Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
Like a constipated
mule, the old man
limps toward me

saying, The end is
near—the words
falling from his mouth              

like congealed bacon
fat, then the young
woman emerges from

the churning sea—her
auburn hair, alabaster,
almost translucent

naked skin, fearless
like thunder, casting
a long shadow—The

world ended long
ago, she says, and
we walk onto the

emerald green great
lawn, her in the old
man’s cerulean

sky-colored overcoat,
and she points to the
tower—figures falling

from its large windows—
Fear of truth, she asserts
referring to the bodies

smashing like overly ripe
melons on the ground,
then she says, Your

classroom is on the
sixth floor, and as I
open the heavy door

she states, The class
is on how unnecessary
the class is—then adds

Please do try and not
stumble or trip near
an open window, sir.
The man in the
cellar is forging
the books of

history, as the
ghost in the attic
is starting to

realize that he
is dead, and the
piano tuner in

the den is an
international
spy, and the corpse

is in the trunk of
the car in the vermin
ruled alley and the

ghost sees that he
can simply leave
this world, which

he suddenly does
and all of this—
instantly left behind.
Jul 10 · 42
Home
A fly buzzes
madly around

the room, and
ricochets off the

mirror, then
ricochets off the

window, then
lands on a leaf

in a painting
and it resides

there for the
remainder of its

incredibly brief,
minuscule life.
Jul 10 · 47
Still life with deity.
A statuette of Durga,
alluring goddess of

divine destruction
and new creation,

in her sky blue and
cloudy white robes,

on a shelf above the
swirling gray smoke of

a burning unfiltered
cigarette in the

sunny orange ashtray
on the kitchen table-

top the color of the
churning stormy sea.
Jul 10 · 27
Constellation
A dot on the far
left side of the page—

that is where I started,
and a dot on the far

right side—where I am
now, and a dot for each

detour that was made,
and when all the dots

are connected the
image formed is of

a wounded man
with one leg, and a

broken crutch, limping
toward the future.
Jun 25 · 55
New Moon 25 June
My little boat and I,
tossed like a juggler’s
eggs, then into the sea,

and as I stagger onto
the beach I see her,
June, my next door  

neighbor who is 95
years old, but somehow
now looks 25, reclining

under the blackest night
sky, as she says, You
survived, the last three

folks went under—and
if you’re going to speak
keep it under 100 syllables,

past that it’s just babbling—
so I sit next to her,
she holds my hand,

my mind goes quiet,
and I can’t think of
anything worth saying.
Jun 22 · 55
All the politics.
I am the dead
woman slumped
against the shower

wall—don’t know
why, but I simply
stopped breathing,

and the water’s pelting
my face, as the dog
sits, staring at me,

as I recall how much
I hated my job,
all the politics, and

the dog is licking
my face, wondering
when I’m going to

go to the kitchen
and feed her, as my
husband is waking,

expecting his
breakfast to already
be on the table.
Jun 22 · 57
The Official Story
The Minister Of State
reads the speech
dictated by the toiling

titan of industry,
inventor of the gadget
that everyone needs,

while titan’s wife, the
Baroness, though
talented with an

umbrella and tweezers,
sits idly waiting for a
delivery from the

publicist, who works
into the long night,
crafting the narrative

that all of us fall
into, like the words
in this sentence.
Jun 20 · 93
The broken world.
The calliope plays
its jaunty tune.

A cow is on
fire. A drunken

entrepreneur shoots
an apple off the

head of a child.
A young woman

in the audience
is having a

****** fantasy.
A monkey juggles

beakers of volatile
chemicals. Soon this

carnival will be
bankrupt, but for

them another way of
life is unimaginable.
Jun 19 · 132
Summer Solstice
The room is empty
except for an egg,

about to erupt
with life, as it is

sitting on a chair
in the passing sun.
revised 6.19.25
Jun 15 · 54
The heart space.
Fall into that
hole in the shape
of your body

and keep
falling until
you reach a

silent, empty
space, where words
have lost their

use, and emotions
pass through,
like tourists

and your name
has a hollow
ring to it.
The sunrise looks like
something ******

the cat coughed up.
Having not done his

homework all year he
is failing algebra class.

He wakes up in bed,
then falls back asleep.

He’s in the front yard
and can’t find his pants.

