Every Hour

I'm loathe to give a stranger power,
and yet I do so every hour,
To the girl who makes me regret my shirt and weight,
Someone running to class who makes me think I'm late,
The old man who strikes me as an untold story,
Who makes an ageist and a sexist of me,
Two hundred people in three new classes
Who dare me to one-up their asses
and that one person of indeterminate gender
Whose gaze seems to rearrange my innards.

I don't know what to do about (her?).

Transitory

I like my transit especially transitory.
I extend my effective lifespan by my hurry,
So I rush past plenty of human traffic every day,
But this man seemed more human in some way.
He moved slowly, stooped and weak, and humanity's
Purest measure is weakness, but mostly
I'm struck by the sense that I'm less for not knowing his story,
Though this sense, too, is transitory.

Further Confused

I never cease to be further confused

By my recently-quitted and unwitting muse

Who I find of late does not actually hate me

Or is unwaitingly eager to act the contrary,

and I find myself inclined to let it go.

No part of my cares but my ego.

One Night

Beginnings move like nothing else. They creep and come suddenly.

In one night, you run away, lose your temper and your virginity,

and you think this is just being an old youth, headstrong sixteen,

and not a swim into the deep end of the next step, the unseen,

But you walk the town and see new parts of it, human and otherwise,

Spend a night in one long, moving prayer over your sins and others' lies,

and you might stay out and might go back. Some ways, it's all the same.

Spend a night among night-strangers and your taste for night must change.

Denial

Denial is where we turn when a day's busted.

Denial is the falsest of false friends.

Denial cannot ever be trusted.

Denial cooks up pretty, catastrophic ends.

Denial will collapse when overloaded,

Which is always the worst possible time,

Forcing you to confront all you'd have avoided,

Instead of waiting 'til your mind is right.

Blue and Orange

Who knew the moon could be blue and orange at the same time,

and what other improbabilities are standing next in line?

Will the politicians cross the aisle and at least try to agree?

Will the mountains rise the higher or fall off into the sea?

Is the Mayan 2012 here, come for real, to take us all away?

Can I stop finding fault for long enough to have a perfect day?

Variables Times Change

Life equals variables times change.

All I know is I'll never know.

Sometimes God opens a can

and sometimes he opens a window.

Molten Core

I simmer and seethe with a molten core,

Which ripples and roils, just waiting to roar,

With a furious fire that thirsts for fuel,

Too violent and thoughtless to truly be cruel.

Or perhaps the truth is that I am the core,

Painted up fancy to look like I'm more.

Perfect Ending

What a perfect ending.

I'd rather see the world ending.

I would so like to end some things,

and punch God right square in the chin.

There is nothing in me but hate.

There never has been.

But sometimes the hole I kept it in was deeper.

An incomplete list of things I want to see burned:

1. Three or four specific internet servers.

2. This neighborhood.

3. Everything.

I hate them.

I hate you.

I hate me, but I hate me for that.

Cute break pedal. Now die.

To hell with my day.

To hell with this year.

To hell with the world.

Burn it all.

Walk Through

Take a walk through campus, and you might see –

Someone equally geeked for tailgates and Typee.

A non-trad who talks like my dad and spends all her time with freshmen

(Good thing she's a girl. They'd arrest men.),

A girl who's as old as I was out of high school

Who has it together better than I do,

A kid who builds houses and model railroads,

A student health doctor who smokes loads and loads,

A feminist student looking for a husband,

Who's in a hurry, but never wants to be done.

We are all walking contradictions.

It's what makes us vaguely worth spending time with.

I'm Known

At football contests, I'm known to bellow,

Exhort my schoolmates to hurt other fellows,

But I talk like a four-foot-tall, pencil-neck bitch,

A flamer, a four-eyes, a geek-boy, a poet.

So which one of those guys is me? I'd be neither.

I'm who you think I am, but not that, either.

I'm the sum of my fears and the sum of my flaws,

The sum of my actions, a subject of laws.

I'm still me at my worst, I'm still me at my best.

I'd probably tell you, but I'd just have to guess.

Do All That You Wish

You may do all that you wish but to care,

Issue earth's license to rip, rend and tear.

Instead, you must school yourself to be stone,

Indifferent in great gravel pits or alone.

Learn long enough to be home with the scree,

It'll cease to be learned then. It's just who you'll be.

So if you punch me in some spots, the odds are I'll jiggle,

But say you'll desert me? I won't even wiggle.

So get on with your needs and demands and your threats.

Please leave me alone. That's as home as I get.

Does and Doesn't

I don't even remember why I have that song.
I can tell right away, it does and doesn't belong.
It was on the station I liked, a big hit all fall.
How many times did I hear it, and not like it at all?

