On JL Abiyoso, Wednesday, Mar. 4

I've seen it on hangers, on rack upon rack—
What industrial culture would pass off as black.
Man can't torture in more than a pretty-dark gray,
Which at night can be seen from some distance away
Unless, by bad fortune, the power goes out.
Nature beats manufacture, with no contest or doubt.

To Past Gaffes Once Tethered; By Concussions Unfettered

You disappeared, and you left me your ravings.

You vanished and left me with thoughts of the grave.

You left me at least an egg-carton of doubting

and a Costco-sized grief to write poems about.

It's been months since I wrote about you. You're less searing.

Is a dozen a magical number of years

Or have I just found it convenient forgetting?

You call Freud; I'll call Kreskin; we'll settle the bet.

I once worried what forgetting would make me. I'm seeing

That for better or worse, there's one possible 'me.'

They're Made Out of Meat

I know that humans are complicated.

Only the ignorant think that can be debated.

What to make of seven billion machines

Made of—and powered by—proteins?

They must be divinely inspired

and intricately wired,

Patterned and pitted and damaged and dimpled,

But they have some misconceptions that are relatively simple.

Most people don't even know to understand

The difference between their human

and their person.

To understand my human, get a masters in biology.

To understand my person, you ↓ scroll down ↓ and you read.

To a 1979 Honda CG, pt. 2

My love reflects only what's best of the sun,
and could be productive, though she's here just for fun.
My love has been known to roar like a lion,
and to pull me up stairs, without even tryin'.
My valentine comes off half pretty, half mean;
Moves in wide, sweeping arcs—oh, I love how she leans.
She moves predator-fast.  Give an inch, she takes miles
Quick enough I get scared every once in a while,
and though Jomblo is thought a pejorative name,
"I fell hard for my Honda," I admit without shame.

The Lost Boy

I no longer chase girls ‘round the field with a stick.

I grow—get in too deep, then get over it quick.

I went urban, then small-town, then back to the crowd.

I wear noise cancellation and turn it up loud.

My mind changes sometimes, and yet somehow I know

I’ll play the same tunes I loved lifetimes ago

While clothes, romance, game consoles collect dust or rot.

The ear can etch stones Cupid’s arrow cannot.

Prophecy, Preserved in Stone at Age Fifteen

Roses lose petals.
Violets do, too.
I'll still listen to metal
When I'm a hundred and two.

To My Closest Unvalentine, Separated Only By Fifteen Years

I will never miss reacting, like a human, to the cry

Of idiot Emotion, and just barely asking why.

I don't relish being wrong, as when I thought that we were matched.

I don't miss those two months when you were gone and I attached.

I'll never miss the worries, or gut-flurries, or the game,

But if pressed, I will admit that I do miss your old last name.