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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Transference

Art was teaching me up,

When life taught me down.

People just teach me around and around.

I don't know what to do,

and I don't know where to go.

I don't even know what I don't even know.

There's only one thing I believe is true:

I'd bet it all that I need you,

and I'll act, I'll pretend, I'll play

At being even less okay,

If it means I can stay.

A Whole Lotta Nothin'

First, I heard what you said,

and soon I knew what I wanted,

But soon, I learned what we had,

Which was a game, and a delusion,

and a whole lot of nothin'.

Then you stopped playing,

But I can live without the delusion

Because you never gave me more.

Because You Don't

I don't really know him,

But why would I?

I don't want to meet him,

But why would I?

You didn't introduce him,

But why would you?

I don't need to meet him,

But why would I?

I can't hate him for him,

But why would I?

I hate him because you don't.

Movie Pitch as Movie Title: Laconic Tagline

Today's stories are not told,
They are ordered.
You have a choice of four endings
(Light, dark, green, or extra crispy)
Between white-bread leading actors,
The same old sideplots
and some stale, withered toppings for color.
The modern movie is not written,
It is assembled, like a value meal,
Every bit as healthful and unique.

I Am Jon Richard's Associate Member of the Human Race Card

I have a good fake smile
and a subpar genuine smile,
But how can you say they're different while,
Each one is the same smile,
Just like the sociopath's smile,
Which is rated as the worst, by a mile,
But even when my days are fertile,
My grin is practiced, if not in guile.

Inhuman Magnetism

From the outside, it seems inexplicable

How I can go from social

To irritable, irascible, and back to amiable,

From “my favorite place in the world,”

To “when can I get out of this hole?”

In the time it takes a mossy stone not to roll.

Am I the sociopath, peripatetic and blissful?

I once got a magnet near my MP3s,

and it wouldn't play any track past the “B”s.

I have known a mind such as these.

I play annoyed, aggravated, angry.

Contentment could get me down to the “C”s,

But the patron deity of dysfunctional I'd displease.

I Know, Pt. 2

I know.

I know, 'cause I figured it out.

I know.

You might have gone out of your way to hide it.

I know.

I know by the way you went out of the way.

I know.

I know you've realized that I know.

I know.

I know you're trying to convince me otherwise.

I know.

I don't know why you're trying to change my mind,

But I know.

A Letter to No One

Dear Pretty-on-the-Outside,

I would like to apologize for my previous letter,

Which was cruel, arrogant, offensive,

and not entirely serious.

If I mean it, it usually gets meaner.

I would probably be sorrier,

If I was now certain you have a personality.

Sincerely,

Still-Fairly-Sure

P.S. Maybe.

As Separate Springs Turn To Separate Summers

I have seen you before,

But rarely this beautiful.

I have seen you before,

But rarely this happy.

I have seen you before,

With others just like him.

I've seen more than enough

To know it won't last long.

I'm glad you're happy now,

But not as glad as when he's gone.

Man/Island/Sand

I am a man.

I am an island.

I am as sand,

Too gritty to be trod upon for long,

Unbreakable against the ocean,

The waves of fluid opinion.

I am a man.

I am an island.

I am as sand.

I Know

I know.

I know how to figure it out.

I know.

You might go out of your way to hide.

I know.

I know by the way you go out of the way.

I know.

I know you're certain that I don't know.

I know.

I know how to let you think otherwise.

I know.

I don't know why I let you think otherwise,

But I know.

Growing Apart the Newfangled Way

I don't think I hate you,

(I hate to think of who you were,

Only to learn anew what's since occurred.

I certainly hate the thought of how I thought of you,

But my urge to publicly rejoice being shot of you

Disappeared...as faithless friends are wont to do.)

'Cause I no longer need you.

(I remember when I once did,

Alone in a two-way desertion you directed.

I've since sailed back toward friendship, and landed.

It's one thing to be an island, and another to be stranded.)

On occasion, I crave you.

(Though my thoughts are content to remain elsewhere,

When I see you in other women, I stare.

Some of what you were imprinted on my basest lizard mind,

and though I know well to leave old flames behind,

To fuel of the same sort I'll never be blind.)

I miss the things we used to do,

(We can start where it's obvious,

Because that was always the most delicious.

I miss when my misbegotten urges felt realistic,

When temptation and desire were accomplished,

and even rewarded before they were punished.)

But I don't think I miss you.

(Because through no act of violence,

She no longer exists.

Nobody else can have the woman who got away,

Only the shadow since cast by her change.)

Wicked Cool

I'm a writer, a poet, always carrying my poetic license,

But I pretend to be cool, fool some people sometimes.

