you wait,
though I am there,
you sigh,
though I am your breath,
you look,
though I am your stare,
your thoughts have hollowed a place for me,
                                                             ­              shaped me,
                                                             ­                                 shaped me
                                                              ­                                                  so I should fit.

Want,
              a need,
found me,
                   found me wanting,
   wanting
               to fulfill.

What one believes
seems to roll with chance,
the where
            the when,
                 and to whom
                               one is born,
be it Pago Pago to the South of France,
before the current time (BCT)
                                                            or two thousand years thereafter.
What would Einstein come to know
if born a thousand years ago
in a village of Eskimos
where the highest calling
was laying upon a chilly table
a slice of seal,
                         fillet of fish,
                                                or slab of blubber.

Nothing closer than white on rice
unless, of course it writhes
then you're probably forking lice!

I remember a childhood warning
that cautioned against "impure thoughts"
as though the mind were a tidy bowl
and it could be cleansed with a johnny mop!

Alice,
There are no straight shots
                                          to the moon -

        there are going
                to be
                  in-
                 ter-
               ludes.

Nothing more useless than a poet
except in times of woe
and when yore
yens to be packaged lore.