True Healing? Tires Squealing!

There's a bit of a procrastinator

In my fingertips,

And a bit of the Domme's whip hand

In my right-hand wrist.

My own hand's grip on a recent past

Tends to be sickly.

If it takes a year to learn what's next, the last

I forget quickly.

Overcoming is overtaking, leaving behind,

Just not being here.

I have never been bitter about things I can only

See in a mirror.

The Act of Love

To get some one-act play,

To come but once, and not to stay,

This is called “the act of love,”

Or so most folks would say.

Hear now, one of my theories:

Love is no act, but a series.

It's not rash, not impulsive,

Not like Venus and Ares.

A single act is only just

The province not of love, but lust.

In emotional beast-havior,

In instincts they trust.

Overstaying

It's said that if you're patient and you slowly heat the coils

A frog inside a pot won't know it's hot until it boils.

Am I a frog? Enthusiasm becomes duty and indifference.

I don't react when reluctance becomes truculence.

There's more to the world than wives' tales and proverbs,

and what's more, frogs, as most animals, have nerves.

I, too, can tell when I'm fed up with this.

I just rarely care enough to notice.

What Happens to Ragnarok Deferred?

The boy's problem with schoolwork was “work,” not “school.”

He did his work as late and quickly as he could, the fool.

One time he left the work too late for any hurry,

and with nothing to turn in, felt a world-ending worry.

All he could think was “damn, I'm in deep shit.”

He would have bet cash that Maitreya had hit,

But though he was grounded for five or six weeks,

Life simply went on with a couple of tweeks.

The boy met a girl; the two thought it seemed right.

Their joining made him feel like “let there be light.”

Then, girlfriend shortened herself to friend,

and the boy thought the world was sure to end.

For one day, he put the world on suspension,

Headphones blaring music he'd rather not mention.

Tears and spring rains became summer, then fall.

This ending was no Armageddon at all.

Soon the boy got employed, although having a job

Did not make him care. He still dressed like a slob.

He hated his customers more again than his bosses.

Only on bathroom breaks did he give any tosses.

Since he barely came in, he was duly let go.

He thought “Fenrir is here” when they first let him know,

Like a crash with Nibiru, or at least coming near.

So intense were his feelings of shame and of fear,

But life just went on, past these setbacks and others.

Pestilence went unseen, as did all of his brothers.

As the boy moved along, his suspicions kept mounting

That nothing he'd do would stop long counts from counting.

Now he tours life's disasters with nary a care,

With his eyes off the road and his hands in the air,

and if on he meanders, head made so, of mutton,

Someday it's real likely he'll press the red button.

No Rain, No Rainbow

Life happens at the worst of times.

What starts one problem tall just climbs

Until it makes a mountain from

The misery that comes and comes

From every corner and which way,

From morn to night to too-soon day,

From work, from traffic, government,

From hobbies, seeming Satan-sent.

Beset by problems, error, and strife

In every single facet of life

While “just give up,” the sirens sing—

There seems no point continuing,

and just when you think there's no way,

You finally have your first good day.

Anywhere But Here

When time and task are at their best,

I understand the urge to nest.

Who, once as fickle as a cat

In changing hat to hat to hat,

Is first to don and last to doff

His new hat, which he'd not wish off?

When such a man am I, it's clear

I don't want anywhere but here.

-------

Half of me wants to retreat,

The other half to take a seat

and never once move from this chair.

It's got me yanking out my hair.

This question I would like addressed:

How can I be both bored and stressed?

If you're out there, if you hear,

Take me anywhere but here.

Explode Into Space

I push my bike harder to see how far it leans.

I don't know what mortality means.

My survival's the horse on my side of the bet.

On the other, I'll pass before I know regret.

I've embraced that against death, my only power

Is to turn down Caesar's life cycle of cowards.

Don't ask me for wisdom, explaining your dreams.

I don't know what enlightenment means.

I've met nary a detail I couldn't forget.

I'm willing to wager my brains in my bets.

I've had scores of ideas, every single one awful.

I'm always thinking, but I'm never thoughtful.

I exist on a circuit of several extremes.

I don't know what nirvana means.

I take too much in and I push too much out.

I settle for laughs so the world won't hear shouts.

I've always been loudly, excessively me.

I don't have a clue how to shut up and be.

Caedmon Might Dig It

Aspirational ceilings are held up by walls,

But the floors, not the ceilings, tell how far you could fall--

A tumble while changing a lightbulb, at worst,

and not from story fifteen to the first.

