Global Repositioning

I've lost the ability to give
a fuck about laundry, or logos -
for this disease, there's no
twelve-step.
The cure is pure dee-why-ay.

How did talking through
laundry or a logo ever substitute
for conversation?

Your big-screen is a sleek
black sham, and so are
you unless you
focus on (the human) family,
in all its fabled, twisted glory.

On Having a Child

Candlewicks protecting their flame from an onrushing storm . . .
someone asked me what's it like to have a kid
Nine days later, this is the best I could do,
unsure of who's protecting who.

Cameras don't gush over kids the way family
sometimes does, so we picture her,
day-by-day,
picking potatoes,
rapping with Hello Kitty,
crossing rope bridges that needn't be crossed,
and every picture tells a story better,
or fairer, than I could.

Not that every day should be photographed,
but, to address the question, perhaps they should.
Some days you cower like a sailor in a squall;
others you curse like one,
but for all the pratfalls, the bumbles,
the bumps and the scrambling,
life survives in spite of all -
a terrific trick indeed.

Even beat poets the most intrepid
cower at the challenge of relentless
mediocrity:
life minus a fast car, a wild bop record,
a new conquest, a new vein.

Exalting the muddled middle is a
demaning task, one that would
wilt the best-trained bonzai.

Rather than stand for something,
rather than stand for self,
most crouch,
take cover,
most lives wane like moonlight.

Can you put a finger on why?
For the dinosaurs, finger the asteroid;
for the faithful, finger your savior;
finger age for the few who found their fate;
but for the rest, the culprit is clear,
Ladiezzzzz and gentlemen . . .
the force that finishes life:
mediocrity.

Make It Rain-Take 2

Lumber pillars hunch under the roof's weight
as Tom Waits croaks forgiveness,
seconds grooving,
clock ticking toxins away:
make it rain.

A conjoined boyfriend-girlfriend
slop down a gyro,
giggle at their secret,
a love any monkey could see.

Curdled feta sticks at the
back of the throat,
a sour echo of sour mash.

Mooks in sweats share beer.

Counterfolk swap Saturday
morning stories,
passing off normal for witty.

Only supreme effort prevents
drool, lo-tops quaking,
unable to bring food to lips:
O, make it rain

Make It Rain-Take 1

Lumber pillars hunch under the weight o' the roof
as Tom Waits croaks foregiveness,
seconds grooving,
clock ticking toxins away:
make it rain.

A boyfriend-girlfriend,
traditional Siamese,
shoulders co-joined,
slop down a gyro and
giggle and their secret,
a love a monkey could see.

Curdled feta reminds of last night,
sticks in the back of the throat:
mooks in sweats share beer
counterfolk swap stories
(passing normal for witty).

Only supreme effort holds in
my drool, lo-tops quivering,
stomach roiling with activity.

Make it rain -
o, make it rain.

Welcome to It

Roses trek ten thousand miles,
held between fingertips, intentions so gentle,
just to be present for love;

yet, the petals do not withdraw when lips conceal it.

Alas, we have us,
crouching like surveyors,
hauling baggage like shields.
Love eeks via clogged smokestacks:
for us, the temple voyage will be a trek,
aching and arduous,
hauling withered personas,
clawing and clutching railings all the way.

Proclaim the rose an ideal? pssshaw -
instead of sliding through holy water,
the way dolphins do,
our separate starlit camps
howl at the light and bray forgiveness.

Ma Bou

Horse-stance discipline
is what is sold,
and what is a stance
when there are so many
movements out there?
Control is an odd thing:
you learn it to lose it to know when
to lose it
Can't say much about either
beyond that discipline has left me
with a permanent limp
and the occassion twinge
of guilt about not having that limp
under control.
To pour yourself into something
is not to fit a mold.
Rather, show how much you
can expand a something by
fitting your big head into it.

November

This month posts will be infrequent, at best.
There's a-something I'd like to do, and the time
is now.

If I do post, it's wholly by accident.