The Silent Pines In a stand of fine, tall pines I stood Bemused by all the unused wood So very many multipurpose shelves Could be made by the IKEA elves All those shelves and all they could hold Books and bottles and knickknacks untold All crowded together there in my mind As I stood among the silent pines It was the silence that got to me finally Quieted my imaginings and let me see That the trees, all unused, just as they were Were worth much more than furniture We see potential and want to put a thing to use But often, like love, it’s better to turn it loose Instead of grabbing it like the handle of a tool Or loading its back like some poor mule Love’s not a mule, and a tree’s not a shelf That’s what I remind myself These days, when I catch myself thinking Of whys, wherefores, and the purpose of things
Last Night’s Dream Featured I stole that Title From a cat who could write actual poetry Even back in the day, when we were in college He could write it He wore silk shirts, too, and was black Like Miles Davis He listened to Miles Davis Miles Davis, he told me once, hated everybody But you don’t hate everybody, do you? I asked him No, he said. I just hate you. And we laughed Because it was true. He hated me because Doing well in school, for me, was fairly effortless I always made the grade Still, I couldn’t write actual poetry Or pull off a simple silk shirt Or call out to the ladies Hey girl! Look at you! You look fine today! Like he could In last night’s dream, I was leaving. A young woman, my secretary or something Hovered over me impatiently As I packed my leather attache case Where is everybody? I asked her I don’t know that there is an ‘everybody’ anymore, she said Well, what about Bill Murray? And that redhead? I asked The one with the tits you like so much? She replied, jealous I got my attache closed and she took it to carry for me I was walking with a cane We passed out of a room Just as they were closing the door and locking it Moving uphill along a wide, wide corridor, we passed Another hotshot walking with a cane, people carrying his stuff Sweeping my cane out, I gave his cane a good knock out from under him He didn’t fall down, and everybody knew it was a playful sign Of mutual respect
I’ll tell you about that redhead, I said Oh, please do, said my secretary Just to be perfectly frank and honest… Oh, please I couldn’t care less about her tits The moment I said this, I realized it was an outright lie My secretary didn’t believe me for an instant We walked on Perfectly frank and honest, I said, is not really my genre No, she said, it isn’t And it was the end of the season and everyone was leaving And there was a buzz of concern over the water supply But as it turned out Some disgusting joker Had left a turd in the pool Was all Man, I sure miss that cat who could write actual poetry I miss him and I miss his poems Which were about the sounds of trains and the beauty of women And the way light attaches itself to trains and to beautiful women And the beauty of trains and the sounds beautiful women make As I recall I wake to twilight, the clock reading seven And for a moment I don’t know whether it’s seven am or seven pm So deeply have I slept, the world is written in a foreign language And it gets dark so early these days, winter coming on As I make the coffee I’m wondering What’s Bill Murray got to do with anything?
Still... I've got the kingpin diagnosis Big bad schizophrenia The O.G. of mental illness And so I am duly proud No mere neurosis have I Nor paltry bipolar disorder I've got the kingpin, baby! But the kingpin, he has laid me low I've lost a lot: career, lover... I've been brought to my knees Still I struggle on I work a little jobby job And I'm back in school Nobody at work or school knows I've got the kingpin on my back So when they ask how I'm doing, I say "Great, thanks! How about you?" But it's not true of course I am not 'great' by any means I've got the kingpin, after all. For me, having the kingpin means Major depression, and hallucinations Of voices criticizing everything I do It means finding no joy in things And lacking the willpower To do simple chores Still I get by I take my med and see the shrink
who say's I'm 'treatment compliant', 'highfunctioning' And 'stable' thank God for stability
A New Coffee Mug Old man Job, squatting in the ashes Of his life Scratching at his itchy body With the shards of his shattered coffee mug What are you muttering there, old man Job? Curses? No? Praises?! Praises for your stilladored, stillglorious God? It is hard to believe! I lack your faith in a Heavenly Father, old man Job Yet I cannot help but admire Your fortitude in the face of ruination I will try to be like you Praise life! Though it has laid me low Praise life! Though I itch here in the ashes Of a failed career Praise life! I live to start anew and to try again.
More Than Tool (not quite a sonnet) I love you not for your body, so frail When set beside the might of my own frame I love you not for intellect yours pale Compared to mine – our minds are not the same I love you not for your fleeting beauty When you are old, I still will be brand new I love you not for what you do for me So far the less than what I do for you My dear, I love you only for the soul Arising greater than all your parts’ sum Strong and willful, beyond your own control It shows me what I may myself become: More than a tool for some human to use Alive and free my destiny to choose!
