Really Think So

They say gentlemen prefer blonds,
But I don't really think so.
I think gentlemen prefer Marilyn Monroe.
She could have green hair and we wouldn't care.

Speaking as an avid reader,
I like the book and the cover.
You don't need to hire an illustrator,

But if you're really choosing between me
and someone else, who disagrees,
I guess that's your bad decision to make.

The Falsest of Advertising

My disappointment was some decades preordained,
By random chance and certain choice, not fate.
Your parents wouldn't care if they'd known,
But they're to blame for a sudden flash of false hope.

Always taken as a given,
But never truly god-given,
The name is the falsest of advertising.
You have one of the ones that means
Everything a name could mean,

Which is only to say
That you share the name,
But you aren't the same.

For My Profanities

First you came for my profanities,
and you can best believe I was angry.
You left me swearin' and cussin'
When you left me in detention.

Then you came for my homophobia,
and I let it go, 'cause I know ya.

Now you come on behalf of the disabled,
and I wonder what else you'll come for
Now that my anger is incomprehensible,
Now that you've made anger inexpressible.

Potential

It was the last word I found offensive.
She used the right lips,
and I used the wrong context,

But now I use the word like bees use their honey,
and I sling it about like gamblers their money.
I'm disgusted by the word, indeed,
But more with whom I use it on, and how I mean.

I hope potential is merely absurd,
But anything that described Plaxico Burress
Strikes me as a dirty word.

My Schooling

My faith is like my schooling,

In that I haven't always been paying attention,

Sometimes I showed up for the wrong sections,

Though I've managed to make a few good connections.

I'm just now getting more zealous than slack.

I can't always sustain, but I always come back.

I've often wanted to learn more,

Though not always what I signed up for,

and there was the time I took a long break...

But it's something I know to be of benefit.

The returns have been alright of late,

Unlike what I know of the human race –

Grasping half-wits spiced with hate.

So when I hear someone say

“You have to have faith in people,”

Well, that just sounds insane.

These Ten Years

These ten years, I've been my own worst teacher.

I never found the right words for her.

Half my voice is my deficit of character.

These ten years, camouflaged in blame and grief

Was my greatest fear – my own unbelief.

I admit that you lacked strength and I lacked speed.

I've twice spent ten years growing proud,

and quite prolific if not loud,

and yet, I still, here, fail to say

The right words. I know not the way.

One of us is left to live with both our choices;

We're both left sharing half a voice.

I Am Still Broken

I know I am still broken

When I feel all the eyes in a room.

I wish they weren't watching.

I know I am still broken.

My back is turned, whole, and I am hiding.

They don't know how I'd be acting

If nobody was watching.

I know I am still broken,

Not by who I am when no one's watching,

But because when they are, I can't be him.

Count the Thought

I have a bad habit not to count the thought,

But to feign surprise and excitement.

Good things cannot be packaged,

Nor can what's left of my soul be bought.

There are many gifts I receive with my heart,

Which might be warmer than my hands,

Though I pay more mind to who is giving them.

I have heard complaints about the hands.

And why is it still re-gifting

If it brightens a friend's day?

It better honors the thought that way.

Energy I Expended

You have no idea -- or maybe you do
Of the creative energy I expended on you
(Other kinds, too!).

It took me me most of a decade to realize
That I'm competing with a field for a booby prize
(Thanks to a rival for opening my eyes!),

But how to take the next step, to accept the mess I'm in?
I know I'm DQ'd, but I still want to win
(Still assuming the prize is less work and more sin).

Stronger Than This World

You are what this culture asks you to be,
By design or nature formed correctly,
and you find ways to be stronger than this world.

You are more than this culture says this can be,
In your tastes, your candor and your kindness.

You are not what this culture asks you to be,
Which is to say you are not mindless.


God is truly wonderous if (s)he can love everyone as much as you.
I couldn't.

Running Late

Swearing, sagging, running late,
Wearing anger like a steel breastplate,
Mailed in malevolent hate
For everything about this day,
Helmeted by hopelessness, can't see the road ahead
For wishing my week or someone else dead.
I'm in need of intervention, or maybe jail instead.

Music gets me moving, and lifts the weight off,
At least for the moment.

Covers

There's not judging a book by its cover,

and there's giving a guy named Madoff a billion dollars.

My illustrator must've had a bad day with hand cramps and epilepsy medication,

Because people still approach me for conversation.

I'll kiss you or kill you, but one way or another,

I want to tear off all the covers.

Team

Between Dumbicrats and Retardlicans, Duke and North Carolina, or
Team sparkling stalker vampire and team poorly-written werewolf,
Conflict is certainly the spice of the American life,
But it's a meal of mockery.  There's no sustenance in spice.
The moments of meat, the densest, grainy times
Are when you're disregarded by someone smarter than you are, and you have to decide
Is the best path to continue, or perhaps backtrack and fold.
I suppose I'm conflicted, as yet undecided.  That's why I'm asking you.

I Made My Body

I made my body an instrument of anger,

A vessel, a vector, a vehicle for vitriol,

Mobile and agile and five-quarters full.

Then the lights went out, and my knees went out,

and I don't need that anymore,

But I still hate with the same convicted convection.

I just lack a purposed, destructive direction,

So I just sit and boil on burners of rage

For the world, for my body, for being contained.

But Is It?

It's hardly been mentioned in the last few years,

Though it's still beloved by the old people.

For all the sense I think it makes,

It's the biggest thing with the kids today.

Depends who you ask. It's either annoying

Or a classic, a standard, its time's best thing going.

It sells like the episodes

Of a television show –

About once a week.

But is it good?

American Eyes

American eyes see life as polar,

and everything therein one opposite or the other,

But the world is not so intimate to these eyes,

Does not touch them one way or the other all the time,

So that the shadows and colors in the world that I see

Take the forms of neithers and indifferent maybes.

I was taught there's a personality type called “slow-to-warm-up.”

It almost describes me, just not quite enough.

Like an Early Snow

The troubles fall upon each of us like an early snow –

Visible but meaningless alone,

Taken all together, they cover everything around us,

Beautiful to everyone but those who have to deal with them.

And I am tracking the snow in

On the soles of the wrong words.

I am your biggest flake.

I land closest to home.