mundane moods or moments meaning.
The pen's power lends a spark
To dull pastels or ashes dark.

Why I Write, Part x+20: I Ride the Rollercoaster

Previously, I perceived my person to prefer life placid, peakless.
Writing requires that I ride the rickety roller-coaster.
Living light, leisurely limericks unerringly leads
To head-splitting hangovers of hatred for he who is human in me.

Clever character conducive to creative cares is a consequence
Of being a baby born a bit brain-brokent, and subsequently staying so.

Wild-Seeking

Contentment, love, perhaps lay down the road.
I guess no one can say.
Since being me is all I know,
I went the other way.

I went into the wild, seeking
Inspiration, affirmation, privacy.
I certainly found something.
What was it?  Can you tell me?

Flukeman

There once was a vicious Flukeman
Who disgusted some X-Files fans.
Mulder made an arrest
At old Skinner's behest,
And they foiled the smoking man's plans.

Skinner

There once was a vicious Flukeman
Who disgusted some X-Files fans.
Mulder made an arrest
At old Skinner's behest,
And they foiled the smoking man's plans.

Scully

Now I'll tell of an agent named Scully
Whose Explorer was left in a gully.
From a creepy-eyed man
With an awl in his hand
She was saved by good Mulder's gun-volley.

Mulder

Let me tell of an agent named Fox,
And his friends, who like deadbolts and locks.
They chased alien life,
Caused the government strife,
Sleuthing chemtrails and digital clocks.

Ted

There once was a killer named Ted.
I hear he was lousy in bed.
In a van full of toys,
He'd stalk little boys.
Now he waits in a coffin instead.

Paul

I once worked with a pervert named Paul.
Of morals, he had none at all.
He hid naked in bushes
To grab eight-year-old tushes,
But now he stalks state prison's halls.

Ben

A famous footballer named Ben
Got in trouble, then did it again.
His quarterback skills
Give some Pittsburghers thrills,
But his conduct I cannot defend.

Jailhouse Lawyers

I once knew a man who paid bills
By the selling of counterfeit pills.
Ever since that drug bust
His headstone gathers dust.
Too bad no jailhouse lawyers do wills.

Burns

There once was a rich man named Burns
Whose partners are ashes in urns.
To buy them all out
They were killed sans a shout.
Now, it isn't for money Burns yearns.

Lawyer For Rent

There once was a lawyer for rent
Who claimed he could disprove intent,
But he lost his first case
On some evidence trace
After that, clients told him "get bent."

Rover

Let me tell of my uncle's girlfriend
and my uncle's uncle's unfortunate end.
She ran his ass over
With a red truck named "Rover."
There are some wounds that time will not mend.

Baby Named Bob

I hear tell of a young man named Bob.
That guy's a notorious slob.
He plays with his food,
Though he's told that it's rude.
No wonder he can't get a job!

Old Man From the Sticks

I know an old man from the sticks.
There isn't a thing he can't fix.
When I had him fix games
He said "that's pretty lame,"
But he calls every week with his picks.

Dirty Limericks

I know a man who gets kicks
Out of salty rhymes and limericks.
Is he strung out on dope?
Is he just out of hope?
Well get that man help, 'cause he's sick.

Jersey Shore

There once was a man from the Shore,
Who loved to carouse with tan whores.
He had some kind of show.
I guess everyone knows,
But myself, I think that stuff's a bore.

Man From New York

There once was a man from New York.
I guess he was sort of a dork.
He built motherboards
Wearing dirty old shorts.
His parents still curse that old stork.

Benny

There once was a man named Benny
Who never spent more than a penny.
He spent those lone cents
On sweets for his pets;
On himself, he never spent any.

Old Man From the Bronx

The was once an old man from the Bronx
Who would drive an old taxi and honk.
As he swerved through the night,
People dove out of sight.
Those pedestrians cowered in fright!

Why I Write, Part x+19: Calliope's Dart

I turn my eyes inward and gaze
At ideas as they crawl on my brain.

Then one's eyes sparkle, catching my heart.
Oh, the sting of Calliope's dart!

