PLAUSIBLE EXPLANATION FOR GOOSEBUMPS

All day, every
day—little by little, so you
barely notice,

unqestioningly,
the real world
rushes up

to coddle you.
Without asking,
It quietly numbs

and gently sucks
and melts away—
but with such

deference
and so cloyingly!—
impoverishing

the grand
but astringent purity
of acute possibility

with its bland and edgeless
little packages
of actuality;

each,
like one
of so many

obtuse ice cubes floating,
shimmering,
slowly

diluting
your morning
coffee.

WE ARE REALITY

Staring hard at the cerulean sea,
you think

of how—
there must be so much going on underneath

these toppling wavecrests that you'll never see! 

So many colors 

which have no

allegiance whatever to blue, wild untamable 

flavors, brainless 

molecules, meticulously-wound strings

of pure protein; textures, smells, sensations 

all vibrating 

at temperatures 

much different than the one that your quivering 

skin is feeling. 

And so many creatures! Beautiful, benign, malevolent;

all combating, or else cooperating—all in unique 

patterns, every

second, combining 

and canceling as they move toward the 

surface 

to create these scant few impressions you're receiving.

So tell me the truth, how 

on earth

can it be? 

that—when gazing just as 

deeply into that smart little

silvery rectangle 

back

home in your bathroom—

that's never, 

ever what you think?

FUNHOUSE

God 

damn these

evil little twists—and this 

great

distance between 

us—

it's 

all done—

with mirrors.

HAUNTED MANSION

Staying here—
you're so

scared, 

you're shot

and going
insane

with the thought—
that the very

next moment

might contain something
that this one
does not.

Leaving
this spot—you're
afraid

you might
end up

happy—but
for no reason.

HOROSCOPE

I can see 

for ages—nothing much 

will happen. 

Rain later, but for now—

that minor 

threat, whispering on a doleful 

breeze, 

merely bears

an orange-

glazed morning bird—

flitting amid the

paisley 

design of flowers—

deliberate

and frisky 

as a dart—as unburdened 

by the resplendent 

weight of this light 

that's slowly

but surely fermenting

as he is by his 

own little 

mania 

for making 

the most 

of every last 

wedge of incandescent 

day.

RECOVERY

The second night

I see Mars 

up there,

I don't care

nearly as much

as the first―because

the very
strict feeling
of twenty-

four hours
passing
convinces me

that—lonely
and frozen
and ruddy with

fierce
secrets—this

is the only

world
that there
is.

NO IMAGINATION

You think—nothing
ever happens;

you're literally sitting around waiting
for water

to boil.
Then,

suddenly—
out of

nowhere,
the whole kettle
just erupts,

and you wonder—
how come

everything always
happens
all at once?

NO SUCH THING AS A MOTHER-TO-BE

For truly—each floozy curve
and slight fold

in her light,
mussed Monday

morning hair
and rumpled, white cotton shirt

might contain its own world—
forever

inaccessible to me, but
nonetheless

omnipresent;
barely

even conceivable, and yet—
gargantuan,

obvious,
positively elephantine.

And every one of those
secret lands,

a dim planet spinning
in a soundless vacuum—without exception

and with
no scientific explanation needed

in order for me
to believe—

each in such
definite, desperate

and paralyzing
need of her

everlasting
protection.

LAZER TAG

Researchers contend—the game was once
called Love,

but everyone wanted to be
a hunter;

all hawks, no
doves—

not exactly
an evolutionarily sustainable strategy.

FINAL DISSERTATION

For the hundredth 

time, do not 

shoo

those little 

flies from your gangway.

You are like
them,

born to live—for

a single day 

and then perish;

only—

unlike them,

you can never really be 

sure—which 

one.

A BULLY IN COGNATIVE THERAPY

This is probably dumb—but I
guess I kind of
like it
when the trees
on these
neighborhood
streets finish
filling in
toward the end
of May—
because of
the way
their brawny branches
grow and
swell and puff-
up and extend,
connecting
to put these
perfect headlocks
on the unsuspecting
roads underneath,
to hold and to keep
all the solitude in.

I like it because
it reminds me
of the special way
I feel like
I grow
and hold my
anger,
not deep inside
but somewhere near
the top
and surface of
my body—
a pride-
ful little mixture
of resentment
and excitement,
which is, now that I'm
thinking about it,
so long
and thin and delicate,
so precious,
that it just feels
brave!
to even dare persist in existing
despite all the
dangers
and exposure to ridicule, like
a skinny little
wimpy kid's
visibly fragile
spinal cord, or whatever
its called—or
yeah, like I kind
of mentioned
already, those stupid knobby branches.

INSTEAD

Have you begun
to notice? You never see

any luminous
pearls of moon-
ripened rain any-

more—or smell the relaxing
musk of nighttime lilac after;

in the morning,
you never taste
so much as a trace

of the sun's eternally
benevolent combustion engine
at play on the lush dewy

skin of a raw
strawberry—

or hear the gleeful
tweet of clean
brown birds, still furrowing

their rounded able bodies
dry within their bowers.

