Reknew It

A losing war I'm fighting
Against weakness within.
My mind seeks you in kindness
and returns to you in sin,
and if I had not known that
Every thought to you adheres
Then I certainly reknew it
Ever time I saw you here.

A Toast to the People

Here's to professors, who nitpick and praise.

Here's to good friends, who give spirits a raise.

Here's to the people I ate and I drank with.

Here's to the people I rose and I sank with.

I hate to say it, but here's to the unrequiting,

Which I can hide until it enlivens my writing.

So here's to my favorites, and here's to my jerks.

Thanks for the help–here's wishing it worked.

I Knew It!

I always knew who the worst teacher in the world is.

I always knew that I could do better.

The worst teacher in the world is a million-way tie

Between all the teachers who hate one or more of their students.

I ain't great,

But I ain't the worst teacher in the world.

A Toast to Ten Years of Unnecessary Learning That Maybe Made Me Who I Am

I am a know-it-all with a lot to learn.

I was a know-it-all with a lot to learn

Ten years ago.

Then I learned how the other half lives.

I learned how the forty-seven percent lives.

I learned exactly how forgetting works.

I learned that you can make ten years

Out of slim hopes and lying and hiding,

and now I'm going to learn if that's like

Writing, or if it's like riding a bicycle,

Because I don't plan on practicing,

Not for a long time, anyway.

Cheerfully Paying the Piper

The words “everything has a price”

Are so often so morose,

Spoken by those who assume

That declines must come with regrets,

But not I,

Who have only minded the price

When I payed time for money,

So I walk around with my head in a fog, chuckling.

My knees grind with a smile.

Mockery falls on half-deaf ears.

The piper can have whatever he wants,

Except the rights to the stories.

Lying to You, Pt. 4

The world will never speak.

The world is honest.

In a vacuum, it would be science,

Or at least the raw numbers,

A giant ball of molten results,

Too hot for fingerprints,

Unshaped by statistics,

But life will lie to you

Even if you're careful.

It's full of people,

Who are prone to lying

Or scared into hiding,

Or susceptible to the placebo effect,

Or living out their lives as statistics.

The Television

The television tells all of us lies,
Repeats just a few important ones.
By the time we are half-grown,
At least enough to reach the power button,
We already know those lies as mantras.
I have been all my life lying to myself,
Saying that my life has a destination.

Life tells all of us truths,
Repeats just a few important ones.
By the time we are full-grown,
We're almost ready to admit knowing them.
(We'll never be ready to admit knowing them.)
I am a hard man to lie to,
Which is why sometimes, I just look for the end.

Lying to You, Pt. 3

You said I was brilliant, and even a find.

You were not slow in praising my rational mind,

But were equally quick in insisting I should

Subscribe to the worst lies in all Hollywood,

A narrative unchanged in two hundred years

In which I am loyal without wait or fear.

Instead of an interest that builds up to trust

You were insistent that your boyfriend must

Live at once for one woman, and no other “her,”

Who is not even you, but who you wish you were.

You say that few things are as sexy as truth,

But you only reward me for lying to you.

Lying to You, Pt. 2

What the voters see on the shelves, it looks great,

and in this store, like others, you don't have to pay.

The government's Mastercard's bigger than yours,

But paying it off? That's what voters deplore.

Asking them to make payments gets us voted out.

Even thinking to mention it leads them to shout.

The late King of Camelot didn't see things this way.

He was honest about it, and noted to say

That you must serve your country before it serves you.

The public was listening. What did they do?

The cheered and paraded–and killed the man dead.

It's not even certain whose shot pierced his head.

We're the butt of your jokes when we don't tell the truth,

But the way to get in is by lying to you.

Lying to You, Pt. 1

Your chocolate went missing, the brown on my face

Good for one week of grounding, one minute's disgrace.

Your pudding went missing and never was found.

You assumed it was me; one more week on the ground.

I've made selfish choices and clumsy mistakes,

and you've said I should tell you before it's too late,

But whether it's accidents, candy or toys,

It all costs the same: quiet after loud noise.

I never did homework, and sometimes you asked,

But there's no heading it off when it brings the same wrath

As when you find out at the end of the term,

Right down to asking why I never learn.

You make a good show of demanding the truth.

You taught me I'm better off lying to you.

Spring in Montana, Pt. 7: Odes to Spring

I wonder why my schoolfellows write odes to spring,
The season of leaving,
This one-way entrance door to four months of not seeing,
The time to leave behind thinking,
The time to be intellectually stagnant,
When I put the pursuit of happiness
On hold for the pursuit of cash,

But then I watch a baseball game
Wrapped in the evening sun's embrace
and the breeze's cool caress,
and I wonder why I haven't.

Had a Good Day in Vegas

I spend time like I won it off the gray Father.

Had a good day in Vegas.

I purchase petty news and a few useless facts,

and the whole-worldly pleasures

On my carousel of carousal, my unmetered merrymaking,

My frantic orgy of idleness.

I treasure my transient profligacy. Perhaps

Everyone needs some nothing.

Perhaps everyone needs to be nobody.

Being someone is tiring.

I have known a rudderless landlessness.

It's an intimate relationship.

Too Late

The dearly departed are too late to forgive,

But perhaps the living have done wrong in their mourning.

Mother's comfort in youth seems a warning:

If the dead look down on us from above,

They'd see a whole life's worth of lives, full of

Broken hearts hemorrhaging archived love.

If my friends kept their eyes

After they lost their lives,

Then I should apologize.

The Gift of Life

The gift of life has ten thousand million faces.

The gift of life is given in all sorts of different places–

In the handrail we grab before we fall,

To both young and old in the hospital,

At the intersections in the midst of the street,

At the end of the budget where there's just enough to eat,

In storms that veer away from the peak that you climbed.