When I hear it now, I hear the words and tune last.
First, I hear memories, which I still like the best.
I didn't like it then.  Now I do and I don't.
I could stop listening, could delete it, but I won't.

Fever

My past is twisted.  It's burned in with fever.
But on third glance, I'm no fan of my future's looks, either.
My whole life, the present's always where I liked to live,
But stuck there, it's strip-mined.  It's got less to give.
My present's an island, a green, scenic cage
Kept by the past's and the future's blockade.

Why I Write, Part x+142: The Ultimate Muse

An unusual animal or plant that I see,
An eye-catching person in hallways or streets,
Conversations with friends (in unlimited numbers),
and half-sensical thoughts that I have in my slumber --
All these are things that the writer can use,
But in real life, the deadline's the ultimate muse.

MSU vs. Chadron State Limerick #5

Of receivers, the Cats have a batch.

What Denarius throws, they will catch.

The backs seem to find

Big holes made by the line

and Chadron State is no match.

In Ignorance

The world proceeds in ignorance,

Speaks only of her self-importance,

Her selfish ego, careless ways.

Those gossips could go on for days.

They don't see in her what I see,

But to hear her, I'd say “nor does she.”

Then again, perhaps I'm blind,

and everyone but me is right.

Using You

The ingenue, the new-at-this

Found fear where she expected bliss.

The give-and-take, the shared support,

Is different when you take by force.

Then along came the activist, who told the abused

“You ought to leave. She's using you.”

At that request for something else,

She told the story of herself,

At schools, at functions, down the list

Compiled by the activist.

Then along came the poet, who told the confused

“The activist is using you.”

With requests and offers none,

The poet knows not what he's done.

Though just at hand, another's tool,

We're all blind to unbroken rules.

Life teaches, or you teach yourself

That life is use by someone else.

MSU vs. Chadron State Limerick #4

They can beat you by run or by throw.
Their defense is rarin' to go.
They're the Fighting Bobcats,
Set to kick Chadron's ass.
It's only the score we don't know.

The Other Side of Regret

I've made ill-conceived quips and ill-thought-out bets,

Drank myself clear to the other side of regret,

Invented tall stories, which turned into lies.

I once tried a new last name on for size.

I've committed some acts that would leave you appalled,

Done wrong things for right reasons, or nothing at all.

We've all made decisions we've all lived to curse,

But with infinite choices, how many were worse?

The Other Side of Choice

With two choices, the right one is easy to know.

Watch others who make them and how their lives go,

But shade life with more choices, and soon falls the night

Over hindsight and foresight, so you don't know what's right.

When freedom grows branches on life's fractal course

The primary hazard is buyer's remorse.

Back From My Dream

The sight of my eyelids pulls me back from my dream.

I awake to awareness of air pressing on me,

Gasping for breathe, held frozen in place.

I can't feel my legs or my hands or my face.

I hear the roar of orbit, of air rushing past.

All's a blur, 'til the moment fades, and I move again at last.

Go Ahead

Go ahead, make me listen, and talk about your day.

I'm fine with mundane details, when they're told well, anyway.

Make me scour the town to find all sorts of things.

When you're along, you give time jets and wings.

Make me shower more often, shave daily, wash my hands,

Build bookshelves and networks and intricate plans,

But when it comes to my friends, please don't make me choose.

I don't want to compare, 'cause I know that you'll lose.

Branches and Roots

The heart has thousands of branches and roots

Spread high as the forehead and deeper than boots,

Drawing forth sustenance, pushing forth waste,

Growing as needed, as anchored in place.

and as trees play the pendulum, swing in rhythm and creak,

So does the heart keep time, thump and beat

From its place on the left, felt by nerves going right,

Asleep's still awake to the rhythm of life.

The Visceral Joy of the Defensive End

The quarterback is not red in tooth and claw.

He believes he is no subject of Darwin's Law,

A self-chosen ill fate that does not bode well.

He's majesty weakened, a wounded gazelle,

and if his linemen aren't ready, I will send him to hell,

For he himself is unfit to defend

Himself from myself, the defensive end.

My prey must hide behind his brother.

I'll shame the one to crush the other.

A quarterback who's unconcerned

Is one who soon will surely learn –

The warrior exalts in harm

and victory through strength of arms.

Rehearsal and the well-aimed throw

May meet an end in just one blow.

Why I Write, Part x+141: His Words

The poet is only as good as his words,

As moral as the great white shark,

A earthbound as the birds.

The poet lasts only as long as his mind

Has the legs to scan miles,

Nose to metaphors find.

It's the distance between wears the old poet out.

He finds one metaphor,

But can't bring it around.

