Cooking Accident #1099

I cannot help but notice

Even from the very moment

That the knife hits.

Then it bites, and then sinks

Into my flesh,

Time moving at its very slowest.

My reaction, of course, is far too late,

and then disturbingly deliberate.

After all, this is not the first time.

Green (Kids Poem for Teaching)

There are green watches and green clocks,

Green mountains and green rocks.

There are green t-shirts and green pants.

I have never heard of green ants.

There are green trees and green grass.

Church windows have green glass.

Leaves are green, and so are mangoes.

On green floors, green shoes do tangos.

In my country they say that money is green,

and they say that you can't beat it,

But if your food turns green, well, then,

It's better you don't eat it.

What Do I Wear? (Kids Poem for Teaching)

The girl's school student wears a skirt because that is the rule.

The artist wears a T-shirt because he says it's cool.

The businessman wears trousers to his meeting in the city.

The lady wears a dress because it makes her look so pretty.

The basketball player wears basketball shorts to play a basketball game,

and every good kid wears a coat to go out in the rain.

The Unheeded Landlord

It's the thing that makes my output seem lazy.

It's the thing that makes me hope there's no such thing

As psychics or psychic phenomena,

Because I wouldn't want anyone to hear.

It's the thing that makes my eccentricities seem usual.

It's the infestation. It's the worm.

It's that phrase that cannot exist outside my head

and will not cease to exist inside it.

I want it gone by morning.

Same Question, Different Answers

You follow me around like my red ink,

From sink to work and back to sink.

You are the person who taught me to think

That it's not nearly enough to be friends.

You are my answer to every question

That every poet hates to love asking.

I am the face on the back of the milk carton.

I am the face in front of you in line.

I am your future, arriving now at last,

But you're quick to settle for your past.

Territories of Self

I suddenly find my eyes confronted

(Because all looking is a confrontation

and men and women merely contestants)

By five thousand sides,

By all the shadows and shapes

That used to be, and are now only remembered

In this two-dimensional state.

It takes my eyes a thousand different places.

It takes my mind a thousand different places,

But I have no idea what it means.

Are You Experienced?

If Jimmy had been asking me, I would have answered “yes,”

Though were Jimmy anything like you, he'd shout 'till I confessed

That my experience is not all mine, and I'll not hide that's true.

Yes, some of it is borrowed. (Yes, and some of it is blue.)

The secondhand experience just supplements my own,

As one learns from others while at school, and from oneself at home.

I gaze selfish upon my own life; on others differently.

Since I've both lived and listened, oh, how much more have I seen!