Drippy

We are all connected
At least we two are so
By thoughts that are directed
Between us to and fro
And as we choose to go
Into the wide beyond
The thought that we can know
The other one is fond
Makes each day that's dawned
A little bit improved.
Like raindrops on a pond
That through the water moved
Show circles perfectly
So you are seen in me.

Hum

It is a joy to move within the mind
Exercising thoughts that had been pent
Using the brilliance nature to us lent
On every object that our eyes can find
Casting off the dull and boring rind
Of everyday routine beneath which, bent,
Our minds have huddled, thinking 'til we're spent
In an unusual and crazy kind
Of way. There's such a pleasure to be had
In simple thought and what it brings to bear
So much that I without it might run mad
Confined within the bounds of pressing care.
It is best to let the mind run free
And see what sort of mind it tends to be.

Set Theory

There are only just so many ways
A day can go. Oh sure a thousand things
Can happen in the spans of single days
But at the end the total daytime brings
Only so many feelings. I can be
Happy despondent bored completely chill
Or several others, but I fail to see
The infinite variety some will
Insist on. Overall I find each day
Though all itself still falls, when weighed in all
Into a certain set of senses, that all may
Be comprehended. And therefore I call
The days a little similar although
Each moment quantumly may choose to go.

Free Speeches

There are some words I simply cannot use
"Ain't" for instance sticks right in my throat.
For when I hear another man abuse
The language, then I just reach for my coat
And leave him be. I will not join him there
Strangely attacking every passing ear
With his decayed contractions. Yet I dare
Not make him stop, for nothing is more dear
Than our free speech. And so I simply turn
And walk away and do not use the word
For while my anger may intensely burn
Against the foolish utterance I heard
It is his own, and no one can deny
The right to speak, for any reason why.

Friendly

Friends can be a joy beyond belief
Which does not disappear when they are gone.
For in their presence there was some relief
From feeling isolated, overdrawn
And stretched out thin. Enjoying company
Can make the day seem shorter and more clear;
Man was made for good society
Not individual, but with a peer.
Being alone is good, I don't deny;
In fact I like it, but it must be mixed
With something else - or else we wonder why
Our orbit of society is fixed
Internally. We must be social, or
We find the life we live becomes a bore.

Lanu

Everybody sometimes has to say
"I'm sorry." There are even times
We mean it. And I like this evening's way:
A univeral "pardon me" that climbs
Across a melody that calls to me,
Bids me remember all the wrongs I've done
Think them all over most penitently
And ponder if I've troubled anyone
And not apologized; inspires, too,
My soul to seek forgiveness from my God
For all that I in weakness fled into
And all the errant paths that I have trod.
What could be better than communal prayer
To say "I'm sorry" and sincerely care?

Zens

The unknown way
Cannot be known
Thus all can say
It is their own
For who can claim
That they have erred
Or even blame
Them as impaired
For lying. No
It cannot be
For it is so
At least for me
So they can cry
But they all lie.

Plant

I have not been outside
I do not care to go
Imagine I have died
Except without the woe
Really I'm OK
And everything is good
It's just that for today
I do not think I would
Like to leave my place
And therefore I have not
I like to watch life race
While I sit here and rot.
So I will just be here
The world can disappear.

Wands

There a rootlessness brought on by being
Further away than I would like to be;
A sort of misdirected wrongly seeing
That makes a mental hobo out of me.
I wander in my mind and wonder what
The things I do could really ever mean,
While any meaning they could take is but
A figment of my overheated spleen
And everything is crooked. What I do
Seems oddly empty, like a vacant lot
Where skyscrapers should be. It's nothing new
Just the result of being where I'm not
And never being where I ought. I know
At least though where I really ought to go.

Divine?

I have erred before
Many times ere now
I'm not keeping score
But I will allow
That I would prefer
If it could be done
To no more incur
Error - it's no fun.
Yet I must remember
In despite of me
Error is the ember
Of humanity.
If I did not err
I would not be there.

Cambio

Novelty is strange
And stranger than we know
For who can rearrange
The world at just one go?
The continents take eons
And evolution longer.
How should we mere peons
Somehow turn out stronger
Than great Nature's force?
No, it cannot be
Rather, our new course
Fundamentally
Must have been before
Somehow still in store.

Fallingwater

The weather changes with the hour
My, it must be fall already
Half the day is turning sour
But the rest is never steady
For it turns back in a trice
Makes the day confused and strange
Half of everything is nice
But the terror is the range.
Why is fall so very horrid
When beginning? After all
Though the mornings may be torrid
By November I like fall.
It's because the summer hates
Leaving us, and defecates.

