SIMPLY PUT

I wish I was
a bristling little

undesignated
bluewhite fish

deep in sound-
less silver water—

all kinds of humble
men—bending backwards 

to catch me!—and 
no such occasion 

for these sorts
of wishes—

ON THE CULTIVATION OF ROUGHNESS—

Quiet but defiant-
ly
undulating

thing in an other-
wise stilled apartment—I may be
your intermittent

master—but you are
endlessly
my brazen teacher!

Defiantly reclined 
and abundant—on the darkest 
of all our fuzzy

and stylized 
area rugs—and smoothly staring-
down the approaching 

front-line
of sticky 
Chicago summer hardwood—I don't think

I've ever
seen a creature—simply 

be hot!
with such ample 

and instructive Wabi-sabi!

AUX SEND

Lest it should 

seem

as if he's actually singing 

you something—rest

assured, dear reader, that

he's merely returning 

back to the world 

what he's already heard—

a fraction 

or so 

of a whole lifetime later

only—darker,

more diffuse,

and a little less useful;

because a poet can't explain

even the tail-

end of things—he just covers it

quick—

with feathers. 

FULL OF HOLES

If I am not
the man 
that I thought—what then? So much

the better—perhaps
to shave 
such bedraggled shadows off!

Who would even 
notice me there
I wonder?—a daffy pink tall boy, olive-eyed 

lanky, domestic; I'll pick
out a bowl
and populate it 
with apples
and water with sugar 
and cover from flies—and feel so small
and satisfied;

I will genuflect 
before high freezers 
and prepare toaster waffles 
or stoop low—to get water 
for my blueberry girls; so much the better!

who would notice,
or listen,
or read? Who ever even heeds
a word that I utter!—other than the careful 
company I target

privately—in short,
to lob 
the word family at?

Kate would still 
marry me;
Lucy will wag; I'll pick my nose and eat it
and laugh in cutoff pants;

so much the harder, in fact
than that man 
that I'm mistaken for—and so much 

the stronger—speaking of that!
ought now 

to stand—this imaginary case 
for my 
stay of execution!

THE BAD NEWS

The less 

and less

sanitary—your 

world starts

to get—the harder 

it'll be

to notice—just look!

even now

at everyone 

out there careening 

and sloshing 

around—all clueless 

in everyone 

else's shoes!

TRAPS

20 Minutes
or so—for lunch
is just 

enough—
time to fly 

out and pick-up 
your shaken

faith—from vacation

in an imaginary land-
scape of a lakeside 
town—where the streets

and the rolls
are both
jammed-

full of jelly

and the flavors 
of entrees
simply can't—be politely

constrained 
by plates
but rather—need to be

captured!
in rude red baskets—

PROJECTIONS

Black and beat-
up blue brown picture

of big 
shouldered city—half-occluded 

by low clouds in the 
gloomy morning

panorama 
of my rearview—

you look 
about like—you could really 

stand 
to include—

a water tower,
or two

at least—
of fresh hot

coffee in your composition.