The gift of life's given more than one time.

Birth is just the start of it.

Birth is just the least of it.

Those Evenings

Double doors opened by God I walked in.

It had mostly been windows before.

It was someplace to eat. It was someplace to be

'Til I didn't come 'round anymore.

I don't go in for singing and dancing,

Reaching fingers-and-tongues for the stars,

But something here kept me from leaving.

Something made it the Spirit's, and ours.

Now, I leave every one of those evenings

Steps hitching to songs in my head.

It might not look like dancing to you,

But it's closer than men like me get.

There's hardly a goodbye in leaving

As long as you're soon coming back,

But knowing I'll leave for the last time

Leaves threads in my life unheld, slack,

So the song in my head might be playing

On my last walk out God's double doors,

But though you might still hear me singing,

My footsteps won't dance anymore.

Anything Else

I always rush, because I shirk.

I cannot look for work and work.

I think money is a sham,

Yet I keep wary for a scam.

I think I can only be who I am,

Because anything else makes my brain hurt.

Three Degrees of Separation

The two seats, the three degrees of separation,

The four floor tiles between us

Are a quicksilver ocean, thick and alluring

and stupefying.

I spend hours imagining that it isn't there

From the comfort of desire.

I've had this side to myself for so long

That if you cross the gulf

I won't know whether to treat it as an invasion

Or an open house.

Graduation Day

If you told me that in eleven days,

Fourteen hours and nine minutes

The world is going to end,

I might not argue with you.

I do know that in eleven days,

Fourteen hours and nine minutes

Something is going to end,

Something I like enough not to think

That I've grown too used to it,

But I have grown used to it.

I don't know how to welcome leaving.

I only think I know what to do,

But it's about time I wrote another good beginning.

The Visceral Joy of the Pessimist

My favorite thing about humanity

Is that if you bury expectations deep enough,

Someone will eventually climb up to them,

Though they will only squat there

and never stake a claim.

It is up to you to fence your expectations.

It is up to you to harvest their fruit.

Dig deep into the soil.

Boil the roots of validation.

It tastes like blood and bitter laughter.

It tastes just like I thought it would.

The Visceral Joy of the Nihilist

You can never know how I crave

The red light,

How I treasure minutes alone

When my ears ring in silence,

When my eyes drown in the darkness,

When I stand straight to keep from falling,

When I think in fast forward

To hold myself up on the very edge

Of sleep's unknowable oblivion,

When I hardly even have to imagine

That the world has come to a complete stop.

You can never know how I dread

The green light.

It would frighten me, too, if I still cared.

The Visceral Joy of the Hater

I tear, take to the film with my teeth,

and in my fiery tongue I enwreathe

The smooth and the holes of its silvery sands

As I demean and devour another man's

Creative vision.

Spectres

I know them.

I have seen them

Feasting on a new kill.

I have challenged them

Foolishly, angrily,

Desperately.

I have lead the chase

Hopefully, breathlessly,

Futilely.

I have fought them

Unrestrainedly, unflinchingly,

Unsuccessfully.

I have played dead,

Battered, exhausted,

Humiliated.

I have survived.

I have returned,

With all of the scars

and none of the proof.

What's In A Name?

Am I poetry dude?  Am I teacher guy?  Am I beer-gut man?
Perhaps I'm a person who writes, or a writer who teaches.
I'll leave that up to the eye of the beer-holder.

Half Awake

We are walking in the cold.
We are resting on each other,
Listening without hearing,
Conversing without exchange.

If I am alert within myself,
But unable to engage,
am I even half awake?

Test Positive

Diving into a full can of can-do

So I can study something

Besides the back of my eyelids,

The effects of compatibility

On human/hallucination relationships,

Or modern bullying–

Grown boys punching each other in the facebook.

My entire personality consists

Of academic performance enhancing drugs.

Test positive or fail.

The First Thing You Need to Know

Always does not mean always.

Forever does not mean forever.

Neither word describes anything real.

That is why divorce does us part.

That is why the thankful forget.

So hold tight to this memory

For as long as your grip lasts.

It won't ease all pains,

Just the pain of other forgetting.

Toasted the Poet, Trying to Enjoy His Impending Graduation

My return to Academia

Had an inauspicious start

When I met with two advisers

Who forgot to bring their hearts,

But the start did not foreshadow

How what followed it would go.

For the first time since the third grade,

I brought home a 4.0.

I got on with my professors.

I got on with my new life.

I even got it on sometimes

When I left school at night.

For the first time after high school,

I felt I was at home.

It was better than the year before

I mostly spent alone.

I then enjoyed three more short years

Of almost just the same.

I was fertile. I was watered.

I did all I could to stay.

In the midst of all that learning,

I sort of learned to teach.

Now my last days as a student

Are quick sliding out of reach.

Now I'll follow my trade's winds

Wherever they blow.

Cruzado for President!

Go Cats Go!!

Spring in Montana, Pt. 6

The weather today

Is swirled, Neapolitan.

My knee feels all wrong.

Teach You Haiku, Pt. 2

I will not teach you

Haiku. Dude, have you read mine?

They are terrible.

Teach You Haiku

On my last day of

Student teaching, I wonder

Why I have to leave.

Spring in Montana, Pt. 5

I'm long familiar with a young campus May,

Bathed in brand-new green,

and even more newly deserted.

It is a pleasure few choose to indulge.

It is a pleasure too fast in passing.

As May grows old, I would trade my paradise,

Straight up, for another fifteen-credit season.

By June, I would trade it for six.

I could get used to the emptiness,

But my mind detests the idleness.

