The Television

The television tells all of us lies,
Repeats just a few important ones.
By the time we are half-grown,
At least enough to reach the power button,
We already know those lies as mantras.
I have been all my life lying to myself,
Saying that my life has a destination.

Life tells all of us truths,
Repeats just a few important ones.
By the time we are full-grown,
We're almost ready to admit knowing them.
(We'll never be ready to admit knowing them.)
I am a hard man to lie to,
Which is why sometimes, I just look for the end.

Lying to You, Pt. 3

You said I was brilliant, and even a find.

You were not slow in praising my rational mind,

But were equally quick in insisting I should

Subscribe to the worst lies in all Hollywood,

A narrative unchanged in two hundred years

In which I am loyal without wait or fear.

Instead of an interest that builds up to trust

You were insistent that your boyfriend must

Live at once for one woman, and no other “her,”

Who is not even you, but who you wish you were.

You say that few things are as sexy as truth,

But you only reward me for lying to you.

Lying to You, Pt. 2

What the voters see on the shelves, it looks great,

and in this store, like others, you don't have to pay.

The government's Mastercard's bigger than yours,

But paying it off? That's what voters deplore.

Asking them to make payments gets us voted out.

Even thinking to mention it leads them to shout.

The late King of Camelot didn't see things this way.

He was honest about it, and noted to say

That you must serve your country before it serves you.

The public was listening. What did they do?

The cheered and paraded–and killed the man dead.

It's not even certain whose shot pierced his head.

We're the butt of your jokes when we don't tell the truth,

But the way to get in is by lying to you.

Lying to You, Pt. 1

Your chocolate went missing, the brown on my face

Good for one week of grounding, one minute's disgrace.

Your pudding went missing and never was found.

You assumed it was me; one more week on the ground.

I've made selfish choices and clumsy mistakes,

and you've said I should tell you before it's too late,

But whether it's accidents, candy or toys,

It all costs the same: quiet after loud noise.

I never did homework, and sometimes you asked,

But there's no heading it off when it brings the same wrath

As when you find out at the end of the term,

Right down to asking why I never learn.

You make a good show of demanding the truth.

You taught me I'm better off lying to you.

Spring in Montana, Pt. 7: Odes to Spring

I wonder why my schoolfellows write odes to spring,
The season of leaving,
This one-way entrance door to four months of not seeing,
The time to leave behind thinking,
The time to be intellectually stagnant,
When I put the pursuit of happiness
On hold for the pursuit of cash,

But then I watch a baseball game
Wrapped in the evening sun's embrace
and the breeze's cool caress,
and I wonder why I haven't.

Too Late

The dearly departed are too late to forgive,

But perhaps the living have done wrong in their mourning.

Mother's comfort in youth seems a warning:

If the dead look down on us from above,

They'd see a whole life's worth of lives, full of

Broken hearts hemorrhaging archived love.

If my friends kept their eyes

After they lost their lives,

Then I should apologize.

The Gift of Life

The gift of life has ten thousand million faces.

The gift of life is given in all sorts of different places–

In the handrail we grab before we fall,

To both young and old in the hospital,

At the intersections in the midst of the street,

At the end of the budget where there's just enough to eat,

In storms that veer away from the peak that you climbed.

The gift of life's given more than one time.

Birth is just the start of it.

Birth is just the least of it.

Anything Else

I always rush, because I shirk.

I cannot look for work and work.

I think money is a sham,

Yet I keep wary for a scam.

I think I can only be who I am,

Because anything else makes my brain hurt.

Three Degrees of Separation

The two seats, the three degrees of separation,

The four floor tiles between us

Are a quicksilver ocean, thick and alluring

and stupefying.

I spend hours imagining that it isn't there

From the comfort of desire.

I've had this side to myself for so long

That if you cross the gulf

I won't know whether to treat it as an invasion

Or an open house.

Graduation Day

If you told me that in eleven days,

Fourteen hours and nine minutes

The world is going to end,

I might not argue with you.

