Another skint knee
as I clamber
these rocky flows

seconds separate
this assertion
and your apprehension

just not clear
in what
direction

care
doesn't flow
where I want

where I imagine
as I imagined
I earned it

does it for you
flow easily
home

In Poetic News Today'
Nothing rhymed
with anything
alliteration and consonance
got confused counting
and accenting this and that
and decided a nice cup of tea
with brandy and a nap
among dusty books I imagine
in a square of sun from a high window
like a lesson in perspective
you find interesting and turn past
would be nice this afternoon
and tonight and even well we'll see
about a poet's tomorrow
when you're more somber
and know better so you can

You have to follow because
it follows
Of course I made this up
and that's ok these days
R wants you to know
there are people eating poets
and things even less nice
are going on with short story writers
(just had to)
and nobody and I mean

is paying attention
or talking about this
and it's a conspiracy
affecting many many
there must be dozens
wolfed down like
whiny popcorn

oh the indemnity
of being earless
and mundane
and I'm running
thataway

I won't even try
to make what you want
I must exceed that

Things I will do with you
Can I get you a drink
Are you hungry
If I make you attractive
there may be some off's
to be had (and then this collapse)

I want you to be into something
something delicious
that leans your head back
and involuntarily you deeply breathe
this coalescing of all thrills
like you've got it all right

I'm not selling your story
nothing has to happen
to send things careening
life is just saying things
whilst skin and nerves
watch our [inaudible] spasm

What is with me
what is us
maybe

Us is the will to live
I am one effort

what in the dickens
is a will to live

a foray into darkness
because hunger

I am so hungry
tonight

in sewing together
this

i've included you
as batting

Nothing hangs in the balance
though I want something
to hold my breath over
so as not to upset
everything

Don't want to do that

Might as well
squeeze the rain dry

Each of us alone
in our thoughts

Mine running to edges
and choices

that I make up
in hunger

that I imagine
eat at me

I don't have to be entertaining
I don't have to be excelling
I don't have to be achieving
I don't have to be inging anying

Who are you
doesn't want to know
where or even when
how this came about
is all that can be
unraveled here
despite your best
which you may
have never seen

I sat here all eve
just for this breeze
I thought
as it cooly arrived
around my skin
like lotion
of forest night air

Funny, that.
Getting it Right
burns up the universe
faster
the force of seeing
Albert's gift
ablating away now

the subsurface
of the bottom of things
hates a calendar
knows a pattern on time's
a prison to chance
a lid to capricious eye

laughing at 2:30 pm
on Thursday
poetry at 3
falling in love
is next week
just after
i see epiphany

There's more here
but where are you?

Globs of protoplasm
walk about freely

Engage in seemingly
meaningful behavior

Seemingly meaningful
people like me

Bridge something
maybe no more  than that

the rest
"sound and fury"

is funny when taken
so seriously

a weld in time
holding then to now

This is to the
rest of me
not you since
let me restate that
you and your crowd
are welcome to watch

This is to the rest of me
most of me
all the me beneath me
as if I were a bird
soaring of course
over my own landscape

that seems to not perturb
well me
that this writer is okay
with being seen
as a gull perhaps
working wind

the speech I want to give
to me
is too mundane to write
it's ok to be alone
or is that
just me

that being a crowd
which is ok now
look it up
ikr
what does this make
of alone

other at my highest level
requires letting go of us
do you see the level of kidding
of myself is going on here
to disguise clumsy being
hurt while looking out

Men with guns
seem to think
they are necessary
to life

This alone contains stillness
its in that corner
keeping the room
from being taken
by the usual wind

play into me it says
opening darkness up
i smell hot dogs
and potting soil
and taffy being pulled

I've landed alone at an airfield
on sore wheels and mixed fuels
I just know I've landed that's all
and you must be here somewhere
light something so I can see you

Degree of dominance
Is yours higher than mine
Yawn

uncertain as to who you are
i picture pirates
with red pens
would be nuns

I'm in here
somewheres
I don't look like
you imagine

I"ve tickled
the sugar coated skin
of my closest friend
so he knows

I'm pushing the field
that thinks its the thing
that is the instrument
holding the wave

in case i stop zap here
and i am reconstituted
as a line of *******
like poetry you snort

This is not the time for poetry
I say
not the time for balled fists of words
meant to smack you into now

This is a mundane hour of finding
socks and coffee, forgots and oh-nos
followed by dart-aways 'n' I suppose
so's

yet here the fingers are poised
and soul draining
last night's too much abrading
by love's rough leaving

I keep thinking about you
I believe I love you

What if I trusted you
I asked myself
and not my fear
or my idea
of you

Can you be
trusted
if I tell you
my truth?

