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.

The salesman at the door
is looking for a need;
if he doesn't find one,
he weaponizes greed.

No need to be rude
to this simple working man
who satisfies desires
in everyone he can.

Just let him know you're happy
with everything you've got,
and he'll be on his way
to someone who's not.

At once he feels the magnetic tug upon
His bones muscles nerves & fingertips.

Aflame she glows, her ice blue eyes ablaze
Amid the fire of her hair & lips.

Proximity mere bends space-time & light --
Captivated, into orbit he slips.

I may be just a partying sort of guy,
But that’s the sort of guy I wanna be.
I intend to go down laughing when I die.

I like the ladies, that I won’t deny.
I give them what they want, and they like me
Because I’m such a partying sort of guy.

I make love, sleep, wake up, and then get high.
My days and nights are filled with revelry.
I know I’ll go down laughing when I die.

I wear the finest clothing I can buy
And drive the fastest car you’ve ever seen
To prove I’m quite a partying sort of guy.

I never get depressed, I never cry,
But those who do have all my sympathy.
I’d rather go down laughing when I die.

So why are some committed to the lie
That life is hard? They must love misery.
Myself, I’ll be a partying sort of guy
Until I go down laughing, when I die.

Dare to handle fire and burn --
It will not run away.
Dare to grasp it, it will turn
To meet you and to play.

Pet the pretty, sensuous cat;
She purrs as you approach.
As your hand descends to pat --
Claws repel your broach.

When you invade another's space,
Expecting to be loved,
Watch your back -- it's not the face
In which the knife is shoved.

The elements of poetry escape
me at the moment, run amuck among
thought-dogs roaming, sniffing in the night

the dry earth for the scent of something without
a scent, hastening the dismemberment
of poetry's escaping elements.

Defective products everywhere.
I stepped on one while walking
across the grass that grows like hair,
where lovers were sitting talking

about the money they’d make
by selling defective products.
Anyway, it wasn't a snake
or a squirrel or a pair of ducks

mating, it was an escalator
coming up out of the ground
from Hell, like the old dumb-waiter
in the haunted house around

the riverbend, that used to be
run up and down in the old days,
until the Yankees came and we
each dug a few graves

for the bodies that belonged to
the souls that returned to Hades
after the war. It caught my shoe
and jammed -- ****** and defectively made.

Forget? Regret? I’ll never do either:
We were happy for an interlude in time.
Painful it was when we left each other,
But Love’s habit of charging, as a price, pain,
Is not, ironically, so shrewd a crime
That I should regret ever having paid
For an interlude of bliss, during which
We were contented, complete, and well laid.
Then we knew happiness of a different sort
Than the satisfactory existence
Endured before we played Love’s part,
And now endure with time and distance.
Memories of happiness sustain Love’s force;
Let's not defile them with bitter remorse.

A lucky man
(I forget his name)
gathered his winnings and retired young.
He enjoyed peaceful mornings
in the garden, afternoons
on the golf course, and evenings
with cable TV.
He enjoyed leisurely vacations
in Vegas, Honolulu,
Cancun and Orlando.
He enjoyed health, prosperity,
friendship and love.
Then he died.

Grown-ups are too big to see the ground.
They watch the costumes, masks
and arms, the throws
into the crowds from giant floats
like little clouds.
They catch stuff in the air,
but if it hits the ground
they leave it there.

Grown-ups hide even the highest floats.
Backs and backs of heads and hands
like tiny treetops block
the view, so all I see
are tractor wheels and legs
and big shoes.

Grown-ups don’t know what they’re missing.
Dodging knees I stoop and scoop
up tons of treasures
in a blink. They think
they’re smart, but down here
I’m the King.

They were married,
but not to each other.
She was the assistant;
he was the boss.
Her name was Sarah.

She stayed late often
and talked with him alone.
Somehow he let her know
he wasn’t completely happy,
and somehow she let him know
she understood,
which made him happy.

He should have been working;
she should have been home.
Before long he couldn’t work anyway,
thinking of her.  

So he fell in love with her.
But he didn’t know it;
He thought it was lust.

