The First One in the Series

No novel ever beats

The first one in the series,

The first time the hero sees

That there's a whole hidden world

Full of heels and heroes,

An epic beachhead for sinking in toes,

To explore and investigate and overthrow.

I've always wanted to see one for myself.

For My Friends

Before leaving more than a movie's-cast of friends

I really want to write a poem for them,

Though friendship is the only thing in the humanverse

Older than verse,

and I couldn't come close to doing justice.

I begin to think I haven't written it

Because I don't really want to,

Because it means I'll have to go

Judge, Jury and Executioner

I am a judge quick to a verdict.

I have three reasons to like a person.

It's two parts who she is,

One part how he takes an insult,

and one part how she gives an insult.

You know the person

Who tells me I should

"Execute my artistic vision"

With a guillotine?

I love him.

He makes me laugh.

Play Incessant In My Head

What I think are thrilling stories
Play incessant in my head,
But what my inner vision see's
Not what my eyes have read,
Yet, the cause of disappointment,
The work of many days,
Has, when shown to others,
Been quite the cause of praise.
I've never thought I'm worthy
Just 'cause they like me or what-not,
So I'm writing twice as fast now,
To be half of what I'm thought.

A Long, Sweet Sentence

Every birth's a long, sweet sentence:
The Judge gives everybody life,
And the Great Question's a parole hearing.
Will we come out the other side?

If we might, then our life's value
Is wrapped up in consequence.
If we won't, it's all that matters
'Cause it's all we ever get.

Unrequited Infatuation as a Social Network

So you're wanting my opinion, plus everything I know
On Madison, Mariah, Kelly, Megan and Margo?
Well Megan is available.  Jaime wants to ask her out,
But he works, he's always busy, and he suffers from self-doubt.
Madison dates two guys, don't know how she keeps it up.
Mariah's dating Kelly; I guess that's just tough luck.
Marge is chasing Jason, might be months until she quits.
That's how she works; she picks one crush, and then she sticks to it.
And I've heard it rumored that Megan has her eye on
Mason and Michael and Chandler and Orion,
You know him? He's the new guy who got turned down by Renae.
But Megan is available, so YOLO, seize the day.

Spring in Montana, Pt. 3

On a springnoon to leave winter and summer both bedeviled,
I'm suspicious of everyone who's not a bit disheveled,
Because that means they left their windows all up, and
They've been using turn signals instead of their hands,
Which is, in total, a waste of this rare day
When cool breezes and warm sun are both out to play.

The Advice I Wish They'd Given Me at Graduation, Pt. 2

I look back for a cause of these last ten years wasted.
I thought I would change more, and my life would change less.
I like to blame the shock for my comfort-seeking ways,
For the way I compounded all my mistakes,
But the truth is that this is who I've always been.
Fracture my bluster–the fault lies within.

To Move Back Home

To be unemployed and to move back home
Is to be always watched and forever alone,
Eating a double watch-your-mouth burger
With a super sized side order of awkward.

If, in four years, I've learned anything,
It's that you can be forever young,
and you can even go home again,
Just don't move in.

20 Questions

How do you do it?
How do you get there?
How do you like me now?
How could you?
Who is that?
Who are you talking to?
Who do you think you are?
Who are you?
Where are you from?
Where are you going with that?
Where are we going?
Why are we in this handbasket?
When does it start?
When do we leave?
When do we eat?
When will you grow up?
What is going on?
What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
What is the meaning of life?
What is the meaning of this?

What is the meaning of this?

The Ballad of the Student Who Actually Wants to Learn Something

I live in a world with a trillion faces,
and I have seen none of them,
Because I am trapped inside the brick walls
Of adult supervision's adolescent playpen.
My science is trumped by your slow movement.
My curiosity is trumped by the people who want to protect me from the world.

I would be more worried
About protecting the world from me.

Culture Is a Method of Consuming and Preserving

A culture is a method of consuming and preserving life,
Identified by its most superficial markers,
and we, as a people of extremes,
Of deficit spending and anti-aging creams
Who don't care who you are or what you know
So much as what you have and who you know
Are certainly the most cultured culture of all.

Communicating Across Space

There's a certain intellectual dissonance
Every time people try communicating across space,
But when I'm trying to narrowly avoid an entanglement,
and you're desperately trying to hold back tears,
That's just a sign that we really ought to know our friends better.

Changing Everything

Entering a lottery whose numbers decide

Where I will live the best part of my life,

I contemplate, fantasize,

Update my disguise.

On the edge of trading a role I've absorbed

For a role I've only prepared for.

I dive in headfirst, speak dangerously,

Procrastinate furiously.

At the edge of fog, the future, change:

Will new life have a closet space

For the parts of now I hesitate

To throw away?

The You That I Remember

It's a fact of human memory
That I'm at best unsure
If the you that I remember
Is the one you really were.