Or will you
snigger or
opine
on mine

Wher e is
that line
I can never
fine
I'll return

I wish humans were
actually human
I wish I did not see
children die
on tv
How do you
yes you
allow men
to play
these deadly

And I stop
I wish
for less
testosterone
for less
how dare you
for less
serious belief

Blend me from the blood
or I will attack
something
anything different
I am poised

I wish
I wasn't

The Muse spicy tonight

Welcome to high energy poetry
well that didn't last

I want to write a poem
I want to take you home
I just make you groan
An' I just sit here alone

This one
you won't like
This one
isn't even

I sip from the wine
I sip from the water
and then the wine
again
what does that
tell you

Seconds and I
raise my hand

as if I am part
of something now

whilst typing
in this quiet room

is there sand
where you are

is there danger
there to you

I pull up on my comfort
consider

doing my very best
carrier wave listening

i am ignorant
and innocent

of your muscular
knowing scalds

and that part
of you waiting
to read ahh

I left a sandwich
out for you

The crushing I permit
the crushing I admit
the crushing crushed
I have a shirt I say do you

So I must not care
The grip is tight
the might wanders
along a river
as if hunting
only wanting
to be seen
as if hunting
don't i look like
i'm hunting
say yes please
say yes

These costly Thursdays add up
three shot Thursday wants four
heartbreak and a toothache and a
ground-shake and i'm in a lake
of not knots what knots heart knots
and snots like you


Friendly forgetfulness
has slain me the forgotten
so i must move on
to more memorable
being me somewhere
else
again

I sit back
when did i
become this
when did i
become that
when did i
slouch into my soul
over you and you
and even you
and how could you
you knew
how i felt
you knew didn't you
what you were doing to me
this relentless discontinuance
of love

Some of you are soldiers
of dying thoughts
of Persephone
languid and alone

Asking always for bullets
and to know where to find
me the enemy the unkind
of whom we'll be better off

I can't know I say
and that strap holding
against my brow breaks
turning and turning away

I keep wanting to describe a sound
its this big and this wide and it
makes me go oh drawn out
does this convey that to you

Look my way, yes that's right
how did you know to look here
you think you can't see me
its as if your eyes are knives

When were you here before
was i here too did we talk
i can never remember almost
I can hear you whisper to come

solipsist popsicle in time
cool as james bond stirred
not shaken by this revelation
oh do turn that volume down

The water talks for me
it hopes so much
to be held

What would I teach a poet?
to write with your feet
so you won't miss a beat
to keep the page neat
and pretend to be sweet
that rhyming all the lines
is poetry dressed to the 9's
that reading it aloud
always makes you proud
to not pretend and let
the **** thing end

These self actuated
"bags of mostly salt water"
imagine some really
astonishing things
you, for example
imagine me, writing
and I'm not anymore
imagine me, writhing

and I am anymore
'gainst what I imagine
plays these daily tricks
wherein I keep finding
its still me here 'gain
sayin' the same crazy
discolored things
to not be crazy
the same again

So I ran into this moment of clarity
and, of course, I ran like hell

I got this glimpse, see, of making
and what is this pull away from light

if i am a candle do i wish to be lit
light me is always on my waxy lips

time huffs on me like an ember
i'm backing into what is still solid

i don't mean to set it afire again
i say grinning at the sun

this juvenalistic probalistic
stream with no oil or butter
scalds no one
doesn't smell like breakfast
does it
sneak away from
that thought
'for your caught
with

so i saw a lilly
and grabbed it
for a filly
she said that
was so silly
then things went
***** nilly

I'm left gasping
my false
version of you
shocks me
in new ways

All my versions
of you
scrawled hard
in my ink
on my fog

Attenuated
as dim
as possible
to avoid
more crying

Grooves scrape dark
'cross day
I go to bed
take a nap
sleep past you

And no one reads
my line
mouth open
clothes off
next to me

Once I take everything
out of my head
the world's put between
me and my own smell
the world's put between
me and my own smile

then I can see you clear

I know
we need such stories
to explain the game
so we know how to play

it's just
we forget our stories
are stories
we forget our games
are games
we forget other players
are us playing

listen I'm serious
my way is the way
it's no game
you better
watch
what you say
it's just you
that's on your
imaginary way

the objective, I've discovered
is to make it all play
it's the thing
you must admit
to be eloquent
there it went

I'm sure this is the last apple
or maybe it is the first
I bit and wow it just burst

rap snap wrap fap
lap lap lap hap

blap

alap alapa lap slap
flap flap ed flap
tap ed tap tap

knap

hap that cap
yap yap yap
sap hap?

no hap no sap
wap yo crap
trap

You should be grateful
for this wine
or any line
that allows you
to distill time

this is of course
what we do
wish to do
do aloud
loudly do

verbs just you being you
assail away at sound
anon sense hearing
following all the rules
and checking all
the boxes

of exasperation
phlegmentation spit
from my mouth on
the schedule of expectation's
rhyme
again and shoot me
boot me
one half foot o' me

Let's see
I've cried enuf check
I've made enuf check
I've wined enuf check
I've bled enough seconds check
haven't I?
and I lost a mirror
and i can't see you anymore
just a screen and another and me
such a glow

There is wine
and a reach up
and out
Raise your right hand high
use your left to drink to that
cabernet yah yay ay eh

feel free to substitute
your chemical excuse
and fetid dreams
so delicious and later
rank
below that of turn away

up to here with you
like the rest of them
take that filthy hunger
its concomitant anger
over not understanding
and you should

have understood by now
have appreciated this arrow
heartless weft singing self
and threaded to be sewn
into the daily however gayly
'n don' see comin'

ralph ralph ralph on top
lest we dance for nothing
which is maybe best anyway
now that I can stop thinking
about you about you **** you
again you penetrate my verse

barren time
baron time
bearing time
baring time
bear in time
bare in time
bear time
bare time

I remember
being loved hard
I'm crying alone

watching lovers
desperate
for each other

hungrily touch
I sear empty, want
such fire and desperation

I always think
then
I always realize
don't you

I chicken out
here
and then grasping
limieux

Hockey that is
puck
squirting away to you
pew pew pew