Dandified Melancholic Soul In Search Of Itself

—“If the shoe fits, wear it.” 

Prolonged darkness in manner becomes
A burden lighter to bear not because
You become accustomed to it,
But because it becomes you better.

Free As A Bird

Think of the wind 
With nary a care 

In the world and you 
Carrying no name. 

Speculation, Ltd.

Where the world was 
Already over the end, 
And in deep

Shit long before you went 
Ahead and gave it 
What it lacked the least— 

Another plunger. 

Blasphemous Ephemeral Mortal

God is running late

And the poor man bursts

Because he can’t wait.

—Greek proverb

God,

               Everything in

               Good time you say,

I say this

               Damn specious life flies, so

               Will your precious lies, what

               Say you to that?

Don't Ask: Questions Of Indirection From The Boondocks Of The Southern Peloponnese

Where but where you are
Now could you have been

Happier? Here where
The last thing you need

To ask is if you are.

In The Dark No More

Your eyes are getting very heavy— 
Soon the lids will shut tight 

And you will enter a space full 
Of light unlike the one you were in for 

So long before—that one had a door, 
This one has one too but 

It’s never been opened before. 

Herakleitos On Solid Upright Citizens Of The World

Who says even sleeping 
Men are doing the world’s 
Business and helping it 
On its way though he also adroitly 
Avoids mentioning they should not be 
As sleepwalkers perambulating out there 
In broad daylight trying to show us 
The right and true way. 

Where We Hope To Be Some Future Fall

A burnished bronze jasmine 
Leaf twirling on the end 
Of a spider’s thin silver thread, 

In the slanting sunny late afternoon 
Air, soon to join its brothers and sisters 
In the perennial pied carpet of death 

And rejuvenation,
Our good mother 
Earth always there. 

Pot Of Gold

Before it all evaporates, let us take in 
Our good fortune, this morning’s 

Double rainbow in which two 
Wild doves perch 

On a telephone line, cooing 
Of the long-awaited approaching 

Change of weather. 

Say It In Greek Or Else

“The Logos is eternal.” 
--Heraclitus 

"I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free."  
--epitaph on the grave of Nikos Kazantzakis 


In other words, approaching 
The logos means one must 
Let the spirit breathe 

Free, other- 
Wise, you are just 
That much closer 

To being 
Part of the living 
But still 

Quite dead. 

Complacency's Whetstone

That deadening
Silence which hones it-

Self against the ears
Of the complicit, how

Deafening it is indeed
To those who cannot

But hear it.

The Ultimate Last Poem?

Oh, what joy! 
Surely that must be it

Over there, waiting in line 
With bated breath, like so

Many others before it 
For the last stop, no 

More questions asked, 
Period. 

Watermark Writ In Marble

So you think you are carving
Out a name for yourself—well,

Keats knew better than that,
And he wasn't a stonemason.

After Wittgenstein: Bellwether Logical Propositions

It may snow tomorrow 
Or it may not 

Happens to be at once both
An empty form and also
Absolutely accurate,
But does not tell us
Anything about what
The weather will be like
Tomorrow, that remains

The job of poets.

Anonymous: Lyric Mermaid On Lesbos*

Oh, how distant Aphrodite’s 
Lush, full-bodied labials are, 

While I, by loneliness wretched, 
Half-crazed and wasted, am fated 

To lie here—how long?—bemoaning 
My lot on this solitary, desolate shore. 

*from The Erotic Aegean: An Anthology Of Greek Love Poetry, Eressos, Mytilene, 1969, (trans. Saffilis Zaengmac).

Welcome To Bonehead Logic 096 At Ye Olde School Of Hard Knocks

where 
ante- 

diluvian 
hard 
core 
faculty’s 
faulty 

neo 
syllo- 
gisms 

be
come 
soft 

in 
the 
head 

mean 
old 
vulgar 
mind 
fucks