Lines—
verse/code
running invoking providing
stomachs full ; souls sustained
& intersecting

Alight,
cares pause.
Warm December air
metastasizes under hopeful breath.
Exhale.

Hear—
stranger things
tower over imaginations;
comedy yields to tragic
whimsy.

Der Blitz kommt an, aber
wir können er nicht
sehen.

Die Schatten heißen, aber
wir können sie nicht
hören.

Das Alatheia leiden, aber
wir können es nicht
finden.

World,
I stare.
Who are you?
Have I ever known?
Doubtful.

Don't
you dare
pray for me
if I'm shot dead.
Your worthless words won't resurrect.
Vote.

Just-
ice
to-
gether
our-
selves
a-
lone?

No.
Know:

Just
us
to
gather
are
selves
a
loan.

Tears
salty, wet
forming, swelling, releasing
bad decorum, good humanity
Earth-bound

Your son
decides to quit
med school to be a poet;
you're thrilled he's turned to healing
souls.

I saw most minds of my generation
(and a few generations past)
all boiled together
in the cauldron of history,
a simmering creation from ancient recipe–

who take one breath of fearsome air,
positioned on false arousals
erasing ****** decades
badgering doves with tropes
of noble hearts
protecting fiery hearths
with flag of nation raised;

who mix in a dozen distasteful cities,
adorned in luxurious isolation
producing delicate ennui
which finds each donation harmful
as colors pretend monochromatic
talk of godless violence
withstanding headstrong lusts for nil;

who devour a whole fetishized messiah,
crowned by galloping anxiety
obscuring bulleted defects
battling monsters mounted
on imaginary horses–not crosses–
whilst saving purest virtues
of every child & mother

who torch refuge under murderous lights,
presented as shackled dilemmas
casting diabolic martingale
pitted against those urban sissies
of shallow flimsy heart
mirroring frozen affections
for bizarre cloven rambling about “facts”

who finish with crooked saucy error,
whipped from soft flesh
converted into rusty treasure
absurdly vacant demonstrations
topping brightly flavored cries
still couching ambiguous decrees
amid gaunt periodic theatrical spectacle

who bellow “THIS IS US COOKING!”
awaiting timer dings to hail
the proud tentative product
of their latest ghastly confection,
seasoned with salty tears
and wrought of troublingly familiar ingredients

who pair sacrosanct identities with Pinot Noir
and speak of black & white & queer as if
they know who is what and why and think
they’re somehow differently acidic
in a stomach digesting stale bread
sopped up stew of circus elephants

who hardly know to laugh or cry,
when sadly forgetful, they’re surprised
by the unsatisfying result!

who hold their noses, ignore the taste,
with eyes downcast,
some mumbling, most shouting
“Just serve and enjoy!”

hearts long butchered out and filleted
but still pumping as they fed
millennial masses raised on milk
of Secular Western Humanity

gulping slurping moldy vestiges
forgotten soulful terrors consuming cannibal cravings
passions relit by ignorance of the poem
of life replaced by the hum of sly echoes

ricocheting in revolver chambers
ricocheting in rifle chambers
ricocheting in machine gun chambers
ricocheting in chambers of bombers
ricocheting in chambers of bone in skull

oblivious to decimated cities
–struggling against straw men ignorant to the epidemiology
of the ideology of the very viruses they created–
unworthy of mention or count or even noticing brown lives lost

beating beating beating pounding
till knuckles nearly break
atop the drum of warheads’ quiet boom
Long gone are all objections to escaping
the phantasmagoric discomfort of Actual Reality!

beat on beat on beat on end whimperingly
–with renewed amnesia–
in contemporary post-modern
dullness fading sparks of anticlimax
then no denouement… *Il est vrai pour nous aussi…
Au nom de quoi?

We pilfer light here in these cold far rooms
Fast stolen to our beds and darkened fears
Unbowed and casting evil eyes and stares
On any soul who dares to dream of home;
Alight in shadows, tricksters view false thrones
While basking in the glow of claps and sneers
Amid the stench of truth long dead from spears
Like lies inflicted ******* hearts and bones;
Still, somewhere reason now ignites the mind,
It calms the righteous anger of our tears
To carry feet on paths that passions hide;
So long as we defend the joy of days
Hope cannot wane nor freedom ever fade.

Search...
It's time to castle?
Don't lose direction!
Just keep buzzing and sting
the earth.

A bulb
withstands the stream
flooding muddy pasture
no silt will be its tomb this morn.
(It's home.)

