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.

Sympathy and Empathy Have Empty, Shortened Memories

I know they’re in a better place.

I know there is a plan.

If we talked about this down the road,

I’m sure I’d understand.

When talking from the outside,

There’s an insight you don’t see

If my friends are in a better place,

Then were does that leave me?

In Horseshoes and Hand Grenades (an Incomplete List of Things That Don't Count)

Books whose covers say “Patterson,” reviews say “gripping;”

Stumbles that are only lurches, no tripping;

Rains I can't hear, except for from the roof dripping;

Bands that don't play music, 'cause I can only stand the drumming;

Singers who don't sing with words, but only scat and humming,

and breakups that I saw because they took so long in coming.

Moving Too Fast For Titles

I have a self-mocking confidence.
I do still aspire to competence,

Some of the time.

I can’t help but acknowledge a physical decline.
I can’t bring myself to the same, of the mind,
So when the earth and the circumstances align,
I ride, nearly run, past concern and lost time.
My heart rate, my breathing, my passions all climb.
My production, my intellect, respond in kind.
All in all, and in short, I come on too fast,

and I’m afraid I took all the fun out of it.