Some

Some say the climate does not change
That winters come and winters go
That in some winters there is snow
But when there isn't, it's not strange,
It's all within the normal range,
And when the sudden tempests blow
It really doesn't go to show
Anything. They self-derange
Pretending that the rising tides
The sudden snow where none once fell
The burnt-out grasslands of the plains
Are nothing; that the ice sheet slides
Melting to the sea, because, um, well,
No reason. No logic pertains.

Navel

I can but be the person that I am
And being so, I must express my soul
Whether in trochee, dactyl, or iamb
In poetry, in order to feel whole.
And as I do, such wonders congregate
In patient thought about my situation
That I am awed by my own present state
And as such joyed beyond all enervation.
But most of all, beyond my ego, I
Find myself buoyed by my thoughts of you
And float, or in my better moments, fly
Above concern or worry. When I do
My poems turn to you as well, and show
The way you make my inner lover glow.

By Night

Shepherds watching their December flocks
May see them grow, then suddenly recede
Into the distance, while their absence mocks
The present sheep, who come each day to feed.
Their careful nuture and their watchful care
Are not enough to make the rams all stay
For they are used to forage everywhere
And do not linger long upon their way.
But once or twice a year do they return
Visiting the pasture, but not staying;
And in sad time the shepherds come to learn
They cannot properly be chid for straying
That wander only; but they can be said
To be among the flock who're sometimes fed.

Go

Sitting in the airport on my way
To fly and visit my new family
I find myself unsure of what to say
For fear of some latent disloyalty;
I trust it is not wrong to claim my joy
In being one of them, as long as I
Do not proclaim myself only their boy
And dispossess myself. For I love my
Own and first family as much as ever
And having gained another does not change
My happiness at what I had, and never
Will. Nor will it even rearrange
Those feelings. But it adds, and I am so
Delighted to be going where I'll go.

Walk

I love the city when I walk with you
The sky lights up despite the constant clouds
The streets once muddy now seem washed with dew
And I can see above the pushing crowds.
The skyline is a jagged lightning bolt
Flashing across the view with breathless grace
The slushy surfaces all seem to molt,
Leaving the city's gorgeous snowy face
Exposed to us, so we can, at her best,
Admire all that she can bring to bear;
The air itself seems full of summer zest
Despite the icy twinkle. Everywhere
Is wonderful when we walk out together
Even the winter's often foul weather.

Wint

There's nothing new to say about the snow
It comes each winter and it looks the same
Possesses that same half-angelic glow
Then dirties and goes grey with oily shame.
The frozen lake and river ripple by
The water underneath, as ever, seen
Only through the blue, for it is shy
And shows but indirectly in the sheen
The thin ice has. All this is always thus.
Winter has come, and winter is but this
A settled change of momentary fuss
A constant presence that you cannot miss
Until the spring, delayed, melts snow away
And breaks the old cocoon of white and grey.

Snowfall

Consider all the snow around
Hard, compacted into sheets
Freezing fast the stony ground
And slippering the empty streets
See how it mocks the glowing sun
Reflecting it unmeltingly
Hunkering down as if to shun
The heat it ought to bring. Then see
How in the turn of time the air
Will recontain its wonted heat
And force this fearsome snow to bare
The ground and fly in full retreat
So much can time, in fullness, do
But not reduce my love for you.

Wishing

Have a happy birthday now my dear
And know I wish somehow I could be there
But if my body's not, my soul is near
Bringing you warm and love to show I care.
I hope you love your presents, and you spend
The hours, every one of twenty-four
Enjoying, dancing, laughing without end
Doing all the things that you adore
And reveling in doing so, without
A single worry in your joyous head
No sadness, no discomfort, and no doubt
But only mirth and happiness instead.
And when you think of me (I hope you will)
Remember only that I love you still.

Halfs

The fall comes late to London nowadays.
No more the frozen Thames, the whiteclad streets
All is a mist of brown and blues and grays
While reds and yellows tell of the retreats
Of summer, but remind that winter's far;
For we are in the middle, still half-changed,
Not sure of how or who we really are
But certain that we have been rearranged.
There is a prickle coming in the air
A promise something more will come, and yet
The fact that it is not already there
Is something we cannot with ease forget.
It feels the winter will not come at all
And we will live forever in this fall.

Fall

The berries grow to nothing on the bush
The flowers and the trees have lost their leaves
Seeming as though the most minutest push
Would blow them over, while the cedar grieves
Its fallen friends, and promises to wait
The deadened snow time through 'til they arise
Unfolding once again their robes of state
And thrust their crownéd heads into the skies.
But for the moment all is gray and brown
Save for some hardy ferns and evergreens;
The turning season put their glories down
Matting all their iridescent sheens
Reminding us the dark is rising still
And has not yet begun to wane his will.

Scale

I do not worry all that much
About how worlds or peoples end
I do not think that that is such
A thing as such as I can mend.
Instead I think on smaller scales
Of happiness and single men
Or women, and how that joy pales
When bad things happen to them, when
The wishes that they had are strewn
About like tattered paper dolls
Or how they howl to the moon
When all their forward progress stalls
And I try, in my little way,
To help them have a better day.

ENGL

The city's great
The program's swell
It should all sate
My wants, but, well
There are some wishes
It can't provide
Even fried fishes
On my inside
Are not enough
To make me fail
To find it tough
To not avail
Myself of you
Until it's through.

Construction Site

A city's never built, it's always half
Until the ruin fills with tumbleweeds
It's held together by scaffold and gaff
With cranes to place the crossbars that it needs.
I can't imagine one that's fully done
Without more patches coming in due time
There's always something new to be begun
Some new skyscraper just starting to climb.
And so it must have cracks, from stretching skin
As growing pain will always come with growing
But that won't mean that new things won't begin
Just that they'll come without a planner knowing
Like grass in sidewalks, new things come to be
Grow old and are replaced perpetually.

Explore

Let us get on a random city bus
And find a stop that we won't find again
Allow us to experiment on us
Discovering what we will see and when
And how we will react to what we see
What foods we'll eat, what distances we'll run
Whether we'll window shop or buy, if we
Will wonder at the absence of the sun
Between tall buildings, or expand our view
And find the cracks between them like a maze.
I'm ready for adventure; how 'bout you?
Let's grab a bus and not be seen for days
Except each by the other and we spin
Merrily around this world we're in.

CCTV

Why's there so much CCTV around?
Why not live life unseen, and privately?
How often in a perpetrator found
Who could not have been sans CCTV?
How often by contrast are all our lives
Made worse by being watched forevermore?
The mad brilliant detective whose mind dives
Into the images the cameras store
And finds the magic moment is a myth.
A life of privacy unbroken was
A treasure we have lost, and there's the pith:
We threw that life away simply because
Someone suggested fear could be controlled
And so the wonder out of life is sold.

Goes

The waiting is always hardest, though.
It doesn't matter what you're waiting for
The hours just don't seem inclined to go
But linger and annoy you more and more.
Each minute seems an hour, or, what's worse,
Time seems immobile, or turned retrograde
So that the seconds tick out in reverse
Unraveling what was already made.
The simple thought "I wait" is bad enough;
The act of it, once self-aware, is sour.
Time's passage should be smooth, but becomes rough
When you are trapped within its massive power.
And so I wait, and cannot patiently;
But I'll continue, 'til my time is free.

Mehs

Times go slowly when you are alone

But time is not quite regular. Don't trust
The trickle or the flood, until they're shown
Even then, trust only if you must.
Ignore it else. That's safest. Be
Sure in yourself of what has passed
And do not let eternity
Pretend to what is not amassed
Or feign what has to not be so
Weaving the lies perception brings.
Time itself will come and go
And falsehood to its passing clings.
Wait, live, and be, and don't forget
The inner sense that says "not yet."

When

The dark is here
It's rather bleak
'Twill disappear
But I am weak
And so I lie
And let it come
And simply sigh
Awaiting some
External change
That will put out
This feeling. Strange.
I do not doubt
That it will go
When, I don't know.

