Circles

Life is

Circles:

Wake up,

Work up

a Sweat,

and Sleep.

Repeat.

Most aren't

Allowed

to Forget!

Wake up;

Work up

a Sweat

and Sleep.

Repeat.

Circles

on Circles,

Nested

and Tangent—

the Lucky

Can stand it!

Wake up.

Work up

a Sweat,

and Sleep.

Repeat.

Habit is

a Circle,

Bruised yellow

Or Purple,

Pressed hard

Into who

You are.

Wake up.

Work up

a Sweat

and Sleep.

Repeat.

One life is

a Circuit:

From helpless

To reckless

To hot mess

To eldest

To helpless.

Wake up;

Work up

a Sweat,

and Sleep;

Repeat.

When events

Interrupt

This circle

Of Pain,

Some sigh

In relief.

Others sigh

To Complain.

Wake up,

Work up

a Sweat,

and Sleep;

Repeat.

I wish

I could

Forget:

Wake up.

Work up

a Sweat

and Sleep.

Repeat.

Macklemore Might or Might Not Dig It

What's wrong with wearing something gauche or passé?

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

The answers don't suffice, because nobody really knows

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Just think outside the box,” they say

As 'hind clichés they hide.

A residence outside the box

I wish they would provide.

For though I've searched in foreign lands

Across the sea's dark sheen,

There's few things I have yet to find

Save refuge from routine,

and though I'm mostly stifled,

My moods and muse both wan,

To remain confined by management's

My one preserving plan.

For when I'm working, “different's”

a longer word for “worse.”

I'm quickly made complacent.

It's my temperament and curse,

and outside of a schedule

Upon my face I'd fall.

A refuge in quick failure

Is no refuge at all.

To Strikeouts and Fourth Downs

I have the grip of a gorilla.

I won't give the ball away.

The punt's a big momentum-killer.

Pitching to contact's a mistake.

My first tries undershot the glorious,

But no matter where I land

I won't settle for vicarious.

I will live my life firsthand.

I Already Did My Homework!

Love's long-timers, lugubrious students,
Are as committed as an asylum—
They have friends, and don't know where to file 'em.

Executive Vision For Dummies

A working definition
Of executive vision:
The courageous conviction
To make a decision
That's a nightmare for everyone.

You had an executive vision,
and my days were halloween:
Dress up and play professional.
But the road to awesome
Doesn't even have an exit at normal,

So stick it in your third eye.

Take Me To Your Leader

“We” are not vibing.

You and I are not “we.”

I don't bear the same stenciled markings,

Nor do I tell the same stock stories,

Of your irrelevant, injection-molded heroes.

I do not crave the life of a metronome.

You never had a ghost of my imagination,

and have long lost the ghost's tale of legend.

You hide yours, but I let the world see

My proud and foolish hypocrisy.

You lack even the courage

To explore your own cowardice.

I have, and treasure, it.

Where Roads Diverge, Pt. 2

I know not what I wish for when I wish that I could change.

I'd do as well to trade retreating hairline for a case of mange.

To adopt the common value's to believe the TV's lies

That having more will make me happy—to hoard, and be dissatisfied.

Perhaps I ought to be creative rather than pay convenience fees,

But the bills bear someone else's face. My time is marked for me,

and while supervision rankles, it straight repels to be adored.

I hate the wrong decisions, but hate the right ones even more.

Pinwheel, Pt. 2

Water's precious beyond measure if you fear to die of thirst,
But easy to take for granted if you flood your basement first.
I had cars, and balls, and weapons, superhero capes, and rings.
I grew up too expensive to have learned to value things.
If it took time to learn, appreciate, I'd grab another toy.
I was too much of a child then to make a decent boy,
But the result of this consumption would leave Wall Street quite appalled:
No care for one thing or a hundred, scarce for one or none at all.

Charlton Heston Would Dig It

Vehicles and Real Estate, ever-practical excess

Are always one missed payment between held and repossessed.

Almost any thing other than those two, things mundane, things celebrated

Aren't beyond the long arm of legal excuses.  They could be confiscated,

To say nothing of legal tender, which by fiat is deployed,

and can by that same fiat be collected, devalued, destroyed.

Most intellectual property is borrowed, as per the terms of use,

and the physical stuff can be stolen, or ruined by malice or abuse.

No, the only thing I've used or spent that was ever truly mine

Was time.

You can have it when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

Uncultured, or The Idea of Having No Particular Idea

I'm not countercultural,

Too acultural, too animal,

Trusting in the world I see,

Unconnotating your ideas.

I'm at home in the dirt, too carnal

To even bother being venal,

Content to just be meat

Unless consumed by being me.

Failure to Communicate in the Art of Saying "No"

It's been said late to bed and early to rise
Is how the strong make the most of their lives.
I hold to that course, for the sake of the time,
Though I suspect work is the point of such rhymes.
How does that make life better?  You say the only way how
Is to be dissatisfied with my ample life now.
That doesn't make sense.  Life is good satisfied.
If I don't care for things, why fuss over their size?
Laws declare we're free to forge forward, enterprise.
I declare myself free to settle down, stand aside.

The Flexibility of Unconventional Tastes, or Taking a Break from the Art of Saying "No"

There are plenty of issues that get my motor running,

But sometimes even the activest press pause.

I still won't watch what everyone else is watching,

But not every rebellion needs a cause.

An Incomplete List of Thing I Lost to “Rubber Time”

-A better trip with a better friend (which I probably would have liked)

-A pair of fingernail clippers (They're lost now. They used to be mine.)

-Three of my friends came to visit me, and I wasn't around to find.

-Four weeks of work on my blood pressure (which I think still continues to climb)

-My temper, on five separate occasions (The next might take with it my mind.)

-Six different chances I would have had to call my family

-Seven halfway decent poem ideas

-My “rubber time virginity”

-My entire weekend, basically

The Matrix/The Time Farm

They tell you to gather your seconds

Into bundles of thirty-odd thousand,

Tell you you're lucky to pawn them off wholesale,

Tell you it's a marvel of modern convenience

That you have the option to buy them back retail,

Tell you that time's highest potential is money,

But when you're out of dollars and cents

You can usually go back to work.

When you're out of minutes, hours and seconds,

There just simply aren't any more.

The Life Cycle

Waking to eat,

Eating to walk,

Walking to work,

Working to leave,

Leaving for home,

Home to sleep,

Sleeping to wake

--

Waking to eat,

Eating to walk

Walking to work

Working to leave

Working to live

--

Living to work

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.

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.