the last poem

The last poem of the year isn't a poem. A prayer,
it speaks its wish to the crisping air: There's
a knowing song, long-known, but hidden
in the sway of dry, yellow stalks. It was given
to sing-in the seasons. Hear it lessen and grow
louder with the starling-clouds, their bulging black snow
against putty-gray skies. They'll stretch thin again,
and the song. Can the song sing us an ever when
any what, not what we think, but who, mothering
itself from one to many, joins with us, and sings?

seconds chance

Knock-around seconds chance me
second chances, and third,
to learn. I've heard it, the whir
of mingling purple minutes, blurred
singly and together. Encircling me
they move me. They herd me
into smaller circles,
or spirals, the circles
lessening. The lesson is
the lessening, and the beauty
of chances missed. Of me, and learning.

curiouser

The curious clues come to you. On pale blue and white,
the cloud ring's unfinished. I can't wish it, what contrite
letter it might
                     spell. I miss a yellow smudge of light.
It lived where indigos went, until it fell from night,
one hard bringer of the soft-hearted news.
                                                                A squatter
spider, yes she was squatting. The moon's youngest daughter,
she couldn't hide from her, her appetites, her eagerness
for flight. She wished what I couldn't, and left no meager threads.

strings

There are strings. Nine strings? No, nine of some-wheres,
plus one black when. Back then, they weren't strummed, but they're
vibrating to, or from something. Something flat. Real is flat. Real and
flatter than. The fattest lie is the fastest why I can come up with. I can
tell you: I've lived this sigh before. Not a sigh, so much. As a breath
between, death's hidden in the greens, and life. Life's again. Then's death.

penance

The purpling penance must be
   paid. These pounds of flesh do cost
more than they used to. I wish
   I was funnier, but it's raining.

hangling

What's dangling is
   I sing-song to the yellow spider
hangling, upside down  I sing-song
   to the fellow  Follow me, and he follows
He slides on his spinners,
   impossibly thin, with a hunger that shines
from many eyes  I'll sing-song him
   back to dangle, entangled
hanglings, in our is

bounces

The bounce is. Big or small, it's not up and down. It's
doing undone, and the undone doing again. I've been
where black mud gulps the bay's edge. I've judged
the water too brown to live. The tide'll slide back, and give
the mud undoing. The water will liven with the knowing
glances of a heron.

screens

The streets here do have names. They have gamy
names blocked white on green. They're static screens
to trick my mind into growing. It clicks them knowing
they won't open, change or go. It will, and it glows
to burst its frame, connecting all those collected names.

mud

I'm this shoe stuffed with mud,
brown in brown on brown. The ground's not
firm, not firm enough. Don't step
with me. Slide into me, and don't
take out my even browner tongue. Tattered
leather, leave it. Leave it there, folded in,
pinned in with more mud, and in on itself. It'd rather
not flap loose. To move would twist it, and twist
its words looser. That's the trap. Keep it still
here to brown with you, and the browner mud.

weight of water

I walk with this world, its weight of water,
its wispy welcomes, once denser,
not now, not where I've wavered, and wait
for a way, or ways to another, and the words,
all the words for its blues,
all of these blues wasted,
were I not to meet her,
she who'll walk me
to others, and their mothering worlds

tricks

The white plays tricks, not sticking to one place, not stuck. It gives
premonition as its gift, the sight of aging, and of uplifted eyes. These lucky lives
I've lived separately, if not apart, they know. I'm desperate to hear it, some part of how
what's left me, who, can't really, not fully go. And she. Yes, she's here, but not now.

plans

What the crisp air whispers is maybe wise, not clever. It's, "Nothing
goes according to plan, unless the plan is going."
I found myself going into its blowing bits of brown
knowing the wiser winters I read lie to me. I lied, too, down
this yesternight's morning, with a plan to wake and plan
to go. What I woke to was, in a new day's night, shaky spans
of distant fires prickling a purple-black. Take them, back with me,
wake-walking into whispering airs and unplanned mysteries.

all souls

All souls follow in the hollowed out
steps of saints   They walk a fine line,
up the nine that's eleven and leads to ten
not twelve   This hour is the mild breeze's
It teases with a scent of wild onion while water flows
below the city street   I follow the hallowed light   It sneaks
past the slate bottoms of clouds, then rises

experience

The experience of the tree is the tree's, its shriveling leaves, the seeds
it gives freely, whether the wind, the sparrows
or this narrow
patch of untended black earth take one. No one, not one, needs
you to guide them.

Mistaking

There are no mistakes but
                                            Mistaking I've taken
                                                                               Asphalt for sea
The sky for clearer
                                 Dryer waters
My feet for faulty
                                fins The sin's in not
                                                                 Swimming upward with them

calls to come

The call that doesn't come couldn't Come from a coolly composed moon Soon to come under shadowy circumstance's calling To mind the bite of calls not come With a clear and cherished clanging Autumnal in its coming

friction

The frictions of night bleed the fictions from me But not the need

Freed to spill out in spells the fictional Blood tongues new trails of a milky blue

It spills them out It speaks them Silken roads to take me They walk me where more fictions pool

Wells of words dipped into with a diction so precise I can't not believe the lies

stencil

The sidewalk stencil isn't confidential . but it is . confident It'll be alright

I pass two . strangers on two . benches and their sense is I'm not . too Strange a face to question . and gauge . the stencil's foresight

I walk

The pretty city street I walk is less traveled . than visited It comes with thin star-lit trunks . anonymous stones that plunk . into tall grass and foot prints sunk . in the cement These shoe prints . printed to fit my foot I won't . step in them

Last morning . I dreamed of fog This night . the fog comes rolling in

quest(ion)s

The quest(ion)s don't stop, they're positively charged and they hop back to where I've been, the now that's then colliding with the finding of again.

pocket Watch

I've put time in my pocket Watch . me stop It's topped . with a locket of what's been lost . (too Lost) to what it costs The days . aren't numbered They aren't but they are Counted . not for what's remembered Not . for what's amounted into them . those knotty little problems They are . counted for what's not . and never was apart from them

items

The item is time This time . I color it the colors . I see When I close my eyes . I don't see faces Faced with time . I see a space . where items hide

magical

I can't escape the magical . thinking It's hard . wired , thinking  there's more . happening When it's happenstance . happening Again , I read the chances . differently I connect dots to lines , lines to curves  . make pretty words into handsome . scripts Those scripts are littered with hero's . parts Armed with ascending arcs , they'll bow , drag and drop . me Plop me down at the gold and rubied feet . of difference I'm in different

love is a many

Love is a many (Spend or bring or linger lovingly back with it wherever it waits) Any love (if it is a love that waits) it reaches, stretches it to a many more (for one or many, any who are meant for it) For love thus manied can't be happy (and its meaning isn't hard to find) until it finds more manies to meaningfully multiply

suggestible

I'm suggestibly yours (I'll see myself) gray or green or blue (I'll see you) near and dear or far if (Tell me) you love me or hate me and can't do this (with or without me) It will still be (us until you tell me) It isn't.

