What I Guess I Came to Say

 What I Guess I Came to Say

https://youtu.be/xF6TPfTwRZc

(the video is maybe worth seeing, mostly because of the light that dims at the end, exactly on cue, which it did entirely on its own recognizance.)

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The practical reality of doing what I do

seemingly impracticably makes me climb

back into reinventing plans to mimic who

I think I was or what I did the last time

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I believe I had succeeded: that’s a pain

with little prospect of a gain: “again”

is not a notion to rejoice in: but to feign

a former me, to re-ingest some madeleine

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to re-inhabit memory - may be the best

maneuver I could conjure up to shoo in

inconceivable catastrophe, to fail the test

of being serviceably human, ergo ruin

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the renewal of what had been an ability

I now had lost: to render calm accord

from those so rageful with malignant incivility,

no calm could now arrive except by sword.

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But that would be uncivil and untoward.

Then, at last! I now recall their favorite condition.

“Hit the ground!” I yell as I move forward.

With great relief they do. They love submission.

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One twists and turns and burns

to find a serviceable way.

I suppose that’s how one learns.

I guess it’s what I came to say.

Bubbly Ding Dong

 

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https://youtu.be/IP_OxSZXYrA

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City stone is mostly what my art observes

to find its way. From 1880s scroll and column

on my block I heard today what bell deserves

my notice, and for whom it has to toll. Solemn

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though this business may appear, New York

fears nothing about death. It plays ping pong

with it, and life - can’t wait to pop the cork

to toast the art it spawns with bubbly ding dong.

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Hence the pitcher and the lizard here, I think:

who find themselves in lurid hues a city bell

would welcome. They’ve drunk the drink.

Feeling well. Not in hell. Art’s rather swell.

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It’s amazing how little things matter. They

don’t matter at all, and they matter the most.

Every life we bring on we will shatter. Hey!

But don’t leave in a huff. Make a toast!

 

Snide Little Tease

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https://youtu.be/C3rPTWL2X08

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What are all these terrible proclivities, anxieties?

In how many guises of exuberance do quakes

of terror hide? Life can be a snide little tease –

an acrobatic malady, a viral wheeze that makes

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us watch trapezes full of inept fliers falling

from the ceiling. These unfunny circuses reach

into all our psyches, hearts and eyes, appalling

anyone who pays them any mind. Spirits beseech

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you: offer to whoever wants it, all you’ve got –

your marriageable self, your favorite raccoon,

a chicken-burger-fries chain with a parking lot –

offer it to God or the woman in the moon,

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or a brilliant astrophysicist, or witch on a broom.

Give your every penny, Eurodollar or doubloon.

Divest yourself of everything: empty every room.

Do it years and years from now or do it very soon.

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Or hoard it all forever in a cellar in your house.

There may be worse and better things to do as well.

Some will parade themselves, some hide and grouse.

Some make a boring heaven, some make a happy hell.

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