When he knew she’d accept,
He offered a kiss.
She accepted.

Once they started,
they couldn’t stop,
and still they talked
as they touched and kissed.
They were soulmates mating.

After awhile,
she talked of leaving her husband, Paul,
and he talked of leaving his wife, Rebecca.
Rebecca was his mistake,
and someday he’d leave her
or she’d leave him.
But he didn’t want a new wife,
or a new mistake.

So he let Sarah go.
She went in tears.

It was the best thing to do.
It was the worst thing to do.

Around him grew
a sad new aura: emptiness --
emptiness in the office,
where the new assistant played computer games;
emptiness at home,
where the dog got heart worms
and the pipes froze.

He thought in time
the emptiness would fade.
But Sarah was gone,
and he missed her.
In time,
he missed her more.
The more he missed her,
the emptier life became.

Then it struck him:
the magnitude of what he’d done:
he’d lost her.
He loved her.
He’d lost the one he loved.

He had to call her;
he couldn’t call her.
He’d made her cry.
She had to hate him.
Maybe she loved him.
He had to see her.

He drove across the river to her new office.
He found her car in the parking lot.
He parked where he could see,
and waited.

At five-after-five
she approached her car.
He got out of his
and approached her.
She stopped
when she saw him.
He stopped
when she stopped.

He said the words:
“I love you.”

She came toward him.
She stood before him.
Her eyes were gardens.

“I didn’t know I loved you,” he said.
“But now I know.
I love you.”

She turned to the car
and opened the door.
“I left Paul,” she said.

“I’ll leave Rebecca.”

She got in the car.
“Call me when you do.”
She shut the door,
started the car,
backed up
and drove off.

So there was hope.

That night
he packed his bags
as Rebecca raved.
Then he left.

The next morning
He called Sarah.
He took her to lunch
that day.
She cooked dinner
that evening.

They've been together
ever since.

She’s a good and beautiful woman.
But Grandad won the Gold in Swimming
in Thirty-Four, Mom won the Silver
in Diving in Sixty-Six, and I won
the Gold in Swimming again in Two Thousand.
So good and beautiful might not be enough.

Old man of the new South,
champion of losers,
poet of prose,
one hundred candles are not enough.

On this date born
before Adam fell,
you saw the serpent
and lived to tell.

You tell it so well
even the ding-**** bell
won’t silence your still-talking
ever-prevailing inexhaustible voice,*

as doom itself is drowned
by the sound of a civilization
gathering round
the only candle worthy of your day:

the sun.

I notice trees
along the highway and beyond,
tempted as I drive
to ponder each design,
to estimate its weight
in life’s green scheme,

but each lone specimen
evades me as I speed
toward unknown peripheries
of darker and darker groves
and forests and jungles,
implicating blackness
in the blur of green until,
impatiently,
I change the station
and just watch the road.

        It’s a short cut and nothing but.
        It’s nothing but a short cut.

In the tangled humps
of exposed roots I walk
among in preference to the flat
meander of concrete sidewalks,
no subtle clues
of something to do with souls
impress me now,
no metaphoric mazes come to mind
to puzzle me with riddles
of the meaning of roots,
nor do ideas or images
or intimations of immortality
surprise me with the force of things
unknown or new.

I walk among the tangled roots
only because the way is straight
and short.

        It’s just a short cut and nothing but.
        It's nothing but a short cut.

He sat in silence as she talked,
but didn't really hear her.

Afterwards he took a walk
updown frigid suburb streets,
where polished cars along the curbs
slept like private birds and beasts.

So freshful was the cold night air;
so peacely was the starry sky.
He wandered far, content to be
a maginary man alive.

She sat in silence as he walked,
but didn't feely real him.

Love is in the smoke
of this motel room,
never in the air.

Even the lewd life-
like performances
on the screen, where johns

turn for role models,
are cabled in through
insulated wires.

She makes a point of
smoking cigarettes
before and after

every breathless trick --
to pollute the air.
Johns never object.

The snapshot of Now
folds in the middle:
me on one side,
kids on the other.