Sport

Perhaps it's abnormality
In me to think of you so much
But if so, I'll not wish to see
Myself if I were normal. Such
Is how I am, I'll remain
The same, if I can manage so,
Until it drives my mind insane
Or my frail body lets me go.
But if I'm still in frame and mind
I will not stop to think of you
For whether I was once designed
Or just evolved from proto-stew
I find my purpose very clear
To think of you, and wish you here.

Delusions

Imagining that you were here

Is useless, yet I do it still;

It will erupt against my will

And yet I hold the notion dear

For should those thoughts now disappear

Although I claim to have my fill

Of them, I think that it might kill

My only pleasure. It is queer

To see a fault and know, once fixed,

A greater fault will feel revealed;

So wish and pain are intermixed

And in their mixture jointly sealed

So that should either one be nixed

The other would then have no shield.

Public Art in the British Library

"Homage to Michelangelo"
But as it were at once remove
For since "the women" "come and go"
It is not difficult to prove
That Eliot must stand between
The artist and the one he claims;
Perhaps as a transparent screen
And maybe not - for as he names
The prior artists as his king
He passes over poetry
And makes it a transmissive thing
Forgetting it has history
And changes what it would transmit
And so, an homage, too, to it.

Seasonal Allergy

Green grass grows under banks of snow
Water under ice is liquid yet
The willow bends before the blow
So when it stops it can reset
Trees without leaves are living still
Certain frogs have antifreeze
A fish possessing lung and gill
Outlasts the drying of the seas
A bear in winter goes to sleep
An owl sleeps both day and night
Until crepuscles slowly creep
And it can wake to dim twilight
From nature I this thought amass
We'll live because this too shall pass.

Take This

It's boring all alone. That's not enough
To say she should be with me, or demand
She give up her own life; that's silly stuff,
Created by delusions of what's grand.
No, it's just one of oh so many things
That makes me think of her, and wish she were
Here with me, because her presence brings
Something I never have except with her
A sense that all is right; that calm is not
The same as boredom, and that things to do
Are never chores. With her, I always spot
The good in all the things I have to do
Or just why they should still be borne. Boredom
Is the least reason why I wish she'd come.

Khayyam

A cup of tea
A loaf of bread
Some poetry
And I am fed
Body and mind
But not yet soul
Until I find
What makes me whole;
Which by tradition
(Which is true)
By definition
Should be you
And so you feed
My deepest need.

Wishes For Fishes

I wish that I were still beside you there
Going where you go, seeing the same,
Breathing adjacent, if not selfsame, air,
Erecting my existence on the frame
That yours lies on; I wish I were.
But since I am not, I must simply say
I want all things to be as you prefer;
I wish the situation, as it may,
Since I cannot affect it, to be turned
To what you would, and be remade by you.
I wish that gone which you would have be spurned,
And that increased which you by choice renew;
And so I wish you worlds of your desire
Because to make them I cannot aspire.

Foundling

What doesn't go in the bin
Causes delay on the track
Please keep on shoving it in
'Til it comes out of the back;
Turn it around then and thrust
All of it back through once more.
Filling the bins is a must;
Emptying them is chore.
All that we ask is you try
As we are trying, to keep
Tube stations clean so that I
Don't have to come through and sweep.
Heap all the trash in that pile
I've been on break for a while.

.......

The day seems pointless, in a constant pause
Unmoving and unreal. The light is grey
Streaked with an orange that from some obscure cause
Sucks meaning from the air and makes the way
Surreal and alien. I walk in blurs
Finding myself only in little spurts
Otherwise unsure. The river stirs
And calls to me, but whatever it blurts
Is lost in my distraction, and I go
Beyond the hearing. Even as I do
I realize that I no longer know
Where to go. Then I remember you
And that we were to meet; and with this known
I know myself. The day's again my own.

Wish

I look around
And wish you were
Still to be found.
I would prefer
To find you'd been
Obscurely hidden
And could come in
If you were bidden
Than to believe
As is but true
You had to leave
For I love you
And always miss
Your sight - and kiss.

Overground

The overground works by the underpass
Not quite in the bowels of the town
But hanging out in lower-middle-class
Perhaps not out of view, but still pushed down
So it can be both out of sight and mind
If not ignored, still rarely thought about
Out of the way, where only search will find
And speech cannot be heard without a shout.
Yet in those byways there is still more space
Than in the deep dark tunnels Underground;
Enough to see the sun's reflected face
Against the brickwork tiled all around
And to imagine sky. We're not inside
We're simply somewhere easy to still hide.

Reversed

I had a post that disappeared
Into the aether. It was weird.
And did I find that post again?
You should not doubt that I did not.
Data does not come back when
The internet has dropped. I got
A few small pieces in my mind
A little here, a little there
Just enough for me to find
It frustrating that it would hare
Off to the distance, gone away
But not enough that I could make
A copy of it. Anyway
It's gone, and that just takes the cake.

Midday

Closed curtains seem

To cut off day

And keep the dream

Of sleep; to say

I am not here

Am not awake

Please just steer clear

For goodness' sake

I will not come

If you should knock

I'm distant from

The tick of clock

Still sleeping. Lies.

I've open eyes.

Eke

The idle days can sometimes be the worst
The days when there is nothing else to do
But wander aimlessly through things rehearsed
A thousand times before, when nothing new
Seems to exist beneath the boring sun
When all TV is reruns, and the books
You have around have all been read, each one
Still well-enough remembered that brief looks
Reveal the plot straight off, and make it hum
With dull predictability. In those
Long-stretching times of leaden tedium
Still something in my soul more hopeful grows
For when the hours pass, however they
Creep in their path, we're closer by a day.

Morning

Do not imagine I would rather be
Anywhere but by your side right now;
I want to sit and hold you quietly
And watch the moon behind a dark tree-bough
Slide out of sight; and in the waxing east
See the soft tendrils of the pre-dawn light
Stir up, beginning at their weakest least
But soon and quickly banishing the night
Revealing all around us in its glory,
Nature, effulgent in the warming sun;
And yet that would not best our own glad story
Of finally sitting beside the one
We want to spend our lives with; no new day
Could ever rival that in any way.

Newspost

Tell me your news, and I will be made glad
By simply hearing what you have to say;
That will, of course, be tempered if it's bad
Merely a gleam, should it be (in its way)
Horrific. But no matter what I hear
Part of me (sometimes a tiny part)
Will still be happy you saw your way clear
To tell me what is new with you. I start
Each day that I'm without you wishing to
Hear what you're up to, what you've done and seen
And when I get an update or review
It puts a superordinary sheen
Upon my day, and makes me joyfully
Await the next thing you will say to me.

Coffee Sunday

Today is certainly a coffee day
Not as the mass of ordinary days
When coffee is a drink, of course, that may
For pleasure be consumed, but as a haze
Requires sunlight to put burnt asunder
So coffee on a day like this must serve
To scorch the mind before it can go under
And make it choose to be awake, and swerve
Away from drowsiness. Coffee can do
Miracles that other drinks cannot;
Energize the body through and through
When it is served up strong and piping hot.
Today was made by coffee at its best
Even though it was a day of rest.

Roaches

The lights approach
The track is clear
A lone cockroach
Is scuttling here
Away from that
Oncoming train
Lest he be flat
But we all strain
To be first on
By pressing in
And when it's gone
With such a din
The roach is sole
Among the whole.

Sidereal

Half a moon is just enough to make
Me see the beauty we once saw together;
Shining high above me, through a break
In London's so notorious bad weather
It promises to wane and wax again
And in the interval to let me roam
Back to the place where I began, and when
At last I have returned to my own home
It will shine just as it has shined tonight.
But then I will be with the one I love,
And we can share the brightly glowing sight
Joined in our hearts in admiration of
The way the moon connects our days between
Past joys and those that yet are to be seen.

Rather

It would be rather silly to pretend
I don't want to be with you every night
And show you everything past which I wend,
As if you were a second to my sight.
It would be foolish to imagine I
Do not desire to be close to you
And hold you close as we both scan the sky
Bringing the latest full moon into view.
It would be wrong (and very wrong) to say
I would not wish for you to share my life
Never to abandon me or stay
(Although I cannot promise zero strife)
And as I wish you to hold faith with me
So will I hold with you, and happily.

Are

Were you here
I would be
(Let's be clear)
Happily
By your side
Holding you
Now I bide
Waiting to
Chat online
So that we
Can combine
Psychically
Over space
Sans embrace.

