I Remember Tekken Tag Tournament

Weigh the sugar, the caffeine, the intangibles

Every landspeed record is a thing at the horizon

Or compound eyes all the better for seeing your compound fractures

Peanut brittle, marshmallow, snowballs — all the seasons

Back and forth a week at a time then two

Back and forth and then interrupted

Back and forth and strike out, sunrises

Then setbacks and shutdowns and somewhere softens.

I have shoulders and I have moments.

An angle, a scope, line of sight, and lower lows.

I have a ditch-bound snowmobile.

I have points on my license.

I have more than any of us deserve.

Lower lower lows.

I have dreams and more sunrises

More bad choices and brush it off.

Get better.

The World Doesn’t Ask to Be Understood

The real world is everywhere

So many blocks, so many by-ways

…

What You See vs. What Is

Most things are invisible, but we don’t know how that works

And there are many things, but not as many, that you just can’t see because they are rushing away from you so fast

Remember every ambulance that’s passed you as it passed you

And now I can really hear what you were saying as you climbed that last mountain and it’s the saddest thing I’ve seen in a long time and I’m still angry, too, even if it isn’t fair

I was not a reporter during the Civil War

I was not witness to the March on Washington

I’ve never met a Supreme Court justice

Fast is getting faster while the fastest stays put

Saturday, April 23rd, 3:39am and Counting

There’s a war in Ukraine and I’m writing a poem

Which isn’t the dumbest thing to ever happen

But something more of less

It’s past 3:30am, my head hurts, and I can’t sleep,

But I slept a few hours earlier when I was down on the couch after a bunch of crabs and a couple Maryland Mules and a touch of Whistle Pig

The rest of it melted down the ice in the glass by the time I woke up

This is stupid and going nowhere

This world is stupid and going nowhere in this stupid little right now with my head hurting and not sleeping and now 3:44am, but that’s gonna happen

Tomorrow my head won’t hurt anymore and I’ll get in a good run and the weather is changing and the world will be going somewhere

Some good some bad some terrible some worse some amazing

Tomorrow will happen

It’s 3:49am and one of our dogs isn’t feeling well — she makes the funniest noises all the time, too — groans mostly

Then there are vape dojos and break rooms and home theater systems and fossil fuels and unfortunately still a war in Ukraine

What to do with all the math that builds up everywhere?

What to do with the time between lunch and dinner?

How to be on my phone less? but the double- triple-bind that this is where I do all my writing and a good deal of reading, too

It’s 3:53am and one of our cat’s is sick, too, this is the best night-morning!

How do I waste less time? and no I’m not talking about leisure

How do I beat myself up less and support myself more?

Which is also, who am I? What the hell am I doing? What am I here for?

What am I here for?

What am I here for?

What am I hear for?

The past couple years has been a  real the world doesn’t need me anymore vs. some people need me vs. the world never needed me tilt-a-whirl

Late capitalism is a motherfucker, is what I’m saying

And also, that I blame John Hughes for a whole lot, too

But I did enjoy smoking at times — that’s another morherfucker — but I came to understand I didn’t enjoy it a whole lot more and things just happened

Catherine died of breast cancer

I’m getting older

I’m getting less distracted in some ways and more distracted in others

My Aunt Carol died of lung cancer, my mom has COPD

But I miss sitting around a fire outside having a cigarette and a drink

And tipping needs to go away, too

Like water into a packing boat, drunk?

A drain, a relationship to the equator, pulling back on the yoke and pushing past the clouds

No thunderheads

Maybe sleep soon

Maintaining More West

What teeters what tolls.

Again where or how again how.

The best bulletproof vest ever worn,

The week’s prize-winning cow,

The first officiant after the worst outcome,

They are all asking questions by just standing.

Do what do will, we are accelerating to the end.

Going now vs. getting there,

Are we are when and still leaning.

Burning wheels, burning houses, burning bridges,

Burnings buildings in burning cities.

It’s all on the radio and now it’s all on you.

Yes, you signed up for everything you buried,

Let’s trace every step like it’ll matter someday.

Rochester, Easter

More of one thing

Weather conditions

Allergies again

Stories recombine, too

Upright, recline, decline

The best intentions

Animal companions

All the traditions

We take our medicines

All the programs out

Still we mean every word

Circles are one way

Several are surrounded

We ask for more

Cooking Tacos

Sometimes again just ain’t a problem.

This isn’t sundries or breathing.

This isn’t expectations or obligations.

But it’s still belonging of a sort.

Drumbeats are important.

All the weathers have their place.

Both time and space can find themselves in the ingredients far before the 50s.

Fire and wheels and wheels on fire.

I mean, circus tricks, sleight of hand, misdirection.

Spring flowers or Spring, just ten more minutes.

Days, hopes, recombinations, dreams.

That which is which which will be again and again.

Daily Reader

Closing hours closed and late nights are yours.

Early mornings, yours and blued light through blinds.

Hoof-torn sideyards not sidearms.

Not please. Not excuse me.

Daily needs vs. wants hopes dreams.

As in what you need, before.

Like backseat, windows down.

Like the forest pressing in on the sound

And it’s all passing by.

Here’s where the air tastes like morning light well into the night.

The crickets you think you hear and more.

False starts, no matter.

False floors.

Like we’re waiting till nobody comes.

If You Can Say What

All the best unfinished meals in this life

Sleeping later, or at least not getting up so soon

That cats walking along fences used to be a thing

The phases of the moon tattooed just anywhere

A decade or more with this favorite tshirt, this belt with koi fish, this Helly

And before that other favorite t-shirts, the once-was power belt, the baseball hat I lost in Philly

How you feel about days that are both bright and cold

Carriage houses until I’ve lost count

Too many hours on the road from here to there

To More or Less

Piles, stacks, closets, curries

But typefaces

But suffering

But shadows?

Envy but envy

Selves and selves but selves as well

Books on a shelf like books on my mind

Yes endings, but ending

Folding paper in half and again and counting

Distances, too, like energy and its opposite

But too much of every good thing

But not enough

But so many sundries, a dream

Look to this tree: soil ans water, air and sunlight, sure

But so much more we don’t see

Everything a network, this life

What Can a Week

The days around us

The water, ounce after ounce

The temperature and the memories of the same temperature at different times and the memory of different temperatures at different times, too

How arbitrary hours are and paragraphs

Shifts in perspective from one moment to the next — our eyes can be extraordinary when they want to be

And things being born and other things dying

Clouds of midges cuz here comes Spring

This is the kind of shit I type into notes in the middle of the night because I’m well on my way to becoming a sappy old man.

It’s not if you fall, because you will.

It’s how you get back up, because you will.