COSMOLOGICAL CONSTANT

Okay—the truth is 

that one 
day—on planet earth 

after running 
and re-
running—all of the numbers;

and painting
like crazy—
all of the corners;

and paving carefully 
over 

all of the 
math that's still showing;

you'll look
one last time—totally bonkers
into the 

tired 
old eyes of one another—

and you'll say
faithfully—that you barely
even remember 

whether or not 
you ever 
decided—to get married.

CINEMA VERITE

Kate—it seems like
whenever

I dream—
my blocky and indistinct 

ungainly dreams—not only
are you 
always in them;

but inevitably—
co-opting!

writing—and charitably
redirecting

the filmy things—
with all your shapely
graceful 

wherewithal 
and its—
often uncanny 

supple ability—
to curve 
and soften 

my macho
and intermittent 
roars and explosions 

into something
much more 
like—believable dialogue. 

ON THE FENCE

On old and long 

Lyndale 

Street—both kinds 

of strength 

seem so spasmodically 

demonstrated

and yet—

done-

so repeatedly

by such winding 

and bendable

soft vines 

of 

mauvewhite flowers climbing—

these neverending black

spade-

coronated

pikes of hard iron—

DAYDREAM

To—all you old
fat July 
hordes of sun-greasy

flies that keep
slowbuzzing loop-
de-loop 

wakes through my gangway—scram!

And make
way!—
because 

here come the furious wet
jaws of your 
worst nightmare—

a fed-
up 
and incredulous 

deadeye dachshund-beagle—

who's not 
nearly as 
amused—as her 

handler
might be
with how—it could ever even

possibly be! that you're all
at once—
both so 

pathetically lazy—
and so

very
very delirious?

SKY BLUE

Just think—

the unequivocally 

most expensive

and least

precious—thing that you've 

probably ever 

seen lying 

around on the ground—is probably 

the same shiny 

simultaneous thing—

and it's 

downright despicable!

how terribly

little—

whatever it is could possibly 

mean—

to hopscotch. 

EVEN STEVEN

Seems like it

never fails—the glummer

and more 

somber—the slate gray

stone planter;

the more truly

busting 

and shocking 

blue violet—its population 

of asters

huge 

lavender and 

can't forget 

catmint—

NARCISSUS THIRSTY

Scooped-
up tight 
and rescued—ice-

cold 
from a rippling 
but mellow silver pool;

this—
must be what
my soul 
really looks like—a perfectly

strange and 
empty 
kind of fullness

for a flash of a second—

oblique and expunged 
of all 
but the most personal 
of pronouns—

the most beautiful 
of all 
the beauties

alone reflects back 
up at me—here in the shallow

hollow of my 
cupped wet hand.

THE RUB IS—

It's just so 

tremendously!

tough—to consider 

poetry—as

so many

sinkfulls 

of 

epic blue 

dishes need scrubbing—

CONVOLUTION

Today I think 

I feel—still more 

tired 

than even these endless 

slow tendrils 

of fat and off-

white logy 

milk look—stretched-

out and yawning—

deep 

through glass

after—endlessly

repeating 

translucent

glass

of foggy cold

ineffectually lovely

iced coffee—

that I've

all the while—only 

been dreaming 

of ordering.

HUMILITY CONTEST

On those rosy rare occasions
during 

grimy after-
noons spent walking—

when my steady-as-she-
goes attention 
span is—suddenly rather rudely 

embarrassed—
by a sheer clean wealth
of burnt yellow sun-

flowers and fiery 
shocks of spindly 

snapdragons waving 
at me madly—from 
behind an oddly 

fanciful 
wrought iron 
fence somehow splayed

out in 
Chicago's most 
tumbledown alley—that's

when I secretly
and sheepishly—feel
I'm actually pretty 

decent—at recognizing
when I've
been shown

whatever I 
must mean by—my own 
good fortune.

INTELLIGENT DESIGN FLAWS

Suddenly one 
unoriginal July day—in the hot rude lateless 
of ongoing afternoon 

you're—perched 
on a porch 
sipping iced coffee and munching

and contemplating—a million 
and one little 
madeleine cookies—tiny repeating seashells 

all modeled after
the very 
first perfect madeleine cookie—

only—you realize
there probably was no actual first 
madeleine cookie—

and just you're so over-
whelmed
by the implications of that 

implacable thought— 
that you 
simply must 

stop and
haul off to the nearest park—and go 
splashing  

through the swimming pool
of cool
and endlessly—and 

refreshingly 
bue and self-
similar water.

INDISCREET MUSIC

The silence—that 

finally

falls—at the 

end 

of it all—though it feels audacious-

ly exposed

has—in fact 

been adroitly

composed—

of every single 

subsequent 

timeless 

classic album's 

closing-

track—specifically not 

being played 

back—

at once.

GRAPHEMES ARE THE SCAFFOLDING

You may start 
to think 
reading this—that

there's 
images present—or
at least 

being conjured—

perhaps of balmy
mid-July 
mornings in wide-open 
city parks

each kissed 
with 
seagreen grass—and flush with
the spotty occasional 

rosy rash of
little sticks of kids
toddling
off in the distance—that is

until the lush 
quiet fields 
start
to fog up—from the rush

of fresh 
steam quietly gathering
up on your screen 
from a close-

at-hand coffee cup—
dispelling 
at-once any lingering 
mistrust

of the fact that I've really just 

been punching-
up 
a plain 
and blank white page

with all—
or at least some—of the 
same-
old-same-
old 
twenty-something sorts

of characters.