The snapshot of Then
split in the end --
me torn apart,
them with their mother.

I must be nuts to be sitting here
at one o’clock in the morning
when I have to get up at six,
when I have to put on a tie
at seven and walk in that door
at eight with a smile on my face.

But I’ve had such a normal day --
made a sale, ate lunch, made a sale;
made a ham sandwich for dinner;
ate it; ate a bowl of ice cream
between sitcom reruns and game shows --
that I had to wake up at least once before bed.

Along the path I heard the badger squeal,
stopping me in my tracks, reminding me
of an innocent time when once I rushed
to rescue this weasel from the ragged jaws
of a dogged wolf, swinging my stick, striking
the biter only to be bitten by
the badger I’d just saved from *******,
as if I were his enemy as well.

Now pain remembered engendered new fear
of the badger’s bite as I slowly drew near
the perilous piercing squeals. Then I saw him —
his paw in a trap, the trap on a chain — grim
prospect even for one so fierce and mean.
But do I dare to hope to set him free?
Or stifle mercy for security?

A pitiful wretch inhabits my brain;
In a boiling cauldron they writhe in pain.
When I perceive beauty or feel desire,
On impulse the cognizance feeds the fire.

The prisoner screams, they blister and burn;
They suffer and die, and then they return.
As long as I love, they'll never rest;
The hug of a child puts them to the test.

Nothing will comfort this inmate of life
But hunger and cold, aloneness and strife.
They'd pluck out my eyes, cut out my tongue,
And make me a bed out of thorns and dung.

Yet I’ve known those who were quite insane
Because no wretch lived in their brain.
I hope until the moment I die,
My head resounds with that sobering cry.

I wish I could teach you
a thing or two
but I ain’t got
a single clue
much less two.

And I wish you could teach me
to let it be
but if you do
I won’t be me
so let me be.

And I wish time would teach us
to get along
so let’s agree
that time is wrong
to take so long.

Relationships of divers nations
          crystallize in Terrible Times:
alliances divide along
          Terror/Anti-Terror lines.

The paradigm is surgical:
          eradicate the cancerous cells.
So privy nations operate
          on Terror's malignant network of Hells.

The human species balances
          upon the precipice of Fate:
voices clamor on Freedom's side;
          dogma grips the side of Hate.

And one God watches, knowing They
          have and will defeat the Beast.
But who's the Beast? "It's them!" points each.
          May the best team win, the other cease.

Terror evolves in the pure open space
where sparked by the doubt of one who resents
the consequence of living and knowing
nothing of the terrible, terrible
confrontation, it propounds incessant
problems of being and ceasing until
entangled Reason entangles itself
in implications of implications,

confounding the space, conceiving a place
of refuge bounding Nowhere’s edge,
where ponderous dreams of life without care
augment the power and anger and dread
of Terror itself, thickening like air,
glutting the infinite heart of the head.

it’s in the blood and not the hand:
the corrupt blood of great great
grandmassa freret through great
grandpa cleo and grandpa cleo
and paps and then me;

the empty hand
to which grandmassa bequeathed
some of his fortune to be stolen
by his other (white) line
under the law by which the court
declared null and void the will
and legacy to cleo
because cleo’s mother
grandmassa’s daughter
could not inherit,

so the hand is empty --
empty of that fortune
but not of that blade
with which this disinherited one
drew the same blood
from three of the heirs
of that other (all-white) line
in the dark of one bleak morning
in the same garden district mansion
where grandmassa bed his housemaid
great great grandma mildred
who then in the same mansion
birthed the first cleo
to whom was bequeathed the blood
and the ultimately stolen fortune:

hence the hand the blood
the corrupt blood in these veins
i let onto the floor of the block
screaming “it’s in the blood! it’s in the blood!”

and so they took away the blade
and again the hand is empty
and still the blood is corrupt

From day to day they consume themself,
inhale themself into themself --
smoking butts on hot afternoons,
becoming nothing.

They have an aspiring artist friend,
a silent screen on which they dare
project themself like a shadow
in hell.

