Thursday, November 29, 2012

Reune?

Whenever I go back to Harvard I
Am suddenly again merely 18
Surrounded by a distant, high, serene
Institution that can never die
Which I, so conscious of what passes by
Quail before. Then it becomes routine
I see the Yard once more a painted green,
Am twenty-two and telling it goodbye
All in an instant. Harvard is and was
The things I did there and who I became,
What changed, and changes, and what never does
All intertwined and somehow all the same,
So when I come, I somehow know I never
Left at all, and doubt that I could ever.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Dawn

Dawn breaks
As do days
What makes
That haze
Seem like
It should
Be a strike?
What would
We get
If we
Just let
Dawn be?
No break
Just wake.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Complexity

I'm not complex, at least in one small way:
I want what others want. A house, a home,
A loved companion by my side each day,
A worthwhile job: these are desires. In Rome
Each man should act like Romans do, and I
Am on this earth, and human, and act so.
I would prefer, like most, not now to die
And to continue to expand and grow
Though I, like them, would like it if my weight
And waist would not. So I am not complex:
I like to eat the sweet things on my plate,
I like the sun's bright warmth, and I like sex.
But if you ask for higher things than those
No one is simple. That's just how it goes.

Re: Mural

Evolving will not give us birdlike wings
Not in our present state, at any rate,
Unless (and this is true for many things)
Sexual selection should equate
A slightly more bewingéd structure to
A better chance of reproducing you.
Even that push would have to be so great
To overwhelm the fact that fairly clings
To all my thought of this: bones must dilate
To be like birds, and that, to my mind, dings
The chance of seeing humankind that flew
On their own power. No, it will not do.
We will not feather, or begin to fly
Without machines. We will not touch the sky.

Monday, November 26, 2012

Pro

It might be easier to let the day
Go by unnoticed, and zone out the world.
But that is boring, and I cannot stay
Unthinking with my mental sails all furled
Indefinitely. No, I must go out
And seize some little portion of an hour
Planting my flag upon it with a stout
Definite gesture of my woken power.
I shall set forth and be the better man
Walking the earth awake and full of zest.
I will be all the good things that I can
And more - and I will better my own best.
All this tomorrow. Now I'll lounge and sleep
Until my herbal tea has done its steep.

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Couching

I could pretend I do not like to be
At home, and sit unsociable and still
Down on the couch, in front of the TV,
But what would be the point? Sunday still will
Find me here stationary and amused,
In massive comfort as I entertain
Myself with nothing. Do not be confused:
I still like other things, and won't refrain
From doing them to make a point. It's just
I also like to veg out on the couch
Ignoring all the things I should or must,
Stuffed in the cushions like a joey's pouch.
I'll be here waiting - you can join, you know -
Taking the day to take my living slow.

Friday, November 23, 2012

Differences

The trip without you is so not ideal;
Not bad at all, but not what it could be
And sadly (or at least sad for now-me)
I know what I am missing, and I feel
Imperfect. I can still see the appeal
Of where we're going, but I also see
What could be so much better easily
If you were going too. Sure, I can deal
But wouldn't it be lovely if you were?
We'd do the same, but be companions too
Which I (and I believe you) would prefer
Since we together make the things we do
Whatever they may be a pleasure deep
I would give much and many things to keep.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Circumstance

Among the people with whom I belong
I sense a different sense of who I am
Not that my normal life is somehow wrong
But something else is right. I do not slam
My brakes on here (not that I do at home)
As much as I in other publics would;
I do not skim the top of my heartfoam
But drain it all, and let it all be good.
Do not believe that I am not myself
When I'm alone; simply believe that I
Put certain thoughts and feelings on the shelf
To only now be seized from where they lie
And felt and thought in public. Now and here
Is good for me, and I feel strong and clear.

