perseverate

we begin and begin again
each day anew
and though we necessarily perseverate
treading the same paths
we are not the same
not who we were yesterday
nor who we shall be tomorrow
we are always the eternal now
going forward
gaining ground and perspective
in one dimension or another

metadata

we read the signs and portents
augury our action
checking and rechecking each hypothesis
pouring over data, metadata, microdata
anything that can explain
the things we can't explain
fear and hope and love
we quantify the universe
and do not see the forest for the trees
mystery and magic are found in the facts
and we need not extrapolate too far
to live in wonder

bodacious

Give me a life that's grand,
Bold, bodacious and unplanned
Full of surprise, joy and laughter,
Add some tears, but sunshine after.
A bit of strife, like spice, for flavor
But lots more sweetness, please, to savor.
A life that's filling and sustaining
So in the end when strength is waning
In reverie, again I'll live
Tasting all life had to give.

fictioneer

The tales tumble forth.
Like pulp fictioneers
We can't help produce but
Prolifically
In our verbosity.
We rush and race
In rambunctious rhythm -
Bouncing back and forth
Springboarding conversation.
No pause for breath,
No pause for regret,
Just torrents of truths
With tiny embellishments (for flair)
Fueled by sonorous sibilants
And whiskey.

nepotism

Life's not fair,
unless you're an heir.
We learn that while we're young.
The rules are set
by the teacher's pet,
and blondes always have more fun.
Nepotism's rife
in a world of strife
& we're told to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.
Yet oldest son
glides to number one
and the rest of us fight for the scraps.
We fuss and we fight
for the little that's right
while the richest look down and laugh,
they separate some,
decided who's smart or who's dumb,
to them we're just wheat or we're chaff.
But whatever we are -
they set the bar
and decide what to do with us all
because thanks to the system
they don't have to listen
and so silent, the rest of us fall.

riot act

She waits and watches,
hears the pounding of my heart grow stronger,
feels the hairs on my arms stand at attention,
catches the breath in my throat
as my thoughts blur and warp
like heat rising off asphalt on a summer day,
and in that pause -
she pounces.
This voice in my head: the champion of all my previous bad decisions,
my endless hesitations, tumultuous fears and
plaintive desperations rises up and
reads a riot act in violent volume
reverberating through my skull,
"Slow down! Don't be stupid. Don't believe!
Don't hope! Don't trust the moment! Don't rush in!
Don't set yourself up for a fall."
And with those words I shake and quiver,
falling, fading, becoming lesser.
And then you whisper my name like an incantation,
press tender lips to mine like medication,
and silence the siren's call
which would dash me against the rocks of my insecurities
and thus, you lead me to safe harbour.

quisling

a fox in the henhouse
sly and stealthy
you crept in and stole
all my eggs
more fool I
putting them in one basket
quisling that you are
you gave them to another
though they're not yours to give
and crept out again
into the night
sleek and beautiful
and dangerous

whodunit

a mystery
all life should be
an enigma/riddle burrito
the magic in
this world's spin
is what makes
it all so neato

we never know
how it will go
the day's agenda a puzzle
the things we say
to surprise give way
for our words we cannot muzzle

a wonderous whodunit
for us to unknit
with howsits and whatsits
aplenty
the weird and bizzaro
for all our tomorrows
and kisses that are muy caliente

debouch

The man on the park bench;
he wears a nice suit
through which he fervently sweats.
Excuses debouch from his mouth
into the air momentarily
and then plummet -
falling flat in front
of shiny patent black leather heels
tapping their toes impatiently
incredulously
before manicured nails
smooth out a skirt
and the heels resolutely
march off.

