Poetry can **** you
when you shut
yourself inside of it.

It doesn’t want you
looking for better words
in other poems.

It wants to cage you
to the corners
of a sheet of paper.

It doesn’t want you
to breathe the thing
it won’t allow.

It wants you to use
just enough imagination
to finish it and
throw the overflow away.

For the time you write it
it has its own imagination
that refuses to acknowledge
that yours exists.

Until it’s done
you are it’s prisoner.

Only then will it open up
and let you breathe,
let itself breathe.

The seed planted with our small help
becomes a crop.
The flame carefully kindled by us
ignites  civilization.
Now we must
**** our blighted hearts
to feed the moral fire
of our hungry minds.

Man has
a map of the galaxy
for his body,
a map of his genes
that are his universe.
He has
a defense or attack
for every chess move
housed in Watson’s memory.
But precious of all,
he has
the ability to
grow crops,
to put water in the
hands of the thirsty,
to make
the right screws
to fit the peace machine
that makes our
better angels fly.

There once was a race of cake men
equally divided between
birthday and wedding types,
each born into whatever flavor
was selling that day—
usually chocolate or vanilla,
but towards the end Neapolitan-
whose faith was strong.

They succumbed to the next door
country of cake eaters,
who reveled in their two week
long cake eating festival.

The eaters would line up with
their forks and plates
and slice off a big piece of
cake men as they fled to
the nearby country of pie people
who granted them asylum and citizenship
because their people were
mainly rhubarb and mincemeat
and we’re suffering through fruit blight
that was destroying their fabled variety.

Soon the festival yielded
to a full scale invasion.
You see, the cake eaters were
tired of waiting in the sample line.
They ate the cake men to the last crumb.

With all the cake gone they ate the pies.
But by then the idea of cake was a lie.
The cakes were now  mostly pies.

When the last forkful of pie
was in the cake eaters mouth
it screamed:

I will not be eaten by anyone
who can not see my beauty.

The eaters never thought that a cake
could be admired and never eaten.
They had no sense of the art and beauty
that was the filling of the cake/pie men’s faith

That last bite of pie became poisonous
and from then on the cake eaters
(who were now forced to make their own)
could never fully have their cake and eat it
without throwing up or dying.
They were now forever doomed to eat
their meat and vegetables.

What will happen
when we
stop writing poems?

What will poetry become
when we stop inspiring
and the beauty of words
is silenced or rejected?

We will leave the writing table
and descend into the valley
to find new sounds and laughter.

We will drink the last water
from thirsty mountains.

We will listen
to the resounding
music and laughter
of our own dark forests.

When the giant bagel fell from the sky
everyone complained when it blocked the road.  
Even when children cut it into pieces
and passed it out, lathered with shmear and lox
the town folks refused to eat the manna.
A host of angels descended to clean up the mess.
The town folks rushed to the angels,
still neglecting the heavenly bread.
When the last crumb had reascended to heaven
and the angels began to flap their wings
and take flight, the town folks begged them to stay,
but they would not. Instead, they left behind
a talking chicken to remind them when the sky fell.

I asked the haberdasher
to make me a new soul.
something inexpensive
and lighter than 21 grams
with a loose fit.

He made it,
draped me in it
then disappeared.

I went home
and hung it in the closet
.
The next day
I couldn’t figure out
how to put it on.
So, I left it in on its hanger.

Overnight it got darker
and had become a shadow.

In the light it went white.
I draped it over arm
and went for a stroll.

It feel out of my grasp
onto the sidewalk,
picked itself up and
followed perfectly behind me.

By twilight it had become invisible
and was complaining loudly
that it wanted to go home.

I took it back
to the haberdasher
like it asked of me.

The store was closed
and empty of every soul.
His tools had been left out.
Sadly, the master had gone home.