Weapon of Choice

It might be some silly tradition you've had

Since you were four years young.

It might be a vice that you know you should quit,

Which makes it twice as fun.

It might be friends you don't deserve

Who let you talk too long,

Or some catchy, third-rate, number-twenty,

Upbeat little song

That came out seven years ago

and you just heard it now.

It only matters that you fight back.

I don't think it matters how.

Lighter Than Air

The way you walk makes the dragonflies stare.

The words you exhale come out lighter than air.

The gears of your mind whirr by too fast to see

Why you'd flirt with a ground-bound man-mound like me.

I tried to follow you, but the winds just weren't right,

and you sailed a thousand miles with one step into the night.

A Woman

A woman I rejoiced in meeting

Brings more with a familiar greeting,

But though I laud, her folks lament;

They wonder where their young girl went.

I find it backward, bitter how

They hardly see the her of now,

But girl-her's not gone anywhere;

In summer growth, spring's seed's still there.

Only Nature

Some say, in quiet, nature hums.
It's their excuse to play their drums.
Deep in the throes of tie-die dreams
They talk of nature's harmony.

The only nature I know is
A place no hippie's fit to live,
A place that's red in tooth and claw
'Neath anarchy of Darwin's law,
A place of stingers, spikes and thorns,
Where all from man to ant make war.

Unconsidered Words

Nothing tastes more disgusting

Than my own unconsidered words,

Reductive, repugnant, ridiculous,

Regretted the second before they left me.

Nothing tastes more delicious

Than my own unconsidered words,

Unregretted, unrepentant, unrestrained,

Unchained in pursuing my own passion.

They're only words, after all, only symbols

Which lose strength as they ripple.

The Alchemical Properties of a Seating Chart

In the wrong hands, a seating chart is the philosopher's stone,

Capable of turning an actor, an athlete, an artist,

A future father of three distinct daughters

Into “the one who sits in the middle of the third row.”

Struggling Writers

I have made my peace with subjects and predicates,

With message and purpose and audience,

With phrases and clauses and serial commas.

What I'm fighting is the pejorative use of the term "struggling writer."

All writing is grappling with a language; no writer will ever pin it down.

The only truly failing writer is the one who stops struggling.