My Horoscope

I believe what I believe, no more, come dirty looks or pleading.

Why didn't my horoscope say “today's the day you cease their reading?”

My horoscope's only been right one time. “You'll say something you regret.”

That's not psychic. That's humanity. That's playing nice, safe bets.

You have more ideas than evidence, and some you can't defend.

For me all thoughts are conditional. On facts they all depend.

I favor Science and a Deist god, for I've seen them in action.

When no help I see in an idea, I just can't give it traction.

I guess I'm not cut out for faith. Over all, I favor reason.

In eternity, with the poets and creeps, I'll take my medicine.

Why I Write, Part x+140: A Poor Position

The proper poet has no problem putting himself in a poor light, a poor position.

He doesn't contradict the muse and destiny's decision.

He'll listen to the legion lines and let them leave him there.

It's culture's cantankerous, cancerous condition, the tendency to care.

Last Stands

Dogs are for last stands. They stay by your side.

A cat will preserve itself, prefers to run and hide.

They say the coward doesn't die one death.

Well, this cat person has a couple lives left.

The Beginning

It isn't like the beginning.

The beginning is fast.

Never a dull moment, building from scratch

Or remaking, breathing in new life to last,

Creating the great, or the comfortable, good,

Where you can craft moments as only you would.

This creeps up on you, the forgetting the score,

The unlooked-for realization – it's no beginning anymore.

Your vision, the others, they're moving away.

You find you have hardly your old role to play.

It's never the easiest thing to do,

Stepping aside for the next batch of you.

Awkward Situation III, a "Poem-in-Dialog"

“Today she touched me in a way I don't see her touch men,

But does that mean anything? She's gen'rally the handsy kind of friend,

And I've been her friend a while. She stands closer than the past,

But it could be she gets comfortable the longer friendship lasts.

She started seeking me out alone, as alone as the crowded can be.

She talks me up if I give her the chance, but why'd she want someone like me?

I've never once guessed right on this thing, when I've been here before.

Go one way, she's uncomfortable. Go the other, she's ignored.”

“I don't know what to say, man. You make a good case either way, man.

I'm with you, dude. We've all been there before. It's an awkward situation.”

It's All Been Done

I've been to college before, told by seniors it's all been done,
Know the difference between too much fun and just tons.
I know what gives, who will give in, and who just takes.
I know the sneaking in, and just how much noise it makes.
I know the streets here, and I have known their deepest nights,
Following the moon through three-A.M. lefts and rights.
I know this town, all up and down, and I believe
That familiarity breeds never wanting to leave.

Not Just Fashion

I'd know if I was wholly -- not just fashion-blind.
Her shoes, even by sound, are there to make an impression.
She makes a great distraction, and diverts my poet's mind,
But she'd wave red in front of the face of my depression.

Without Watching x

Without free time, my head starts to run laps for miles.
I don't go a month without watching X-Files.
When you're gone, I sleep next to my fears and my doubts.
I'm afraid, though, some comforts I'm better off without.

Why I Write, Part x+139: I'm Undoubtedly

I'm a prolific new poet, obscenely so, though not history's first,

But in the history senslessly of prolific poets, I'm undoubtedly the worst.

I grope about most topics with teenage inexperience, willy-nilly,

Like on eight shots of Hollywood and blender-liquified silly.

To put it characteristically, my best work is like dog-food pie,

But when a more serious, sensible topic I spy,

I turn tedious, didactic, and oversimplify.

Whatever Paths

Our lives are limited to whatever paths are plowed.
We can only be what we're allowed.
Mainstream Christian morality says
That I'm now limited to relationships
With tolerant little atheists,
Because someone already broke that seal
and there's been sipping on that ten-year-
Old, stale can of pop ever since,
But at the same time, I can't be convinced
To abandon belief as I have before.
My friends or I won't let me anymore.

Fall in Bozeman

They descend like a swarm of locusts with pretensions
Of knowledge and qualities too many to mention,
Hungry for learning, releases and tensions,
Expanding their minds' (and their bodies') dimensions.

If I'm something to go on, they're glad to be here.
There's no comfort like sharing your foibles and fears
With people you love and won't know in five years,
Who are friends in proximity, and at distance, peers.

On Our Planet

The greatest force on our planet is polar, but not magnetic.
It's soft and yielding.  In small quantities it seems almost pathetic,
But in great torrents, it carves canyons and cliffs and great natural steeples.
Goldilocks would love it.  Too much or too little is lethal.
It's clear.  It's barely there.  It seems you can hardly see it,
But it seems like it's everywhere and you always seem to need it.

Ill-Suited

The poet is ill-suited to live,
Doomed forever, damns to give.
She tore my aorta on accident
With all the nothing her words to me meant.
C'est la vie, n'est-ce pas,
Red in tooth and claw?
Je ne sais pas.

