coronation

My head
is cotton and wool inside
I can't very easily say how high
I would have to get,
to see over this fog
it could go up
forever, like a cloud to God
and I'd still be swimming in it, upside-down

like a goldfish, dead.
Or a blind man acclaimed
by his kingdom,
crowned

our element

We inevitably drown
from the air or the water or
the void in our lungs -
Fragile creatures
are we, with our heart strings strung
out of tune,

with the chord
that in memory rings,
true - perfect pitch, always!

- but out of tune, we
sing

did the right thing

And if you did the right thing,
would it ring? In those ancestral halls
that your conscience will pace
ever wondering? Saying "yes,"
"we did the right thing." If you did
the right thing, would there be that
reward, good beyond every hope
in your straining throat,
as it's put to the sword? Yes,
there would. And you know
in your heart: past each lie
that your mind tries to sweetly
describe, to embitter your choice
the next time
that a fork forces you
from the path that your wish
would so fervently stride - but
you passed the test! You pass
the test, you will pass the
test. You did the right
thing.

many-worlds

There's
there isn't, there is
not

A thing you could say.

To rescue the world, on the brink
of an alternate-universe cusp
in the moment that us
stood a-wavering thus,
we could never have gone
down that easy fork. It

was unworthy of us. It
was not there for what
we knew we could be. It
was unworthy.

Just as we are,
now.
Unworthy, by virtue
of what has never transpired -
if it doesn't come true, then it couldn't.

But how?
It is only
the truth of what we both knew
that stands here today, to accuse us liars.

And that, we allow.

There are times that come,

these are times that come
only once in our life,
to blast our eyes -
and we'll never see clear
past our chosen pains
in the retinal sear,
every ghost remains
from the moment we walked
through a truth that was
so excruciating -
wasn't real,
was us.

"She hates birds"

She doesn't feed seagulls poison
or sic predators on pigeons but,
she hates birds. Always has? Who
knows! She does now, that's for sure. Even
those little cheeper peepers hopping,
finches or sparrows, even the hovering
hummingbirds, she hates the musical
riot of calls chiming in and under and
around each other outside her window,
every morning she wakes dreaming of
murdered birds. She hates them. The bald
eagle, soaring majestically, the extinct dodo
too, comes in for its belated share. Doesn't
she know, birds are only dinosaurs
that got scared of meteors
and had to hide
under
feathers?
To survive we all have to figure out how to fly.
And some of us eventually find other livings,
lose our wings, and look hatefully up
at the sky.

To jihad, a hijink

I hope you are not at war with me!
Though in God's name, we disagree
- yet God agrees with God, you'll find.

Our trouble lies in troubled mind

and tribal strife: divide and conk
each Other on the head, and kick
each Other in the tail. The Other:
not like us, disgusting! Ick!

The enemy of all prevails, until
we love our enemies. The Other
won't believe or do or love like us,
so as we please we call it:
less than human. And deserving
every bad it gets.

We call down God to take our side,
to say we're right, to settle bets.
I say such judgment's premature.
I do believe God will decide
what each one gets. Or who's most pure,
if that's a big concern. It's not

my call. Although I have a few
of my own strong ideas, as to right
and what is wrong. Don't you?

Let's talk on these! With open
eyes, and valuing the other's self.
Oh sure, we'll give each other heck
on points we must insist and sell.
But I will not damn you to hell,
and I will not condemn your life.

I do not judge you worse and wrong,
and worth some death my team deals out.
Those who deal death aren't on my team.
I know who'll judge, and it's not them.
I know who'll judge, and it's not me.

I still believe our strongest call
is that we love the other side.
So what if there are human beings
wrong in their belief or guess?
If we know better that some wretch,
how shall we treat the least of these?
As enemies: and love them, do.

Peace on earth. Good will to you,
God bless.

could use

I could use a pack of fucking cigarettes, right now
I could use a woman too, but I guess I don't know how
I could use two-fifths of bourbon
or an ounce of cocaine.
I could use things I have never tried
- a dram of heroin, a dose
of acid, or a bullet or
whatever means - are necessary,
to shut off my brain.

when you're in town

I can never believe when you're in town,
except when you're right there
in front of my eyes, defying me
with how you clearly have substance
and shape. I never imagined you.

