OF THIS WORLD

i feigned
caring too little
when i cared too
much; i feared breaking
down in sobs
when the world was
simply too very

much. older
now i find myself
pretending to care;
and though crying

might be appropriate
i find few tears left
there; it’s as if
as i grew
into the world i tried
to uncover what
it was about, and now

i find myself
detaching from this
question: alas, with wonder
intact, i am beginning
to grow out.

HONEST

let me be
honest: drinking

isn't the end-
all, be-
all, but

it helps create

a lull between
judgment and torment --
three beers and
nobody cares

what you meant, or whether

the money
or the dreams are
already spent.

A POEM FOR GENX

paralysis is a convulsive
word. too many

syllables and hard
to say. fro-

zen would be
better. we simply

stopped

moving
a long time ago.

and another thing
about you and me:

we are
hilarious.

we pretend
there is

any such thing
as a country or a generation.

carry on,
my wayward

brethren. we have more faux
work to be
done.

TRAGEDY

you get gunned
down in bad
movies: people

mistake bullets
for being
part of the show.

you get groped
in school showers
by teachers and coaches

everybody knows.
you wake up
broken if you're lucky

or your lover's body
covers you for safety.
and everybody asks why

we wear masks
and tell lies.
life is tragedy.

CAREER

what do i care for
my career, its ridiculous

trajectory –

none of this
matters to me.

at my most desperate
i grasp poems out

of thin air and memory,
each defying the absence

of relevance and creating
solid ground

beneath me.
from now on

i work for poetry.

IRONICALLY

to contemplate non-

existence within

the frame of being

is, under normal

circumstances: dizzying.

you said when

end of days

was intimated in

your diagnosis
it was the first time

you felt complete
peace
with your mortality.

WHY NOT

tattoo your eye-
ball if you want to
remember some
significant advice
or event.

hire someone
to carry a sign
in front of you,

“i loved this dead
guy,” or “always be
kind.” you want to be

more present or be-
have more consistently
do you really need
ink needled under
your skin for everyone
to see?

live and let
live. be and let
be. we’re all going
to die eventually.

ashes to ashes,
ink to dust,
your body a taut
canvas, stretched
between you and me.

WHAT I NEED TO WRITE A POEM (for Alan Wright)

to be bored.
a keyboard.
wine poured.

something wrong
or right. the words
to a song, a fight,
a free day or
a long night.

mostly just to sit still
and write.

HOW IT FEELS

you are an old man or any age
and life is the iced-over pond
you're standing on, spring
winking darkly nearby;

and you're holding
high a dandelion, past
its prime, blowing doomed
canopied seeds

into the firestorm
that's taken over
the shore like nothing
you've ever seen before.

WIFE (for Eileen)

say love
softly, it sounds
like "life."

live life
fully it feels
like love.

together,
in life,
in love,
it's more than
enough.

TENSION

"we have up-
graded you
to a suite,

complete with a soaking
tub and a dramatic
balcony." "sweet,"

you say, accidentally
cute, and the girl behind
the desk shoots you

an eye-roll, over-
laid with feigned amuse-
ment, but really feeling

every bit of the surface derision
that cannot be hidden
beneath her expression.

LOSS

you wonder what
could be worse
than fever

dreams that appear
as flaming ghost heads

spinning
neck-defying
circles above your bed.

until an answer like
death itself arrives
in the form of an absence
of relief: you will never again be

fully asleep. it’s time to start
praying for keeps.

THROUGH AGING I BEGIN

through aging i begin
to resemble myself
wearing a costume of myself --

skin one size
too big despite

the exercise --

and even if the man inside

stays fit, the suit is worn smooth
and losing its shape,

or maybe just can’t
remember it.

IMMORTALITY

we are all increasingly
surrounded by our own
latency: nothing recedes

once expressed
virtually. we are left
to our own devices,

literally; bereft of
reality, yet hemmed
in by echos

of our own creativity,
our concentric
cults of personality.

BORN ANXIOUS

the initial descent always

begins with aiming the plane

more towards ground than sky,

acknowledging we can't

stay forever

way up high.

millions of flight

miles later

I still find myself

thinking each time, “this is it,

we’re all going to die.”

INDUSTRY

words are for me

buildings full of work

best kept

clear of nature:

no rivers

or deer

encroaching --

just the steel under-

girding of hardened

punctuation, placed

to enforce safety.

i need to be sure how

you'll take me.

MY FRIEND YOUR DEATH (for Jeffrey Nelson)

my friend
your death
makes no sense --
world without

an end to suffering.
let me rest
in your memory

until you become
part of me;
i pray

someone
someday:

please do
the same for me.

BANANA

it’s no good to think

too much about the act

of eating, or who,

how, or what you are

fucking. try not to

fix your attention

on where they come from

and what happens next

after lunch or sex.

