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.