Advantage

My raptor gaze pierces ironies and picadillos,
Two spots of advantage against head-to-toe
Perfection, mind like a canyon,
Broad at the top and sharp on the way down,
Thoughts spoken by a statue's face,
A ready laugh moves a body to heat up the place.
I play what I have for everything it's worth,
The Little Engine Might-Could Move the Earth,
Or he could make a mistake and lose appeal.
I feel my gut tighten around my last meal.

Personally

When I look in the mirror, the mistakes are all I see.

You just see me human, but I take that personally.

I don't want to be one of those. I've seen what they do.

I see me as the avatar of what everyone's thrown on you.

The stink of a garbage memory's my statute of limitation.

We can be friends again, once I've forgotten what I've done.

Nothing But Trouble

She smiles, laughs...flirting or just being friendly?

Just one way to assume where I like both the endings.

She's giving me signs, I think, but I prefer proof.

I've had nothing but trouble telling signals from the truth,

But at least I make it to that line 'fore I fall.

Some can't tell mixed signals from no signals at all.

Ideas I Left Behind

I covet the ideas I left behind in altered states
When I was half asleep, over the limit, or baked.
As a writer, those ideas are something of a grail.
The their memory's shadow is tantalizing.  Reach for them and I fail.
However, I'd forget them in seconds.  There's something I miss more --
The people I like better in hindsight.  I was stupider before.

Exit Stage Right

The heat and the tedium exit stage right,

Giving way to my studies (and football by night).

Summer's just out of date.

Summer just got replaced.

That's the cause of the smile that's creasing my face.

You may feel nostalgic. I don't totally blame ya.

I've the tiniest soft spot for my four months of mania.

Strange

Wolves live in families and run miles of range,

So no one's surprised or considers it strange

That when dogs are in great numbers and small spaces caged

They react strongly, with violence and desperate rage.

Ancient humanity lived as wolves, in their day,

So why are we shocked when we react the same way?

Arranged

Theirs is a high-rising life, arranged in columns or rows.

They don't have to be told to live thus. They just know

That the work is their life, the rewards not theirs to hold.

The know not to think about it, but they'll do it 'til too old,

'Til the time comes that they need shoving aside, and replaced.

There's no membership here. They're just bodies, fill space.

They don't ask what they work for or consider it, unseen.

This is right. It's assumed. To question is obscene.

They produce, but don't keep, distributed sustenance to score.

They just get their signal, get up, work some more.

When they're waking, they're working. They don't get much sleep,

and neither do we.

Influence

Teenage hormonal influence is almost like duress.

I felt forced to say so many things, to shock or to impress.

As teens melt into adulthood, I learn what to say and how to say it.

To hurt, for chaos, or as a joke, I learned to play it.

With the chemical influence from social split, I was not immune.

This time I payed, and you played. We led each other to doom.

You don't know how I've questioned. I don't know if you cried.

I remember what I wanted, but worse, remember why.

I apologize. I regret my behavior, but the real sins

Were not so much in the acts, but in the reasons.

MSU vs. Chadron State Limerick #3

This Thursday, old Montana State
Plays its first ever game that starts late,
Where they'll whale on a patsy
From Chadron, Nebrasky.
I smell championships in their fate!

Gifted

Perhaps I'm not gifted. What if I'm cursed?

What if I've got my life's plotline reversed?

What if the nominal villains I see

Are really the ones who are right about me?

What if my detractors are here to advise

Against falling for my calling, a temptation in disguise?

What if my pursuits, desires, personality

Are neither old nor inborn, but some ill-conceived idea?

Designed

Freud may have slipped, but the world he roamed was solid.

Sex without sexual humor is squalid.

Puns, acronyms and contradictions don't by accident exist.

Our world is purposely designed to thus amuse us while we twist.

Why I Write, Part x+138: Playing the Victim

No doubt you'll complain that I'm playing the victim,

But you exhaust my mind's whole exhaust system.

I parked your complaints – a whole train – from here as far

As the edge of my up-to-the-floodgates anger reservoir,

and you pump so much hot air in my general direction

That it won't all go out the vents, so I made a correction.

I send it through the same pumps as the mire

That your misplaced morality and cliches misinspire.

The whole mess overflows when you say not to write.

It's the one thing I do that can help clear the lines.

Why I Write, Part x+137: To Remove Myself

My shyness must be on the outside, so people can see,

'Cause contrarians come up and start things with me,

But when it only concerns me, I don't bother to fight.

I prefer to remove myself, calm down, and write.

Why I Write, Part x+136: I Ask

I assigned myself over three hundred poems to do.