When I admit it, people I know say I'm fine.

I've a mirror, so I know that. Cool's not so quickly defined,

So let's ask the mirror. Come, you know half the lines!

“Mirror, mirror, on the wall,

Who's the fairest of them all?”

Then the mirror is heard to howl,
“What's fair elsewhere, here is foul,

So I don't know, but you'll do for now.”

But You Wanna Justify

Am I the only one whose day is literally dripping irony,

So it's too funny to be angry, but I'm too angry to be funny,

One of those days when somebody gets ink on my ink-pen,

When I want to devise some cruel linguistic experiment

Like nodding vigorously and telling a student he can't get a drink,

The kind that makes you uncomfortable, instead of making you think?

An Instant and An Eternity

For someone with no short-term memory,

Five years are an instant and an eternity

In which to make even obvious changes.

I am not what I used to be,

Even if I am exactly who I always was.

I must creatively clothe my personality,

To show the world someone who looks different.

For someone with no short-term memory,

Five years are an instant and an eternity

In which to make even obvious changes.

For someone with no short-term memory,

I was once more than the sum of my parts,

But now the sum of my parts is much less,

and I feel like nothing at all, and I must change,

Just to be something, even if it is something else.

For someone with no short-term memory,

Two weeks are an instant and an eternity

From which changes now bear down on me,

Though I could not be more unfeeling.

I have yet to catch myself savoring;

Perhaps I will also forget to miss the old same.

The Spiritual Significance of the Blood-Brain Barrier

Four fifths of the time, I tell it what to do and where to go,

But what I want is not always the will of us both.

There is something confusing about my body,

Which is somehow different, separate from my brain, from me.

It knows only five words total, “that hurts,” and then “I want it.”

There are occasions and locations where it on its own responded,

and though I want to treat you like somebody who is someone,

Me and this thing I ride have a difference of opinion.

Red Light/Green Light

I don't see traffic

As a little army of oversized ants marching,

Though it is,

Nor as the fires of industry,

Parceled out into moments and pieces,

Though that's what it be.

No, that line of cars making its way

Is no more or less than a series of breaks

Eagerly waiting to drain my day

From the thousand cuts of a thousand short waits.

The Flying Dutchman

The world is full of strange stories,

So many theories thrown aside,

But little is new that is not ancient.

Little is dead but not waiting to return.

Now hallowed minds are hollow caves

In which strange wisdom hibernates.

In a time when the old gods are new-age,

When Genesis and exogenesis both strain into view

I still managed to pick something not on the menu.

Every Other Time Around, Pt. 2

Words from old favorite tales come out of hiding.

The leaves empty their woodworks in the retelling.

Those words are secrets I kept from myself,

Self-kindness in self delusion, neither wanting nor needing

Another source from which to hear the same old things,

Echoes of convention and prejudice from a favorite character

Who I can now only wish didn't sound like my mother.

Has life truly left me mere handfuls of syllables

Away from changing my mind about any work of literature?

Fireside Pop Psychology

You have one year of incomplete data,

and one brain to process it.

Yet, I find that my breath is baited

As I do nothing but sit and wait

To hear the conclusions of your study.

To fear what you think of me

Is no more or less than to fear my own shadow,

and perhaps in three or four years, I will learn better.

Why I Write, Part x+247: Centralia, PA

I have everything I'd need:

Enough disappointments to anger feed,

A collector's set of extreme beliefs,

and a one-hundred kilogram payload,

But I will not explode.

My disappointment, my anger, runs slow,

and so I am used to the long, hot burn.

I'm getting used to using my words.

I'm learning, and soon the world will learn.

The Great Seal of the University of Hard Knocks

I'm an expert on infatuation. I have a black belt in breakups,

But you want to know what I know about romance.

I think you'd be better off hunting wabbits

With an ear hat, a shotgun, and a speech impediment,

Because all I know is what I've heard in songs,

That it tastes sweet at first, and burns as you go along,

So as far as I can tell, romance is rum.

Why I Write, Part x+246: Recalculating!

I'm told everyone needs structure and discipline.

I've seen the pews full of people seeking direction,

But I like opening something that doesn't come with instructions.

It's a risk that I take, to get lost when I'm writing.

They don't make a pen with a GPS built in.

Sometimes, the words tell me where I should be going.

Otherwise, I stay lost. There's nothing else to be done.

Why I Write, Part x+245: The Two Thousand Stare-Downs That Changed Me

I am the ranger, the immortal, the elite.

I run toward other writers' greatest fear:

The blank page, which I can only see

As the moment of infinite possibility,

So I can't help myself from charging in, with glee,

and if it's the hard part, it's all downhill from here.

