On Juxtaposition

“What’s to be done or said in the meanwhile I don’t know,

and what is the use of poets in a mean-spirited time?”

—Friedrich Hölderlin, from “Bread and Wine”

Straddler across lines

Between the forces

Of good and evil

In these mean times

What we need from you

Now is more than just—

A position. 

Rock, Paper, Scissors

Do not disturb

The sequence—

Approaching the light-

Hearted play

Of wretched village urchins, low-

Flying joyful

Swallows cutting up patterns

Out of a sunless sky.

Fed Up

It just so happens

I have exactly

What you need but

Not as much as what

You thought I had

The last time I had you

Eating out of my hand.

 

Flight of Fancy

ephemeral

trying

day

light harder

not to see it

fly by night,

a way.

Against All Odds

I swear

I was this way

Some years before

But something tells me

That doesn’t count any more.

I swear

You won’t find me

This way again,

Trying once again

To even up the score.

Perfectly Balanced Homespun Philosophy

Nothing catlike

About that Diogenes fellow,

I tell you we need more

Curs like him to even up the score—

He’d spit on rich men’s pusses

With one leg raised,

Pissing on their floor.