Mooning Narcissistic Voyeur With Diplopia

Peep, 

It’s at least quadruple your usual 
Dose of swooning when 
You see how rosy- 
Cheeked everything looks 
In the looking glass when 
You spy two of you spooning.

Sleeping On It Another Day

Make no mistake, my friend— 
Before you venture 
Out into the blinding 
Light of a new day, 
Pray you do not 
Hesitate to leave

A helpful farewell 
Note to the troubled 
Self you’re leaving 
To fend for it- 
Self in the dark
Behind you—

Before you 
Know it, your turn will  
Come round again, fail-
Safe and eager too, 
Make it your day.

You Can Never Be Right All Of The Time

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, 
for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” 
—Heraclitus 

When 

At last you begin 
To see where 

You started losing the final 
Vestige of your self-

Deception, it will 
Look to you

As if you were 
Forever looking

In the right place 
At the wrong time. 

Straightaway Skirting The Stillborn

You were asking me what 
It was like 
Trying to keep writing 
Poems every day without 
Running out 
Of things that matter—

I didn’t answer 
Right away and asked 
You to ask me again 
Another day—still, why is it

So hard for all of us 
To address each crying 
Issue rearing 
Its head before us, no 
Questions asked, 
Day after day? 

Ars Poetica Cliff Notes

In brief, when
In distress

And in doubt of where
To go next

With your verse, try this
Artful, time tested maneuver—

Give it as much
Leeway as possible

Till you sense that
You’ve both reached

The end of the line, free
Falling, heady and feeling

Buoyant at the same time.

Coming Down To Earth

—for Phaedra, all of 7 ½ 

I wonder if 

I should stop 
Imagining what 

My granddaughter will be like 
In twenty years’ time and start 

Asking myself how 
To tell her 

The chances of my being 
There to see her fully 

Blossomed into full- 
Blown womanhood 

Are as likely as her 
Catching the exact 

Moment a seed pod bursts 
So that it can 

Send its offspring out
To disperse, unfettered 

In the hesitating air.

Dionysian

Their red faces aflame 
And nodding 
Over a lush 

Green carpet riddled 
With splotches 
Of dizzying yellow 

And violet-blue, these young 
Upstart anemones must 
Surely be entreating 

The gods 
Of outrageous 
Drunken abandon 

To keep their noggins 
Stupefied, always 
According to 

The laws of whichever 
Way the maniacal winds happen 
To be blowing.

Poetry Is A Destructive Force, Dude

But bloody murder? Surely
Wallace, you knew more

Than most of us, that more
Or less, we all have something

To say, and by coming
Back to the scene

Of that unspeakable
Crime day after day,

And by saying only
What has to be

Said and nothing
More, it’s the poet,

That unsung serial killer
Of silence that more

Or less paradoxically
Always gets away

With-it to his dying day.

Rejoinder/Replication: If The Poem

Refuses

In so many 
Words to shut 

Up, perhaps 
It is because it is 

Trying hard 
To tell you not 

To test the limits 
Of its hitherto 

Seemingly never- 
Ending adamantine 

Patience, pushover— 
You got it down pat? 

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.