dead sparrows

A dead sparrow might be . worth a ha-penny or not . so much, Alive and pulling . darting eyes out from feathered treetops . to a stoppered sky, It's unaccountably more precious . than the counted hairs on us both . tethered here or there, She's beyond that and whichever . more to me as I am, As helpless to help her . escape it

messengers

You can't tell . the messengers, They come . with many faces, They come . in many guises, They'll come . disguised as a message. beetle sleek and midnight quiet, They'll sneak . up on you . but they won't tell you . any messages, They don't carry . any message, They wear . mirrored moonbeams . shells softened by age, They'll show you . the message inside you, You've carried that message's morning blue . close but it's meant for another

noise

It lets go its tiptoes . and this reality's heels . peal with multi-textured echoes . and the thud of much . delayed rhymes, The newsprint for an instant . reminds the previous day of a stray . bit of conversation, It had when . a leggy bug leaped from the screen to run . underfoot, I've been told too many . times how they multiply, These coincidental rumblings . whenever you've stumbled . onto a path to take you . home, I still haven't . recognized where it is . I'm going, With the television on . and all those sounds bouncing in . from the window, It gets harder to find . certain steps signaled through the noise, I've found none . of it's noise.

pangloss

We live in (the best of all) possible worlds . we do . it is, Filled with crowned crocodile kings . and frowning (plastic-wrapped) archangels, It plants (this world) . tender seedlings in our younger (less) fragile minds . that (suddenly later) we find . fat with blooms . and weighted with the very oblong fruits we'd be(en) longing, We eat . like hungry crocodiles . feasting on our chance (discoveries)

karmic circles

I did(n't) wake up a roach . or mosquito . or the skittering waterbug I could(n't) bring myself . to approach, Last night . to dispatch it to its next life . I did(n't) wake up (dis)patched to a life (un)changed, I live . many lives in this one, I've had . many selves (re)built from scratch, Growing in this . knowing ever(y) . self is its own buggy dream.

swan seeing

Bush and tree and vine have conspired . to inspire me with a vision of, A swan . its great green neck gracefully bends upward . to the sky, Have I told it (?) how I have (!) the older I've gotten . formed more . hidden attachments to places, Our secret connections lie . and wait for my passing

this day

This day is (un)like any other . this day is(n't), Like another . I've (not) noticed, Rain drops  . can be disruptive to others . others much smaller, And some colors . don't speak their names as loudly . on some days (un)like others.

bug

That fly put a bug in my ear . the buzz of dear names . not clear but clearly . the ointment, It came to swim.

fingered

What was wished for was waiting . one fuzzy caterpillar wiggling to the end . of a twiggy finger, It brings many more . fuzzies with it . they ring the hand, To leave . to land . to eat the green . grow and change . aging it.

chirps

The cricket chirps crack open the night's . lips, Draw out reluctant tips . tongued with indigo accents, They trip me into melancholic descents . a chalk-line tracing of the face I miss

what you love

You can't always be good . at what you love, The moon loves . to brood, Its moony face . however moody can't, Shake the dear Sun's brightness . not nearly.

look for

What you should look for isn't . what the screen tells you (it) is(n't) suspicious, Look for . not what's packaged and left . unattended, Look what's right (be)for(e) you, It's the sparrows' shallow hops . down narrow aisles, They stop and go . unafraid and even if unrewarded . (it) do(es)n't stop them, Follow where they go and know what s(cr)een(s) can('t) be trusted.

take and give

This spider takes . elegant strides . not long but long for its size, It gives . no sign of its purpose . but it's purposeful . and wisely striding, To the tourist's surprise . he's snapping photos of skyscrapers . without clouds to scrape from the sky . and I'd ask him (if asking mattered), Why . marvel at glass and concrete . or steel or marble . when there are marvelous spiders . striding so discreetly nearby, To steal a purpose . and give it back to the wise.

give and take

it's not a given, What's given. who's. taken, I've given it a little. thought, Riddled it out. days ought to stay unnumbered, Strangers. brought to or taken. ought too, Stay. unnamed.

white and black

The shock is sight's. this white dart of dragon, Flying where I can't follow. from blade edge to golden petal to a trashed dull brown bay. or it's impossible to catch, Big and black and beetling into a crack. frightened away by my clank of metal door.

catbird

What the catbird squeaks isn't meant. for me, It speaks not-words. that don't teach or explain or describe, And yet they do. its not-words. the catbird's, Reach my ears, and the ears they need to.

bees

Some things. you cling to, Or they cling. to you and your likes, Like that bee. a dull drone, It's seeing. itself for the first time, in a Mirror. and it's clinging to it. like you would, To life.

I'd

I'd fall, Fitter. it's fitting. failing to fit it all, Inside where those who've died live not alive but present. they're content to influence or try to, How I live. they've tried and I've intended to thank them. I couldn't fit them in. those thanks with all the other good and bad intentions. not dead but dying, To be outside.