'Neath dark clouds of concussions
and questions of recall
Lies the fact that for the past ten years
You have not been–at all,

So that raises one more question,
At the heart of memory:
Why, of all the things I've half-forgot,
You should mean a thing to me,

But the truth is fate's had ample chance
To cull what I won't need.
(They say) the rest goes down as
(Flawed and biased) history.

Goodbye Was as Loud as a Gunshot

Your goodbye was as loud as a gunshot.
You were a very literal person,
Always impossible to stop,
and I was never much for the inconvenient.

Since then, I have born my baggage
In two suitcases, in two halves.
I have spent the past ten years and two weeks
Fighting my life and your memory.

I don't want to live for you.
I don't want to die for you,
But I promise I will write for you

When it's convenient.

Brick and Mortar

The world of humanity is mountainous,
A great brick-and-mortar edifice
For me to smash my head against,
and as hard as my head may be,
and as full-to-bursting-at-the-seams,
That mountain of humanity
Will not move, if it's only me.

Privacy Curdled

Privacy curdled.
We live in a Craigslist world
Full of people who would pay
Untidy sums of borrowed money
For the promise of never being alone,
Again,

But I crave a little solitude.
It is comforting to me
That this mere desire
Leaves me all on my own.

Bearing the Marks

Our bodies are tribal oratories,
Bearing the marks of a thousand ancient histories–
Tales of suffering in search of glory,
Tales of suffering just because we bleed,
and every obvious scar that you see
Is just the first clue in a life-mystery.

To All Those People

To all those people who use words like "mistake"
and "youthful indiscretion"
and even "having a good time"
To describe a crime:

Leave,
Now,
Before the future happens to you.

They Might Say

They say we made visual contact.
They say we dug in hastily.
They say to fight fire with fire,
Which was in my heart, and yours.
They say you surrendered to me.
They say I got lost in you.

They might say things got hot.
They might say love conquers all.
When they say all's fair in love and war,
They assume there is some difference.

Cushion In Your Eyes

I saw no hint of cushion in your eyes,
Nothing to pillow your hard interest,
So I was at least half-prepared.

Nevertheless, what I did not see was there.
You didn't say anything as I left,
and I did see knowledge in your eyes.
You know I would have turned around,
and you let me go anyway.

The tinted glass of my own dark eyes
Hides gratitude
For what you didn't make me do.

I Have, On Occasion

I have, on occasion, known victory,
The dizzying post-adrenaline ecstasy
Of collapsing, falling out of my head
Into a golden trophy feather bed,

and I have, on many of them, known defeat,
Exhausted rage soured by finality,
The feeling that I have only run out of time,
But, of course, the game wouldn't last my whole life.

Most foreign to the world's American corner,
I know the flavor of sweet, iron surrender,
That baseball bat wrapped in silk,
The better and the worse for being a path I chose myself.
It always tastes like blood in my mouth.

Unscheduled Meeting

You were the unscheduled meeting,
The self-made appointment.
I never set out to network.
I just didn't resist.
I never put you on my bucket list,
Because your friendship isn't
Something I want to die for.

It's something I want to live for.

Toss, Throw Out, Dispose, Discard

We toss, throw out, dispose, discard,
From the Goodwill, to pasture, and to the junkyard.
As a culture, we always march toward obsolete;
As a species, we could wear out society.
Humans would be resilient, as an animal;
The economy, the politics, those are disposable.

Why Poets Have No Control over Fiscal Policies

I have one rule about lending:
I need some,
and you need some.
Beyond that, it's just counting.

When we're still too young for learning,
Television teaches us to count.
The American Dream brands us,
Burns a logo onto our inner skin.

Some have said that I am courageous,
Forging my own dreams into my own tracks.
Others have said that I am kind,
But there is no mutation in my inner facts.
I am merely unbranded.

See My Peers

I can't be who I once was and won't be soon.
I don't see my peers in a college classroom.
It's not that I don't like the people I'm with,
The ones who'll be at reunions I skip.
It's just, I've already moved on in my head.
In the past, I'd cling to my old life, instead,
Sinking my heals in, and drown in the past.
Unlike present or future, it's one time that lasts.

Push Play/Hit Rewind

Our hormones go wild
For the fictional smiles
Of so many characters
Who must be cooler than us.

Or perhaps hormones aren't your style.
Instead, do you dissect
When you obsess?
Are you consumed with the correct?

We assume there is more
To the fictional life
Than is seen by you and I,
But why?

We do the same things over and over.
They do the same things over and over
At least we remember.

At least we get better.

Consumed

I don't know why I am consumed

By the same arguments

Over and over again.

Perhaps they bring me hot comfort.

I don't know why I am consumed

By hypothetical perfection.