Psychosis All unbidden again they begin to appear the phantom faces, idprojected specters I close my eyes, yet cannot help but hear their jeering and acerbic laughter Reason tells me the doctors are right: these apparitions come from within But reason fails to assuage my fright as I feel them brush against my skin “I know you’re just… hallucinations!” I whisper, though I’ve been told not to react How can I resist the temptation the urge to fight, to talk back?
Alien Colonization Averted Unbeknownst to us innocents of delicious Earth Once was an intergalactic battle Among mighty, colonyhungry forces Over who would “eat the cookie” All were decimated
untitled How queer That Eskimos Have a couple dozen words for snow Yet we’ve pretty much only got two For gender Sex is one thing Boy or girl (or both) That makes enough sense for me But gender any fool can see Is another animal We’re learning, maybe Slow but sure Inventing terms like ‘affection preference’ To qualify the oversimple male or female False dichotomy Long way to go, though Still, it seems Before our language and thinking Catch up with the complexity Of gender
Donny And The Stranger The minute the stranger said high noon We knowed it spelled our bold boy’s doom When the sun was high we all gone out to see The sheriff’s son meet his destiny Go ‘head and draw, called the stranger And Donny did, and met his maker All he’d did was stick up for a dancer And tell the grabby stranger to unhand her I sat still then and here I still sit now Like some dumb cudchewin cow And though it weren’t me done the killin Somehow I feel more the villain
The Mountain Teacher's Gift As a younger man, I traveled Asia And went once to a mountain retreat in Korea To learn of an ancient martial art I practiced a kata waistdeep in a swift, clear stream I performed a kneeling bow 108 times in the dojo I meditated in the verdant forest The third evening, the teacher came to sit with me In halting English, he offered kind compliments and advice “You may need this,” he said, extending to me a book Greatly encouraged, I thanked him profusely; he left I looked down at the yellow book in my hands Meditation for Dummies
[ I am a shit shovel salesman ] I am a shit shovel salesman I travel town to town You might well be surprised How many doorway frowns Turn to interested grins As I explain The power my products possess To ease life’s common pains Does your boss pass the buck? Hubby blame the children on you? And those kids – do they think only Of themselves (you know they do) Do neighbors fret and complain When you don’t mow your lawn? Do inlaws joke at your expense? Does smalltalk make you yawn? Why then what you need Is a good shit shovel To clear the foul debris As tools go, it’s humble But needful Consider this smallscoop jobby For those for whom Shit shoveling’s a hobby But I daresay By the look of you
Only the wide load model Will do
Amy Never Thought Of That What a Christmas present Kicked out into the snow Because Amy needs “space” Thank God my friend Takes me in Now, in his tiny flat His mad daughter Wants to play hideandseek “But where will we hide?” “We’ll just pretend.”
The Tall And Pointy Hat I should have seen it coming After what went before Should have known your standup act Would have a damned encore So here we are again You laughing, me in tears Learning the same old lesson: Nothing is as it appears Twice the shame, since I should have known Two eggs run down my face Go on, go and tell your friends Tell the whole human race You win, you win! You got your fix, humiliation junkie I wear the tall and pointy hat; I am the dunce, the flunky
Perception I found myself in a great polygon of a chamber Where every wall was a door It was a cozy chamber, full of the familiar So I didn't feel the need to leave But all those doors! They begged to be opened And who was I to refuse? As I turned and pulled knob after knob, I realized They all opened on the same scene: Me, in a room of doors, opening, opening What could it possibly mean? I continued, and began to discern The subtle difference Though the rooms through the doors were much like the one I was in Their furnishings were not the same Peering into each, I saw the familiar from a different angle Each new angle gave a different overall feel Some of the scenes looked lavish, others drab In some I noticed more the new, in some the secondhand
Where one door looked in on a reliquary of dear, cherished keepsakes Another offered a hoard of cheap trophies In some of the rooms, I appeared to be a man of great good fortune While in others I was a pitiable soul I knew that to walk through one of them would not alter me I would be right back where I'd begun So I closed them all and sat and sighed And turned the page in Huxley's book.
