ROCKET SUMMER

Three
two
one—blast-off! And just 

like that,
everyone—who ever 
felt stuck here

by gravity's 
laws
no matter what—

suddenly went flying
and scrambling 
up—with a warm rush! 

north by north-
westward—
in search of a perfect

ly honest
and a meager
couple of bucks. But—

after just
a bit of that modest
but sweet kind of work—

coupled—almost certainly,
with way
way too much eager

over-
thinking and sweaty
excitement over the trajectory;

there was,
rather 
lamentably—the son

of his daddy's third
(and most green-
thumbed) 

stab at a habitable 
place couldn't help 
but notice—

absolutely 
nobody left!
back at home

in their slanted 
slums of porous row 
homes any longer

who looked—nearly 
meek enough!
to inherit 

the beautiful—if a little 
bit scorched 
by now, and 

stifling—planet earth
whenever 
he felt he was done with it.

YIELDING

It seems dozens 
of highly 
specific tongues—of 

stiffish lemon
meringue 
have come—

somehow both
slow and 
suddenly—at once

to coolly
trick 
some reddish faces—

into finally
no longer—
sweating a few crumbs.

COMFORTING THOUGHT

Because I once 
chanced—here

to stop 
and muse quickly,

all futures
must now 

and forever—
contain this probability:

in Utopia—

their newspapers 

will—necessarily!
have to be 

so fretfully—
boring.

NO. 2 PENCIL

Generations 
and comfortless
generations hence—

the children 
of tomorrow
will never know!

such cursive
fluency
as their proud parents 

once drew—

from only ever 
manually imagining—where on earth! 
Dixon Ticonderoga was.

REST DAYS WHEN YOU'RE SUPERMAN

No way—but surely
the absolute best! days 
are those 

when you wake
up—shaking! without 
wondering

why—because you 
already 
know it's just

that your 
body's 
a little

terrified! 
but your 
head—isn't really feeling

the least bit 
worried about it.

Which is great—it's like 
back when

you were 
eight—
and became entirely

obsessed (to the extent 

that there

was just no room 

for common sense left)

with convincing

yourself—

that it was

only! through 
the ninth

or tenth

or eleventh
attempt,

that the twelfth 
leap—off the seven-
foot-

high white 
and red backyard shed—
could 

appreciably—

make any difference.

BUY AN EXTRA LOTTO TICKET JUST TO WIPE YOUR MOUTH WITH

Somebody up there 
really likes you—

when you realize 
you're fumbling!

yellow mustard—

all down 
the front of a 
freshly laundered 

turmeric-colored t-shirt.

WRITING ROUTINES

Sun and simmering 
west wind—lightly cooking off
any remaining 

damp tang of last night's 
only faintly recollect-
able rain—

presently licking the gimcrack 
gaudy backs

of greedgobbled 
hordes 

of 
greasedappled flies,

which crowd dizzy hunks 
of plumpish sidewalk dogshit.
And to think!

he'd only noticed this—
exact same 
shining anomaly 
probably

sixty—no seventy!

times this August 
alone already—easily.