I Want to Do Something

I want to do something nobody's ever done
(As long as I don't have to practice,
and it's kinda-sorta fun).

How many hundreds have climbed Everest?
That hardly sounds like some great test.

Strolling Antarctica in the nude
Sounds like something I could do,
But, alas, there's no prize to be won
For coming in second to a cute, jiggly blond.

I once spent near an hour on a pogo stick,
But the record's 17, and jumping that much, I'd get sick.

I did write this poem, which no one has before.
Perhaps unique is not enough; to merit, there is more.

You Can Be/But It Will

You can be smarter in the long run,
But it will cost you in the short term.

You can make your voice heard,
But it will cost you hours of practice.

You can see past life's distractions,
But it may cost you your sanity.

You can have utter clarity,
If you're willing to be misunderstood.

You can be exceptional.
The price is everything normal,
Plus wondering why you're different.

You can be ordinary,
The price is everything extraordinary,
Plus to think always of price and never of value.

Arcane Mysteries

Physicists cover blackboards with arcane mysteries.

Putting God in simplifies the equations, at least.

The presence of a spirit who comes down from the skies,

Who finds the fire in us, awakens and inspires

Is not so implausible to a poet such as me.

In fact, there's but one of the Triune in which I can't believe.

Due Any Day

I'll be due any day ago for an intolerance attack,
But the cure, a day alone, just keeps getting pushed back
By sunny days, and crowds and parks, and back-road closures,
and events and obligations–God, when will those be over?
So this is me acknowledging you really need to talk.
I hope my voice will not betray I'd rather take a walk.
I'm sure I sound insane now, so I'm hanging up the phone,
But a conspiracy of seven billion keeps not leaving me alone.

I Have Yet to Replace

I don't smell well, so your smell was no crushing loss.

I handed your name down to a student and a boss.

The feeling of you hands was never hot enough to brand me.

I have a dozen other friends who can pretend to understand me,

But the feeling I get when the sight of your face

Revs up everything less than eighteen inches from my waist,

That I have yet to replace.

How Long/Three Whole Weeks

I have three whole weeks 'til I finally go.

I have three whole weeks, and they aren't moving slow,

Three weeks more to complete that which I have surpassed,

Three weeks which I'll miss when they're over at last.

I have so much to do, still. How long will it take?

How long can I hold back a tragic mistake?

On My Way

On my way to a lifetime to use what I know,

Trying to get all my ducks in a row,

The last time I was young seems like so long ago.

Keeping my eyes forward and my head on straight,

Looking ahead of my present short stay,

The one thing I wish for is one free mistake.

I Don't Have/But I've Always

I don't have a car that turns men into boys,

A three-story house or a shed full of toys.

I don't have a closet full of things

That are clumsy and hell and ugly as sin.

Those can't even beat a spring-break drive

To see who still has their Christmas lights,

But I've always been the guy

Who wants nothing of price

and everything of value.

The First One in the Series

No novel ever beats
The first one in the series,
The first time the hero sees
That there's a whole hidden world
Full of heels and heroes,
An epic beachhead for sinking toes,
To explore and investigate and overthrow.

I've always wanted to see one for myself.

Why I Write, Part x+187: For My Friends

Before leaving more than a movie's-cast of friends

I really want to write a poem for them,

Though friendship is the only thing in the humanverse

Older than verse,

and I couldn't come close to doing justice.

I begin to think I haven't written it

Because I don't really want to,

Because it means I'll have to go.

I Wish I Could Care

I wish I could care enough to stay the course,
Enough to change my own dreams to match yours.

I wish I could care about today's new news story,
Those celebrities and psychopaths in full, inhuman glory.

I wish I could care about all the busters blasting bluster
That Congress and talk radio can muster.

I wish I could care about my money,
Instead of just needing it.
Oh, wait,

No.  I don't.

I Want to Help

I want to help reconnect you
With friends you thought you had lost,
Put myself in between you and danger,
To hell with the fear or the cost.
I'd go you-don't-even-want-to-know-where
For something you think you might need.
I can't imagine not doing for you,
Or respecting you so little to plead.

Judge, Jury and Executioner

I am a judge quick to a verdict.
I have three reasons to like a person.
It's two parts who she is,
One part how she takes an insult,
and one part how she gives an insult.

You know the person
Who tells me I should
"Execute my artistic vision"
With a guillotine?
I love him.
He makes me laugh.