Listen

The way you speak is comforting, by now,
But don't imagine that by that I mean
Your words or manners have forgotten how
To make me listen to you. I am keen
To hear you speak forever, nor am I
Lulled into inattention by the sound.
Rather, I drink it in as it goes by
Wishing they had no terminus or bound,
Watching your face, your hands, your eyes express
Your meaning as your voice and they combine;
Loving your altogether loveliness
Of which they are but a beloved sign
And thinking as I listen and observe
How much more is your love than I deserve.

Commercial Zoning

The sudden bustle of a little hub
Only serves to emphasize the space
Between, just as the dirt beside a shrub
Attains no special or distinctive grace
From such juxtaposition, but instead
Shows all the more dull brown beside the bloom.
So these small zones of industry that shed
Their light upon the black asphalt don't loom
Larger than the gaps, the empty streets
That seem but more deserted by compare;
For where the cheering light at last retreats
There is no comfort left us anywhere
And no one cares, or dares, to walk the city
Except in little pockets. It's a pity.

Real

When I'm with you I know just who I am
And when I'm not, I still am certain. Yet
There is a part of me I'd wish to dam
When I'm alone, and let myself forget.
For when you leave me, then I miss you so
That everything I see reminds me of
The happiness that we together know
And I am saddened by your absent love.
But now that I imagine losing that -
Being without your face before my eyes
When they are closed - the world would be but flat
The sights all dull, the sunset and moonrise
Insignificant did I not feel
My love for you to make their presence real.

Curfew

The glow of neon on stone storefronts seems
A false enchantment promising void heat
And every shut shop shows unfinished dreams
Barred from completion by the steady beat
Of unimpressed and all too concrete time.
The night implies what it cannot deliver
Catching imagination in quicklime
Only to watch it struggle there, and quiver
Unable to escape, to move, to breathe
Caught in the bare reality of dark
In which the terrors of the city seethe.
No wonder shops are shuttered like the park;
The day has left, and in the harsh half-light
Dusk's promise turns to lies by bleak midnight.

Exploration

The streets are empty and the night is cold
My breath fogs up my glasses as it goes
I have known many nights that fit this mold
But something in the air this evening slows
The passage of the time. I cannot walk.
Each step seems stuck in amber. As I try
I stop. I think of how we used to talk
On streets like this, filling each other's eye
So that they seemed to fill, warming with smiles
The frigid air until our coats seemed wasted
Compressing into single strides whole miles
Savoring the joy that we had tasted
In sharing time. But now we are apart
And memory has stopped me by the heart.

Again

When I think back upon the time before
We were together, I can hardly say
That I would wish it any other way
Than how it was, because to ask for more
Would be to risk what happened, and therefore
Despite the times of definite dismay
Despite the hours when I used to pray
For easing of my heart, so bruised and sore,
Despite the sorrows, which were true and deep,
The weariness, the pining, and the stares,
And all those longing chats pre-empting sleep
Full of unspoken wishes, hopes, and cares,
I would repeat it all, instinctively
Because in time it all brought you to me.

Sights

The simple sight of your infectious smile
Makes me delirious with happiness.
I keep your image in a mental file
And when I am oppressed, I feel it less
By thinking of your face. I know I stare,
But can you blame me, when the empty days
In which I cannot see you anywhere
Spread out before me in an endless haze?
I take advantage of the chances I
Am given, and I memorize your face
So that why I am predisposed to sigh
I can just close my eyes, and think to trace
Your loving smile and your eyes that gleam;
Relieving my misfortunes with your dream.

Netflix

I always did like sentimental shows.

I'd much prefer to say I don't know why,

But let's be honest that the whole world knows

I am a sucker for a teary eye

A soft half-turn, an introspective sigh

The moonlight on the water by the bay,

Beside the dark bank where the violets lie

Just visible in the reflected day

From which sad eyes must hopeless turn away

Only to find, in turning, that they see

The lover running up the shore to say

The time has come when all that's hoped shall be.

This weakness makes me argue in my mind

We shall be happy; I've already pined.

Sonnet Analysis: Shakespeare II

This sonnet I am almost scared of analyzing, because it is one of my favorites and one I have had memorized for almost too long. But it deserves to be looked at, and so, without further ado, Shakespeare's Sonnet 130:

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.


Triumphs:
This is a classic inversion of the blazon, turning the already-standard tropes of love poetry around in order to (still) finish with a declaration of love. It's not quite "negging" in the modern sense, as the poet ends with an affirmation of his love's rareness; it is more of an attack on others' poetry disguised within a love poem. And at that, it is highly effective, a virtuoso example of taking a style and using it to mock itself. The comparisons are all there, just turned around, and the fact that the poet avoids too much repetition in how he introduces them shows a stylistic variability that pleases the ear. There is a good use of the octave-sestet division at "I love to hear her speak," which follows upon the strong negativity of the previous eight lines (and particularly the ending "reeks" of line 8) with a positive image, which is immediately turned to still support the dominant message through "yet well I know/That music hath a far more pleasing sound." The rest of the sestet is beautifully done as well, and, as is frequently the case with Shakespeare, the couplet is amazing. It is strongly separated from the rest of the poem, yet draws on the previous lines for its effect, summing their effect up for its own purpose. The language is also gorgeous: the consonance of "white" and "wires" in lines 3-4, the power of the broad vowel in "reeks" in line 8, the return of "my mistress" from line 1 into line 12, just in time for the concluding couplet.

Imperfections:
Tempted as I am to say "this is my favorite, it's a perfect poem," it isn't. "In some perfumes is there more delight" seems a bit forced; the "by heaven" in the penultimate line seems like a filler; the double "red" in line 2 and "wires" in line 4 seem somewhere between filler and forced. But each of these can also be justified, which is what makes it hard to talk of imperfections here.

Sonnet Analysis: Spenser II

Today I have decided to look at another classic sonnet and see what makes it tick. This is from Edmund Spenser's Amoretti:

Fair is my love, when her fair golden hairs

With the loose wind ye waving chance to mark:

Fair, when the rose in her red cheeks appears,

Or in her eyes the fire of love does spark:

Fair, when her breast, like a rich laden bark

With precious merchandise she forth doth lay:

Fair, when that cloud of pride, which oft doth dark

Her goodly light, with smiles she drives away

But fairest she, when so she doth display

The gate with pearls and rubies richly dight,

Through which her words so wise do make their way,

To bear the message of her gentle sprite.

The rest be works of nature's wonderment,

But this the work of heart's astonishment.

Triumphs:

The anaphora is strong in this one. The repeated use of "fair" may start off as annoying to some readers, but it is powerful enough to lull that critical part of the mind and become instead simply a part of the structure, especially on repeated readings. It contributes to the sonnet's octave-sestet division, as the change from "Fair" to "But fairest" signals the poet's turn from contemplating multiple parts of his mistress in sequence to exploring one aspect in more depth. Spenser's distinctive rhyme scheme (ababbcbccdcdee) is in full flower here, and with the partial exception of "dight" (slightly archaic even in his own time), the words are common enough that they pass unnoticed except as a pleasant rhythm, which is, in my opinion, how that rhyme scheme should sound at its best, avoiding the cloying over-rhyme-y feeling it can sometimes fall into. The sudden change from one and two syllable words to the "wonderment" and "astonishment" of the final couplet is powerful as well, strengthening the importance of those two words in the imagination. This compensates for the weakness of the actual rhyme (using the -ment suffix as the only rhyming element in a multisyllabic word). 

Imperfections:

As just mentioned, the last rhyme is weak in itself; like using a rhyme on -ly, a rhyme on -ment is strongest when the penultimate syllable would be a rhyme without the suffix. This is worse in the case of -ment because it is a less common sound and therefore draws attention to itself, whereas -ly is common enough that it can pass without inspection in most cases. This is definitely a sonnet that wants to be read repeatedly, so that the awkwardness of that rhyme, the initial resistance that can be posed by such extended anaphora, and the weakness of "dight" can all recede and the poem's strong concept and rhythm can rise to the fore. It also suffers from feeling trite in a modern context--although the existence of Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 should remind us that this sort of sentiment quickly became trite in the early modern period too--and  from using metaphors that are less recognizable to modern ears (pearls and rubies for the teeth and lips). The use of "fair" outside the anaphora may also be criticized, since it adds to the potential exhaustion of that term without contributing directly to the rhetorical effect.