There but for

There but for now. here, The grace of unknowable gods goes. me a mere trace of what they can be, I don't know them or I can't. but I do, Know they're not. too mighty or merciful with their slightest. hands, Those invisible but not invincible hands. they used to grant me life.

muddle

In the middle it gets muddled, What can't end. and the intended where we'd started. we pretended it, The startling hues washing in. washing away again to lost shores. and the dull thud of doors shutting.

doors

When one door opens. or you open it (not all doors know when. to open) for someone else, Nothing. had to close, Everything. it opens to. was there waiting for you. and them, The small. glassy orange petals without stems. they're really butterfly wings to bear us. across the tops of untended grasses. a dog. mottled brown and white. has eyes smiling bright. blues as wide as, The sky. she wants to be carried along beside us. an old man's wheel-chair. bound (by old fights) and wanting to share. his mis-remembered stories. with us, He's frowning at another door. waiting to be opened.

particle lives

My mind reads in lines (one word. then a person. then another moment passes by, It makes sentences of time) but it feels. flow, The waves of particle lives going. out and in, Through sheer, rippling curtains. to uncertain futures. and back again, They collapse with me. we, Crossing paths and colliding. spilling our messy stories into each other, Wordlessly.

clocks

The clocks in this room don't tell. time, They're not broken. they talk of times. Times held dear. the nearness to them left unspoken.

days

Where have these days walked me? Not chalky miles but faces away. Their paces, these days, take me. from what were knowing. smiles to the sadness traced with a strange mouth's hello.

high priests

Do rust colored monks hover in this sky? Cowl-hooded heads bowed in prayer, or to shy from. their god's exalted eye, Exulting to its flame. they're not moored by why. they drift between unnamed rooftops. and beckon to me. below, Beckon to me. to believe.

sticking to being a stick

This curvy, broken stick isn't. a mimic, It's not playing at being. a snake, or aspiring to Moses' trick. If life came back to it. it wouldn't slither or bite. but it might. Entreat a tiger swallowtail. to play at being its leaf.

feather-flake

A single white feather-flake. flutters down, against the brown. brick, It could be a sign. a sign a dove's taken to wing. Or the hawk's taking. to hawking.

doubts

This harbinger doubt's not out. the window, or the picture. yet, It's out and in. an apostolic finger. with no intention. To linger round the edges, hedging its debts. it gets.

aligned

When the stars align (or numbers. stars having been mined from numbers) I make mine. what I wish, whatever wish comes to mind. One wish comes, fed. fat as the line.

heron

What the heron calls, falls. between a croak and a honk. It's pulled slow, and it pulls me along. to steal steely blue glimpses from the taller clutches of green.

signs

It doesn't hurt. the sign says. to be alert. as if a sign could know. hurt, or say. I stay alert to signs. the everyday signs, everywhere unknowing, unspoken but full of hurt.

ends

The end's not. such a mean or frightening place, when you reach it. Lend me it, that light. Teach me it, how it brightens. the face, widening its smile. to a welcoming length, seen days. and not-miles away.

heat

This heat pries open sparrows'. nervous beaks. They follow. the unbroken instructions, It speaks. in mechanical hisses and hollow squeaks. and the unbreakable breaths. it pushes through its plaque-filled teeth.

swear

I swear to gods. who don't exist. simple gods who won't insist. I keep my godless promises. promised simply to resist a god. They show me is.

death comes

Death comes. but once. it comes and stays ensconced there, where it's taken. Breath-and-dream-and-dances. taken, not to cancel them. out, but to make them. precious.

throes

We're in the throes. Those hesitations. throw them away, and throw aside any reservations. You have. to throw back the false. hopes, the impossible cause, that knack. for looking back. Throw in, instead. with those helping. with those who haven't, who have nothing. but who are focused ahead.

humbling

The very moment. to the precise second (split atom intense) I begin to sense. it, that inkling I'm something. more than this, this mix. of mass and energy, life. comes humbling.

weight

The heavy weight is laid. It's placed by hands unsteady. hands not ready. to let go, yet, or to wait. It's given. not a gift but an offering. to hands that can lift it. away.

mind full

My mind is filling but not to mindfulness. Too full; to empty it won't still it. It steals from the emptiness, and takes banished thoughts where they won't vanish, again.

real

What's real in this street, this bustle. these sinews and muscle. pushing by me, is. What's real is. the feeling, I've been. here before. before. there was a here, this street, and its bustle, or I was anything. more than a feeling. Then the feeling, I'm more. I am. the ancestors still walking, still pushing. to be alive.

voiced less

The unvoiced tones. muted red and brown, of these stepped over stones. aren't voiceless. The unchosen roads, smoothed down, black and gray, staying their courses. with or without me, aren't choiceless. My unrejoiced friends, the dull brick and smudged glass that grasp. for inattention. or an end. they never reach me joyless. They teach me what life is. and what I can be when it isn't.

tissue thin

My tissue turns tissue thin. thinned to billow below these blowing winds. My bone's gone as hollow as reeds. A heavy air feeds. it tunes. tuned to soon. too soon for a sadness to settle in.

out's in

That thick hide between inside and out, is less, or more hidden from. the words who choose to flow. They flow. from fingertip to eye, and from eye to the places I go. I went down a street, where a word dressed up to meet. me, bolder. than I remembered it; me not that older. then I remember, I went back. and the words tracked. along with me, flowing out. those traveled tips, out. and down to the page again.

ecco

The forest's echoes don't rhyme. They outline. in finest green prose. the way wildflowers let go. while mosses cling. to the sting of a vanishing morning.

clues

These clues don't hew straight. from word to picture They do trace. swooping, curved lines. connecting unadvertised times. with marquee letters. I've read and they led me here. not forward or back, but around and about the same illusory lack. of conclusions

lies

I've contrived the most magnificent lies. the most magnificent. lives for myself, mostly. I tell ghostly. stories, I tell ghosts to move me. to prove to me. they're not dead. to prove what lies ahead, ghostly in the offing.

leaves

The oak believes. So many leaves. They're so much the same and so different. They came, and they went. They came. again unnamed. They'll go. It knows. they were the oak. They'll always be the oak. and yet,  they never were any. more than leaves.

escapes

The trick of the thick of the night isn't its lack, but this present of light. It paints with it. It feints with it. desert scapes. ocean scapes. the glue. of dreams I can escape into.

scudding

Scud, scud, you clutches of white, you pushers of blue night. pushing it. pushing on to northern reaches. to other stretches. to places I'd let you stretch me to. to places dreamy and true.

whole

I'd risk it again. Go there. Stare past it. the glare's bright. Irises a flare of white. and green edged when I close my eyes. I see them. and I saw the hole in the middle of them. The hole's where wholeness lives, and the self dies. if I stayed there, staring.

lessen

The lesson is to lessen, or a lessening. Not, removing or throwing away, but moving, as in stepping back. Step back intact and examine, or re-examine. I'm in for it, until I'm out of it. And when I'm out, I can see the best way back in, but less so (not the seeing but the being in).

soul full

There's only one soul, a dove coos, a rock implies, a leaf blown loose whispers before it dies. None of us are us, they say in chorus. It's all of us or we're all it, but we, we've been. broken. broken off, to become this, and that. and you. so aloof. And I see they're right, right there. Where I'm staring, into a nothing, and everything, it looks white. It looks to be. a place where I'm not me, or I won't always be.

the rain bowed

The rain bowed, deep, and the sky spoke in strokes of cheap yellow about how its time is short, or shorter. It spoke about how. How's a tall order. It would sort the how out with the clouds who applauded. They're still applauding the rain.

reasoning

Everything happens for a reason. The reason: being. This season's. Fleeing a fleeting feeling, as I'd flee a hard rain, I come back to the reason this season isn't. Being.

bat and beetle

A bat looms blue, not black. or brown. a moon pulling the tide of your inside eye back. and forth. waiting for the wings to move. This beetle, no bat, hangs, a small. coppery bulb. with no power to draw you in, and no need. It clings, a seed too nimble to fall.