I raised my goal twice, wrote a novel draft too.

I imposed on myself, and whatever I asked

I found me and my Muse could both rise to the task.

I must have asked God for a bottomless mind,

and it's equal in thirsting for punning and rhyme

So many times that (s)he finally sighed

and said “alright.”

Why I Write, Part x+135: Near-Rhymes

I've found myself dumbfounded, dozens of times

By this English tongue's mind-numbing number of near-rhymes.

I don't ascribe them some deeper “true meaning,”

But you better believe that I find them convenient.

Mellower Drummer

I dance to the beat of some mellower drummer.

Weekends in fall aren't as urgent as summer's.

If I find insufficient smiles, fail my quota of fun,

I get a whole new week of classes when I can get that done.

My New Freedom

My new freedom's adult, like me.

My new freedom was offered cost-free,

As long as I use it conservatively.

If not, it starts making demands on me.

From my immature's-eye view of maturity,

My new freedom seems tyranny.

The Moon In Orange

I look up at most the moon in orange, and I remember

My life's movement in cycles that point to September.

I remember the cycles I rested and healed

From the three spins I spent with you, off of my wheel,

and I wish you were here now to see the moon rise,

It's blonde glow just hiding in ginger disguise.

It seems strange that I'd mean that, and strange that I'd write.

Your memory's inseparable from thoughts of the night.

The Freshman's Prayer

Release me, show me the world or its corner

Where the grasses are greener, acquaintances warmer,

and one finds the connections and action one seeks

and the school only lasts fifteen hours a week.

Help me connect, both for fun and career,

Connect in ways different than my first eighteen years,

Connect for the night, or 'til after I'm done

With the next eight semesters, four trips 'round the sun.

Keep me caught up with my classes, my buddies

and my hobby field, Applied Ethanol Studies.

Above all, forgive me the things that I do

Under glow of my new freedom's first harvest moon.

Why I Write, Part x+134: That Ceremonial Fork

Every year, or so the odds seem,
They'll stick that ceremonial fork in my teams,
and all of my fertile semesters,
'Til everything active in my life just pesters,
But they can't get that fork through my leaves
Or the pen up my sleeves.
It gives me reason to believe.
It gives me reason to remain,
Keep my head in the game,
Keep my head up, look for the long gains,
Be obscenely productive and productively obscene,
Play selectively nice and collectively mean,
Keep my cap polished 'til it gleams.

God Gave Me

God gave me my hopes and (s)he gives me my fears

The both of which kept me alive all these years.

God gave me beliefs, and (s)he gave me my doubts,

and when I combine those, I figure things out.

God wants me to live well. (S)he gave me second chances.

and God believes in fun! (S)he invented flirting glances,

and perhaps God crowdsources. (S)he gave me my friends,

But those, I don't think, are a means to an end.

The Yard

When I'm pushing through life and the mowing gets hard

I find that I crave other parts of the yard,

'Til I finally reach those greener, academic pastures

and I soon find myself and my life moving faster

Over bare spots of detail, uncertainty, fear,

But there's no doubt the grass is greener there than here.

You'll Just Have to Wait

The fact is, I don't even like you.

Give me a month.  I'm sure I could learn to.

You'll just have to wait 'til I give you the chance.

Wait one more song and I'll ask you to dance

To something appropriate, something upbeat,

'Til you know the story behind my tattoo you've never even seen.

Tell Her

This sort of thing just takes care of itself.

Absence always makes the heart grow fond of someone else.

If it doesn't, you have to tell her who I really am.

Tell her my smile, my humor, my persona's a scam

Cov'ring bipolarity, political incorrectness and obsession,

Possible Asperger's or demonic possession.

Say I'm old for my age, that I'm crumbling fast,

A well-practiced sinner with regrettable pasts.

Or if she likes bad boys, you bring up my grades,

The parts of my past fit for my resume.

Tell her whatever you think she'll need to know

So she doesn't miss me when I have to go.

I'm In a Hurry

You ask why I'm in a hurry,
and I'm sure you don't know it,
But that's a very personal question.
It is fraught with personality
And personal philosophy.
I love to stop and relax,
But the first without the second
Is as sex without nakedness --
Distracted and frustrating,
Certainly not satisfying.
I do not move unless I am going
Somewhere, or away from somewhere,
Which is somewhere in itself.
Tonight, I am going away from
Someone, and somewhere she is.
She's one of those people
Who interpret very narrowly
The phrase "pursuit of happiness"
As the pursuit of wealth.
I cannot stand that in the least.

MSU vs. Chadron State Limerick #2

There once was a Big Human coach
Who a win from a big school could poach.
Against Chadron, he spaced.
Now by Ash he's replaced
And the little schools don't dare approach.