They used to say—
it makes me

blush a little
to recall—something like:

"Spring is in the air,"
I think—but,

like all
such nonspecific

things,
now it's—

on the
internet.

REITERATED FOR WALT DISNEY

The man who said the world
was small—

should have lived to see
the byzantine

sprawl—
of whitewashed alfresco

rectangular
malls.

COFFEE SHOP DIALECTIC

Although it's
still so

early, and I
hesitate—to crack

the frail
shell of our mutual

church-
like silence

and risk rumpling
the napkin-

white purity
of such a beautifully

mechanical ritual—
I simply must

flag this vested
creature down

so that I might philosophize—
can a pitcher

really
be a pitcher—until

or unless,
it is

pitched? And
similarly,

would you
believe?—in order for this

cup
to work, there

needs
to be—a carafe.

MY SIDE

Kate—there are so many days
when I just wish you'd
go away

so I could
concentrate—
on putting

into words better—
how goddamn
furious-

ly
I need you—
to never ever leave.

SECOND RIDDLE OF THE SPHINX

How—
do such
desperately

impulsive
and full-
blooded?

teeming receptacles
of hedonism—
keep

showing up?
sheathed
in such

pale
skinny
syn-

thetic-
smelling skins—
which gesture

in such
idle
and indolent

thrusts—
toward some
idea of

sober-as-ice-
water
responsibility?

I mean—
how
come

every morning—
there's
appreciably more

condoms
than
cars

in this over-
night
parking lot?

MY LIBIDO

Whenever it's sunny,
I just get this insatiable drive

to go shopping—

to browse
and to notice
and caress, hold, and purchase

all kinds of impossible things—
and array them

in neat rows on shelves

or display them
with pride and slow aplomb
on this beautiful body.

When it's not
so nice out,

I still get the same itch

to see
and touch
and buy a bunch of stuff,

but those days—
I go straight home

and fling it all

as hard and as
fast as I can—into an already-
very full closet.

QUITTING TIME

Time is a place
where you sweat
all your life—in order

to earn
the freedom—to finally
leave it behind.

But it never quite
works that way. It seems
you're perpetually

running
yourself ragged,

chasing
after one,

by running
out on the other,
until—one

day,
the other

one
finally
up and

runs out
on you. Which
is much worse. Because

then,
you're not

only—out
of a job. But

you're stuck—anchored

down,
suffocated—with such

an
enormous,
fat, disgusting

glut—of potential
earning

power,
that
you

definitely
won't be going

anywhere—
ever again.

GROPE FOR LUNA

Last night, when I tried

to look up

at the sky 

in a contemplative kind 

of way, 

from the corner 

of its blue mouth,

the little crescent planet

furtively whispered down to me—

Pssssst,

hey kid—

no, you're
not imagining
things. The world you live in

really is ending—all 

of the time, in

fact.

It's 

only 

the one

you live on—

that just keeps going,

always rolling 

over so sleepily

and dim, ignorantly starting 

over and 

over and over 

again! I've seen it, 

though

you probably 

never will.

And then, after a silence,

through another sharp 

exhalation of invisible 

interstellar air—

From up here, it looks like 

the faces
of those 

people you meet

whose lips

say—of course 

you know this means war! 

when you can tell 

that their eyes

don't really 

mean that at all—because

the very elements

in their bones 

know—for a fact, that

given enough 

time, everyone 

everywhere

can have what they 

want. Do you follow?

This isn't really happening,

I thought—

You're not really 

talking.

I'm making

this up.

But then, made up

or not, I caught—

Psssst,

at least don't forget—

anything
could be true,

as long as it's 

not everything—

all at once.

PROPOSITION

Poor flowers—
coaxed
by the sun's
warm fingers,

harassed
by the quick rhythms
of a few passing
insects,

cajoled
by the tickle
of sticky
moist earth—into

opening up—

emptying-
out
their inner-
most

spaces
completely, and
exposing

every last
particle and filament

of their
frail and shy
beauty—to a wide world
so far
beyond
their comprehension;

only
to wind up—
abruptly

shriveled by wind,
wheedled by rain,

drained dry
and left
in the

retreating light,

to wilt
and to die
shortly thereafter.

And yet—they do not

die
how you'd
think
that they

might—not
of fright,

certainly not
of—embarrassment.

LOOKING UP

It sometimes helps
me get
there faster

to rationalize—
even all
mankind's

most captivating
colossal
celestial clock

hasn't
actually
any—the fuck

idea—what
time it
is.

BIG NURSE

Even though
the rest

of you may appear
to grow

heavy and slow
and old

and tired—I can
assure you,

your eyes
will

not. Because—
every time

I look, I see
they shall always

hold their small
truth—

so close and light,
but pressed so

tight, and cradled
hard like a

newborn child;
that life—

not yours
or mine, but life—is far

too little,
too fragile and

precious a thing—to ever
stop

protecting, to dream
of not

shouldering, to dare risk—letting
drop.

