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.