Memory

Memory’s a fraught and noisy bird

pursuing him while he runs mindless laps,

apprising him in angry chirps and flaps

of all he ought to have recalled,

but can’t remember ever having heard.

.

What Love Does Not Depend On

At sea in separate uncertainties

three lonely members of three unrelated species

just today discovered one other, formed a family –

they seemed to breed an equanimity

together they were never able to achieve alone.

Love does not depend on being known.

.

Heaven and Hell

We think we are wise

as we hem and we haw –
but we’re fogging the windows:
we jettison awe

from the central equation
we can’t seem to solve
in which Heaven and Hell
meet, tongue-kiss, and dissolve.









.

In and Out and Back

Magic is ephemeral

and permanent.

Magic breathes us

in and out and back

into the Firmament.

.

Big Blue Pet

He guards his fantasies as if they were a big blue pet –

an undiscovered species only slowly opening its secrecies

to him – an azure animal he hides, to which he feeds

his private nights, keeps out of sight not out of shame or fear

but in the prayer that, unmolested and protected, what proceeds

between them might exceed the limits of what everybody else

appears to think is good enough. He wants the greater size,

the stranger stuff – an essence of which no one he knew, knew –

a prize to which he hadn’t gotten yet, but could. The thing

his big blue pet might let him know, and one day would.

.

Too Much, Too Much

You’re willing – more than willing – to say why –

indeed you’re spilling with the impulse to regale –

but loving someone won’t admit of explanation –

itemizing pluses on a chart imparts a mere pale

simulacrum of the thing about which, well, you

might much better sing a nonsense song, not

long, but long enough to push you gently into

the availingly oblique: distract you from the task

of answering what is too much, too much to ask.

.

Whatever You May Be

Whatever you may be,

I want you irremediably

to reside, preside in me.

.

Eye Doodle

Single doodled eye's unhappy.

Where's its mate - its ocularly apt
companion? Sucks to be abandoned.

.

Mr. Death

Mr. Death gets goofy when he drives his car.
Loves the business of eradicating Is-ness.
Never has to drive too far.











.

Your Spine is Mine

I sit upon your back,

give it a chiropractic crack.

You like it fine.
Your spine is mine.

.

All Affairs Should be Clandestine

All affairs should be clandestine –

radiate the blunt transgressive funk

of indiscretion – wrest from wet meshed

flesh its bluntest best expression of exstasis –

past the blasting yes of orgasm into the terrible

delight of being locked into the prison of the spasm

of the urge to do it all again, again.








.

GanderGoose

His name was GanderGoose.

He was an ornamental thing –

he sported ornamental wings –

and favored pamplemousse.

He was devotedly devoid

of things that had a use.

He liked life fast,

superfluous,

and loose.









.

One Single Thing

She’s grateful for one single thing:

the Universe appeared!

It's turning out to be exactly what

she craved and feared.

.

Contemplating the Incarnate

It must be this:

you re-emerge

– outcast –

from an amorphous mass:

another moment

of you

comes to pass,

has passed,

and then

the massed

delineated

feeling business of you

turns, returns

into a vast

eternal now again.









.

She Went On Talking Barely Audibly

“There is no pretty way to die,” she said.

“But let’s not make a dirge of it.
The galvanizing urge that governs
comfortable sentience is remarkably
resourceful: weaves right to and through
the tiniest of breathing threads.”

She went on talking barely audibly like this,

as if her thoughts had left their messy beds

right in the midsts of nervous dreams,

whispering inchoate schemes –

so soft his ear had had to strain to hear.

He said the only thing he could imagine.

would be clear: “Goodbye, my dear.”







.

Forgive Me, I Will Lose You

A pull behind the clouds

behind the eyes exacts

a fracturing -- a splintering

into serrated glints:

sharpened blades of grasses

golden-green with mid-July –

which slide into wide fields

now morphing into folds

of a Sargasso Sea,

which calculatedly informs

the barely semi-conscious me

that I’m about to enter

what in waking life I call,

as if I understood

what I was saying, “sleep.”

An ardent necessary

dream demands my rapt

abject attendance: I am

its carrier and it’s my carrier

and it is time to carry out

our intraconscious

internecine plan. Forgive me,

I will lose you. I’m dissolving

into not-a-man.






.

Sometimes I Speculate

Sometimes I speculate that it’s to foster an absorbing,

more illuminating sense of the inevitable soft relations

that a vision always has to palpable reality

that my penumbral apparitions come to me.

But this one didn’t stay too long. It saw I wouldn’t see.










.

When Everything’s Alive

Have you ruthlessly

to want to throw

the thing away

to have a chance

of getting underway?

Or is it rather that

the thing you've tended

endlessly to misconstrue

must have at last

to rid itself of you?

Hard to connive,

when everything’s alive.









.

Your Friend and You

Your friend and you

ran out of words again.

Attempt another tack.

Put on a soft adagio.

Massage his back.











.

You’re Here Because

It summons you! And you’ve appeared.

It’s not at all what you had feared.

You weren’t wrested from your sleep –

or hauled up from the briny deep –

or taken from a mother’s arms –

or wakened by abrupt alarms –

no terrors have affronted you.

You’re here because it wanted you.









.

Alter Egos

Alter egos often sit and lean against each other:

one not ever worrying he ever won’t be on a roll;

the other wondering if there is such a thing

as “soul” or being “whole.”

.

Unfolding

Thoughtfully unfolding

into yet another day,

it seems at last to come to you:

there’s never not a way.












.

It’s Hard to be as Beautiful as I am

It’s hard to be as beautiful as I am.

It’s hard to be so beautifully blue.

But since you’re not as beautiful as I am,

it must be so much harder, dear, for you.










.

Yesterday

Yesterday you were

a dullard.

Today you woke up

multi-colored!










.

They Sat There Like That All Night

Whatever he was quietly

imparting to her ear,

it clearly wasn’t lending her

a modicum of cheer.

We hoped that she would find

a way to find a way away from him,

but they sat there like that all night.

She couldn’t seem to stray from him.










.

Shot Up From The Earth

Shot up from the earth –

an easy birth

of slender root and vine:

a concubine

of dirt.

So far it hadn’t hurt.

You hadn’t had to toil.

You rather liked the soil.








.

He Just Found Out

You know how

you don’t know how

you got here, yet you’re here?

He just found out what to do about it:

disappear!

.

The Thing That You Were Not

Today resistance grew so rabid that it took a form.

It grew warm,

then it grew hot.

Today the thing that you were not

became the thing you are.

It wants to push until it’s gone too far.

.