The school building is
like a jigsaw puzzle that

is impossible to solve.
The sunrise looks like

something ******.
He wakes up in bed,

then falls back asleep.
Of course he doesn’t

know that he is asleep.
He’s forgotten how to

balance the equation.
The edifice is a puzzle.
I’m in the produce
aisle and the local
fortune teller is

hurling strawberries
at me, as she yells,
Wake up, we’re in for

a wild ride and we
won’t be the same
when it’s over! Then

she charges toward
me, nearly knocks me
over and gives me an

electrified kiss. This
is the time when
peasants harvested

wild strawberries, she
says, then laughs like
a broken church bell.
Jun 9 · 87
Echo
Listen and
silent have

the same
letters.

Nothing more
to say.
revised 7.10.25
I am assembling
a new gray tweed
suit. The plodding,

solitary elephant is
wandering on a dark
road. I am not an I.

Pinocchio is missing
an arm and speeding
in a big truck. I am

an eye that floats
overhead, smaller
than a pin-point,

nothing really.
In the murky
night Pinocchio

hurtles toward the
idle elephant, but
swerves at the last

moment, then I’m
wearing the tweed
suit, even though

it’s missing a
sleeve, and all three
of its ivory buttons.
Jun 5 · 78
Youth.
In the foreground, a
child’s marble, made of
clear glass, incandescent,
aglow with blue and
green streaks and swirls,
on a table cloth the color
of the ocean on a
bright day, and in the
background, a window,
the inky night sky, the
luminous but gray moon,
smaller than the marble,
flat, distant, and in
the glass, an adult’s
face faintly reflected,
small, ghost-like, colorless,
embedded in the
starless black space.
revised 6.4.25
Who knew there
are so many
poets—lurking

in the shadows,
walking in the
sunlight, running

naked on the
beach, or sleeping
in defunct malls?
Jun 4 · 101
Might Be Sunny Outside
The wind-up
clock chimes

from the other
room. On the

wall, a painting
of a landscape

five-thousand
miles away.

The room
illuminated

by lamp-light,
as if it were

the middle of a
long dark night.
Jun 3 · 71
Still life.
Dried, faded red
carnations on
an electric blue

tabletop, a dark
green avocado
sliced open,

revealing the
ripening inner
canary yellow flesh

and sienna brown
seed, and on the
wall above, a

round clock—with
bold black numbers
on a stark white

background—
that audibly ticks
every second.
revised 7.10.25
Jun 3 · 164
Cognition
Gulls are crying
just outside my

window, as I

construct a ship
in a bottle.
The electric blender
is crying as it spins
round and round and

the spilled milk is
making its way to
the edge of the

counter, while the
refrigerator hums its
solemn tune and

something pops up
in the toaster, charred
beyond recognition.
Jun 2 · 87
Today’s News
The answer: three.
Two to hold the
ladder, and one
to shoot the gun.

I’m sorry. I
was distracted.
So, what was
the question?
Jun 2 · 81
The tumult.
In this
world,

even a
simple

cherry
blossom

constitutes
a miracle.
That's not a
pencil, it’s a
brontosaurus.

I know I am, but
what are you?

Six out of seven
fabled dwarves
are not happy.
Jun 2 · 68
Metaphysics Allegory
They ski down-hill
laughing absurdly,
madly, in sepia-tone,

like an old photo.
One says: ? The
other replies: !

They are judges.
The distant court
house looks small,

like a doll house.
A girl is on the
hill top, her eyes

glisten like a
policeman’s raincoat.
But she doesn’t exist

yet. One day she
will look you in
the eye and say: .
Jun 1 · 123
Nothing
The tea
kettle
whistles

in the
kitchen.
Then all
is quiet.

A cloud
moves  
slightly

and the
room is
a little
brighter.
Even though
there is

nothing about
himself that

he likes, he
defends his

image like he
is singing

the final aria
in a tragic

Italian big
time opera.
Jun 1 · 87
The overheated sea.
What are you doing
to yourselves? I can

not suitably reply
to the question  

posed by the vast,
unfathomable

sea, as my little boat
barely stays afloat.
Jun 1 · 429
Her job.
She is a copywriter
at a law firm, where

the men remind her of

the creepy guy in the
produce aisle, with a

head of iceberg lettuce,

leering at her, smiling
—as she contemplates

the bright blank screen.
May 30 · 71
Ode
Ode
An ode to
the broken

world, its
stories and

images
stretched

like taffy to
satisfy an

insatiable
sweet tooth.
May 30 · 204
Essential Occupations
As we know from
studying history,
there are four
essential
occupations—
rodeo clown,
shadow, pirate,
and facsimile,
and this revises

a previous
inventory which
included saint,
and saint is now
understood to be
simply an enhanced
facsimile of either
a rodeo clown,
shadow, or pirate.
May 27 · 107
I am a verb.
The open sky
reflected on

the winding
river’s water,

and I slowly
pass by, an

undulating,
a rippling

image for a
brief moment.
May 27 · 413
Tonight’s New Moon
Is there life
after death?

