Typecast

As I drift through the day,
there are roles that I play.
Do I play them by nature,
or directed, on stage?

Always reticent, shy,
except when in class,
today, wake to find
I've been typecast.

I ask myself, all shift,
would it help--
to know who wrote the script,
the world?  Or myself?

People and Things

People and things live apart in my mind.
Each have their place and appropriate time.
Those places and times, they always arrive,
but rarely accompanied as I desire.

When I'm reading or writing, the phone always rings.
Work pulls me from friends and pretextual games.
It seems, in the act of tracing a day,
I and the world move the opposite way.

Alone, I get lost learning little-known facts.
Oh! To know the euphoria-guilt of this act!
Our world has little use for a man
Who feels the canyon between "talk" and "chat".

Yet as I gaze up at the well-marbled sky,
I re-learn that God likes me...I don't know why.
So I wait for the quiet.  Then, I can find
the lyric release for this ill-fitting mind.

Branches

Arms spread like branches,
Under shadow of branches.
Cool grass on my back
While the sun heats the rest
of the world up.
The only part of summer
That doesn't suck.

Holding

I've put so many little things in life on hold
until I figure out how to do the rest like I'm told.
But doesn't everyone?
And does anyone?

Life is Where

Is life a great journey; is each day a stride?
Is life a great mystery, to be solved by keen eyes?
Is life some deep spectacle, experience uncontrolled?
Is life a beach, or someplace cold?
Life is just something that passes through water.

It moves.

Where is life lived? Is it all in our minds?
Or is life lived in our bodies' feelings and doings?
Is life in the spaces between us,
an ocean of people ebbing and flowing?

Life is where everything happens.
It's the place to be.
Everyone ends up here sooner or later.

Make yourself at home.

End or A Retrospective on More Than One

I don't miss the things poets say that I should:
my heart's feeling like sunsets, or our walks through the wood.
I don't really miss the kisses we shared,
one arm 'round your waist, hands gliding through hair.

Our entanglement: a convenient discharge of needs.
Did it mean much? I don't know; emotionally,
could a "we" have ever been said to exist?
Can lithe, waving reeds marry unfeeling fists?
We were foolish; we needed a pretext to feel
the things seen on TV or on Hollywood reels.

But I do miss the time spent, in more ways than one —
you so pleasantly kept me from writing and fun.
Better yet, you kept me from irritants, strife,
the erosive, drab nature of everyday life.
The things that I truly miss now, in the end,
are the same I'd have kept with my other close friends.

I suppose, looking back, I deserve to hurt more.
In the end, I'm the jerk, if you're still keeping score,
for I suspected, deep down, our relationship's use:
as most, a long-standing, all-purpose excuse.

Why?

Why...?
...Mommy?
...is the sky blue?
...can't I grow up?
...do the good die young?
...did she leave me for another?
...can't she just love me?
...do I have to work so hard for this?
...can't anyone take the time to understand me?
...should I want anything more than her, the children, and the rest of my life?
...have she and the children made such a mess of my life?
...doesn't he realize that he doesn't know everything yet?
...can't I go to work for you anymore?
...does she still love me?
...did she leave me alone?
...have all the others gone?
...treat me like a child?
...am I so blue?
I know...
...why.

Was Forced

Was Forced to work in poetry
but now – it felt a little free.
Though stilted in its filler-verse
a cub-idea begins to nurse.
And from my cranial loins may come
a sister-cub to join the son.

How I Won for Losing

We were found in fall's shade morning,
under sky of clouded light.
Our loss – begun that moment –
ends now – a winter's night.

I saw our fate that moment;
I knew our losing had begun.
As youth reduces fear of death,
So you went blithely on.

Sometimes I would ignore my fate
but still would talk of times
when I had lost some other things
that lingered in my mind.

Those mishaps made me question;
wounded pride and mourning hurt.
I did not save a treasured friend;
I was let go from work.

But this? Twas not so bitter,
though it did leave me flat.
The only joy is triumph, and
you never gave me that.

I've lost the range of rummage
but this one thing I've found:
I'd rather be alone – but right –
than the other way around.