COLLAPSE

Go on. Say
the red tulips

melting in
the partial sun—

are not some
luscious alien

lollipops whose
days are numbered.

The reality
of the

situation then—
must be

unbearably lonely,
since there's

always only
one.

HUNGER

That little child
curled up and
asleep inside me—
who likes
to pick all the stiff
weeds from the curbsides,
the ones with stringy yellow
and purple-ish brambly flowers,
and then
pedal like crazy
back toward his mother,
who's sauntering
with that pretty listlessness of hers
down the same big road
at a comfortable
but gratifying distance behind—
is starting
to get heavy.

POEM OF WORMS

Wrong, wrong, wrong—caws
the cold
wet crow, swooping

slow
and broad-

winged
and low across the meadow—

complex situations
might arise

due to
simple unpredictable
changes in the weather.

Motion is the only purpose;
let this swift black
arrow of action

belie
the slipperiness
of its swift black purpose.

In the soup-
thick fog of morning, the truth

colludes
with opportunity,

reality
looks uncouth,

the signification is mine
for the taking,

and no kinds
of food—

are any
better or worse than others.

WAITING FOR EGGS

The tapwater 

in the black Teflon 

pot on the stove 

is about to reach 

a rolling boil;

irrepressible 

physical changes—more 

than just 

around the corner

(assuming 

we keep to the proper order),

certain processes under-

taken 

can't be meaningfully 

interrupted.

Time yet, to ponder 

the past, 

the future—while the proteins denature

and harden

(stiff kernels 

of a dozen birds that had neither).

Something is wrong. Somebody
blundered.

The purpose of time, 

isn't just

so that everything 

doesn't happen all at once;

it's also to ensure that nothing 

can ever go meaning-

fully 

back to the way it was.

GRAY MATTER

This container
I've made—has few items
inside it

and every day
the inventory
procedure is the same.

Like fog
off the lake, the same
palpable blankness

moves inside
to slowly fill my heart—
each morning

I manage
to wend my
way again to the shore

where I stand,
declare I love it here—meaning
I would like it

to be true—
the surface stares,
unblinking,

unmoved,
gray. No such fact
of the matter

is entertained.
This universe
which owns everything

also
owes everything
nothing.

SUNDER

Fat dawn
rain and quaking
thunder—the kind that shakes

all those fearful white flowers each May
from the ephemeral safety of their
bantam dogwoods

wakes me,
clammy
from the dream

where you and I
flounder
outside the coffee shop just after closing—not parting,

not talking—
each clutching a particular
silver key.

TURNING

Everywhere
along the fringes, secret
heart-
shaped leaves

unalarmed
and spinning white
sunlight
into blood sugar—

say what it is you
want to, poets—please
refresh
the language!