How hard I try, when you're not around,
to believe you exist. And you do; you do

It's when you are close, somehow
I can't even accept there's a chance,
however remote, that you'll come true.

contemplation plan

Old Buddha was in bad need of rebranding.
Transcending all attachment?
Finding oneness in an existence void of self?
Boring!
Too complex, too commonplace.
Nothing unique in oneness, nothing special, nothing of value.
Enlightenment? It's been done.
Streamline that shit for a newer age, a sharp hook
to puncture selfish souls on. Let them dangle,
caught and strung on a line of barbs, until
they glimpse the truth as they drift, truth
that has always drifted upward
like bubbles through the greenish pond murk
they've chosen immersion in. The river keeps
flowing,
regardless,
and it isn't as if we haven't seen the universe.
It's as real as may be. We'll judge whatever may be realer,
once it's available for comparison. The river keeps flowing,
regardless.
There's always new fish,
eggs popping open,
ready to be convinced
how unique they all are,
how simple everything is:
precisely as advertised.

unexpected tenderness

Lately, I've been experiencing
an unusual amount of affection
and tenderness
towards myself.

This morning, I awoke
and saw my arm, and I
looked at my arm. And I said,
"awwwwwww,
- arm!"

and I reached out, and began
tenderly caressing its hand

short con

Does your heart know where your head is at,
and what your mouth's been telling me?
It's clear your eyes and hands as well
are in on this. Conspiracy

a pure act of

Bragging or show
contaminates the act.
Makes it a secondary thing.
Something to hang your glory on.
In my view, if you keep schtum, that
is the only way it can be pure. Selfless,
or purely selfish - either way, the act
for its own sake: to feel good. And
especially if you are able to help,
to change the course of events
without the beneficiary
ever so much as noticing

the degree of what you did,
deliberately.

How sweet is that?

the blind

in blinding light we live our lives
unseeing any future states, we squint
and leap, each step we take
we help each other through our fates
and every one of us is cut -
cut short, cut quick, cut down
and dried. It's meaningless,
unpurposeful. It's beautiful
among the blind.

"something other than pictures"

Lately with you,
I find that I brag a lot
about my breathtaking coping mechanisms,
my groundbreaking interpersonal and professional conflict
resolution strategies, I feel like I'm
one of those sidebar ads, shilling "This 1 Weird Trick
to make everybody HATE how awesome I am!" and then
I'm making as if to recommend these clever ways to you.
For your use, and life. Like
OK. That makes about as much sense
as you giving me tips and pointers on how to look GREAT
in the photos you take
of yourself.

We are all our own best photographer, perhaps
though some of us use something
other than pictures.

letters in war

I see you all the time, and feel good. You make me.
I remember we were such cohorts once. But maybe
it is just the general feeling of disconnectedness
that sweeps in, changing my perception of how
close I am, and was, to everyone - and that
means, maybe we were never any more connected
than this. Anyway. I miss feeling like cohorts.
But a cohort disbands after war, after all. And
though I'm never sure whether we enlisted
or were conscripted, I feel our esprit de corps
like a phantom limb.

Sal, I think of you so highly. You make me proud.
You are part of me because you make me know
what I could be, you make me proud of what I could be.
Your secret demons don't scare me. Mine
are far worse, or at least - they bask in that
opinion of themselves, as they tear red weeping tears
from my insides with whatever parts they can sharpen
into their inarguable points against. However close
we may or may not be, you are an ally. You strengthen
and fortify my defense. I think of you as a friend
I'd gladly stand as many rounds
of ammunition as were headed your way -
as many as I could stand, in front of you
or
as many rounds of libation. As many as
you and I could stand together.
For me, the difference between the two
would involve no hesitation.
You and I could stand together.
I hold you dear, though perhaps
we were never close. It is no bother
to me, that we may not be close.
We may not be. We barely know
each other at all, after all.

