Alone = All one

Metal trees

Subtle breeze.

Metal teachers

Deep freeze.

Metal heart

Perfect chart.

Metal offspring

Falls apart.

Music seeps through a suburban screen door, 
a concrete step is cracked, dirty and ready, 
paint peels, blades trim
flashes of blue flicker through chinks in the curtains:  
life inside.

I like the sound of pencil on paper

Harsh but fluid, urgent, intimate.

The letters stretch and anchor

Thoughts, moments, memories, you.

I like the sound of fingers clicking keys

An officious frenzy:  important, immediate, imperial.

He said he would kill his parents if he could fuck John Lennon.

Crooked teeth teacher

Rookie heathen preacher

I took you for a keeper

Delusion ran deeper.

Those goddamn champagne gangsters sure did a number on you.

Drunk on status
The saddest
Bullshit apparatus
Of ironic immersions
And corporate conversions.

Take it free and easy while you can,

But if it’s too easy, too much of the time

Then it probably doesn’t count.

Straight out leech

Sad angry freak

Carrier of the weak

Mild meek streak --

     Please

Rattle and seek.

Rattle and seek.

Rattle and seek:

    For peace.

Yesterday

Yesterday two bombs went off at the Boston Marathon.

Yesterday I annoyed my mother and disappointed my father.

Yesterday dust gathered in the corners.

Yesterday pictures of dead girls flashed on newscasts.

Yesterday I took deep breaths of fresh Spring air.

Yesterday we hooked up a satellite.

Yesterday my niece complained of sadness.

Yesterday I smiled at a room full of strangers.

Yesterday we sat silently in a room.

Yesterday my Nan thought her sleeping friend was dead.

Yesterday a dog walked through a field with me.

Yesterday I learned that cuttlefish are born motherless.

Yesterday glaucoma took away a friend’s driver’s license.

Yesterday we hugged in front of the kitchen window.

Dreams and Bliss: Dostoyevsky's Paradox

Reading Dostoyevsky 
on an icy April morning 
makes for strange moods:

the tender fears 
of lovers and dreamers 
are carefully unveiled
and left to make us wonder 
why moments of bliss 
can never last 
a lifetime.

The very nature 
of those lost moments
                        (fleeting and poignant)
will return to us 
on long evenings
only to 
render our dreams useless 
and make the mundane 
all the more real.

Suburban Haiku

Every time I hear
a distant car door slamming
I await a knock.

Poles of Inaccessibility

• The most distant point
• Most challenging to reach
• Remoteness prevents access
• A construct, not an actual phenomenon
• Subject to varying definitions
• Of interest to explorers

A Daily Affirmation

I love and approve of myself.

I love and approve of myself.

I love and approve of myself.

I love and approve of myself.

I love and approve of myself.

I love and approve of myself.

I love and approve of myself.

I love and approve of myself.

I love and approve of myself.

I love and approve of myself.

I love and approve of myself.

I love and approve of myself.

I love and approve of myself.

I love and approve of myself.

I love and approve of myself.

I love and approve of myself.

I love and approve of myself.