The better
question,

Is there life
before death?
Dry dirt as far as the eye can see,
an empty landscape, then I turn
and see her, and she says,
How did we get here? and I say,

I think I’m asleep and dreaming,
and she says she thought that too,
then a fierce wind, and all is
brownish-gray air-borne dust,

then the monkey yells, Cut!
and he tells David Crocket,
the camera-man, that they
have truly captured reality

with great verisimilitude,
and the next thing I know is
I’m here, face down in the water
and washing ashore on a very

small island, a big sand-bar, really,
and she is naked, in a fetal position
and the monkey is kneeling over
Crocket’s corpse like an alter-boy,

weeping, and she yells, Shut-up,
you ***** little ape! and the monkey
howls and bites her on the leg, and
she crawls to one end of the sand bar

and I to the other end, and all is water,
as far as the eye can see, and the
monkey, a television actor, then a
director of acclaimed historical dramas,

is lamenting that Crocket was, The
Da Vinci of the modern age, and I’m
thinking, Da Vinci? Yeah. The guy
who never finished anything, and I ask,

How did we get here? and she says
she must be asleep and dreaming,
and I’m thinking, Yes, that must be
all there is to it. We’re dreaming.
May 21 · 93
My monastery crisis.
Who is it that sits
on the cushion
on the floor, here
in the twilight,
during the final
hours of spring?
May 21 · 109
Fire walking.
Living on
the roof of
hell we tend
the flowers
that perfume
our sacred
interim home.
After carefully
observing us,

the monkey
declares, You

are certainly
not a part

of nature,
what are you?
May 21 · 92
Our emotions.
Fish in
a tub
swimming
in circles.
May 21 · 170
Her theology.
I am standing with
five rolled-up pages
of poetry in my

hand, ready to lunge
forward and smash it
into oblivion, when

she says, Don’t ****
that fly. Can’t you
see it’s praying?
May 20 · 84
How she lingers.
The green
grass is
wet from

rain. Her
elegant
footsteps

have left
their delicate
impressions.
May 20 · 81
My biography.
He is a
yardstick,
a measure
of something.

He is a
body, something
worn like a
suit of clothes.

He is a
string of words,
a sentence
to be parsed.

He is an
individual,
a myth
that is told.

He is a vast
space,
a screen life
is projected on.
May 20 · 98
Loss
Just the outline
of the thing, the

stench of something
rotting somewhere,

the inexplicable
puddle of water in

the front hall closet,
but for some

a chance, like
the universe,

to emerge
from nothing.
May 20 · 198
Over-thinking
He can’t help
himself. He

knows his
thoughts are

distorted, but
like a criminal,

he’s compelled
to return to

the scene
of the crime.
Employ science,
the way a poet
employs words.

Employ belief,
the way a
mathematician  
employs arithmetic.

Or, be the eye
that sees, and be
employed by death,
the way life is
employed by time.
May 20 · 123
Professor
X is dragging the body of the
dead history professor, a man of
enormous girth and monstrous
height, through the empty

landscape, then the vast ocean
appears and X drops the body
into the water, where a shark
whose ancestry is four hundred

million years old, eats it, as X
recalls the professor’s sleepy
eyes, artificial smile, and
remarkably unreliable memory.
May 19 · 94
Incantation
The finch
sings its

song as
if it just

discovered
itself in

the wonder
of nature.
May 19 · 113
Love Call
It chirps and
and squeaks,
and whistles
and buzzes.

For twenty-two
million years
the hummingbird
has been

singing that
same song, that
simply says,
I am here.
May 19 · 78
Presence
You are
bathed
at birth.

You are
bathed
at death.

One can
bathe in
every

moment
and shed
the dust

and soot
before it
accumulates.
May 19 · 77
Uncertainty
Even in
these
perilous
times,

flowers
are
blooming
everywhere.
May 19 · 52
A New Earth
Now, in the other world,
we are building a bridge,
from one thing to another,

and of course it’s a
metaphor for our
condition, since

this word is broken,
a hell, of our own
making, like most hells,

so, in the other world,
we build our
envisioned bridge

which is as real as
a broken clock, as
tangible as a body

floating face down in a
lake, but now, in this
world that we destroyed

there are no longer any
bridges, so in the other
world we build our way

to a destination
yet to be known,
yet to be reconciled.
Next page