BUT IT'S THE TRUTH

they had a boy
baby all dark around
the eyes, heavy hooded
lids, shoulders drawn
up around the ears
like a vulture
in repose, and
somebody said,
"kinda looks a little
like nixon," that kid will
get kicked around.

POETRY IS GAY (for John Wieners)

i write poetry because i am
an idiot and a malcontent,
not that there’s anything wrong with that.

THE POET DOES NOT DIE

the poet does not die
for lack of readers. he dies
for lack of hope, which is
to say, "love."

for love is nothing
if not wishful and silly; and
poems are nothing but songs
whose only instrument is

the breath, that frail
involuntary whispering
that keeps us, for the moment,
from death.

THIN LINE

poetry is the answer
to: what

to make

of all
this?

but a poem is

no solution, just
artifice
upon which

to drape a flimsy
premise; the better
to dry it
out for safe-

keeping

or burning.

RELEASE

oh for the love
of
god would you

please just
take hold
of some part of me and never

let go. there
now
please

do it again.

THOUGHTS FROM THE FLU

only the sick can see
the arrogance that afflicts
the healthy;

doomed as they are,
inevitably, the sick await
death's murky reverie

while the healthy
pretend they might,
eventually,
outrun the end.

neither endures.
life has no cure.

GHOSTS BARELY

maybe you are seeing
something we're not

seeing: what redeems
anything?

we are all still
reeling
from the news
of your decaying;

and yet
you go on

hoping

while we become
ghosts barely capable
of coping.

GIRLS RULE

if i want to
start something

it takes days
and words
and you
feeling good
about you.

if you ever want to
start anything
it takes place

because you
maybe
only
on accident

touched me.

SHELTERED

someday you will
be old -- don't
think about it;

you won't

remember what you were

told; and you'll know

we loved you not
by what you were

taught; but by what you
never knew or even gave
a thought to.

YOU WON'T FIND IT IN BOOKS

books rot and
writing divides,
requiring us to
take sides --

interpretation
versus
meditation --

declaring "what is"
where once
wonder was
enough,
as in
"is what?"

life is
harder than
we thought.

PRESSURE POINTS

when my wife sleeps
she leaves

all her pressure points

exposed.

i know holds
from self-defense
to make an enemy
or a wife
relent.

laying there spent,
my wife has already submitted,

if not to me then to some other
force, equally dim-witted.
her mouth leaks when

she speaks in dreams,
and her hair
drapes her face and
channels her tears
into streams of wet ache;

and I guard her
borders
like an occupying army,
present
and waiting for something
impossible to arrive.

METAFESTO

locked in tiny verse,
my words are like kids
or worse:

better seen
than heard.

(talk about old-
fashioned.)

in this age of slams and self-
confessing, this way seems so --

funny
there's no shorter way
to say --

minimalist.

but this life has switched me
into the younger
brother: tough.
keep your hands off
my stuff.

my words
are like the paralyzed
army men i placed
all around the room,
prepared for doom.

here's how it is
also the same:
the battle never came.

CLEARCUT

your friend means
well, she says
"i really love

your poems,
you should

try to get them

published."

you write back:
"thanks, maybe
you are dead

right, except
the part about getting

published."

she wonders if a poem is
a question in the form
of a statement,
making that old riddle
all the more relevant:

if a poem is
published
in the woods yet
nobody reads it,
you can't tell her
it ever
made a sound.

you, on the other hand, find
a poem is like the roots
left behind

underground
as the tree is

on the way
down.

INSOMNIA

there is nothing
that truly holds
us; not the world
or our lovers, not
gravity or even mortality.

loosed we are
born and returned
to the infinity of death's dark
and silent mystery.

PEACE

it matters so
little, we know

better, we still
flounder.

the soul is restless,
it flaunts
and feeds
and we

forget the difference

between
wants and needs.

THREE LIES TIMES TWO

i think
i am
the world's

greatest
living
poet.

REALLY NOTHING IS

really nothing is
finished. things go

on not to
mention on

and...

(rinse/repeat)

...until we no longer
perceive any-
thing, not

because nothing
exists any-
more, no it's

because we never
really were

anything

to begin
with.

SAME THING

face it:
you are
mottled
reckless
awkward
and angry.

in other words
perfect
for me.

DISTRACTION

what we want
desperately: to be
somebody

who is an expert at
something, who knows
even a little bit
about anything --

who knows

the right questions or god
forbid, the answers.

(either suffices.)

and so we turn
to hobbies and vices --
where shared compulsion
stands in for purpose
and engagement postpones
identity crisis.

TO BE A PARENT IS TO JOIN A CONTINUUM OF FORGIVENESS

family vacation?
really
more like

family
vacation

or just

family.

FROZEN

i like to think
some of the early moves
were only empty
gestures:

the hair, the clothes,
squinting and the not
caring were all
poses.

thing is after a while
your parents were right:
your face
and your soul
are frozen

like that.

LIFE IS PAIN

from the body rock
to the body rots --

chest pains
could be my heart
or maybe the feeling as youth
departs.

my friend the doctor,
he says:

stay calm,

pain comes
and pain goes
away.

you are not going to
die today.

NO QUESTION

an audience of one or
more
here for
me
is a luxury.

an audience of none or
less is more
a prayer
said here
by me for
me.

if solitary
is more holy
why does it feel so god-

damn lonely.