sacrilegious

a hallowed place
we built
a sanctuary
for just we two
ministering to each other
in fellowship united
testifying and proselytizing
each other's perfection
to the world at large
safe and holy in our communion
until, somehow,
I fell from your grace
and you
in sacrilegious rage
you tore it all asunder
mistaking a blunder
for blasphemy
a sin of omission
as an admission
of a mortal sin
and cast me out
excommunicated
forever and ever, amen
 

callithump

A chilly Sunday in December
you visited from warmer climes.
We set out into Manhattan -
tourists for a day
together.
New York, New York,
what wonders to behold.
In a dystopian twist
of Orwellian proportions
before us - a wild callithump
of drunken Santas
intermingling with
righteous protesters.
One group celebrating
their liberation from convention
by way of costumes and
alcoholic antics.
One group mourning
their disenfranchisement
and an untimely death
brought about by the hands of the state
and we, trapped as in amber twixt the two,
could not help but wonder
at the juxtaposition.

jinni

fractured dreams
like glass shattered
scattered around
to slice unwary feet
three wishes spent
on withered blooms
and kisses faded
useless treasure
a jinni-less lamp
to light the way
through pitch dark desert
wasteland
and parched and perishing
you wish, too late, for water
and wisdom
and hope

prudent

some days,
some glorious days,
some days there's anarchy
inside of me
do i
follow the path
follow the rules
follow the crowd
prudent and patient
and pliable
do i
run free
rebel against authority
racing upstream
non-conforming
wild and rare
there's the easier way
or the lonelier way
and one never knows
which is which

erudite

she leans back
stretching towards the sun
textbooks askew
in the grass beside her
a momentary interlude
from always being
bright and erudite
ambitious and studious
best at the test
for just one heartbeat
nothing more than
a girl of the sunshine
in a lemon yellow blouse
on a spring day
before finals

bowdlerize

Conversation flows.
Do we extend ourselves too far?
Reeling while revealing
our tics and foibles.
We do not bowdlerize
but dare to swear and share
without offense or pretense.
And so, in a verbose river
find ourselves together
swimming synchronized
upon the swirling waves of words.
We tumble over rocks
and wear them down
in a torrent of anecdotes
and epiphanies,
meandering through the landscape
in a search for distant seas.

riparian

we sit on a bench
on a subway platform
surrounded by multitudes
swarming and surging
on to
off of
around us
and we
may as well
be lolling
on the porch swing
of a riparian cottage
watching the mayflies
dance above the water
or the fish thronging below
for all the difference
the masses make
to my serenity
as our fingers intertwine
and your head rests
on my shoulder

louche

I submerge
then emerge
dripping and drowsy
pat my self dry
and lovely and louche
I wander
from room to room
reveling in indecency
clothed in nothing
but your gaze
the scent of jasmine
and a smile

epigram

Author's Lament

To submit my wit
in pithy form
I struggle and strive
words to transform;
certain I'll be
discovered a sham
with each sad,
tortured epigram.
I search my brain
for clever phrases
in hopes that you
will sing my praises
but sure my thoughts
on deaf ears fall.
I line my hopes
against the wall
and give them
one last cigarette,
blindfolded and
in a cold-sweat.
I steel myself
for the "ready, aim, fire"
of the withering scorn
that must soon transpire.
But silence instead
greets my quivering fears -
disregarded
by my peers.
And which is worse?
I cannot tell.
Differing versions of
my own special hell.

technobabble

in jargon
obfuscate
and
corpspeak
confuse
i cannot
parse
nor glean
the meaning
this technobabble
buzzes
distortion
like
broken speakers
and
speaking so
in stereo
the world
reduced to
Babel
babbles
and bumbles
and drones
and behind
glazed eyes
I dream
of the world
outside
this meeting room
where truth
and brevity
have never met

umpteen

"I am not my circumstances.
I am not a victim.
I am better than my worst day.
I am loved and worth loving."


My mirror mantras.

I tell myself these things
a bazillion,
a googleplex,
umpteen times.

And yet,
the things I remember:
perceived insults of youth.
Sly barbs from peers
who were peerless in their
prickly prickery
latched on to my skin
and dug down
like parasitic worms
feasting on the flesh
of my esteem.
And the words
I mouth,
and mean,
struggle against
a memory of meanness
like diluted medicine
and I will them to work.