Autumn

The wind picks up outside.

I do not care about

The people, but the dried

Leaves blow up and out

Reminding me of fall

Which comes too quickly.

If I could forestall

The wind, I would. But I

Am not safe here. Although

The wind will touch me not

(Through walls it cannot blow)

I still feel the leaves' rot

As time sweeps on.

They have all gone.

Hideyhole

The city hustles on outside my walls
And seems to make a decent day of it.
I sometimes hear its muffled, trilling calls
But still in here I choose to stay and sit
Writing to you, imagining your face
Not being altogether like a monk
But still somewhat inclined to keep in place
In meditation deep so often sunk.
I think of you, and how it would be were
You by my side, and we could go together
Out to the world (which I would much prefer
No matter what the bustle or the weather)
But since you are not there, I choose to be
Sometimes (not always) secreted with me.

Tock

I cannot make my mind run as I would;
I cannot make it sleep by my command
Nor can I order it to think it good
To have my love live in a distant land.
In vain I tell it of the wondrous things
I shall achieve in time spent far away;
By day, to such my self-cognition clings
But by the sky and clock it is not day.
In such a time as this, I cannot force
My mind from where it would all day remain
Did I not channel it a safer course
To keep it, half the time, a working brain.
But as night falls, it turns again to her
And to her side, by which I wish I were.

Wrong City

At every corner that I turn, a part
Of me imagines that you will be there;
While that sly smile that imbues my heart
With every kind of love prompts me to stare
And have you shake your head, impatiently
Asking why that look is on my face
So I can answer most untruthfully
It doesn't matter, and go on apace
Still thrilling with the image of your smile
Treasured in my eyelids' afterglow
Pretending for a momentary while
I can ignore its captivating slow
Fade out of view. But every time I turn
You are not there, and I must simply yearn.

Fading Image

I do not want to hold you in my mind
Just as you were when first we came to meet
For I prefer to know the you I find
By living with you - never yet complete,
Never made final, never done or set,
Forever changing as I change with you.
The people that we were when we first met
Are gone, and the time they lived is through;
Instead I want to see you as you are
And love the person you have come to be;
Not like the beam flung from a distant star
That can shed only its past light on me
But like the flicker of an inner fire
That burns with present love, trust, and desire.

Midnight

There's something odd about an empty room
That's small enough to be a single one
Yet feels it isn't destined for that doom;
That seems as though, before its time is done,
It should be filled by happiness for two
But still is not. It is a limbo place
That stands between what yet is left to do
And has come. The human mind can trace
The future echoes of a time unmet
Which seem to glisten between darkened walls
After the solitary sun has set
And yet before the comfortable night falls
Shining companionship from endless stars
Upon the future and this room of ours.

Est

I find I can't dispute I've lost some skill
In speaking of my heart with eloquence;
It isn't that I'm bad at making sense
But rather that, attempt it how I will,
No matter what I say, it must seem ill
Because it cannot equal the immense
Pleasure it in theory represents
And since there's always pleasure left to fill
However much I pour and pour in words
In thundering great coalescing herds,
I feel inadequate; my utmost best
Can never in its greatest moment cope
With all my love, nor challenge it in scope.
My words are always worse than what's expressed.

London City

The days here are exciting, but the nights

Are strange - and by the nights I mean the hours

When London shuts itself to foreign sights

From eight o'clock or so - when all the flowers

Are closed against the not yet quite here dark.

Those times are when it would be best to stroll

An almost closed and yet wide open park

And sit with you upon a shady knoll

Watching the clouds go by and people stream

Into the Tube and back into their homes

Skimmed out of London City like the cream

Off milk, as planes to aerodromes

Dive sparkling down. It's strange to watch alone;

As if my sense of sight were overgrown.

Nightscape

All cities twinkle like each other, but
Go down into the streets and they will seem
As different as a famine and a glut:
Some cities glisten like a dewlit dream
At every level; some expose a seam
Dank and festering beneath the skin;
Some float upon their worser parts like cream;
Some dive into the steamy depths of sin;
And some, unlike their cousins, welcome in
The poor, the rich, the every kind of man,
Combine what ought to make a dreadful din
And make a melody worthy of Pan.
In these the twinkle truly glistens in the dark
Both natural: the black fuel and the spark.

Bread

Preach thou thy word, and I will not convert
And yet respect each syllable you say
Nor try to make thee other than thou wert
Nor from the listening attempt to stray.
The certainty that sends thee on thy way
And brings thee comfort in the days ahead
I would not for the wide world take away
Though I in that direction am not led.
And when, in our near future, I thee wed,
Be sure I will not follow down that road
Yet neither shall I preach to thee instead
Or try to tempt thee from thy heartfelt code.
Rather, as I do now, I shall prize
Thy firm belief, because in thee it lies.

A Building

There always could be somewhere else, I guess;
Another place, or even this post-change
But still I fear you never could arrange
To make me feel at home there. You could bless
Another house, and import my whole mess,
Taking careful care to disarrange
Each piece of paper; still it would estrange
Me from myself despite your artfulness
For in this place I have accumulated
Such memories, and such a sense of home
That nothing can replace them 'til I build
Brick by mental brick another, weighted
With inner meaning, like a palindrome
Mirroring the sense with which it's filled.

Positivity

Do not imagine anything but good
For in imagination only lies
The possibility of might and would
Which falsely claims to deeply sympathize
And whispers fondly 'you must realize
You cannot do it, and your hopes are vain;
You and I both know this; we are wise;
We know you, and we know the dismal strain
You put upon yourself; let your hopes wane,
Not hoping is the safest, surest way
To minimize future potential pain;
Doubt like us; it's hopeless anyway."
But doubt is self-fulfilling. Be secure:
You're better than your doubts whispered you were.

<no title>

My mind is not
Prepared to speak
It is too hot
I am too weak
But somehow I
Must still expound
The reason why
I flit around
And do not stay
Where I might be
Cooler all day
In the A/C
I must return
To her. I burn.

Flight

Were there a thousand places
I could depart to, I
Might find myself in stasis
Until I thought of why:
Why do I ever travel
What is the point of going?
Will some new plan unravel?
Are there new seeds I'm sowing?
In this case I am certain
I know just where to go;
Shall I part the curtain
And tell you what I know?
This blessing I'll discover:
I go to see my lover.

Burning Chrome

Why is the day so hot? Why is the night
A burning blister of eternal pain?
The ancient adage that heat comes from light
Is mocked, and nature cuts against the grain
To make the body hate what nutures it:
The sun and all the moisture in the air,
Which bleed into the skin. The sky, unlit,
Continues pumping warmth from everywhere
And all is desolate save for the mug
Which clams along the surface of all things
Oozing like the wetly plodding slug
Whose liquid, when it coats the eagle's wings,
Forbids his flight. Yet in all this I find
Your absence drives the weather from my mind.

Past the Infinite

There is a certain satisfaction
In how the mind comes to conclude
Upon a certain course of action
Or on an explanation. Rude
Intemperate and uncouth men
Will leap to unconsidered ends
But those who think before they pen
Can feel the pleasure logic sends
Into the soul when it's employed
And come to understand the way
The mind can be selfoverjoyed
By herding thoughts that went astray.
Yet thinking thus may make us proud
And so I do not think aloud.

Reflections

The patience that she shows me every day
Is worth more than a thousand lesser things
And more than I can hope I can repay;
More than a decorated rap star's blings,
More than a diamond field untapped and full,
More than a field untilled and rich and dark,
More than a herd of pure Merino wool,
More than the animals on Noah's ark.
No, all that I can do for thanks is to
By slow degrees attempt to mirror her
To do the things she wishes me to do
And to refrain from what she would prefer
I should avoid. And so I try to show
The same to her that I from her well know.