For My Nearsighted Eyes

I apologize for my nearsighted eyes.

I'm sorry I can only look with my small mind.

When I dismissed you so easily,

It was like I took a bucket from KFC

and used it to take hundreds of scoops of the sea,

and then reported that in the broadest ocean

Lives nothing larger than a chicken.

Why I Write, Part x+186: Having Trouble

Having trouble

Thoughts in pieces

Writing, rambling, running on

Can't really

What I want

In two directions

My message out

Puzzling expression

I guess

Finished

Why I Write, Part x+185: Play Incessant In My Head

What I think are thrilling stories

Play incessant in my head,

But what my inner vision see's

Not what my eyes have read,

Yet, the cause of disappointment,

The work of many days,

Has, when shown to others,

Been quite the cause of praise.

I've never thought I'm worthy

Just 'cause they like me or what-not,

So I'm writing twice as fast now,

To be half of what I'm thought.

Always This Brilliant

Are your words always this brilliant,

Or is this just a good night?

Is this how you look all the time,

Or is it just the light?

Are you my stair to salvation

Or my detour to disgrace?

What multitonal mysteries

Could hide behind that face?

I can ask so many questions,

But the answers won't be sure,

'Cause as quick as I wonder,

You're already out the door.

Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet's

A cautionary tale,

and thoroughly appropriate

For a world where' love's for sale.

It's the same old sappy story

Two dozen generations know,

Only now it's on fast forward

And two dozen TV shows.

How many romances end a-sudden,

Not canceled, but divorced.

It seems marriage is unwieldy,

and it runs a windy course.

Emotion's a Ferrari,

Known for turning on a dime.

Why base our life decisions

On that which one cannot rely?

A Long, Sweet Sentence

Every birth's a long, sweet sentence:

The Judge gives everybody life,

And the Great Question's a parole hearing.

Will we come out the other side?

If we might, then our life's value

Is wrapped up in consequence.

If we won't, it's all that matters

'Cause it's all we ever get.

Why I Write, Part x+184: I Don't Interview Well

My face doesn't stop traffic.

I don't interview well.

If God took first impressions

I'd be bound straight for hell.

I would never touch makeup,

Not in present nor past.

I just needed a wake-up,

and discovered at last

That the internet age

Lets a new star start growing,

Whose skins don't engage,

But hold insides worth knowing.

Trapped By Your Scars

Are you trapped by your scars,

Scared stock-still of more bleeding?

Could you sit behind bars?

Would you suffer for freedom?

Would you keep digging?

How tight would you squeeze?

Would you stoop down to begging

Or crass bribery?

Climb down from the roof,

Damn the risks if you fell?

You know just what do you do

'Cause you built it yourself.

Replace My Hate With Joy

I was the most reluctant Catholic on record as a boy.
It took me decades to find love for God, replace my hate with joy.
I wouldn't go as far as saying worship should be fun,
But it shouldn't be depressing, as John Calvin would have done.
If you ask me what I think of God, I think of celebrating.
If I smile when you hand me wine, I haven't earned berating.

Unrequited Infatuation as a Social Network

So you're wanting my opinion, plus everything I know
On Madison, Mariah, Kelly, Megan and Margo?
Well Megan is available.  Jaime wants to ask her out,
But he works, he's always busy, and he suffers from self-doubt.
Madison dates two guys, don't know how she keeps it up.
Mariah's dating Kelly; I guess that's just tough luck.
Marge is chasing Jason, might be months until she quits.
That's how she works; she picks one crush, and then she sticks to it.
And I've heard it rumored that Megan has her eye on
Mason and Michael and Chandler and Orion,
You know him? He's the new guy who got turned down by Renae.
But Megan is available, so YOLO, seize the day.

Spring in Montana, Pt. 3

On a springnoon to leave winter and summer both bedeviled,

I'm suspicious of everyone who's not a bit disheveled,

Because that means they left their windows all up, and

They've been using turn signals instead of their hands,

Which is, in total, a waste of this rare day

When cool breezes and warm sun are both out to play.

Throughout the Generations

And Seth went ten weeks and five days crushing on Eric,
And Erica went nine weeks crushing on Casey,
And Casey went seven weeks crushing on Michelle,
And Michael went six weeks and five days crushing on Jared,
And Jared went sixteen weeks and two days crushing on Elizabeth,
And Elizabeth went six weeks and five days crushing on Mackenzie,
And Mackenzie went seventeen weeks crushing on Larry,
And Larry went eighteen weeks crushing on Nathan,
And in one year, Nathan had crushes on Shay, Holly and Jenny.