"I am not my circumstances.
I am not a victim.
I am better than my worst day.
I am loved and worth loving."

saltation

a career of chasms
great saltations
over the treacherous abyss
of desolation and destitution
followed by false landings
and grasping and gripping
and fingernail ripping
and scrabbling for purchase
on the cliff face of success
and all I long for
is a rope

virtuoso

you play upon my heart
like Nero with his fiddle
and I
blinded by the flames
that surround us
mesmerized instead
by you
my virtuoso
while the world
around falls
and fails
and I flail
in joyous abandon

ingurgitate

i guzzle the sea
greedy and gobbling
ingurgitate the beauty
of a buoy
bobbing

briny breezes
whisper over skin
like a lover's caress
and i quiver in the quietude
of a peopleless place

crash of wave
and hoarse squawks
of sea birds
all the conversation
i require

a gentle respite
brief and fleeting

i wrap my cardigan closer
about-face
reluctantly trudge
over the dunes
to the car park
and the life
waiting beyond

dauntless

unbroken and unbowed
though eroded
dauntless
against the cruelest foe
in a war we all lose
time's sweeping battles
war much harder
than the campaigns of his youth
though not dissimilar to
the sweaty jungle
guerrilla warfare
of PNG in WWII
betrayed by
flesh and fog and fug
a shower and shave
victory
against an ignoble enemy

terrestrial

the land below in verdant patchwork
lines and circles
in glorious asymmetry
drunken Incan gods'
terrestrial backgammon table
with cloud shadows for checkers

askance

branches drawn
upon the rock
desert floor
like a family tree
for all mankind
and
i see the map of
dead tributaries
broken twigs
on the dusty ground
falling from
the mountains beyond
shiny
stiff paper
crumpled and balled
and then stretched flat
and hastily smoothed
landscape as
adolescent homework
rescued from the bin

I look askance
at my fellow travelers
leaning over me
to glance at America
through a plexiglass hole
in a metal tube
and distract me from
my metaphor

hinterland

the wind blows down from
Cambewarra Mountain
bellows & gusts & bends the
veranda flowers in courtly bows
a wrought-iron table in
tattered lace and dust
pillowed around a heavy glass ashtray
a battered loved lounge chair
smells of tea & whiskey & fragility
amongst cuttings of my great-grandmother's ferns
& in the jumbled fumbling strains
of a guitar and a tentative sibling duet
the feet of my grandfather tap
in the fantastical syncopation of 95 yrs
while a puckish grin
sneaks towards me & he mouths
the words of a song he doesn't know
in holy communion
across the generations
on a sunshine day
in the hinterlands

cozen

with a sly smile
and a wily way
he whispers
wheedling words
he fights the world
cozening the kind
and bullying the brazen
because "today is NOT bath day
bath day was yesterday
I don't need a bath
I'll take a bath tomorrow
I hardly even got dirty
I don't wanna
please, please
you need a bath
NOT ME"

predicate

they walked the days
blindly
moving forward
predicated on the belief
that they were an us
instead, they were
an other
moved apart by entropy
and apathy
each argument
a wedge
each apology
a resentment
unacknowledged
undefined
but implacable
until the oceans
between them
became too stormy
to cross
and cross with each other
they left
for calmer seas

masterful

the sullen sulk of the
pouty teen
is a thing of beauty
to behold
carefully calculated
mixture of
ennui and disdain
masterful melding
of discontent and longing
huge importance attached to
small supposed improprieties
against the bastion of cool
a melange of morose moonings
tempered with moments of
unfettered childlike glee

aficionado

She studied him
like a college scout
studies a high school state champ.
She memorized his stats,
his preferences,
his family, his friends, his classes, his beer,
his bands, his shows, his smile, the part of his hair.
She parsed it all for potential.
And all the time
she could have devoted
to saving the world
to saving herself
to building and making and learning
she spent on becoming an
aficionado on a boyfriend
who would be gone by senior year.