Temptation Comes

Temptation comes in all the usual forms,

The hourglass and the V and dirty, green currency,

But sometimes it comes for us in plain clothes–

The short, clipped, cutting exit-words

From a conversation that thought it was already over;

You couldn't help but know they're unnecessary,

But they always sound so delicious on the tongue.

There's the teacher's unattended stack of hall passes,

A little yellow pad that looks like a YOLO pad from here.

The outsized snooze button on everyone's alarm clock

Somehow looms even larger in the morning than the night before.

There's the third slice of pizza, the second slice of cake,

and that lunch date with your ex that you should never, ever make.

The only thing all temptations have in common

Is that they taste breathless.

My Younger Self

I'd expect my younger self to have left
My older, wiser self a whole bevy of regrets:
The half-finished degree, the sports injuries,
Being offended and being offensive,
The leaving and the losing and the getting lost,
The good times with bad influences,

But I only have one regret,
Maybe three.

The Class Zombie

I am the class zombie,

Shambling from door to door,

From doorbell to doorbell,

From student to student.

Yesterday, a student answered.

He reminded me what I'm doing.

He reminded me who I was,

Before I was a zombie.

Making Such a Mess

My mouth is dry, thirsting for the truth.

I dig and scrape the corners and reaches of my mind

Until I hit paydirt–I made such a mess to find

Answers that undercut even my expert pessimism.

My eyelids are heavy, the old hours are weighing

On my mind, so that the conclusion sinks in–

What I really want is to spend the new hours sleeping.

I made the new hours old, and realized upon waking

That time spent unconscious is only time wasted.

So you say you'd rather have someone new,

and I take your word for it, 'cause what else can I do?

But don't try to guilt me for having my doubts.

I know, more than a little, how these things turn out.

Gathering Gaggle of Lollygaggers

A gathering gaggle of lollygaggers
At a snaggletoothed four-way stop
Give me an excuse to reach into the black of me,
Seeping and sapping the last of my day's energy.
Sleeping and napping the daylight of my evening away
Laced a moment of rage with a measure of regret.
Every inch and minute of it was a waste.

As I Watch You Try On a Dress

As I watch you try on a dress, it occurs to me
That I don't know the difference between petty and pretty.
As I watch you try on the whole store, it occurs to me
To ask "what's the difference?", 'cause there might not be.

As I walk you on to the next store, it occurs to me
That I am making a big mistake.

I Say/They Say

I say, and they don't.

I do, and they don't.

I try to entertain, and

They try not to pay attention.

I do not know how to lead.

They say, and I don't.

They do, and I don't.

They try to entertain, and

I try not to pay attention.

I do not know how to follow.

They advertise, and I stay in.

They invite me out, and I stay in.

I go to the same place for years on end,

and suddenly stop coming.

I definitely know how to get out of the way.

The Hunchback

He is The Hunchback of Common Plights,

Weighed down, misshapen by piled slights,

Uninvited, turned back on and overlooked,

Once bitten, twice too shy, and three times forsook,

Sent to conference-slash-symposium-

Slash-trade show-slash-impose on hims,

Put down, put out, put last, put off and ignored.

Last on every speed dial, they call when they're bored,

and every wound, physical or mental, he's suffered,

He's bandaged back without a word.

He's been used and disposed of, caught and throw back,

and people wonder why he's not much to look at.

You Don't Have To Tell Me

You don't have to tell me you forgive me.

You don't have to tell me it's forever.

You don't have to tell me flattering lies.

You don't have to tell me everything that happened

To every celebrity you follow on the news

and every one of your three kids at school,

and every one of your most distant familial relations.

Just tell me I can leave this room.

Effective Yesterday, or A Big Screw You to the World, Pt. x

I hate the traffic,

and I hate forgetting.

I hate that those parts

Are ninety percent of my day.

I hate the pressure to “contribute”–

Not pressure to do something awesome,

A challenge which I could accept

and fail miserably at,

But pressure to behave uninterestingly,

To do petty bullshit

To buy petty bullshit

To do petty bullshit

To buy petty bullshit

To do petty bullshit.

I hate that it is so hard to accept

Everything that disgusts me personally

But does me no harm.

Even more, I hate that most of the world

and None of the world's governments

Are more than halfway trying.

I want to quit humanity

Effective yesterday.

They're Made Out Of

You ask me out comparison shopping,

But I refuse to turn my life

Into ten thousand tiny little transactions

Trading time for money.

You plan to put on a play.

You gave me a singing part,

Knowing I've never been afraid of the crowd,

But you were trying to write a serious drama,

and I only have the same three half-steps

In three different octaves.

You tried to call me back in from school,

Pleading that “home is where the heart is,”

But I have this papery, oniony academic thing

Where other people keep their hearts.

I only sleep where you live.

It's been observed that humanity is made out of meat.

I am made out of monkey wrenches.

I Will Miss You

I will miss the class discussions,

Miss the ideas, the inspiration,

The excuse to pretend like I know something.

I will miss the seven-page papers.

We had some last-minute, highly-caffeinated,

Kind of creatively thrown-together fun.

I will miss you, assigned reading.

You were an excuse to broaden myself.

You were an excuse to improve my writing.

I will miss you, perfunctory invitations

To places I don't want to go, with people I sort of know.

Turning you down was moderately flattering.

I will miss you, professor evaluations.

Usually, I had something nice to say.

Occasionally, I had to say something poetic instead.

Bureaucratic hoop-jumping, I will miss you least of all,

But if we meet again, there's a chance I'll smile anyway.

Tell Me Something

Don't tell me what they're doing in Hollywood.

I'm not interested in decorative people.

Don't tell me about the latest fashions.

I'm not interested in decorating people.

Don't ever tell me what I can't do.

Either I already know, or I'll never believe it.

Don't bother telling me how great I've done.