PACIFICA

Even—or maybe it's more like
especially

here in Chicago's most crippled 
and vile 

network 
of narrow swiss 

cheese 
dismal and holy dis-

combobulated alleys—
repeating brick walls

look quite 
expensive—lushly covered 

up 
in such quiet ivy—

YAKETY YAK

I submit

Kate—you'll always

and forever be—

a prominent

powerful

and instantly

recognizable—

husky 

vocal lead.

But even

when it seems

like I'm back-

talking hopelessly—

know 

I'm merely—doing my best

to imitate

the cartoony

old 

saxophone bleating away—

really just 

to fill-

in

those 

gaps left—whenever!

you need a short

laugh 

or—more 

emphatically—

a good 

little rest.

EZ-GO

It's just—no use 

trying 

to convince the faint grimacing 

and stout 

capped old-

timer 

outside on the stoop—

who's squinting 

hunched and narrow-

eyed—a flurry 

of pinched fingers—

over a ritualized

lunch break prize 

scratch-and-win ticket—

that it's too

late—he's long since

bet everything 

he'd ever been 

capable 

of gaining—

and won. 

POEM FOR VERA ELLEN

The best things 

happen while you're dancing—

so that's how come 

you 

missed them all.

HALOS

Once in a while—in summer

gloomy clots 

of Great Lakes weather

make—

soggy and cedar-

shaded acres

of stubborn yellow

spindles of weeds—look rather

circuitously

a lot 

like flowers.

COLLIDING FRONTS

Fresh and cool

sour green

mint of frothy horse piss—

ebullient and

tangy—goes jaunty intermingling

with the warm rising 

facades of burnt 

sugar from almost everywhere else—

to co-

create—in an instant 

effortless 

cascading—

waves of timeless Main Street. 

OCCASIONALLY DAISIES SPLIT THE ROCKS

Among all 

the possible

worlds—there exists 

a blissful 

milk blue one—in which 

the poet

describes perfectly

(without 

much stormy 

flotsam of words

or any 

disparaging footnotes)

the area 

underneath 

each fluke of a curve.

But thankfully

there 

would also

be—mathematically 

more than 

a couple 

in which I 

am no good 

at telling you any of this.

THE WAY IT CRUMBLES

Dismissing every little 

bit—of gravel 

with a nonchalant kick 

from each 

of a pair of dusty

eager sneakers—my little body turned  

and moved

toward looming 

sun and streets 

and what

it felt

was surely freedom—

without so much as 

even pausing—

to consider

the reciprocal 

boon that had just 

been granted

in relinquishing  

those humble

eons-

old pebbles. 

WRINKLES

For better—or 

for 

so much 

much much worse—you might 

feel flushed

rushed or rumpled;

gnawed

by your hunger

or infuriated 

by thirst—

or just tired and crumpled-

up

looking—out here 

in the high-

contrast light of 

the clean 

honest noonday 

sun—but only 

so much 

to the chagrin—of the only 

set of lenses

on the premises 

that's capable—not to

mention

sophisticated

enough—

to actually notice!

you honestly 

might

just look—

like 

you're smiling. 

SERIOUS PROBLEM WITH POETRY

Bereft of all—by now

but my 

own small

and dark 

motivated 

stabs at thought

I confess; I've become abusive 

again

of words—

beautiful 

stupid

lugubrious words—

 

the way 

they let loose

and sluice 

down to fill

in easy—each 

of the plenty of gaps 

left—in the space 

where I live 

and used

to laugh 

more often.

THE PASSIVE VOICE—

Of a clichéd loop-

di-looping shopping bag

Nevertheless keeps on

chiding me—see skinny?

the only way to

go free

is truly—

to let yourself get

as completely 

filled-up—

as possible!

D.S. AL CODA

In truth—or all

likelihood at least

the very last

time you do

something—doesn't feel very

much at all 

like 

the first;

but it does tend

to resemble—almost 

exactly! the next-

to-most

recent—which only 

makes it all-

too-easy

to presciently understand 

the vague 

blush that keeps welling-

up

as you muddle

through the task:

having come 

at last

in glory—to judge

the living and 

the dead—

just feels kind

of awkward—if not 

downright 

counterproductive!

to the whole scheme 

of a kingdom that has 

no end—

DEPTHLESS

Belting Paul 
Simon tunes 

with Lucy and
you—Kate

it's a swell 
little feeling—

I admit;
to move out 

of myself
for a bit—and to

just dwell 
in us.

GRATUITOUS

By July
even the baked
wasteland

of cracked highway
median strips—is busting
with thick

and scraggly 
whitepurple weedy flowers—
not arranged

for display
but just—stacked deep
and cheaply

and out of
the way—it's as though
even the rough

and glorious old
stock of wild wilderness
has run out

of space in which
to call itself 
a place! and has as of late

started creeping
into this—weird new field
called logistics.

GO FUCK YOURSELF—

If you're 
one of those 
little fat

and glazed-
over 
empty vessels 

sitting around my kitchen
cabinets—rattling 
in this thunderstorm 

all hopeful with your 
mouth wide 
open and supposing—

that it's
what's—inside 
that really 

matters—like it's
content
that counts! 

When 
really— 
nothing

speaks greater volumes—I mean 
nothing
holds more water

than what a thing
is called.