The artist friend understands well
how one might forget to exhume themself
from themself, and how one must remember this
by themself.

He too saw the promise of a distant light,
but unlike him he renounced the gold hat,
and unlike her she did not renounce him.
His parties were simpler, but she was content
with what he could offer: a romantic
readiness, just like his; a gift for hope
for a life together; a capacity
for wonder at the promise of a dream.

Even now he remembered the sad things
that happened to them -- the deprivation
and the foul dust that floated in their wakes.
But through the smoke he peered into her eyes
and saw the light there, green as ever,
and knew they’d turn out all right at the end.

It all looked unfamiliar
and felt the same,
as if a veil had dropped
or had been raised.

Inside utter darkness
brightly shone
on rows of blank spaces
and beds of bone.

With so much of nothing
everywhere,
an air of emptiness
filled the air.

He peeked out through the mouth
(it had no eyes),
but shrinking at the sight
of two skies,

he stumbled back inside
and slept once more,
dreaming he was alive,
forevermore.

Her eyes would never look at mine,
But I could never look away.
My love became too strong to hide,
And still I love her more today.

The seed I planted barely took;
It never reached the sunlight.
Then a rainstorm washed it up
To fertile soil rich and bright.

I didn't think the seed would grow
Until I saw a new green stem.
When I saw a leaf unfold,
I had to have her back again.

Finally, she looked at me —
A flower burst in love's blind view.
Though it took a while to see,
I knew then that she loved me too.

Unglorified victories
are glorious yet.
No one knows
what the novice knows
as he goes from worse
to better.
The consequence is small,
of course -- too small for pros
to care to notice.
Yet every pro
is a glorified novice.

"We'll divide our time
between living and dead,"
they said to themself
getting out of bed.

"Today we'll die,
and tomorrow we'll live."
Then they showered, got dressed,
and left for work.

This is the day I shall be wed;
As I wait my thoughts are dead.
They lie stretched on the rack of love,
Embalmed like so many dirt-filled gloves.
And each stiff finger remembers
Nothing of the cold black embers
It once caressed with so much care,
As if each branch would lead somewhere.
But now the fingers of every thought
Cannot remember what they sought.

This is the day I shall be wed;
From my heart all fears have fled.
My heart alone is alive today,
A living, beating lump of clay;
Sustaining life with every pulse,
Incapable of feeling false.
Doubt cast out from the heart of life,
The tell-tail heart that found my wife.
I wed her though my thoughts are still;
I said I'd say "I do," and will.

Look at him. Look at him, they think. Pitiful.
His withered legs like empty promises hang
from hips as dead and shrunken as stillborn dreams.
It must be hell to be half wheelchair
and half man.

                          He understands. He understands
they think they understand how it feels to be
a wheelchair man. So well he understands
the wholesomeness of pity: for every ounce
of pity, you can count a thousand blessings.
So count.

                   Meanwhile he rolls. He rolls and rolls.
Legs – legs he doesn't see. Hips – hips he avoids.
Looking up he sees faces, tall faces
with glass eyes fixed on objects far too high
for him to spy from his lowly throne.

                                                        ­          He rolls
and counts and rolls to a stop before
cathedral steps. The doors are closed today.
He cannot see inside today. No matter –
He cannot genuflect on any day,

but flexes the muscles of his faith each time
he pities them, who stoop to sympathize.

Every morning at six-thirty I sit
at that table by the window and drink
my coffee. No, I’m retired. As you see,
I can see that corner, and most days the kids
come there to wait for the bus to take them to
the high school. Two boys and a girl, usually.
No, I don’t know them or their names, but I’d
recognize them. So, they stand there talking
and smoking -- whether cigarettes or something
else, I don’t know, but sometimes they shared it.
And I’m thinking the boys shared the girl too,
because one day one’s kissing her, the next day
he doesn’t show and she’s kissing the other.
That was yesterday. Then, today, the first boy
walks up and bang! bang! -- he shoots them both,
the girl and the boy, point blank in the head, like
Pacino in Scarface. Yes, I’ll testify.
But please catch the little ******* before
he finds out I’m a witness and pops me too.