TEMPLE TO TEMPLE

Right in time with the steamed slosh
of downward streaming

coffee, your real mind seems to
come pouring

forth—chuckling, at first, as wordless
as the rising

stuff—which babbles and sighs and
tickles, licking-

up against the glazed walls of it's container,
a subtly amplifying

bell, a vessel
of glazed lavender Michigan clay—but then,

gradually blooming, wedding, fucking, plugging
into all sorts

of weird, lubricated words—phrases or
clips of sensations

such as these right here (anything goes
now, you realize)—as you

lift the heavy, hot cup to your lips, hoping
to capture, or

to fish—as
with a crude but clever sieve

out of that dark, hot water into which
pure images

seems to have been
lovingly and painlessly birthed—all the things

that make this very moment feel crucial
enough to remember,

all the things that make you feel
like you're here,

and that it's now, and that
that's somehow

quite important enough. You—your mind,
this story,

are all so integral. And ritualistically stamping
the mug

on the wood table beneath you, you then come to see
a rippling reflection,

a soft and holy apparition of a thing waving
in the slow to stabilize surface

tension of the cup.
Like that last sip

was the first moment
of your material existence. So you're here

now. That's all. Get to work. Still, no hurry,
though. You know.

You—
are wise and slow. You know the words

of a new story will flow. Already good,
already classic,

already so
ancient—to begin with.

VIGIL

No no no
no. You got it

all wrong. Life's—a small

room.
Where your

stiff graceless
bed is. And it's
death

that's the compulsory white door in the
corner,
which you

easily push open
without thinking

and shuffle be-
grudgingly through

in the
morning—and come to this

hallway.
With many nice-ish things
on its

walls
and an early slick dark kind

of coolness
to its
floor. And, well,

nothing's
really
wrong at all. Except—that it's,

you're dim-
ly
apprehending, a long

long
long
long,
long—neverending

sort of hallway;
and so

you presume it's too
late—that

you're pretty
committed

now. Or more
precisely—you're doomed
to remain

wide awake and walking

for at least
the next—
very.

very
very? very
very. Very-very very?—yes,

very. next
long little while.

PURITANICAL

You have begun
to see—

not everything 

that shines

reflects the light 

of purpose, 

nor is everything 

your outreached fingers encounter 

necessarily there 

for you 

to use.

The moon—for instance, 

looks delicious

down here,

like the plump fruit
of heaven's 

infinity tree—ripe

and rolled 

out into plain view 

only for you; 

when it's just
miles 

and miles 

of unconstructive gray dust—
no lavender mountains

no sweet cream 

butter, no old jazz,

no breathable atmosphere. 

And yet, still

you cannot keep

from wondering—if all 

of the pain

from way
back then

might somehow, 

someday

return—and

apologize to
you.

UNTHINKABLE

Relax that

fur 

around your 

neck, old 

girl—I know all your 

fears 

will take a rest,
just as

soon as

those

other dreams 

do.

USER GUIDE

No more 

tears, sweetheart—remember

your beautiful

body is,

at all times,

precision-filled—packed 

to the gills, in 

fact—

with acids

and bases,

in about 

equal 

measure—which are both 

necessary 

and always

so moving-

and desperate-

and perpetual-

ly dependent

upon one 

another—

to keep clear.

A PREACHER'S TONGUE

The poor little creature
can't ever stop,
tired though he is
from the onslaughts

of deafening applause—

the spontaneous response

to a disgusting

and difficult—
job well done.
For his one

and only
mysterious duty is

to manage
what no other
part of this

congregated
body could muster—

the translation
of pure

light,

the re-appropriation its
its intangible
context

and metamorphosis of its blithe

resonance into 

some kind of ordinary

reassuring residue,

some kind

of sticky, translucent fluid 

that's sugary
but nourishing—
and legitimate enough

to be kept
in a little silver carpenter's

cup—until such time
as one arm
is ready

to come along
and lift
and slurp it up,

returning it to him,

so he can
wearily

commence—
anointing the entire place 

by licking it

clean, from
top—

to bottom.

50% RECYCLED MATERIAL

If if's and
but's were candy

and nuts—
something was

probably
wrong.

HERE I WAS A CHAUVINIST

Looking at her, she was simply too
beautiful—I

was ashamed
to admit—her sunglasses far too

balloon shaped
and maroonish and heavy silver—her

mouth, which was precisely drawn
for pursing and

smiles and other
small

gestures, presently hanging far too
wide open—

her entire body
simply too upright, dignified in the

lightness of its angle, billowy
in the innocent

continuity of its sun-
translucent

cotton morning attire,
and utterly

uninterested in assuming a posture
deferential

to however
flirtatiously it might be rubbing

up against the taunting
masculinity of loud motors now—for this

commuter
bicycle

riding idea thing—not to have been
either

a vaunting mistake—or else,
the clichéd

aftermath of some late-
breaking Waterloo.

WUNDERKIND

I believe it when they say—all of time!

and space 

had to congeal—right here

to make

just the tiniest, serrated edge 

of this 

milky and brittle 

right 

pinky finger-

nail.

And yet, it only makes me 

nervous

and hot—as all 

hell 

to feel 

that there should be 

so many little 

indiscriminate melodies in me—

which only 

her small 

fingers know—how
to play well.