Little Green Woman

I made tracks for the other side of everything known,

A place where I'm an alien, the place where she is home.

A place where an adventure could be something that you eat,

A place that's full of people just a little bit like me.

One of them took me by the hand, began the universal dance,

Then stopped in the middle to apprise me of conflicting circumstance.

There's part of me still panting, insisting this could work,

But I'm not really Captain Kirk.

Shock the Monkey

I'm caught in a quandry between my brain and my eyes.

The one insists on depth, the other merely size,

But in a dazzling display of both variety and scope,

While the one has thrown off training like an undesired yolk.

My better angels try to tell me when–and not–to try,

While the TV shows me goals enough to fill my insect eyes.

I can change everything I am to get what I'm told I want,

Or be only what I am, and mostly pleased with what I've got.

Twinkle, Twinkle

You eat yourself to change yourself,

To power your strange, unknown place.

The lives of every single one of my kind

Strung together beginning-to-end

You would outlive with time to spare;

It would take us that long just to get there.

You are a real-life wonder of an alien world,

So it is only natural that some people

Might look to you to learn their future,

But I think it is even more beautiful,

and I know that it must be more sensible

To look to you to learn your prehistoric past.

Not Hard, But Very Difficult (Kids Poem for Teaching)

My job is not very hard to explain.

They pay me money to fly an airplane.

Who am I?

Red Hot (Kids Poem For Teaching)

When I drive down the street, everybody else knows.

Some people tell me that I'm a hero.

My job and my truck, you could say, are red hot.

I put out fires that others cannot.

Who am I?

In Day or In Night (Kids Poem for Teaching)

My job is important: keep everyone safe.

I arrest bad guys and put them away.

I must be ready in day or in night.

I drive a car that has red and blue lights.

Who Am I?

Who Do You Think You Are?

You are nothing like your clothing and your invitation claim,

Wearing little but a smile and another person's name.

You're not the entertainer of the legend and the rumor,

Though I can see how folks were fooled, given your figure and your humor.

You are not who I led me to believe you are,

Not by far.

You aren't the answer to life's great questions,

Or even most of its mediocre ones.

You are more than just a list of things you aren't,

No matter what I tell you.

A Self-Cleaning Mess

I'm sure it gets old when I whine

That I've more desires than time,

and should you wish a moment entwined,

I would steeply be that way inclined.

It's relief and dismay, then, to find

That our meters will not fall in rhyme,

For you with another recline

While my problem takes care of itself.

Clothing Our Souls

You never met a day that meant a thing

Without breaking down, breaking out, to sing,

But you presume I'm less than genuine

Each day I am not so inclined.

You complain you have not seen my soul.

Ignoring reasons for caution, control,

I don't see why you don't suppose

Our souls just shop for different clothes.

Just as you are convinced you must bring me along,

I could be sure you hide something 'hind smile and song.

I might be more subdued, and I might be sleepwalking,

But I'm still honestly me when I'm writing and talking.

The Other Other Side

I am no kind of artist by trade.

I have no devices specifically made

To name, identify, or classify color.

In short, I don't know one shade from the others,

But I have brains enough to settle, and eyes enough to see

That the grass here on my side is green enough for me.

The Dao of The Dork

Some folks stay on the lookout for a penny or a buck.

I will quit looking the second that I think I have enough.

Some people start things early so they never get behind.

I start the same task later, and then do it in less time.

Some people will do anything authority demands,

But I never have struggled with–or lingered by–quicksand.

Some people change their strategies.

I don't change horses in midstream.

I don't bother to parry accusations

That I am useless and lazy,

Though it's also been said that I might-could be zen.

Just maybe.

Why I Write, Part x+249: Stay Exactly Where You Are, Young Man!

Myself, but experienced, older,

Is all I desire to be.

Forest Gump and Horatio Alger

Both failed at inspiring me.

Neither sugar plums nor Armani

Blur my vision or dance in my head,

So not once in my life will you catch me

Either grinding or getting ahead.

To explain fully what I put into life,

Know that all I wish to get out

Is something to write with, something to write on,

and something to write about.

I Did Manage to Poke My Finger Once

I have heard it said before,

That the pen is mightier than the sword,

But if I commanded as many swords as pens

Then I would be a feudal lord,

and not this futile lord of words,

Who, in almost three decades' time

In a land with no willpower in sight

Attempted to use sheer force of will and mind,

and accomplished nothing.

Cooking Accident #1099

I cannot help but notice

Even from the very moment

That the knife hits.

Then it bites, and then sinks

Into my flesh,

Time moving at its very slowest.

My reaction, of course, is far too late,

and then disturbingly deliberate.

After all, this is not the first time.

The View from the Top of the Bottle

You're the elixir of life, and of the little death.