What we do not know
of each other is surely enormous, and valuable
- incalculably vast and unexplored.
It doesn't bother me in the slightest
to know such a sprawling expanse of wonder exists.
It makes me happy to know you have all this
unknown under your care, and will manage it.
I trust you to, and I too have my wonder to deal with.
The world is far richer for all the unexplored we know is there.
People who rush to say "I know you" - they do not know a tithe
of you. Nor do I. And if we knew each other better - I feel
convinced, I am convicted - whatever wonder the universe
has, that you show me through your eyes, or whatever
knowing you reveals of the things you have inside,
I am convicted and convinced I would know no more of you
than I know now, really:

That you are good. That your pain and mine
were closely allied. That I am on your side. That we
were always closer than we knew.

Important

It's important
to fall asleep
at least as drunk as you wake up
dead sober
eating everything
in sight, until you earn
your fill
- you learn
to kill
the universe, until
you finally
give
up.
it hurts
Defeated,
you beat everything.
can come to terms
in time, you
will

boots my size

Deftly handled,
sir. There's only
one of those answers
where I would ask you to

"back it up,"

if pressed! But...you know what?

Because you are right, and I do stand
for justice and for the forces of good,
I prefer

to leave it be. Let it lay, put
things in perspective and focus
on the eternal verities,

the broad, smooth panels of concrete
that make up the firm sidewalk upon which I stride,
rather then the cracks between

- which do not after all present any tripping hazard
for any dude in boots

my size.

Jeez

that last one
some poems, man
look
writing poems? I'm not saying every piece
has to be a masterpiece,
some dream within a dream-come-true, but

look,

poems,

poems aren't the problem! It's just

look, I don't even

just forget about it. Forget about the

last one

this girl so much

I love this girl so much
I don't know why I love
this girl so much.

There is no why, because
if there was a because
I'd love the because
not the girl, I know
because

I love this girl so much,
I don't know why I love this girl so much.
I love this girl so much, I don't know why
I love this girl so much.

if I said I loved her, "reasons why,"
I'd be saying that the "why"
was dependent on whatever
"because" factors, and
that if those factors
(severable from her, who
she is) were removed
(or proved not true), so too
would be my love;

proved void, my love
proved false, my love
proved wrong, my love - because
not you, but the reasons
failed, the factors failed, the why,
the "because"

failed.

Why,
I would never have been
in love with you at all!
But instead, in love
with a lot of reasons why,
with a trove of because,
in love with the factors
to consider, to contribute,
that - weighed in the balance!
- tallied up a total, and that
paltry calculation - some
soulless, emotionless, emotional
accountant

perhaps

calls love. Such shrewd and calculating
lovers know why. They

are in love because.

But
I love this girl so much,
I don't know why I love

this girl so much.
I love this girl
so much, I don't know why

I love this girl so much.

the love of a life not to be

she was the first person
I saw myself getting old
with. And loved it! Loved
what it was all going to be
With her. When we
broke up, the entire
continent-sized peninsula
projecting off in front of us -
the future, a future
- our future. Nothing
more. It cracked at our feet,
and wrenched, rumbling, off
to one side into and through a
dark, foamy, sparkling and angry
sea, and then it slid behind. She
wasn't on it. She wasn't beside
me. Just gone. I can still feel
inside of me the shape
and details of a land
mapped and plotted,
that will never be trod
or tilled. We had it
made real, together. Real
enough to go live in it. But
it has foundered and sunk
behind, and you are somewhere,
gone. The part of me that stood
there too shocked to speak
stands here still.

the zth degree

I know my mind to the enth degree - but not
to the zeeth degree. You see, the zeeth degree
is the enth knocked sprawled. It's the very
last letter whose name you call, and the very
last letter to variable by
- take the enth degree,
but knocked on its side.
All that vast enth extent,
but with view knocked sprawled
- both suitably enlightened
and humbled, one hopes,
by the fall

putting things away where they go

pick it up. Hold it in your hand.

pretend you don't know where it is.

Go Look For It.

First place you look is where it goes. Put it there!

Consistently,
Consistently,

this won't help you find something
if you don't know where it is, because
you didn't put it where it goes. But,
next time

And if everything ends up on the kitchen counter, well
maybe that's just where it all goes

Sometimes there's one overpowering place
where things feel like they "go,"

if so - you have to fix in your mind: your house,
in all its nooks and rooms
and shelves,

all the places in it that naturally call out
for things to live there! get a feel
for each of those.