From a young age, we're taught not to gaze at the floor:

Eyes ahead, or look up to men taller, with more,

So the only ones truly aware of the same

Are the ones who are bent by oppression or shame,

and where people look, they will usually go

(As all who are riders or drivers would know).

One can climb a step ladder or prostrate himself,

So in the end, what makes us poor is poverty itself.

Blue Sky at Night, Biker's Delight

Pleasure tingles purple at the sight

Of late-hour blue enswirled with white,

and once this inspiring sight is seen,

All of the lights in my head turn green,

and thus single the courage those half-alive lack

To seek out a redline somewhere in the black.

To avoid being yellow, or ending up red,

As a man I am orange--like my helmet--instead.

Somewhere in the Ks? (Between Joyce and Legion)

I could slide under the the trucks as they come.

When I think of the bone-jolt, it makes my skin hum.

Or I could step onto sacred ground

and throw my fists at everyone around.

I could isolate youth and trust

and thrust and thrust and thrust and thrust,

Which would probably also start a fight

I could dig Cobain's great vise into my eye

Or take some construction paper, cut, and slide.

I could tug and fondle and fiddle.

I could take a knife, slice it right down the middle

For a laugh, I could play in the crunch or the red,

For a laugh that leaves everyone crying instead.

I don't know what game, and I don't know why,

But I don't want to play it unless I could die.

The Ultimate

Ashfall darkens the day, but at night

It softens and scatters the moon- and street-light.

It, moment by moment, grows thick on the ground

'Til it softens not only the light, but the sound

Of tentative footfalls, taken with risk

Through a landscape that soon will be barren and brisk.

I want to walk with you, hand in hand

Through a nuclear winter wonderland.

You're my beauty when skies strangle every flower,

My sweet when the skies turn the vintner's work sour.

But even if it's the last thing I ever do,

I burn to share an apocalypse with you.

Why They Don't Let a Poet Be President

I wasn't born with
the requisite talent: a
nine figure balance.

All Lives Matter

The words of a man
who will never be shot by
cops for being black.

Armageddon Horny, Pt. 2

Flowers in springtime,
foliage falls in autumn,
nuclear winter.

Get Goosesteppin'

According to Trump,
opposing Fascism is
now "Alternative."

And I'm Proud to Be an American

It takes a man like
Trump to make me proud to be
called a Liberal.

You're Fired!

Trump makes decisions
That reflect the breadth of his
Little orange Cheeto.

Armageddon Horny

All this insecure posturing

Is massively entertaining.

You got this hot and heavy,

So just do it already!

I'm having the kind of month

That just can't end soon enough.

And humanity? They had it coming.

So go ahead, push the button.

It beats waiting for global warming.

Three Chords and a Lie

Intensity, time, distance, every couple of weeks.

We're like an equation that's missing a piece.

There's nothing new you know to show me,

and perhaps you have noticed that too,

But what's been done is fun; you arrange it differently.

Together, I feel alive as ever, since my knees felt young,

and then, on schedule, to the ends of the earth we're flung.

Apart, I find syncopation; I'm mostly sure what to do.

It's not that I'm smitten, and I'm not quite addicted.

I'm just a little bit more bored without you.

To a 1980 Honda CB

Venturing outside the fence,

Moving too fast for good sense

Over the river and through the wood,

Revving it up good,

The power beneath me,

The wind in my hair,

It's like an affair:

Making excuses to be with you,

Knowing I ought not to kiss you,

Feeling more alive with you around

As long as my feet stay off the ground.

To an Ingenue, Who Deserves Better

Plenty of folks can make hearts skip a beat,

But you make a man's skip three.

You're a once-in-a-lifetime person to meet,

and a dime a dozen, that's me.

I never felt that we got close enough,

But I'm close enough to see,

To admire in you all of the good stuff

That doesn't exist in me.

Yet I know that naught comes of admiring

When it only goes the one way.

They say there's a first time for everything,

But I don't think they said it's today.

So all that's left is making myself see;

To accept these facts, deep in my mind:

That I was born nearly a decade too early,

and you were born ten times too kind.

To an Ingenue, Talking in Class

You are too young (which you're tired of hearing)

To be sick of the ride, though you've yet to try steering.

In every thought of you, I hope you really mean

That you're sick of this place, or you're sick of routine,

Or you're sick of being shuttled from the desk to the shelf,

Or even sick of time spent with the poet himself.

You won't always be locked in an ivory tower,

and our time together has ticked down to mere hours.

You're chained one more year to the life of the letter,

and I find myself hoping you find something better.

Why I Write, Part x+272: Drive It Home

I've lost some pop; I've popped, gone flat,

Replaced Bitter Bierce with soft and fat.

