Plans

As any good couple
With time on its hands
We spend some of that time
Making fantasy-plans.

But as months have passed,
I've noticed you start
Telling tales of a future
In which we are apart.

Can I ask you a question?
If it's true, would you say?
Are those plans a little joke,
Or a little push away?

Aphrodite and the Author-Surrogate (A poem-in-dialog)

"You notice her, in the skirt and tights!"
"That's right."
"And you couldn't help but notice
That she's looking back at you."
"That's true."
"You should go ask her just what that's about."
"Disgust, without a doubt."
"Don't be so quick, with patience, your verse and hers could rhyme."
"Sounds like a waste of time..."
"How can you dismiss a goddess
And her realm as for the birds..."
"And a waste of words."
"Every man needs a partner, a companion, someone."
"Are you done?"
"Her soft soul might forgive a caveman like you,"
"So you're not through."
"Your foul beard and shaggy hair, a face with space missing."
"Some men ain't made for kissin."
"Is your heart so devoid of feeling?  Are
You harder than being a teenager?"
"I'd wager."

Three

Treading paths high and low, dark and fair,
Seeking and finding our way anywhere.
Seeking not only paths, we stopped to explore.
Eyes and minds never idle, we found something more.
The man, the woman, and the dense wood meet.
Strength, depth, and breadth become three.

Man, alas, is not sinless, and destined to fall,
In the course learns that three are not one, after all.
When my soul rose from the ashes, did some vital thing slough?
Did I see too much, learn too much, and not do enough?
The truth, as our connection, found somewhere in between:
We can never be together, even when we meet.

Communion with Sound (Ode to a Compact Disk)

I remember the first time I heard that CD.
It kick-started my unformed identity.

My head bobbed, lips flapped, heart started to pound:
In sacrilegious, unholy communion with sound.
That CD was a hymn to the best kinds of strife
To define and repeat the whole rest of my life:

To being too honest to have many friends,
To usually losing the girl in the end,
To sports, work and parties taking their toll,
To being unstoppable when I get on a roll,

To wishing to call back those moments of time,
To the struggle of converting thought into rhyme,
To nights spent awake, my gaze on the ceiling,
To finally starting to learn to stop feeling.

I've been listening a while, and from where I'm at,
Every album they sell ought to sound like that.

Magnetic

She's soft and light; she's sickly-sweet
In voice and aspect, face to feet.
The way her hair curls, frames her face:
As verdant landscape, trimmed with lace.

She spares her speech, conserves her voice.
My head and heart must make a choice.
Is it concern, or is it sin
That leads my head to leaning in?

She looks my way, more than a glance.
Is this my day?  Is this my chance?
Those dark, magnetic, mesmer-eyes
Gaze at one...whom they despise!

Haiku

I don't do Haiku.
I'm too wordy.  What a flaw,
In a young poet!

The Spiritual Descendant of the Cowboy Explains Himself

You ask me what's on my mind,
And I search for the best answer I can find.

Half the time, I'm thinking about football,
A subject in which you've no interest at all.
There's scarcely a time I don't think about sex.
You might give me ten minutes, then ask me what's next.

Sometimes my thoughts mean nothing; I often think of jokes.
If they're any good, I'll tell you, and we'll laugh until I choke.
These jokes pass right through, as on wings,
Rarely landing.  Why waste words on such meaningless things?

The rest of the time, or as much as I can hold,
I spend thinking about what's wrong with the world.
As there's so little I've figured, and less that I can do...
I wouldn't want to muddle such a sunny soul as you.

I suppose the simple message of this confounded rhyme
Is it's wrong for you to just assume I'm feeling all the time.
Though a man may ponder facts, or plot out sly persuasions.
He only does his feeling on the rarest of occasions.

The best answer becomes the one that puts an end to questions;
If you want to talk, I'll listen, but go easy on projection.

The Excuse

I want to feel the caress of your gaze;
Stay awake for days upon days,
Walking around in a Venusian haze
As I love you to life in so many ways.

Or appraise my life and then risk it all,
To a fiery crash or a lingering fall,
Or even worse, what I fear most of all,
To becoming normal and having a ball.

I want a throwdown, a Homeric fight:
The neanderthal ending to contemptible slights.
Bone lands against bone, then slips off in the night,
Ignoring my lost skin and his plight.

I want to do things that inspire the scribes:
Take on newsworthy struggles or conceal and contrive,
Create beautiful artwork or ignite diatribe,
That sucks people away from forgettable lives.

I could put myself to many a use;
I dare you to give me an excuse.

Who Are You?

Who are you?

Yes, you.

The one who has seen all six
Star Wars movies
All three Lords of the Rings,
More times than I?

The one who chooses to argue
About the negative cultural effects
Of the Agricultural Revolution
Rather than go dancing.