Flattery is nothing more than making a whore of you tongue,

and I'm no twenty-eight-year-old virgin.

Just tell me something worth listening to.

A Storytelling Animal

The poet is a thinking animal.

The poet is a storytelling animal.

The poet is an endangered animal,

His once-spacious habitats reduced

To schools and passing lanes,

But he is still an animal.

He does not know that “life”

Is just a word that he makes up,

Just a story that he tells about

Sex and death.

Hurry Up and Wait

I have known more than the kiss of hurry-up-and-wait.
I have made it mine, and named it hurry-up-and-relax,
Time preservation by procrastination,
Getting ahead to enjoy getting behind again,
Not living for today or tomorrow,
But for a temporary absence of demands.

Look Back

I want to write enough novels

To make up for two vows of silence.

I want to write enough poetry

It would take three scholars to read it all,

Though whether they bother to read it

I'll leave up to history.

I want to teach writing, too,

Until every writer in the world

Is better than me,

But when people look back on me,

I don't want them to look back.

Underpants Gnomes

I am aware of my malfunctions.

I make incomplete lists of incomplete lists.

They're called “all my poems.”

And I do have eyes.

I know there's profit on the other side,

But I am an underpants gnome.

I don't know step two.

Vacant Lot

I walk past a grassy vacant lot,

A one-tree kingdom, A no-horse town,

and I wonder what was supposed to go there.

I wonder that it wasn't built,

Because I think I might be looking at

Everything the world could, should be

and isn't.

Why I Write, Part x+196: Eephus

There are days I have my fastball,

and days I don't,

and then there are the days

When my changeup won't change,

My curveball won't curve,

My slider won't slide,

My screwball's all screwed up,

and I don't throw a knuckler,

But I won't knuckle under.

I just write a list

and call it free verse–

Call it eephus.

Everything I Ever

I have thrown away everything I ever had.

I'm not saying that I've missed it.

The theory behind throwing it away is that I wouldn't,

So I just walk out, just close the door,

Say “I don't love these things,” and leave them behind,

Over and over and over again.

But what if someone does love those things?

Well, perhaps that someone has them now?

And what if I find something that I want to keep?

Will I still walk out and close the door on it?

Can I learn to put my wants before my habits?

The one harsh truth of my life seems to be this:

That if I never need anything, I will never have anything.

Spring in Montana, Pt. 4

You clothed my heart in a Montana spring.

The first time I saw you, my eyes were bathed in sunshine.

Soon, my mind was overcast by rainclouds,

Ominous and unfulfilled.

What little of your light could filter through

Only intensified the green growing underneath.

Still, I grew cold, covered by an icy maiden snow.

Thoroughly blotted, you no longer colored my heart,

and now it is April once again, and I start from scratch.

For Whatever Reason

For better or worse, for whatever reason, you
Are the slippery time-thief and sticky eye-glue.
You are not the most engaging,
and you are not the most attractive,
and I would never have thought to write a poem for you,
Although I wouldn't have thought I could get away to.

Monogamous

I am, within the context of conversation, monogamous.
I will not stop talking to you to answer the phone.
I cannot keep track of four faces, four opinions, at once,
But I will not grow fonder with absence,
and I will not gaze longingly as you leave me,
Unless you give me a reason.

Anecdotal Proof That Writing Works Better Than Psychoanalysis

I was a child unimpressed with life,

Always too bored to play the same game twice,

Always looking for something new to do,

But it was my brother's idea to draw that cartoon,

To play as an artist, working but poor,

Trying to get fifty dollars or more.

I talked him down to seven dollars in play money

For play groceries.

That may have been a factor in what I chose to do...

and maybe what he chose, too.

Why I Write, Part x+195: Some Say/They're Wrong

Some say that it's a talent.

Some say that it's a skill.

Some say that it's expression,

The deliberate delivery

Of my artistic vision.

They're wrong.

Some say that it's meaningful.

Some say that it's bold.

Some say it's a purposeful

Statement about myself and the world.

They're wrong.

Some say that it's a calling.

Some say that it's the call,

The refusal, and the hero's quest.

They're wrong.

It's really just self-medication.

I Was Here

I was here before the fall.

You just didn't notice me.

A stiff breeze might have blown me over,

If I weren't busy hiding behind it.

I survived the fall.

Spend fourteen years wanting to die,

and irony will be sure to soften your landing.

I am the better for the fall.

Once you have nothing to live for,

It's easier to stop worrying and live.

Someone will know that I was here...

Against Personal Policy

I have a personal policy against marriage.

I have a personal policy against kids.

Either would be more than enough to wipe clean

My future of my one remaining dream:

That there will be a day when I can come home,

Change out of uncomfortable clothes,

Sit down, listen to music, and relax

Without any questions to answer or ask,

To be twenty-eight or twenty-nine

With the home life of the semi-retired.

Not My Type At All

It seems that any soft inch on you is a lie.

Your inches in general are in short supply,

and those, vandalized, marred, with bone and musculature.

You're an intricate, anatomical model in miniature.

If I touched you like I'd like to, I think you'd fall apart.

I find it unattractive, and yet it steals my heart.

The more I start to realize that you're not my type at all,

The harder I fall.

One Teacher Left Behind

I am not an old elephant who resists change.

I am no fool rushing in, too quick to change.

I am smashed in between the two, thrown for a loop.

I would settle for no child left confused.

Why I Write, Part x+194: The Anxiety of Influence

I have no anxiety of influence.

I revel in it,

Because it's the last gift,

Of the gods and ancestors.

It persists,

Long after the trust funds

and natural resources

cease to exist.

Academic Like Me

My love is academic, like me,

Split into compartments and categories

Like sex, conversation, and compatibility,

Punctuated by commas of periods

Of hour, days, months, weeks or years,

Perfect for a poet who deserves to be a schoolteacher.

