Why Little Children--Like Trees--Are Afraid of Adults with Chain Saws

under the old 

growth is evermore virgin 

growth growing up— 


it’s telling 


the world the last thing 

we must do on this earth is 

hurry up. 

Twilight in Meligalas

There’s a promise 

Of rain in the stiff northwesterly 
Breeze blowing in from the gulf 
Of Kyparissia, thirty kilometers away, 

And the parched trees are nodding 
In unison yes, yes, yes, 
It’s been a good day; 

I’ve spent more than half 
Of my life planted here— 
What more can I say? 

Faux Deus Ex Machina

On the brink— 
Whatever to do? 
So tantalizing 

A thought came to him 
As he was about to jump 
To a forgone conclusion 

Out of the blue. 

None the Smarter at 71

Time was I thought I could think 
My way through life 
Using clever arguments, 

 
That it would be easy to imagine
A world where being 
Smart made you nobody’s fool—

 
Hard to believe now, 
How I ended up forgetting 
Only life makes life’s rules. 

The Privatization of the Self

"Let every soul submit himself 
Unto the authority of the higher powers. 
There is no power but of God. 
The powers that be are ordained of God". 
 --Romans 13.1 

Nowadays 

To make it worthwhile 
For the powers 

To be you have to 
Put in long hours down

A dark mine shaft deep 
In the heart 

Of the heart 
Of what is no longer 

God’s country 
And be forever 

Damned. 

Air of Acquiescence

Their slender stalks fastened 
With twine to thin reeds stuck 
In a brown, earthenware pot, 

The blood-red carnations nod 
In accord with each blustering gust, 
All the while suffusing the air 

They breathe 
With redolent dyes 
Of thick, heady musk. 

Hope Dies Last

You get up 
Every day hoping 
It won’t be your last 
And you go to bed wishing 
It had been. 

The Methuselah Code

To read the signs 
Of the times correctly 
And to write at least 

One word a day remains 
No small feat providing you 
Reach a thousand. 

Waiting for the Coroner's Report (A Greek Proverb for Our Times)

In the meantime, 

In the house of the hanged man, 
Nobody brings up the subject 

Of a rope. 

Virtuoso

Think before you leap— 
With each vaunting 
Step you take, this

Star-studded universe 
You were born into wants 
Nothing better than to cradle you

Back down 
To earth to dream to sleep. 

Web

The spider sees bliss 
Approaching in the eye 

Of an immobile fly. 


 

Write-off

No matter how quickly 
They might have been

Executed, poems should 
Always be read out loud

Slowly—one never knows how 
Much breath has been

Wasted already. 

That Exquisite Clearing House, The Mind of 'Murica

Where you come out 
Of a forest full 

Of burning mind- 
Blowing questions only 

To find out 
You can’t see any 

Reason to ask for more. 

Jumping to Conclusions

Virtuoso, do not be taken in— 
This seemingly boundless 
Universe we were born into 
Was made to carry us only 
Piecemeal as far as the last step we take. 
So do yourself a favor, will you? 
Think hard for all of us 
Before you chance to leap. 

Why the Squint-eyed Kid Thinks WCW Wore Corrective Lenses

Wasn’t he the one who said that 
Fuzzy No ideas but in things? 
I guess that’s what makes me 
Think there’s something 
Clearly going on round 
The left lens of my specs. 

So what do I see when 
I take them off for a closer look? 
Two stuck red bugs making 
A fucking spectacle of themselves. 
Man, what a relief! 
All this time I thought 

I was merely seeing things. 

Love It or Leave It

The capital 
Argument recognizing de facto 
Climate change still holds 
No water in the “proper” channels— 

Thus any H2O wanting to pass 
Off as bottled effluent on its way 
Towards overflowing affluence 
Has to make like a zillion trees 

And piss off. 

Pilloried

. . .the poet— 
brats in the street fling shit at him. . .

--George Seferis, “Three Secret Poems” 


As a matter 
Of course he viewed 
His art as nothing 
To be jeered at, 

Yet whoever had 
Put together that 
Display of words 
And set it down 

Without even once 
Having thought 
Twice about how 
It would be received— 

Should not that hapless 
Spectacle of self be rewarded 
With poesy of like kind left 
To fend for itself like that? 

No Small Marvel

wondering how 

silence works 

Rising to the Occasion (2)

No matter how quickly 
They were set down, 
Poems ought always to be

Read slowly— 
Too many 
People have wasted 

Too much 
Of their breath 
Already. 

Lemons Are a Dime a Dozen

Lacking a flashy brand- 
New first line to start 
Their vehicles, most 
Poets traffic in selling you 

On the merits of waiting 
For a killer last, killing 
Time in the meanwhile 
By knocking off lots, 

Lots of lackluster gimcrack,
Secondhand cars. 

Alienating the Self

Admit it— 
hard not to 

believe, harder still 
to acknowledge 

a complete stranger. 

Waking the Dead

You don’t have to 
Sleep on it—not 

As hard as it sounds— 
Silence is the only sound 

They understand. 

Inner City Clearance Sales

trigger happy neighborhoods
where cops pick up/off kids at will— 

smashed store fronts strip 
mauled bodies busted

corporate person- 
hoods clean up again. 

Nutcracker

small poem, 

try harder

again. 

Two Pro Found Statements

1. 

Give credit where 
Credit is due. 

2. 

The world owes you 
Nothing 

You can bank on 
That, too.