Overlook

I'm taken by the way you give, your presence, and your brains.
I could overlook the numbers, if you'd overlook the same.
I'd overlook your drama if my chest would quit this burning.
The difference in our past's just an excuse to do more learning.
I know I'd have to wait for you. What's two years out of twenty?
There's no chance of us getting rich, but how I spend, none is plenty.

But I will never overlook your vision, what you want to have in life.
Our dreams are so much different. I won't saddle you with mine.

God Said “Let It Be”

God said “let it be,” and that's when I saw the light.

I took the longest, darkest path to getting that much right.

I have known God's presence by what happens when I pray,

But you preach against my people, and I start to lose my faith.

Your god's a winning creature; your theology's a mess.

If God so loved the world, why should I love it any less?

That nothing here is perfect, I had worked out on my own,

But you'll wish your life was perfect if I start returning stones.

The Advice I Wish They'd Given Me at Graduation, Pt. 2

I look back for a cause of these last ten years wasted.

I thought I would change more, and my life would change less.

I like to blame the shock for my comfort-seeking ways,

For the way I compounded all my mistakes,

But the truth is that this is who I've always been.

Fracture my bluster–the fault lies within.

The Perfectionist's Complaint

The problem with human contact's the insane,

Drug-addict's craving for more of the same.

It's inevitable that you will offend

Some sensitive quorum of those new friends

When your feelings for one are different from the rest.

It's a conundrum wrapped inside a gift

Wrapped in an already-rewarding relationship.

To Move Back Home

To be unemployed and to move back home

Is to be always watched and forever alone,

Eating a double watch-your-mouth burger

With a super sized side order of awkward.

If, in four years, I've learned anything,

It's that you can be forever young,

and you can even go home again,

Just don't move in.

20 Questions

How do you do it?
How do you get there?
How do you like me now?
How could you?
Who is that?
Who are you talking to?
Who do you think you are?
Who are you?
Where are you from?
Where are you going with that?
Where are we going?
Why are we in this handbasket?
When does it start?
When do we leave?
When do we eat?
When will you grow up?
What is going on?
What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
What is the meaning of life?
What is the meaning of this?

What is the meaning of this?

The Ballad of the Student Who Actually Wants to Learn Something

I live in a world with a trillion faces,
and I have seen none of them,
Because I am trapped inside the brick walls
Of adult supervision's adolescent playpen.
My science is trumped by your slow movement.
My curiosity is trumped by the people who want to protect me from the world.

I would be more worried
About protecting the world from me.

Culture Is a Method of Consuming and Preserving

A culture is a method of consuming and preserving life,

Identified by its most superficial markers,

and we, as a people of extremes,

Of deficit spending and anti-aging creams

Who don't care who you are or what you know

So much as what you have and who you know

Are certainly the most cultured culture of all.

Futures Labyrinthine/Gordian Past

There is no miracle, no coincidence,

Only the future's labyrinthine path,

Mapped out, made possible by a Gordian past

Made of effort and accident and poorly-laid plans.

Time is all the elements of poetry, assembled out of order,

Just the way they're supposed to be.

Communicating Across Space

There's a certain intellectual dissonance

Every time people try communicating across space,

But when I'm trying to narrowly avoid an entanglement,

and you're desperately trying to hold back tears,

That's just a sign that we really ought to know our friends better.

The First Two Rules

The first two rules of chess:
1.  The board is 64 squares.
2. White moves first.

The first two rules of football:
1.  The field is three-hundred sixty by one-hundred sixty feet.
2.  The field will be marked with white lines every five yards.

The first two rules of Fight Club:
1.  Do not talk about fight club.
2.  Do not talk about fight club.

The first two rules of dating:
1.  You do not want to date a poet.
2.  You do not want a poet's dating advice.

The first two rules of life:
1.  Secretaries and janitors run the world.
2.  If you only know the first two rules, you know nothing.

Changing Everything

Entering a lottery whose numbers decide

Where I will live the best part of my life,

I contemplate, fantasize,

Update my disguise.

On the edge of trading a role I've absorbed

For a role I've only prepared for.

I dive in headfirst, speak dangerously,

Procrastinate furiously.

At the edge of fog, the future, change:

Will new life have a closet space

For the parts of now I hesitate

To throw away?

