Huh?

Now that you mention it, 
Most of the time 
You’re never listening, 

And even when you are, 
You’re always talking 
To yourself. 

Faulty Global Positioning Device Gone Round The Bend

Something tells me they know nothing 
Of what I am looking for—it’s plain 
As the look on their faces: 

Nothing tells them 
They are looking 
In the wrong places. 

Music To Their Ears, Poet

Cool it, mon frère— 
No one’s wondering 
What you’re up to 
These days and if anyone is 
So inclined, he or she 
Most certainly won’t be 
Concerned with what 
Your newest but long overdue
Offering’s going to be about— 
Au contraire, more than likely 
They’ll be dying to hear how long 
Your latest deadly silence will last 
This time around. 

Fatal Attraction

When one goes where one has to, 
What is the use of asking why? 

Survivor

Making his entrance

From out of a dark side- 
Street indifferent 

To all and strutting 
In full view of a late night 

Crowd of smart sidewalk café bar 
Denizens lining the traffic- 

Clogged main drag, the stray mutt 
Swaggers toward his 

Allotted crash pad 
In front of a long line 

Of freshly slaughtered 
Porkers on hooks dressing 

The plate glass windows 
Of the corner meat market, 

A freshly pilfered 
Well-worn welcome 

Mat gripped tightly 
Between his gritty teeth. 

Being One Of The Thinking Poet's Many Unresolved Burdens

It is seldom easy to set down 
What grieves you 

Inside, harder even remains 
The thought 

Of carrying it out 
To a foregone

Logical conclusion. 

Discrete Heartthrob (Unfinished Sequence)

1. 

Your heart loves it when 
It hears itself 

Skip a beat. 


2. 

Over there, stood up 
On the corner looking 

Beat but still 
Standing still. 


3. 

So 

Much to see 
So much to not 

See how 
Much it hurts. 


4. 

Watching all 
That could have been 

Moving past. 


5. 

Appearing 

Out of nowhere 
Out of the corner 

Of your eye, something 
Bloody ragged 

Insidious, tearing 
Your heart inside 

Out on its sleeve. 


6. 

                    Heartbreak Hotel 

There’s more where 
That came from 

And always more vacant 
Room at the inner 

Sanctum inn. 


7. 

I am sorry 
For never wanting 

Enough of a good thing. 


8. 

                    prepaid 

Tomorrow promises 
To deliver the next 

Day better till 
There comes no 

Tomorrow. 


9. 

So what? Whatever good 
Came of always expecting 

The best? 


10. 

                    apprehender 

Be still

My heart’s anxious 
To hear 

The drumbeats. 

Swelled Head Meeting His Match Halfway

You’re always on the verge 
Of discovering something 
Of vast import, uplifting 

To those you think are 
Well below you, when 
Will you at last bend 

Over backwards and fall 
Head over heels over 
The deep end? 

Epitaph For A Die-hard Nihilist

I remember 

You always wondered why 
Nothing made sense 

But never why 
Nothing could explain it. 

Veiled Facebook Plea To My Readers

Perhaps you will have noticed 
But more likely not, my writing’s 
Composed 

Of very simple thoughts 
With lots 
Of oft-repeated old- 

Timers like black, white, 
Sunrise, noon, twilight, night— 
And now and then, a few 

Youngsters I’ve created 
Along the way like 
Thinkamajig and scurzy, 

The latter which I thought 
I’d made up and wanted 
To include here 

As a world premiere, 
But which looks 
Like it was 

First coined by one Sarah
Curzon as the name 
For her 

Instagram account, so 
That one’s no longer my exclusive 
Baby but I can still fall 

Back on my all-time 
Favorite, nothinglikeness, 
As a Google check shows 

It continues to be 
Completely unknown 
To millions like yourself, 

Very much like me.

Bipolar Parting Is Such Bittersweet Sorrow

Janus, half of me wants 
No part of you when 
You’re no longer yourself 
And your mind’s long gone— 

The other half stays behind 

Hung up on selfies of so 
Long it’s been awesome 
To know you, how long 
Are you gonna be gone? 

Mundane Matters Above All, Poet

There, Glaucus— 
Don’t you see 

Plain as the gathering 
Crepuscle crossing 

The transparent blue 
Rush of mountains 

Most majestic, now purple 
Rhetoric clouding 

The poor mind’s eye. 

Emptiness Is Your Lot In Life

Where you were only 
A minute ago, the vacant 

Space is now full 
Of longing. 

Becoming Slightly Unhinged In The Bank Waiting For My Priority Number To Come Up During Another Record-Breaking Heat Wave

Mine’s sixty-eight—I’ve been 
“Cooling my heels” over an hour 
And the priority slip I’m now using 
As a bookmark says my waiting 
Time should’ve been around nine 
Minutes; in the meantime, I’ve been 
Making do in the overworked air- 
Conditioned inner sanctum 
Of the nightmare 

Institution which looks after 
My rapidly dwindling bantam 
Nest egg with all the care 
Of a crazed mother hen, 

And reading a slender volume 
Of poems called Sleepwalker’s Songs,
All the while thinking of what I could do 
If my nest egg were fatter, watching 
Customer after customer go up 
To the teller and walk out again 

Onto a dazzling, searing asphalt so hot it could fry 
Enough dinosaur eggs to feed an onslaught 
Of famished, day-dreaming somnambulists 
Armed to the teeth with nothing 
But a slew of cool blank checks— 
I wonder what 69’s thinking of. 

A Few Words For Richard Hugo

He never liked whitewashing phantoms. 
Gray haunted his poetry. He used it 
To wash all shades of grayness away. 

Ham Method Actor In Deep Shit

Here’s your cue, Horatio:

You’ll never find your true voice 
If you don’t plumb the depths 
Of the shallowness surrounding you—

Cast us a line when you do. 

Wet Behind The Ears

That old Greek he knew you 
Can’t step into the same 
River twice, for even 
If you could, you’d still find 
Yourself high and dry 
On the banks of certain 
Uncharted shit creek 
With nothing better 
To do save wait 
To pay a certain smart-ass 
Ferryman to paddle 
Your dumb ass across. 

Here's Your Daily Dose Of Blue Mornings' Treacle

Each day you get up you know 
The sun must be 
Somewhere out there, too— 

You just have to rise 
A little higher, only 
Earthbound creatures find it

Hard to do. 

Futility Is Alive And Well In Aetos, Messenias, Greece

Out there 

Under a thick canopy 
Of centenarian 
Plane trees with her 

Tried and true 
Black walking 
Stick, that feisty 

Old woman jabbing 
The ground, dead set 
On keeping 

The pathway 
To her home clear 
Of any intruding 

Dead leaves 
Set on squatting 
There permanently.

Catharsis On The Threshold

Straightaway as you 
Open wide the narrow blue 
Window shutters 
Of the old stone house 
By the sea, wave 
Upon wave of small white- 
Capped memories begin 
Spilling in, slowly 
Washing the grit 
That clings to the grey 
Walls clean, while the wind
Murmurs welcome back 

Pilgrim, again and again. 

Following The Muse To The Ends Of The Earth

To get there, you have to 
Imagine the ends are 

There only insofar as 
Your mind can reach that far— 

In the meantime how-
Ever the means always 

Remain elsewhere. 

'Murican Oxymoron

We all wanted to be 
Proud we were 

Free—it’s the slave 
In us kept us 

Bound to be.