EMPTY

the empty poet

sits and waits

for what?

the music

that visits

his tilted head,

for words to appear

as sounds instead

of symbols, suited

for delivery, embalmed

as poetry, alive only

from a distance

but close up:

quite dead.

NEW MATH

we have chosen to give up

equity and other forms

of measuring. we simply are,  

more than we are not. 

as if we know: the sum 

total of what

we've got will not

be all

that defines us.

our net worth will

be  calculated 

using debits for lack 

of kindness, credits 

for relieving sadness.

OWNED

i wear dogs 

like blankets, human-
spooning canines soothing
their addled puppy soul
by climbing inside mine.

JUST FOR THE MOMENT

you joked: there ought to be

a record, "what's it all about, alkie?"

that would be funny, if only

records still existed

and your liver could take a joke.

and if only you weren't

still wishing for the burn and tickle

of cheap whiskey, some memory of fumbling

at brand new bra clasps, 

removing whatever got in 

your way, without thinking

what comes next or needing

to feel blessed.

VISITATION

death and funerals
break down

the illusion
we might live
forever.

crying arises from
saying goodbye

and also because
we fear

we haven't been
fully here.

YOU WERE THE LATTER (for Jack Erwin)

there are people
you will know
your whole life
and never truly
meet. and then
there are people
you meet
one time
and know forever.

WHY NOT

loosen up everything:
your clothes
your pose
that face
you froze.

let life's wonder
wander across
every feeling,
every place
inside and outside
your personal
space.

feel the slack as you
take your life back.

OH TO GIVE UP (for Steve Jobs)

oh to give up
selling anything --
to live without

being possessed
by pretense,
driven by processes,

acting for reasons
less than wonder
and reverence: oh

to let this life fit me fully
like a favorite t-shirt,
soft and holy.

NEXT

you are not complex:
some day you will be

rotting in a box. unless
they burn your body first.

in which case you'll simply
become a pile of dust.

so what
should you do
next?

ALBATROSS

artists are keen
on justice not to mention
high on drugs and mighty
full of their own surmise.

poets and
other malcontents
are always pointing
at unpleasant

events: the inequity
of bombs and wealth,
and how big

companies operate in stealth
mode the better
to evade the public distrust
and stoke the fires of consumer

lust. it was
ever thus.

IN POETRY

it’s tempting to crowd
words together cleverly,
like too many empty people

rushing japanese subway cars,
each line hand-packed
with metaphors, yet
signifying nothing.

on the other hand
it’s difficult to manipulate
the fewest words needed to create
work through which an artist might
pass unheeded -- in control but not
commanding, heard but never seen --

the hand of god invisibly
doing its accidental thing.

SPACE BETWEEN

the poem is
a pause from the active,
a moment to take

inventory, rearrange, try
to explain the entropy
that masquerades as life's
momentum. the poem is

a slow place,
a space between
cities like a plane
stretched out in
the sky, passing by.

WHAT HAPPENS TO US

lives are lived by someone
on the path to becoming
no one. and yet this is
not evidence of nothingness

any more than the snake's
leftover skin is meant to
suggest he never was.

we all leave
behind used up
stuff; we're not from nothing
to nothing, but from dust
to dust.

GET USED TO IT

so this is the summer
of people dropping dead.

some are given months,
only make it a week.
others wither and never
come back from what
seemed a good night's

sleep. hearts
blow up,
and tumors
grow all over
and people

disappear.
where

the fuck
did they go?

BIG PLANS

every fourth we
roll to the motor
city; my whole family

crowds around
fireworks and food,
pool parties full

of blown-up bodies,
the rafts slick with suntan
oil left behind
by old bloated flesh.

as detroit explodes
in the background, we glisten
and float as if death
were afraid of water
and good times.

JUST THIS

move through this
world in pursuit
of justice and you

can expect to find
the opposite:
the randomness of this

reality resists
rules evenly applied
across all acts and types.

so try
as you might,
it's hard not to

arrive at this:
life is

not fair,
and justice is

neither here
nor there.

TAKE ME

there are nights when dying
first occurs to me -- as in pre-
deceasing -- as one

possible
viable
solution to others'
suffering.

there is nothing worse than feeling

helpless. and you know words
are worthless.

and so you rehearse
being willing to
go first.

STAY LOW

you rush
into suffering, hell-bent
on saving
the burning
remains
of whatever terror

you once
lived in,
you rest
under blankets
of injustice
you find comfort

in feeling
helpless against
imaginary forces
conspiring to keep you wrapped
in familiar
misery

you're in need
of a radical self-
ectomy

until then
please stay
low to the ground
crawling towards
suffocation or less
likely, safety.

CONDITIONAL

there's not so much
to poetry; like life
it's mostly pageantry,
a way to make the time go

by. a word placed
here quite carefully
followed by a drunken slew
of accidental phrases
tossed off recklessly --
for which we'll later
make more than a few

apologies, unless of course
these words draw praises.

