SPINNING WHEEL KIT

Over and over  

and

over again—

tight swarms 

of black 

grackles swooping

in ripples

through endless-

ly 

pleasantly-

yellowing fields—

keep twisting 

each 

new boundless 

gyre into rusty—

and august 

autumnal 

iconography just

because—you're there 

to notice.

WARM POEM

Ambient

waffle

tops criss-

cross-

the maplebrown 

Discreet 

Music—and

Bam! apple

butter just

heats

up and

drips down—

that 

simple all-day.

ARGUMENT FROM CHEVRON

Somehow the ostentatious
vagrant
weaving toward me seems—almost

impossible
to actually notice—wearing every
thing he owns, I see
him plainly

but also—barely! Just
clothing zig-
zagging diagonal down
the sidewalk
squares through a stone-
faced crowd

in the furtive
mist of not-yet-
late October—moving

not exactly lickadee-
split and

not exactly
carefully either, but just

forgetfully-
quickly enough
past a host of eyes side-
glancing and trained to

disregard—not only
those items
doing the careening—but any

motion that repeats
its pattern.

I FELT WEAK AND TIRED

And then—outside
the dismal leaning
stack of Park
District bricks I sideways-saw

That musclebound upside-
down triangle
man dragging
his yipping trophy
Chihuahua down

the brown
uneven sidewalk behind him—
like the little
hernia of a thing it presumably is.

CARTESIANS ANONYMOUS

Then, one day—we each
try on

those loaded clothes
the monist wears—and swear

we've never felt more
rich, yet more

uncomfortable—our empty
pockets bulging full

of atoms.

BUDDHA MACHINE

Riser, is your 

shine too dirty?—no

problem—here's a misty,

guileless morning.

Taster, intellectualize 

your hunger yet? If not, here's plenty 

of hot coffee while you 

think about that—

Merger, are you 

feeling blind-

spotted? Congratulations—you now

are this traffic.

Still, you say it's

started raining?—look up!

to a roof—and the sweet smell of wet 

woods ought to fix you.

But on top of that, okay, what's that? You say

today's your birthday? Rats! And

nothing's quite extra-

ordinary yet? Nonsense! Voila! Here's just 

a taste—

it's a little Funky Cold 

Medina—blasting at your gas station.

WHENEVER—

Hordes of 

seagulls sweep

the city on wet tremors 

of wind, with keener

beaks for all its crumpled

citizens'

delicious

fetid trash—it's

still summer.