Ponder:
How founts evoke
some kid 'neath weight of wishing
our masks feign smiles as players strut...
And scene.

Suffering,
bicycling west, just east of river's edge,
under overcast troposphere,
downtroddenly I recall
how shadows require sunshine.

October Air Is Balsam Unction
Applied On Weary Wounded Year
It Sifts The Sorrow, Stops The Pity
Warms Me Full As Cider Smeared

October Counts Itself A Seeker
Healing Memories All Mangled
Of The Shiest & The Weakest
Fallow But For Pumpkins Dear

October Rains Run Ripe & Heavy
Soothing, Calming All Necessity
Urging Onward Waning Sunlight
Naught Of Judgment In Their Bevy

October Grounds Feed Harvest Bounty
They Plumb & Sanctify The Hungry
Reaping What The Earth Spewed Upward
Showing Stars In Shadows Clear

October Dies As Spirited Singers
Mark What Mortal Meaning Lingers
While I Fear The Outward Wicked
October Lulls My Demons Near–
October Keeps & Holds Me Here.

One body in one bed
For thirty-three years has slept
One body in one bed

Poverty is the shadow we can't discern
From the ash tree in harshest winter

It begs a nickel and we give it a side turn
And structure it with bells and tax dollars
And stipulations whilst buying shiny
Organic apples with fancy paper

Sustenance is hard to come by, and shelter
But ignorance is cheap and in great supply
To be freely traded for scraps of humanity

It is surely written to gift but those leftovers
Grow moldy in the fridge instead of calming
The stomach of one who doesn't mind
Devouring your bite marks & saliva

Better from your hand than a dumpster
Crummy lots and crazy brains and foul teeth
Indicate a need or two unmet but persisting
Through change we can't bare to spare

And there's no time to sit down for a chat
Because you know you can't throw all
The starfish or rescue every kitten either
So I refuse the personal, and feel only

A second of guilt, and then annoyance:
I'll reflect now, and write him dignity but...
Next time I'll remember my headphones.

I weep for the breakers of things.
I cry for the destroyers
I mourn for the burners,
the crushers,
the warriors;
My heart breaks for the breakers of things.

From some timid landmark of dawn
From some futile cry of a mother in morning
From one tired yelp at the breaking of day
Arising despising the darkness descending
From some sparrows soaring
Where mansions are shining
And we with the warmth of hellfire opining
Weep yonder, we breakers of things.

They bled their red, their lines drawn deep
They poured their pots to wine
They gave the evil lonely sun
some bricks to bake
some backs to burn,
They sizzled, swaddled, and in air remembered
what life means to the withered, breakers of things.

Tarry not longing for some Ebenezer
Tarry not healing and balming the wicked
Tarry not over these dreams of ash
forming cracking among the sickest
secret heros of these verses
Won't weep for you, you breakers of things.

We fly with the fortunate
We jet high on the vastest expanses
a geography of sorrow
charting the grief of the waters
We dive deep down among broken things.
We lament holy breakers of things.

She wasn't afraid of dirt, and never painted
her fingernails until
she was old and
her youngest daughter did it for

her But
she planted Petunias in the springtime and
she made green beans with Mrs. Dash and oil in a ***
    where they boiled on the stove And

she could peel five potatoes faster with a knife
    than I could peel one with a peeler. And
she dried
her car in the garage after it rained and

she pressed our shirts.
She quit guitar in
her seventies, or maybe earlier I can't
    remember because the arthritis was too much for

her fingers but
she still sang and still made
her pancakes crispy and still went to church where
she sat on the pew next to last from the back And

she sang hymns with
her sister until
her sister was gone And
she drove a pickup into the woods at eighty and

she wasn't afraid of getting hurt but
she was afraid of the dark
She played Hand and Foot and Checkers and Rummy and
she went to yard sales and

she sent cards to the sick and
she loved red roses and the color purple
    but not the color yellow which
she told my mother she looked bad in and also my aunt.

She spoke with authority and knew what was right
    without having to ask anyone but the Bible and
she told you what
she thought and loved you no matter what and

she would always give you a job if you were sitting
    because there was always something to clean or fetch and
she said there was little worse than being lazy.
She bought wagons for the grandkids and

she covered the fire at night and
she sang about heaven and took walks up on the hill
    until it got too hard for
her to walk. And

she never gave up and
she always held on so tight you could see
her knuckles turn white because there was no letting go.

