Cogito, Ergo Cogito Sum

Just when you think 
You’ve thought 

Everything through 
And left—as they say— 

No stone unturned
Behind you, guess who 

Turns up unannounced 
And incognito, affecting 

A pronounced stony silence 
And turns everything upside 

Down on his return. 

Traffic Management For Musing Pedestrian Poets

On soft 

Little black 

Cat’s paws 


White spaces


The words

Cross the page 

Accordingly.

Confucius Say Still Not Enough Material Kindling To Make Mankind Great Again

Though no dearth 
Of consumptive homeless 
Hearths flickering on and off,

In dead of winter gathering feeble 
Stacks of splintered hearts 
More than enough 

To consume them.

Besting The Great Equalizer

I don’t know how 
You did it, dude, but 

No more are you 
The fool 

You once were, 
You’re also wiser 

No longer. 

Enter Stellar Radio Active Cosmic Conundrum

Hmm—if it's true
The world turns 

In silence, why 
On Earth 

Are we static? 


 

A Poem Should Be (18)

Indestructible, lasting almost 
Forever, like that ludicrous 

Prickly pear cactus poking 
Its barbed head of fruit through

The toughest thick slab 
Of concrete, even after being 

Through thick and thin, fire 
And water or, believe it 

Or not, crushed to smithereens 
By crazed bulldozers hell- 

Bent on erasing it 
From the face of the earth 

To make way for some new 
Abominable, transient 

And quite prickless, 
Construction. 

Parting Ways

The fickle winds blow 

                    The clouds this way 
And that way before you 

Hear the silence.

Fatal Attraction

When one goes where one has to,
What’s the use of asking why? 
---Huuklyeand Cinquor 

Like it or not, let the poem 
Walk away scot free 

And it will take you with it 
With no second thought. 

In Defense Of Minimalism Per Se

Brevity in poetry doesn’t mean 
You have little to say, it means 

You have everything 
In the world to say 

And too little 
Time to say it. 

Right There

Yes, in the end this is 
What it means to be free— 

The world feels right 
When you are so, 

And that’s where 
You should be.

Late Autumn Mystery Unfolding Under Plane Tree

Not just the startled 
Cackling of the murder 

Of crows lifting off 
At the sight of our passing,

But the crackling also
Of burnished gold swirling 

Leaves letting go. 

Should A Poem Be Or Not Be Like You Want It To Be?

For the sake of this 
Poem, let’s go out 

On a limb and say 
Ferocious— 

A scurvy feral 
Feline tensing it- 

Self to scurry up 
A budding 

Tree, all set to seize
The moment

A carefree song 
Bird alights on 

That nearest now quivering 
Thin green limb for all 

The innocent 
To see. 

After Archilochos: Unconditional Surrender

]mischievous [those] 
] 
] 
]lascivious girls 
]
] [ ] [ ] [ ] keep
] 
]coming and [all?] us 
]enamored 
] 
]of [our] armor[ed] [dick?] 
] 
]heads can do 
] 
] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] 
] 
]with [our] spears 
] 
] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] pointedly 
] 
][blunted?] 
] 
] [ ] [ ] [ ] is 
]
]run 
]           run 
]                      run . . . . . . .
] 
] 
]

Seriously Jilted Beau

I told you back then—play
This muse for a sucker once
Too often and you’ll find me
Doing—with a new twist—
That old song and dance you
Thought you knew the motions to
All too well, the beguine that begins

I should have known better 
With a girl like you, 
That I would love 
Everything that you do
And I do, hey, hey, hey,
And I do. . . . . . . . . .

You say you got the hots for me
Still but with all your screwing
Up, your never-ending Hoochie-
Coochie with you, you, you--
Hey, hey, hey, guess what
Doggerel licker, no longer
Do I for you.