It seems like an futile

and time-consuming direction.

I don't know why I am consumed

By taking things out of their times and places

and putting them in another.

Perhaps it's the scientific feeling of ultimate control.

I don't know why I am consumed

With the memory, with the old me.

He was smaller, particularly in the belly.

And the mind.

A Face in a Magazine

I saw a face in a magazine,
and it looked like yours,
Or at least my eyes connected
The past to the present,
The memories to the moment,
My discretion to my desire,
My heart to my mind,
and my passion to that pale imitation.

I doubt if you would remember me.
I doubt if that will make a difference.

Inertia and Unkind Thoughts

Propelled by inertia and unkind thoughts,
I don't even start on the work that I've got.
I lack any sense of direction my own,
and shut in or crowded, I wind up alone.
I'm unsure of my exit.  I don't choose to leave.
In the past, collisions with life wakened me.

A Modern City

A modern city is a work of engineering art,

A codependent social network of a bunch of moving parts.

There are factories to make our things and warehouses to keep them.

We need recycling, waste and sewer services to come delete them.

Then there are roads and public transport, all organized at city hall,

and of course we need a power plant, or it won't run at all.

A Mammal's Cells

A mammal's cell's unbound by walls. It is more changeable than pretty.

In that way, as in others, it's just like a modern city.

Its nucleus is City Hall, abuzz in plans, administration.

It depends on mitochondria for power generation.

Miscellanea sit in vacuoles, life's self-storage units.

A manufacturing sector? Let the ribosomes do it.

The recycling, waste and sewer are a job for lysosomes,

and the endoplasmic reticula can stand in well for roads.

Nightly

I have addiction (the doctor says need)
For my nightly six hours of sleep,
Hours I'd like back to pay myself first
From a schedule that's otherwise ready to burst.
So instead what I get every night is a choice
Between forging a path into the future for my voice
Or paying mind to the old master-iconoclasts
Who put words in my mouth with their voice from the past.

Fighting My Past

I'm fighting the memory of things that I've said.
I'm fighting the setbacks no longer ahead.
I fight the expectations forged by others' memories.
I fight the expectations forged by how life used to be.
I have no way of knowing just how long I'll last,
But that's how much time, to the second, I'll spend fighting my past.

Spring Cleaning for the Spotty Mind

My notebook and I out walking went,
and in three miles, I wrote five poems.
I held my notebook in one hand and kissed it,
and slapped myself upside the head
For my gross underachivement.
The number of poems
Just blowing down the street,
Lying forgotten on the pavement,
Is a verse approaching infinite.

Seven Notes

I play the same seven notes on the same major scale.
To all but the player, they must surely grow stale,
But I'll write the same poems, all day and all night,
At least until I get one of them right.

It's a Different Color Now

I walk by an old friend's old house,
Only to find it's a different color now,
and the friend I had isn't my friend somehow.
So it is in suburbia. Change
Is just a diversion-charade
To hide the same old uncomfortable same.

Medium Rare

Being born this way might not be bad, but I've
Known what it is to be raw and bloody–alive.
Now I'm medium rare–that is, nearly half-done.
I walk the same streets that the old me would run.
I'll keep coming full circle, just slower, 'til I learn
To let go of this wheel, find a new one to turn.

The Way That Things Do

I prayed then to understand, to become more like you.
Years have passed.  That's turned out the way that things do.
I still don't know half of what I begged to learn.
I've grown lazy, let go of our fire that burned.
I had half your compassion, six times what I have now.
The mean streak you were missing got bigger somehow.
I have doubts I could pull off your final retreat.
Hosting doubt's just step one to admitting defeat.
Over time, which, in hindsight, has slogged on in a blur,
I've become the opposite of whoever you were.

The Poetic Qualities of Living to Fight Another Day

I'm ponderous, pensive, pedantic, perverse,
Grinding gears, spinning wheels, off the rails, in reverse,
On the ropes, off my rocker, untracked, out of control,
Upside-down and lopsided, but ready to roll,
Lead-footed, light-headed, in the drink, out of air.
I'm too late for directions and too dumb to care.
There are thousands of words for my mind when it's seething,
But I'll settle for one word, as long as it's “breathing.”

Doubts

When everyone doubts me, that's par for the course.
I dash their dark hopes with no shade of remorse,
But when I lead the doubt parade, I start to get tense.
Everything that I am hits the red RPMs.
I'm not calm trying things I don't know I can do,
But what can I do when I'm cool and I'm loose?
When I'm tense, tight and rigid, it keeps my mind here.
Nothing there is makes me stronger than fear.

Staying Close

Hatred is one way to get attached,
Staying close, staying ready for a grudge-match.
Some people saturate themselves in a place,
Head-butting brick walls in the service of change,
But not me.
I'm back to the place where things never felt wrong;
My ambition's to stay the one place I've belonged.

