Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Doors and Windows

I don't need to be told. I already know
That when God closes a door, I should check the window
and glance for a chance, an opportunity.
I never do know when it's looking for me.
Sometimes, I'd like to reach out and grab it,
But sometimes I'd rather retain my old habit,
and sometimes I'd like to read, or write poems,
and want solitude in a room that is closed.

Thursday, December 19, 2013

History of American Literature, as Understood by a Poet and a Baseball Fanatic

Whitman wrote “I contain multitudes.”
I'm sure that he knows what that means.
I suppose I contain some bacteria.
I'm, by my culture's standards, unclean.
I suppose if I did contain multitudes,
Then many would like Christmas songs,
While a few would enjoy raunchy parodies
The court system struck down as wrong.
Some enjoy triple cheeseburgers.
Others don't like to bunch at the waist.
Whitman wrote “I contain multitudes.”
If I do, it accounts for my tastes.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Not All Who Wander Are Found

I exist on uncertain footing,
In a landscape covered in the sands of misunderstanding,
But I exist nonetheless.
I think that I am less homesick–more simply just a mess.
I think that I am too keenly aware
That I moved to a room where I've hardly written–from another,
and there from another.
If I thought I had the resolve, I might resolve to write more.

My Office in Room 1348 of the Panopticon

I mount to the poet's pedestal when the mood strikes,
Though it's only on level thirteen of twenty-five.

I am not an especially friendly man.
I keep my own counsel as much as I can.
I'm thought of more often as “brooding” than “fun,”
and I might be an island–but I'm not alone on one.
I try not to judge. At most times, I take care.
Most times I remember I ought not to stare,
But what you reveal, the public will see.
The uncovered window forfeits privacy,
and I don't wish to be caught unobservant.
Observation's evaluation, on the road to judgment,
But I didn't earn this guilt–and you didn't close your curtain.

Two Travelers Converged on a Road

I have become blind to innocence,
Or perhaps immune to perceptions of it.
We all get dingy. We all stay low.
There are pieces of all of us we left along the road–
The unmissed we don't remember we know.
So when others see you tease a camera just right,
I just see turnabout you're playing on life.
I don't expect you not to have a history.
I'll just help you look for pieces if you do the same for me.

Sunday, December 15, 2013

The Poster in the Basement Room

I remember believing
That we're not alone among the stars,
That it wouldn't be too long or too far,
That there is life on Mars.

I remember wanting to believe.
I remember treating the uncertainty
As tantalizing possibility.
I had not yet learned what silence means.

I remember needing to believe,
The thirst, the lust, to seek and find
Of a creature with friends and family, but no kind.

Now, all I believe, I pretend to know:
That we may just be, or may be left, alone;
That any who managed to knock or pick up the phone
Would be too smart to crash our reality show.

Saturday, December 14, 2013

The Sound of One's Hand Washing Another's

My body breathes the air for me if I just let it through,
But sometimes I don't want to.
I rush or wait to take my fill.
I choose choosing my breaths as a skill,
For politicians will come for my muzzle,
My stock, my barrel, my breach,
Right before the other set comes for my speech,
My assembly, my protest, my press.
It'll be years 'til they come for my breath.

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Why I Write, Part x+251: The Post-Postmodern Prometheus

It marches in place
On the frozen electron river
Of these ersatz notebook pages:
An entire army of me,
A thousand narrators
Of a thousand different stories,
and someday I will find the one
Who is enough of me to be human,
and little enough of me to live on his own.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

No Time For Love

You say I could still leave, with you in tow,
Disparaging the scope of the places I'd go.
I wish to compose an ocean of oddities,
To see waves of my words as wide as the seas
Crash upon sonnets as the sands on a beach,
and when I'm not doing that, I wish to teach.

I ask only for the time, and not the help.
You could tell me I'm only distracting myself,
(and if you can say the words, then why not me?)
But how many of us would actually believe?

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Why I Write, Part x+250: Because 'Wizarding' Was Already Taken

I am a servant of the secret fire,
Wielder of the Flame of Anor.
Well, that's not so much true as the other.
I am a servant of my own delusions,
Wielder of an HP laptop,
A half-filled, leather-bound notebook,
and a motley assortment of pens,
But I always thought it was a badass thing to say,
Especially to a dude who's made out of fire,
Especially when you're already tired.

Perhaps, this day, if my pen is true,
A character may say something half as cool.