As pretty as death

It's not all pretty. this life. me. But what's not, can be. Pretty. It's not all sweetness, and light. this life. me. But what's not, what. stings. tangs. bites. What casts shadows, it can shed light. Or give sweetness. As unpretty as it is. An upturned bug, big. brown. hard. Its legs, twitching toward death and night. Sour, and ugly, and yet pretty in this fading light.

$8.23

An unexpected check came today. Made out for $8.23. Made out to me (not much, but it's something). A silver cup was held up, today, or tonight. By the men, some almost boys, in white jerseys. They're on TV, and they're smiling. More than smiling. And kissing it, the cup, a prize (less unexpected than the check, but more fun). And with them both, I think. Though with them both, there's no reason to think. But with them both, more than thoughts, comes a hope. A dumb hope for better luck.

stirring

Her soft-hard bulk, young and old, ripples and rolls. She unfolds beneath it, the asphalt blanket, its heavy-slight weight. Then, she pushes them. She pushes stems out, these creeper greens, and even greener tips, flowering, to peel back its blue-black, and breathe.

super moon

It's not too soon for this June moon to pop from a cottony soup of blues, the jewel to engage me.

long

The long of it is this longest day, not the one longed for perhaps, but pretty far along when its prettiness made longing unnecessary.

black spider

This spider trails midnight in its creep. It orchestrates shadows with its forelegs. It ministers to menace, and yet it's so very, very small.

what matters

What matters is matter made light. Matter's made lively. Not long, no, not long enough to know its own brightness before lapsing back to night.

comedies

The hardest thing, or the smartest thing, about Purgatory is not knowing when it will end. Paradise isn't its ending, it's moving on, or up, or out, without knowing what's the end. The Inferno is all knowing, and it's not ending, unable to move, unwilling to bend.

the meek

If I were to posit what the meek might inherit, it would be: the brunt of the bludgeon's bullying blow; the worms off the wormiest of worm-eaten scraps (without the scraps in tow); all manner of filth flushed by the finely mannered (plus whatever garbage they can throw); and the bottom of a rapidly descending and impeccably polished shoe.

wordless, and with words

The world would speak to me, sometimes with words, sometimes not. The not was in the green of grasses, or the way a knobby twig twitched in the wind. It was an afternoon's shadows and hues, or the way the bay's water would ripple and move. The words came too. They would come, the words, on lighted signs; those bulbed boards on the front of buses, or the sides of buildings. The world made messages there, for my eyes. The world used words, on those signs, only the world would use, and it amused me when it could. It could, as only the world can, and it would try and try, this world, to keep me from trying to leave it. Too soon. Too soon.

home

I can go home again. I can, and it is. Home is where the mud wasps tune their clay flutes to jostle lost June days. It's where a skink is the link to hidden fauna and all that's been forgotten.

diversions

The trap, for me, can be defining a day by what it's missing. A pleasant early summer evening spent sipping bourbon on the sidewalk as a sickle moon slides by helps me do a spry sidestep.

code

The charcoal squiggle flew past. It blew, or was blown fast behind clumps of lighter grays; a leaden tip pushed too hastily for me to read.

summer

This still air is where summer's flowered smells come, but they can only come when I'm in a close proximity. The heat comes too, and it competes with the itch of insects biting. A cartoon bird with elongated beak was drawn on the cement's gray, perhaps with a playful stick, or a finger, and it points a way to be taken, or not. I take it and am taken by the air and this summer.

what's left

A fly fell from the sky, barely alive, onto my hand. No, not a fly, but some small thing with black wings it slowly flicked while resting. It didn't buzz at me, or couldn't. It sighed a hum-drum was and left, or it left what was left of it.

the pretty never

The pretty never endeavors to ever. Not in a petty way. Not feverishly. It lets me believe. Pretty much everything reaches ever eventually.

digits

These glowing digits play hard tricks. They won't stick to orders, or stay organized by their sizes and my inclinations. They jump. They hop. They drop from view. They have no destination, but they go and go.

hints

This lonely night puts on. It slips on alluring orange tints. Its drizzly voice hints. It gives away hints of grisly reds, the glints off cold and colder hollows. It lips a darker purple impermanence to blot out our blue tomorrows.

maybe in the next world

I'm tired of so much. I'm tired of waking up. I'm tired of the sink full of dishes. I'm tired of opening the tap to see brown water. I'm tired of shaving. I'm tired of dusting and sweeping. I'm tired of the constancy of other obligations. I'm tired of the accumulation of disappointments. I'm tired of reading the current stream of bullshit that passes for news (like this and this and this). I'm tired of this masquerade we call democracy. I'm tired of the elected officials who spout lies dressed up as patriotism. I'm tired of the fetishizing of the military. I'm tired of the hagiography of the shallow. I'm tired of a society where too many people just don't give a fuck about anything but themselves, and are willing to give it all away, this entire world, for a little bit of comfort.

Love, peace, and harmony. Love, peace and harmony. Oh, very nice, very nice, very nice. Maybe in the next world. Maybe in the next world. Maybe in the next world.

The only thing I'm not tired of is my music. And the ladybugs that have started to visit me. And the slim as a communion wafer hope that miracles can happen.

No hope, no harm, just another false alarm.

the ladybug drops for a visit

To tend to ends, its end's a friendly fall from indoor skies. It buys time on a dime to bend my ear with end-to-end tales, tall and tender.

fair ain't so fair

To quote the inimitable Tim Fite, "Fair ain't so fair, fuckers."

There's an endgame. It has an end, but it's not a game. Not in the sense that you have a chance to win it. Not even a lottery's chance.

I've played it before, the game that's not a game, which I've been given, but never non-stop. There have been pauses and breaks, for sanity. That was my mistake. There's no possibility for sanity in a world like this.

