NO MIND

whatever feverish delusions
you dress up as reality
have little
hold over
me, lover.

i don't believe in anything
except believing less
and being kind,
having more faith
in behavior and paying
no mind
to what anyone is
saying.

IMMEDIATELY

think of one thing
more urgent than finding

the center of your soul or your reason

for being right now and go
do that; otherwise:

sit down
shut up

and do some
poetry.

HEARD (for Morgan Worth)

what the pompous
poet said:

i want my words
to make you feel worse
in your head; i'm no masseuse,
i chose verse
to kick your ass. take a number
before you get any
dumber. followers!

you want happiness?
try wanting less.

and don't invite me
to read. i don't
need validation from your poetry
nation. i'm a one-man
occupation force, and
these slams distort
word art. hyperbole
and beer farts? i'd rather not
take part.

but goddamn
would this one work
shouted before a crowd
of poetry jerks.

THE TRYING

i am halfway through
every great book
on spirituality.

to summarize:

be kind.
and breathe.

take refuge.
now release.

have faith.
and endure.

you will never
be sure.

say prayers and
don't lie.

find peace be-
fore you die.

these platitudes drown
out the persistence
of this dying; i may

never finish these books,
but i'll settle
down to the trying.

WHY WRITE?

writers wring hands and throats
over how very little
the market dotes on

what is literary.
but there's no money

in revealing
the truth behind
death and decline --

it's distraction
that's preferred --

and so reality remains
obscured and the writer
soldiers on. but why?

to be seen and heard
is to feel less
blurred: to be focused on
être d'raison!

THE OBVIOUS

resolved: we are all
born dying but that demise
intensifies when

we try to become
artists. we fall
faster when we chase

after what

money can never buy.
we fly too
close to the sun, thinking,

"i'm finally seeing
clearly," but we are not. our eyes
are on fire, and we are not

enlightened but blind.

beloved: there is nothing
to find, nowhere
more true than here,
and no one any more
illuminated than you.

NO GOOD (for Kathy Blake Aabram)

her husband had me
over for drinks, said don't leave
these glasses in the
sink my wife
won't know what
to think.

his wife, she taught dale carnegie,
and she knew just
what we were
up to.

R.I.P. GOATEE (for Han Delin)

"wiss zee beard,"
she said,
"you look like rock star!
but wissout you are
just regular."

she cuts
my hair. what
do i care?

"you hide,"
he said,
"behind the beard."

you are looking,
i fear,
in the mirror.

"the beard,"
she said,
"makes you look
older."

thanks, mother.

"i like,"
he said,
"the beard. but then
i'm weird."

don't speak,
freak.

"daddy," he said,
"you did
look like a rocker,
but now you are
more like a man model."

my son, i thought,
what you are selling
i just bought.

ELEGY FOR RICH RODRIGUEZ (for Brian Grieve)

the only thing worse than caring
too much about imaginary
priorities like football teams
and stock markets --

"much ado
about nothing"
rings true --

is caring too
little. magnficent
dust, each of us seems,
but caught by the sun,
just so, we sometimes glow
and hang there
in the air before
falling like dancing and ending
up somewhere
below.

UNLOCKED (for Loreen Strasser)

admit it:
when as a vagrant

wayward
unshowered
neighbor

i climbed through
your window, i broke
your heart.

(it was unlocked.)

later i loaned you
my wife for a while --
let's leave
out that part.

i met cold confident
you but found
the way through
to something more human --
the broken parts heal
and the girl becomes
a real woman.

oh the moods and places
we have been dear,
sweet loreen.

BLESSED (for Roma Hess)

“you get
what you get and you don’t
get upset.”

it’s kindergarten
wisdom, a lie
disguised in rhyme.

true happiness rests
in the difference between
accept and except

and never thinking
you are exempt.


(image borrowed from here.)

TO EXCESS (for Sherry Brewer Homrich)

it was poverty
drove us to drink
piss-poor beer
for hours before
going anywhere.

it was desperation
(camouflaged as variety)
compelled us to pick
whatever chick we could
to do anything she would.

back then i thought i was
a poet, and i drank far
more than i wrote. these days
i write quite a lot
more than i drink. i'm a poet

although i wonder
if anybody knows it.

BROTHERS IN ARMS (for Pete Karr)

guys don't say
"i love you" to
other guys. (unless,
of course, they're gays.)

we straights find it
hard to say. we try
to joke and punch it away.
as if a tackle could take
the place of saying hey,
"i feel this way."

there's irony
in our policy
towards intimacy:

don't ask,
don't tell.

