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.