HISTORY OF WONDER

i've never been much good
with tools or history.
their usefulness was lost,
or at least it was on me.

i never learned how to build
anything save for
poems, nor
could i remember any
stone hard facts
about Ancient Rome or
how things were supposed to be
made with metal or wood.

thank god my father
had no idea how
to hammer or screw or what
it was that allen
wrenches were supposed to do,

i don't think
i was the right son
to pass these things on to.
i read ginsberg and wieners
instead, my head sunk
low in the back of bookstores
and physics classes, not wanting
to be mistaken for a boy-
lover or a word-fluffer,
unable to construct
any facade of usefulness
i could hide under.

meanwhile inside i built
my own useless
history of wonder.

BENEDICTION

did you know
some of us are dying
down here? and so
this is a missive

written in fear
for all that we are
losing and what has yet to be
set free.

and why do we have to
ask for what is obvious: that
you would pay attention to us?

no. we didn't ask to be
here but we like it
just the same; is there
a refuge from this pain
or will we live it all again? no

one seems to know --
but if you're there you do;
we could use some answers, and
we don't have anyone to ask

but you.

THE ROOF, THE ROOF

first i wanted to be

a philosopher
then a poet.

skipped fire-
man altogether;

now i commit
arson with letters.

i burn down houses
of comfort by kindling

discontent, magnifying
questions of origin and intent.

i burn holes of self-
conscious inquiry
into what are we doing
here, and why
were we sent?

BREAKFAST (for Steven Bauer)

we sit literally
over our own orders
of eggs and coffee discussing
character disorders like poetry
and philandering and whether
cancer is always a bad thing --

you wolfing through
all that gravy and me
feeling too queasy to take
in that greasy remedy;

hung over? allegedly.
you quit
drinking a dozen
years ago, while i lit
the old school town
on fire the night
before. you've forgotten
more than I've yet
learned about writing,
which makes me want to
keep trying.

THAT'S ENOUGH

so what if

you date me
validate me
appreciate me?

i still die, maybe
a little bit happier
along the way.

but why is it so
important to
create happy

moments, pain-free
increments to divide up
this temporary something

seemingly stuck between
volumes of
nothingness?
(with apologies
to alan watts.)

it’s because we are
suspicious
there might be something
more than this.

UNTIL YOU MAKE IT

what is the source of your luminous
confidence? it's not beauty.
you are too numb.

is it wisdom? you are
too young. your dazzle is
likely bravado, just dumb
attitude wrapped tightly over fear,
as the fire that burns behind

your eyes
eats

everyone
alive.

DONUTS

we used to write
real letters,
make mix tapes,
spend hours drinking
bad coffee and loving

donuts. we were artists
because we couldn't
keep secrets from ourselves.

our smoking was the truth
to your dare; we didn't care
what you thought of us just
as long as you did, and we didn't
question what was taught to us,
we wrapped ourselves
in books and hid.

and not a day went by
we didn't try to write
our way out of pain
before suffering had us
making mix tapes and eating
donuts again.

LIVE A LITTLE

premise: you are
drowning but not

quickly. settle in.
it might be days

before you go under.
you can anticipate

suffering if you want,
but for now you are

merely afloat, treading
water, with plenty of energy

to last; you can take
occasional rests, imagining

you are wrapped in a warm salty
wet blanket. you are not dead
yet. you are just as safe
and as doomed as you will ever get.

OUTSTRETCHED

when i write you
i want you

to hear all the hoping
energy in between words.

i am teasing
death, a trapeze
artist without a net, hell-
bent on flying
to meet outstretched hands
or sudden death.

THE DOWNSIDE OF MEDITATION

once you learn to really sit
still, your mind not

wrapped around phrases
and failures, there's temptation

to just sit
more and more, idling

electric-car style --
going nowhere

for quite a while.

THOROUGHLY MODERN POETS

these thoroughly modern
poets are prideful --
too many words
too smirkingly assembled,

their dumbstruck images
plucked wholesale
from various field guides
and the scariest dead

languages.
can't they find better
hiding places?

WHAT IS NEEDED IS RECKLESS

what words
to choose or do

words choose us?
how many mute

stupefied artists
sit petrified
waiting for some divine
intervention, a literal
voice from heaven when

what is needed is reckless
abandon. action
is all the inspiration
we can count on.

SIR, WITH VIGILANCE

can we have no more
talk of cancer,

no mention of hearts
unless metaphorical --

a slim reprieve
from concerns anatomical?

the smell of spring should
mean allergies and whimsy;
might we be spared momentarily
these intimations of mortality
so we can focus on seasonal
frivolity? dear god i'll gladly

huff albuterol if you'll agree
to pause the fall of
everyone i've ever loved, allow
them to remain below while you,
sir, with vigilance,
keep watch above.