The man who died
in the Bornean jungle
dropped his mind
in a nylon pack.

“Call me mad,
but here I am.
Don’t expect me
home again.”

It carefully drifted
down the river
he’d labored up
a learned explorer.

“Children -- love --
wife too ...
Mud -- bugs --
headhunters --”

He did us honor if
only because
he said what he could
from where he was.

The apple rumbled down the aisle
          and stopped beside a boot.
The groom beheld its crimson glow
          and stooped to get the fruit.

The bride could not resist a bite
          when tempted by the groom.
The juice ran down her comely face
          like nectar on a bloom.

The groom ate of the fruit as well
          in solidarity
with her with whom he vowed to share
          the knowledge from the tree.

The guests did cheer but did not hear
          the serpent's sneering hiss.
The apple soon would take its toll
          beginning with a kiss.

The flight of a bird
proclaims the possibility
of flight.

If it can fly,
so can I.

So while we're talking
let's keep walking
toward the sky.

If someone reads these lines
while I’m alive, I'll be surprised.
And if I’m dead, at least
they’ll be alive, and perhaps
they'll be surprised
to hear a dead man laughing,
live.

Two kinds of people
are those who need somebody,
and those who need somebody
to need them.

One who needs somebody
can satisfy this need
either with someone who needs them,
or with someone who needs them
to need them.

But the need of one
who needs someone to need them
can be satisfied only by one
who needs them, and not
by someone else who needs someone
to need them.

Those who need someone to need them
can never need each other,
because it’s the need someone else
has for them they need,

and they never need anyone
for themself, but only
for that person’s need for someone
who, like themself, needs that need.

Today I launched out of Venice and trolled
the Wagon Wheel with jigs and pigs
in the cuts and pockets of the dead-end marsh
canals, caught my limit of monster bass,
came home tired, cleaned the fish and stuffed
the filets in the freezer.

Once I'd grab handfuls of earth
out the worm garden that grew in the yard,
stuff the squirming dirt in a can, pick
a cane pole from behind the shed and walk
down Orleans Avenue to the City Park
lagoons and fish till dark.

The water was black and deep then, swimming
with bream and cats and sac-au-lait, brimming
always with the possibility of a green
flash, the phenomenal churn, yank and splash
of a monster bass erupting like a green
god out of black water.