To wrap my arms 'round that fair little wight,
I must pick up my pen and write!

Pea

Don't seek, shun knowing, and never try to find
The wildfires seething in the rent, unsleeping mind
Of a pea who might wish to fit back in its pod
But instead dies a zealot in his lone war with God,

And at war with those who'd drive our culture to the shop,
Give a wrench a few half-turns, rotate tires, tune it up.
This other wants the culture on blocks, never to come down.
Keep it out back and watch grass grow up around!

Consider countless people this crusading might offend,
And know why it's the pea who must come to its end.

Sweet & Sane

I turned dark and shrivel-hard
My first time in the fire,
But through your pain
You're sweet and sane.
That's strength that can inspire.

Quarterback

I wasn't born a quarterback,
But I can run this play.
Ignore this urge for long enough,
and It will go away.

Quantifiably Amazing

I've just done some calculating.
You are quantifiably amazing.
I'm always putting things off,
Or I won't let them drop.
My unwillingness to appease
Inspires others' unease.
I talk nonstop, or in silence write rhymes
At the most bizarre, awkward times.
I choose bizarre, awkward themes.
At least, that's how it seems.
I have a selfish, unchristian worldview,
Plus way too many things to do,
Yet you stick by me anyway.

There's nothing else to say.

Every Word

Marbles scattered, been mislead, mind twisted,
Trust beaten and abused.
If I believed every word people say about me,
I'm sure I'd be really confused.

Pacifying Prayer (re-write of Psalm 23)

Spirit of Ultimate Inspiration,
You are generous in all things.
You bring me refreshment and comfort.
You restore calm to my life.
You recreate me repeatedly, relentlessly, rewardingly.
You guide me to be better than I am
In accordance with your plan.
You keep me from the temptations of my own soul,
So I may not destroy myself or others.
Your power and mercy and faithfulness
Fill me with awesome, peaceful relief.
You enrich me with growing wisdom and a family
That safely anchors me in this culture, stormy and unsavory.
Lead me to a greater faith in you, God,
So that I may be part of your family.

Stranger

Toothsome stranger, strolling slowly down the quad.
This smile's not for friendliness, or for your handsome bod.
I'm grinning about games, girls, glory or God's love,
Particular pleasures from below or above,
Something I saw, or heard, or said, or got to do.
You returned my smile, but it was never for you.

Decent

Under my breath
(And under my hand)
I catch my self cursing
A decent man.

Gentlemen

They say that gentlemen prefer blondes.
I suppose that's fair.
I'm more of an asshole, with six things I
Look at before hair.

Why I Write, Part x+18: Break the Rules

The sonnet's line is five beats long, and then
In couplets rhymed, a prison-verse where men
Serve metered time.

Break the rules and the law.
Break their rules and my mind.*
With uncaged verse, raw, perverse,
With references even Google can't find.

Why I Write, Part x+17: Little Monsters

Conceived in soul-dark, all alone,
Then pushed into the light,
These monsters, little verse-bodies
Are mine to bring to life.

Creating is an act of faith.  I
Know not my creations' plight.
Know not which friends will call them pets,
Nor who they'll spring to bite!

Christ and Rasputin

When it came to Jesus' dying,
He was quick to go.
Old Rasputin chose to cling,
But what else did he know?

Old-Fashioned

It falls to me to do the paying.
Since I will also be asking,
Could you give me a sign or something?

Why I Write, Part x+16: Pronounce Me

The doc won't have to take my pulse
To pronounce me dead on arrival,
Just observe my pen stop moving
In its dance archival.

Fools

Lovers, as a species,
Are rendered fools by time.
Once I would have killed for you,
But I can't remember why.

Why I Write, Part x+15: It's Better Than Editing

My words on my page
Fill me with rage!
That's not what I meant.
That's not how it went!
My work must be a pain to edit.
Every thought my pen hits
Turns to shit.
I don't know what to do about it.

Why I Write, Part x+14: To Use My Words Up

How many words do we get in this life?
The gossip I've heard says it's more than enough.
Well, I think gossip's a waste of time,
But I'd still like to use mine up.