Pressed Against Your Walls

The force that's created when our hearts collide

Is matched by the pressure ripping mine from inside.

I could die here happily, pressed against your walls.

It's human to fight 'til there's nothing left at all,

Which is why I will wax in attention, walk away.

It's human to stand in. I'll do it someday.

To Tell You What I Meant

It was such a cliché to say you're “different.”

It would be better and worse to tell you what I meant:

I had to bench my whole lineup of little lies

Because they're not true, and not enough, at the same time.

I also had to throw out my playbook, endless pages of humor,

Out of fear that once you hit me, I'd drop every word.

For your sake, I could start to like money or wine,

Yet all I gave for you was the lamest of lines.

Washington, DC

The roads of the heart were designed poorly,

With diagonal crossings, like Washington, DC.

I'm stuck at the corner of Hope and Affection,

Knowledge and Concern.

I want so badly for both our dreams to come true,

But I've studied my history, and they never do.

I've studied my history, and I know barely too much.

I want against wanting to keep on and give up.

I can never be what you want me to be,

But I think I could be what you need.

Moment of Truth

Nothing ever goes as it is planned.

Nothing ever goes as it ought to.

Instead, it has a tendency to go sideways,

Which would be off the rails,

Maybe even beyond the pale,

Or under the radar, out of control,

Over the moon–best case, off the wall.

Eventually, everything snowballs downhill.

It takes a while to soak through my density with what's wrong,

and I'll do something, anything, to get back where we belong.

Then you'll recognize

The look in my eye

When I'm about to try something insanely desperate, desperately insane,

Except you won't,

Because I never showed it to you before.

Why I Write, Part x+193: Memes

What I do:

I am an arbiter, altering adulterer of language,

An arrogant, insufferable know-it-all,

A poet.

What the world thinks I do:

I dress in black,

All day and night,

and write

About suicide

and homicide

and cyanide:

When humans collide.

What my friends think I do:

I paint scenes of my head and my friends,

With dedication and numbers without any end,

With nothing but meaning and symbols and pens,

Out of phrases and moments and anything there,

Because I care.

What my parents think I do:

I procrastinate and say I write,

Taking two hours, or half the night

To half-think my way through a couple of lines.

It's just an excuse to get out of life.

What I think I do:

All of my words are a gift from a muse,

Which I set up and tune up and polish and use,

and then send out online, where they're shared with the world,

Or at least my half-dozen best boys and girls.

What I really do:

First I think of something to write.

Then something pulls my attention off to the right,

Maybe a little bit, or all the way,

But in any case, enough to forget what I planned to say,

and then I take five minutes to bang out something new,

Which doesn't look anything like it was supposed to,

But it'll do.

Asking the Question

You'll never upset me by asking the question,

But I might upset the course of my life answering.

I didn't start this wanting to lie to you,

But there are some times I don't want you hearing the truth.

I don't want to have secrets,

I just want to keep them.

Denial, Pt. 2

Denial is rarely preferable to the alternative.

Denial is sometimes preferred over the alternative.

Denial is usually the first step.

Denial makes fools of men and women,

When it's not preventing action.

Denial is selective, seductive, soporific.

Denial is not really a river in Egypt,

Denial is just the opposite of questioning.

The Street Free Agent

I was the street free agent.

I came back unrecruited, unhailed,

and four years, I kicked back and kicked tail,

But now I'm getting too old to play.

But now, the time has come that I'll be replaced

By someone younger, and sent on my way.

I just hope the new kid has as much fun as I did.

Why I Write, Part x+192: Millions of Good Reasons

There are poems; my opinion says that those are hard to beat.

There are recipes to tell us how to make good things to eat.

There are movie scripts that thrill us when the actors get them right.

There are journals, tales of suffering, that leave us horrified.

There are essays, school assignments. Those are nearly all the same.

There are editorials, pleas to right, preserve or change.

There are even manifestos, even lists of strange demands.

There are little pearls of wisdom I will never understand.

There are novels that can keep me up all hours of the night.

There are millions of good reasons someone else wants you to write.

To the Rind

A storyboard's no movie. A blueprint's not a car.

It's logical that what we do is less than who we are.

I've bitten into worldly life, though not down to the rind,

But my whole melon's rotted through by sinning in my mind,

and if I were to go so far, to share my fantasies,

I might tell them as stories that the world thinks true of me.

No matter how I tell them, I can't make those stories true,

But who I am is more than just what fear will let me do.

It's Always the Wife

Abrupt, unnatural ends to a man's life

Prompt speculation that “it's always the wife.”

Who always listens? Who always knows

When to go along and when to let go?

Who holds his hand–and his spoon–when he's sick?

Who goes from buddy to business partner, double-quick?

Who hears what his boss says, and knows what it means?

Who's willing to take, and who adds to, his genes?

Who handles every matter that matters in the matter of a man's life?

It's always the wife.

Like a Used Car

When it comes to not hating people I know,

I am slimy; I sell congeniality like a used car.

“Well, the boss won't let me like a person like you,

But I'll get you the best deal I possible can.”

I'll give you full value for your talents,

Accept an initial dislike of me as good judgment,

Look the other way when you pick your nose,

and mark your rudeness down as “eccentricity” and “personality.”

No, seriously.

That's pretty much how it goes.

This Is Fiction

They came from above,

Or at least from higher than us.

The took us to their leader.

They told us to stand here.

They told us to sit there.

They told us to eat this.

They told us to wear that.

They took music most human,

and gave us numbers, good for counting.

They took all of our natural arrangements for words,

and gave us back just one.

They produced people

Made for manufacturing money.