A Golden Ocean

She smiles me a mountain range, a pristine powder day.
Her hair's a golden ocean, shining purity in waves.
Her voice is like the songbird sings, so thoughtlessly in tune,
Her eyes a futurist's computer, fitting the whole world in a spoon,
Though none of these are signs that I have never seen before
In the ranks of people whose praises I'm not singing anymore.
I really don't think that she's worth the risk,
But I'm gonna get old if I don't take one quick.

The World Walks On

The world walks on around, day by day,
Like you did when you walked away,
Almost leisurely in turning everything.
There was no great crash, no thundering
End to the world–I only heard it behind my face.
It took no work to hide my private disgrace
Within the four walls of my mind, and of my home
So that when I am suffering, I'm sheltered; I'm alone.

Ten Years

It's ten years to the day since your voice was heard
In the last, breathless shout of snuffing it out.
and I've since sworn that no more
Will readers hear your life in my voice,
But I still hear your death in the wind's voice,
at least when I'm not listening.

A Starless Night

Fair early in a starless night
I walk 'neath black and bitter skies,
and Jack Frost numbs my long-healed sores–
Fights long-forgotten, little wars
Far bigger than my fights today,
Which start over the words I say
and progress no further thank in kind,
My taste for conflict long-declined.

Those lead me first to thoughts impure
Which soon a moment's smile cures.

Fifty Ways to Skin a Verse

You can sew up a sonnet, one line at a time.
You can frame up your argument and cover it in rhyme.
You can write yourself a paragraph, then trim off all the fat.
All poets know the sayings, like the one 'bout skinning cats.

There must be fifty ways to skin a verse.
The problem is choosing which bones to pick first.

I Am/Not

I am not a golden boy.
I am not my father's son.
I am not the sum of my credentials
Or the least of my achievements.

I am not out to get you.
I am not here for the party.
I am not saying this to upset you,
But we are who we're mistaken for,
Sooner or later.

My Friend of Misery

You taught me everything I know
About the kind of person who can go
A whole life as a leader
Without resorting to fear.

You taught me half of what I know
About sacrificing pieces of myself.
I twist the knife for my own goals,
Or pull it out to bleed for someone else.

Most of all, it was your teaching put to rest
The child's fears I had of death.
I don't keep those anymore,
Now that I know living is the true horror.

I carved your marks into my weak left side,
Notes even my mess of a life couldn't hide,
an unyielding, unhealing, technicolor scar.
I smile desperately to remember who you were.

First Impressions of the Third Kind

When we introduce ourselves to the aliens,
I hope we don't hold a press conference,
Or, worse, trot out trailers and a marketing campaign.

(HUMANS!
Coming Soon
To a theater near you!)

These means to power and production,
Where we spend our days and nights
Are available to anyone downwind of satellites.

Instead, I'd show them baseball, 'cause it's patient, 'cause it's whole,
'Cause we haven't yet forgotten all that's uselessbeautiful.

I Swear

I swear, I once lived colorfully,
and it dried onto me.
And it dried into me.

It shows on me, that I'm not new.
I can't whitewash; it just shows through.

To black it out, to block it out,
Hides the designs but not the doubts,

and the first time I get wet,
Scrape, break or bend,
Flecks of my past show through again.

Before I Close My Eyes

I set out last night,
Seeking a poet's odd prize,
The words I think, half-conscious
Before I close my eyes.
They are senseless and priceless,
Apparently unrecoverable,
Dreamily irredeemable,
Forever unpreserved.
They, like our grandfathers,
Have the misfortune of being born at the wrong time.

These Misshapen Masochist's Dreams

We all have those misshapen masochist's dreams,
Those brain-breaking, sleep-waking deaths born of fear,
Unbearable ruts of thought we worry quick and deep,
The conditions to the statement "if it happens, I'll just leave,"
Even if the place in question is the life we breathe and bleed.
The only thing that differs is the doomsday we believe,
and I'm learning the ultimate definition of sanity
Is as simple as thinking that the nightmare's not yet here.

Didn't Rule It Out

I never really wanted to meet you; I just didn't rule it out.
I never wanted to look at you the way I'm looking now.
I would never dare to ask you to be more than I expect,
Always dazzling with your eyes, your smile and your intellect.
I didn't need you to sway your sway, to waive just so with your waist
Or to make so many references and flaunt such impeccable taste.
I didn't ask you to jump every gate that I build before I've finished it,
But I didn't ask you to quit.

I Mean to Linger

We live in a world that can be explained scientifically
By some large, finite number of favored theories,
Some simple and elegant, like global rotation,
The Big Bang, evolution, or universal gravitation,
and some grow large in labyrinthine complexity,

But the world can be explained in all sorts of ways.

The world is a buffet,
and I mean to linger.