Don't ever say a word of ill
Against me or you'll face her scorn
No greater champion have I known
Since that autumn day when I was born

Silver hair is now her crown
And years of care have worn her brow
But in swift defense of all she loves
My mother's shield around me goes

No kinder heart on Earth exists
Who cares for old and nurses young
But those who lie and cheat and scam
Cannot be spared my mother's tongue

I never grasp why others sigh
Or why the mountains seem so close
When on any paths my feet can trod
My mother's spirit gives me hope

Over hostile lands into deepest seas
From least to greatest anywhere
No map can hide the things I need;
My mother's eyes will find them there

I pity children who only know
A mother's love that's shown through tears
Because death is mercy to all who weep
When my mother’s love is proved by fear

Though justice in this world e'er wanes
Though brave men shudder, cower, flee
I know as long as air I breathe
My mother's hands will fight for me

Burdens great and burdens small
May have beaten, broken most
But after every sting and pain and ache
My mother's back is too strong to break

So try your best to make me hurt
But mark the warning that these words give
To careless fools who may wish me dead:
My mother's wrath will have your heads

I pray for any who'd do me wrong
Because my father taught me so
But my prayers can offer little aid
As whomever harms me, my mother slays

My mother's love is deep and great
Giving her whole self, she never hates
Helping all who ask, taking pain to care
A better woman can be found nowhere

But make no mistake, lest I be unclear:
My mother's love is wise to fear.

How fast fade most pinkest trees
How digits dance 'neath Catalpa breeze
Ignoring last October's deadest death
They arrived on time then took last breaths

Scattered seeds among their foes
Had no need of planting earthen work
As cycles shadow ploughman's dream
The fickle fruitless cherry grows

He rode rough crests over wildest waves
His ship stayed unsunk under skinny toil
His family landed and held holiest hope
Now blossom buds over grassy graves

Darkness darkened darkest health
Metal sheets broke bones full force
Lungs would not get the care of air
But hours still channeled wisdom wealth

She bent the knee for sacred loves
She scraped it on the firmest strife
Her pies nor pulchritude but soul inspired
Now stillness stays beneath starry moves

When bloodiest blood ****** didn't produce
It drained itself from veins and strained
Veiling valleys making mountains make-believe
But sharpest tongue emptiness refused

What meagre maggots worthless worms
Are those of us who never yearn!
We rarely learn to live so well as they
Who gave us genes and grace and days

All I offer oft only when I try and I work
Nothing else can I do nor more can I hope
This most modest shallowest honor to give
Of them in springtime remembering is

With an archangelic blessing
they stand open naked exposed
one gaze of longing
one gaze of wonder
there is need of nothing
save one another
beneath stark colors
beneath fluttering imagination
beneath divine sky
neither highest peaks
over verdent fields
nor deepest riverbeds
under raging flows
prevents this sanctification
As trees may burn
As serpents may strike
As gilded beams beat down
Time halts or never was
Whilst raptured crimson wings
effortlessly suspend
any pretense of twoness
worshipping this momentary
omnipotence
cursing the ludicrous
notion of morrow
Their curving bodies are
but one--
*--at least for now.

I found a spider crawling up
the drainpipe and it freaked me out
for a minute until I realized
that I am bigger than a spider
and no arachnophobe at heart

I am no arachnophile either though
and so I smooshed the spider
with a paper towel into the wall
thereby ending its life and sparing
me and those I love from spiderbites

(from this particular eight-legged foe)
And likely sparing the flies as well
But that's not so great
But I still forgive myself
for messing with the natural order of things

And I forgive everyone who kills spiders
and everyone who chooses not to **** spiders
And every spider who eats a fly
And every spider who bites a man
even if that man dies.
I still forgive the spider, even if
it is not my spider to forgive.

And I forgive every web-spinner and maker
of things which are stronger than steel

And I forgive you too if you let me
but I won't forgive you if you fear the spiders
and I won't forgive you for smooshing them
if it's irrational and not for the sake
of saving the potentially bitten,
or at least for the sake of the flies.

I can't ever forgive you for that
anymore than I can ever stop thinking
about you and what it meant to be your friend.