I do know that in eleven days,

Fourteen hours and nine minutes

Something is going to end,

Something I like enough not to think

That I've grown too used to it,

But I have grown used to it.

I don't know how to welcome leaving.

I only think I know what to do,

But it's about time I wrote another good beginning.

The Visceral Joy of the Pessimist

My favorite thing about humanity

Is that if you bury expectations deep enough,

Someone will eventually climb up to them,

Though they will only squat there

and never stake a claim.

It is up to you to fence your expectations.

It is up to you to harvest their fruit.

Dig deep into the soil.

Boil the roots of validation.

It tastes like blood and bitter laughter.

It tastes just like I thought it would.

The Visceral Joy of the Nihilist

You can never know how I crave

The red light,

How I treasure minutes alone

When my ears ring in silence,

When my eyes drown in the darkness,

When I stand straight to keep from falling,

When I think in fast forward

To hold myself up on the very edge

Of sleep's unknowable oblivion,

When I hardly even have to imagine

That the world has come to a complete stop.

You can never know how I dread

The green light.

It would frighten me, too, if I still cared.

The Visceral Joy of the Hater

I tear, take to the film with my teeth,

and in my fiery tongue I enwreathe

The smooth and the holes of its silvery sands

As I demean and devour another man's

Creative vision.

This Is Fiction

They came from above,

Or at least from higher than us.

The took us to their leader.

They told us to stand here.

They told us to sit there.

They told us to eat this.

They told us to wear that.

They took music most human,

and gave us numbers, good for counting.

They took all of our natural arrangements for words,

and gave us back just one.

They produced people

Made for manufacturing money.

K.A. Applegate (and maybe Calvin)

Warned me about the brain-stealing aliens.

Shame on me for thinking this is fiction.

Intention/Accidents

Tradition is repetition and reunion.
Tradition is food and family and friends.
Tradition is intention applied to happy accidents,
and, like everything, probably better with ice cream.

English Class Dance

At English class dance those who literature founded.

How come Odysseus can go but Coyote is grounded?

Austen and the Bronte sisters romance codified,

But their endings tell young readers all the most bewitching lies,

Far more unbelievable than tales of Sherlock Holmes,

Which are themselves the basis of so many modern tomes.

The Back of My Hand

I tested you.

(I put the back of my hand

To the door of your heart.

I felt nothing, which was comforting,

Familiar enough to draw me inside.

In the dark of your heart,

I heard only the sound of one mind praying,

and the rustling of my clothes.)

I learned that we are birds of a feather;

We would be imperfect together.

Twenty-Fifteen Eyes

She has twenty-fifteen eyes,

An Ivy-League mind,

and runs a five-minute mile,

But her first friendly gesture,

Made even in the dead of winter

Can't help calling to mind

Lemonade and sunny skies,

An apple tree's underside,

and campfire tales of the unknown–

In short, all the sweet comforts of home.

I Never Finish Writing

I type to write to finish,

Fumble-fingers flashing furiously.

I never finish writing.

I like to count up the words and the lines,

Write another one from the other side

To point out my poet's little lies,

Or just look at the stanzas from far away,

Tracing their shapes.

They're like children, really.

They grow in ways that I don't notice 'til later.

Appeals to Some Sort

Our metaphors are all appeals

To some sort of softer daredevil,

All this fire and burning,

All the falls, the diving in,

The little deaths and the drowning in your depths.

We are skydivers all,

In love with the fall,

But impatient with those who talk about the landing.

Years of Descriptions

Your hair is the gold of sun-soaked straw,

and also seems as thick and straight.

Strange, that it would stay in place, to frame your face.

Your eyes are so watery blue I fear that they will run,

Perhaps come at me in waves.

You have the skin of an apple, colored by months of sun,

and industriously smoothed, waxed, en masse.

Your lips, too, are appleish, especially in their redness,

and also their heart shape, set off from your face

With what looks like a drawn line, remarkably defined.

You are years of descriptions of beauty, enlightened,

and you are frightening.

Write Brained

I am my highest points,

The dedication to pick up the pen

Fifteen hundred times.

I am my rockless bottoms,

The friends I should have stood by,

The things I should have done.

