The Gleefully Questionable

I'm unwilling to resist temptation, though able.
My judgement's best described as "gleefully questionable."
I suffer from a regrettable case of fouritis
(I'd lie if I said that I actually liked it.)
I have a blonde, a poet, a scientist, and a combination of the three.
It's got me poor and prolific, writing loads of hooey.
The life of a poet is rich, and harmful to me.

Things That I Like

An incomplete list of things that I like:

1.  Poetry
2.  Science
3.  The small of your back.

Poetry is a finite body of duplicate certainties.
Science is an unfathomable question about a question,
and you...you are the perfect combination.
I can prove you exist, but you only notice me in theory.

One More Time

The world might place the gamut of mountains next to me,
and once I have admired them, people ask if I can see
A way up, to stop a train, or to start the next big thing.
I'm in a spot, looking for point B, trying to fly with broken wings,
But I stop or I start.  I land or make that climb,
Though I'm not sure if asked again that I could do it one more time.

I've planned; I've paced; I've practiced, sweating sanity and pain.
I'm positive I want this new echelon of summit gained.
and all that stands in front of me is one more uncrossed line.
I've split my share of ceilings, and I'll do it one more time.

I've ducked death-driven destruction and I've beaten back bedlam.
Life's reserving me new challenges.  They're bigger than I am.
My fatigue proves my endurance.  Wracking pain proves I am strong.
I could quit while I'm ahead, and stay behind as you go on,
But for the glory, for the stories, or for my friends behind,
I'll face forests, depths and dragons, for death or vict'ry, one more time.

Crawl

My pursuit of pairing crawls along
Slowly looking for someplace to belong
Or at least to comfortably rest
(I find such barely-binding terms bode best),
But rest, unlike crawling, cannot last for long.
The only permanent presence is change.
At first, I crawl into a cocoon,
A mind-washing self-wrap of belief that you
Are nobody and nowhere or at least out of the room.
Then I emerge, unburdened by your weight, to test my wings.
Life's colors play upon me different when I'm free again.

I Pressed the Repeat Button

I pressed the repeat button
Because "that's who I am,"
But if we are what we do,
Then I am my own stranger.
I cannot remember
Half the things I did,
All the paths I ignored
and the words.

I'm Listening to Metallica

If people are their past acts,
Made up of a million little facts,
Then it matters that I'm listening to Metallica,

and I don't believe a word of that.
All those facts leave me alone
Wherever I may roam.

Pretty-Darn-Complete

1. Steve McCormick

2. Zach Minter

3. Methodists

(That's a pretty-darn-complete

List of people who will talk to me.

You gotta be patient and friendly.)

I'm doing as well as I can imagine

For someone with my certain imbalance –

Comorbid bipolar

and wanting to write everything ever,

Self-deprecating humor

and the ego to hate my rhymes, but hate everyone else's more

(To paraphrase someone's rhymes

That I like less than mine).

That is to say

I'm manic and writing every day,

and also my list isn't getting shorter.

Why I Write, Part x+149: Life

I assume strangers are degenerate mongoloid putzes,
Except the pretty ones.  They are well-formed, and otherwise...
I suppose I should know better.
I suppose I do, but whatever.

I take some time off of living to picture her with me
Though the only thing we'd ever find to do is disagree.
I wonder if that would be enough.  Some people like it.
I wonder if all attraction is contradiction.

I've heard there's nothing completely unworth reading,
and I find that nearly everything I read can teach me something,
Though some things fail alone, and need a combination
Like, for some reason, butt rock and literary criticism.

I'm on my feet with my hands in the air,
and aside from "the music," don't know how I got there.
It's strange that a song can have that effect
When only two lines of the lyrics connect.

I have no womb, but given long enough, I give words life.
I've no Hallows, but I give life new life when I write.
I have no meaning, no purpose, merely words.
I'm for when someone is bored.

Perhaps I've lived long enough
Or just thought too much about it.