K.A. Applegate (and maybe Calvin)

Warned me about the brain-stealing aliens.

Shame on me for thinking this is fiction.

Intention/Accidents

Tradition is repetition and reunion.
Tradition is food and family and friends.
Tradition is intention applied to happy accidents,
and, like everything, probably better with ice cream.

English Class Dance

At English class dance those who literature founded.

How come Odysseus can go but Coyote is grounded?

Austen and the Bronte sisters romance codified,

But their endings tell young readers all the most bewitching lies,

Far more unbelievable than tales of Sherlock Holmes,

Which are themselves the basis of so many modern tomes.

Intriguing

I have seen what Cleopatras hide behind their eyes,

Minds full of intrigue and thoroughly intriguing.

I have known a Delilah, a burden who saps strength,

and nine muses, tireless bringers of it,

But there is nothing in this world more alluring

Than the sentimental, slightly-out-of-rhythm swaying

Of uninhibited youthful enthusiasm.

I Am Not John Lennon

I know I am not John Lennon. When you leave me 'til last,

You're not saying I'm bigger than Jesus, just smaller than everyone else.

It's fine if you hate poets, if you can't stand poetry,

But I hate it when you'll hear others and you won't hear me.

The Back of My Hand

I tested you.

(I put the back of my hand

To the door of your heart.

I felt nothing, which was comforting,

Familiar enough to draw me inside.

In the dark of your heart,

I heard only the sound of one mind praying,

and the rustling of my clothes.)

I learned that we are birds of a feather;

We would be imperfect together.

The Benefit of Being Sherlock Holmes

The benefit of being Sherlock Holmes

Is being Sherlock Holmes.

The drawback of being Sherlock Holmes

Is that everyone assumes you're a drug addict,

and suspects you're a homosexual.

Being a poet is sort of like that,

Except without the benefits,

and you're kind of unreliable.

So, you asked me if I trust you,

But I can't even trust my simplest answer.

I'm the one who can't be trusted.

Twenty-Fifteen Eyes

She has twenty-fifteen eyes,

An Ivy-League mind,

and runs a five-minute mile,

But her first friendly gesture,

Made even in the dead of winter

Can't help calling to mind

Lemonade and sunny skies,

An apple tree's underside,

and campfire tales of the unknown–

In short, all the sweet comforts of home.

Why I Write, Part x+191: I Never Finish Writing

I type to write to finish,

Fumble-fingers flashing furiously.

I never finish writing.

I like to count up the words and the lines,

Write another one from the other side

To point out my poet's little lies,

Or just look at the stanzas from far away,

Tracing their shapes.

They're like children, really.

They grow in ways that I don't notice 'til later.

Appeals to Some Sort

Our metaphors are all appeals

To some sort of softer daredevil,

All this fire and burning,

All the falls, the diving in,

The little deaths and the drowning in your depths.

We are skydivers all,

In love with the fall,

But impatient with those who talk about the landing.

Years of Descriptions

Your hair is the gold of sun-soaked straw,

and also seems as thick and straight.

Strange, that it would stay in place, to frame your face.

Your eyes are so watery blue I fear that they will run,

Perhaps come at me in waves.

You have the skin of an apple, colored by months of sun,

and industriously smoothed, waxed, en masse.

Your lips, too, are appleish, especially in their redness,

and also their heart shape, set off from your face

With what looks like a drawn line, remarkably defined.

You are years of descriptions of beauty, enlightened,

and you are frightening.

The Importance of Obtuse Angles

I saw you from the front, and I saw you from the side.

I've seen you speak in class. I've seen the essays that you write,

But it was necessary to see you out the side of my poet's mind

To realize that I'd rather avoid you than collide.

Write Brained

I am my highest points,

The dedication to pick up the pen

Fifteen hundred times.

I am my rockless bottoms,

The friends I should have stood by,

The things I should have done.

I am the thankful condensation

In the handfuls of cold air I breathe

and I am the visceral joy that wells up

In my darkest fantasies.

I am the facts I remember

Off the top of my head.

I am the scent that seeps

Out of my shoes.

I am write brained,

The poet to be named later.

Safety Network

Alone, you might pull me someplace lively.

A pair of you might intertwine delightfully,

Or go to different lengths to disagree,

But all of you together cross and follow

and meet at a thousand snowflake corners.

You are my safety network.

I can't imagine life without you.

Conversation With You

Conversation with you is a masochist's matchmaker,

The place where enough goes to meet enough,

But,

I like the cut of your sins, that would tear if my own,

and it seems that ignorance is the first of those.

You don't mean anything by doing it.

You don't even know that you're doing it,

It's just the way you're wired.

I can see it in the pale of your eyes.

Yesterday's News

The world moves in ways to make us all feel overused.

I mean, this morning's paper is yesterday's news.

It works us like dogs, and it treats us like shit.

I'm convinced we don't feel the half of it,

But I wouldn't throw it away and start from whole cloth.

I do like the part that says “Congress shall make no law...”

I Don't Want to Ask

I don't want to ask why you're so kind to me.

I don't want to ask why you left so quickly.

I don't want to ask why you won't come with me.

I don't need you to tell me the answers.

I just need to keep writing questions.

Sooner or later, answers will follow.

Our Split Personalities

For a couple of odd ducks,

We made an even odder couple,

Our split personalities

A room full of people agreeing

and then going their separate ways.

You turned to me for comfort.

You turned to me thinking I would understand,

and as you turned the blade on yourself,

I only wanted to raze the world

For telling you that you were wrong.

Why I Write, Part x+190: Professional Ethics

The poet's professional ethics

Are surprisingly easy to read:

I will only write what I believe

Unless something amuses me,

But if I'm true to them today,

I fear they'll take my pen away,

Telling the world it's to keep me safe–

They thought I would cut myself with it.