You've been friend to many poets. You're sure healthier than meth.

You are there for all days and all seasons,

But, perhaps, you are not for all reasons,

and the reasons that are the exceptions, I think

Are exactly the reasons that I want a drink.

Green (Kids Poem for Teaching)

There are green watches and green clocks,

Green mountains and green rocks.

There are green t-shirts and green pants.

I have never heard of green ants.

There are green trees and green grass.

Church windows have green glass.

Leaves are green, and so are mangoes.

On green floors, green shoes do tangos.

In my country they say that money is green,

and they say that you can't beat it,

But if your food turns green, well, then,

It's better you don't eat it.

What Do I Wear? (Kids Poem for Teaching)

The girl's school student wears a skirt because that is the rule.

The artist wears a T-shirt because he says it's cool.

The businessman wears trousers to his meeting in the city.

The lady wears a dress because it makes her look so pretty.

The basketball player wears basketball shorts to play a basketball game,

and every good kid wears a coat to go out in the rain.

Why I Write, Part x+248: The Unheeded Landlord

It's the thing that makes my output seem lazy.

It's the thing that makes me hope there's no such thing

As psychics or psychic phenomena,

Because I wouldn't want anyone to hear.

It's the thing that makes my eccentricities seem usual.

It's the infestation. It's the worm.

It's that phrase that cannot exist outside my head

and will not cease to exist inside it.

I want it gone by morning.

Match Dot Gone

I have yet to meet my match, it's true,

But I'm sure someone could best everything I do.

I have yet to meet my match, you see.

I doubt there's someone who'd work with me.

I have yet to meet my match in life,

For the world hunts them who wear these stripes.

I have yet to meet my maker at the bottom of a bottle,

But some things I have yet to stop trying.

Same Question, Different Answers

You follow me around like my red ink,

From sink to work and back to sink.

You are the person who taught me to think

That it's not nearly enough to be friends.

You are my answer to every question

That every poet hates to love asking.

I am the face on the back of the milk carton.

I am the face in front of you in line.

I am your future, arriving now at last,

But you're quick to settle for your past.

Territories of Self

I suddenly find my eyes confronted

(Because all looking is a confrontation

and men and women merely contestants)

By five thousand sides,

By all the shadows and shapes

That used to be, and are now only remembered

In this two-dimensional state.

It takes my eyes a thousand different places.

It takes my mind a thousand different places,

But I have no idea what it means.

Are You Experienced?

If Jimmy had been asking me, I would have answered “yes,”

Though were Jimmy anything like you, he'd shout 'till I confessed

That my experience is not all mine, and I'll not hide that's true.

Yes, some of it is borrowed. (Yes, and some of it is blue.)

The secondhand experience just supplements my own,

As one learns from others while at school, and from oneself at home.

I gaze selfish upon my own life; on others differently.

Since I've both lived and listened, oh, how much more have I seen!

As Close as Your Toothbrush

When you let anything get as close as your toothbrush,

It can fill up your ears from the bass to hairbrush,

and so it was with my ears and your words,

Whether they did me no favors or worse.

I drank this sweet honey of silver siren's song.

In the decadent ease, I just floated along

My feet pointing downstream, best for warding off rocks,

For the jolt of collision might my mind unlock.

The Sound of Two Angels Falling a Little Further

I'd ask if you wanted to get out of here,

But which of us has anyplace else to go?

I think I would have left sooner, and alone,

But I don't have anyone else to be.

I wish you wouldn't have offered a drink,

But I know you don't have anything,

and all I can offer is to let you share

My moment of despair.

Narcoleptic Heart Asleep at the Wheel

It isn't true for everyone, but is surely true for me

That the hardest part of dalliance is just the dallying,

For you're but one of many things I'd truly like to do,

and if I did not have to sleep, I'd try to sleep with you.

Alas, my life duly taxed, and thus I must refrain

From chasing you, those other boons to gain.

Epoch-a-Lips

Thoughts of you settle upon me

Lightly, slowly, unnoticed until I am buried.

It was realization, not you, that rocked me in earthquake,

Though I would still call you geologic.

The new gray hairs in my beard are proof

Of how long it took me to get over you,

Of all the time I waited for the comet-strike.

So ends the Pre-Graying Period of my life

When I would end the world for your kiss,

My epoch-a-lips.

Fool Me Once

I know just what it is like to be the new hand,

To fall not just for, but all over the old trick, to land

In a pool of derision, which asks “how could you fall?”

But what matter's the trick's age? I was younger than them all!

I remember this clearly, though it were long ago,

But you and I are here now, and that trick I now know.

You Don't Understand

“You don't understand,”

You say before you go.

You don't know what I know.