I THINK SHE KNEW (for Tom Hess)

girls raced first then
boys; same swimmers, different
summers, each May
just a little bit

older. i waited
behind her --

we were the best
breaststrokers.

seriously
how did we keep
a straight face?

before every race
she would lock
her fingers reaching
for some perfect
nothing and then
tug her suit loose
in the back --

a nervous tic
or a canny gift?

every redhead since
gives me a lift.

WASN'T ME

as each untimely
death marinates

we become attuned
to doom

and its callow misdirection,
the old masked shoulder-tap
and then the look
away, as in "who me?"

when friends fall
ill or die too
soon we might try
to deny how

close we were,
as if to achieve
immortality we need
only to demur.

GENTLY

i would like
some reassurances: really
great headphones in the beyond,
and draft beer
that never runs out. i won't

go into the ground easy --
i want unlimited
downloads and klonopin for when
eternity comes crashing in.

FOR THE DEAD

when we think of all
we've lost --

our recklessly perfect dogs
and our favorite faded
ballplayers gone --

not to mention friends dead too
young, and relatives who
never live long

enough...

what is it then keeps us
going blindly ahead
to our own unknown
end? is it more

fear or reverence,
are we defined by wonder
or just trying to keep from going
under? i ache there-

fore i am. it hurts to
give a damn.

ESSENTIAL

this preference we have for inventing
boxes like adolescence
doesn't serve us.

we are always works in
progress no good at anything
that has to do with meaning.

we are never kids or adults,
these are labels and insults,
and they don't resemble

this
simple
presence

which is our essence.

INSTRUCTIONS

starting a poem think
of what matters most
or of something inconsequential
worth staring at or ideally both.

take out proper
nouns and long-

limbed descriptors and
just use words

that fit like old
sweatshirts.

don't let clever
images damage

clear prose; use line
breaks and deliberately juxta-
pose in order to engage.

be not afraid of rhyme but try not to
be too obvious and
know when

to stop.

VERTIGO

you can label this feeling
of nearly unbearable
straining an "invention,"
and yet, it doesn't lessen.

this ache, this
visceral pain
isn't located
in the brain.

and blaming others
for seeming better
at keeping things together
doesn't matter.

if you are lucky,
and you are, folks
keep telling you --

you wake up
alone
even if someone is beside you.

and you have to
face it, the day, just
as you lie there at night

eyes wide open hoping
something or someone might take you
away.

FALLING

why is it only
at breaking points
you start to wonder if
all ultimatums come true
too late

and you feel so-called
burning ends against
the middle is no deal
with the devil but
(an) awkward and too real
expression of fate?

you remember nights
when you could only lie
down to shake;

but older now, evening time
it feels natural to fade

with no hesitation
or negotiation --

until you are simply no longer
awake.

MINIFESTO

critics and cynics project
derision at what they see
as a lack of ambition.

but it is not wanting to
make a mess that inspires me
to write less.

(small verse is best
suited to what i'm trying
to express.)

FASTEN YOUR SEATBELT

why do i search so hard
for meaning
when i'm somewhere
up in the air?

why do i feel
the most self-aware
when i am neither
here nor there?

why is it the spaces between
places with nothing
underneath me

that seem to inspire
poetic reverie?

WINTER AS A VERB (for Tom Hess)

he's only in love
with winter as a verb;
he finds snow "absurd."

to be wet and cold
and on top of that
old is "for the birds."

and when he reads this
he'll say, "that son of a gun
really got me."

SERIOUSLY (for Kevin Eves)

we yearn
to be

free of earthly
conventions like gravity
and humility

and yet
we submit

to aggravations
like punctuation

willingly.

BURNING

these days the blank page always
begs questions. for me these

revolve around existence
and meaning: why this?

and in light of that
now what is to be

done?

and answers never
seem to arrive

just as planets
keep safe distance
from the sun.

MATURITY

as the day of our life moves
past noon, and then the light
begins fading into

night -- the time for chasing
what we hoped might
sustain us gives way
to embracing

what remains.

DON'T BANK ON IT

you assume
it will happen

organically --
"discovery."

all those veins laid wide
open, blood poured and shaped
into lines, fixed to dry;

you donate poetry, why
don't you get a cookie?

PERSISTENCE

the trouble with life
after enlightenment is
it is all
that it is
and nothing
more.

IT HAS BEEN SAID

you want to start
with the most important

words, like love
and faith and hope,

words which have nothing
to do with this moment;

and you understand you
ought to let go:

the harder you squeeze
the sands of meaning

the more significance
escapes your hands.

