I look down
Take in the ground
I am home
I am one day wiser
A whole life naive
Bring me closer
One day wiser I connect to the north
One day brighter I connect to the south
One day lighter I connect with the east
One day stronger I connect to the west
But still
A whole life naive

a dad, two kids  
the latter running for the shade and shelter
of the picnic table--dad strolling behind,
with pizza and crazy bread  

one family of a dozen there
in 75 degree Texas sunshine  
mid winter, as russet leaves
and calendar attest        

now I recall my only picnic
a half century past, where I discovered
peanut butter could be made magical  
with marshmallow cream  

from this same walking
and waking dream, I see a star
hanging  between two oaks, and a sea  
of hip hippies dancing, rocking to
mystic chants of their own device  

for the music died
long ago, electric and eternal
though we thought it was  

today, in a sun drenched park,
it is calm breeze I hear, the sibilant sizzling songs
of my past are long lost in space, but the wickedly wonderful
white goop on that sandwich, I yet taste
with transcendent  joy

non essential
sequential repeating
patterns of
non comprehensive
pensive Poe
like pretentious
non sequitur
numb humming
status quo

The snow stopped.
Thin veins of white lay
in the cracks of pavement,
melting.
The smoke moved out of chimneys,
drifted lazily and without direction
a few seconds before it
faded senselessly into
invisibility.
The sun will not show his face today.
Thick gray blurs the line
between sky and stone;
concrete and cloud sift
through each other noiselessly.
The flag falls stale against the pole.
Ants litter the cold ground
on two legs, stagnant,
opening doors, talking,
gesticulating without urgency.
Brown and gray paint landscape
impressionist against the
thick glass of the window;
everything blurred, everything
intangible, graceless, sluggish.
The world is a cold, dead place
from twenty stories up.

dear diary
when I write in you
in cursing cursive, indelible blue
I don't expect you keep my secrets
one day, strangers who professed to love me
will open your paisley cover

you will surprise
those interlopers, won't you,
with fierce fires, thick thunderbolts drawn
by a demented hand, in a razor red
never never land    

my confessions
will jump from the page,
eager creatures, long locked
in your pale parchment, their patience
forever tested, ready to tell
terrible tales

dear diary,
where were the benevolent schemes
and childlike dreams you expected?
in others deluded epistles to themselves,
necessary fiction, for it is much more important
to fool oneself than the indifferent world