MSU vs. Chadron State Limerick #1

There once was a team from Chadron
With a little white back who could run.
Left defenses fatigued,
Then he left for the League.
Stick a fork in his team, 'cause they're done.

Exalted

Beer, exalted beer,
Most high denizen of my
Refrigerator.

The Five-Man Band

Nothing great is a one-man island.

You do need your tall bastion, your beacon,

Your courageous, contagious leading man,

But that one needs a second-in-command,

A reasoned, worldly foil to royalty,

An un-parch-able pool of wisdom and loyalty,

and an accomplished accomplisher of accomplishment,

A bringer of duct tape and bootstraps sent

To teach the Tao of getting things done,

A path-blazing, well-practiced, practical one,

Whose doings are informed by one wiser than these

Who presents and illuminates great mysteries,

Who has seen everything, and done more two,

Whose carries the stories, and more than a few.

The truth of their stories is illuminated by the last,

The perilously, prodigiously prodigal poet,

The talk-before-thinker, the two-fisted drinker

Now balanced, one water bottle in each hand,

The heavy-past-ed lessons-of-experience man,

The big guy who rounds out the five-man band.

The Asshole's Prayer

Hit it and quit it.
Pump her and dump her.
Bed her and forget her.
Bone her, don't phone her.
Fuck her, then chuck her.
Do her and eschew her.
Screw her and adieu her.
The FFF, the ol' slam-n-scram,
Wham, bam, thank you m'am.
Now please don't leave me in a jam.

Why I Write, Part x+133: Bread and Milk

Self-deprecating humor's my bread and my milk.
It supports me like a barstool and covers me like silk,
But most times that I hate myself, I smile over frowns.
I love myself quite vig'rously if there's no one else around.

Cray

It's one thing to be human, the same thing to be flawed

and another to have so many that there ought to be a law.

I tend to ignore about ninety-nine percent of our culture

and be completely obsessed with most of the rest.

I tend to walk around with a thousand-yard stare.

One flight of stairs leaves me panting for air.

I need time alone, in extended periods.

My particular brand of social ineptitude is not overly endearing,

A fact which I point out at any given opportunity.

If I have a joke, I make it,

An escape route, then I take it,

Yet I have friends anyway.

People cray.

If You Think

We don't. We take “regular things” for granted,

But how much of life is weird when you think about it?

Stuff cannot occupy the same space, can be hard, is nearly empty.

We drink the same water as dinosaurs did (though they had plenty).

The most highly, precariously evolved animals on earth

Live in great hives like the meanest, thoughtless insects.

And time? It's a puzzle inside a paradox inside a huge freakin' mess.

It moves like the Flash and Mercury had a kid on an acid trip.

We eagerly take money, made out of trees, for it,

The ultimate in natural, unrenewable resources,

Despite knowing, sure as oil, that we'll never get it back.

We are not currently researching a man-made substitute.

And how about the human personality?

They're like us – seven billion and all weird.

Ninety-nine percent of the time, you can predict future acts

Based on careful observation of a person's past,

Except when you can't.

What's up with that?

The Pessimist's Prayer

I will not plan ahead what makes my day.

I will not look forward too anxiously.

I will temper my expectations.

I will not be impatient.

Anticipation is the father of disappointment.

I Can Prove

I can prove without a doubt that I'm a crazy person.

Strange beliefs are common, but to think I'm the only one

Privy to a diseased culture or a cultural disease

That leaves me craving distraction and weak in the knees

Is a flight from the reasonable to “demonstrably false.”

I fail all the same ways as anyone else

Despite a lone wakefulness to a real revelation?

How could real knowledge pave descent, not salvation?

It couldn't.

An Inviolate Line

For something that draws an inviolate line

Nothing finds gaps in our vision like time.

Nor can anything be so straight, yet so twisted

As the thread that joins moments we can't quite prove existed,

Sews a past and a future that are never here together.

History repeats itself, but the present is forever.

Answers and Lies

Those who ask questions gain answers and lies

The latter of which are just answers in disguise,

For any good lie has its roots in the truth.

Just slide down the trunk and set foot in your proof.

Disregard, Contradict or Ignore

They say not to wear white after labor day,

That time for money's a desirable trade.

Never to hit a man with a closed fist,

and to get what you want, you should start with a list.

Some of what they say makes sense, sometimes,

and some of it is out of season, or just asinine.

Sometimes in life, the most reasonable way

Is to disregard, contradict, or ignore what 'they' say.