It's going to wreck you. What the heck, might as well play it as hard as you can, and wreck yourself first.

pesty

Buzzed by bugs during the day and dreams by night. The dreams can prick as much, and flit by as quickly.

sounds

Sounds and nothing else. Nothing is real; just these sounds, sounding their passing. They passed— a day, a week, a month— and were replaced by the same sounds, sounding new, and passing on. Not wanted or unwanted, but not the wanted sound that never replaces them, staying unreal, but not staying.

mixed

Taking the good with the bad makes one thankful it's not all bad.

The hot stink of polluted water stinks a little less when it takes turns riding the breeze with the sweet scent of honeysuckle. The ugly white of Styrofoam cups and plastic bottles piled up by the tide is pushed aside by the sight of a snowy egret poised gracefully on one leg.

Nothing did and nothing could balance out the bluish, bare-skinned baby bird left for dead in the middle of a scorching sidewalk.

mouths

Why would the starlings hop with yellow beaks agape? Maybe for the oppressive heat, or for the beauty of things hidden within overlong grass. I kept my mouth closed, knowing they wouldn't tell me which.

tense

You will hear a voice you wanted to hear, but it isn't that voice. You see a face you wanted to see, but it won't be that face. You mouthed the wish you wish. You wish it and it will be but it isn't, until it will be, and it was.

bugs

Bugger, these bugs are good at bugging. Even with the windows shut, they find their way into chase the light, to bleed and bite, to do whatever bugs might. They try my best intentions not to kill.

I've found that even the most bitter and hateful people seem to lighten up around me. I must appeal to their better angels. Listening helps, but I haven't yet figured out a way to negate the hatefulness.

Here is another Tim Fite song that makes me feel better.

unafraid

Another song I've been listening to a lot: Because I Was Scared

I'm not scared to share it with no one in particular, or sing along with it at odd hours. The neighbors may be scared to hear me.

moonlit

No need to hang a picture there, where the moonlight makes art in shifting colors, art taken from shadow— the window and fire escape. Its clean lines crossed and a blurred diagonal— a reflection of a reflection— is more perfection than anything a hand could paint.

out of sequence

Imagine everything you experience, or could, suddenly freed from the trap of sequence. All sense— future, present and past tense— sensed together, all at once. How would you make sense of it? That's the dream I had.

It could be how information in a multiverse actually presents itself. An Artificial Intelligence, not needing to rely on sequential thought, might be able to process such an over-abundance of data. Not my over-tired mind with its over-active imagination.

honeysuckle

The honeysuckle sweetness thickening the air entreats: within this wood, today could be lifetimes, it could be all yesterdays and tomorrows.

this stone

This stone isn't precious. It isn't, though it is to me. I swallowed it years ago now. It doesn't shine, glint or glimmer. Its colors are muted grays and browns. It sings soft, comforting songs, about lost places it hasn't been and will never go. I can't sell it, but I would share it, if you asked me to show it.

cheer up

I have been listening to this song quite a lot lately: Radio Cure by Wilco

My mind isn't filled with silvery stars, but it is crowded with snippets of lyrics, and the randomness I see on my walks. Today's trek had more than its share of strangeness:

• A park filled with Amish
• A sobbing young woman climbing the sidewalk by the Peabody
• Clutches of Heavy Metal fans everywhere downtown
• Bridesmaids dressed in Orioles' orange parading by the ballpark
• A man wearing full catcher's gear in its parking lot
• A giant thumbprint, or what looked like one, formed by the glue left where a traffic sign had been removed from an overpass

Cheer up honey, I hope you can. There is something wrong with me.

reach

I don't want to box with god (well, maybe I do sometimes), but my arms are still too short, and they're tired from constantly reaching out. God's arms may be longer, and tireless, and more adept at boxing, but they don't reach very far, and they don't lift much. So, I rely on others. Others are always reaching too, but not for me.

happenstance

These things I see repeating, could be. They could be repeating themselves to draw something to my attention. Or it could be I'm looking for them, to convince myself of something else.

I hear the speaking of the same word many times. I see a bird, a starling, twitch its wings. It sings out the same notes to its neighbors.

I feel the pink softness in the same petals pulled from the same droopy flowers. I see the same bright minutes stand beside the same white hours, before they jump away.

I watch it blur by me, the same branded symbol on the same make of car. I feel the same jar's worth of air disturbed by the same swarm of gnats and their thimbleful of wings beating.

None of it is real, and yet it's all happened many times before. No part of it could possibly come to be, but it all lives together right now and everywhere.

I'll walk where the lights take me, sometimes, following the greens so I don't have to stop. Or I'll walk where I want to go, ignoring the lights and daring the cars.

I'll put two words together, because they rhyme, or they don't, and suddenly I'll find myself at the end of a passage, which says something insightful, or it says nothing with any meaning whatsoever.

in between

It's these in-between places. The pauses in between phrases our spun orb hums. The gaps between made-up catches it's whistled. There our when's are unlatched and misled.

foolishness

Waiting the way I wait, and I wait, awaiting more waiting, may make this wait, or waiting, a fool's game. But wait, some fools are wise to the surprise that comes when the wait is no longer waiting, and it finds at its end, one smile waiting for it, and a look that unlocks a kingdom.

what's given; what goes

What's given is, it's not given. Or it's not given long, but it is blessed (and that's 1 syllable and 2). 

It's not long at all before it's taken back. No, it's not taken; it goes back. Yes it goes, and it leaves that blessing behind.

this dream

This dream is a memory that couldn't happen. These dreams are. They were a sadness that will not come. All of my dreaming will be a happiness that didn't awaken.

steps

Today I walked approximately 9 miles, though it was over five total trips. A two-mile walk has gotten to be pretty routine for me.

In between stepping out, I read a New Yorker article about "treadmill desks" that you can use to walk at low speeds while working. It sounds funny, but it's supposed to be much better for you than sitting (and I know how bad sitting can be).

I also read a very short article about "life-editing"; living in a single room that can be configured to meet different needs. For example, changing it into a bedroom, office or dining room by using Murphy beds, sliding dividers and pull-out surfaces. Building-wide common areas (such as a professional kitchen) and shared resources (eg., power tools) play a role too. As an aside, it mentioned that people used to walk much more, and those walks became opportunities to socialize with neighbors.