The You That I Remember

It's a fact of human memory

That I'm at best unsure

If the you that I remember

Is the one you really were.

'Neath dark clouds of concussions

and questions of recall

Lies the fact that for the past ten years

You have not been–at all,

So that raises one more question,

At the heart of memory:

Why, of all the things I've half-forgot,

You should mean a thing to me,

But the truth is fate's had ample chance

To cull what I won't need.

(They say) the rest goes down as

(Flawed and biased) history.

Goodbye Was as Loud as a Gunshot

Your goodbye was as loud as a gunshot.
You were a very literal person,
Always impossible to stop,
and I was never much for the inconvenient.

Since then, I have born my baggage
In two suitcases, in two halves.
I have spent the past ten years and two weeks
Fighting my life and your memory.

I don't want to live for you.
I don't want to die for you,
But I promise I will write for you

When it's convenient.

Brick and Mortar

The world of humanity is mountainous,

A great brick-and-mortar edifice

For me to smash my head against,

and as hard as my head may be,

and as full-to-bursting-at-the-seams,

That mountain of humanity

Will not move, if it's only me.

Privacy Curdled

Privacy curdled.

We live in a Craigslist world

Full of people who would pay

Untidy sums of borrowed money

For the promise of never being alone,

Again,

But I crave a little solitude.

It is comforting to me

That this mere desire

Leaves me all on my own.

Bearing the Marks

Our bodies are tribal oratories,
Bearing the marks of a thousand ancient histories–
Tales of suffering in search of glory,
Tales of suffering just because we bleed,
and every obvious scar that you see
Is just the first clue in a life-mystery.

To All Those People

To all those people who use words like "mistake"
and "youthful indiscretion"
and even "having a good time"
To describe a crime:

Leave,
Now,
Before the future happens to you.

They Might Say

They say we made visual contact.

They say we dug in hastily.

They say to fight fire with fire,

Which was in my heart, and yours.

They say you surrendered to me.

They say I got lost in you.

They might say things got hot.

They might say love conquers all.

When they say all's fair in love and war,

They assume there is some difference.

Cushion In Your Eyes

I saw no hint of cushion in your eyes,

Nothing to pillow your hard interest,

So I was at least half-prepared.

Nevertheless, what I did not see was there.

You didn't say anything as I left,

and I did see knowledge in your eyes.

You know I would have turned around,

and you let me go anyway.

The tinted glass of my own dark eyes

Hides gratitude

For what you didn't make me do.

I Have, On Occasion

I have, on occasion, known victory,

The dizzying post-adrenaline ecstasy

Of collapsing, falling out of my head

Into a golden trophy feather bed,

and I have, on many of them, known defeat,

Exhausted rage soured by finality,

The feeling that I have only run out of time,

But, of course, the game wouldn't last my whole life.

Most foreign to the world's American corner,

I know the flavor of sweet, iron surrender,

That baseball bat wrapped in silk,

The better and the worse for being a path I chose myself.

It always tastes like blood in my mouth.

Of the List

I still sigh for girls of the moment and sexy scientists,

But they're just the inhabitants of the top of the list.

My previous poetry iceberg-tipped a situation

In which my whole waking life seems to swim in stimulation.

There are stretch-pantsed nymphets I pass running their miles;

There's a grocery clerk makes me stutter and smile.

I have old facebook friends who sure look like a blast,

and blond, beautiful ghosts of my student teachers past.

On my way to find out which way Windy blows,

I find myself waylayed by a water-buffalo,

and though I find not one thing to recommend her,

I feel a sudden, sunken urge to defend her.

I'd even take my ex back, if she hadn't left yonder.

It's abstinence that makes the heart grow fonder.

Raise All These Fantasies

I have the strength to raise all these fantasies,
To accept them as part of me,

and I have the strength to make life of them,
To wrestle away from life what I want,

But the best way I can find to make my strength known
Is that I don't.

Why Executives Should Have No Control over Fiscal Policy, Either

You are invited.
You are invited back.
You are the man for the job.
You are a valued member of the team.
You are someone we can trust.
You are on the way up.
You are next in line.
Congratulations...

You are unemployed.

Unscheduled Meeting

You were the unscheduled meeting,
The self-made appointment.
I never set out to network.
I just didn't resist.
I never put you on my bucket list,
Because your friendship isn't
Something I want to die for.

It's something I want to live for.