Now I'm the gray A-baller, just playing out the string,

An old one-trick pony still doing the same thing,

Driving a pen that sputters and coughs

Its way back to the well. I go back to the trough.

I scarcely recall having faith that I'm right.

I still wear the sword, but I skive off the fight.

I used to write because I blazed with belief.

Now I write just to turn an old leaf.

Total Loss

It's just a matter of time, but it matters.

So many miles you wouldn't know my wear pattern

Have passed under my radar and under my tread.

I aspired to leap; oft, I boiled instead.

All the cells in the boy who let you die are dead.

That idealist made by self-interest myopic

Has been wholly replaced by this consummate cynic,

So that, were I given a post-college try,

I suspect that you'd prob'ly still die.

All hail the new guy, same as the old guy.

Why I Write, Part x+271: Unicorn Blood

Of you is the gossip within my swelled heart,

So allow me to do Shakespeare's kindness, in part.

In fact, my heart won't shut up about you.

I will help you live on, just as Eos might do.

The knowledge you're near thrills my skin like a feather,

So I'd like to grant you cursed half-life, forever.

You might be immortal, but how will you know it

When committed to text by an unread blog-poet?

Why I Write, Part x+270: Why I Might Not Write Much Anymore

I failed to be the man I'd become

When you needed me, and now all is done.

I came equipped with intent, but no plan,

and I am the white-armored bannerman

Of storytelling tradition that makes women props.

Who you actually were, I have almost forgot,

Though I recall vividly how you once made me feel,

Like I need to think of myself to make you real.

Was I really your friend, or did I get confused–

the millennial Hamlet–use your ghost as my muse?

I still hope I regret my part and your ending,

But that I write of you, I'm no longer pretending,

and now that at last I have ended this lie,

We'll see how many ways I can let a thing die.

A Bad Poem for Good Times

I finally figured out which want

Is secondary need.

If contentment is elusive,

Then I've got closing speed.

It's efficient transportation

and the best part of my day.

It's called a motorcycle,

and it's my two-wheeled bae.

Lovers on the Moon

The distance 'tween you and the world couldn't be more stark.

You are color and heat; all else is cold and dark.

Being alone in the vacuuum? It was debilitating.

The world and our embrace, though? Both are suffocating.

My lungs gasp hollow without you, and viscous with you around.

My senses all know nothing but your closeness and the ground.

I traded all the world for you; lost gravity in the barter.

Untethered to all but you, there's naught to do but cling harder.

In Love With Being In Lust

Neither now nor ever to be Mr Right,

Nor now even Mr. The-Other-Night,

My dull eyes no more lead my soul into hurt

and I've no heart to wear on the sleeve of my shirt.

No one to wait for and no one to follow

With words that ring false and gestures most hollow.

I am here neither to have nor to haunt,

Though I may miss the wanting for the sake of the want.

The Trade

The day before I heard the news

My motor ran on joy,

Unquestioning that life was just,

For I was just a boy.

The very day I heard the news,

That motor barely coughed,

But on the night I heard the news

My innocence I doffed.

I could not clothe the boy I was

In innocence so stained.

As I became a man, I swapped

That innocence for pain.

My tank's sometimes half-full of joy

Beneath that coat of pain.

My verses are as oft they were,

Before this new refrain.

Jesus Fish vs. Darwin Fish: The Movie Poster

How came to be this tie-dyed, many-colored Earth,

Colored in flourishes by mitosis and birth?

Darwin may have used death as his instrument,

Which the strong, for a moment, evade.

Perhaps life was wonderfully, fearfully made.

Whether accident,

Or heaven-sent,

It's a miracle either way.

The Gentle Waking

Dawn usually breaks, but sometimes it heals,

A sunrise I taste even more than I feel.

The new light softly through yonder window breaks

and something inside me that feels years younger wakes.

The first morning in ages that's not just evening's end,

But beginnings of what gentle dawn can portend.

It doesn't even feel like the calm before the storm...

It just feels warm.

Between 'Know' and 'Notice' and 'No'

Little Miss Vlad the Retailer,

Rejected by the fool of fools

Who dated Belle the Impaler?

I suppose over time, a poet learns

This passing disregard for design,

Mental ointment for psychic burns.

Sometimes, the cover hides the words

From those who might check you out,

Or the circling carrion-birds.

I've never seen you, only spotted.

It's not a real rejection if

I just don't know enough to be besotted.

Try, Try Again

You must make a second effort
If only one should fail.
If three efforts end without success,
Then blaze another trail.

Frozen in Time

Take care as time continues

With all the folks you've met.

