Unglorious
Where did you find the time to write this?
Was it after our coversation on the phone
Oh poet, dear poet, you cared too much
For title, for self, and for home.
You couldn’t settle for the title of a tender touch
or the selfhood that refused to be alone
Oh poet, dear poet, what will you write about
without me to keep to you warm?
Your life isn’t healthy and it isn’t fair
You want what you cannot own.
Oh poet, dear poet, our eyes are sick
from crying all night long.
You say you don’t have time for me
it must be busy not having a home
On poet, dear poet, how can this be?
Where did you find time to write this poem?
Our Myth Part I
The unfortunate truth for those who hide themselves behind ration relativism is that what they are really looking for is justification, for ethical orders, for a completely irrefutable fact amidst a sea of turmoil – they are looking for truth. Oh sure, like the sophist they can speak around this issue but they cannot hide forever. They use the metaphysical nature of words against it. They turn her and make her cut her own arm off. They say she is limited because she speaks above the reality of the senses and then timestamp her body with the word “philosophy”. The one-handed, ravaged, dirty language of man is no longer something within herself she is nothing higher than a whore being used by every self-defined genius who aims to be novel by undermining all previous assumptions. They push her around a circle of bloated, unshaven, brutal men each taking there turn at removing her garments; imagery, metaphor, meter, rhyme, symbolism, and finally the jewel of her navel: poetry. They condemn her by calling her a liar, and justifying every vicious act they perpetrate on her with envious and insidious logic. Her once mirror-like eyes are too dirty to reflect the ugly faces of the darkened madmen who now parade her naked body through the streets calling themselves by the names of forgotten deities.
A boy sees her from the windows of his family’s house. He blushes and weeps for shame. In the innocence of his childhood he still knows to avert his eyes. But does he know to fight back? He blindly screams out the window to the crowd but their chanting is too loud. They carry her past the boy who never sees her go and to the church where they force her to stare at her shadow.
Too Dark For 9:30 in the Morning
Have you ever met someone
who does what you do
even better than you?
Who, through luck of the draw,
began your dream a year ago?
Have you ever lost that thing
that defined you, your basket of eggs,
your lovely legs, perhaps not,
but soon, too soon, you will.
Doesn’t a dream anchor you to a reality
doesn’t it imply love and faith
who can love your dream more than you?
You immediately say nobody
but is that true?
Or has someone been lying to you?
A mother lays her baby’s head to her breast
and sighs. She whispers things her mother said
while her baby cries. Her mind begs for rest,
she says anything to end its pain. To end her pain.
Haiku XXXIII
In the morning peace
failing light and shadow tree,
Bring all your nothing
Workin’ Man
Awake. Black coffee and toothpaste for breakfast.
Its bitter but its clean. Can’t take food – if its a tuesday
I shave. If not I think about growing a beard.
In the shower – avoid the mirror. If I’m happy I sing,
If I am tired I make it as hot as the damn black coffee I just drank.
Out of the shower – mirror is fogged. Something is weird.
A thing, something frank and genuine. A colony of hardworking ants.
Put on a tie: Monday is blue, Thursday is green, and a bowtie for Friday.
Check my watch. Nope, forget it on the night stand. Damn.
Go get the watch. Turn on the tube. Watch some news.
Enough to be cultured but not enough to be jaded.
Switch to cartoons. Vaguely remember childhood.
Finally look in the mirror. Remember your are an adult.
Its time for work. So off we go.
