only, is to be
banished
upon the next utterance
of  mine if I speak it.

if can be used only in comparisons
no ifs around here
unless if is for sure.

Maybe won't be said from this day on.
Someday I declare
is Now and where

only if maybe I
have a spare verb ready,
I should be used sparingly ,
we and us  are the

the proper pronouns

conjunctions are disallowed
their functions
suspicious as hell,

adverbs are devil tongued,
therefore or therefor I forget
their usage is banned

and  and is so lazy
and lame and criminal
from now on

i guess these rules
get you alarmed ****
but should have only one t

Years after giving up the game
for good I still dream of turning
up late to a match juggling
a chipped red racquet,

high-impact lenses,
salt tanned right hand
glove and two
blue ***** fresh in the can,

my dream court receding
down darkened halls,
a warren of identical doors,
portholes slashing avocado

carpet with watery cross ties,
florescent flickers that merge and pool,
flushing me into flat light within
a stark white cube to toe the red

service line once again only to find
my forehand serve impeded
by stacked furniture and packing
crates arranged into a crooked lane

plat of a miniature medieval
Bruges.  Racquetball,
a game of angles gone
sadly out of fashion,

the MacGuffin in my dreams  
and my playing days when you
were my true opponent.  Never one
for racquet sports, you ran me

stroking passing shots, methodical
while I hurled myself heedless
headlong into walls, losing on points,
nursing trophies of bruises.

As it happens I did not buy this book
of collected poems in St. John, New Brunswick or
Charlottetown, P.E.I.  I didn’t pick it up
in Yorkville on a long weekend in Toronto,
nor was I delighted to spot it in a window display
on a stop I didn’t make for coffee in Kamloops, B.C.  
No doubt Halifax has its share of bookstores,
none of which I’ve visited on the road
to North Sydney to catch the ferry to Newfoundland,
where one imagines happening upon a salt cured,
weather beaten mom and pop clinging to life
quayside in St. Johns.  
The border with sleep lies just up ahead
where soon I’ll be borne across
on thoughts of the boats of these poems
lifted on the rising tide of the U.S. dollar,  
Billy Collins buttoned up for the night
inside a tent pitched upon the calm seas
of my chest.

clearly, I lean to the left
walk with a pre-existing tilt
that in the halo of the House of Republican's
vote this week, might cause me to be
labeled a high health risk,
they also see me as
Alabama senator Mo Brooks labeled
as antithesis to "people who lead good lives"
and therefore strike me down with cancer or something.
He sees a way to waive health-care mandates
and save money, so those in the top 2% of income
can get a tax break.
Wake up people , rapists are running wild with false rhetoric and
you elected and pay them.
I have no choice in Alabama. The right is entrenched and
the education system is wrecked. Corn fed cows
pigs and ***** guarding the sheep
have more of a conscience than any elected official here.

tense as the rolled up newspaper thrown
slapping against the step
at dawn
awakening conspiratorial
slinking around the truth
sleuthing sniffing
my way to find
out this way or that but the way
about the signs the clues
preachers words the same weight
as the street corner girls
a way to think
in our detectiving
then the ultimate
DNA almost
the penultimate
remains of the doer dids
the who what did
whats the ne'er do wells on
Mulberry street , I know them hoods
no they were not the culprits
I scent along above below
sniff and snoof
behoove behind the wildest dogs
to find it was
mine own trail I had found
among the shivering forest green
I sat considered
a shylock set this up
then saw the bacon on my foot
I had been following.
I set off again my foot clean.
I will find this bandit.
I like bacon , though.

Birds come to feed
on the nuts hanging
from the Sycamore
I planted as a seed
seven years back.
Its my joy to hear
them singing,
and wonder
if they hear
my songs,
a poet
in
flux.

You say this with an odd jealousy~
It's easy being me, I am a marvel of a mountain
a giant sleeping on a hill, taking up all the space~
Write immortal poetry on my arms and people
take notes on all of the subjects I profess as truth

You say all these things as if the quantity in question
outweighs the persecution us women face around
the world, the options opting upon our forced attendance
guys like you creep in bushes and clamor you're
an incel and some of you wish you were girls

A terrible thing to be is to be me