If relationships don't grow,

The beginning's all you'll get.

If their budding maturation

should, for some reason, stop,

They'll freeze into position,

As ice might in a mop.

I'll say how my folks treat me,

and you'll see what I mean:

They always will be forty

and I'll always be fourteen.

Old Jon

For the old me, life was black and white,

Or at least a bit less twisty,

and I hardly searched for inspiration

Because it rarely missed me.

I had a consistent, long term mission

Just a bit too big for me,

and, in case I gave it up, a consistent

Political philosophy.

If you upset me, I could just go off,

Or be passive-aggressive.

But now, I'm too lazy for all of that,

With far fewer rips to give.

The old me still had the passion of youth.

He wanted to jump your bones.

I think I still remember his number, but I

Can't get him on the phone.

Why I Write, Part x+269: Accidentally On Purpose

Though I wish I were more painstaking,

I imagine how tight it would bind

If it weren't merely a saying

To truly be of a single mind.

I would be thoroughly discontent

Without those thoughts everyone gives

On accident, absent all intent.

Those thoughts are where poetry lives.

Give Up and Let Your Side Win This Time

The first didn't have the right face

To enter your desired place,

To do what both of you wanted to.

The world chose him instead of you.

The next was too old for the job,

With hair and clothes that said “slob.”

He embraced a taboo label

That most would keep under the table.

In other years, he would be toast.

In your year, he kept it too close.

The third was nothing less than wrong,

A human show ordered by gong,

The wrong color for anything,

Could say the wrong thing just breathing.

Everyone said you were a lock,

That you could just run out the clock,

That the game was no more in play,

and Mr. Wrong won anyway.

Next time, commit the lesser sin.

Just pack it in.

Why I Write, Part x+268: Not a Daddy or a Dadaist

How nerve-wracking, to parent or paint,

To send my creations wholly away.

As a writer, my poems are with me to stay,

and I give the world copies, exactly the same.

Art's medium changes the nature of selling,

Which, in my art, is as safe as re-telling.

Stupid Questions

Why are they trying to sell hockey

To yet another warm-weather city?

If politicians are famous for lies,

Why do we voters still vote for these guys?

If I pay myself first, why not pay me

With time, instead of money?

Why trust one to manage heaven and hell

Who can't even handle the weather well?

Why isn't democracy

an extracurricular activity?

Why don't we have democracy practice

Like a driver's education class?

The Number-Two Reason (After Lack of Talent) That I Am Not a Famous Author

There's a million emotions I don't really miss.

I can't recall fear, but I still can feel bliss.

When I write, I feel happy. Do I ever feel sad?

I sure do get angry—take the good with the bad.

I never feel stress, and go years 'tween premonitions.

I daresay I'm no expert in human emotions.

My favorite one is probably “motorcycle,”

But the one I feel most would be nothing at all.

My Personal World, Part 25: Open Up Old Times

I get out this album, again, and I open up old times,

Improved by melody, meter, and rhymes.

I remember the one who made my good times better,

Improved them with sympathy, laughter and letter.

I remember this one gave me understanding, stimulation

When I was at my worst, with no career or avocation.

I remember how this one served as my armor,

Protection from myself and enemies at my door.

I remember the ones who supported my foreign years,

Who forged a connection 'tween my home and my heres.

I listen and remember, or at least I try,

and I smile because I forgot how to cry.

Changing Without Changing

Anywhere, anytime, and without fear, I go:

The version of me that backed down died years ago.

Yet, my sin of sloth should still send me to hell:

The version of me that gave up is alive and well.

These versions of me, the same version of me, is laughing:

My amusement at coincidence of preposition is still growing.

What Have I Become?

Once an endurance athlete, and now a bowl full of jelly,

I hardly gave a thought to work; now I work in front of the telly.

Between my fur and my taste for cold, I was once a polar bear.

Did I migrate? Yes, and south at that. To a tropical island, that's where.

Mine was once the almost-famous name of a blazing ace of test-taking,

and lately I've found myself unable to memorize a thing.

(In my mind, ideas are illegal immigrants—that's how head-blows affect a poet.)

At some times, under some, I was a patriot; now, I'm nearly twice an expatriate.

Some years ago, I worked with passion, on fire for teaching

Now I spend half my week just waiting for the weekend,

Longing for time to write, and the time I wrote, and the quiet.

From would-be novelist to erstwhile storywriter to dormant poet,

and now neither prolific in the first nor productive in the other,

I've become a motorcyclist, though that one only shocks my mother.

Worst Year Ever

Half the nation called him “President,”

the other nasty names.

He served his eight. The president

now could not stay the same.