NAUGHT

i've thought myself
dead enough
and been rebuffed
by doctors and loved ones
not ready to find
foreboding in each bump or spot

that i almost forgot

one of these days
will be the last
i've got.

BOXED

monday comes the demolition:

destruction always pre-
cedes creativity,
at least

that's what
the contractor told me.

and so here
i am boxing up
rooms too full
of boxes left over
from the last time.

after all
what is
worth saving?

already
memory and poetry
have carved symmetry
where once was
just life
lived, boxed
energy
into words
never meant to be heard.

color my labors
absurd, but
monday comes the demolition.

GET A HOBBY

you want to
save your life
or preserve what is
left of your sanity

don't meditate
on your humanity.

REALLY HERE

that nothing
i do or am
will
persist

begs questions:

how do i
know i
exist

and will i
be missed?

FREE ADVICE

you say
you are lonely,
why bother
with poetry?

i understand
if you want a shortcut
to hard luck
and depravity.

i get it
if you're sick
in your head
or your heart
and can't start
a real job.

because poetry is
solitary and poor
and meandering and bad
for your head and your heart,
you'll be better
off dead.

don't
start!

LOST

my sons are
default
joyful.

if only
they knew.

if only
i could
remember.

WHEN REALLY THE END

you wonder what is
the point: we pace
ourselves as if
guaranteed
our years, use
terms like midlife
when really the end
is here
and here
and here
and...

WHAT'S LEFT NOW

you used to look
like some
come-hither
spectre,

washing his car
in your bikini

only one
block from me;
I kept
driving past
too fast
to see
intentionally.

what's left now
is the ghost
of desire dragged through
the suds of what never was.

A WARNING

follow this
connected age
to the ends
of your acquaintances
and you will
really discover
how dreadfully
alone
we are together.

AND WHAT IF IT DID

all this
seeking
something transcendent

reveals nothing

transcends.

WHAT CAN NEVER FADE

your father's memory
is not what
it was.

you drove him to
the alzheimer's
specialist.

"your father has
the wrong day,"
the doctor says.

"maybe you have
the wrong day,"
you say.

you must
really
love your father.

FALSE BRAVADO

You wear Detroit
like old clothes,
broken in.

SO SORRY

friends age and grow
farther apart, always
moving,
either by truck
or through life
events.

landing somewhere on
business the question
becomes
to call or not to call,
a form of what do we have
in common, with the answer
a resounding I do
not know.

should we
know we are suffering
the same thing
at the same time
we might
meet to be sure
how far apart
we are.

to say:
i am

not like you.

AN EXPERIMENT

I took one of my poems below, "CHASE," and used iMovie to try and make something interesting. You be the judge if I succeeded. (The music is the Postmarks' "Let Go.)"

Someday I'll actually figure out how to make the music fade out a bit more subtly...

REPEAT AFTER ME

what's worth-
less is living
like there is no
tomorrow.

then
even when
tomorrow comes
it's one more day
to waste away.

SLUMMING

it's 1983 and
she has a mohawk.

you have no business
downtown; you live
in the suburbs,
and black
eye-liner can't
change that.

it's 1983 and
she's a bartender
in a punk club,
working class, and
she can see
through your fake ID
suburban
bullshit.

"what do you want,
honey?"

you could tell her,
but you don't know how
to say it

yet.

WHAT A GREAT TRICK

what a great trick
if somebody sick
wrote a book
"how to stay alive"
and actually survived.

it might ease my dread
if somebody dead
called on the phone
to describe their new home.

DADDY

i am so much
like my sons:

they flail
around the basement floor
moving blocks around,
saying, "daddy,
look at me! look
what I made."

PLACEBO

say you're right
in the middle of dying

when

your long lost love
calls to make amends.

do you continue your keeling
over act, or

do you try to

retract
that heart attack?

IN THE COMPANY OF POETS

these days
they say
nobody pays
for poetry.

i say it all
depends
on what your friends
use as currency.

NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SWEAT

oh, you are going
to be dead
and maybe soon
and for a long time.

funny --
thinking of
eternal rest
renders me
sleepless.

SALES HAS TWO SYLLABLES

the secret
to sales --
say less.

THE RULES

growing older everything
becomes more urgent
and less important
in every moment.

you learn
it's grasping
at sand to try
to slow time.

and you learn
it's useful
to pretend everything
is worthwhile.

ALAN WATTS

nobody cleared
my cloud-head
like alan watts did.

nothing made my fear
feel better
than knowing it was never
mine anyway.

there's wisdom, he said
in insecurity, there is
nothing that's dead
in eternity.

I'M A GOOD CROWD

how is it something
so throwaway
as poetry

can bring my heart
back home to me?

come to
think of it
i never knew
it went away.

it's zen when
no one
writing
and no one
reading
can have me
feeling
so much less
alone.

STARBUCKS

head tilted
at some unknowable
angle, eyes
unfocused

staring at nothing,
headphones in
with no music

playing; always

one small step
from myself,
one giant
leap from mankind.

MODERATION

Teetering between
depression and
delight,

finding the middle happily
reflecting reality
and surviving

at the ends
is only for the young
and the reckless.

COURTING

what i said:
i am so
tired, too far
out to meet you
today.

what you said:
so be it,
i don't know
how i feel about you
anyway.