I like to believe
that nobody understands me
and I'm one of a kind
lost to obscurity
but hinting of mysterious
significance

And I feel sorry for
my uncle's three-legged dog
and the malignancy
of fear in rural America
and the failed successes
of the Bolsheviks

I wonder about the air
in Saõ Paolo in January
and the muskuloskelatal
infirmities that creep in
and make the aged
into churlish curmudgeons

There is no way I could
hunt truffles or find a fresh
Morel in the woods when
I didn't even realize until
my grandmother died that
we own a creek

Uttering vespers in moonlight
yields some sanguine lucidity
like contemplating the nuanced
differences between polenta
and cornmeal mush

It's like I'll never write a poem
in time or finish a marathon
or kiss a stranger deeply
through the crisp ventillation
of nevermore.

We might daydream the bombastic
colors of Cezanne but all
we'll ever be is some nondescript
platinum ischemic flash,
a slimy buffet consisting in
all-is-lost

An apocryphal journey
to the center of the city
faces our insubordination to plastic
with the harshness of a dictionary
in the face of the illiterate

But in the end, apoplectically
forgotten, I come to the
unintelligent conclusion,
mathematically speaking,
that there is nothing singular

nor more available
than the finite banality
of my empty, insufficiently
obscurantist words which
flow and choke and all can know
and see clearly through

though I insist that none
of this pretence is born
of any maleveloence, and I chide
"How very meta of me indeed"

to have thought of another witty
and most cleverest retort
the day after the insult
was first delivered

But I used my last gift card
to purchase this still life
to pierce the hollow
cerulean satisfaction
otherwise known as tears

Barring diastolic ******
I'll stick around to see
how this all turns out
and hope that one day I can stop
being so completely understood

And then I can hide in the lonely
and find refuge in the cave
as a single meaningless scrawl
buried in the last pages
at the end of the world.

Some converted industrial uptown space
$20 brunch at a table for one
Nice and filling it seems, no room in my gut
Nor wondering why I walk gasping for breath
Pouring water, wishing it were alcohol
Too dumb when the check comes to add a figure

Some deep lasting sustenance from that, I figure
Stumbling home down block past shop and vacant space
Nothing sanitizes quite like alcohol
Great to see strangers holding hands one in one
Except I'd claw them and beat out their breath
Wrenched and stuffed I'd kick them in their stupid gut

That's not very nice, I know it in my gut
But somehow don't care much more to figure
Which story to tell or the smell of my breath
When tables for two require just as much space
And a spot at the counter suffices for one
Despite the sadness and lack of alcohol

I think lager, Malbec, other alcohol
And there is some deep craving still in my gut
For drunkenness or eternal truth, which one?
What luck, I'm rescued by a dashing figure
Some vibrations in my pocket fill the space
Imagination comes up to catch its breath

But that's about it, no handsome man with fresh breath
Just me standing in line to buy alcohol
Squeezing past the register makes for tight space
But maybe it's all the sausage in my gut
There's no lasting sense in minding my figure
So long now resigned to the comforts of one

The alternative is an uncertain one
And to explain I feel I'm wasting my breath
But there's no harm in ogling a nice figure
And there's no harm in a little alcohol
Oh, poor decisions, I feel them in my gut
Forgetting prescient matters of Time & Space

Perhaps there is one, sipping on alcohol
Inhaling deep breath, with a fire in his gut
Awaiting a figure to write lines in space.

One moment you're tenaciously checking pulses
chopping carrots and tomatoes and measuring
Spoonfuls of syrups and splitting pills and counting
Capsules to prove your sister-in-law skipped a dose

And you sign the cards and you lick the envelopes
And you write the checks and do your math and
You dream of France in the summertime after falling
Asleep in front of the TV at 9pm on a Friday night.

There are dishes to wash and shelves to dust full
of five lifetimes of bric-a-brack amassed and leaks
To mend - so much that really matters enough to keep from
Breathing too slowly or speaking of the implications

The next moment it's all vanished and there's one less
Complication but at what point do you cry and at what
Point do you relax after cathartic loss as ineluctable loss
and when is it exactly that it hits you if ever

That some day the complication is you and the vanishing
Provides a blank check to forget and an invitation to
Dance around the vacuum of absence

It's like the time you called your cousin
at 11:30 at night for his chocolate chip cookie
recipe just to hear the sound of another human voice

Or the time you drove four hours just to get a hug
from your mom

It's like when you'd been working here for two
years and your friend Kate comes to visit
and reminds you that you haven't been touched
since you arrived

And you shutter when someone brushes against
you instead

of falling asleep in someone's arms
and you don't lie down with your head
on another person's lap or play with
anyone's hair anymore

It's like it's growing in you--it's like
it's gnawing on tendons and
you can't believe you haven't
jumped

into a waterfall
in seven years

with your best
friends

What grief do we bear by ourselves for naught?
As flames turn to white dot and smoke, then smoke
So fiercest light must wane where hearts do hope
And yet dim tears in vain alone are wrought;
Fear cleaves us from the skies that once we sought
And seeking words that none should e'er hear spoke
In cold of shadow hiding there afloat
Still linger dreams until they are forgot;
Cling fast to wax of candles that now shine,
Do pray some wandering souls with you may heal
And scatter darkness with bright friends at night;
Where severance is a hell of self-design,
Know who and what remains are still most real;
No eyes can see what is beyond the light.