You don't remember the times

I said the same thing;

I scratched similar stings.

You are just now meeting molehills

I mounted many years ago.

I know new winds will blow.

You do not know how right you are.

I know too much to understand.

Second Impressions

They say you never get a second chance,

To make a first impression.

In lieu of that,

The world and I should make a confession:

I could lift some small straw of the burden

(There are seven billion of us, heavy with judgment.);

I could make the world a kinder place

(Without the contortion of forcing

A smile onto my face);

I could be a better man

If only I gave more first chances

To make a second impression.

Fill In The Blank

Some questions have no answers.

(If the barber shaves every man in town

Who does not shave himself,

Who shaves the barber?)

Some questions need no answers.

(If the barber shaves every man in town

Who does not shave himself,

Who shaves the barber?)

Some people, in a rush for answers

Rashly rush to ridiculous judgments,

Only later learning that they know better.

In their fevered frenzy, they are unwell,

But still they would play Jeopardy against Time itself.

The Pusillanimous Poet

There was once an American man,

A poet, a flash in the pan,

and when he feels sick,

He stops writing; he quits,

and it frustrates his grandiose plans.

Man from the Sticks

There once was a man from the sticks

Who got fed up with hayseeds and hicks,

So he eats his cheese stinky,

Drinks his tea with raised pinky,

and the opera's where he gets his kicks.

White People Problems

All my problems are patrician. They've monocled faces.

It's no more than right they'd contradict themselves in places.

I want time to learn, to write, and to teach,

To practice my practice and convert, but not preach.

I want to know how to get her to tarry.

I want to make sure to never get married,

To figure out how to pass these five minutes here,

To figure out how to ride out the rest of two years,

Nevertheless, I find worry bizarre.

The toils and troubles will be what they are,

Regardless of whether or not I feel...anything.

I'm not sure if life is a puzzle or a maze.

I know I can do it, but I don't know how.

And What About the Ten Years In Between?

It is not quite shocking,

and more a pleasant sort of frisson

To learn about a band,

Of which I was a fan,

Entirely without knowing,

At least, when I was a teenager,

When I could not have known better,

While what I do not know now

Is whether I ought to be embarrassed

and making these excuses.

Miss Right Now

For now, I am with you.

For once, I am listening to you,

Seeking details in your point of view.

You feel no need to shop for books.

You lack the toughness for the woods.

You lack the patience for baked goods.

You prefer the TV's to the firefly's glow.

It's times like these I start to know

Where, in the future, I will go.

For now, I am with you,

If only to learn how to

Stay the hell away from you.

The Picture That Came in the Frame

You look so much like me.

You look so much like you did

When I saw you in Target

Ten thousand miles away.

You remind me of Target,

Which is close to other parts of my life

That were once more important.

You look so much like home,

Which only serves to highlight

That you do not belong here,

and I am offended just to look at you.

The Very Newest in Old Folk Wisdom

Bakers rise early. If pie's easy,

Then what are they doing?

How many shrinks you think it takes

To screw my loose screws in?

If suffering builds character,

What do characters build?

Unless your glass is in outer space,

It's totally filled.

If your aunt was your uncle,

She wouldn't be your aunt.

There are three kind of people:

Those who can count, and those who can't.

There are two kinds of jobs:

Experience required and experience preferred,

and always, always remember

Your patience will be rewarded–eventually.

Parables of the Confirmed Bachelor: The Flower

If you had a beautiful flower

Of many, many petals,

Would you pull it apart

To find which petal is prettiest,

Or would you smile,

Happy to have seen the flower?

I would smile and be happy.

Questions Unheard

I ask the gray-green jungles

As old as trees' grandfathers' grandfathers

As young as this last growing season

If I might learn to live among them,

But they, so silly as to indulge adult cares,

Are not silly enough to speak to

The stupid question of youth.

I ask the full-bearded mountain,

Each whisker a wasted labor to shave,

If I will find welcome in this new place,

But the mountain keeps the silence of wisdom.

Oh, the fool thinks this place is new?

I ask the living, teeming streets

If this welcome might last,

If these young friendships

Might grow old with me,

and they keep their unsilence.

They do not stop to listen.

Their din won't change in answer.

They simply talk amongst themselves

As they have always done.

Perhaps they're waiting for me

To do something different.

The Smiles of Newness

I am surely an old hand

At the smiles of newness.

I have seen these all before.

I have seen them change

Into something else,

Something new for oldness,

No more pretended welcome

Once I know the truth of it.

I am surely an old hand

At the smiles of newness.

I have seen these all before.

I have seen them change

Into something else,

Something new for oldness,

No more pretended welcome

Once I know the lie of it.

I am surely an old hand

At the smiles of newness;

Just as surely a new face

Among these new faces.