Springtime in Anywhere

Spring is freedom if you hate school. To me, it's being left

Socially and spiritually, intellectually bereft.

Though it's not a social matter, nor the people I miss most.

It's not surrounded (in Church or otherwise) that I've known the Holy Ghost.

I'm simply an animal that requires inspiration –

Intellectual stimulation–to long continue respiration.

At a time when excitement and nostalgia are in order

I come down with a reverse seasonal affective disorder.

If I'm not being creative, or at least academic,

Then I start getting depressive, or even just plain sick.

If I'm not writing or teaching with my life, then what am I doing?

I hate spring.

To an Ingenue with Nowhere to Go

It seems you can't go home again

For the risk of slipping on your solitude

and becoming mired in muddied memories.

It seems you can't go home again

While the sky cackles in triumph at your loss,

Raining in sheets to mock your mere drops,

Saying, “even your tears are nothing

To the rest of the world,” which has it all.

It only seems you can't go home again,

For Zeus profits nothing by your losses;

You were made in God's image, not Jupiter's.

You will breathe and live and love

Long after the thunderhead's cloudy countenance

Is a skull stained by rainbows, bleached white by sun.

God has the rest of the world, and has it all–

Even your back–

So go back.

Home is where the heart was,

and can find its way to be again.

Four Wheels Good, Two Wheels Better

Deciding how to please myself and my earth-mother,

I can't us'lly do both, and pick one or the other.

Always choosing between my wallet and my heart

Which, on sports ticket and employment, are miles apart,

I should unlearn my American training that bigger is better.

I don't want to drive a greenhouse in all this hot weather.

I solved all that with a cut back to two wheels, from four.

I opened the cage, freeing not just a solution, but more.

I don't need to grow wings and a tail, since I've learned

About tucks, wind resistance, and banking my turns.

I've always wanted to, and thought I wouldn't, go through with it,

and now, having started, I don't want to quit.

Countdown to Sunday/Fuzzy Math/Eight Ways a Week

Half-Satisfied/Half-Displeased

No surprise modern life leaves so many confused.

The world can't even agree on the right attitude

A person should take toward their hobbies or work.

You're either too negative or an arrogant jerk.

If I won't be my own fan, why would anyone else.

If I'm not my own worst critic, aren't I deluding myself?

The so-called healthy attitude is to try

Keeping the world close to half-satisfied

But I hold more closely with those who believe

It's much simpler to fool folks than trying to please.

Deliberate Conformity and Inevitable Nonconformity

Governing two decades of life by two rules:

Better contentment than accomplishment, accomplishment than cool,

and if you can't get better or get even, just get out

Leads to roadbeds of resistance and uncounted gravel doubts.

It's not just road less traveled; it's road not even paved,

But these rules my life both guided and improved, and even saved,

and thought it's prone to washboard and it's potholed with regret,

The former keeps me wide awake; the rest ain't stopped me yet.

Poorly Planned

I'm sure that same gameplan has served you for years,

Getting by on inconsistency, bailed out by tears,

But I've got a defense like you ain't seen before.

It might have worked then, but it won't anymore.

You need to learn when to go for it, when to punt.

You ran a draw on third and twenty.  You ain't getting what you want

For the first time, left tongue-still and mouth-agape.

Good luck next time.  I'm already studying tape.

Eleven Minutes on a New Motorcycle

The first ten minutes are for butterflies and shifting in the seat,

For fluttering, thumb-fingered hands and left feet,

For trying to figure out where all the controls are

Without turning all that hardware into modern sculpture,

and after that, it's either transportation, or it's love.

When 20/20 Is Almost Good Enough

I know that I should take this like a man, as if I'm grown.

I know that in the pain of loneliness, I'm nowhere near alone.

I know the other side of being dumped ain't strolling in the park.

I know we're walking separately the same great valley dark.

I know that you are taking this at least as hard as me.

Last time we met, t'was in your face, unhid, quite plain to see.

I know. I get the gist, but I can't even say too bad

Because I'm glad.

When 20/20 Isn't Good Enough

I know this ain't an end that you were charting from the start.

I know you anted up your sweat and tears, your blood, your beating heart.

I know you don't do this to torture me–it's not for me, at all.

I know that learning how to ride is half learning to fall.

I know ten years from now, I will remember this and laugh,

and knowing me, I doubt it will take ten, or even half.

I know these things. I do. I get the gist. I'm well aware,

and I don't care.

Campaign-Sign Slalom

Your ambitions, your attempts at getting underway

At getting into power, at getting in the way

Are, in the last matter, already making hay.

You, as your kind is wont to be, are already a pain.

So I cannot help but find the mirth in seeing your campaign

Toppled by ordinary wind and ordinary rain.