Been Looking

I'm not the kind who's always doing things,
But occasionally I get the hankering.
I've been around, been looking,
and they have lots of things for teenagers
(I stay away from there),
and college kids who live on campus
(I'm from the wrong neighborhood
and have the hairline of their grampas),
and adults
Whom I am the least like of all,
But nothing for poets who don't fit in.

We are built and destined for solitude,
Not necessarily in that order.

Unknown Subject

Unknown subject is a white male
Age twenty-five to a hundred an six,
Known to laugh aloud in public,
Craving water and a salt-lick,
A documented Sherlock Holmes fanatic,
Somewhat likely to keep his schedule static,
Keeping a hundred rhymes in his head-attic
With three new metaphors, just out of reach,
Known to have strange views and occasionally preach,
Believes Coors light is swill, but will defend your right to drink it,
Hates this poem, but will defend your right to link it.

Why I Write, Part x+132: My Friends

It's words exchanged or a change in state

That helps my meters and rhymes to relate.

In presence or absence, beginnings or ends

The thing that inspires me most is my friends.

The Divide

The divide between what I see and have been taught

Perhaps explains a divide in my thought

and between what I want, what I think and what I ought.

It's cognitive dissonance, irony

In my personality,

Some things that could use ironed out.

I have motives and doubts.

Why I Write, Part x+131: Habit

I don't think you mean sight when you ask what I see.

I've a habit, carrying four different worlds with me,

and when I need to know which is the realest, there's one thing I can do –

The real one is the one I can make my friends see too.

What's Hard?

You wanna know what's hard? I've got a few things in mind.

The first time you forget what you want and settle for what you can find,

Knowing the only move forward in life means leaving an old friend behind,

Finally admitting you made a mistake and asking for a second chance,

Being the first or the last on the floor, or trying a new way to dance.

Standing up and standing strong, telling your mother “no,”

Sometimes just trying is almost enough. It's also hard to know.

There are three ways: the easy, the right, and the way you want to go.

Near-Forgotten

My childhood, near-forgotten, is not quite gone yet.

It's in the t-shirt I bugged my mom three months to get,

An old backpack covered with keychains and stickers,

My rusting-round-the-edges Tonka truck and cherry-picker,

The chewed-up old baseball I found in a pine tree while mowing,

Ticket stubs for fifty places that I don't remember going.

The toy locomotives from my Christmas past still run.

I can start remembering that childhood was not entirely no fun.

Scout's Law

She has her own Scout's Law.
She says I should be
Pliable
Modern
Sociable
Outgoing
Agreeable
Unopinionated
Eager
Enthusiastic
Hardworking
Cautious
Cleanshaven and
Lucrative.
I have my own motto:
"How can I be something I'm not?"
and my own oath:
I will not destroy what is me
To show people what they want to see.

A Selfish Artist

The gen'rous artists want to share.
A selfish artist doesn't care.
When others give him goals auspicious
He duly treats them as suspicious.
For those other artists, his admiration
Is expressed in partial imitation,
Replacing forbears' worldwide vision
With his private, antisocial mission.

Other artists selfish think of gain.
He treats those with the just disdain.

I Missed

I missed game three for our first date.

East coast games are early; we were late.

I remember how you always used to laugh

That my hair was longer by an inch and a half,

When I was an inch and a half taller than you.

I remember looking for something to do

and finding the most ridiculous things –

Taking a Rorschach test on a butterfly's wings

Or a drive to a newly-built school in town

Where your family's first house was, 'til they tore it down.

I remember the first song we heard on the radio,

But don't ask me what your birthday was. Now, I don't know.

Which Me?

Which me am I?
Am I the opaque, exhibitionist poet guy?
Am I the one who disapproves of our culture and commerce
Or the hypocrite who participates in both anyway?
Am I my same lifetime average, or new every day?
Am I my past actions, or am I my predestined future,
Or am I the limit as x approaches the present?
Am I the syndrome or the symptom, the allergy or the sneeze?
Am I the guy who has found ultimate comfort
In that radioactive-Tampa-Bay-Buccaneers Orange
Ever since the first time he made macaroni and cheese?

I Am Not

I am not the man she wants me to be.
I have not the same ambitions as she,
Nor do I pursue her desires actively.
I lack her reverent respect for money
and plans to stop writing voluntarily.
 ...
Or so I say until offered twenty-five an hour.
Then my attitude will change.  I gave money that power.
I am not the man I want to be, either.

Up and Down

Am I up and down clinically
Or unconditionally?
I never got that answer.

I lack a readable altimeter.
I curse my life, and smile after.
Truly happy, I frown 'til I've spoken.

One Week

One week?  That's all I get here?
There's so much to do and see,
Not to mention just relax.
(This is the place for it, in fact.)

One week?  That's your final say?
Couldn't we make it a work-week, five days?
This morning feels like one,
Though I've just begun.