I Raised the Gate

I unclenched my fists,
Lowered my drawbridge.
I raised the gate to my mind,
Hoping you'd like what you'd find,
and you built yourself up close,
Until we shared windows,

Until we scheduled demolition.

Trust doesn't come in a pill.
Trust is not something you build,
It's something you forge.
Trust is a weapon.

The Utter Purity of Uninhibited Sin

In unfettered, purposed violence, there is joy.

He would suffer, sacrifice, destroy.

I would grind myself down to the nub.

He would do whatever it takes;

I would do whatever it takes,

and one of us will do enough.

Toss, Throw Out, Dispose, Discard

We toss, throw out, dispose, discard,

From the Goodwill, to pasture, and to the junkyard.

As a culture, we always march toward obsolete;

As a species, we could wear out society.

Humans would be resilient, as an animal;

The economy, the politics, those are disposable.

Why Poets Have No Control over Fiscal Policies

I have one rule about lending:

I need some,

and you need some.

Beyond that, it's just counting.

When we're still too young for learning,

Television teaches us to count.

The American Dream brands us,

Burns a logo onto our inner skin.

Some have said that I am courageous,

Forging my own dreams into my own tracks.

Others have said that I am kind,

But there is no mutation in my inner facts.

I am merely unbranded.

See My Peers

I can't be who I once was and won't be soon.
I don't see my peers in a college classroom.
It's not that I don't like the people I'm with,
The ones who'll be at reunions I skip.
It's just, I've already moved on in my head.
In the past, I'd cling to my old life, instead,
Sinking my heals in, and drown in the past.
Unlike present or future, it's one time that lasts.

You Are the One

You are the one that can't be planned for.
You are the one who comes unlooked for.
You are the one that can't be programmed, classified, or easily referenced.

You are the one who keeps me in a frenzy.

You are the one who keeps me out of breath.

You are the one who keeps me half-awake

When I ought to be sleeping.

You are the one who keeps my days

Half-asleep and daydreaming.

You are the one I can't get my mind off of,

Or around.

You are alright, for now.

Between Us

Coming from two sides of one place,

We tested theory face to face.

We struck out living, love or bust.

We let our two pasts come between us.

We tried ignoring half the truth.

Still, the half I let me see in you

Would merit friendship, praise, and trust,

But we let our past come between us.

Now we've been apart for couple of years,

Acres of heartache and more than two beers.

We met by chance, mustering neither hate nor lust.

It's funny, how densely the past grew between us.

Push Play/Hit Rewind

Our hormones go wild
For the fictional smiles
Of so many characters
Who must be cooler than us.

Or perhaps hormones aren't your style.
Instead, do you dissect
When you obsess?
Are you consumed with the correct?

We assume there is more
To the fictional life
Than is seen by you and I,
But why?

We do the same things over and over.
They do the same things over and over
At least we remember.

At least we get better.

Consumed

I don't know why I am consumed

By the same arguments

Over and over again.

Perhaps they bring me hot comfort.

I don't know why I am consumed

By hypothetical perfection.

It seems like an futile

and time-consuming direction.

I don't know why I am consumed

By taking things out of their times and places

and putting them in another.

Perhaps it's the scientific feeling of ultimate control.

I don't know why I am consumed

With the memory, with the old me.

He was smaller, particularly in the belly.

And the mind.

A Face in a Magazine

I saw a face in a magazine,
and it looked like yours,
Or at least my eyes connected
The past to the present,
The memories to the moment,
My discretion to my desire,
My heart to my mind,
and my passion to that pale imitation.

I doubt if you would remember me.
I doubt if that will make a difference.

Inertia and Unkind Thoughts

Propelled by inertia and unkind thoughts,
I don't even start on the work that I've got.
I lack any sense of direction my own,
and shut in or crowded, I wind up alone.
I'm unsure of my exit.  I don't choose to leave.
In the past, collisions with life wakened me.

A Modern City

A modern city is a work of engineering art,

A codependent social network of a bunch of moving parts.

There are factories to make our things and warehouses to keep them.

We need recycling, waste and sewer services to come delete them.

Then there are roads and public transport, all organized at city hall,

and of course we need a power plant, or it won't run at all.

A Mammal's Cells

A mammal's cell's unbound by walls. It is more changeable than pretty.

In that way, as in others, it's just like a modern city.

Its nucleus is City Hall, abuzz in plans, administration.

It depends on mitochondria for power generation.