Neon

Neon lights up what should be dark night
With its insistence that we pay attention;
Coming back, it doesn't feel quite right
Like a past argument no one will mention
But lingers over every moment, making
The silence awkward and the talking worse,
Coloring interpretations, taking
The innocence from smiles like a curse.
Neon is the guest who will not leave
But cannot be evicted, or the friend
Who cannot see that you would like to grieve
And hangs around the gravestone to the end.
I guess we're stuck with it by now, but why?
I like a darker version of the sky.

Permafrosts

Stupid reasons lead to stupid errors
And stupid errors lead to stupid ends.
The night is full of everlasting terrors
But they don't come just when the night descends.
The world is always full of human thought
And all the evil that that thought can breed;
And even when mankind has run to naught,
Obliterated, leaving no new seed,
Still somewhere minds will be as dumb as ours
And hearts as capable of doing ill;
Some new intelligence will claim our powers
And with them our projection of our will
Into the world. What's stupid will still be
Beyond the bounds of mere humanity.

Past Perfect

Every time I'm home there is a minute
When I don't see the messiness or dust
When my own home and everything that's in it
Is perfect, and I have no wanderlust.
And then it fades, and I am once again
Caught in reality, aware of the decay
Of entropy between what was well then
And what age made it after everyday.
I see the grime that I could not scrub off,
The soapscum clinging to the kitchen sink,
The trashbin still unemptied, and I scoff
At anyone who had the balls to think
That it was perfect. But it was, to me,
In that arriving singularity.

Off

I really do resent going away
Though in my mind I know it's temporary
Still I'd prefer by leaps and bounds to stay
And long to make delays that let me tarry
Within her arms - for she, not coming too,
Becomes the sorrow that my leaving brings.
There's very little I would rather do
Than be with her, conjoining in all things,
But no, I must away and back to home
(Or that which is my home with her apart)
And merely long within my soul to roam
And be with her again back at the start.
I cannot stay, although I much prefer
To linger while I can back there with her.

L'Shana Tova

A New Year
A chance to be
Not what I fear
But what is me
A chance to see
(At least, one more)
What possibly
Could be in store
And I therefore
Must stride ahead
And with a roar
(And little dread)
Engage what comes
With crashing drums.

Minor

I am a little low
Of energy you see
And am, if you would know,
Not fully here to be.
But I am constantly
As much as I'm aware
Ready to be me
And I am still all there.
So since you know I care
And am myself and here
I think it only fair
To make it fully clear
I may be tired now
But I love you - and how!

Zzzzzzzzzzzz

My eyes are almost half asleep
The rest of me is much the same
I wish that I could somehow keep
Awake, but I will lose that game
I'll droop and then my eyes will close
And I will slumber deep and true
Already I can feel the doze
Begin to seep far down into
The cracks between my brain and spine
And nestle deeply in my limbs
Where, as I stretch myself supine
My sense of the sensation dims
And so I slip and slowly dive
Into sleep - I'm half alive.

Beauty

You never grow less beautiful to me

No, though your brow be knitted in a line,

Your smile gone, your voice pitched to a whine,

Your shoulders hunched into an angry vee;

I still see you, and know substantially

That you will find a way to make it fine,

And this is just the bare external sign

Of stress, which will be dealt with actively.

I do not mean that time could not, with age

Wrinkle your face with something more than stress;

But even then I, having seen the page

And seen the lines writ there, would simply bless

The time we had together, and the years

That wrote those lines, in laughter moved to tears.

Anniverse

Every year upon this date
We must remember once again
The place exact where we were when
The news came that we deprecate.
And every year we must berate
Ourselves for having slumbered then
And even more the monstrous men
Who did the deed. Yet should we wait
Each year to note it only now?
Should not our every effort be
To rise again, and terror-free
Despite the act, no matter how?
Should not all our days and hours
Prove our strength, recall the towers?

Em-Dash

It feels so arbitrary - time
Which wanders where it wants to go -
Not less so than others - rhyme
And all its friends that - to and fro -
Wander on the endless page
That is no page at all, but bits
Of electronic hot white rage
Enslaved to never call it quits.
This digital enslavement makes
The arbitrariness complete
And if, by miracle, it breaks
Into a million small discrete
Bits and bytes, then I will be
Eternal arbitrarily.