I am the thankful condensation

In the handfuls of cold air I breathe

and I am the visceral joy that wells up

In my darkest fantasies.

I am the facts I remember

Off the top of my head.

I am the scent that seeps

Out of my shoes.

I am write brained,

The poet to be named later.

Safety Network

Alone, you might pull me someplace lively.

A pair of you might intertwine delightfully,

Or go to different lengths to disagree,

But all of you together cross and follow

and meet at a thousand snowflake corners.

You are my safety network.

I can't imagine life without you.

Professional Ethics

The poet's professional ethics

Are surprisingly easy to read:

I will only write what I believe

Unless something amuses me,

But if I'm true to them today,

I fear they'll take my pen away,

Telling the world it's to keep me safe–

They thought I would cut myself with it.

Price/Sacrifice

Everything we make has a price,

Every moment's decision a sacrifice.

A poet is never a suitable friend.

The writing brings star-eyed beginnings dark ends.

Muses do not like it when you make your business public.

They can read and they can think, and maybe not what you think of it.

I have elevated my discourse.

I have risen through the ranks,

But who have I stepped over?

How did I really get here?

Birthdays Plus Christmases

Birthdays plus Christmases

Times twenty and too-many years

Times how many relations?

Equals more gifts than I can

Remember for-getting.

How many of my things

Shoved into corners–

Other people's thoughts uncounted,

Fallen by the wayside?

First Kiss

I think I knew, even then,

That you meant nothing by it,

That you meant nothing,

That your enthusiasm was half-genuine,

and all for the game.

Nevertheless, all my fantasies still form

In the shape of your lips.

Someone

You said you need someone who's kind of a nerd.

Message heard.

You seem to want to be with someone fun.

Could be done.

I know you're looking for someone old-fashioned.

I'll raise my hand.

My problem is that you demand someone good,

and I can't change the past of my present.

But I wish I could.

Appearances

We all give so much power to the patterns in our eyes.

Use just one of your senses and it's sure to tell you lies.

Yours could be destructive; you look just like an ex,

Or maybe disappointing; you look like a student, one of my best,

But I'm not just gonna assume you'll confound me,

Nor am I gonna demand you astound me.

I suppose it's still possible that appearances will deceive me,

But I won't make it easy.

He Loves Me/He Loves Me Not

She's pulled the petals off of every flower

That anyone ever gave her,

To find out how men felt about her,

So I gave her two dozen.

I still don't know how this game will end,

But at least it will last a while.

An Incomplete List of Incomplete Lists

An incomplete list of things that I am:

Writing,

A writer,

A fifth-rate poet,

Pretending to be a fourth-rate poet,

On my way to becoming a teacher,

On my way to becoming repetitive,

On my way past remotely funny,

At a world-record rate of speed.

An incomplete list of things I am not:

Ready for bed,

Ready for this,

Ready to quit,

Waiting for you,

Waiting for Godot,

Waiting on somebody already,

Waiting in the lobby,

A patient in the lobby,

Patient,

Alright,

Sane,

Done.

About Amanda

The thing you need to understand about Amanda...

Okay, I won't lie to you. There is no understanding her.

The thing you need to keep in mind about Amanda

Is that she was once as normal as you and...other normal people.

Then one day, she just woke up and said “I wanna be interesting.”

The implications are astounding.

The thing you need to know about Amanda

Is that most of us are built to be workers and husbands and mothers.

In a race of conveyor-belt people, Amanda would be an eagle.

She soared so high that she made herself invisible–

The one true kind of beautiful.

The thing you need to remember about Amanda

Is that no matter how long she's been gone,

There are some of us who will never forget her.

A Hammer

When all you have is a hammer,

Everything starts to look like a nail,

But if all you are is a hammer,

Your strategic vision is irrelevant,

and it's hard to peer up the chain of command

For a lack of innovation.

I Never Noticed

I never noticed that I spend my days

Eating what's ready-to-microwave,

Teaching what comes already planned,

Writing what's so formulaic it should be banned,

and listening to pre-made rhyme, melody and meaning.