The one who reads Carrie
and can only think,
"You go girl."
(I don't find that scary.)

The one who talks to me
Like an expert on humanity,
Or like a lovable, amusing,
Helpless sort of idiot.

The one who wears the
Scarlett letter of
Her philosophies
Like a badge of honor.

Who are you,
and
What have you
Done with my heart?

Put My Words Away

The peace on your face
Imprisons me
Beautifully.
Nothing has changed.

I have words to say,
But I couldn't disturb you,
For purposes doubtless
Disturbing to you.
I'll put my words away.

Sleep well, my
Unmoved fantasy;
Sweet dreams.
Nothing will change.

No One

Who is me?

Connoisseur of mystery
Mulder's my ticket
and Holmes my Jesus:
They're nothing like me.

Was once an athlete.
To be that big, can't
Run that far, that fast,
But you can't stop me.

And such a geek!
Damn near memorized
The Princess Bride.
I dream of Jedi.

An insufferable yinzer
From my six months in Pittsburgh.
Recovering Montanan:
Spent weeks in the woods
and Came back again.

When the mood strikes I write:
Profound, or trite.
To be honest, I go on
If the mood's right, or if it's wrong.

I'm a loser.  I told all those lies
To defend my own mind
From the truth I can't hide.

Who am I?
All those lies
Became the truth.
I am no one.
You wouldn't know better
If I asked you.

To the Tralfamadorians

"Consider
The increasingly large man
Of increasingly large appetites.

In his narrow youth,
to tell the truth,
Was chaste and plain and mild.
Middling tastes for middling child.
Then came of age
To little change,
Some milk-sopping milquetoast
Facsimile of A.D.'s ghost.

But timid youth, you see,
Shall only set the stage
For tastes that bolden quite unchecked
As yeast beset by rage.
A new man, undercover(s),
Goes abroad, courts danger(s),
Leaves his wife to be with other(s),
Late nights drinking, spent with stranger(s).

Years, stories, sins and waistline
Expand in unison, and how.
What life once took from him in youth,
It puts back in him now.
In some times, such a man as this,
This loser, would be in.
Ask a Tralfamadorian.
It's all the same to him.

Don't dawdle, rush, or choke.
Some people can't tell a joke."
Timing is everything:
Thus the old man spoke.

For You

I wish I'd never met you.
That's terrible to say.
But though we're friends,
'Twould suit my ends
If you'd just go away.

Your smile fairly twinkles.
Your features, they allure.
You never hide
Your warped insides,
But think you are a bore.

You need to be reminded:
Those geeky things you do
Give some a start;
They've won some hearts;
We'd kill to be with you.

You date below your numbers,
Give guys like me ideas.
To be my muse,
You don't refuse.
It's really quite obscene.

In words you can
understand:

Fry found his Leela;
Candide had his Cunegonde,
And Shippers their Millenium.
If they'd all hit snooze,
Or taken a cruise,
No doubt they'd be better off.

In words more my style:
Get out of my head,
Or I'll have a fantasy
And we'll all end up dead.

One Word

One word:

She said to me,
Confusingly.
Inspired me.
The intensity
Of writing free...
Something "me"
Could come to be.

One word:

Danced out of reach.

My writer's plea:
That words should be
Here for me.
(Oh, irony!)

Communication

Introduction...


(Intervention of Time)

Recognition
Presentation,
Hesitation.

Conversation,
Inquisition,
Familiarization,
Implication?
Flirtation?

Confusion?

Communication,
WEDDING INVITATION?!?

Contemplation: (Confustion? Devastation?)
Resignation.
Affirmation.


(Intervention of Time)

Continuation...

'Tis Just the Season

Awake with a start
In my heart.
I know this was part
of Growing-Up Christmas,
But I'm grown, knees groan now.
What is this?
I don't need to know,
But I want to!
Old part generosity,
Young part curiosity.
'Tis just the season
For sly investigation!

Mind races, time flies,
Toward Grandmother's visits,
Her pretextual pies,
Whipped-cream White Christmases
Of myriad types.
Cars slide, and roadblocks
Make candy-cane stripes.
Don't care when I realize
This blissful ignorance, incongruous
In somebody my size.
Family giving, family living, brings cheer:
Season's feelings, after all these years.

The One

Petite, peculiar, passionate person
Whose pain I can't take pleasure in:
Where did you go?  What do you do?
Do you know where to find another like you?

You were never the one.
You were always the one,
I could count on to help when I thought I was done;
Could count on when doomsaying gave way to fun.

This friendship, it died and expedient death.
I moved on, you moved on, it drew its last breath,
and Having moved on, we can never go back,
But looking over our shoulders, let's smile and laugh.