Kicks

Rush in like a storm
Before I get warm.
Kick the seat
Out from under me.
React, remaster, rearrange.
I want everything to change.
Surprise me.



Not likely.

I Don't Care

Your smile's your pride, like you, pretty and bright.
Your habit in life and fashion: to keep everything light.
I wear the face that looks at least five minutes late.
I've no regard for matters without a little weight.

You won't hear a single word to cloud over your day.
Misfortune's something you ignore until it goes away.
I respect your right to close your eyes, but that way's not for me.
I keep mine open, straight ahead, and what will be will be.

I told you as soon as I heard.  I knew that move was wrong,
But once you chose your latest path, you had to move along.
Worry didn't keep me up.  I just preferred the night.
I don't care if you were happy, as long as I was right.

Hot and Cold

You don't have to tell me
That I run hot and cold.
Asleep before I met you
I moved too fast to hold.
The one good thing about it:
I change before I get old.

Deal

Let's make a deal
Before now is then.
Tell me how you really felt
and I won't bother you again.

Hide, Pt. 2

Little things said,
I almost go off
Half cocked.

Watch or listen to things
That make others sick,
But I like it.

Gives me ideas that I have to hide.
They can stay or they can go,
But no one can know.

The Goddess Knows

Recluse by reputation,
Always leaves an awkward impression.
Trying to write his way out of a depression,
Though none of his own work could ever impress him.

What has he done to deserve this?
Ask the Goddess.

Tit for Tat

The meals and gifts were why you stayed?
I cannot be upset by that.
I'm quite familiar with the trade
Of tit for tat.

Motivates

It is your kiss that motivates
When to your rooms I climb.
The warm embrace of loving lips
Can haunt in absent times.

Moving Day

The pleasure of profound relief
Enlightens moving day.
I purge my soul and cleanse my life
When I give things away.

Why I Write, Part x+13: Inevitability

You say I'm inconvenient.
I guess that's probably true,
But when the muse drops rhymes on me
What else am I to do?

Recovery

Do I (Don't I) deserve to be
Happy?
Those moments, that happiness,
There's someone I'd like to share them with.

How could I share my good days
But protect her from my cold haze?

I have good days.
Distressed,
But God-blessed,
I don't know what to say.

All Sides

How beautifully ornamented the college life can be!
Bound on all sides by things to read, people to see.
How do I tell between goals and temptations,
Between honey traps and pure motivations?
If I found out, if you told me, I'd know which way to go,
But sometimes, I think, it's even better not to know.

Why I Write, Part x+12: Writing Is My Life

Writing is my life.
So it goes.
Sometimes it stops.
Life is on hold
Until the other muse drops.

Little Jack Horner

What to do when the world
Makes you Little Jack Horner?
When it makes you turn back
and Go sit in the corner?

Should I surrender to life?
Demure, mild and meek?
Just forget the rewards
I intended to seek?

In this way, I win by wanting less,
But never thus win any grand success.

Should I resort to my rage,
My great soul-searing hate?
I can go further, best anything
When aroused in this state.

Or perhaps I'll seek aid from
My faith in a higher power.
But what if this route is His will?
I'll be turned back again in an hour.

Should I fight back by peace or war,
Greater risks and rewards would be in store.

Placeholder

If I get older,
But don't get bolder,
In my own life's story,
I'll be but a placeholder.

Values

Metal disks have no God-ordained value.
On paper alone, one does not survive.
We have appointed an economy to judge us,
To assess the value of our very lives.

Scramble Up my Brains

I always say I want my life
To show me something new,
But all the things I never change,
Say that might not be true.

I try to figure out the truth,
But seldom see I gains.
I think about it, write about it,
and scramble up my brains.

Hindsight

Mom was always telling
Us not to fuss or pout.
If you never give in,
Then you never give out.

Teenage life taught us
Determination needs control,
To stop talking, stop digging,
Once we're in a hole.

Both lessons were half-right,
The other half were wrong.
You never know which way to go,
'Til hindsight comes along.