The Changing of the Mind

I used to idealize you.

I used to idolize you.

I used to fetishize you.

I used to hate you

With all the fire

Of a bad, poorly timed,

Inconveniently located

Infection.

I used to wonder if you'd changed.

I used to wonder where you went.

Now I just wonder where the time went.

I wonder at my old spending habits.

Spelled Correctly

I wish I could call you a sorceress,

But you're wearing the wrong color dress.

I wish I could call you a sorceress,

But my shrink said I should try to be honest.

I wish I could call you a sorceress,

But I couldn't stand being that sexist.

I wish I could call you a sorceress.

It would probably be for the best.

I wish I could call you a sorceress.

I could, if I liked you less.

Why I Write, Part x+244: A Man Without a Demographic

I don't know how to write for the young ones.

I remember when life was all excitement and exclamation,

Except the parts that were disinterest and depression,

But it changed before I finally learned how to live.

I don't know how to write for the old.

I don't know everything they know,

Nor even know most of what I don't.

I don't know how to write for the broken,

Despite recent, bitter experience.

It is not enough just to understand–

If I knew, I'd no longer be among them.

I don't know why to write for the healthy.

By cultural definition, they don't like to read.

I don't know how to write to privilege,

Despite my sex and my skin,

Nor how to write for the privileged,

Whom I've always thought I was fighting.

Don't Touch That Dial

It isn't my advertising money.

They aren't my royalty checks,

Nor my reputation with the FCC.

I'm not the kind to make records spin.

I've never been a market researcher,

Nor a DJ, nor much of a musician.

Still, I think you should know

That your radio station's motto

Seems to have been “lottery odds

and bingo-night payoffs.”

Short Circuit

They built me with a charisma switch

On the back of my neck.

I don't get the highest output,

But it will turn on.

There's a problem with overheating

Up and down the circuit breaker,

Especially if I leave it on too long,

Which sadly has to be most of the time

When there are more people

Everywhere, every day,

and I only know like one of them,

and she's talking to somebody else.

This world is not built to accommodate introverts.

I'd call the repairman in to fix it,

But I don't feel like talking on the phone today.

The Other Side of Gossip

I talked myself into you,

and then back out again

Without your permission,

But you only showed me reasons

To make the first decision,

But today somebody we both knew

Told me about things I didn't think you'd do,

So I think I was right the first time I saw you,

But that the second way was right too.

Why They Don't Let Poets Write For The Wall Street Journal

The first and best is beer money,
But needing a place to drink,
Most people come up with rent money.
That's the traditional order, I think.
Either kind could be lottery money
If it's your lucky day,
But if the first kind is charity money,
It leaves some folks enraged.
The term "salary" once meant "salt money."
The Romans invented that word.
I was shocked when I learned "spending money"
Is a noun, and not just a verb.
There's hard money and there's soft money
If you're into politics.
There's dirty money and there's blood money.
Just remember to launder it.
I don't read The Wall Street Journal.
I don't read the Financial Times.
I only read The Economist once,

So I'm always started to find–

The United States is only one country,

But it's clear that they mint all manner of money.

They make money to buy

Anything that you like

As long as it's not time.

The Sound of Seven Billion Snowflakes Not Falling

There are no people who like failure,

Only different efforts to resist it.

There are no people who like failure,

Only people who try to change failures.

There are no people who like failure,

Only the people who hate it

and those who are used to it.

There are no people who like failure,

Only numerous, various, spurious, specious

Definitions of success.

Anecdotal Proof of Chemical Imbalance in the Human Brain, Pt. 2

I perceive my life to consist

Mostly of moments of dread

and wondering where a day went,

and very little of actually living it.

For the past twenty years

I have been led to believe

That I am medically self-destructive.

All I know is that I don't quite work.

Animal Ignorance

I know that you are not an object;

I know that I am more than desires,

Ninety-nine percent of the time,

But when animal ignorance builds me a tower,

Then you take the form of a fruit or a flower,

and the heat of my gaze pierces deep through the truth,

'Til the world becomes only desire and you.

Then, I remember I have better things to do.

How To Lose Friends and Alienate People–For Your Health

There is no meaning of life.

There is sometimes meaning in life.

Nobody has meaning in life.

Nobody finds meaning in life.

The lucky make meaning in life–

Perhaps they're less lucky than good,

But if you're not so good or so lucky,

Decide what you want to be

Or what you think you really are

and just be that.

If no one will pay you, do it for free.

Don't ever say you don't have time for it.

Nobody has time in their lives.

Nobody finds time in their lives.