THEN,
go back to the kitchen counter. Pick up the first thing
that needs a new home, and you ask yourself:

"Where's the second place this goes?"

Some people may need to perform a ritual.

You don't have to, you could skip it. But it might
be nice! Could be something like, "Oh candlemaking machine,
you have chosen the kitchen counter as your home. I honor you,
and ask permission to relocate you to your new home
which is a fine and worthy home,
for appliances
that have not to do with food preparation.

I take you now to the hall cupboard.

The kitchen counter is forever your first home!
The home of your childhood as an appliance -
ever will I look for you there, first! And my wistful eye
will miss you,

but

you and I will both recall,
and find you at home in your
better and more suited place:

hall cupboard."

The ritual
isn't because we must debase ourselves
to ask permission of inanimate objects. It's just
a nifty mnemonic,
to set in place and reinforce
all the wheres, and whys and wherefores.

You do have to say it out loud,
though.

And wear a blue robe.

Alas

can you imagine

if the poetry you write. could make
people

the world, I mean

people in general, not just
clandestine cliques of incestuous appreciators

sit up and say

wow,

in a world
where poetry sets stone on fire, breaks
stained-glass hearts, where light -
the light of language used keen and fine!
, like lances - crashes through clouds
and breaks upon crowds in thunder, where a poet's
precious bull shit imagery and stubbed
-toe blood sting sunburned heart-swell pang
can put poetry
and poets

up where they used to belong. Can take poetry
and poets
places.

Poets all over the world are poised to be placed

on couches
of talk show hosts, on the front
page of the "A" section
not "D10" in Lifestyle, a poet
on the cover of the Rolling Stone,
as was done in the days of Ovid,
Percy Bysshe Shelley and
Yeats, or was it Keats,
back before newspapers, talk
show hosts and magazines. Poets
were setting the world on fire,
thrusting their Byronic capes
over and across broad shoulders in a howling gale,
shaking fists at eternity and making the abyss
blink - and the public fucking loved them
for it. Loved it! Ate it up. Ate them
up,

Throngs of them.

Poets were poets, then. Poets
were rolling in mad bitches and tons of cash,

imagine
if today
could be a world like that. Imagine if your poetry

could get the world at large

to notice.

Alas

a Request for Excellence

please, submit your excellence
to the world by no later
than the drop dead date,
.which deadline will be announced
with immediate effect, upon its
occurrence.

lit up

My first cigar was
a challenge. Offered
by hand, from a friend
who'd become a stranger
over the years - and had
received good news. I took it
in that spirit,

not the other one. Bit
off the end,
spit out the plastic, drew
the thick, slender
stogie from the remainder of its cellophane
cradle, and examined

the end I'd bitten part off. Sufficient? Sufficient,
I judged.

So we lit up.

What happened next can only be described

by means
of rebus
puzzle.

The Purpose of Joy

The purpose of dancing
is first: to enjoy the music.
The beat, when the music
is good - throw yourself,
with abandon! This music
is yours, your life
is the music you dance to:
a choice.
The purpose of music
is to reach and enjoy
the soul. Is there
anything else that can reach?
In a room emptied out, in a crowd
struck dumb, every one
there at once,
all at once
is one

The purpose of the sun
is to set fire to skies
from a million miles off
reminding your eyes twice a day
if you look: there is more to light
than finding your way;
a purpose to life.
The purpose of love is
to enjoy the other:
a music you have never
heard, to dance, throw yourself
with abandon, to give
is to lose - your self, your
life in the one you choose,
and who chooses you.

For she is the music,
or he is the beat,
the sun as it rides
overhead, then sets
and will rise again.
For tonight - just dance
to enjoy what is yours,
given free, complete.
To enjoy what is mine,
given free, given all,
in a universe split
between us, made whole,
made one, made ours.

To explore for a life
what the other can see
beneath these lucky stars

Dark.

Every shape half-glimpsed has eyes
unseen within its silhouette
of different shades of gray and gloom
and purple black that make this room
a place of glowering counterfeits
- strange stationary animals
or person, persons quite unknown -
whose frozen forms all hold their breath
and hold their pulse, as you hold yours -
you hold their gaze.