She wasn't afraid of dirt, and never painted her fingernails
until she was old and her youngest daughter did it for her
But she planted Petunias in the springtime and made green beans
with Mrs. Dash and oil in a *** where they boiled on the stove
And she could peel five potatoes faster with
a knife than I could peel one with a peeler. And she dried her car
in the garage after it rained and pressed our shirts.
She quit guitar in her seventies, or maybe earlier I can't remember
because the arthritis was too much for her fingers but she
still sang and still made her pancakes crispy and still went
to church to sit on the pew next to last from the back
And she sang hymns with her sister until her sister was gone
And she drove a pickup into the woods at eighty and wasn't afraid
of getting hurt but she was afraid of the dark
She played Hand and Foot and Checkers and Rummy and went to
yard sales and sent cards to the sick and loved red roses
and the color purple but not the color yellow which she
told my mother she looked bad in and also my aunt.
She spoke with authority and knew what was right without having to ask
anyone but the Bible and she told you what she thought
and loved you no matter what and would always give you a job
if you were sitting because there was always something to clean
or fetch and there was little worse than being lazy.
She bought wagons for the grandkids and covered the fire at night
and sang about heaven and took walks up on the hill until it
got too hard to walk. And she never gave up and she always held
on so tight you could see her knuckles turn white because there
was no letting go.

My dreams are drugs;
my hopes are dope
–the joie de vivre
of old so-so–
from waning eyes
to waxing grace
my spirit seeks
another place
And rhythmically
on pain of death
from newborn cry
to my last breath
with rancid teeth
and rheumy eye
around the globe
cutting soft sky
filling the stars
with water high
to flood and pour
to light and soar
to anger each
contented *****
But not so boiled
nor never baked
swathed transcendence
of all mistakes
melancholy left un-churned
around young danseur
crapping wealth unearned
fueling no immortal work,
marching still
against the dark;
Freshest grass-scent
Lingers long
past broken tractor
at break of dawn
as crumpled shrapnel
and sticks of oak
remain wedged throughout
the auger's blades,
refusing to reap
or shadow wheat;
Therefore, this vision
pulls and holds
on wisest minds,
with fools endures;
musty marble crumbles too
all garish gold
rusts through and through...
spinning slower
then Bosons are gone...
sunny sleep stops
mowing lawn
(All things must break
when left untouched
but touching wears toucher
oh so so much!)
Arrows fly,
inertly tickle
all that's evil
whatever's wicked;
But nothing so so much
as hope
fades quietly
oh so so much.
Slumping shoulders
warring forward
searching ever
for temperate porridge,
concluding all
to dust from dust
Inciting all
from lust to lust
But rarely ever
dreaming truths
science mangling
interstellar flight
because nothing good
rhymes with truths
devoid of pretense
and heckling youths
After crops have rotted
that fed our needs
One contemplates
tending the weeds.
I've lost you now
(I surely hope)
Because at last,
here is the dope:
Riddling madness
is a cancer.
Reading answers
is disaster.
We're much too late
to break the tractor.
Grapes left on vine
do not make wine,
so smiling scythe
will give me mine.
And in the end
it's not defeat:
For Beauty Grew,
And Many Ate.

She scrubbed the floor each day they say
She scrubbed on hand and knee
She dug and plowed and washed and cried
She cooked but not too well I say

Among the brushes and the thrushes
and the hollows and the hymns
Despite the fickle and the wicked
from swirling men to swishing gin

It is bad in this world they say
It is not worth a lick or stitch
It gets all sad with pain and pain
It drowns not washes with its rain

We aren't poor with the Lord they say
We will walk on streets of goldest gold
We will sing and know no loss nor death
We won't really get old though we get old

Among the verses and the hearses
and eager beavers praising praise
Despite the sinners and the winners
with the sermons' end of days

He told the truth they said he said
He told the hardest heard of things
He gave the liars all the fires
He thought he knew the truth I say