You can always count on a week
To be as long as you don't want it to be.

So Close

You ever want a thing
and it was so close you could taste it?
You could make a mad dash for it,
But the effort would be wasted.
You move, anticipating,
When a smarter man would wait.
See, it's visible from here,
But there's a mountain in the way.

Half-Drowning

I awake every day half-drowning in thoughts in all the world unknown

And hoping to God that my boss isn't trying to call me on the phone.

My thoughts aren't tight. I read and I write in hopes that I cement them.

They make me uneasy. I do the same things in hopes that I forget them.

The one greater theme that unites all my days (in the kindest way to frame it):

I'm the one true believer in an idea so novel I lack the words to name it.

Anger From Hate

How does one tell anger from hate?
I guess step one is just to wait.
Hate is strong.  It moves, persists.
It gets us planning, making lists.
While anger is a moment's thing,
A yin to yang of lovers' flings.
While focus narrows on the hated,
Anger may be elsewhere sated,
As I sometimes prefer to do,
Pass mis'ry 'round, not back to you.

The Box Man

I'm not the boss man, I'm the box man,
Not paid to think, nice not to plan.
Five-foot-eight is Delta height.
It's destiny.  It must be right.
I wear a brain as a disguise.
and blondes are plotting my demise.

Single and Loving It

I hear a lot of people say they're single and loving it.

I've seen people who are single and look like they're not looking,

More who are trying to look like they're not looking.

I've seen single and bitter – just recovering, not quitters,

I've seen single and helpless and single and hopeless,

and all sorts of ways to satisfy biological or psychological needs,

But single and truly satisfied that way is a rare sort of thing indeed.

In Material Terms

I'm my minute's sucker in material terms.

Time off and comfort's what I work to earn.

I don't get so bent about markups and fees,

But I'll cuss up a storm for what matters to me.

I'll skimp on my meals, sleep five hours a day

To make up for tasks, people that get in my way.

I'll pay for convenience. I don't mind the cost,

But time's what life's made of. I won't take that loss.

Into the Water

I flopped into the water – an inauspicious start.

My knees bump the rocks on the shallower parts.

I don't ever wear sunscreen (I don't ever learn)

So I'm guessing today is a guaranteed burn,

But as long as the air in my inner tube keeps

It's also my guaranteed highlight this week.

The Teenager's Prayer

Dear Lord, please make life easier,

and people and teachers nicer,

and me taller and cooler and less spotty

and please please please dear God

Help me not to freak out in front of everyone

At my embarrassing parents

For embarrassing me in front of everyone

K thanx bye amen.

You Do Everything

Hard is they way you do everything

Except where soft counts, like your touch and your skin.

You drink more than most of the freshmen I know,

On top of all those strange places you go,

and the old saying fails me when they say love is blind,

'Cause your brain observes and thinks circles 'round mine.

I'd Probably Rather

I love my hometown. Still, I do think sometimes,

“I'd probably rather be in Hawai'i,”

Though blister scars from my last time still haven't healed.

I really think I could thrive in that field.

Bus Schedule

My existence is an electron bus schedule
That finds an arcane water cycle helpful
In maintaining the proper volume and speed.
There are obvious, significant energy needs.

Times of Reference

We are told to appreciate each moment,
But that does sound rather difficult, don't it?
Personality is a matrix of preference.
It's only natural to look forward to times of reference,
But strangely, those moments to which we look ahead
When approaching begin to cause worry instead.

Zombies

Shambling back and forth
Each day like the last
Mindless, unquestioning,
Not knowing to ask,
In perpetual pursuit
Of a singular sustenance
With a slow-burning hunger
That craves instant gratification.
They can never be satisfied --
We can never be satisfied.

Bury-The-Lead-ing

How was my week?  Without bury-the-lead-ing
The chain of events left me three fingers bleeding.
I was sanding on concrete.  Scrubbed some tiny vents next.
I'd say the whole thing was a tad Kafkaesque,
and while some say his views on our lives are absurd,
He must not be all wrong.  He's got his own word.

Like the Bored

There's a hundred fun ways to rot out the brain.

There are kind herbs to smoke and bottles to drain,

Or perhaps television for those more sedate.

It gets in your thoughts and it addles your pate,

and there's two sorts of teens who might fall into crime:

Those in straits dire, and those passing time.

Some gorge and some snowmobile. Some visit whores.

There's no group of people destroy like the bored.

The Best Pieces

When building sky-scraping towers to stand any weather,

The engineers put the best pieces together.

The builders themselves are derivative mimes,

Retracing routines they've done dozens of times.

There once was a time great men needed strong hands.

Our society favors the crown of the man.