Miscellanea sit in vacuoles, life's self-storage units.

A manufacturing sector? Let the ribosomes do it.

The recycling, waste and sewer are a job for lysosomes,

and the endoplasmic reticula can stand in well for roads.

Hidden Up My Sleeves

There must be extra guts, and not arms, hidden up my sleeves,

To have said the things I said, to have you actually believe

That I'd found religion, changed my mind, abandoned cynicism,

That my personality had abdicated as though forced by exorcism,

and, the thickest gall, that this all had been for you.

To be that convincing I almost think I must believe it too.

Why I Write, Part x+183: I Didn't Study

At the corner of my eye's an uncertain future as a poet.

I'll keep writing my whole life, but will anyone read it?

But I don't worry, or turn to face it, 'cause what the hell?

I didn't study English for four years to push a pencil.

In the Middle of Things

There was a time when conventional wisdom

Placed earth in the middle of things.

That idea's been replaced on galactic scales,

The better for wandering.

There was a time when ancient thought

Stood in for cosmic belief.

Then the manager sent in science

To throw innings in relief.

They say the world was full of poetry,

'Til science brought in doubt,

But I say there's plenty of poetry

In figuring things out.

May Seem Like Fate

Pursuing infatuation on sight is simply more pleasurable than not to.

Hate at first sight may seem like fate. It's a positive feedback loop.

Those born poor seem bound to stay poor, but that's just lousy schools.

We've all seen genetic inheritance. It's math plus point of view.

For me to believe in destiny, I'd need to be with you.

Picking Up

I peer back through my past. I can't look too far

Without having to question how folks are who they are.

I've been rolling downhill through my months and my years,

Picking bits up off the landscape, which I take when I leave.

I still hold habits close I got from folks I never see,

Which the people in my life now all associate with me.

Nightly

I'm in addiction (the doctor says need)

Of my nightly six hours of sleep,

Hours I'd like back to pay myself first

From a schedule that's otherwise ready to burst.

So instead what I get every night is a choice

Between forging a path into the future for my voice

Or paying mind to the old master-iconoclasts

Who put words in my mouth with their voice from the past.

Fighting My Past

I'm fighting the memory of things that I've said.

I'm fighting the setbacks no longer ahead.

I fight the expectations forged by others' memories.

I fight the expectations forged by how life used to be.

I have no way of knowing just how long I'll last,

But that's how much time, to the second, I'll spend fighting my past.

Why I Write, Part x+182: Spring Cleaning for the Dirty Mind

My notebook and I out walking went,

and in three miles, I wrote five poems.

I held my notebook in one hand and kissed it,

and slapped myself upside the head

For my gross underachivement.

The number of poems

Just blowing down the street,

Lying forgotten on the pavement,

Is a verse approaching infinite.

Why I Write, Part x+181: Seven Notes

I play the same seven notes on the same major scale.

To all but the player, they must surely grow stale,

But I'll write the same poems, all day and all night,

At least until I get one of them right.

It's a Different Color Now

I walk by an old friend's old house,

Only to find it's a different color now,

and the friend I had isn't my friend somehow.

So it is in suburbia. Change

Is just a diversion-charade

To hide the same old uncomfortable same.

Medium Rare

Being born this way might not be bad, but I've

Known what it is to be raw and bloody–alive.

Now I'm medium rare–that is, nearly half-done.

I walk the same streets that the old me would run.

I'll keep coming full circle, just slower, 'til I learn

To let go of this wheel, find a new one to turn.

Actress

It's been nearly five years since you decided to go.
Now you come off like an actress, playing the girl I used to know.
In high school, all I needed was the resemblance.
Then, I might have fallen for you over less,
But now, I can tell your mind's off by a mile,
and you're not the kind to make up ground in the smile.
The meaning of life isn't known yet, but the entry fee's growing apart.
You could never break me in one fell swoop; you're weathering my heart.

The Way That Things Do

I prayed then to understand, to become more like you.
Years have passed.  That's turned out the way that things do.
I still don't know half of what I begged to learn.
I've grown lazy, let go of our fire that burned.
I had half your compassion, six times what I have now.
The mean streak you were missing got bigger somehow.
I have doubts I could pull off your final retreat.
Hosting doubt's just step one to admitting defeat.
Over time, which, in hindsight, has slogged on in a blur,
I've become the opposite of whoever you were.

