Reverie

Daisies in brown

shade—keep still;

I didn't mean

to stop your dozing—

let the pinkish

flowering spikes

of ragweed cover you

and keep you

quiet—

and keep

on snoozing windless

milkyellow

dreams for her

today;

that she may

wake

as daisies

one of these days—so easy.

That is to say:

fresh as a—

Agent

Cash in-hand 

and

—sprinting

for an iced 

tea down

the street—the sun's

ablaze 

and I 

am shrinking,

thinking— 

whom do we 

pay 

for such

radiant days?

My money's 

on all these

little finches 

darting—holding

up the sky 

unflinching—

I don't 

know—they just seem to sell

the whole thing well.

Stimmung

You could say

soul

—or spirit

but really

consciousness

is clouds—

light 

and variable—high 

and trembling—in 

sympathy 

with their environment;

impinged upon

by pressure—so soft 

and permanent

that they don't 

even notice—

it's never not there.

Try

as it might

to just 

float by—always  

enveloped—

by some type 

of mood.

No One Ever Says This

Tubby grey rain-

clouds

where on earth are you 

going?

Don't let that mooney old

sun's hot rash 

passion go pushing 

you around

—out past skyscrapers!

Be not so 

easily swayed by cheap 

talltalk 

of foolhardy 

wind off a midmorning lake!

Not quite so

quick!

—tall dark

shocks of 

cumulonimbus—why not just 

stick

around and rain awhile?

Both of your blithe 

ardent cousins 

are codgers—

preposterous

uncharitable misunderstanders!

Neither casts mood

on a monday like you do—besides

this sleepy city's 

all rubbed-

eyes and sighing this morning

and could really use just five

more minutes—

of covers.

Bullshit

In Chicago, it's

staggeringly

harder to notice—

the irony

of that haggard and

penniless

bum as he

zigzags

past you clad

red in a

23 jersey.

Funeral Luncheon Phenomenon

After you've been

around a while

bitter things

taste better

and better—

ground-

up coffee

beans pure

cacao acrid

hops black

tea etc.—

help you taste

a little stronger

that lengths

are never

anything more

dramatic than just

a little shorter—

I don't think that

I'll ever mind

a little dirt

on portabellas;

a little brush with

something awful

really gets me going.

This One was Almost too Easy

Paint a pretty 

decent picture 

and nearly every-

one will wonder—

how 

the heck 

it got there.

Poetry is not 

so crystal—there's rhetoric

piled 

up 

everywhere!

Not that everyone's 

a critic—

but almost every-

one I know 

speaks English

and clearly—

every speaker 

talks.