Thankful

Marvel at all the spacious world affords
And then be thankful. Think of sea and sky
People and places, peaces and accords,
Senses and soul, and while you wonder why
Be grateful to whatever gives you grace
And knowledge. Thank the world itself, the way
It turns and how it's angled into space
To catch the sunlight from each dawning day.
Thank yourself for being you, and each
Person you meet for being who they are.
Thank the lake or ocean on the beach
For lapping calmly over each sand spar
And thank your friends and loved ones, just for being;
Thankful's such a lovely way of seeing.

More

I am thankful for so many things
That any list of merely fourteen lines
Can't  be complete - indeed, the risk it brings
Of some offense to judgment that maligns
My thankfulness itself is so immense
I do not dare, except to say I'm glad
For almost everything (and in a sense
For everything I have or ever had
Because it's all a system set together);
Glad for emotion, being, senses, mind,
World, people, creatures, places, weather,
All the abstractions that the heart can find
And all concrete things too - and more, and more
Than I can say (as I have said before).

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Atrip

Sadly I, enroute to different places,
Can only think of coming home to you.
The smiling, beloved, looked-for faces
That I will see are not diminished, true,
But everything about the trip I take
Is haunted by the way I did not go.
The compromises that we have to make
In life are constant, and I feel them grow
With every passing year; we cannot be
Both where we are and everywhere we should.
The place I go still deeply calls to me
And on its own I call the trip a good.
But going without you and far away
Seems like a blemish on the coming day.

Monday, November 19, 2012

Night, Fall

Half-orange half-yellow light plays on the wall
Warning me (as if the darkness failed)
That night has cast its shadow over all
And day and light are both of them derailed.
I look up from my couch and see the twinkle
Of lower buildings lit against the sky
Transitioning to black from periwinkle
Except westward, where sunlight goes to die.
The room itself is bright and will not falter
Although the night beyond grows dark and grim
There is a cheerfulness night cannot alter
Despite its desperate urging to go dim.
I look into the dark and joy to find
Its ink is unreflected in my mind.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Forest Park

It still can make me sad sometimes
To not get on that southbound train
To not stay on until the chimes
Cry Kedzie-Homan, a refrain
Most welcome to my waiting ears
Which eagerly drank up the sound
For what was months but now seems years.
I still look for you all around
As if the train would open wide
And you'd step out and look for me
Like I for you. So deep inside
I barely touch reality
But pine recalling seeing you;
It isn't just the Line that's Blue.

This Is Chicago

I know quite well that this was not your stop.
It was the Red Line, not the distant Blue
To which you traveled. But that's but a sop
To my poor memory, which fills with you.
I think of how you used to leave your pew
A little early, with me running late
Or if I should be early, then a few
Minutes later, just to compensate;
How we would wander to the beach, or wait
For roommates to arrive and share a meal;
How you would share your tales of Elevate
And make the kids I'd never met so real.
I think of this each time I see the sign
That says Chicago on whatever line.

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Higher

When have I ever said
The world was not for me
Or lain myself in bed
Consumed with self-pity?
When have I claimed that I
Was specially mistreated
Or said that should I die
The fact would be well-greeted?
I don't deny I've been
Morose or sulky, but
I hold despair a sin,
And I will tell you what:
If I give up, just yell
And give me proper hell.

Lethe

Dazed days of unwished wakefulness are weird.
The mind misgives the awful oddity
Of feeling fuzzy, stuffed straight and unsheared.
Undone, perhaps, part-piffled, set at sea,
Determined but demented, largely locked
Into an introspective unreflective urge
That, too-trifled with, is rightly rocked
By bold upswellings of the selfish surge
That traps the bent brain in its boistered brine
And makes the mind an anxious analyst
Of near-void nothing. Sea-salt slaps the shrine
Of intellect involved in mind's own mist
And all is air and foam. Forgot to face
A day, and dizzily surveyed the space.

Friday, November 16, 2012

Placebo

Lines of black text against an off-white square
Can never quite replace a smiling face;
A green dot shining as if ever there
Is still not worth a single warm embrace.
A little grey notation of her typing
Is not her sitting by me, thinking hard
Even the vision of her fondly Skyping
Or lovely missives in my folder, starred
Are not her presence. Yet they can all serve
In times of absence, long and deep and bleak
To bend a little back the mournful curve
That makes our separation pine and peak.
I shall be with her someday, this I know
Because of gchats passing to and fro.