The Poetic Qualities of Living to Fight Another Day

I'm ponderous, pensive, pedantic, perverse,

Grinding gears, spinning wheels, off the rails, in reverse,

On the ropes, off my rocker, untracked, out of control,

Upside-down and lopsided, but ready to roll,

Lead-footed, light-headed, in the drink, out of air.

I'm too late for directions and too dumb to care.

There are thousands of words for my mind when it's seething,

But I'll settle for one word, as long as it's “breathing.”

Doubts

When everyone doubts me, that's par for the course.
I dash their dark hopes with no shade of remorse,
But when I lead the doubt parade, I start to get tense.
Everything that I am hits the red RPMs.
I'm not calm trying things I don't know I can do,
But what can I do when I'm cool and I'm loose?
When I'm tense, tight and rigid, it keeps my mind here.
Nothing there is makes me stronger than fear.

Staying Close

Hatred is one way to get attached,
Staying close, staying ready for a grudge-match.
Some people saturate themselves in a place,
Head-butting brick walls in the service of change,
But not me.
I'm back to the place where things never felt wrong;
My ambition's to stay the one place I've belonged.

A Golden Ocean

She smiles me a mountain range, a pristine powder day.

Her hair's a golden ocean, shining purity in waves.

Her voice is like the songbird sings, so thoughtlessly in tune,

Her eyes a futurist's computer, fitting the whole world in a spoon,

Though none of these are signs that I have never seen before

In the ranks of people whose praises I'm not singing anymore.

I really don't think that she's worth the risk,

But I'm gonna get old if I don't take one quick.

Why I Write, Part x+180: The Trap

I'm often outgoing, decrying the trap,
and I always fall in and write romantic crap.
I should be more ambitious in what I desire.
I should choose more worthy things to tackle as a writer,
But I can only ever be a product of my youth,
and now I can only be a product of my muse.

Your Actions

You are a sponge, politically.

You soak up all sorts of liberty

In your actions and your votes,

In the shrilling, passive-aggressive notes

With which you assault any meaningful speech.

You guilt and you punish. You chastise and screech,

But you give me direction, and a throttle to match:

Out, luxuriant, loud, and especially fast.

The World Walks On

The world walks on around, day by day,

Like you did when you walked away,

Almost leisurely in turning everything.

There was no great crash, no thundering

End to the world–I only heard it behind my face.

It took no work to hide my private disgrace

Within the four walls of my mind, and of my home

So that when I am suffering, I'm sheltered; I'm alone.

She Doesn't Know

Her teeth-baring smile seems heaven-and-hell sent.

It leaves my heart sexybelligerent.

She doesn't know she's my muse.

She's a rebounding Miss Robinson,

One half sexy brains and the rest newly young.

She doesn't know she's my muse.

She's hot as my temper. She's cool as ice,

The Miss who's been missing from my miss-lived life.

She doesn't know she's my muse.

She's never, forever. She's Miss Once-and-Future,

With ten years of we-have-a-past to approve her.

She doesn't know she's my muse.

I've tried to get past her; been trying so long,

But she lingers and echoes though hope is long gone,

So she's still the last measure in all of my songs.

She doesn't know she's my muse.

She can't know. She would just be confused.

Your Body/Your Ring

Can your posture and gesture be all that they seem?
I don't know how much of your eyes to believe
When you wear those pretty green contacts for me.
Your body invites, but your ring disagrees,

So I won't respond, take the bait, take control,
No matter how far you stray from just agreeable.
I too know that tug-of-war when body fights soul.
I know all about being taken but available.

Ten Years

It's ten years to the day since your voice was heard
In the last, breathless shout of snuffing it out.
and I've since sworn that no more
Will readers hear your life in my voice,
But I still hear your death in the wind's voice,
at least when I'm not listening.

A Starless Night

Fair early in a starless night
I walk 'neath black and bitter skies,
and Jack Frost numbs my long-healed sores–
Fights long-forgotten, little wars
Far bigger than my fights today,
Which start over the words I say
and progress no further thank in kind,
My taste for conflict long-declined.

Those lead me first to thoughts impure
Which soon a moment's smile cures.

Why I Write, Part x+179: Fifty Ways to Skin a Verse

You can sew up a sonnet, one line at a time.
You can frame up your argument and cover it in rhyme.
You can write yourself a paragraph, then trim off all the fat.
All poets know the sayings, like the one 'bout skinning cats.

There must be fifty ways to skin a verse.
The problem is choosing which bones to pick first.