One Man

What can one man do?
It is true,
That one person alone can do nothing at all.
No dent is made by the head in the wall.
If there's nothing I can do alone,

Should I go home?
Some say yes, and others no.
Ghandi, Oprah, Dr. King and many others,
Change the world by uniting their sisters and brothers.
Rome was not built in one day, by one man,
But someone was first to give the command.

It falls to the quality of the man,
And the nature of his philosophical demands.

Nerve

How strange!  I'm not a stupid man,
But never found it weird
That when I tried to talk to you,
You always disappeared.

It seems the conflict of my brains
Has put me in a bind.
My desire that your love I'd gain
Has left me wholly blind.

I hate myself for wanting you so badly.
It takes a lot of nerve,
To pursue someone who doesn't want me,
Someone I don't deserve.

Best to Listen

Nature speaks to me
Softly
In ringing, resounding rockfalls,
Or burbles, brushy rustles,
She fairly bustles.
She winks with pools that glisten.
I do my best to listen.
I think I know what game she's playing,
But I have no idea what she's saying.
I curse my dull ears, because
Her conversation's scintillating.

Dickens Would Dig It

New places and new people sometimes excite me.
I can ask for new roles to play,
But no matter who I meet or how I ask,
My stories all end the same way.

Why I Write, Part x+11: It Keeps Me Up at Night

Either it keeps me writing,
Or it keeps me up at night:
I could write about the same things
'Til I'm gray, and never get it right.

Not a Faith

There are no atheists in foxholes,
Nor believers among the walking dead.
I want to know the Spirit of God,
Not a faith to get me ahead.

Why I Write, Part x+10: The Struggle

Much credit is to the muse, no doubt:
She puts treasure in, so I must dig it out,
But the struggle that keeps writing fresh, for me,
Is to rise above my inborn learned mediocrity.

Two Paths

Two paths converged on a airplane,
and I, I did not ask the right questions.
It was fate, it was fun, but now it's done.
Here my chance to network ends.

Unripe

Love is not for those who anticipate it.
Words the open notebook never find.
Watched glasses sit empty; Watched pots never boil.
Inspiration is the gift of the unripe mind.

'Tis Better Not to Crash at the End

They say the birds are lucky,
and the lovers too.
They soar while us earthbound and the
Wild skies are blue.

But I am quite at home here
On the cold ground, and
Those others seem ungainly when they
Inevitably land.

No Attempt

If no attempts were ever made
That had a chance to fail,
Then romances would die unripe
and ships would never sail,

But if we attempted everything
That might end in success,
Then gamblers and romantic fools
Would leave the world a mess.

Why I Write, Part x+9: My Whole Mind Is Alive With Verse

My whole mind is alive with verse,
With meter and with rhyme.
The state I enter renders me
Unreachable at times.

The Gift

I'm sorry I laughed when you said
That "You-and-I" should be.
I'm sorry I had any doubt
That you could value me.

A false hope might have ended me,
Though that's a poor excuse.
I imagine there's no greater gift
Than the embrace I get from you.

You temper my most frightful moods
With a gently soothing hand.
You encourage me to be
The man you think I am.

But Dear, I have one thing to ask
and Darling, answer true.
Tell me if there's any way
To share that joy with you.

The Altar

Forever is a length of time
My mind cannot conceive.
Should I commit to something in
Which I may not believe?

Why I Write, Part x+8: Batting Practice

I swing hard every time I write.
Chicks dig the long ball,
But many times I'll swing and miss.
They don't dig that at all.

Sometimes I hit it high and deep.
Sometimes I get off track.
The only path to sure success
Is take a lot of cracks,

And so I will keep writing these.
Verse does not stop for Death.
I only end my poem here
So I can catch my breath.

Apollo

You never know who Apollo will strike.
To him, our race are game.
He'll do his will, and that of the fates,
But you don't have to help him aim.

I Never Know

I never know just what I do
Until my deeds are done.
The horror of having no control
Is matched only by having some.

Home

Home is never dearer
Than in absence,
Except in late return.
Comfort rekindled
Alone can warm
Before the cord-wood burns.

Unrhymed

I push you away,
But not far.
It is only to
Pull you back again.
Intertwined,
If only for the time
Our bodies rhymed.