Efforts

I'm never sure 
If I am right
Should I be pure
And fight the fight
Or let things be
As they are now?
Could I but see
A good way how
To do that, I
Perhaps might so...
Or I might try
To let it go
But now I'm here
And things feel queer.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Bursts

The brain I have keeps switching gears on me.
It likes to sit in neutral and just idle,
So when I think I have to try and sidle
Up to ideas, and roll on them. I see
Others fly by me, wild and rapidly
Pressing the pedal down. And yet I bridle
My mind, knowing it might go fratricidal
And kill its own momentum foolishly.
So strange it is to wander in between
Max power and a half-dazed state of being;
It isn't something that I really mean,
And yet it's something I am often seeing:
Concentration comes in fits and starts;
It's unresponsive to my conscious parts.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

37

All of a sudden it is bitter cold
As if the weather punished human faults
Looked at my wandering and thought, all told,
I was a fool for all my fits and halts.
How could I go away during the term
Or if I ought to be elsewhere, then why
Did not my self-convinction then hold firm
And keep me there despite of all that I
Had to do here? The weather does not care
For those of us with plural motivations
It wields its weight and power here and there
To force us out of inner co-locations.
And yet I know the weather does not reason;
The cold's not from my moving but the season.

Monday, November 12, 2012

Fairie

Some days are strange and halfway dreams
Or less than dreams, which unremembered
Still linger in the hidden seams
Of thought, though often half-dismembered.
These are the days that float about
Like bubbles, and like them will burst;
That conjure up a constant doubt
If they have happened, or, reversed,
A doubt that they were always so
And you and I just wandered there
Out of how life's supposed to go
Into the self-embracing air
Of a dream dimension, founded
On nothing but being ungrounded.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Tres

There's something wrong in leaving thisaway.
Not by bus; the mode is not the trouble,
But in the fact that though I want to stay
Necessity can pierce desire's bubble
And force me from my love. It should not be
That I should be bereft of her by fate,
Sent far from her so inexorably
Into a distant land, a further state.
Rather the fates should be conspirators
And bring us back together for our good
In some destinal triumph. At our cores
We all hope for that, and I wish it would
Come true for us. But no, I must be here
Busing away from her that I hold dear.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Balm

The day is simply brighter with her here;
I don't blame global warming, but her smile.
The winds no longer bite, nor cut nor shear,
But warmly waft across me for a while
As I sit by her, holding close her hand.
Nor does the rain dare fall upon my head
When I sit by her, but, as by command,
Stays in the clouds, and waters hills instead
To drain into the river and stop drought.
When she is with me, all the world receives
The blessings that it cannot live without;
Even the trees retain their last few leaves
Because she brings warm weather in her wake;
Only when she is gone will winter break.

Friday, November 9, 2012

Passing

I cannot wait for her embrace
To see her in my arms again
And run a finger down her face
To touch her nose. To wait for then
Feels like a burden, though the time
Is short compared to what it was
And so I turn my thoughts to rhyme
To see if that can help. It does
But only roundaboutly, for
With every word I write I see
The time that stands so firm before
My time with her melt rapidly
And so by writing I can spend
Quickly the time before that end.

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Winter Is...

The cold is biting
Piercing, cutting
Though the lighting
Is less gutting
(Still bright out
Clear and wide)
Still I doubt
Deep inside
That the light
Across my face
Can outfight
Or displace
The despair
Of cold air.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Chicago 11.6/7.12

The sky is crying tears of halfbright joy
Caught by the streetlamps, which declare the night
Open for us, in triumph, to delight.
The streets are mostly empty, but alloy
That emptiness with hope. What can destroy
The shining lamps, reflecting out their light
Into the puddled sidewalks? In the sight
I see a remnant of the future: coy,
And only half-arrived, but present still.
A future, not expected from before,
When walking here will be as safe and sure
As downtown daytime. And such daydreams fill
The empty stillness. We can be the cure
As sure as we're the ones we've waited for.