I Am/Not

I am not a golden boy.
I am not my father's son.
I am not the sum of my credentials
Or the least of my achievements.

I am not out to get you.
I am not here for the party.
I am not saying this to upset you,
But we are who we're mistaken for,
Sooner or later.

My Friend of Misery

You taught me everything I know
About the kind of person who can go
A whole life as a leader
Without resorting to fear.

You taught me half of what I know
About sacrificing pieces of myself.
I twist the knife for my own goals,
Or pull it out to bleed for someone else.

Most of all, it was your teaching put to rest
The child's fears I had of death.
I don't keep those anymore,
Now that I know living is the true horror.

I carved your marks into my weak left side,
Notes even my mess of a life couldn't hide,
an unyielding, unhealing, technicolor scar.
I smile desperately to remember who you were.

First Impressions of the Third Kind

When we introduce ourselves to the aliens,
I hope we don't hold a press conference,
Or, worse, trot out trailers and a marketing campaign.

(HUMANS!
Coming Soon
To a theater near you!)

These means to power and production,
Where we spend our days and nights
Are available to anyone downwind of satellites.

Instead, I'd show them baseball, 'cause it's patient, 'cause it's whole,
'Cause we haven't yet forgotten all that's uselessbeautiful.

Bridge Over Troubled Times

Teething, Crying, Pacifying
Education, graduation,
First mustaches, rites of passage,
Mistaking, spring breaking, a little lovemaking
Have all passed, beneath my notice,
As though I have climbed
To some bridge over troubled times,

But it must be a concrete bridge,
'Cause my knees hurt like Satan's pokin' 'em.

Leave My Brain

You are the kind of girl

My good friends distrust

and my bad friends approve of,

The kind of girl my brother

Dismisses out of hand

and covets later, offhandedly.

You are the kind of girl

Who keeps me from my work,

Keeps me waking after church

and leaves my brain blissfully blank.

You are the kind of girl

I have to lie to my folks about,

The kind even my shrink says

I'd be wiser to doubt,

and, to be honest, I probably would,

But I won't give up what's best for what's good.

One decade of sporting stupidity

Is where I got all my best stories.

Why not try for two?

I Just Fell In

There was no agonizing

In our sleepless nights,

No war between left brain

and right brain and low brain.

I just fell in with you.

It was the easy thing to do,

But far too many times to list

You demanded and dismissed.

The struggle came with time to choose

When to go to war with you.

The second-best thing I did with you was doubt.

That's what I get for taking the easy way out.

I Swear

I swear, I once lived colorfully,
and it dried onto me.
And it dried into me.

It shows on me, that I'm not new.
I can't whitewash; it just shows through.

To black it out, to block it out,
Hides the designs but not the doubts,

and the first time I get wet,
Scrape, break or bend,
Flecks of my past show through again.

Before I Close My Eyes

I set out last night,
Seeking a poet's odd prize,
The words I think, half-conscious
Before I close my eyes.
They are senseless and priceless,
Apparently unrecoverable,
Dreamily irredeemable,
Forever unpreserved.
They, like our grandfathers,
Have the misfortune of being born at the wrong time.

Pride

I make your decisions.
I am your fire's ignition,
Your swollen ambition,
Your throbbing erudition.
I take your brain stem,
From tip to base
To that special place
Where you can just take
What you want.
I come before you fall,
and once you do,
I am all that falls with you.

These Misshapen Masochist's Dreams

We all have those misshapen masochist's dreams,
Those brain-breaking, sleep-waking deaths born of fear,
Unbearable ruts of thought we worry quick and deep,
The conditions to the statement "if it happens, I'll just leave,"
Even if the place in question is the life we breathe and bleed.
The only thing that differs is the doomsday we believe,
and I'm learning the ultimate definition of sanity
Is as simple as thinking that the nightmare's not yet here.

Tough

When the going gets tough, the tough
Go and get new tattoos.
You can't always get what you want,
But sometimes you don't get screwed.
If wishes were horses, we'd all have some splainin'
and a whole lot of cleanup to do,
But I still wouldn't have you.

Just a Stepping Stone

I thought I ought to tell you, since I myself just barely know
That if I didn't want you happy, I'd have never let you go.
The thing that really bothered me was that I'm just a stepping stone
To your new, different, discount version of me.

Still, it's been unfair to you that it bothered me so much.
After all, it's just the coda to measures of holding you up.