Maybe others will swing around to these ideas. On my walks around town now, I can go long stretches without seeing anyone, and most people I do see have just gotten out of a car. I feel out of step with people in a lot of ways, but maybe I'm just a step ahead of them.

noise

The noise comes. Unwanted, it thrums and rushes. It shouts in unwise whooshes. It pushes doubt, nonsense and lies, as the day's expectations unravel.

in place

A dull day under a dull gray sky. My only real accomplishment was spinning 31 miles on a stationary bike. Symbolic of the motion without movement in my life.

silence

The silence is questioning. Silent, it asks me. It searches me silently for solutions I can't yet speak. I haven't yet spoken.

persistence

The stink bug believes. It must believe. A bulb is the sun, the ceiling its sky. Over and over again, it collides against a hard white that in the "wild" gives way. A bug doesn't learn. It persists, both in success and failure.

It can't stop. It won't stop until it falls damaged or exhausted. Then I'll cup it, and put it outside, back where the ceiling knows forgiveness. You see, I have a little bug in me.

dust

To be again, back to dust, back up to starry dust, to glittering float, apart and a part of everything particulate, and no part to any some in particular.

never. yes, never

Today wasn't a good day. I'll summarize it thus: I've booked way too much time on the selfless side of the ledger.

I've lived enough years, and my remaining time is too valuable to be given away too easily. I have knowledge. I have wisdom. I have talents. I'm happy to share them with the right people, for the right cause. I will never again be, however, just a body to fill a slot and engage in mindless activity.

They who say such things, say, never say never. This is a never I'll say with absolute certainty.

eine kleine

I'm inclined, night. Music is shadow. Light is a bent line. Absence rests in between, a second or a lifetime.

nada

I've got nothing today. Zip, zilch, zero. I worked from 9 till 9, with a short break to buy groceries and make dinner. The neighbors did have a jam session going with period instruments, which was fun to listen to.

Right now, I'm trying to watch a hockey game, but the complete and utter insipidness of the advertisements tends to twitch my finger onto the off button. I'll probably read a little before I drift off to dream more dreams about someone who I don't want to dream about. My sleeping mind never lacks for material, but it can be rather predictable.

visitors

115 years ago today, Anthony Palisi, better known to me and mine as Grandpa, was born in New York. Our family trip to visit him and Grandma Rose up in Armonk is a favorite childhood memory. They would later move next door to us in Maryland, and I got to spend several months living with them during my senior year of high school. He was a sweet man, and I miss him and Grandma.

Last night I was visited by a mouse, one of the various critters that seem to pass through the apartment from time to time (mostly insects and spiders). I generally let them be, or try to guide them outside, if I can. They're just doing what they were designed to, so who am I to hold it against them.

Outside my apartment today, while shooting the breeze again with Bob, a little dog named Amber came over to say hello. She was exceptionally sweet, and insisted (with some irresistible whimpers) on being pet. Not all visits or visitors are created equal.

these are the minutes

These are the minutes. The ghosts of lived yesterdays haunt. Their haunts hum circles colorless. They ply the black with a plea that's forget us.

this is the hour

This is the hour. The ghosts of tomorrows never born come. They come with their chorus of voices. They come and they sing silence and darkness.

Sunday mysticism

There are songs I love so much, that when I listen to them, I don't just want to sing along, I want to dissolve into them and float away with them wherever it is played songs go. Into the Mystic is one such song, and I listened to it many times today. No need for church or mediation, as long as I can have this music in my life.

love is in the glare

I admit that drivers often piss me off. They generally ignore the fundamental principle that a pedestrian always has the right of way. Throw in the fact that I'm doing the planet a favor by choosing to walk rather than drive, and their sense of entitlement becomes even harder to bear.

It's understandable, we live in a society where, thanks to nonstop automobile and fuel industry propaganda, car ownership is associated with personal freedom and economic mobility. There's also a mania that seems to grip people when they get behind the wheel, replacing common sense with an overwhelming need to hurry wherever they're going.

I buck that bs. If you nose your car into an intersection to try to intimidate me into waiting for you to turn, I'll slow down my stride (which is usually pretty snappy) and glare back at you with eyes that say, "F*ck you, you're going to have to wait."

I did that today, while wearing a shirt that spells out L-O-V-E rather prominently. It might have passed for ironic, or it might have diminished the message a wee bit.

In other news, there was a wedding in the park across from my apartment this afternoon. Real love, or that brand of love we call real, was in the air, and it didn't smell at all like exhaust.

all in a day's walk

Today I made a conscious effort to clock out at a reasonable hour and enjoy some down time. For me, down time means outside time, away from the magic boxes at which I make a living. There's magic outside the boxes too, and it's real, and it's scary, because I know when I find it, or more likely it me, I won't be prepared for it.

I do go look for it, and looking means walking. Walking, this evening, I took the road less traveled, at least by me. Unfortunately it took me too. Consciously or unconsciously I ended up someplace I both wanted and didn't want to be. The not wanting proved stronger, and I hurried away, back to the apartment.

Bob from the building was sitting out front, as he often is, and I listened to his stories and his jokes, while life's rich pageant passed us by. I can't say this place is wholly home yet, but it's becoming home. It's where I am and where I feel I have to be, at this moment, for the real and scary magic I know is out there to find me.

in_onsequential

The "C" has worn off the c-key on my keyboard. It's still a c-key, producing Cs without complaint, even though it has no "C" to mark it.

I don't seem to be marking time the way I used too. I know it's passing. I see the digits on my clocks change.  I see the sun rise and fall. Yet, time has gotten progressively more compressed, collapsing more and more back onto itself. I can only guess that's what it does, until it and I reach the point where it won't pass, or everything will pass, all at once into something I can't define. At least not while I'm limited by this human brain.

