So much

goes into being
    only just

a cold,
   dead,
      thing.

The hunt begins. The fur
of the white wolf
beckons me forth, along the trail
into the woods.

The smoke is the reminder of Her
initiatic journey.
The trap is set.

    She guides me into it.

Hope is a clever animal.

Pondering the inverse
relationship between
desire and disappointment:

After many lessons,
Anxiety answers Hope,
an I for an i.

The I formulates desire;

The i learns the folly
of attachment, and instinct
holds sway, a balloon

filling with
oxygen, a balloon

popping.

Needed what I never got --

got what no one should have --

now I yearn for what no one should,

and it hurts like
a dog tethered in the yard
barking its fool head off

and no one is coming home

The smell
   of smoke from my father's Winston
   in a Datsun Z
   on a hot day in California
        in the summer, the crinkle
        of a bag of chips

with the wind ripping
through the window, a skip
through the cities between
there and home

Childhood
memories like
ashes in an ashtray

Letting go of the pain,
it falls to the earth,

an anchor
to the torment of men,

a world on fire,
where I breathe smoke and dream
of a dreamless sleep.

The wind blows;
turning the sail, I allow
an aimless drifting, between
the billows, caring nothing
for the ****** of the gale

and everything
for the pistoning
of the wave