Ears

Had I patience coming out my ears
I wouldn't have my patience anymore
It would have flowed out over months and years
(Ignoring that it's just a metaphor)
And left me empty, impatient, and weary
Of always waiting while it drained away;
Full of annoyance, and a little leery
Of anyone who came to ask me "May
I have a moment of your time" for then
I would be certain that no time was left
For me to dawdle in. I'd tell them "When
You give as much again to me, bereft
Of time," and blow them off. So I am glad
A little patience's all I've ever had.

Altered Status

Probably acceptable, I am
I would have it any other way
But at some points my senses seem to ram
Against the chance that I may be someday
Either more or less - and such a change
Though normal and amenable to most
As people vary through the normal range
Frightens me as if I'd seen a ghost.
I'd like to think I know myself and my
Position on the scale of being liked
To change is frightening - would it bely
The present status if my liking spiked
Or dropped? Of course not. But my heart says yes
And thereupon rise fears I now confess.

Heats

Why is heat
Hard to tell?
Seasoned meat
Black of hell
Spicy curry
All outdoors
Those who hurry
On their tours
Pavement baked
Off A/C
Thirst unslaked
All will be
Seeming hot
Are they not?

Put

I may never go outside
I might never leave this spot
But do not think that I must hide
For I must tell you that I'm not.
It's simply that I'd rather be
In here, where everything is cool
Where all the world is nice to me
And I though not alone can rule
The elements and rather than
Allowing them to work my fate
Exceed the fondest dream of man
And force them down to my dictate.
So if I do not leave here, know
I chose that I would never go.

Worth While

I find more value in the quiet days
When I can be where I would wish to be
Than in the clanging unconformity
Of massive noisy change. I do not blaze
New trails for men to stumble through and gaze
In Darien wonder on discovery
But rather let my world flow into me
Am one with it, and glory in the ways
I can find joy at home, where I desire.
My happiness is mine, and known, and true
The charcoal, not the petroleum fire
That may catch slowly, but once caught will burn
Deeper and hotter than gas fires do
And need not find new fuel before its turn.

ACB

Air conditioning can only work
In a closed system - buses do not count
Unless, of course, the driver is a jerk
And doesn't stop on anyone's account.
But if the bus, as usual, rolls on
Stopping each block or so to gape its doors,
Heat passing in as passengers are gone
There are no earthly scientific lores
Can make it cool. I must perforce admit
A metal box so full of sweaty limbs
Would be a sauna without A/C's bit
Of help, but I profess that small help dims
Beside the outer heat it cannot stop
A/C on buses just feels like a flop.

Reburn

Let others glory in return
For I shall venture forth again
And while I linger here, I burn.
Yet I'll come back once more and then
Perhaps the city will be cool
And I will not begin to rue
The somehow automatic rule
That makes me turn as if on cue
And come back to my residence.
For though the city is so hot
(I have abundant evidence)
I still profess I hate it not
And will, when it is cool, remain
But now I hope that it will rain.

Wishes

I have desires that I keep inside
And others that I wear upon my sleeve.
You hear them all, but from the rest I hide
A little part of me, lest they believe
Too easily they know how I will act
Based solely on my urges. I am more
Than base or fine desires, and that fact
Is vital to me: letting my soul soar
High as it may, I fly beyond the flesh,
But do not leave it evermore behind:
That would be silly. I am not a kind
Of robot, or automaton, but mesh
My soul and body in a single form
And my desires help to keep me warm.

Patiently

Waiting is impossible to do
Faster than time passes, but that truth
Is not convenient, so I often stew
Wishing my waiting gone, and fear my youth
Is wasted in the wait. Of course, we all
Must wait at times, and if we do it well
We do not waste it. We may fear a stall,
But cannot let it come, for if we fell
Where could we safely land? Madness below
Makes falling dangerous, and so we must
Use the time we wait to think, and grow,
And not to fret. So we must learn to trust
In time, and know that waiting will, in time
Let the good we seek come forth and climb.

Webs

Some parts of what I am (and what I was)
Are bound up in some souls that are not mine.
But that's OK, since nobody who does
Anything can ever hold the line
And keep everyone out - nor should they so.
A soul unknitted to its kin and kith
Is nothing, and exposed to open woe,
While one conjoined and coextensive with
The souls of others, fortified in kind
Is strong and supple, bending against storms
Yet holding strong within its own true mind
Against disaster in its many forms.
The soul is strong that's well-connected out
And that untouched is wracked with fear and doubt.