Right now, I still count it, and it still counts. I don't count down. I count up. I count the time that's passed since. Since what? Mostly since sadness, I guess. A sadness that's its own plural. It too will leave me, or I'll leave it. Not yet. Not soon. It will still be here, even while I hide it. Just like that "C" that's left the face of my key, while it keeps on making Cs.

life rips itself off

it's a little hard to describe this, but lately i've noticed that life likes to rip itself off. the same way the Flintstones was a ripoff of the Honeymooners. or Apocalypse Now was a ripoff of Conrad's Heart of Darkness. homage would be a kinder word, and a classier one.

are there patterns that follow us? do circumstances keep recurring in our lives? the same plots and outcomes, but with different names and faces attached?

some theorize the universe/universes is/are constantly expanding and collapsing back in on itself/themselves; cycles of birth and death, and the everything in between. could there be small variations within those repetitions, whenever they re-play out?

and are our lives microcosms of those cycles? do our own births and deaths, and the everything in-betweens, repeat into infinity; a program caught in a loop; a loop that's become the program.

i walk down the street and i see an older man i know standing there with his cane, as if he's been waiting for me, as if it's pre-ordained we run into each other. i've met another man with a cane in much the same way but in a previous life, in a previous city. i'll likely encounter yet another when i move on wherever i'm meant to move on to next.

is this the universe giving me a chance to repeat these scenarios until i get them right, whatever right is? i don't know, but being aware of these patterns doesn't make me want to break free of them. it makes me want to improve on how i've handled them. and yes, that's me ripping off the movie Groundhog Day, but there's no shame in paying homage to anything involving Bill Murray.

cancel that coincidence

for me, coincidence has always been the reddest herring. it's no coincidence that the phrase "there are no coincidences" is oft-repeated. our minds find connections wherever they can, and quite often the associations they make are as real as they are imagined. we write this life as a story. we love stories. we live stories. we are our stories.

our stories give us comfort. they make sense of a senseless world. one thing flows from another, even if it doesn't. effects have causes. actions, reactions, equal and opposite, and the opposite, when we tell it, will sound made up.

life (read work) has been a bit hectic for me lately. i literally tossed and turned in the night just thinking of all the things i had to do today. was it a coincidence that a couple appointments got canceled today to ease the burden a little, at least for a day? it's happened a few times recently, things "working out" that way, in the end.

i'll tell myself this, it wasn't a coincidence, and i'll thank the invisible power that is yet isn't. i'll likely curse it tomorrow again, when too much life (read work) comes flowing back upon me, in an unexpected and overwhelming wave of randomness.

multi-versing and the music binge

i have become a music binger. some folks might down a quart of ice cream in one sitting. i over-consume bands' album collections. i spent a few weeks listening to all things Bowie, again and again, then Time Fite, and lately it's been Wilco. what next? perhaps Radiohead or back another time to Elvis Costello. it could be a rut, or it could be my returning to the comforts of things long-loved, to compensate for things long-lost.

i set a personal best for "conversations" held simultaneously tonight, composing an email while answering a text, in the midst of a chat session, while also on a Google hangout. yes, i might be overdoing the multi-tasking, or i have too many competitors for my attention. such is the nature of my virtually ultra-connected but fragmented life. broken and yet appealingly sparkly.

Flirt those bad dreams away

i have weird dreams. i have sad dreams. i even have angry dreams, but i don't often have scary/bad dreams. last night i had two; not grade-a horrifics, but pulse enhancers.

a vague accounting of a dream is like poorly retelling a joke, it never pays off. so, i'll only say this: one dream included a storm of horizontally flying thick, black drops, which was a neat visual.

donning my amateur dream-interpreter's cap, i'd say they both centered on the fear of being driven/pushed into an impending unknown. when isn't the future unknown? only when all of its quantum possibilities collapse into an observable present. my lesson learned, though it may be unwise to take lessons from dreams, is to dread less and accept more, especially when it comes to circumstances i can't control.

one thing i can control is a "flirt pole." i learned how to use one today during my sunday morning shift walking dogs at BARCS. what's a flirt pole? it's basically a piece of pvc pipe with a string at one end. the string attaches to a tug-toy. you swing the pole around while standing on a platform to get the dogs to chase the toy. it's pretty cool, and Cosby, the particular dog we exercised with it, loved it.

as i get more experience working with the dogs, i hope to be able to do a lot more of these activities. it's one possible future popping in and out of view, and with some dedication i'll collapse that puppy.

What now?

not poetry. i'm pretty much done with that for a while. there's still plenty of it to find on the interwebs, so go seek it.

if not poetry, what? randomness, which is to say life. no one may read it, and that's okay. i'll record stuff here, and see what evolves. back to the way-back then, mr. peabody, when blogs were 'blogs (short for web logs) and designed for journaling. off we go.

there is some festival going on in my hood. a flower fest of greenery getting with an official title i don't know. it seems to be drawing in mostly folks who don't live in the city and otherwise ignore it on the weekends. of course they're choking the streets with their automobiles, and the atmosphere with the filth those belch. i'm sure it's worth it so they can prettify the homesteads out in the vast suburban expanses.

i read this today: our drone delusion. nothing really that i didn't know, but plenty that most americans like to pretend doesn't happen. does anyone still remember that directive ford signed in the seventies to outlaw political assassinations, or the various topplings and killings that the cia perpetrated abroad before that (and probably after)? probably not. now it's not spy craft but drones that we use to dispatch folks, and they might as well be called that because of the humming these beasts force many americans into so they can ignore the stories about the death and suffering we cause overseas.

i did go out for a nice walk. i like walking in this city, despite it (and its steeped in car culture) not encouraging me to do so. it has monstrously snaky, multi-level expressways that dominate the landscape and try to intimidate my pedestrianism, but i'm undauntable at this point.

once i got past the flower stalls, the sidewalks were pretty much person-less. i went up to the bolton hill neighborhood, which is a couple miles north. there was a statue of a guy named watson in a civil war era uniform there, with mortars and balls at the ready below him. i'm sure he did something stirring on the battlefield and was worth commemorating, but we do too much celebrating of those who are skilled in killing, and i'm not going to bother looking him up. he'll live on in my mind as an unassociated hunk of metal; well-formed, but meaningless. that's one better than this post.

The truest

The truest
poetry (the only
poetry left) for me
is silence. I will
be. I will
finally
be,
with this poem's final word
(with my final word?),
silently, and to you,
a true
poet.

said isn't told

said isn't told. said
isn't telling. i've told
the hours to slow.
i've told
minutes. i've told the moon
to hold
its blue in deeper. what's soon
unheard is saying. i know,
i said.

