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.

AROUND THE BUSH

if time is running
out, and don't you
feel your heart dying
a little bit
with each beat --

if time is lost
to each memory
how the hell can we --

what i intend
what i need
what i am trying

to express --

breathing in
breathing out

cue laughter.
tread water.
we are all
placeholders.

BECAUSE

why so
small?

there is
no why

so

why
bother big?

or even
at all...

CHASE

oh god you were
so perfect.

oh wait
that was me.

i was trying to project
you, and you
were trying to see
through me.

just the very
shape of you,
oh god you were
so very.

and you are only
you because i
never caught you,
perfect because
i only thought you.

ACCEPTING

at first crying
at funerals
is equal parts
wonder and fear.

you stand in
awe, afraid
for your life
and what you learn of
how it works.

next you
might feel sad
for the departed and all
he will miss.

older, you
try on sadness
for those left
behind, nowhere
to put their left-
over love.

and finally you
begin to empty out,
feeling that long
enough is long
enough. and so you
feel good-

bye. you
really do.

REALLY CLUMSY STAB AT DETERMINISM AND DEPRAVITY

so sad
such a pity
so shitty

of course --

he smoked
drank
stank

derided God
invited Death
and so he left

why not

invoke fate
and celebrate?

DEPENDENT

at some point you wake up
if you are

lucky?

awake. a kind of
birth, really, as
you realize
you have been

lucky, yes
lucky

to live long enough
to see yourself
as a child
of children,

to become a father

lucky, yes
lucky

to feel
a part of something
whole and yet made up
of so many
dependent parts.

RETICENCE

times when you want to
just say it
only life
and her rules make you
hold back.

days when you try to
confront it
only fate
and her fools take you
elsewhere.

here's wishing
the scepter of doom
crashes down soon
off the mark.

here's hoping
the angel of death
shows up late
with the check.

MARRIED

you wake right
up, vaulting
from the bed with purpose.

i fall awake
slowly, rolling myself
back from sleep.

how do two sides
of the same bed
hold us in
such different ways?