Don't leave don't go don't move they say
Don't run away from here your home
Don't think there is a better place
Don't wait up for me at night I say

Among bitter breaths to smell and taste
and just crickets to hear just stars to see
Despite snakes and roads down ***** dirt
and scratchy gravel and hurting hurt

I left them here alone they say
I went and did though I was warned
I drove away at breakneck pace
I long stopped believing in this place

It's cold for August, we say, hiding in air conditioned
negative pressure controlled light high rise rooms;
"Be good", my mother used to say, "or they'll take you
to the 9th floor of Ruby", except now you're here:
After having done nothing so crazy that I can notice
as might merit the magnitude of our current incarceration.

But August is like that, hot or cold, and cruel all the same:
It runs past us before we notice, shoving us clumsily away
from the salvific summer and into the scorching one, subtly
insinuating one's whole life has been prelude to hellfire;
It reminds us what an apex feels like when it's seen
from the wrong side, bitterly recalling greener grasses.

We haven't the fortitude for all this sweat–we who're made
of blood & bones, all full of fat & sinew and circumspection–
I might say we're not august enough for August, if I were
trying to be clever, which, so far it's seemed, has served
as a milky, generally inadequate substitute for real intelligence.

There's no time now, a supermajority of months behind, to vote
for a better life, notwithstanding November's fine shadow or
October's spectral quietude, or the laborious catharthis
of September rains. No. It's time to get ripe. It's time to take
the yellow bus to school and back home. It's time to sweat it out
while we still can.

Ohne Leidenschaft, der Welt kalt ist.
Ohne Liebe, die Sterne nicht leuchten.
Ohne Freunde, du in das Leben einsame bist.
Ohne dich, es gibt nichts.
Aber das Wahrheit kommt an.
Sowie sowieso, was es sonst noch gibt?

Alison and I walked together in cold European December
Seeking a modest dose of culture & enlightenment
in some grand dead palace where we could pass judgment
on the decadence of queens and puddlejump around
from surrealist paintings to Mexican food to picking up
Evi at the airport. We found the time.

We'd gone out on the first night and been the only two
speaking English at the bar, until we were interrupted
by a hot Australian bartender who joined us and agreed
to play Country Roads to our delight. We lost the time.

It wasn't lost on either of us how foreign it had become
to be with each other like that, and happy I hope:
We were instantly caught up as I kept bumping into her
intentionally, and shouting "Entschuldigung!" because
it was the only word I knew. We'd lost no time.

She told me about her piano search and looking after
the Ambassador and hobnobbing with former presidents
and dignitaries with all the uptight flair of the affairs
of state, and her own shining searching lost loneliness
that has come to mirror my own. We knew the time.

On the last night we stayed up playing checkers and rummy
and chess until she could win, sipping wine as we ignored
the gardens and museums that surrounded us, and taunted
each other about how we were ready to party all night
if only the other hadn't grown so old. We still had time.

Deep tensions draw the shoulds and hold so much
While hells are made from can’ts and still-might-be’s
With magic care great weeds and blooms are ******
Upon real earth, no final fantasies
What does she owe herself and so the rest?
I strain to view but maybe it’s unclear
Though few embraced those true but hollow jests
well hewn from mind as sharply filled with fear
For needling help the price of scars she paid
She brought them forth, in love she did enlist
Defying self, unworthy world was stayed
Creating joy in order to exist
And now to hold us, tend the garden too
Is what we all need mothers' hands to do.

He fell away with his uffish head all full
and he bought what we couldn’t buy him and
he didn’t buy what we swallowed whole
or at least he sold it back or gave it away
for vorpal heresies & novel fascinations

And just like we taught him to ride the red
a few swipes away from bankruptcy and desolation
but welcome and chortled to fail if that’s
easier for now than climbing the Tumtum tree
or trying to make it in this world
well fed - given all to eat and truly loved

It’s curious how the rain gyred down today
and stopped and came again and stopped
because the cadence of his windshield wipers
seemed to coincide with the crankier parts:
only working when there’s nothing left to wipe

We don’t even give two ***** if a Jubjub bird
falls dead and he whiffles away, sword
between his legs (though that is dangerous)
and the beast escapes. He can eat the **** bird
for all we care, but for sustenance, not triumph

But our son is still lost; he’s frabjously
writhing in the tulgey fiber of disappointment
unable to slay even the puniest of borogoves
His melancholy surpasses all comprehension
and he isn’t coming home any time soon

He’s not galumphing back.

