Perish The Winners' Win-Win Thoughts

Not at all surprisingly, 
Today I found myself almost 
Losing it again, that nagging 
Sense I knew who 
I was—you see 
I once thought 
I was a winner 
And everyone else 
More or less a loser, 
My friends, what 
A relief to at last discover 
We all win and lose something 
While ending up leaving 
Not surprisingly always 
Nothing in the end.

Closing In On The Poet's Elusive Objective Correlative

Moving deep 
Cross the depths 
Of your medium 

Like a crustacean, never 
Go straight to where- 
Ever it is 

You are heading—be 
It forwards or 
Back—being oblique in 

Your every movement, 
Take in as much as you can 
While doing so—this 

Will get you there sooner 
Or later, your pincers at last in 
Position to strike side- 

Long straight at the heart 
Of the scuttling always
Suspect subject matter, 

Leaving you free 
To break through 
To the untroubled

Surface for air. 

Déjà Vu, My Son

Long ago, too far back for me 
To know when for sure, I think 
Your grandfather—who was old 
Enough to be my grandfather— 
Said something to me like 

You’ll know how far you’ve come 
Only if you keep your eye 
On where you came from— 

So what do you make of that? 
Ten years younger than my father was 
When he left this life, here I am now 
Looking to see how much 
We’ve left behind and how far 
Both of us have come. 

Inscrutable Procrastinating Pedestrian Vicious Circle

Much younger, 

You were always 
Asking what 
To do next 
With yourself 

To stave off 
The haunting 
Feeling of wasting 
Precious time,

And never received
An answer that did not 
Generate another time- 
Worn question—so good so far 
And so full of youthful wit but this 

Time around, when 
Obituaries and life 
Celebrations 
Of close friends 
And relatives keep 

After you wherever 
You turn, what do you think 
The next question is 
Going to be 
Making the rounds? 

Time to go helter-skelter 
Back to square one 
While you still have enough 
Time and your threadbare wits all 
In one piece about you—

Who knows? You just might 
Make it this time around.

Muse On A Poem Relatively Speaking

Just 

Between the two 
Of us, it all comes 

Down to this one thing— 
No matter how or what 

You have to say, 
If you don’t 

Come clean with yourself 
From the beginning, 

In the end don’t 
Be surprised to find 

You mean absolutely 
Nothing to me. 

Devil's Advocate

Well, I’ll tell you this 
Much has to be 
Said before we can 
Even begin 
To explore the depths 

Of our depravity— 
For a starter, let’s ask 
Ourselves just how 
Strong the rope is 
That’s taking us down. 

Muse On A Deathless Grecian Memento

Not hard enough 
And clearly not 

Indestructible this 
Heart you burnt 

To its foundations 
And then ground 

To ashes—give it back 
To me resurrected 

Forever in an urn. 

Abandoned Spoils Of War

The few stone houses 
Of the village still 

Standing, up 
To their waists 

In stinging nettles, 
Doorways eternally wide- 

Open, windows that were 
Once their eyes one 

By one plucked out, home now 
To mythic hoot owls mooting over 

The specter of tatterdemalion 
Orphans playing nonstop 

War on wind buffeted marble 
Threshing floors. 

Absconding With The Goods

No real damage done 
And no caveat, save that 

Of coming clean 

With the poem, the spoils 
Intact. 

"And Beautiful Times We Had"*

—*Sappho, from poem #94 


We were young and not 
Yet old enough to know 

When black wolves start 
Descending 

The white mountain 
Slopes in early spring, 

It’s too late to lie 
In wait, low 

In the valley still 
Acting like sheep.

All That Jazz, And Slam Poetry, Too

Hey, man— 

You be cool now and don’t 
Be such a drag—I tell you this 

Ain’t no waste of our time—no way— 
You just take another toke and look back

At what all those wiped out long gone 
Hepcats that came before us done 

Drug in. 

Four-eyed Doppelgänger Before The Treacherous Looking Glass

The last time 
You looked, you looked 
Twice and kept 
Rubbing your eyes 
At the spectacle 
Of seeing

For the first time 
An aging 
Sold out poet
Seeing his 
Younger double
Crossing double.