Family Style

We are spaghetti:
Twisted, sauced, tangly.
Pull us apart and
We snap easily.
We are all spaghetti,
and Tasty.

Stereotypes

I'm often predictable in my habits and my ways,
In dress, music, writing, or the games that I play.
Or, at least, that's always what you you say.
I expect to be treated like a stereotype today.

Who drew these lines along which we lay?
You and I write the parts that we play.
If we live and mock our own tropes, that's okay,
But let's try not to get carried away.

Labors

Everything you eat and drink should be just right, just so,
Not a grain of salt or ice cube out of place -- oh, no,
And everything you wear has to match just right,
No matter that you're just wearing it to bed at night.

Anything wrong with our place, I must mend fast.
Faucets dripping or screws finger-loose leave you aghast.
You need consoling every time you cough or sneeze.
You are the thirteenth labor of Herakles.

The trials' of Zeus' son were rewarded with fame.
The world over we still know his mispronounced name,
But for me, the gods had a greater prize in store:
Your love, and being with you, which is its own reward.

Shame

It's a shame you never knew
How strong you really are.
Always dismissed your own rare
Endurance and steadfast heart.

It's a shame I never knew
You better than I did.
Admiring your courage, never knowing
All the fear you hid.

It's a shame you never thought
You might deserve more.
Ten years gone, and gone with you,
But the wound's still sore.

I'll keep singing this song.
It's always the same.
It's still a shame.

Briskly

Speeding along at high RPMs
In the car and in my mind,
With a gaze that passes briskly
As down the road I glide.
I travel the country with little
Regard for the countryside.

Clean Out Your Ears (A "Poem in Dialog")

"I didn't ask you over to sit on the ground.
Let's turn on the console, kill time, mess around.
And some music!  I like the old stuff the best.
Something classic that passed Chronos' long test."

"Playstation?  That's worse than just lame.
Nobody who's anyone plays video games.
As for music, you should clean out your ears.
That sound has been out for the last fifty years."

"Look, I can turn the music down if you pout,
Or just crank it up 'til you get the hell out.
So what if you think that my hobby's a waste?
It's like your music; in fashion, but a matter of taste."

I don't care a bit if you judge me.
Feel free to criticize the choices I make.
Just pick my real accomplishments,
Or my real, important mistakes.

Hide My Mind

Irritated, offended, disrupted, discomposed,
In any state of consciousness at any selfish time,
With friends, or from loved ones,
I always have to hide my mind.

I cannot be programmed, categorized, or referenced,
For better or for worse.
Resisting predictions, discipline, regular practice
Is my talent and my curse.

I push new friends and old away,
Horrified that they might someday seek and find and see
My hidden cauldron of instinct, shame:
Pathetic, patronized pride or uncharitable insensitivity.

Revealing my selfish unconvention to the world
Would drive everyone I love away.
Change I've tried, and made, in every way but this,
But if I hide him, me can stay.
Thus I exist.

Greener

I've missed home since the moment I left.
My mind's deadened, body's sweaty, heart's bereft.
It isn't as though I had wanted to leave.
I was swayed by my love for the people I'll see.

My idea of a perfect winter vacation
Features less emotional-cognitive heat constipation.
Long to be here, but not in this place, and I realize
The grass is almost never greener on any other side.

Welcome

I will not invite Death to climb
Up into my heart,
But He will be welcome when it's time
For me to depart.

Green and Alive

Trees shade the halls where dragonflies hover.
Lizards in motley scramble for cover.
Feet clad in sandals skim ground clad in clover.
Come join the wood-court before it's paved over.

I don't know how you can stay in there.
Rows of racks, shirts and pants -- who cares?
Come feel the sun and the shade outside,
Where everything is green and alive.

Won't you come join me, and can I ask why?

Normal

I guess this is normal,
But normal ain't right.
I should have seen this coming,
Should have dodged this fight.

I guess this is the end of us,
So boring it's profound.
The things we build, the lies we gild,
Just to bring them down.

Wait for the Answer

Why is the grass green?
Why do the stars gleam?
Where did mommy and daddy get me?
Hurry, tell me the answer!

