You call it apophenia
I call it apophatic

You say early schizophrenia
I say poetry dramatic

The paranoaic-critical method
Like my man Salvador Dali

I shake with anxiety
But I get up and I rally

And I still got Mark in Cali!

The bipolar I've learned to live with
But anxiety I have not

The terror of the end
Please help my brother Scott

Cucumber sushi rolls
As the White Supremacists plot

Georgia on my mind
Ray Charles: thanks a lot!

.......Merton.....
Samut Prakan
    burnt man

Stanley Yelnats
City of Ember
        Flush

Teaching Carl Hiaasen
             Florida
              Flush

What are songs but dreams?
What are dreams but wishes?
We ate his birthday cake
Yes, I did the dishes

Today the sun again
Soon the swimming pool
Once I was a teacher
I miss Sage Ridge School

                I'm a geek
                   uncool

Hey Mr. W!
Did you ever notice
That Johnny Cade's initials
Are J.C.
And he sacrificed his life
To save those kids in the church
Just like Jesus Christ sacrificed his life
To save us all from our sins?

That's very perceptive, Michelle.
Well done.

Stay Gold, Ponyboy. Stay Gold.

Father Andrew Greeley
My teacher (of blessed memory)
Aware of his vocation
To the Catholic priesthood:
7 years old.

Thich Nhat Hanh
(The Venerable One Action)
Tells Oprah Winfrey of his
Awareness of wanting to
To become a Zen monk:
7 years old

Lucas Graham:
Once I was 7 years old.

Poetry is different
Like my bipolar mind

La Mancha means The Stain
Impurity is kind

I fear annihilation
To fear I am inclined

Poetry is different
The hidden is the find

Cam's birthday
And all i have is silence

Protect him from the hate
Protect him from the violence

Lefty like me as well
Let him keep his joy

My son distant far
My darling little boy

Basketball once more
       Jesuit justice
         Popehope

The full truth about women
Not very pretty

I really loved Stockholm
Such a pretty city

18th century London
Women very witty

Donald Trump's America
****** ****** ******

No one important
Mostly all alone
A few little poems
Little black cell phone

Grateful for my sons
Honeymoon in Rome
Temples at Angkor Wat
Very far from home

1987
3710
4044
8000, si muy bien.

                 And then?

Sleep, Sleep - thankfully
I wake and feel some calm

Just to get through this day
Solitude the balm

I know not what my journey is
Or where I'll go and go

But I remember sledding
with my sons
In wondrous Reno snow

                 Yo, Yo, Yo!

European history
European trains
America has the cars
And the Purple Rain

Tired. Exoplanets!
Aliens in my brain
Everything changes
But we can't explain

                Names!

Theology is a kind of madness
But does it love create?
2037
8088

St. Mark's Episcopal
University of the South
Long live Mr. Keating!
Somethin' brave from your mouth

My brain bleeds poems
See me on slab
Not Owen Glendower
Not really Queen Mab

Yes Professor X
Logan, T.H. White
Yah, Kurt Wagner
Maybe I just might

     abgescheidenheit

Exoplanets
Aliens!
Cosmic seas
Wait. Wait.

Galaxy Quest
Star Trek begins
Destiny
Destiny not Fate.

           8088

I wrote to her of Prom
But now it is Homecoming
Mysteries emerge
Help me wait my date

Something still to do
But I don't know what
Silent destiny
Flip side of fearfate

Buddhamind in Bangkok
And in Cary too
Music seeping through
In the evening late

Yes, my mother laughed
Georgetown where she died
Toledo where she's buried
More men who meditate

              8088

Just words. All I have.
         Not much.

    God bless Hutch.

They might say mental illness
That is not entirely wrong

But what they don't know is this illness
Is the way the world creates songs

American education
Formulaic, bourgeoise and boring

Students on their cell phones
When they are not snoring

Libraries are better
Nighttrains better still

Concerts just might help you
More than any pill

    Love, and do what you will.

not much
sadness
    sigh

I walked Beckett Bridge
Kinda talked to Sam
My oldest in local schools
I took care of Cam

Life is suffering
In the 80s it was Wham!
Oh! those 80s ladies
Made me who I am

1987
Before I had the fam
2021
taco trucks, not ham

           Shazam!

So desperate to find some meaning
So desperate: soul careening

Desperately Seeking Susan
Desperate and confusin'

         Oh those 80s ladies!

The 80s ladies linger
Bangkok. Circle in the Sand.
California quite crazy
Reincarnation? Rockin' band.

Trust the art not the artist
Chaos careens within
They say in heaven love comes first
Thomas means the Twin

Listening on YouTube
Listening to Professor McGinn
Greekly apophatic
Greeley future Finn's!

O those 80s ladies!
Linger in my mind
Circle in the Sand
Speak to me so kind

            Linger!

Spoke with Mike today
While he cut my hair
He has been to Athos
Says I look like I'm from there

Webb telescope
Launched on Christmas Day
Infinite Universe?
Star Child may

Earth child might
My children can
Stay with me at night
Lonely aging man

      Cam Cam I Am!

