The Practice of Self-Denial as a Substitute for Social Skills

I was struck by your beauty the first time we met;
Revelation, the second, that no closer we'd get.
My thoughts of you might often stray to that place,
So I buffer with hours--and three feet of space,
and I finish our chats, lay off light-hearted humor
Far before the worst gossip might start any rumor,
For relationships fish with a deepening hook.
You were taken, once; now you're especially took.
So it's not really you that I write to extol,
But my virtue and power of gross self-control.

To Strikeouts and Fourth Downs

I have the grip of a gorilla.

I won't give the ball away.

The punt's a big momentum-killer.

Pitching to contact's a mistake.

My first tries undershot the glorious,

But no matter where I land

I won't settle for vicarious.

I will live my life firsthand.

Bulking Up: an Increase in Weakness?

Oh folly, accident of birth!
That which I need is not of Earth,
and even less of human matter—
I've loved the first, but not the latter.
When I seek holiness or pray
All this meat gets in the way,
Though it's a fact that I've been thinner
and just as much (or more) a sinner.

Forty-Six Less 2, or My Ego’s Id

What happened the old me, the word-feast, the poet’s poet seed,

The feel-good, for-self’s-sake sower of stories?

What happened to the spiteless fighter of bias, the truthteller?

What happened to having nothing better to do but to do better?

How was he replaced by this, his bitter, cynical mimic

Who would search to scorch, excoriate, scourge from the earth

The least, littlest fleeting flake of genuine feeling?

Am I so fast to escape the fate of those whose delight is proved a lie

That I see the human species as polluters incapable of truth?

Are my ducts just in denial, or is my heart making bile?

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.