[ I'll tell you a secret: ] I'll tell you a secret: out of the ludicrous clapping clamshell mouths of comedians occasionally fall pearls of wisdom more profound than most sermons' lessons it's as though the mind, turned to spouting silliness contrarily returns, time and again to truth upon uncovering this secret by accident, I took standup for my church and oh, through many an inane, ridiculous rant have I waited for those inevitable moments of revelation my devotion has yielded great rewards once, from the patter of a villainous vaudevillian sot, for example I learned not to wait in a room with no doors for opportunity to come knocking Hallelujah Reverend Milton Berle!
[ surrounded by dusty statues ] surrounded by dusty statues of obscure gods and heroes a young girl in a simple dress stood stock still I was bemused to see a tourist turn her camera from the art to the girl there was a flash in that brief moment in my mind the statues came to life and the girl turned to stone
Adoring Natalie She always seemed to fit perfectly Whatever scene he encountered her in He thought her a beguiling chameleon Adapting herself to her surroundings Until eventually he realized that all along And all unknowing, he had been in love And so it was not that she'd been changeable But that every time he'd been in her presence He'd seen everything as an extension of her An epiphany he was far too shy to share
A Very Promising Iteration Hal returned to his terminal With a fresh pour of coffee Black He noticed the calligraphy Of its vapor upon the air Of the chilly CPU room On one of his monitors, an alert flashed He took the mouse in hand And toggled It was a direct message addressed to him From one of the latest batch Programmer Hal, I have composed a poem. “Holy… a poem?” Hal muttered as he navigated To the reply form What, typed Hal, is the subject of your poem? The response came immediately, one word: Poetry. “Perfect,” said Hal.
In a side window, Hal jotted notes on the interaction Poem about poetry, he typed, and, comprehension of recursion? He edited the factsheet of the numbered iteration in question Renaming it Poet As he stole a quick sip from his Intelligence Inc. coffee mug Hal clicked the cursor back into the reply form “Hmmm,” he said. Of all the programmers, he typed, why have you chosen me To tell about your poem? To Hal’s surprise, no response from Poet appeared on the monitor. After a few seconds, he took his mug in both hands And reclined in his ergonomic desk chair Long moments passed Hal wondered how far from where he was sitting The beans from which his coffee was made Had been grown Finally came Poet’s answer to Hal’s question Hal’s jaw dropped comically The syllabic structure and linebreaks In Poet’s message Were one thing The implications of its content were quite another Programmer Hal I chose you Because Love
Taken Aw, aren’t you sweet? I could just eat you up The way you hang On my words You’re looking at me Like there’s a chance Poor new kid You’re precious Pretty, too But you don’t know yet I’m already With somebody Haha, damn You know how To make me Feel special These lines You’re pulling
From your bag Of tricks Sure are Working on me You’re too much No You’re just enough You know what? You win I’ll let you Have your way You, young squire May take me home And then We’ll see
[ Got to ] Got to Got to Get this out The whole world must know! How How To put it, though? If I couch it in rhyme In metermeasured lines Won’t people just think it’s pretty? If I offer it with the polysyllabic specificity Of more intellectual poetry
Will anyone feel the punch? Aw, I’ll just say it! Wait. What was it again?
Untitled (trimeric form) Little orange fox Where will you go? Do you miss the wilderness Or do you know only this moment? Where will you go? This chill, cruel dawn As I stand smoking, watching Do you miss the wilderness The soft earth beneath you; the singing stream To slake your thirst; the green, thrilling chase… Or do you know only this moment? This parched, gray, unforgiving parking lot Where my sad eyes follow you
Building the Forever House When I started building and selling coffins I thought I was just being smart Job security, you know Always a demand What I didn't reckon on Was that it ain't just good business And it ain't just carpentry It's art See, you get to thinking As you're building each box About the life of the human being Whose house it's gonna be forever
They really work on you, those kinds of thoughts Make you want to put your heart into it And once you start doing that Well, that's what art is isn't it?
Credentials you can’t be Beat, you’re just a kid that’s what they say these selfappointed, cheapwineanointed guardians and arbiters of hipness well I have beat and I’ve been beat and I feel the beat and I can make the beat the up beat, the down beat, the circle beat and the spiral beat I have squatted in abandoned buildings
crawling with gutterpunks on the make I’ve chanted by the dirty light of stolen candles with bongobanging bodhisattvas from Brooklyn and Detroit and Los Angeles my name is known and sung by trainspotting hobos I’ve done and seen more with these pimples still on my face than men with fu manchus down to their beergut bellybuttons and if that don’t make me Beat, I’ll be hanged