It is 7:30 in Appleton a Monday
wet with two straight days of rain,
of course it is 2012 but I can't quite get
on my feet when this blanket is so warm
and the 8:30 class is so cold but there
is usually a 8:20 urge and a 8:25 surge
and what do you know, it feels like fall

I have arrived at the crosswalk, this time
with grace and style but also with a thought
that I should one day run full sprint in
the wrong direction to see where I end up
but there are flashing yellow lights so
anyway its rather foggy and I will
have to cut across the frosty grass with
all its leaves because I need to ***
and there is a restroom next door
but hold it because my phone says
8:31 I am a whole minute late, run?

what’s a minute but a mint and a nut
Elevated into Evanescence by Elixir Endpoint,
because that class was quick plus I have
Philosophy today but I forgot to print my
essay so I walk to LANCE HALL and
walk up stairs to my door and there is my
Click-Click, with Song-Song and Look-Look
still on upon waking and I a few seconds
later close those and print but it is slow and
there is a spinning rainbow wheel with a
dreamscape reel and a time warp feel

but that happens so I go downstairs
and double-click twice and hear noise!
Fear strikes as TONER LOW appears
and a red light blinks for ATTENTION
however the pages come out and
I staple them with careful ordering of course
and after I place it in the mailbox it is
lunch time, or cool-down-mindful-now

I sit down with food ready and a PACKERS
victory staring at me enthusiastically from paper
I begin to eat with Time coming around
the corner in a tilbury rolling his wheels to
11:07 and my name is called by a friend
who comes and we talk and we talk
and we -

I almost cried today
talking to my mother
laying brittle words like
autumn leaves in front of her

Every leaf a layer off the branch
of my onion exterior, sappy
interior, nothing left to hide
nothing stable inside

I’m telling you this because
here my words stick together
virescent, safe, graceful
but when I talked

with my mother
the earth spun like dreidels
and the words changed color
and some fell slowly
others crumbled, forever

walking back to my room
I feel the cold, familiar breeze
for the first time
in a long time

On occasion Air lets me through
and birds shake their feathers with
indifference. A nod of the head
will do for now. They see the flutter
of a lost soul and mistake me for
a neighbor they once had who fell
into Wind and falls to this day.

Some clouds say she rides the
mountain goats to the peak to
say hello. Others say they carry
her as dust when its warm and
let her cool down into snowflakes
so she may return to the drift. And
maybe someday reach eternity.

When you walk sometimes the
strangers ahead move in the same
place, waiting patiently. Wonder
where they’re falling, whether they
ever touch ground. A little shove
from Wind sweeps minutes out of
my eyes as we pass on our way.

Truth has no greater friend than poetry.
I would go as far as to say they are bowling buddies
on the weekends and share stories over coffee regularly
during the weekdays, reveling in their perfect experiences
together.

When they talk, they don’t simply chat. No,
they communicate, walking the same walk because one is
as it is and the other proves very adaptable. Words uttered
with the constraint of structural dominance lose their oomph,
only flickering with what could have been.

I had a dream today that orange flowers and
purple thoughts could one day rise up and live together in
the confines of our minds.

No thinker is more instinctual than a poet and thus requires
a reactive art form. Trust me, I have sat down and thought deeply
about this after a long walk without destination where I scrutinized
the look and feel of my surroundings until I got bored
and got the usual at the bagel shop.

Explanation in conversation never really explains anything.
Better to leave breadcrumbs behind for someone else to find,
pickup and eat their way to an answer. If you think of a poem as a
wood littered with pieces of starch then consider my message received.
Unfortunately no letter openers exist and it may or may not have been
written in Icelandic depending on what day of the week it arrived.

Try to remember that words provide the only route to realities
of the past and so word choice is paramount. Recollection need not
contain any buildup or letdown; just get to the point stupid.

If you want to waste time then flip through magazines that
don’t really interest you or eat food that you don’t actually desire or
perhaps write a novel that takes way too long to finish. If, on the other
hand, you grasp the enormity of my plea and desire to communicate with
the world as a ambassador of truth and explore the darkness like a
21st century Columbus then by reading these last few words here
you are                     that much closer.