This is the first time I noticed all the packaging.

Thirty Thousand Stories

I tell thirty thousand stories; on facebook, have three hundred friends.

I have a whole load of experience with less-than-ideal ends.

I've known that I can't stay here, and sometimes that knowledge burns,

But I sooth it knowing you're a friend worth leaving on good terms.

Negative First Impressions

Sometimes, by happenstance

You might meet someone who never had a chance

To impress you

Because someone else told you something that distressed you.

Friends' evidence

Is an inevitable influence,

But meeting someone

Doesn't at least complicate your opinion,

You're a negligent human being.

The Perfect Song

Tastes change, ever so slowly,

But not so with life, or minds.

I can never find the perfect song.

It's always just out of reach.

As a DJ, I'm always one moment behind.

I can never find the perfect song,

But I know that it's out there.

I've heard it before.

Pushed into this desire by the last,

I can never find the perfect song,

But even if it's not in my collection,

I have it in the back of my mind.

The Advice I Hope They Give Me Every Time I Graduate, Pt. 1

I miss the people I used to know,

But not enough to miss those present.

I miss the places I used to go,

But I will probably never go back.

I am sorry for the mistakes I made,

But not so sorry that I won't make twice as many more.

I do not want to dry up.

I do not want to die.

I just want to learn to live right.

In This Ironic World

Every youthful mistake I made in this ironic world,

Which I recognized and was unprepared for,

Was because I wanted too much and did not strive for more,

Because I was too focused on myself, and not introspective enough,

Because I was too focused on strength to be tough,

But someday, every old man's mistake that I will make

Will be because I was unwilling or unprepared to take

The risk of being youthful.

Pinwheel

You glisten in the summer sun,

But I kept you in the dark too much, for too long.

You go where the wind blows,

But you stayed while I held you.

To know you is multifaceted,

A simple pleasure.

You are my pinwheel,

An acquaintance of childhood

I had to become a man to appreciate.

One Apology, Sincere, Hold the Repentance

I'm sorry for what I did, whatever that might be.

I'm sorry for the way I talk, the way I made you feel.

I'm sorry for being me,

Though I'm glad as hell of it most of the time.

I'm sorry I rhyme,

and I admit that it's unlikely that I'll ever want to change,

But I am sorry just the same.

Of a Song Last Heard Ten Years Ago

It is an anthem for a life I'd hate to live,

Curmudgeon that I am.

It was never relevant to my life,

Divergent before I even chose a direction.

Its rhymes are slanted, stunted and cliched,

All at the same time.

It was an uninspired track,

Outmoded before it even dropped.

It has taken up residence in my head,

and I haven't a thought of evicting it.

I Was Born Without

It seems that I was born without a fear of being late.

I put my whole soul into it when I procrastinate.

I started waiting just in time, for I could take no more,

and just in time, I've been reminded what I'm working for.

Blue-Gray

It's too early tell the blue-gray clouds from the blue-gray sky,

Though I keep asking how, because I can't ask why.

To throw away this day, this life-crumb, would be rude

So I'll contain myself to saying it's too bad it fits my mood.

Thank You

I've said “thank you” for life in so many ways

Over ten thousand, one hundred forty-six days.

I've said “thanks” with my fists and my feet

When I walk the earth, when I fight and compete.

I say “thanks” with my mouth and my head,

Turning out words enough to draw nods from the dead.

I've said “thanks” with my stomach and my knees

When I examine things closely, or make them part of me.

I say “thanks” with unquenchable eyes

When I run them aggressively over the skies.

I wonder why I can say “thanks” with all my parts

Except my heart.

You Can Be/But It Will

You can be smarter in the long run,

But it will cost you in the short term.

You can make your voice heard,

But it will cost you hours of practice.

You can see past life's distractions,

But it may cost you your sanity.

You can have utter clarity,

If you're willing to be misunderstood.

You can be exceptional.

The price is everything normal,

Plus wondering why you're different.

You can be ordinary,

The price is everything extraordinary,

Plus to think always of price and never of value.