18xx

The calm contentment of the railroad tracks
Flowing into the distance and horizon
Brings to my soul just what the highway lacks
As long as I can keep my longing eyes on
The middle distance, where the two straight lines
Seem to conjoin, although they cannot so:
The effortless eternity that signs
The future and the past in just one go.
For train tracks map the time in endless space
Forever stretching forward, backward, out
Into the possibility of grace
Through wonder, and despite worry and doubt.
I find myself exploring with my mind
The curves and straights no engineers designed.

Eat

A city unexplored is like a stew
Uneaten. Sure, it may be safer so
But if you do not try it you can't know
And 'til you venture to, it will haunt you.
For it might be the best, if you but knew,
And you might weep to know what you let go
Unnoticed by. Oh, let such thoughts but grow,
And do what you have always wanted to:
Taste, try, and test! Be resolute to seek
The hidden and obscure delights it bears!
Be not afraid that it will suck or reek
But throw away those old, and worn-out, cares
So you may feast, and in that feast discover
That which will make of you a city-lover.

Litterate

A second Kindle might appear to be
A second perfume on a violet
A coat of gold gilding a lily
An extra rhyme glued to a triolet;
It might seem purposeless, and even worse
Silly and beyond the pale of reason
But ere you start to lazily rehearse
Such thoughts, remember all things have a season
And there may come a time when books are needed
When what was mocked will come into its own
And those who in their reason smugly heeded
Such sage advice will be bereft, alone.
So do not mock the Kindle doubled 'til
You cannot need it, lest you find you will.

Out

Adventuring is always best with you
No matter just how often I'm alone
I far prefer to do the things I do
When you are present beyond telephone.
I like to have you by me as I roam,
To know the sights I see you also see
That I don't have to wait 'til I come home
To show you my next cool discovery.
It's always better to explore in pairs
And nudge, and point, and share the wonderous
Directly, with someone who truly cares
And so it is when we explore, for us.
What could I wish beyond such fortune? How
Could I be happier than I am now?

Home

The days are long and void

Except when you appear

Hopefully not annoyed

But bright and full of cheer

For when you come back here

And couch yourself by me

You subtly re-steer

My soul to be happy

And since I like to be

As happy as I can

I miss you constantly.

And yet in every plan

There is a flaw or quirk -

In this one, it's your work.

Unglued

The discontented limbs refuse to move
Though they know how, they do not wish to know.
They will not fit the old familiar groove
Of muscle memory. They will not go.
For they have learned by pain to just say no,
To shiver and complain until they get
The wished surcease of effort, and so slow
The mind's insistence that they move it. Yet
Though they, themselves, desire to forget
Their wonted motion, yet the brain recalls
Despite the every effort of their let
What they could do when they would give their alls
And not ungently calls on them once more
To slowly do what has been fast before.

<

I cannot claim
I do not care
To place my aim
On being there
With you...but still
I cannot be
Despite my will
As frequently
As I'd prefer
And so I go
From where we were
To here. But know
Someday I'll come
Where I went from.

FLL

Traveling
But not to you
Is a strange thing
And nothing new
At once. But I
In doing so
Can see how by
This to and fro
In time I will
Most thankfully
Return and still
Have you with me
Which makes me glad
Who else was sad.

Far

It isn't easy to be far from her;
It always puts me in a certain funk
Because the part of me that I prefer
Is tied to her, and therefore I am sunk
Into a slightly different person when
For whatever reason, she is far;
And only when we meet am I again
Myself. She is, perhaps, my guiding star
From which I orient who I will be
And by directions that I take therefrom
I know how to mostly truly become me
And like the person that I have become.
So being far from her is wrenching, for
I'm not the same as I had been before.

Inner

I don't mean to belabor

All the points that I must make

But to soothe with lute and tabor

So the yawning beast will slake

Its own appetite, and slumber

So that I can be at rest

And the heads surpassing number

Will lay down at my request;

So my writing is required

By my own internal needs

Because love ever desired

To explore the place it feeds

And so I write love because

It's what this lover does.

Sonneting

Some places are more fertile for my mind
More tilled, and thus susceptible to weeds,
But also thus more likely to then find
Something to grow, whatever be the seeds.
In such a place, the words I think become
More orderly, and so express my thoughts
Coherently, reducing my mind's hum
To words, untying all my mental knots.
And so my love and adoration pour
In a coherent and expressive stream
Saying I love, and by that saying more
Than ever in another place I'd dream
That I could say. Chicago lets me tell
The one I love I love her very well.

Cities

I settle into usual routines
As if the city programmed who I am
The simple input of remembered scenes
Serving as a self-defined program
That alters what I think and what I do
Making old things normal once again
Not changing what is possible or true
But how I act upon that knowledge when
I come to realize it. So here I
Am subtly different, and so I will be
Whenever I next put this city by
And go another place; another me.
Yet even as I change, I am still one
The same me reads the program I've begun.

Hmmmph

There are too many places I could be

And only one of them is where I am.

That's obvious, at least it is to me,

But for the moment I don't give a damn,

Because it's also true. And being true

It's something I must cope with in some way

Mostly because I'm taken far from you

By things that were compelling in the day

But as the night comes on and makes me miss

The comfort of your being by my side,

The happiness that fills me when we kiss,

The joy your presence always has implied

I wonder if those reasons were enough

To make me miss you, just to do that stuff.

With

There is contentment sitting next to you
A sense the world is breathing easily
And nothing stressful could heave into view
And if it did, it would not trouble me.
Even when stress or sheer annoyance brings
A tremor to what's otherwise so calm
Your comfort can, with time, subdue such things
Spreading on hurts your most effective balm.
So there should be no wonder why I slide
Consistently into your arms to sleep
Or why I so insist you let me hide
Within your orbit, and that orbit keep
For every time I'm with you, all is better;
That sort of help can't come by phone or letter.

Move

There's something about being in a city
I'm never sure exactly what it is
It isn't dark or light or clean or gritty;
It pulses; it may bubble; it must fizz
And every city's different on its own
In ways I cannot tangibly describe
I feel it when I walk the streets alone
And drink in all the sights I can imbibe
On every corner and in every step
There is a certain cadence that's unique
A kind of rhythm with distinctive pep
No other place can have. No place would seek.
For every city is itself, and will
Forever have its own percussion still.

Hmmm

Boredom brings
Certain worries
And it clings
In tight flurries
Evermore
Frustrating
Making sore
Deflating
Confidence
Surety
Common sense
All at sea
Until it
Has to quit.

Kiss

A not-so-timid yet still cautious kiss
Shared by two strangers on apartment stairs
Reminds me of the happiness I miss
And yet their inner joy rebuffs my cares
For I remember that my loving shares
Their free and easy confluence of smiles
Which flows from them into the world, and bears
Away all worries. So across the miles
Between my love and me, I know there files
A course of love swept in a massive stream
That carves new canyons and oblique defiles
Across the mental landscape like a dream
And we are blessed by having such a love
To be by such a sight reminded of.

May

The city green and darkened by the rain
The sky a bluish white behind cloud cover
I feel alive again. This keeps me sane
Despite the absence of my distant lover
For in a paradise of brown and green
What sadness can remain that can't be born?
I feel the love of nature in the scene,
Banishing despair with growing scorn,
Tinging the very air with such a tingle
That deadened boughs would feel themselves alive
Allowing water, earth, and air to mingle
Sparking the fire that will gyre and strive;
For in this climate all will bloom and rise
And any sorrow from this beauty flies.

Erm

Patience never was my thing
I always try to rush along
Unless my nerves with tension sing
And rushing forward just feels wrong;
Then I waver and I wait
But not with patience, no, not that.
Then I am a reprobate
For whom existence all feels flat
And only action can give sense
Except that this has been denied
Without a form of recompense
And so I in my quaver hide
Feeling unfortunate but slow
And letting everything else go.

12:34

Whenever the clock reads such and such
I think of how things ought to be
How I adore you oh so much
And how we could be so happy
There was a time I wistfully
Would watch the numbers tick on by
But now I know that you love me
And so I do not have to sigh
Instead I use that time to try
To give good vibes to what we do
And spend a moment thinking why
It is that I'm in love with you
And all the time I'm thinking of
The reason I increase my love.