The lucky make time in their lives–

Perhaps they're less lucky than good.

Some of them save time with TiVo.

Some of them don't watch television.

Some of them haven't even seen a movie

Since the freaking nineteen-eighties.

Some of them don't sleep so much.

Some of them are very out of touch

With gossipy, unnecessary trivia.

Sure, everyone talks about those things.

Sure, those conversations take time,

But by far the best way to save time

Is to spend less money.

If you don't need it to live or be you,

Don't buy it.

If you don't need it to live or be you,

Don't do it.

If you don't spend it to live or be you,

Don't make it,

and the candle burns slower at both ends.

An Incomplete List of Tattoo Brainstorms, Pt. 4: Parsing the List

Athletes, aesthetes, artists

and the average viewer

Think of words as less than whole.

They prefer the language of symbols,

But I love plain old language, too,

and they would be–will be my tattoos.

From spelled-out spells I draw my strength.

My skin my leaf, I'll write at length.

Superior State of an Inferior Being

My body is just transportation–

A bike, a ride, a rickshaw for King Brain.

The body has cruising altitude, a governor.

It can rise so high, and just so fast, and then no more;

To each pursuit, a Super Bowl,

Which one must hope can fill the hole

In ambition, ego, in the soul,

Because there's nowhere else to go

(I've not been, but read and told; I know),

But upon the brain, that's not imposed.

There's one more poem to compose;

There's one more novel to comprose;

There's one more thing to learn, to know.

I cannot finish ere I go.

Why I Write, Part x+243: The Writing Process/An Incomplete List of Tattoo Brainstorms pt. 3

People preconceive prewriting

As cogitation, notation, organization,

But it ought to begin with inspiration,

and then proceed to trepidation

(Because they are not good ideas

Until they start to make me nervous).

Once I embark upon perspiration,

I am no longer prewriting, but writing;

That part is always worth the waiting.

A Complete List of Rules to Live By/An Incomplete List of Tattoo Brainstorms Pt. 2

A Complete List of Reasons to Live/An Incomplete List of Tattoo Brainstorms pt. 1

Lower purposes are history;

Higher planes are a mystery;

Problems and purpose come in threes.

I must remember that while I'm here

Inspiration, Perspiration, Exhilaration;

Adrenaline, Victory, Ecstasy

Are all I need.

Not Quite Nostalgia

I don't show any symptoms. I don't pine; I don't weep;

I don't start sentences and then stop suddenly.

I don't mind if you're mating. I don't care if I'm missed.

I now truly believe I was ready for this.

I don't easily recall now all the things we used to do.

To be honest, I'm too sober to be having thoughts of you,

But the hamster in my wheelhouse won't stop turning.

Pay on Delivery

The money's not the price, but the time spent working.

They want me to sign for it, too, so I'm waiting.

With that extra time wasted, I payed twice for shipping,

Which explains the great fountain of cussing and swearing.

It finally gets here. I throw it on the couch, 'cause there's no fire.

When I finally go to open it, the object of my ire

Is actually kind of cool.

Why I Write, Part x+242: The One-Winged Carrier Pigeon

I have doubts,

More doubts than talent, really.

I'm held back by an old life injury.

I need to see people, to do things,

To make a living,

Such as it is.

I need practice.

I need to work on my voice.

I need to work on my characterization.

I need to learn what the heck I'm doing.

But if I don't do it,

Then who?

Winter in Montana, Pt. 2

The first snow of winter

Is always a limp thing.

It is uncertain, non-committal,

Half rain, just Jack Frost's spittle.

It is redeemed by the first real snow,

Which is not interrupted, which grows

Into fluffy, downy ground pillows,

So that when Jack Frost's full fist is upon

Us, we might be cushioned.

How Could You Say That?

I'm seeing the exact same world

Through a completely different set of eyes.

Asking “how could you think that way?”

Is to question this foreign eyesight,

and an addiction I've found more insidious

Than sex, substances, digital media

and sleep, but one which I am trying

To avoid, or at least now decrying.

(And sometimes, the question is warranted.)

Why I Write, Part x+241: An Act of Creation

Thus spake God unto the angels:

“Okay, what we're gonna do here

Is take a grizzly bear, and shrink it down,

and make it really, really like English,”

The results of the experiment, after nearly thirty years:

For starters, I always wear a beard.

I'm well-insulated for cold weather,

and I always want to shut myself in and write all winter.

Grow a Pair

A new pair of glasses

For the new academic –

They don't hide themselves (the frames are thicker).

They do enwide themselves (the lenses are bigger).

They do not represent a new look,

Just a little black White Flag to the book,

Just the perfect transition

From a closet full of sporting goods and skeletons.