Though the parties knew incumbency

Was guaranteed to end,

No single worthy candidate

Did either party send.

One candidate was famous,

a liar and cheat,

The other famous for being

as dishonest as he.

The news and truth got messy

in their public divorce

Though they still saw each other

On the side, of course.

So the land made a king of a

Big, windy, orange liar

and in making, made itself

A big dumpster fire.

Now we're left here, together

To pick up the pieces.

It's a task we must master for

The good of the species.

Ketchup and Catfood

Most folks need an occasion to go out on a date.

I need only a lost fork or a broken plate,

Or cookies and bread, or a blade to shave my face

Or new lock to keep shut the gate at my place.

To put more texts on my prepaid cell,

To clear my head when I'm not thinking well,

Ketchup and catfood, or any of the above

Gets me a night out with my two-wheeled love.

Four Wheels Good, Two Wheels Better, pt. 2

Perhaps to see the road rush by,

Perhaps to feel the breeze,

To take the turn at 45

and forty-five degrees,

Perhaps to go there just for fun,

Then take the long way home,

Perhaps to seat exclusively

Wherever I may roam,

Because no jurisdiction's law

Holds traffic to its letter,

Wherever I've heard four are good,

I've found that two are better.

A Limerick Eaten by a Thesaurus

I utilize uncomplicated words when I compose,

Admitting it appears a smidgen mundane and hackneyed.

I scribble what I recognize,

Allow my rectitude to appear,

and I'm confident that I apply the words properly.

Macklemore Might or Might Not Dig It

What's wrong with wearing something gauche or passé?

Why spend down to the lint to keep a wardrobe up to date?

The answers don't suffice, because nobody really knows

What's wrong with wearing your father's old clothes.

Think about it a second, that's all it takes to realize

That the same genes might make the man the same size.

If the shoe hurts, don't you dare just grin and bear it.

If the shoe feels good, why, then it's a good idea to wear it.

Hunting the World's Most Dangerous Book

The thesaurus is a dangerous work.

Behind its calls, writers' folly does lurk.

The thesaurus might make jesters of us all.

If into its trap do we wearily fall

By mustering new talks up into the fold

And serving them as they were just like the old.

One Day a Year (I Miss Big Box Stores)

The weight of our culture's priorities

Bows many of us to our bended knees,

and one day a year turns the whole world pink.

Through rose-colored conscience, we choose not to think:

Why just one person? Why just one day?

Why mothball steadiness, friendship away?

I guess everyone, every day would be kind of demanding,

and I sure do love the candy.

Why I Write, Part x+267: For No Good Reason(?)

Though it's unpleasant, and thought it is trite,
For near fifteen years I've continued to write
Of a beautiful life and its ugliest end
Which I've long understood, but refused to comprehend.
I might've covered every detail, but over this I've glossed:
The world gains nothing from the writing, and the life's already lost.

My Personal World, Part 24: Relativity

Bass banging out a blistering back-beat,

Hoping against hope to hold the high point

Of the dying week,

The ticky-tack ticking-away of time

Siphons, slurps, slips, sags, slides, settles,

Into a slow leak.

Out of the Box and Into the Fire, or A Poet's Worst Emotional Argument for Universal Basic Income

“Just think outside the box,” they say

As 'hind clichés they hide.

A residence outside the box

I wish they would provide.

For though I've searched in foreign lands

Across the sea's dark sheen,

There's few things I have yet to find

Save refuge from routine,

and though I'm mostly stifled,

My moods and muse both wan,

To remain confined by management's

My one preserving plan.

For when I'm working, “different's”

a longer word for “worse.”

I'm quickly made complacent.

It's my temperament and curse,

and outside of a schedule

Upon my face I'd fall.

A refuge in quick failure

Is no refuge at all.

New Years Resolution

Oil and water, mixed poorly from birth,

At peace at the opposite ends of the earth:

The one's hopes map well to the other one's fears,

and though peaceably separate for miles and years,

The one misses the other in spite of the pain

Of deliberate friction with nothing to gain

and the other is creeping toward missing the one,

toward regret for his being an unpleasant son.

It occurs, in this Janus, to this lingering other:

This year's one to make peace between child and mother.

The Old Man and the Seed

Gaze now, callow youth, upon the old man spurned,

His overtures honest, his calls unreturned.

Why should he long, unmet, for this one connection?

To change callow youth from his own sins' direction?

To guide one who holds the same interests as he?

To extend the world's recall of how it used to be?

Or perhaps it's not to teach. Does he aspire, then, to learn?

Gaze now, callow youth, upon the old man spurned.