For some reason, it’s a crime almost these days to care about things
and get emotional
at the state the world is in—it seems that most would have
apathy be a virtue
and would declare that caring
leads only to a Weltschmerz of the most abominable sort.

But I say different.
I say there are some things worth crying for,
and I see rain coming down every day.

I see rain coming down in big & little drops,
hard rain
soft rain
never-ending rain that comes from all directions
it makes puddles and muddles the umbrellaless,
ruining hair and suits

It doesn’t just rain on the just and the unjust
It just rains and rains and rains and rains
It rains fire and it rains blood
It rains bullets and people die and ****
and nobody gives a ****, which is really
a sort of rain itself, you know?

And the water runs in torrents
it forms streams off of mountains
collects in basins
becomes rivers and salvation-lakes
and ponds with Lilly pads where
more than sorrows are drowned.
(It rains in open windows, too.)

And then there are the ******* oceans,
a whole other problem all together

It just rains and rains and rains and rains.

and with all that water pouring down,
it’s worth (from time to time)
a little water
of our own.

scars are love and memory from the world
which (though oft accused of indifference)
does care enough to pierce the skin

not the broken glass
not the rusty nail
not the bedspring from an old mattress
or the handsaw that slipped
or the edge of the coffee table to a wobbly toddler
not the knife
or scissors
too blunt at first - but try, try again

not the careless indifference of others
made manifest in flesh

or the million failures headaches heartaches
sicknesses
tears

no, pain never forgotten is formed
on brain and skin

just like cheeks flushed, heart pounding, sweat-dripping
you make your move and are checkmated by a far
more skilled opponent-- it doesn't take much

feel something if you try
feel alive and awake and know

that somebody loves you, and remembers
just like your skin.

I hide behind soft words that grievous be,
make off unkempt to light the night with soul;
far-flung from here I dream unstoppably,
and ne'er return since seas I roam be gold.

Disparaged art for insight into life,
held polystryrene virtue to the fire,
'til melted and deformed the mass took flight,
and 'fumed the scene as if a toxic pyre.

Jesting at the mere hint that iambs soothe,
flame-lick our arms and tongues with what's outside;
no balm of couplets nor prose peace pursues
peripety awash in orange jibes.

While under hoodies, shaggy hair and pearls,
a futile ******* blunder fickle whirls.

The ground's still cold at the end of May,
And all I want is another day.
Winter will come far too soon,
As middays lapse into afternoons.

Crickets tweet despite the dark,
And I don't run though all dogs bark.
You never know what's past the trees,
As Betelgeuse glimmers too faint to see.

Hacking out verses numbingly hones
That strange sad effort to make here home.

America, you don’t need us anymore
so we’re going on vacation.

You’ve got religion to whisper in your ear
and sing you to sleep at night,
and culture of homogeneity to get you up
and going on cold Monday mornings, coffee in hand.
You’ve got plastic prophesies to keep you alive
and sick on medicines from unrhyming
peddlers of purpose.
You’ve got assumptions and science to teach the kids now
so long as the chemists abandon their really significant digits!
You’ve got calculus problems and practical things to scribble
on the back of the wornout canvasses of Monet and the recycled
papyrus of Parmenides—nothing’s changed.

You don’t need metaphorical ice cream.
You don’t need symbolism of green ideas.
You don’t need moonlight anymore.
You don’t need breezes on summer afternoons
unless they’re part of a lemonade ad.
You don’t need stars.
You don’t need hope or purpose or prosperity
that can come from the meaningless lines
of poems.
You don’t need us anymore, so we’re leaving.
That’s it.
We’re done.
Goodbye, America. It’s been
fun.

for all of us, star-seekers, feeling now alive

for those with the ghastly skill of being alone
amid crowds of people
lost in thought but ok inside

for those who see streaks of madness
fly round, illume patterns/puzzles
grasping scales celestial to infinitesimal

for those playing games with reality
snogging smug wealthy boys in stairwells
oxygen bonds breaking the sublime

for those forgotten under dirt, asphalt & spot
buried dates and dashes no splashes of memory
just naked nihilistic Precambrian bones

for those nameless from identity crises
smiling glibly through missing teeth
embarrassed by circumstance and the folly of age

for those trapped in jaunty youthful frames
lacking mind's dessert: veneration (contradiction)--still
wisdom perilously choked plus feared

for those chanceless beings fate sweeps & sooner snips
chuckling at theodicies while they still can
some soothed by snake oil--I mean Purpose--
then just dying

and we're still uplifted? we are still star-seekers.
we, divorced from form and aching for the sky's response
hear nothing, but we know

eyes' lies are all around us and inside
they wear us out and keep us moving
they are ancient dull clichés, tarnished but
they have the audacity to make us shine, aspire
they are what your grandma says to get you to behave
eyes' lies are true:

we are still star-seekers

Yellow spheres are terror to the daydreamers
whirling past faces disgraces grazing ears
Recollections of multipurpose room taunts
And Mr. Neptune's rolled eyes as he gives up

Just send me to my fortress of books n poetry
Let me slip away unnoticed and forgotten
between the blue carpet and shelves inside
Let me bang my head on the laminated particle board

I disappear in here where it's just me and three thousand years
floating historically through black & white epochs
Alone, the world is heavy but not so much as my feet
planted and feigning mobility as roots become weeds

I think how dumb it is to talk of my Soul or to sing in the shower
or my car or alone in my apartment with stereo blasting
It's strange how the red is everywhere and I can't imagine
any longer when I'll finally need to draw a line

For you are not with me as I am with me and I'm green
But I can't say if it's in my stomach or in my eyes
And despite the heaviness I feel like I could be swept away
I could flutter up like one of those winglike seeds in Spring

Heaven is no place outside either, and I suddenly remember
That this all started with a love for the color orange
And I realize the silliness of red and yellow by themselves,
still wondering if I am bathed or baked in the warmth.

When all you want is just to think and make
But like a wheel in tar ambitions slow
Create your world all full of great mistakes

To be yourself when all the smiles seem fake
Can feel as if you’ve been punched in the nose
When all you want is just to think and make

****** onward for this life is yours to take
Please wait before you walk dark paths alone
Create your world all full of great mistakes

Though all of hope may freeze in frozen state
It’s still just one foot down, one up, to go
When all you want is just to think and make

There’s never so much as you think at stake
And errors which don’t **** will make you grow
Create your world all full of great mistakes

If nothing’s left to do for heaven’s sake
Eschew the past; it is your only foe
When all you want is just to think and make
Create your world all full of great mistakes