An oil spill
From a brain drain drill.

Whoops.

I didn't meant for my scoops of goop to fall in your soup.

So come on now, toss it all out.
Toss it out with the rest of that garbage,
that infected syringe.
We're better than this.

I prefer it chilled,
so would you mellow out?

There just isn't time for self-doubt.

whatever you write
i'll believe

i believe in your imagination.

Man Naturally loves delay,
And to procrastinate;
Business put off from day to day
Is always done to late.

Let ever hour be in its place
Firm fixed, nor loosely shift,
And well enjoy the vacant space,
As though a birthday gift.

And when the hour arrives, be there,
Where'er that "there" may be;
Uncleanly hands or ruffled hair
Let no one ever see.

If dinner at "half-past" be placed,
At "half-past" then be dressed.
If at a "quarter-past" make haste
To be down with the rest

Better to be before you time,
Than e're to be behind;
To open the door while strikes the chime,
That shows a punctual mind.

Moral:

Let punctuality and care
Seize every flitting hour,
So shalt thou cull a floweret fair,
E'en from a fading flower

You're so floppy.
Like a puppy,
all arms and feet
gangly, knobby.

We sit together
to work on work
but nothing gets done
it's all just talk,

Just stories about grandpas
from World War II
Freedom of love
Religious views.

And through it all
in your attentive eyes
I can see your heart
And can see how wise
You are for sixteen
And I'm twenty-nine
so that makes thirteen
years between us, christ.

I hope I see you down the line
Ten years, or twenty
And you're still just...fine
I fear for you in this terrible place
It's unkind to a gentle mind
It can shut down an open space.

But it feels like nothing
Could create a person
Not years or experience
With such clarity of vision
And depth of innocence
As you showed me today
Under the tent where we spent the day.

I believe in you.
And in who you'll become
You've already got the glue
Now you just need some
Confidence, but it's ok to be green
When the world is bright
And you're barely sixteen.

You didn't stay at the party,
Even though it was at your house
and you can still hear laughter coming from the living room.

You didn't stay at the party
You fled like a mouse
from the prey of the cat that you hoped would leave soon.

But it's five in the morning
God, you're so ******* boring

But the boy with the ukelele
Is still serenading the lady
Who has absolutely no interest
In becoming his mistress.

I'm writing this poem
because there's no way I'm a-goin
to sleep any time soon.

So you get to hear me comploon.

Complain.

It's 5 in the morning.

I've gone insane.

I had a dream today about a piano. There were people there, and they stood over me as I tried to play, but the keys were all seamed and crumbling through my fumbling fingers.

You'll figure it out, they said, in this perfectly round place where piano keys are divided by metal barriers and the music doesn't carry and the strangers just stand and stare at you as you curse your muse. I was finally pushed aside, for the love of god make room for someone else to try.  

We lined up against the wall, then, a reasonless jump in that swirling universe of dream logic. It was wooden, the wall, I remember because the color reminded me of the deep hooded metal stove in the old cedar house where I learned that a scraped knee isn't as much an ouch as a trophy. We stood there along the wall for a time that was neither day nor night, and no one spoke.

And then I awoke.

Got pills, I’ll swallow them
Take the chills that follow them
I don’t want to wallow
I’ve got a heart that needs hollowing

The gobs I’ve been gobbling
Don’t help with the wobbling
The legs are still hobbling
But the heart’s no longer
throbbing,
This bottling,
needs a full on throttling.

So the maudlin
Is phoned in
But the tones are all
honed in this turkey with the bone in.

The drumming keeps droning.

This strumming keeps zoning.

And this mouth keeps on foaming.