Dot Dot Dot

So we were just sitting around one night, bored out of our skulls...
...This guy used to be my best friend when I was younger, but I hadn't seen him in like eight years...
...Judy said she had homework to do, but we talked her into meeting us...
...None of us were really hungry, but what else is open in that part of town...
...and she was like "don't you dare lay a hand on my playing cards...
...Well, it wasn't too long before Zach started acting the fool...
...It looked like a screwdriver set had a baby with the world's biggest teddy bear...
...He actually tried to bet this guy that a baseball is bigger than a softball...
...This big huge truck came roaring out of the woods without its headlights on...
...I swear we must have painted about seventy of them...
...and that was the first time I ever had lustful thoughts about a woman's shoulder.

Just One of Those Days

On my way from a weird, bizarre, awesome, right-brained office building,
Walking across across green desert quads, from one to the next,
Walking between problems to be solved
I rap lyrical tangents to myself
(Gimme a hell, gimme a yeah; it's just one of those days; I listen to the radio play).
I set myself up for a no-jackety kind of morning
('Cause jackety-jack, Jon's on crack)
I realize this is one of those three-lefts-will-have-to-make-a-right kind of day,
and then I realized that I like it that way.

Trust me,
I do not suffer from insanity.

I Am Not a Poet/I Am Someone Who Has a Habit

I am not a poet.
I am someone who has a habit
Of stumbling into accidental poetry,
Carefully crafted by years of life
and seconds of stumbling
(Or "seconds," if you happen to be human).

I always thought the best days were full of poetry and sin,
and now I'm recording that those days are every second.

Hasn't Been Right

Two knees that grind and click,
A heart that twinges and lungs that tire quick,
A shoulder that hasn't been right for months or years
Depending on your diagnostic critera,
A back and three ribs that are the same,
Tendons in my feet that swell and leave me lame,
and a mind that hasn't been right for years (or decades
If crappy song lyrics and science fiction can my memory aid) --

I should probably get that checked out,
But that misses the entire point of being a man
(and a manic-depressive).

Unmeaning

When you have regrets, who needs friends
To throw you in my face again
Unmeaning.
and it is un-meaning.
Every word they say is right,
and every word means nothing.
The last thing that meant something
Didn't happen.
I stayed unmoving and unmeaning.

Like it or not, that moment defines me.

Anecdotal Proof of Chemical Imbalance in the Human Brain

Today, I did things I should

Things I wanted

and thinks I should want.

I read, wrote and studied.

I listened to good music

and used the one-track repeat

For one charitably called lousy,

The kind that gets me excited

Though I only sort of like it,

and then I ran around like

A low, wide, wild man-island

Pushing up with only the sea around me.

Then I joked and I talked,

and for the first time in a long one, I listened,

The first time this week I was present and not missing.

It's hard to believe I was depressed when I woke up this morning.

Step

They say journeys begin with a single step,

But they seem to forget to tell you the best

Aren't just down the hall or just up the stairs.

You make your long way without knowing what's there,

So I've done what I can to make peace with surprise

Keep my mind near half empty and senses alive.

I don't run for the finish as journeys before.

I joy-walk, exploring or circling the floor.

I can do what I value with learned, active patience,

But that's when I'm doing – 'cause no one likes waiting.

Some More

It's a fact that I've been here before
and if I know life, I'll be here some more.
I don't know how to jump in, to get out right.
It seems I'd just do wrong if I tried.
I don't know where to put my brain or my hands.
I never learned that part of being a friend.

I don't know the right words,
But occasionally, being right is for the birds.
Not to be me sometimes --
That's what some friends are worth.

I Would/I Wouldn't

I would defile you in minutes, at the drop of a hat.
I wouldn't disrespect you for a seven-figure bet.
I'm convinced that you're the best that humanity can get.
I'm sure it's not coincidence, the fact that we just met.
The truth is, I probably have no idea of who you are.
I know the attraction of the jumping bean, the shooting star,
Of eating things when I'm allergic, or driving other people's cars,
and I thank God.  The facts and the knowing help me not go too far.

Don't Let Her See

I move too fast, don't let her see,
'Cause she is way too fast for me.
Our courses diverge without a connection,
Or perhaps we could both use some different directions

The Eyes Have It

I need my space, my elbowsraum.
I wish you'd scoot and look around.
But there's another gaze
I'd let shade me for days,
A discerning, certain set of eyes
Which probably me never spies,
Though assuming otherwise is what we do.
When you see the eyes in the rearview,
They're looking at you.