Why do the girls say "no"?
Why do these classes blow?
Where do I want to go?
Oh, I know all the answers.

What am I here for?
Why was I born a have-more?
Why do the good die young?
I'll wait for the answer.

Exceptional

I was a boy, hypnotized by a girl.
Everyone knows how this ends.
Life took me by the arm, pulled me aside,
Taught me "the Helens of the world aren't your friends."

I suppose that's been the reason why
I've always remembered you.
You took me by the arm, pulled me aside,
Told me "there are always exceptions to rules.

Cheerfully Behind

You're an intoxicant, I'm startled to find.
You drive all pretense of rational thought from my mind.
You drive man from schedule and meter from rhyme.
How to explain your effect on the passage of time?
If I can't both stay with you and fulfill these plans of mine
Then I'll stay with you and fall cheerfully behind.

A Poet Who Refuses

I've come to accept that
I'm not a hip guy
A poet, doesn't drink coffee,
And still writes in rhyme?
A man out of step
With culture and time.
Joy comes from embracing
A definition of "I".

Ash Wednesday

Ash-crossed hand on the wheel, steering.
Brake lights on in front of me, and I'm jeering.
Teeth out, roaring, fists gripped tight,
"Are you actually gonna drive tonight?!"

Why so cross, un-christ-like rage?
What have I got to resent at my age?
And what am I driving away from so fast?
Coult it be hate for the man that I am in my past?

Why I Write, Part x+7: Something Borrowed

Something old,
Something new,
Something borrowed,
Something blue.
I'm wedding old stories
To my young point of view.

The language is old,
But my phrasing is new.
Such themes I must borrow
To write poetry blue!
Imbedding my brain-scat
In something that's true.

A Simple Explanation

For favors, little timely things,
A simple explanation:
I want to recruit
A volunteer muse.
I'm taking applications.

The Shelf

I smile, and you smile back,
As one best greets a friend,
But smiles and a greeting
Is always where it ends.

Each day forces me to put
My truth back on a shelf.
So every day I suffocate
A fiber of myself.

I don't know how long I'll hold out,
Still hands and tongue and eyes.
I'll play my part: familiar, safe,
Keep you from asking "why?"

But soon you will not have to ask
About that weary shelf.
I'm just a man who stores things.
It's who I've made myself.

Missing

Charismatic, well meaning,
But a flake,
Perpetually playing the role
Of someone else's mistake,

Blissfully oblivious,
Nonchalantly unaware,
Of who he's really hurting
While he's there.

"Have you seen this man,"
Asks the poster on the wall.
How can someone be missing
When no one misses him at all?

...Said the Drunk to the Bar Waitress

My Friends and
I make ribald jests,
About and
While looking at your chest.

I guess it's
Not like we, - I -
Have to try.
I'm sure you can see why.

I'm sure if
We knew you,
We'd find
Something better to do.



God, I hope that's true.




I don't know.








Do you?

Between Ann and Athena

Each of us, the strands of the divine,
Glow in our fullest, so thinly alive,
Woven under, over, between and beside
Others like us, so various, and yet intertwined.

I once took great pains in plotting my path,
Building networks, playing angles, or doing the math.
Moving fast, life's maze is so vast, primed for a crash...
"Who is really in charge of this life-loom?" I asked.

To ask is to step back, take a look to each side,
Is to notice that those other threads add color to our lives.
Without so many others, to whom we relate,
Our meanings lack music and substance and shape.

Step back, take a breath, take time
To recover from being lost in the rhyme.
Take as long as it took to see
That we are a beautiful tapestry.

Walk Away

You threaten me with consequence,
If I don't do what you say.
Accept all your terms unquestioned,
Or you'll just walk away.

You want me to be many things I'm not,
You want me to promise forever.
Separately, we may be many things,
But we'll never be together.

I've got just one little question
About this game we play.
What if I want to take you as you are
and watch you walk away?

Why I Write, Part x+6: Half-Truths

I live in a perpetual
Writer's Hell.
I present part of the truth
Very, very well.