As Red As Me

I want to see what color you bleed.

It couldn't be as red as me,

Because you aren't living.

While I covet my freedom,

You are twice imprisoned,

Chained to your barred life

By your enslaved brain.

You toil to preserve

The makings of your own walls.

It would sicken me with pity

If it didn't quicken me with rage.

To be perfectly honest,

I've stepped on ants

Who were bigger than you.

The Sociopath's Prayer

I have tried not to want to write about you,

But that's most of what a poet is.

I have tried not to push you toward those verses.

I have not pushed you into pushing away.

I have no reason to think you've read between the lines,

Except the intellect I'm so quick to praise,

Which is my reason to think that you know what I am,

Besides a poet.

I have the toddler's primer on wanting what I want,

and the Republican Party's primer on getting it.

What I want now is for you to stand by me,

Because you've been feeding the side of me

That doesn't want to burn.

Unworn By Other

My mind is missing certain innards,

and rough, unworn by others' cares.

Its terrain is perfect to give rage traction,

and I have been upon the point of action.

My mind has taken bloody rides,

Seen them to my unfelt other side.

I have known those further gone.

I wonder only why I'm not one,

Wonder if who I should be

Is crippled, cut off at the knees.

A Monster On Top

My brain wears a monster on top,

Like a hat.

It pushes me in

To the seven deadly sins,

Or at least the six I'm good at,

Or sometimes just away from

The things I should have done,

and then it holds my tongue in.

Neither of us wants me talking.

Why I Write, Part x+189: Price/Sacrifice

Everything we make has a price,

Every moment's decision a sacrifice.

A poet is never a suitable friend.

The writing brings star-eyed beginnings dark ends.

Muses do not like it when you make your business public.

They can read and they can think, and maybe not what you think of it.

I have elevated my discourse.

I have risen through the ranks,

But who have I stepped over?

How did I really get here?

Birthdays Plus Christmases

Birthdays plus Christmases

Times twenty and too-many years

Times how many relations?

Equals more gifts than I can

Remember for-getting.

How many of my things

Shoved into corners–

Other people's thoughts uncounted,

Fallen by the wayside?

First Kiss

I think I knew, even then,
That you meant nothing by it,
That you meant nothing,
That your enthusiasm was half-genuine,
and all for the game.
Nevertheless, all my fantasies still form
In the shape of your lips.

I Am Nonzero

I am nonzero.
I am more than nothing
By the sum of all my bad decisions,
Things of little substance.
Yet, if you carry ten thousand pennies in a jar,
You're likely to hurt your arm.
I like to line up lots of little ones, all in a row,
and knock them all down like dominoes,
Or like shots.
I am what I drink.

Someone

You said you need someone who's kind of a nerd.

Message heard.

You seem to want to be with someone fun.

Could be done.

I know you're looking for someone old-fashioned.

I'll raise my hand.

My problem is that you demand someone good,

and I can't change the past of my present.

But I wish I could.

Two Windows

When God closes a door, he opens a window,

Two windows, in this case,

Big stained-glass ones,

Brown,

An odd color for stained glass,

The right color to contain pasts

Worth knowing, intergrowing.

Why pore over the old door

When I can gaze into the stained glass longingly,

When I can resume my studies of history?

Appearances

We all give so much power to the patterns in our eyes.

Use just one of your senses and it's sure to tell you lies.

Yours could be destructive; you look just like an ex,

Or maybe disappointing; you look like a student, one of my best,

But I'm not just gonna assume you'll confound me,

Nor am I gonna demand you astound me.

I suppose it's still possible that appearances will deceive me,

But I won't make it easy.

He Loves Me/He Loves Me Not

She's pulled the petals off of every flower

That anyone ever gave her,

To find out how men felt about her,

So I gave her two dozen.

I still don't know how this game will end,

But at least it will last a while.

I Am Frankenstein

I am always going back to the lab,

I am always in my basement, tinkering,

and always, always alone.

I created a monster down there.

It was I who raised it,

Though you may have screamed “it's alive,”

So I will place myself

Between you and the monster,

Which grew between you and I,

Because something will end tonight,

and I will not see that be you.

Easily Bored/Easily Entertained

I'm easily bored and easily entertained.

I'm a hard man to know, but easy to overdose.

It's a destructive combination.

An incomplete list of the victims:

My normalcy,

My social standing,

My relationships,

My ignorance,

My illusions.

Most people discontent themselves

Wondering “what am I missing out on?”

I can organize my life on the opposite principal.

I have to organize my life on the opposite principal.

The One Who Keeps

You're the one who keeps me down all morning

After keeping me up all night.

You're the one who breaks without warning

and takes three weeks to set right.

If I said I liked red, you'd start dressing in blue.

You lie to me just to see what I'll do.

If I asked you to give me a reason to stay,

You'd give me three for leaving,

But you do keep my life interesting.

An Incomplete List of Incomplete Lists

An incomplete list of things that I am:

Writing,

A writer,

A fifth-rate poet,

Pretending to be a fourth-rate poet,

On my way to becoming a teacher,

On my way to becoming repetitive,

On my way past remotely funny,

At a world-record rate of speed.

An incomplete list of things I am not:

Ready for bed,

Ready for this,

Ready to quit,

Waiting for you,

Waiting for Godot,

Waiting on somebody already,

Waiting in the lobby,

A patient in the lobby,

Patient,

Alright,

Sane,

Done.

Nightly, Pt. 2, or To Frederick Turner

Every day, they hand me twenty-four hours,

Then they–different they–come and take about twelve away,

and I write to get away from the rest of it.

