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.

Horizontal Hold, Broken

HMS HHMS HMSS I love you

Several again screwed in my brain somewhere somewhere screwed

But rep as reps as represents

That fancy fancy snake will shimmer in the sunlight soon as the sun’s a thing

And everything shakes its slumber someday

Sidewinding, side-stepping, side-on-side, shibboleth

Until it’s all shaking you, of course; it’s what’s obvious because it’s what’s real before and after

Everything again, every word again, again again, again

Here comes again, we hope again, again again, again

My eyes aren’t burning, your eyes are burning, again again, again

So let there be motes and let there be pinwheels

Be they starlings or staring, be they right on red or unsignaled U-turns

Shock shock intervals shock shock some more

A maze, a mezze, a middlespace, in retrospect a war

The Play We Blaze (Broken Sonnet)

The place

As in the sound and the color of it

The sight of it all vs. the names of things

The precious plenty battle and the Sun somethings on

Several stations cut from several cloths

So many pieces all around as many ways

As many sons and as many daughters

As days and nights

As seasons

As regrets

The nights are getting shorter but we still need so much more rest

We wrap the body

We name the night

We carry all of our things with us, every one sparkling