Lovers on the Moon

The distance 'tween you and the world couldn't be more stark.

You are color and heat; all else is cold and dark.

Being alone in the vacuuum? It was debilitating.

The world and our embrace, though? Both are suffocating.

My lungs gasp hollow without you, and viscous with you around.

My senses all know nothing but your closeness and the ground.

I traded all the world for you; lost gravity in the barter.

Untethered to all but you, there's naught to do but cling harder.

In Love With Being In Lust

Neither now nor ever to be Mr Right,

Nor now even Mr. The-Other-Night,

My dull eyes no more lead my soul into hurt

and I've no heart to wear on the sleeve of my shirt.

No one to wait for and no one to follow

With words that ring false and gestures most hollow.

I am here neither to have nor to haunt,

Though I may miss the wanting for the sake of the want.

The Trade

The day before I heard the news

My motor ran on joy,

Unquestioning that life was just,

For I was just a boy.

The very day I heard the news,

That motor barely coughed,

But on the night I heard the news

My innocence I doffed.

I could not clothe the boy I was

In innocence so stained.

As I became a man, I swapped

That innocence for pain.

My tank's sometimes half-full of joy

Beneath that coat of pain.

My verses are as oft they were,

Before this new refrain.

Jesus Fish vs. Darwin Fish: The Movie Poster

How came to be this tie-dyed, many-colored Earth,

Colored in flourishes by mitosis and birth?

Darwin may have used death as his instrument,

Which the strong, for a moment, evade.

Perhaps life was wonderfully, fearfully made.

Whether accident,

Or heaven-sent,

It's a miracle either way.

The Gentle Waking

Dawn usually breaks, but sometimes it heals,

A sunrise I taste even more than I feel.

The new light softly through yonder window breaks

and something inside me that feels years younger wakes.

The first morning in ages that's not just evening's end,

But beginnings of what gentle dawn can portend.

It doesn't even feel like the calm before the storm...

It just feels warm.

Between 'Know' and 'Notice' and 'No'

Little Miss Vlad the Retailer,

Rejected by the fool of fools

Who dated Belle the Impaler?

I suppose over time, a poet learns

This passing disregard for design,

Mental ointment for psychic burns.

Sometimes, the cover hides the words

From those who might check you out,

Or the circling carrion-birds.

I've never seen you, only spotted.

It's not a real rejection if

I just don't know enough to be besotted.

Try, Try Again

You must make a second effort
If only one should fail.
If three efforts end without success,
Then blaze another trail.

Frozen in Time

Take care as time continues

With all the folks you've met.

If relationships don't grow,

The beginning's all you'll get.

If their budding maturation

should, for some reason, stop,

They'll freeze into position,

As ice might in a mop.

I'll say how my folks treat me,

and you'll see what I mean:

They always will be forty

and I'll always be fourteen.

Old Jon

For the old me, life was black and white,

Or at least a bit less twisty,

and I hardly searched for inspiration

Because it rarely missed me.

I had a consistent, long term mission

Just a bit too big for me,

and, in case I gave it up, a consistent

Political philosophy.

If you upset me, I could just go off,

Or be passive-aggressive.

But now, I'm too lazy for all of that,

With far fewer rips to give.

The old me still had the passion of youth.

He wanted to jump your bones.

I think I still remember his number, but I

Can't get him on the phone.

Why I Write, Part x+269: Accidentally On Purpose

Though I wish I were more painstaking,

I imagine how tight it would bind

If it weren't merely a saying

To truly be of a single mind.

I would be thoroughly discontent

Without those thoughts everyone gives

On accident, absent all intent.

Those thoughts are where poetry lives.

Give Up and Let Your Side Win This Time

The first didn't have the right face

To enter your desired place,

To do what both of you wanted to.

The world chose him instead of you.

The next was too old for the job,

With hair and clothes that said “slob.”

He embraced a taboo label

That most would keep under the table.

In other years, he would be toast.

In your year, he kept it too close.

The third was nothing less than wrong,

A human show ordered by gong,

The wrong color for anything,

Could say the wrong thing just breathing.

Everyone said you were a lock,

That you could just run out the clock,

That the game was no more in play,

and Mr. Wrong won anyway.

Next time, commit the lesser sin.

Just pack it in.

Why I Write, Part x+268: Not a Daddy or a Dadaist

How nerve-wracking, to parent or paint,

To send my creations wholly away.

As a writer, my poems are with me to stay,

and I give the world copies, exactly the same.

Art's medium changes the nature of selling,

Which, in my art, is as safe as re-telling.

Stupid Questions

Why are they trying to sell hockey

To yet another warm-weather city?

If politicians are famous for lies,

Why do we voters still vote for these guys?

If I pay myself first, why not pay me

With time, instead of money?

Why trust one to manage heaven and hell

Who can't even handle the weather well?

Why isn't democracy

an extracurricular activity?

Why don't we have democracy practice

Like a driver's education class?

The Number-Two Reason (After Lack of Talent) That I Am Not a Famous Author

There's a million emotions I don't really miss.

I can't recall fear, but I still can feel bliss.

When I write, I feel happy. Do I ever feel sad?

I sure do get angry—take the good with the bad.

I never feel stress, and go years 'tween premonitions.

I daresay I'm no expert in human emotions.

My favorite one is probably “motorcycle,”

But the one I feel most would be nothing at all.

My Personal World, Part 25: Open Up Old Times

I get out this album, again, and I open up old times,

Improved by melody, meter, and rhymes.

I remember the one who made my good times better,

Improved them with sympathy, laughter and letter.

I remember this one gave me understanding, stimulation

When I was at my worst, with no career or avocation.

I remember how this one served as my armor,

Protection from myself and enemies at my door.

I remember the ones who supported my foreign years,

Who forged a connection 'tween my home and my heres.

I listen and remember, or at least I try,

and I smile because I forgot how to cry.

Changing Without Changing

Anywhere, anytime, and without fear, I go:

The version of me that backed down died years ago.

Yet, my sin of sloth should still send me to hell:

The version of me that gave up is alive and well.

These versions of me, the same version of me, is laughing:

My amusement at coincidence of preposition is still growing.

What Have I Become?

Once an endurance athlete, and now a bowl full of jelly,

I hardly gave a thought to work; now I work in front of the telly.

Between my fur and my taste for cold, I was once a polar bear.

Did I migrate? Yes, and south at that. To a tropical island, that's where.

Mine was once the almost-famous name of a blazing ace of test-taking,

and lately I've found myself unable to memorize a thing.

(In my mind, ideas are illegal immigrants—that's how head-blows affect a poet.)

At some times, under some, I was a patriot; now, I'm nearly twice an expatriate.

Some years ago, I worked with passion, on fire for teaching

Now I spend half my week just waiting for the weekend,

Longing for time to write, and the time I wrote, and the quiet.

From would-be novelist to erstwhile storywriter to dormant poet,

and now neither prolific in the first nor productive in the other,

I've become a motorcyclist, though that one only shocks my mother.