Sometimes I feel invisible.
My surroundings consist of barrier reefs
And schools of exotic fish.
I am just a guppy in saltwater.
Out of place and out of mind.
And yet visible and more than often declined.

Where do I belong?
In freshwater or the sea?
Why must life be so hard for a saltwater guppy like me?

I watch your face
as you write

in the furrows of the brow,
see you and the
word-seeds being seized,
harvested,
prepared, ready-roasted
for sumptuous consumption

grimace and smile,
alternating currents,
grimace and smile,
ponderous pondering
chew each word,
flavor extracting,
does its taste fit,
is it only,
but,
perfect?

you get up, you sit,
you move about,
pretending, misleading,
purposed to be aimless

yet eyes squinting
betray
a fearsome full
concentration rapture,
a mind computing
the numerical quality of
words,
summing, subtracting,
solving for X

you employ technique,
formats, tools and aids,
thesaurus, dinosaurus, dictionary,
even pictionary
when
the guppy letters
swim spring river current fast,
little boy catch me fast run past,
cannot be caught and easy captured

why
do I watch
your face
as you write?

for there visaged,
is your truest work,
you, your best poem

what words you select
matters little to me,
t'is the struggles,
the blush of satisfactory,
the distempered white of
disillusionment,
of inspiration sought
but not found

all these dancers,
you choreograph
a word-ballet in three acts,
scheme a midsummer nights dream
upon the stage of your face

return the favor poet?

watch mine,
watch my face,

as I read your poem
and see thine own best
reflection
in teary eyes caught inside crows-feet,
pencil thin smile lines of fine wine whimsy,
in feet that airlift,
the contour of
who you are
and
think

*You, Poet,
you are your best poem

gargle guppy bladders in the saline of your tears

be the punchline of all joking any time you chance to hear

may your days of life be long and restless

may your nights be short and hard

may the cycle of your suffering become your holy lord

"the guppy letters,
swim spring river current fast,
like little boys catch me fast who run past,
they cannot be caught and easy captured"

From "You, Your Best Poem"
~~~

the duo of little boys in my life,
a small percentage of my size,
yet,
somehow they are
Superman~adept
at getting past my grasp
just when I need to
precision tool them,
hug them air tight,
way way beyond just right,
conspiratorially whispering our
Socrates secrets

I cannot capture them,
for they caught me
a priori,
from the very inception of our
commonality starting line

yet when little boys hide and go seeking,
their diminution is ammunition
for their evasion and disappearance
from mine eyes
that  lust for their touch,
their-skin-so-soft-it's-a-miracle

but persistence is an adult failing,
seek and ye shall find little boys,
giggling their passwords
under dining room tables,
the ceiling skies of the top bunk bed,
safe house places of young boys

take them home,
for a life-in-prison,
in the prison of a
adult's love for little men,
discontented by their never ending
growing up,
serial escape attempts

as they grow up,
and I grow down,
think that some day,
I will require
these skilled speedsters
(and their associated older sisters)
to

"little boys catch me  fast"

happy in the knowing
that they,
now, trained so well
in the art of hugging,
will catch and capture
me
yet again
when I need it most