Walks

When I am walking and a little thought
By even long and winding ways might lead
Past recollections of what life has brought,
Or what the future might in good hope breed,
Past other dreams and odd, assorted ends
Collected from the doings of the day
Not just my own, but those of family, friends,
And mere acquaintances along the way,
Past plans and wishes, jokes and sadder things,
Through all I am, and all that I may be
To you, however reached, such fresh joy springs
Into my heart, that I will suddenly
Stop in midstep and smile, and softly sigh
Then turn and kiss you when you ask me why.

Rightly

I belong with you like beach and sea
Like rock and lizard stretched to feel the sun
Like action and ensuing entropy
Like null exponents that must equal one.
You and I are like deuterium
Bound by a force exceeding other powers
Or Rome at height of its imperium
Where every road we take leads back to ours.
Together we can do the greatest deeds
And in the process find contentment too
Lilies that fester may smell worse than weeds
But we are daily freshened like the dew
As every day I spend with you expands
The love and joy contained within our bands.

Greek Love

Life without you is not pointless, no;
The point of it is obvious to me:
Finding you. Were I to suddenly
Be ripped from you, I'd search out to and fro
To seek what I once had, and I would know
No less a burning purpose within me
Than sent the Greeks across the winedark sea
To seek out Helen when they brought Troy low.
Ten years would be a moment in my quest,
Easily spent, as easily again
'Til like Odysseus I found my rest
Back in your arms, where I belonged. For then
Life's point would be, not to relocate you
But love and cherish everything you do.

Dystopian

Imagine that the world is full of fear
(Frankly that takes little imagination)
And that the governments refuse to steer
The rudder of each sovereign, complete nation
Out of collision courses with its fellows
(Again I doubt that this could be too hard).
Imagine now a magic wand that mellows
The hearts of those who have the peace disbarred
And brings a certain calm between the states.
Would this be good? Or would that calm in turn
Attract the evil kept inside that waits
For man to be relaxed, and which will burn
The world around his ears when he's asleep?
What demons does fear trap within the deep?

Makeup

When I fall behind
Where I want to be
I put it out of mind
Since it bothers me
But then I'm bothered by
The fact that I am not -
By paradox, then, I
Retain what I have got
Despite my best attempts
At putting it away
For nothing else exempts
My mind from making hay
Save making up whatever
I told myself I'd never.

Must

I am never certain
Just what I must do
To pull away the curtain
And see the world as true.
Must I simply sit
And think about the past
Or venture forth to it
And say the die is cast?
Must I ever after
Cogitate and groan,
Or fill the world with laughter
(Should it be my own?)?
I cannot tell, so I
Just let the world pass by.

List Release

Something electric seems to fill the air
We all can feel it; in this tiny space
Reverberating with the cries that share
A hopeless hope of being heard, we trace
Our loyalties with every breath, and scream
Our spirits into being. As one soul
One voice, one heart, one common mind each team
Becomes a supercession of the whole,
More than its parts, more than they all could make,
More than the best they all could be together
Somewhere above it all the team will take
Its flight beyond the merely earthly tether
Of possibility, and so become
The exponent of our communal sum.

Probably Not

Are there enough hours

In a simple, pleasant day

To smell all of the flowers

You pass along the way?

Can there ever be

Sufficient time to tell

Every good story

And tell each of them well?

Will there ever come

A day of such content

That all the busy hum

Of men at last is spent?

I cannot answer these

But I can ask them: please?

TV

Watching TV with you
Across the internet
Is what I like to do
When I cannot forget
That we two have been set
So far apart that we
Cannot, despite us, get
Together easily
And so, because for me
It's better with you here
I watch the same TV
So that we two can share
The same experience
Despite that you are hence.

If

If God is a whisper in the soul
Niggling at that unholiness
That finds its place within the whole
But by existing makes us less;
If God is a wind within the mind
Pressing against the inner faults
That by true searching we would find
But each of which our best assaults;
If God is a tickle in the gut
Lurching because we wrong our own,
Refusing to settle while we shut
Out the sound of another's groan
Then we should listen, hear, and feel
That part of us beyond the real.

Doubt

Doubt exists. I cannot doubt that fact.
But in its very certainty there lies
A paradox, to which I must react
With doubt - which means the paradox then dies.
But in its death, there should be certainty
And that reanimates it once again;
How can a thing by being cease to be
And what am I to do about it then?
It's fortunate that doubt is not alone
And therefore I can doubt some other point
For should I live in such a monotone
I would by Schrodinger be out of joint
For as observer, I would always see
The half-chance of my ceasing to be me.

Prayer

Everything must have a breaking point
But let, O God, my own be very high;
There's somewhere everything is out of joint
But let it not be anywhere nearby.
All ages pass from earth, all men must die
But place the day of passage far away;
The sun will pass forever from the sky,
But let us never near that final day.
All light must cease, and fade to black from grey
But may the colors still be with us yet;
The mind of every man is led astray
But let us now forgive that and forget.
Be merciful, and let this life go on
Although our bank of joy be overdrawn.

Barometer

The changing weather only serves
To make me think of missing you
No matter how it ducks or swerves
I find my thoughts ever renew
Their focus on how, in this weather
I'd want to cuddle by your side
Or how we would be best together
When it's this temperature outside
No matter if the lake may freeze
Or boil from excessive heat
I know whatever the degrees
I find your presence is so sweet
It can improve the worst and best
And optimizes all the rest.

Greet

I noticed recently
Along the way, we meet
So many people we
Despite ourselves won't greet
When seen upon the street
Or run into elsewhere;
It's such a simple feat
To act as if we care
Say just 'I know you're there
Another human mind'
And in that greeting share
The pleasure that we find
In recognition. But
It seems so weird. So what?

Large

Looking at the drinks they sell
How many more today are large
Because the sun smokes down like hell
Or as on Cleopatra's barge
Burning the waters. How much more
On such a day does everyone
Desire to be quenched, and store
A little liquid up? The sun
Like a creditor demands
Consistent payment, so we must
If we stay out, and in its hands,
Keep our liquids in a trust
Refilled forever; so we keep
Buying the large and drinking deep.

Bright Lights

The city at its ease is a delight.
We are all happier, and thus much nicer
Ready to think our fellows are alright.
At such a time a wondering circumspicer
Might think the city was a heaven, made
By man for man, to better all his ways
And yet there still remain some spots of shade
Hidden somehow from nature's shining rays.
The old man on the corner slumped and sad
The cardboard sign beside him ripped and torn
Telling of the diseases he has had
And all ills that he through time has born.
And as we pass along our merry way
He should not be obscurèd by the day.

Facefirst

After today I'm buried in my brain
Somewhere down there under all my thoughts
And there until I'm rescued I'll remain
Covered in neurons like a leopard's spots.
I am immersed in all I can conceive,
Unable to move on beyond my mind
Thinking about the things I half-believe
And what I don't, but to which am resigned.
There's some thoughts here I hardly have considered
Since I was small, and still remain untapped
And others over which I have so dithered
That they by metathoughts are fully wrapped
And I am stuck heardfirst into them all
I barely hear the world outside me call.

Topic

You are the cause and topic of my joy
In you I find a source of all that's good
Smiles that linger, sweets that do not cloy:
The sunlight dappled on a wellknown wood,
The sky bedotted with a cloud or two
Just enough to make the sunshine seen,
The sea just rippled so it's white and blue
And covered with an iridescent sheen,
The mountain rising up behind the city,
Dominating but not threatening,
The birds imagining a newborn ditty
Which they, in chorus, will proceed to sing
These joys are but partial components of
The happiness inspired by your love.

Self-motivation

Some days its brutal work to make the brain
Ease into effort, and then into motion;
It takes a kind of academic pain
To change the tide of one's own mental ocean,
Which would but ebb and flow beneath the moon
Not heeding our mere mortal Canutism;
To make the tide of thought dance to our tune
Requires an emphatic optimism
Joined to a certain willful disbelief
In all we have self-learned in all our days
Thinking we can turn a newer leaf
Without the springtime to provide new rays.
But we can do it, if we tell our mind
To disregard the facts that it will find.

Paradoxicality

If there were nothing left to do
But sit around the house all day
I would get bored. But it's not true:
There are some things get in the way
And when that's so, I find I will
Laze happily all day and night
At my ease, immobile, still
Without a scrap of work in sight.
So while I can procrastinate
I find I do, until nightfall
But if I have no work to wait
I wish that I could do it all.
It's only in the empty haze
I do not wish to sit and laze.