What use is a mimsy rhyme to the famished?
How often are we warned, beamishly chastised
of the brillig peril of worrying ourselves
with feeding the slithy soul
when the body burbles, always demands to eat first
and is satisfied by no less
than the frumious flesh of the fatted calf?

You don't need to use a word
like quiescent to describe a lonely
Saturday morning
You don't need to use a word
at all, let alone a pretentious
one
You don't need to use a word
for how you feel when
you can just stare blankly ahead
You don't need to use a word
to express loss or heartbreak
or the devastation of time
but happiness is another story
entirely:

Jubilation notwithstanding
the possibility of succinct
impressive diction can represent
one's joyful self
in the morning
as one explicates to one's mirror
some magnanimous memes
some serendipitous sentences
some fortuitous phrases
spoken aloud - in gratitude
more than one ever grasp, envisage;
You need those words.

Labor of love is not labor I thought
And so I climbed the rungs with ideals high
Off’ring myself as like a lamb resigned
To noble fate all shorn and naked brought
But I can’t as a martyr play this lot
Once it’s been seen as futile and decried
There is but nothing left, an empty hide
Where once a mighty steed stood here and fought
And yet a hope persists marking the war
To set out fresh and force the battle turn
New starts await where there are brighter aims
That don’t require such blood and sweat be poured
Perhaps one day again the heart will yearn
For a reward beyond these lonely games

When all around are swords I cannot weep
Some Latin junk rebounds within my skull
Azure in day so bright until night falls
A slice of sky descends into the deep
And for what faith is left that humans keep?
Mercy divine cannot these questions lull
One stroke of blood henceforth sharp wits are dulled
Through knives alone no peace can e’er we reap
Still we must travel on without the light
And solace find with those who’re just as blind
Murders of crows may flock around us too
The wind from them lifting us up to flight
Between the ground and air we’ll move quite fine
We drop the weight of texts; I soar with you

Groups of two are called a pair
and sometimes a couple, and in verse a couplet

Two is a beautiful number full of symmetry
And the wholeness of love

One by itself and plus one is the magical
connection of friendship

Addition makes for strange bedfellows and unwelcome crowds;
let’s just leave us alone together

Even is fair and fair is better said twice
for thrice would just be too much (overkill)

But two is not too of anything; it is
the warmth of company and the smile of one child

The most important things are twofold with us
and we must have one heart because we need another’s too

For balance, the dual strains but holds, sustains
yin pulls yang and tight embrace joins old and new

Division is eternally sad but easier to withstand if
there’s no remainder and you have someone else there

And finally two can multiply if they work hand in hand
to avoid the sting of desperate isolation

You can’t play paddy cake by yourself but it’s ok to try
You have two hands and along comes a partner

I met a girl named Alice Klar
She was the finest girl I saw
We made my day all bright and nice;
About the night I can’t speak at all!

Alice played with words all day
She’d find some Wort and write a play
To Lebenstraße she’d walked just twice
Even though I’d beg and though I’d plea

But I can’t recall for the life of me
Why that day Alice stopped for tea
Running along she’d chase the mice
Until they fell into the Spree

I’d always worried that her talcum hair
Would bring on suitors far more fair
But I never imagined that her vice
Would be an expat Fräuline eating rice

Amid the essence of food and the summer heat
When there in the Platz the two did meet
And a strong stark woman with heart of ice
Swept Alice Klar up off her feet

Since that day I’ve had no song in heart
Except for brats and hounds that bark
It’s now despite want of love and spice
Her memory fades into the dark

Still I have hope though you may scoff
That this man I am can surely boff
Another ribald maiden low in price
Then that old ***** Alice I can write off!

Smug like irises in the park is how I hope to be forgotten
Years from now when I am become only dust
Floating across the vast geography of sorrow

I want kittens to laugh at the sight of my visage
And films to churn what human desires are left
Though I have no concern for the afterthought

Still, it's impossible not to speculate in hopeful wonder
And let an imagination ponder the expanse of lapse
Farther than a second to the poles and back a spark

To light the world on fire and stare through rolling smoke
There is so much cruelty and love and frozen drinks
And I have no reason to believe we're sanctified in the least

Zebras do exist I insist because I've seen them though
And I've held these infant humans, felt them breathe
Wanting nothing save soteriological potential for to be

Now can't last I know and so tragedy ensues generically
For the last of us must grasp the verse and measure tight
Til humble prose unwraps the sin of self within

And magically perhaps our memories can take flight.