Nothing supernatural
Though I have wished. I have wished.

Tasty chana masala
My favorite Indian dish

Tonight the gentle rain
Ease my frightened mind

Slept all afternoon
I could never find

             Dreamtime

What you realize as you age
Is that it's truly an illusion

All the world's a stage
Ignorance, fear, confusion

But Shakespeare seen in Staunton
Ah! Wonderful night

Prospero then snow
Though things don't work out right.

          81 South. Driving delight.

So I had to take a class on the existentialists
Part of my major
James Madison University
1989

I can't stand Sartre
Still love Camus
Honeymoon in Paris
World of strange design

Or maybe no design
Or maybe abandoned by God
1937
Picasso. Guernica

And Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The Cost of Discipleship
Simone Weil in Assisi
****** on the rise

At times at night
Just now in fact
The terror, The darkness
Dread annihilation

Gratitude for movies
Susanna, Judith, Hamnet
Staunton aglow in snow
Dr. Cohen's dedication

    Rene Thornton as Prospero
           Standing Ovation

night drive from Shenandoah Shakespeare
  moon in my mirror, the Bard in my ear
                Frankie Fell in Love
                     I sing and steer.

      Will she know when I disappear?

no one important
drifting toward death
           drifting ...

8:37
morning light

waking tired
but waking might

lead to some
discovery

like American Cosmic
watch and sea

8:37
Quiet
No huge plans for the day

The world spins
The sound and the fury
Giannis and Steph Curry

I keep visiting the post office
We're nowhere near Halloween
But, yes, I'm a haunted house

                     Ghosts!

paycheck, though quite small
    musical morning, basketball
                  thankfulness

The mysteries of life never get settled
I am sure to die not knowing

Child on the Colorado
Rapids overflowing

Socrates the speaker
The Buddha walking silent

The sadness of Tim Meeker
America the violent

Gonna resist Columbus Day
What a tyrant and fake!

I hope I die in Seattle
Tell the Lady of the Lake.

I'm a little early
Bookstore yet to open

Leonard Cohen's grace
Hidden, coded, broken

NASA off in Space
Mars now has a rover

I too Galaxy Quest
Even tried to show her

             Know her?

Carolina blue ball
Carolina blue sky

Carolina vs. All Y'all
Carolina Blue guy

the immense violence of the world
                         luck
                         hope

The night has come
Shadows on my wall

Oxford, London, Wetheral


            Hey, Ya'll.

Fast food restaurants
Gas stations
Chain hotels
Not a single beautiful building

Fire stations
Racist cops
Football fields
Small parks

Lonely highways
Public high schools
**** stars
Strip malls

Military bases
Office parks
More gas stations
Lottery tickets

     U.S.A.

Probably born too late for God
Summer of 69
O those 80s ladies!
The cruelty of time

Simple little poems
Shelley on the beach
Ozymandias
Robert Frost I teach

Encounters with Chinese Hermits
The path of solitude
Room 333
Susan in the ****

So sad this lonely life
For movies I say thanks
Arthur, King of the Britons
Charlemagne, King of the Franks

                The Princess Bride!

87 rolls around again
Florida to Virginia
Virginia to philosophy
Philosophy to Silence

Harrisonburg is boring
But JMU is new
Mountains
Mist

I walk to the post office
All the King's Men
Jackiebird
Jackiebird

         Has she heard?

So 87 is important to me
Graduated high school
She came over to say goodbye
Not her kinda guy

Saw the Princess Bride
It was New Year's Eve
Called home to tell my family
I remember Mike and Steve

I listen to 80s radio
Blastin' in my car
If I could run and hide
Probably wouldn't get too far

1987
All my changes were there
Hold her in your thoughts
Brush her long brown hair

        County Fair. County Fair.

I don't exactly regret
My involvement with religion
I love those French cathedrals
The Buddha meditates

I'm not quite a believer
But I seek the Silence
Guadalupe green
Candidates debate

I wait and watch and wonder
Train to Carolina
Walk along the tracks
Lucky penny for my mate

Women criticize
So do ****** professors
I hang out alone
Republicans just hate

            '87 not '88

'87 is dear to me
High school ends
She says goodbye
I discover philosophy

Purple Rain
Southern skies
Socrates
Catholic cries

The Princess Bride
The Man in Black
Chandler Hall
Soon Iraq

Ethan Todd
Bob and Kin
Jeremy
Thomas the Twin

    One thing ends. One thing begins.

Not 1776
2037
3773
Bert be home Blyleven

I played for the Pirates
A little center field
To strive to seek to find
Ms. Susan Meek revealed

Charleston at night
Breeze blows to the water
California son
Dublin. Dublin daughter.

Hagia Sophia
Tokyo Sophia U.
Lost in Translation
Found in Charlotte true

    Found, Ms. Meek, in you.

                    8772