You know if you could reach the light
they'd disappear a dozen ways into the glare
replaced by - shirt, or ironing board
or closet door or huge stuffed bear
but still you can't quite make out some
of what these shapes would turn into
if you could only reach the light -
you wouldn't reach, would you?
Would you?

up

Hope, hope
is straight up, pretty
delusional, huh? A reaction,
not knee- but heart-
jerk, I guess. There's more

to us. And it's not gravity
that's pulling us close


but a reaction against.


A reaction within us,
against all of the forces
that lawsy, hem us in
until we're crushed
by the last straw - or
was it the first?

the first instant of all, we began

- catching up to us, fast?
We will die

but
we know we are better than that. Though we know not how. We have
raised our eyes


We react
against.

down

Reality is down. Galactic down, a cardinal
direction established universally every
where by the mass - infinitesimally
tiny! That exists pinned in place,
in the middle of spaces

comparatively vast

- but pinned so hard, that each point anchors all
of
the
force
fields

that we all see, and call
solid objects.

Reality is down. Drags us,
pins us - down.
And me, myself? Oh,


you better believe I'm down.

catch up

time to catch up, from falling
behind. Too many times speaking my
empty mind, I find I'm found out.
My doubt redounds
to the benefit of fact and my love,
that
is that.

I love that
a flat, satisfying,
observed or observable
act

can establish a truth
you can and should shout to the ends
of the earth

and further, further
more, get out
of my sight.

From your birth
in this life, you
are the worst possible distraction, and I

've got to catch u
p

to the test

Am I supposed to do something?
I should check your message
again. I forget what/if instructions
are. Is there a prove myself
clause? I just
was struck with the

poetical,

my memory,
and my inability to help
myself.

It could be the greatest fact
that I mean well - but
who does it help? Well,
OK, arguably, me. And
you too - arguably? No,
hell, not arguably -
I won't argue.

It's your call,
isn't it? I hope

my words don't seem insincere. Ever,
really, but that's just a hope that I have!
Because they're not. I mean every bit of that
shit. But if you doubt it?

Well, let's just
say, I won't be crushed.
Should I be? I mean,

How I seem -
- I'm not in that business. Never had the necessary
skills to pay the bills as far as others' eyes and
- especially - jaws, jut forward as if to say "I'm
from Missouri!"

Well shit I'm from Jersey. Did I miss the part where
I was selling you something? Go home and make dust
on your plot of land, my good sir. Show thy self.

Should a person give acts, give words, give gifts
wound about with strings, to pull and cling, and
require you to take them some set way? With belief -
or with trust, with skeptical cynicism held hard
at bay?

That's childish. Fuck off, with that, I say, and if
you rode in on a horse, ride off on it while checking
its mouth for missing teeth and suppurating ulcers
- and welcome to it! Doubt and be happy, require
of others whatever proofs you wish, demand them
and don't forget to rub their bellies, see if a genie
pops out. See what it gets you - no harm in asking!

Don't worry about demanding any proofs of me, though
as I said. My hand's not out for a handout. Shake it
if you wish, no need to make it a grip contest either. Don't
hold so tight on your hopes! A bird in the hand is worth
two in the bush, they say. What is the worth of the bird
you crushed in your hand? Withhold
whatever it is you think you're holding on to,
pending proof.

(Chances are,
I've either got it already, or
no use for it anyway!
So we're cool, okay? Why
we must be cool.)

I've made no demands on you.
Requiring, demanding, proofs. I dunno -
"The truth is easy and pleasant to say," I've
observed. So I'd rather (and it's easier)
to be not so unnatural, as all that requirement
requires. Damn the demands of being so demanding! Why,
I wrote my own contract the day I was born, so to speak
- or maybe it was the day I could speak, anyway,
- or the day I could write. But nobody but me
has signed it yet. You're on your own,

with trust,
my friend. I mean
well with all my means,
and with those means at my disposal, I trust you -

to justify ends.

in the willows

Ah, willow,
willow, a willow's natural
manners keep trouble swept wide
from limbs unbent, but swooping out
and up, an embrace of air, cool
brief respite from summer's
trumpets, as the season comes
on, the willow provides
a canopy of strong limbs,
hung wide with party streamers,
for the party, yes
no -

- there is no cause to weep, in
or around or under this tree.