Fanwisdom gedachting a hearth-billow in my Herz
Ich hab' gedacht it fairer still to know
Than amongst dein Welt it predisposes is perplexed aloof
Extraños kann nicht go where I must go

And von und an die spinniest of Hund
In peril and with Angsty tougher Hands
Will not crepuscular desecration sofort ensue
Für nichts ist wichtiger nur ein Liebling mood

Versucht wir probs and totes adorbs
But still zu schieße tired and hasst to sein
Während wir sollen in the proper sense
Man oh yeah das Man sagt en vino absorb'd

Was wicked waste and After it schmeckt schleck
Über ist nicht was es ich verpassen now
Most mehr mit Menchen kommt wieso I ask?
Wenn wo I know it is so very untoward to cow

Kuh oder a coo cannot redeem from drain
Zeit and Mal scent rempeln us all or push
Klar we cannot stop the starkest Zug
Nor yodel holler up the lane for ****

And just wenn denkst du, dass eyes is mad
Know that for Worten the harshest Lebens macht
To get you just to see and versehe sum
Unwertens none of us will ever be ich gedacht

To rolling mounds of splendor here I gaze
Enthralled by that which on my heart now works
None can their eyes avert from her these days
Once starts the magic of her awesome twerks

We know that once it starts it must soon end
For that divine bounced ***** cannot last
And be it love or lust there is no friend
Who can resist round **** and jiggly ***

Still there are those fanatics who repress
And Carnot says all things which start must stop
When not much more can this art form express
Than she may still achieve losing her top

So long as eyes can see and mouths can drool
So long will twerking make men into fools

I dream that moonrise was mere hours ago
But dream I can’t because I’m now awake
And chemical assistance can’t bestow
Some true rest I need for ‘morrow to take

Sad sickness does to me bequeath a truth
In madness only can my heart survive
From echoes unto echoes now forsooth
Since long abandoned is the hope to thrive

For who can structure night’s soft siren call
In such a way that worries won't lie down?
And why do some of us lack fear of all
Save only sleep itself in darkness drowned?

But morning shall still rear its ugly head
Prepared or not, wide-eyed, or full of dread

My life is poetry and yours is prose
I can mean things nobody knows
All hidden away in my sweet sharp mind
A thousand guesses are guessed just fine

But they read you better all straight and clear
There's no scheming with rhyme all messy and queer
Though I'm simple enough to decipher and see
For minds majorly lazy nor dullards ain't free

Away, I sit where old red roses bloom
Alone, burning minutes this afternoon
My tears are stuck behind my eyes
This bitter beauty beneath grime disguised

Fumbling around while fair skin bakes
The city is quiet now, make no mistake
I think awhile and then go to wander on
These roses belong to all and so to none

One cool jet of water tries to pass for a fountain
A man in short shorts strides by unaccounted
Laughing at how I’m besotted with my own malaise
I must remind myself that a poet’s task is to praise

But it’s terribly hard to make shields without sarcasm
And loopy concerns will throw wise men toward spasms
It’s almost better to float through hydrocodone dreams wide awake
Than to sing futilely of sand and flights and smiles felt not faked

For this insult to suffering can’t end quickly enough
And the Suessical rhythm leaves much to rebuff
Despite luxurious lucidity the inconsequence falls on
Until next year’s parade and hope of less scorching suns

Because I’m not like the roses I’m not like the water
I’m not like the dude whose shorts won’t go farther
Maybe you’ll realize finally after thrice the **** crows
That my life is poetry but yours is, darling, still prose.

There are
just
some days
you
cannot
write.

We dryly sweat when she with maiden tongue
Rebukes with haste the wicked ways of men
For all do writhe and feel most tort'rous stung
When from calm lips eschew our mortal sins

Are we not well equipped to follow rules?
When now the forms of long ago return
And look to us who do not come as fools
For time and heart require no subtle burn

But ne'er was one brought down too far from grace
To cry from fear alone with need to flee
For deepest cuts spur us to upward race
And that which does not **** will make us free

When deep within our souls we still believe
That curse of hope is still our best reprieve

I used to think the earth was round,
but now I see it's not:
It's just the flatness of the ground
and greyness of the sky.

Once I thought that I was right.
How wrong I was indeed!
All that's left is one dark night
which echoes quiet by.

And from unseen what matters most?
I do not know or care.
Such abstractions cannot boast
any more than lies.