Memory as a Social Conundrum

She gave me a paperclip to remember her by
and all I can think was "why
Should I take this token and let you mount me,
Let you climb upon my mind, prostitute at such a fee?"

Besides, I wonder, if that's what makes you memorable
Why would you want to be remembered at all?

Today Is Time Enough

Life is richer when I procrastinate.
Today is time enough to work, and contemplate
Smashing somebody across the face
With two-hundred and eighty-five dollars,
The fruits and frustrations of a fundraising effort,
Or study the relative merits of dozens of football players
Based on various statistics, their complexities layered.
Productivity is overrated.
My life is unrated,
Underregulated and procrasterbated.

In the Eye of the Procrastinator

Others may not walk their calendars on margins quite this fine,
But I achieve the same as they do, and I save me half the time.
You say father time is starved.  I say he's lookin' burly.
One woman's last minute is my one hour early.
Some say starting this late puts you in a bad position.
Others argue that the hurry is a drug of inspiration.
Are responsibility or deadlines the instigator?
The last minute is in the eye of the procrastinator.

Institutionalized

Your concrete jungle's stiff to rise –

No leaves or creepers, just straight lines.

The constant bustle holds them fast –

Planned obsolescence built to last.

Your money pays and takes its toll.

It's half convenience, half control.

The banks and buildings, roads and cars

Are really all the same thing – bars.

Blind the Soul

We paved over our months and our hours

The same time we covered the forests and flowers.

The calendar directs our time

With lights and signals, man-made lines

That leave our fourth dimension lamed,

Though culture's not alone to blame.

The world – the wild and the paved –

Appears before us every day

Until, as though behind a cloud

The sights don't come through quite as loud.

Life's less than human, less than whole.

Routine and habit blind the soul.

Be a Fool

If the world springs from God's love for us,

Then one would not be a fool to ask

Whence comes capacity or opportunity for sin.

But how else to feel blissful temptation?

...Said the Pompous Ass to the Ingenue

We differ in our past and futures.

We are only peers to realtors–

Location, location, location.

I have the misfortune of being

Young enough to remember eighteen

But old enough to regret it.

You are too young for regrets,

But just old enough that your teens

Don't quite count as a memory.

That is why you know everything,

and I won't heed a word of it.

I've Always Wanted to Write a Poem Called “Thanks For the Advice. You're Absolutely Right.”

Advice comes, unknown,

From my tension's source, at last,

Though the moment has past.

There will be other moments.

Life is full of them.

It's deliciously frustrating like that.

Endeavor Not to Notice

The endeavor not to notice
Is cramped and ironic and hopeless,
and you cramp me further.
You will be noticed.

You taste unaware bliss
Or know exactly what you're doing.
Moderation is innocuous
and sin falls in the extreme.

I am old enough to know resistence,
Not to apply the five senses to your breath,
But perhaps giving in takes more strength,
To risk, and not to taste the coward's death.

Temptation of Age

The young feel temptation of the first time,
The temptation of not knowing they know better
Or of thinking they don't want to.
They fall fall for sin and shiny advertising
and then...

If they like it, they find the sin of habit,
Which leads to wrathful sins if they can't have it.
This is the worst of all temptations,
To be too dissipated to appreciate your own mistakes.
and then...

Comes the temptation of age,
Different even when it's the same,
Old enough to know better and to resist,
and to realize the sin may never be offered again,
To realize that you may not have long to regret.

I believe that's the best temptation gets.

Drive Me Faster

Your green eyes drive me faster,
But cars of other colors,
One, two, three,
Cut between you and me
Despite fair efforts and more.
I've been on the chase before.
I always miss my turn,
and the first view's the best I discern,
But in my age, youth never learns.

Water's Allure

Your eyes have all of water's allure.

They are glisten-wet, expansive, azure

and a mirage.

They have water's inaccessible beauty,

Its hidden, wild unconquerability.

They search the low paths for ways around me

Of which both our lives are full.

They leave us both breathless and unwhole.