I am a mouse in a sea of cats
A red fish in a blue school
I know not what to do
So I decide, having read the writing
Etched upon the wall, I decide
I shall be like Despereaux!
Let out a defiant squeakl
Lift my pokey-pen sword
And charge forth!
I shall be Jack the Giant Slayer
Destroy my fears, speak brazenly
As I run off, leaving this
Phrase etched into the wall,
Waiting for the next timid mouse to read;
Carpe diem quam minimum credula postero
(Pluck the day and put no trust in the future)

Humanity i love you
because you would rather black the boots of
success than enquire whose soul dangles from his
watch-chain which would be embarrassing for both

parties and because you
unflinchingly applaud all
songs containing the words country home and
mother when sung at the old howard

Humanity i love you because
when you’re hard up you pawn your
intelligence to buy a drink and when
you’re flush pride keeps

you from the pawn shop and
because you are continually committing
nuisances but more
especially in your own house

Humanity i love you because you
are perpetually putting the secret of
life in your pants and forgetting
it’s there and sitting down

on it
and because you are
forever making poems in the lap
of death Humanity

i hate you

Off
She danced
Barefoot
On the wind
With the wind
In her face
She danced

Barefoot
To the tape
In the race
With her friends
She danced
Barefoot
In the wind

On her face
The joy
Of the race
Of the run
The ecstasy
Of the wind
On her face

Barefoot
The race
The run
The wind
In her lungs
On her face
In her hair
Barefoot
She danced
To the tape

Let’s sleep out
And eat in
Quietly shout
Get mad and grin

Hold tight
To loose morals
Wake up at night
Fall asleep and fight

Shiver in June
Warm in December
Believe a cartoon
Grasp a hot ember

Let’s bloom from above
Speak what we cannot say
Let’s fall in love
*And stay that way

The first thing that disappeared
was your lips.
Not your voice;
That I still hear loud and clear.
I can’t seem to remember what your lips look like.
But I remember how they taste.

Next it was your nose;
it melted right off your face.
Sliding down your cheek and now
your mouthless lower half,
It fell to the ground below.

The image of your eyes is burned into my mind.
I fell into them the moment we first met,
sunk into the blue flecked with grey
submerged in a stormy sea.
I have yet to come up for air.

Your rosy cheeks have faded
over the years.
Now they just look like everyone else’s.

I hope this means that to me
You’re not as distinct as you used to be.
But I sometimes wonder if it’s far worse;
if it’s that everyone else
is now more like you.

Dance my love
For I return
Weep my love
For many do not

Dance my love
For the war is done
Weep my love
For what we did

Dance my love
For in victory we are one
Weep my love
For in defeat
They are broken

Dance my love
For our cause
It was just
Weep my love
For they hoped the same

Dance my love
For them that return
To their mother
Weep my love
For them that have killed
Their brother

Before dawn I ride through dimly lit streets
Mid-September and the air is cool and damp
Students wait at the bus stop – some talk, some text

The moon, in the last sliver, courts Venus
Together they drift as if hand-in-hand while clouds slip quietly past
Ghostly with gray shadows

Cross-town Parkway to Kings Highway
The sounds of industry growl
The River Valley Trail
Pulls me from the road

Along the Kalamazoo River, the fog creeps across fields
The sun’s first rays warm the sky
On the river, mist swirls as dawn approaches, gold threads twisting upward

Near Galesburg, another commuter joins me
The conversation makes the trip a bit shorter
The rooster crows twice this morning as we ride past

The last stretch along L-Avenue through quiet woods and fields
Glimpse a deer or a coyote, a rabbit, or an owl
As we climb the final hill of our ride
The mist billows incandescent in the sunlight