JONAH & THE HAMMERSTEIN COMPLEX

Waking—
in comfy wet
whale belly 

sweat 
in the morning—so unendurably 

pretty
before all the 
light starts to pour in—

and feeling—curly
knots gripping
tight around

knots about the whole thing; because I got
this rippling
untenable 

feeling!—everything's 
currently 
going 

my way!

AUBADE

Kate—sometimes I dream 
at night

we fight 
so that—

by the light
of the morning we know to be coming—

we won't 
ever have to be

but we—can at least 
usually 

look like each 
other's one of a 

kind—shining 
hero.

DIGRESSION

Somedays—one must just
breathe

and grip
and dig deep!—to excavate,

let alone appreciate—
the thawed 

poetry leftover

after a boxy
and stalwart old 
Frigidaire soldier

finally 
becomes 
so epic-

and
thorough-

ly 
exhausted.

POEM FOR SOLO FLUTE

Touched—but somehow only 
gradually 
by such

soft
and tender 
strains of sadness lingering;

sticky sweet and 
streaked 
across a

dark and lovely
used-
up womb's walls—so empty,

and yet—
so full 
at once!—graceful, thin

as your grandmother's ghost;
but 
touchable—

and rich 
as her taste 

in heavy clothes
and dangling chocolaty 
topaz stones—just to listen!

feels
so much
like falling

in love—though somewhat
alarming

because—you don't know
precisely

or really even
vaguely

with whom.

OXYGEN

Skinny high limbs 

of wind-

scrambled 

backyard tulip poplars—

sighing 

stop! for all heaven's 

sake—trying 

so hard 

to just let—

the littlest things go!

DQ

In a blink—
his immediate 

vision—
was to easily 

be the best! and 
the fastest!—

and to just
somehow

win—
all at once! not just 

this proceeding—

but every 
little 
last 
single—

race 
he could ever—conceivably chase after;

and that's how—before the quiver 
of his lust 

was even finished—
he found 

that he had already 
lost this one 

quite a few 
seconds earlier—solely 
by virtue 

of being the best!—
at impatience. 

21ST CENTURY FOX

Feeling tender 
stringy
and—at the same time completely

full and satisfied—
with the 
dim rose bloom 

of sadness—presently
overwhelming him

there under 
the—unsatisfactory 
LED lighting;

for chewing—with compassion

if not
circumspection—

pink spongy chunks 

of some 
or other—precious little 

fawaway lamb's liver.