ENLIGHTENMENT

and
for
what?

HELPLESS

i stay in
out of shame;
too many drinks
on the brain.

i'm too old
for this shit, trading
nights for days, wisdom
for dumbstruck malaise.

bargaining with god
over giving up
once and for all what is
too frequent and selfish,

i find myself left
with no one to tell this:

i'm afraid
i am helpless.

TO LIFE

we don't get older;
older gets us.

by the time
we are any good

at living, our days
have melted away.
we forget our lives are

like trick candles, always
blown out and reignited
and still the wax

wanes and sooner
or even later they won't

come back
to life again.

I MADE IT

i have written yet another
beautiful airplane poem;
pray god this flight gets me

home.

nothing more tragic than art
that never escapes
the artist's heart.

RESIGNATION

and you get to
thinking oh

people should be
brought to their knees
with all the dying
going on. and you

wait for the inevitable
gnashing of teeth
and crying out
to God, "why hath..."

and it's only later you
realize how many have
already lost everything or
what they perceived
as such. and you

settle down to suffering
alongside everyone else.

NEVER CRY

people say it's okay
to cry; says who?
those that never do.

people say go ahead,
let your guard down and
then they stare; they're the ones
who wouldn't
dare.

people say forgiveness
is divine, but if you want
the truth:

it's better to lie
and hide and
never cry.

INSTINCT

what is there

to write about other than life
and death and why

we’re here?

what is there

to live for other than chasing
our tales and trying

to endure?

and we wonder
after towers fall, how
can we ever return
to poetry? how will we

be compelled to invent
in the face of certain death?

easy: what else is left?

STEALTHY

you're using google
to ogle your past, making

search strings out of old
friends' names and the cities you

have projected
them into.

meanwhile they're doing the
same to you.

GO AHEAD

people vie with various claims
to relevance and demands
on your time. they lie

through their beliefs, trying
to get you to surrender
something meaningless
in exchange for same. you

know better, and yet
how boring life is
when we're too wise to

make mistakes.

BY ACCIDENT

he grew
tired of being

everything. he wept
after reading criticism.

he was divided
alive between
the things he'd seen

and what
his heart heard,
all of which went
forth in verse only
by accident.


(photo swiped from here.)

IS AND YET

in the moments
you forget

yourself, id invisible
you dissolve, go

stealth, you almost feel
like someone else.

trouble comes when you want
something other than what

is; and yet
the stress

you wear like a weight vest
lets you know you

exist.

(image lifted from Flikr.)

MY MUSE

my muse she doesn't dress
too nice

she seldom gives me any
advice

and if I could I'd trade her for
an extrovert dressed like a whore.

RUBBLE (for Steven Bauer)

oh dear
sweet dis-
array, do not visit
this house today.


uninvited chaos
team, things here
are never
as they seem.

unintended
consequence, go
you back from
came you whence.

oh happenstance,
you two-
edged sword, must punish-
ment precede

reward?

POET SPOTLIGHT: KENNETH KOCH

To be rid of troubles
Of one person by turning into
Someone else, moving and jolting
As if nothing mattered but today
In fact nothing
But this precise moment...

- From "To Kidding Around"

A POST-IT ON THE DOOR OF THE CHURCH OF POETRY

what makes me feel
so horrible
is when i read your poetry

and i can't find the meaning
past the imagery.

call me simple-
minded but i have never met
a soybean that could sweat

or breathe
or a god-

damn piece of farm-
land that could hold
secrets in her soil

or leaves.

and another thing:
nobody uses the word
'tendrils'
anymore, not to mention Greek
myths or long-lined confessions
lacking calculation.

an admonition:

we are dying, pal,
and it has absolutely nothing
to do with anything

you're writing.

TUNDRA

she was sated
by promises and poems
written from a high-above,
in-between place --

may as well have been
outer space.

she was kept
even-keel by emails
brow-beaten
out of him. oh!

it's so
cold
down
below.
a white place

bereft of purity
where nobody

ever wants to
go.

WORKSHOP

write now.
oh right.

write how?
and for whom?

and by the way:
start soon.

POET SPOTLIGHT: STEVIE SMITH

NOT WAVING BUT DROWNING

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

THE WISE MAN

find strength, i was told,
in compassion; be bold

and alive, defer seeking
approval, he said:

be loved after
you're dead.

JEALOUS

wipe away that
smirk of drink
or privilege
or both --

from your mouth and your walk
and the way you are and you talk.