11:12pm

Don't wake me. Don't. I'll wake. Me,
I'll wake when time wants me. Time
tells me when is its where. Time waits
me out. I'll find it waiting there.

gripping

i did try. i tried to hold it all,
for all as long as i could. then,
the blood came acrylic. it came
in small, loose drips at first, small
drips of the most vivid red.
stinging hands, shaking hands can't
grip it all. drained, they can't, not at all.

i am what can

i find, and i've found the seconds
stay still, and
they move faster as i count them.
i've counted them
slow and fast. i'll slow them down, and settle
in the middle
of them,
slide in right between them.
in their gaps, i was, and
i am, a wish. i can,
and i will, wish me there,
and wish her,
and him, and her again, all of us
wishes. i wished us
as those wishes spelled out in smiles.
we're smiles
meant to wrinkle, and increase
with that wrinkling. we, as wishes creased
the freckled, and the pale, the mahogany
skin on bridges of noses. we are, we'll be
those wishes written
out in sparkling green,
gray, blue, brown, black eyes. i have,
and we have
sparkled. we sparkle being them, whether
those wishes come true, or whether
or not i am and can be,
and they're all now, the seconds, here with me.

falls falling

this dark-proud night doesn't fall, its partner light
leaves. i did fall, falling into a night
that was hidden. i fell, and i'm falling
toward a too shy infallibility. the failing
light is where sleep loves, but love can't sleep,
not when there's night to break, and light's promise to keep.

dozen-n't

A dozen starlings
dozing in the evening sun
doesn't dare the season's end.

It dozen-n't, dare it,
these dozing within warm pinks
to dream up spring's spry bend.

the light's not

The light's not chasing
tricks tonight, and I'm chasing
it. It's sticking to
the barest white faces, to

fire-escapes' twisted
teeth, to the straight-edge
snarls of brick crevices, and
to the slight, tight cracks beaten

into the jaws of the slick
cement walks. I'll stick
wherever it would, could be,
and I'll fall where it casts me.

ecco

I don't like it
repeating myself
I do like it
repeating others' sounds

This hissing fits
the night's shut eyes
it fits, the hiss,
its missing ears

I won't miss it,
the hiss. Where does the air
slip, when it stops
repeating after me?

night wail

the mechanical night
whale wails its plea. It's wanting
for pale's breaking, weights
to be lifted, when it brakes.

fly on the wall

The fly on the wall
stalled, its small
head pointed
n
w
o
d
,
not to listen in
but to black glisten in
the reflected light,
the wall's, and then fly

dreams

The dreams I dream (when I dream,
and I dream
quite a lot) — dreams within dreams
without dreams —
dream up a dreaming me right down
to the me
I am dreaming, when I dream

cracked

The deeply transparent,
cracked, slowly it fills
with a wholly still black,

this seeping night keeping
what it can sleeping
with what it clearly might

tip-tap

tip-tap
the tippler rain drips
tip-tap
the tippler rain's slick
tip-tap
the rain, tippling, wraps
lit-up
city streets in plastic

Half moon

Half moon, I have half a mind
to mind your have-not
half, not minding what I have
to mind, oh, half moon.

whistle to the unseeing

an unseen train tries,
it tries, the train, it tries,
it tries and tries to
whistle poetry too
to an unseeing night,
but the night,
it can't, it can't,
the night, the night can't
hear when it can't unsee
and what it can't unsee
is a coal black stain
trying to be a train

one some day

one some day, it still won't
start ... it still won't not start
it all still won't start to
or not to make sense ... one
some day it won't but it will,
and someone, one some will ... stop

Coins

When the coin dropped, it drops
with a clang ... Clanging's
a kind of language ... A kind coin,
it coins me as phrases ... Its careful
words phrased not to spend me

nightfall

The slightest sliver
............................... of silvery moon, scythes through
the blackish and blue

untitled

Starry we might

starry I am, we're like stars,
stars whose dust fell, falling
dust becomes us, like stars, we,
I pulse and move, we all
move in patterns, in mine, yours,
patterned movements, patterns
repeated, repeating,
starry are we, I'm like stars

Winter flies

A winter fly,
not yet dead in this dead of winter,
flies. It flies
in the face of flies not facing winter's
little white deaths.
Not yet.

i am the king of insects

i am the king of insects
he said, he says,
he continues
a conversation
he started but dropped
he starts, he stops
this conversation,
it’s ongoing,
it went, it goes on,
he goes on with it
to the fine veins of a tattered brown
leaf, he doesn’t know
leaves, but he’d guess this one is
from an elm, he guessed it, he guesses
it became, it’s become
plastered to the window with a glue,
this glue called rainwater, he calls it
rainwater, and it was,
it is a glue, with the winter air,
stronger than paste,
much stronger,
it wouldn’t,
it shouldn’t
hasten anywhere, so he picks up
where he left off, he leaves off
after long pauses,
no,
no not the king, per se,
but they flock to me,
not like they’d flock
to a living leaf, or a wayward crumb
of pumpernickel, but they come
seeking
something,
I said I was a king,
not a wise man,
though wise enough,
and he paused,
and he pauses,
but he can’t continue,
he tries
but not with a glue that’s dried
and a leaf that’s slipped,
it dries, the glue,
and the leaf slips,
it slips and floats down,
down to the gutters
filled with so many browns,
when it hears it,
it has heard it,
enough

lonesome blood doesn't move

lonesome doesn't move, it clings
to time-tapered tree limbs,
to grey
sidewalks refreshed with a white snow,
and to the blood red brick walls overlooking them,
but not overlooking what went
past, no, not overlooking what passed as a life,
a life that went speeding past them,
with no quiet moments to take a breath
or to sit within them;

the past didn't go
the way she wanted it, the way
we'll see it, not the way
the blood red brick walls wanted to feel it,

but the bricks hold it, with tree limbs,
with walks, and they hold her,
and they offer her, still lonesome,
Hattie, stilled by blood, here to me,

and she comes to me, no, not her,
but the thought of her still blood, and when I take her,
or the thought of her, I take it
away, a little of our lonesomeness, the blood

everywhere and nothing

god,
i envy it.
it's being, everywhere
in nothing and ones. it's god
i don't envy, being
everywhere
and nothing at once.

There are. Know coincidences.

This coincidence
is only the difference
between paying and stealing attention.
I stole
a glance at a bus. It speaks its destination
in lights, and the lights think
they know where
you are. I don't, but I know
I won't go there.
I know instead
I'll go home and not watch the TV
where actors speak with words
not lights, and they speak one word to me
at the same time,
the exact same moment in time,
one word, a name,
pops into my far-away mind.

Happiness

Happy. Happy. Happiness
won't. It can't. It does not hop
out hazel-eyed to greet me
from there, behind a Hornbeam.

Happy. Happy. Happiest,
it's not, to hide. It will not
hide its slippery, crimson
cheeks, beneath a skipping stone.

Happy. Happy. Happy thoughts
it can't keep. Sunlight yellow
grins, it gives them. They are not
bundled in petunia buds.

But, I'll chase it round. I will
take it and toss it. I will
pluck it and sniff it, and not
finding it, I'll still have it.