Reelect

Joy uncontained and shrieked into the air
Relief unboundable and so unbounded
At finding that our fears had been unfounded
And what we'd hoped to find had still been there
Within our country's heart; that we could care
For those less fortunate; that on being sounded
Our souls were not so selfish that we hounded
That charity out from us; that despair
Was not the message that we gave the future.
Of course there still are obstacled to face:
It will take time to heal the nation's suture
Stitched between those who perforce share a space
But not a heart or mind. And yet I hope
Seeing the past, that we in time will cope.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Seek

There is a kind of man I'd like to see
(Though it could be a woman, have no doubt
Who sees ahead by probability
And carefully does not rule bad things out,
But plans for them, and curates, while he can
The good he would protect from such a harm,
Who knows his limits like a humble man
But has the pride to sometimes bet the farm
When he is sure and odds are on his side,
Who loves his country, but can see her flaws
And grapple with them honestly, whose wide
Far-reaching mind is bound within the laws.
I'd vote for him (or her); as I have done.
And now tonight I'll know if he has won.

Endorsement

The last four years we all know have been hard
And some decisions were not for the best
But nothing that he's done has truly marred
The good he's done. I think we have been blessed
In times of trouble to have found a man
Who sees straight as he talks, both calm and wise,
Who knows the truth of life is "Yes, we can"
But sees that "we" is where the power lies;
Who does not try to force his way, but strives
Beyond belief to bring in others' views;
Who cares for those he works for and their lives,
And does not run this country by the news
Cycle, but by what is good and right;
A man I hope we re-elect tonight.

Monday, November 5, 2012

11/6

Tomorrow is decisive
Tomorrow is the day
When at our most divisive
We all can have our say
This is day we choose
The white rose or the red
The day one side must lose
The other win instead
And compromise cannot
Without a parliament
Revise what we have got
By joining alignment
We'll see tomorrow who
Will see these four years through.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Savings Time

The slow drip of empty hours
Towards the closing time of day
Needs not what the extant powers
Have decreed to help its sway
In the wintertime the sun will
Fly across the sky toward night
Like a beetle on a dunghill
Towards his mistress with delight
Why should we then help its travel
By decreeing day to cease
Earlier, and thus unravel
Daylight which alone brings peace?
Its as if the dark ruled man
In the winter. Which it can.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Dates

I miss the simple days
When planning was not needed
Beyond a moment's phase
And long-term thoughts were seeded
Only in the minds
Of those who looked for trouble.
But now each moment finds
Its future on the bubble
And I must peer ahead
Lest that that bubble break
And leave the future bled
Of what I can't foresake
Now calendars are key
To map futurity.

Friday, November 2, 2012

Spelling Game

The people next to me are playing
Something I have often played
I can't unhear what they are saying
And yet can't interrupt and wade
Into their errors and their follies
Wielding my self-certain sword
Although I'd love to get my jollies
Challenging their whole word hoard
Alot is not a word, you know,
Unless you take it from a meme;
Don't change the groundrules as you go
Despite how tempting it may seem
And for the love of God, please stop
Condescending like a fop.

Deal

What am I to do about
My innate self-adaptive sense?
I do not often fight with doubt
Or fear, and strive for competence
In all I do. Which means that I
When awful things assault all 'round
Hike up my mental belt and try
To seek an inner higher ground.
When deep frustration threatens me
I find a way around its flank
And so avoid it frequently
It sounds as if I ought to thank
This sense, however it was got
But what if it turns me robot?

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Workahol

The days I am productive are
A resourced dwindling with time
Nowadays they're few and far
And often only deal with rhyme
In older times, I swear, they were
A common, almost constant stream
But now I fear the aquifer
Has self-diminished like a dream
That flits out of the nighttime head
Just as the sunshine wakes the eyes
And tantalizes from the bed
The woken mind with vain surmise
So as I dream of working well
I laze and feel those feelings quell.