The dilemma I
Have started fighting:
Is half the truth,
Stated well, worth writing?

Why I Write, Part x+5: You Listen

Writers are pitiful people,
Indeed.
It seems we always need
Someone who listens.

When writing brings me doubt,
When I can't figure out
What I'm writing about,
You listen.

When I'm done, I'm through,
When there's nothing I can do,
You listen.

When I break through,
The words ring true,
There's nothing more to do,
You listen.

When my voice was choked,
With inspiration,
Perspiration,
Desperation,
You listened.

When my voice is choked,
To my vexation,
With real things, almost as
Repulsive as desperation,
You listen.

When I wasn't quite sure
What to say,
You listened anyway.
I'll figure out how to say
"Thank you,"
Some day.

The Art of Being

You keep the gifts
That I couldn't afford.
It would be shameful
To beg them restored.

You can keep the ones
I could afford, too.
The prose, those poems,
They only make sense to you

You can keep the words
Of advice, comfort, tears,
Of remorse.  Never enough,
But I'm doing my best here.

You can keep the time,
Together, or apart but tethered.
A portion cut from my life,
A prime cut. Few were better.

Why should I concede?
I guess it depends.
Can reluctant generosity
Be a kind of revenge?

Or this be my progress,
Learning the art of being?
Will I learn to stop feeling angry
If I just learn to stop feeling?

Forgiving

I couldn't heal his broken heart.
I couldn't staunch his cries.
So I resorted to a dirty trick
When he threatened suicide.

We don't talk.  I'm not surprised.

There wasn't much that I could do.
I dared her to quit.
The hurt was from my helping,
Things I'd make her admit.

There's no excuse for it.

But worse than all the things I did,
Aren't nearly as appalling
As the months that I did nothing,
While you were falling.

My shame comes calling.

When I think of what I should have done,
I go back to my bookshelf.
Much is written of forgiveness,
But never of one's self.

I know I'm right.  It helps.

Who Can Remember

Who can remember each violent urge,
With intent to destroy, and anger to purge,
A strike from the hot, inky depths of the heart?
It's not who we are, but a significant part.

Who recalls their uncharitable thoughts,
Each unfinished act of hatred, sorted by lot,
Wishing death on our enemies, unsympathy for plants,
Contempt for other peoples' pets, or road-raging rants?

I still remember.
I can still recall.

That hasn't messed me up at all.

I Know Just How You Feel

There's nothing so offensive
As "You wouldn't understand."
Is effort something I won't give?
Am I a stupid man?

"I know just how you feel," I guess,
Might be a little worse.
I'm sure I know my own mind best,
Because I got there first.

Damsel

They say that opposites attract.
That's a fact.
You with your little tyke on his trike,
Chasing bad guys down the pike,
And I, the tramp athlete
Are nothing alike.

I must approach with speed,
and I always take the lead,
I'd like to lend a hand,
and I'll give you all I can,

But my heart's as weak
As my manners rough;
I could still drag you down,
By not changing enough.

You have more needs
Than an extra set of hands.
You say life's a delightful grind,
and I don't understand.

Is it offensive to style you
A damsel in distress?
Just give me a signal,
and I'll give it a rest.

Misery, Memory, Forgetting

All that time we spent wasted
In your unfinished basement
Just to rip my glass heart
From its delicate casement?

So easily led
By the things that you said.
I'm as dumb as you thought.
I'm better off dead.

Better to slumber than fall for the lies
Of a faithless young liar in a geeky disguise.
How could anyone plan
Such a hateful surprise?

-

I can't forget your name
I can't forget your face.
I can't forget the time we spent,
Lounging at your place.

Even worse than that,
I don't want to forget.
I long for that desire,
But it hasn't hit me yet.

I know I haven't seen you since I don't know when.
The drunker I am, the longer it's been.
But if you tell me the lies you told before,
I'd take you back again.

-

They say that time heals all scars,
But I think it's better by far
To put off forgetting, let time teach lessons, and
Better predict who acquaintances are.

Though unheeding of time, I've begun,
To study the cruelties you so needed done.
Lessons learned, I do not miss you,
But we sure did have some fun.