I am early again, the first guest
asleep on the grass

just me

the dao of glow

don't push past glow
is not a rule. But just
a Way - when in control,
you like it there. And
feeling good! You've got

a glow.

You like? You
should. And shouldn't is
a dumb concern. Who shouldnt's
you? Some person? God? Your
self? You shouldn't even
burn
one moment
in a self-made hell.
Who cares about
abuse,

and rules?

It's not a rule,
to feel so good
that every one around
you
loves
that you are here.

You got a glow?
Well, good.

You should.

Don't push past
glow
is not a rule!
You're in
control.

You like it.

Cool.

abortive

hints build tent cities inside your brain -
furtive messengers,
this poem sucks already.

lessons

like riding your bike off a log
you could never learn to forget
a thing like that. Like learning
the way home, how to drive
a point home, say her name
three times out loud, and
you're set. Your name is like
walking off cliffs, or right
into walls,
like selling a soul
like banging a skull
on the beats of a heart, like
never forget what it's like, my love.
I will never forget what it's like.

more unsolicited, mind-boggling, well-meant advice from the apparently sincere sexist next to you at a going-away party

son,
friend, I mean
there's a lot of pussy in this world
and if you don't stick your dick
in your share of it, that means
some other dick is getting stuck
in your share of pussy.

Because women of the world
are apportioned all up into shares
for the world's men's cocks to fuck,
and sure - some women choose
to remove themselves from the equation,
which just goes to reduce
the overall size of the pie.
But we honor that! Men,
we honor it.

Which is bad enough, to reduce the supply
of what's good to go around, but son,
if you take your bid off the table,
then all the other hungrier ones of us
men - we're going to snap it up. Fill
the gap you left to us. I won't lie
to you man - I know I will. You might
as well dive in - that pussy is going
to get fucked regardless! You see
that girl? Yeah, you see what I'm
talking about! Turned me down. Yeah,
I know. But see, that's why it's ok,
too - I know who's got my back. With her?
Eyes shooting fire and that ass? Every man
's got my back, or will try. She'll get hers

and like it, not all dudes
are to all women's taste, and
that's a mystery we try to honor,
too, as part of our code. We help each other
out, to reach that potential all together
and for the sake of the beautiful goal. The goal
which really wants so badly to be met. Yes, it's
is for her sake too, dude. You think there's
any other story being told, all over the world?
Sure, from the other side maybe, but her side
and mine, same story. You're a character
got to put yourself out there, get next
to the plot and put yourself in
the game there, son. Your side is
counting on you, you've got our half
of the chromosomes under lock and key
and bursting to get free, and man
you know where all this goes.

Go ahead man.

Go talk to her.

Don't try sports, though. Just a tip

hate mirrors

I'm not happy with the shape of your body
or the tone of your skin, or
your voice. I'm not happy with
your hair. Please shave
it is - off-putting, why
would you want to be this way?
On top of the ways that you can't help!
- look. I was more than willing
to settle until you rejected me. But
no.
So now,
sour grapes, "pal"!
Now you get to hear it! Sorry. Maybe
it's for the best, and your
taste in wine - don't make me
laugh. There is so much I could
have taught you. Like how to breathe,
soak in a hot steamy bath,
like how to love smoke
and hate mirrors

no shame on the way

doing it wrong
is a good way to go. If
doing it wrong is wrong, I don't want
to learn about doing it right, except
through proof in the truth of each wayward step left

on the path to wherever
its going is to. Preposition!

on the path to wherever
it's going to go.

quoth the hatter, madly

You and I
are legendary lovers. But
should we therefore doubt our love? Is
the stuff of legend
substantial enough?

I think not
to the first question, and to the second,
So very so.

For the foundations of legend
stretch down deep, deeper
down through the mists of mere myths to strike
a substrate of bedrock,
a sweet truth

that underlies us all,

singing lullabies
that lull and soothe
us to sleep,
to sleep -
to a dream
we know is true,

because falling asleep to it is like
waking up to you.

You, love,
are the real
world.

I've waited on dreams
my whole life, only to find
a better waking than dreams
could wish!
An innocence that's bliss
to wake up with
- to wake up to. You
and me.

I meets thee.

The eternal story.

The stuff of legend.

Shit