Productivity

I do not know how to produce
The product that I am expected
To by some magic introduce
Into the world, when self-directed.
When others tell me what to do
I must admit, it's easier
But then of course, to follow through,
I have to work myself. Infer
From this the fact that I may be
Inefficient anyway
Despite what others give to me,
And you will see that, come what may
I do not think I can create
The things I ought. Commiserate!

Zzz

Sometimes the brain just takes a short vacation
And won't respond to anything you think.
Don't ask me about any implication
Of how I think without my brain - I'd sink
Into some intricate, elaborated
Sillily complex absurdity
Until both you and I were fully sated
With my struggling attempt to be
Logical (which I am truly not).
Instead, just think with me - at times the brain
Refuses to cooperate - it's hot,
It's cold, there's something to complain
About, and it just won't behave. Instead
You end up with a tired, empty head.

Inadequate

Yeah, I don't know what to say
It's hard to think of it right now
I think about how yesterday
Or earlier, if you allow
I wouldn't have imagined this
Could ever come to be at all
And now...I guess I really miss
The time before this sort of fall
If there was really such a time
Which I'm not certain of - but still
It feels like things turned on a dime
And won't go back. I hope they will
But things like this don't disappear
No matter what I say, it's here.

Mega

Not in service buses are the worst
When you excitedly arrive and see
Three buses waiting. Then you check the first
And then the second finally all three
And see the blinking sign illuminated
Those three unchanging words, now making nine:
Not in service. I have rarely hated
Inanimation quite so much. It's fine
To see the wrong bus, with its sign correct
For other places I don't wish to go
But to see all of them so imperfect
As to be going nowhere...that is so
Frustrating that I uselessly will curse
Wishing them that are the worst much worse.

Rolls

Thunder rolls
Lightning flashes
Bell-like tolls
Giant crashes
Blinks of light
Stabs, still glowing
Brilliant night
Magic showing
Instantly
Through the sky:
Why can't we
Like it, fly?
Hubris. No,
We stay low.

Tide In The Affairs

There are some routes you cannot steer
Where every finger on the helm
Counterproduces, as you'd fear,
And threatens quick to overwhelm
Whatever motion was desired
And take the ship aback, thus breaking
The course you thought you had inspired.
But there are still some ways of making
The ship stay true upon its course:
You have to hope the wind stays true
And blows with constant, even force,
The sea stays calm enough to blue,
And fortune smiles. Then you might
Find your hopeful course aright.

Red

The drums, the drums, the drums down in the deep
Echoing whenever our noise ceases
Threatening the peace that we would keep
Disturbing it and tearing it to pieces
With sharp stacatto arhythmatic beats
Thrown hurlyburly upward at our minds;
Our own light music loops us and repeats
Desperately onward, but at last it finds
The drums cannot be stopped. They will still come
And all will be devoured in their wake.
Silence is precious, as the beating drum
Tests just how much our weary souls can take
And with each rap we feel the coming doom
As in our very sleep the drumbeats loom.

Moar

More time is always better time with you
Except if something terrible occurred
And we then come together as you do
After the dreadful storm to try and herd
The flock back to the cote. But even then,
If something horrible has truly come
I'd rather be with you than be, again,
Alone and wondering if maybe some
Horror had befallen you as well.
No, it is always better if you're here,
Even if here were a kind of hell
Unless my wishing made you come, my dear,
In which case I would wish you heaven-borne
Not left with me down here to sadly mourn.

Distraction

The patience that I have is almost gone;
Why must my brain torment me thus? What good
Comes out of thinking always on "I should"
And never on "I can"? No, never on
The possibilities that might be drawn
Out of the present, always that which ought or could
Have been or someday be. I wish it would
Be sensible, and not forever fawn
Over the past and future. What about today?
What can I do right now? I cannot tell
Because my brain is stuck another way
And will not focus. Still, all may be well;
I'll write down what it says I ought to do
And when the time comes, try to make it true.

{0}

Again the ether seizes on a post
Makes it exist where it had not before:
An electronic, digitalized ghost
Drenched not with protoplasm or with gore
But with the bits of TCP/IP
That will not let it rest in emptiness
But draw it into half-reality.
I may have made it once, I do confess,
But thought it gone, discarded, made away;
To have it haunt me blank is near unnerving
And since I know that I must let it stay
I try to find a way to be deserving
Of something other than its condemnation;
And so I make it whole, by innovation.

Woah Woah

There is a comfort that surrounds me when
She comes around; a kind of blanket that
Flies over and envelopes me again
Each time I see her. I cannot give a pat,
Simple explanation, but to say
My mind grows easy, and my shoulders let
A little of the tension of the day
Out of their joints, and I can then forget
The pains of living, and instead be me
A better me than I am without her.
It comes with automatic constancy
And there is nothing I need to do to stir
This feeling; only let her in, and sigh
With my contentment that she's finally by.

Battlements

I used to be a wise man in my way
But now I find that wisdom is but folly;
The baling that I thought I did to hay
Has sprouted thorns, and turned out to be holly.
My sad attempts to prove that I was jolly
Have proven false, even as they were made,
And I from happy am grown melancholy
As joy and wisdom both together fade.
But though disheartened, I am not dismayed;
I am still certain all will come out well
And though the bonds of life may have been frayed,
I will restore them, ere I go through hell.
So though the past has crumbled in my hands
I still build castles in the future's sands.

Cloud Cover

It seems as if the world has drained away

Into a hospitalic gray, surrounding

All I can see; the sort of shade that may

Insulate the soul - a cosmic grounding

Against whatever might still lurk outside.

Or maybe it's a sign that we are taken

Away from where we usually abide

And after we have slept we will awaken

In some fantastic land, another realm

Where physics and astronomy are gone;

The most unlikely things will overwhelm

Our senses, and we will not wish the dawn.

Or maybe it's just clouds. But who needs that?

Crazed speculation's always where it's at.

Medium

The math of it can be addicting, no?
So many hits, so many different places
All somewhere in the world - maybe you know,
Maybe you don't, but somewhere, distant faces
Are watching what you write - even if they
Can't read the language, somehow stumbled there
From links supposed to go another way
They took a moment from their lives to stare
Even without intention, at a page
I placed, I wrote, I made. How can this be?
It is a simple marvel of the age
That I can write and others somewhere see
The private musings other ages kept
In private places, where they, unseen, slept.

Differences

A marriage is a strange thing to be planning
Or, I should say, a wedding. Marriage, less.
After all, a marriage plans on spanning
Decades of future life, but weddings press
All their activity into a week,
A day, an afternoon, a moment's bliss
And by constant compression ever seek
To push a year into a single kiss.
A marriage is a harder thing to do,
But has a lifetime in which to be done;
A wedding is a massive much ado
And barely lasts the transit of a sun.
To plan a wedding is thus full of fear
While marriages are calmer, year by year.

Tree

Slowly and surely grows the mighty oak
Unless, of course, the ferns can shade it out,
Or steal its water and obliquely choke
The grand tree's roots off of the waterspout.
Do not forget that even redwoods may
When they are little, be outshaded by
A shrub that grows before it in the day
And fail to find its energy, and die.
So do not think that underbrush is weak
Or that potential is assured to be;
Be certain of yourself, forever seek
To make potential real, and constantly
Refuse to rest on laurels not yet gained
Lest you should like the young oaktree be drained.

Feelings

I ought to care that Margaret Thatcher died
Because I follow all the chattering
That tends to talk of all that she implied.
But somehow I can't see her passing mattering
Except to those she loved, and who loved her
For whom it must be pain, despite her age
Which we should not forget. I wish it were
Truly momentous when we turn the page
On lives that are significant, but I
Cannot repress the feeling that, in truth,
The deaths that matter do not often die
At full extension, but instead in youth
Or middle age, or late, but by surprise
Not quietly in a hotel high-rise.