I have no relevant role models or experience

For that way to live,

So I start every day as a sleep-deprived wreck,

Lose a fight with microsleep every time I'm at rest,

and try to make up for it by asking unclear questions

and interrupting whoever's nice enough to answer them.

TL;DR: I think I have something to say.

I know I couldn't tell you what it is. Yet.

Aliens

I've heard it said that all the great ballplayers are aliens,

But I don't think I believe a word of that.

Can you imagine if the second coming of our lord and savior,

Stan Musial, began with the words “take me to our leader?”

Talk about the blind leading the omniscient.

But I'm quite certain that all the great poets were aliens,

and even some of the lousy ones.

I Intended

I intended to be a fullback when I grew up,

But by that time, it wasn't a real job anymore.

I intended to make this a perfect birthday,

But it turns out that I'm a middling present person,

and as much of a card person as I am a thin person.

I intended to get a drink of water,

But my dumb ass got lured into conversation,

Which is what generally happens,

Just not for three and a half hours.

If I did everything I intended to do,

That would be an interesting day.

The World Is Too Hot

On average, the world is too hot

To breathe and wear jeans at the same time,

But it turns out that I'm just a wimp,

Because in cosmic terms, it's frigid to lukewarm.

Our world is a pea in the solar system,

A mite in the galaxy.

In cosmic terms, our world is a little speck of nothing,

All covered in oceans and ranges and bases and chasms,

and the whole thing fit to give photographers an orgasm.

God rubbed our world out of his eye in waking,

and we didn't deserve as much.

Sparing Words For You

I am willing to risk sparing words for you.

I've heard it theorized that they are limited,

Like years and heartbeats and second chances,

and that you only live as long as it takes to use them,

But if that were actually true,

I would have given myself a heart attack

On September Eighteenth, Twenty-Twelve,

So really, I have the rest of my life for words.

So really, I have the rest of my life for thoughts,

and right now, my thoughts are about you,

But my life is not.

Nontraditional

To call us “nontraditional” would give a bad name

To the classic kind of couple who just happen to be gay.

We shout at each other over every kind of distance.

We go weeks where we don't hear, and months where we don't listen.

My heart waits here, blood-rare yet burnt to a crisp

With no reason to go on other than this:

Whatever's behind my face brightens to see your profile pic.

I guess that these days, that's what romance is.

It's Apparent

It's apparent that we came from different worlds.

That's what drew you to me in the first place,

and if I looked down on everyone who's like not me,

I'd be even lonelier than I prefer.

It's just as apparent that we will never work out.

The differences we were both willing to overlook

Are differences neither were able to overcome.

Go Where You Go

I don't always want to go where you go,

But where you are, I wish I was, and I want you to know.

I can't ignore the way we always agree,

Or maybe I do ignore what I don't want to see,

and it's true that I talked myself out of you once,

But now it's obvious that one wasn't enough.

About Amanda

The thing you need to understand about Amanda...

Okay, I won't lie to you. There is no understanding her.

The thing you need to keep in mind about Amanda

Is that she was once as normal as you and...other normal people.

Then one day, she just woke up and said “I wanna be interesting.”

The implications are astounding.

The thing you need to know about Amanda

Is that most of us are built to be workers and husbands and mothers.

In a race of conveyor-belt people, Amanda would be an eagle.

She soared so high that she made herself invisible–

The one true kind of beautiful.

The thing you need to remember about Amanda

Is that no matter how long she's been gone,

There are some of us who will never forget her.

These Messages

The United States Sasquatch Society

Of Bigfoot Hunter Hunters

Will be holding a meeting regarding the continuing,

Convenient, exaggerated rumors of our nonexistence,

Our highly-successful gaslighting campaigns in

British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California,

Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Idaho, Oklahoma, Texas,

Ontario, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana,

Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennesee, Alabama,

Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, and New York,

and the increasing absenteeism at our meetings.

This message will self-destruct in ten...

A Hammer

When all you have is a hammer,

Everything starts to look like a nail,

But if all you are is a hammer,

Your strategic vision is irrelevant,

and it's hard to peer up the chain of command

For a lack of innovation.

I Never Noticed

I never noticed that I spend my days

Eating what's ready-to-microwave,

Teaching what comes already planned,

Writing what's so formulaic it should be banned,

and listening to pre-made rhyme, melody and meaning.

This is the first time I noticed all the packaging.

Why I Write, Part x+188: Exaggerating

A friend of mine has claimed I've written rhymes for everything,

But I swear to you, he's full of it–okay, exaggerating.

I don't write about my childhood–how babysitters dressed me,

Or the cops who came to Pizza Hut to wrongfully arrest me.

I don't write of architecture or interior design.

I don't write about my glasses, mopping floors or drinking wine.

I never even wrote word one about the number two,

and like I promised to myself, I write no more of you.

I Have Only Seen You Scowl

When you walk by and look over, I have only seen you scowl,

But you can't care if I notice, so you'll never hear me howl.

The majority's no tyrant that I'd like to contend with,

and you, its representative, are no one I'll be friends with.

I'd rather not have worked with you, and I don't want to play,

Why don't you keep your head down? Why don't I go on my way?

Thirty Thousand Stories

I tell thirty thousand stories; on facebook, have three hundred friends.

I have a whole load of experience with less-than-ideal ends.

I've known that I can't stay here, and sometimes that knowledge burns,

But I sooth it knowing you're a friend worth leaving on good terms.

First I Was Angry, and Then I Was Hungry

I thought I would feel empty when you left me,

But first I was angry, and then I was hungry,

Which sure sounds like myself in my entirety.

There were no torrents of a downpour when you left me,

Not even a drop while I was in the library.

The skies stayed intact, and held their height, too.

The clouds parted a little, enough to see the moon,

and I known you'd someday leave me, though what could I do?

What hurt most, is why gloat without you?