No Rain, No Rainbow

Life happens at the worst of times.

What starts one problem tall just climbs

Until it makes a mountain from

The misery that comes and comes

From every corner and which way,

From morn to night to too-soon day,

From work, from traffic, government,

From hobbies, seeming Satan-sent.

Beset by problems, error, and strife

In every single facet of life

While “just give up,” the sirens sing—

There seems no point continuing,

and just when you think there's no way,

You finally have your first good day.

Anywhere But Here

When time and task are at their best,

I understand the urge to nest.

Who, once as fickle as a cat

In changing hat to hat to hat,

Is first to don and last to doff

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

When such a man am I, it's clear

I don't want anywhere but here.

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Half of me wants to retreat,

The other half to take a seat

and never once move from this chair.

It's got me yanking out my hair.

This question I would like addressed:

How can I be both bored and stressed?

If you're out there, if you hear,

Take me anywhere but here.

Explode Into Space

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

I don't know what mortality means.

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

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

I've embraced that against death, my only power

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

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

I don't know what enlightenment means.

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

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

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

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

I exist on a circuit of several extremes.

I don't know what nirvana means.

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

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

I've always been loudly, excessively me.

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

Caedmon Might Dig It

Aspirational ceilings are held up by walls,

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

A tumble while changing a lightbulb, at worst,

and not from story fifteen to the first.

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

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

So the only ones truly aware of the same

Are the ones who are bent by oppression or shame,

and where people look, they will usually go

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

One can climb a step ladder or prostrate himself,

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

Blue Sky at Night, Biker's Delight

Pleasure tingles purple at the sight

Of late-hour blue enswirled with white,

and once this inspiring sight is seen,

All of the lights in my head turn green,

and thus single the courage those half-alive lack

To seek out a redline somewhere in the black.

To avoid being yellow, or ending up red,

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

Somewhere in the Ks? (Between Joyce and Legion)

I could slide under the the trucks as they come.

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

Or I could step onto sacred ground

and throw my fists at everyone around.

I could isolate youth and trust

and thrust and thrust and thrust and thrust,

Which would probably also start a fight

I could dig Cobain's great vise into my eye

Or take some construction paper, cut, and slide.

I could tug and fondle and fiddle.

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

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

For a laugh that leaves everyone crying instead.

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

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

The Ultimate

Ashfall darkens the day, but at night

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

It, moment by moment, grows thick on the ground

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

Of tentative footfalls, taken with risk

Through a landscape that soon will be barren and brisk.

I want to walk with you, hand in hand

Through a nuclear winter wonderland.

You're my beauty when skies strangle every flower,

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

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

I burn to share an apocalypse with you.

Why They Don't Let a Poet Be President

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

All Lives Matter

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

Armageddon Horny, Pt. 2

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

Get Goosesteppin'

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

And I'm Proud to Be an American

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

You're Fired!

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

Armageddon Horny

All this insecure posturing

Is massively entertaining.

You got this hot and heavy,

So just do it already!

I'm having the kind of month

That just can't end soon enough.

And humanity? They had it coming.

So go ahead, push the button.

It beats waiting for global warming.

Three Chords and a Lie

Intensity, time, distance, every couple of weeks.

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

There's nothing new you know to show me,

and perhaps you have noticed that too,

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

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

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

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

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

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

To a 1980 Honda CB

Venturing outside the fence,

Moving too fast for good sense

Over the river and through the wood,

Revving it up good,

The power beneath me,

The wind in my hair,

It's like an affair:

Making excuses to be with you,

Knowing I ought not to kiss you,

Feeling more alive with you around

As long as my feet stay off the ground.

To an Ingenue, Who Deserves Better

Plenty of folks can make hearts skip a beat,

But you make a man's skip three.

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

and a dime a dozen, that's me.

I never felt that we got close enough,

But I'm close enough to see,

To admire in you all of the good stuff

That doesn't exist in me.

Yet I know that naught comes of admiring

When it only goes the one way.

They say there's a first time for everything,

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

So all that's left is making myself see;

To accept these facts, deep in my mind:

That I was born nearly a decade too early,

and you were born ten times too kind.