Monday, December 9, 2013

Seeing Is Not Believing (In Which Our Hero Talks Himself Out of Another Crush)

I believed there was no settling for two out of three this time.
I believed there was more to her than three boxes could define.
I believed diamonds dazzled her, but didn't fill her heart.
I believed what I saw when she gave me a start.

Now, I see the way she is consumed by the style of things.
Now, I see the what kind of habits she's been making,
What little she does, and does over and over again.
Her shapes don't come together right from my new angle on them.

Affirmation of Belief

I do not believe in the Father and Son.
I believe in the Spirit of Ultimate Inspiration.
I believe in human weakness.
I believe in human potential.
I believe that life is just something that passes through water.
I believe that meaning is a human artifice;
To find the meaning of life,
Create the meaning in your own.
I believe that this delicious, burning, brilliant universe
Is but a lively machine.
I believe I am more than wordy enough;
It is somebody else's turn.

The Loser's Prayer

Defeat can leave you winded,
So take the jeers of the fair-weather fans,
Those who dare not play,
and breathe them all in.
Defeat can leave you exhausted,
So take all of those hateful words,
and swallow them down inside of you.
Defeat is thirsty work indeed,
So drink in the sickening feel of it.
Defeat can leave you cold,
So wrap yourself in the hate of it.
If you lost this week,
It is time to rebuild.
It is time to reload,
Because the only one on the field this week
Who can stop you again next week
Is you.

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

The Heart or The Stomach?

When you walk into the room,
I mistype my password.
When you sit down beside me,
I forget myself, and remember my posture.
When you speak to others,
I reach out for every word,
Wishing each was made for me.
When you speak to me,
I try with all my might to listen,
and I fail as fully as ever.
Your gesture is my signal.
Your joke is my gospel.
Your wish is my command.
I think I can promise you my attentions,
(Tied in a grubby, Gordian knot,)
Whether we want that or not.

Fallen Angel

I see fell meaning in the commonplace.
I see the meaningless in rituals.
I see sins in the simplest things.
I see tragedies in mere trappings.
I see the same world as you see.
I look through fire-colored glasses.
I see shadows in people.
I see shadows in shadows.
I am among strangers.
I think I have always been.
I think I do not belong.

I do not see a way out.

My Personal World, Part 19: Bittersweet Time Machine

I remember the first time that rhythm caught me.
It didn't exactly hit me in the head.
It was nothing nearly so violent as that.
It kind of grabbed me under the arm
and yanked me a quarter-turn around.

If you want to pick nits,
It was an illegal block above the waist.


Today, again, that same rhythm caught me.
It didn't exactly pull me to the ground.
After all, this isn't the first time around.
It kind of got in real close, face to face,
Until I let it take me by the hand
and lead me right back into the other moment.

If you want to pick nits,
It didn't leave room for the Holy Spirit.


I wonder when the rhythm will catch me again.
I wonder how gentle it will be next time.
Will it remind me of the winter, the couch, the friends,
Or the tragedies of the spring that followed behind?
Will it come with a caress or a kick?
All I know is that the rhythm is finished,
and it left me at least a little bit tired–

Perhaps not of it...
If you want to pick nits.

The Tao of the Yo-Yo

Don't leave too soon, and don't stay away.
Come back within earshot. I'm dying to say
That you make me demented, deranged, foolhardy,
and I like the way that you make me feel.

Don't forget that romance happens only in the mind.
Don't search long and hard enough to leave yourself behind.
Everything about you that makes us not work
Is exactly what made you stand out from the first.

Monday, December 2, 2013

Pulling and Pulling

I need a pull-starter just to speak up.
It's like pulling taffy to stay engaged,
and like pulling teeth to walk away.
It's even an effort; it even feels strange,
Like drinking a milkshake, every time I inhale.
I think the air between us is unusually full.

Sunday, December 1, 2013

The Invitation

We dearly wish that you would join, in time,
A future found unbound among the stars.
We realize this for you means quite a climb
From lunar foothills barely past the start.
We must remark it's strange that so complex
An animal as yours should live in hives.
Our scientists believe that this reflects
Potential genius living bounded lives.
Perhaps to reach the stars you must boycott
This self-sustaining, self-destructive course
If so, we'll find your kind and ours are not
So different as intrigued us at the first.

Despair that you can't make it now? Don't fear.
Just as you're stuck there, we are stuck here.