Every Other Time Around

The first time is open-to-close,

A slow, straight, sequential slog through prose,

and most exciting, as it traces the unknown,

But once you're done,

You're free to start in the middle, or jump

From the first fruitful phrase to the next one,

and just generally read whatever story you want,

and that's the beginning of the real fun.

Nine Tenths

I didn't make it, but I polished it.

I didn't build it, but I furnished it.

I didn't forge it, but I sharpened it.

I didn't draw it, but I framed it.

I didn't earn it, but I saved it.

I didn't grab it, but I protected it.

I didn't write it, but I revised it.

I don't deserve it, but I want to keep it anyway.

Second Visit to the Optician

It is a special day,

A day when I stop seeing the world,

and start seeing into it,

See the beautiful more beautiful

and even see the ugly uglier.

It seems that something within me

Makes the world more of what it is than it is,

But it is not inside of me,

Only just outside, and bound to fade.

Then the world becomes the world again.

The Other Other 99%

I know about one percent of people I see in a day.

The ninety-nine percent make me want to get away,

Away from the traffic (blah blah break pedal blah),

Away from the long arm of civil law,

One percent as a precaution,

Ninety-nine percent to keep myself sane.

Soon enough, I will likely be gone,

Out of the fire into somebody else's fire.

New Favorite

It usually takes a dozen sightings

Before I'm actually glad to see someone.

It could be what I hear. It could be what I see,

But something in you caught something in me,

and I suppose I have to pick someone,

So you are my favorite new person,

For today.

Enjoy.....?

The One True Path

I insist on paths less traveled. You don't disguise you're bothered.

You push a family and career, push “breadwinner,” and “father.”

You speak normal, and average, and orthodoxy.

You'd have me live like the sitcoms you watch on TV,

But that life's not for everyone; that's why not everybody lives it.

For me, normal waits in line, not on the pedestal you give it.

Your benevolent pushing me into the “right way to live”

Ignores that I don't believe that such a thing exists.

I understand that it's your care for me that's leaving us both sore,

But I won't tolerate any more.

All Roads Lead Away, Pt. 2

We outlaw behavior it disgusts us to see,

The lifestyles of those we ourselves would hate to be,

Not out of jealousy, not out of spite,

But out of desire to improve peoples' lives.

What, to the outlaw, feels a rejection

Is in fact, in the lawgiver, Freudian projection.

The failure's understanding, the lack of stomach, lack of guts

To digest that one's disgustings are another person's wants,

So the best approach to justice isn't pushing tolerance,

But to build the mental fortitude of libertarians.

All Roads Lead Away, Pt. 1

Disgust at the words that ignorance leaks

Lead to cries to broaden the laws on hate speech.

Concern for the people less fortunate than they

Power voters behind welfare, medicare, medicaid.

Good intentions are said to pave the road to hell.

Clearly they pave some out of Liberty as well.

Greg House Would Dig It, Pt. 3: People Don't Change

It's a source of more amusement than fright that my body

Is an empty shell, cracked open at the knees.

I will always come back to football

No matter what's wrong with the NFL,

Be it dull gameplay or the (completely nonexistent) morals

Of the irredeemable, despicable quarterback

On the team I guess I still like,

and I take a break every once in a while,

But canceled or not, I still watch the X-Files.

I am always the same person that I have always been.

A complete list of the ways I have changed:

Why I Write, Part x+240: Questionable Motives

I know there's a line between self-reliant

and just being defiant,

But I have never seen it for myself.

I'm a basement-dweller

Who knows lightening by the thunder,

and so I'm left to wonder–

Do I write because they can't stop me,

Or because they keep trying?

Definitions in The Art of Saying “No”

The Art of Saying “No” is cultural.

It is not petty party political.

It's not liberal vs. conservative.

It's loving the economy vs. tolerating it.

The Art of Saying “No” is acknowledging

That the very definition

Of the word “civilization”

Is a prejudice against sane and healthy ways of living.

The Art of Saying “No”

Is having the stones

To believe, or even know

That the world isn't what we were taught,

May not be what we thought,

and should stop caring what we've got.

Me and Your Shadow

The cremated lack for crosses,

and it's been years since I saw your tree,

But in many ways, I still live in your shadow.

Everyone I know sees me darkened by it

Every day wondering if, sometimes,

The unforgettable is meant to be forgotten.

Bloody Washington

What a maze is Washington,

Where I once spent a year

and nearly lost myself in the bargain.

They can write themselves a tax code

Longer than the Silk Road,

and they struggle with the simple yet–

Give me liberty; don't give me debt.