De Verba

To say I love is insufficient. No;
I love, am loved, exist suffused with it
As is a cherub by the holy glow
Of the Most High, beside whom they may sit.
I am no mere possessor of this love
Nor am I simply one possessed thereby
To mark the nature and condition of
My being is a futile task to try
Unless it be considered as a whole
All one, and all enraptured in the state
Of love, wrapped in it to the very soul
And far beyond that verb, a mere substrate
On which the true state's image may be shown:
Love is myself, and not merely my own.

Hobbiton

A hobbit-hole means comfort, yes indeed,
And wine, and tea, and crumpets piping hot;
It means good conversation, over seed-
Cakes, and a little bit of what is not
Present anywhere but in the Shire:
Good solid folk, all unaffected by
The world outside and all its sticky mire:
The evil tinging every view, the sly
Calculation that goes deeper than
The silver or the deed, and dives into
Darkness and dark action. In this, man,
Elf, dwarf, and all the other crew
Excel, beneath the glamour and the gleam.
Only hobbits are the way they seem.

Coffeetime

Caffeine and I are not the best of friends
Especially when I have eaten little;
I know the way this story always ends,
Yet have not changed my ways. No, not a tittle
Despite this. I am foolish, I admit
But everything is just so bright and clear-
So I, although I know I'll have to sit
Calmly sometimes, refuse to ever steer
Away, and let my body self-reset.
Instead I simply ride the caffeine wave
Which splashes me about and leaves me wet
And has not yet whirlpooled me to my grave
Even in the side-effects and crash.
So I must scratch, although I feel the rash.

Slow

The mind I have can only work so much
Except it really should be more than this.
But hey, I've done all that I need. As such,
The slightly more I can afford to miss
Until the day the more itself falls due
And my remission into laziness
Becomes its own reward, and turns the screw.
But until then, I really must confess,
I do not feel the need, and cannot make
My mind imagine that it ought to be
More pressured than it is for its own sake.
And so I wander through life lazily
Always so close to falling off the brink
That I can see the drop. It makes me think.

City Lives

Some cities may possess a quality
That makes them feel familiar in the soul,
As if they held a superfluity
Of citiness, and bound attraction whole
Into the streets, the smells, the very air.
In such a city, I could walk for miles
And never cease to joy in what is there;
I could explore the canyons and defiles
Defined by cliffs of glass and steel, and walk
Down boulevards that lift my heart on high,
Hearing no language I could ever talk,
Or reading signs I cannot translate. Why
Would I desire to be elsewhere, when
I could be in that cityscape again?

Fantasy Novella

Queer is the world that bears such company

And strange the day in which I wish them here.

But odder still the way it came to be,

And yet more wonders are en route I fear.

So I will meditate upon the past

And bear my spirits up with former charms

Lest I should feel the dark and chilly blast

Of worry wash across me. Future harms

Cannot be voided by the mute appeal

Of my nostalgia, but may be reduced

And so I think of what I used to feel

And not what that in latter times produced.

Spare me from such companions, yet be sure

To spare me also from the threats they cure.

Blaze

The sun, no longer at its noontime height,
Still beats incessantly upon the road
And turns my eyes against their very sight
By pushing them into an overload.
I turn aside, only to see reflected
In every surface too much sun to see;
By which my eyes feel almost self-directed
To close themselves, for their security.
Yet even as I close them, purple flame
Mixed with a yellow fire, closes 'round
And everywhere is lit up just the same
As if my eyes had never gone to ground.
I cannot flee the sun, until at last,
The day falls down, and nighttime's spell is cast.

Relative

With every foolish thing I do
(And oh my god there are so many)
I try to find a point of view
That finds them serious. For any
Given act, or thought, there must
Somewhere in the multiverse
Exist a point of perfect trust
That thinks it necessary. Worse,
For every such existent point
A series of related ones
Claim that, though it is out of joint,
A chord of greater goodness runs
Through it, and makes whatever's done
Justified. Think this, and run.

Blech

I cannot work
I cannot tell
Why I should shirk
Except for - well,
The basic fact
(Regrettably)
Is that no act
Appeals to me
That any way
Resembles my
Work, so today
I simply lie
Unhelpful, still
Devoid of will.

Simile

My love is like a stream
That flows unendingly
Or like the deepest dream
That is reality
Or like the open road
Forever rolling on
Unburdened by a load
Into the glowing dawn
Always ever changing
But never letting go
Of what it's rearranging
The path, the dream, the flow.
I love, and love will alter
Within itself - not falter.

Baggins

Day's end
Night comes
Lights lend
Their hums
To our
Noise here.
This hour
Is dear
To all
Street scenes
Nightfall
Now means
Day's gone
'Til dawn

One Man Show

In all my travels, one thing has been true:
The city glitters better with a friend.
It isn't bad to walk it end to end
Alone, and see it from one point of view,
But there is something that requires two
To have the best of it, as if to spend
Twice the attention was required to send
The proper signals outward, out into
The waiting world, which only signals back
When there are eyes enough peering around
To see that small plaque set down in the ground,
Or note the oddball spices on the rack
And properly enjoy. A solo city
Is oddly empty, though still always pretty.

Shares

Everything I do that I prefer
Or contemplate and think could be desired
I want to share with you; I wish you were
Always around when I become inspired
To feel with me the joy that builds inside
Experience elation as it grows
And let that shine out which we cannot hide
Or even if my highs become your lows
I'd like to know, and talk of it with you
To hear the reasons that you disagree
And find what you'd prefer we see and do
Whatever and however that may be.
Someday I'm sure. For now I'll have to wait
And share instead by gchat when up late.

Relate

Too many things that are exciting can

By clustering together, become less.

I start to lack the memory to pan

Across the past, and then words to express

The panorama thus revealed in time.

A single incident experienced at once

Can be presented in a set of rhyme,

And thus explained to any common dunce

But complex layers that occur in bunches

Can be so difficult to explicate

That I almost prefer when time uncrunches

And gives events time to luxuriate.

If everything occurred with time to tell

I think I'd tell my history quite well.

Gone

A day can pass without me realizing
There's a hard thought, when examined deep.
At first I don't believe it sounds surprising
For all of us have days we do not keep
Bound in the volumes of our memory,
But it is strange to never have writ down
The first draft of the day ere it could be
Bound up. Not every day can have a crown,
But something tells me each should be a peasant
Working its land, existing, breathing, living
Whether that life is terrible or pleasant
The fact of it should be there, unforgiving
And true. Although not everything's remembered
I am not sure one day should be dismembered.

Tinkatank

I'm never certain what I ought to do

When she's away, except that I should work.

But I can only work when work comes through

My mind, and that right now is a real jerk

That will not focus on what it should see

But dilly-dallies on more minor things.

I cannot force my productivity,

Nor the forgetfulness it always brings,

But must instead remember she is gone,

And know she will not saunter in the door,

But like the night when banished by the dawn,

It will be long until I see her more.

I would I could distract myself, but no

I always notice when she has to go.

March

March is a month that crawls for me
Through celebrations and spring break
But despite that eternity
I always feel when I awake
In early spring (March 20+)
As if the month had disappeared
On gone on a spring break from us
And left its schedule oddly cleared.
I feel as if my April sprang
Out of a February chill
And February has a tang
Of April's showers come what will.
So March, despite progressing slow
Is always rapid on the go.

Itself

A thing can't plan itself, I know
And yet I always wish it would
Because the planning is so slow
Though once it's planned, it should be good.
But plans aren't fire and forget
And must be followed carefully
So I must plan, and once it's set
I have to check it constantly
And who needs that? I would prefer
A world in which my plans self-made
And -executed, so they were
An automatic function all arrayed
To happen when I thought about
Whatever planning was in doubt.

I90 Corridor

My cities are my life, writ large in steel,
Twisted around an elevator core,
Shining with glass, embodied, solid, real,
Recording everything that came before,
But also slipshod, lived, and temporary,
Erased like footsteps as the rain drips down,
Sometimes important, sometimes ancillary,
Composed of parts that bleed, inhale, and frown
And yet make something bigger than they are
Merely alone: that, though forgotten, join
All into one-steel, footstep, heart, and tar-
And make something that can't be bought with coin,
Or made by artificial or synthetic arts
Like cities lives are more than all their parts.

Upper

The sleepiness hides out behind my eyes
And worries its dark way into my brain;
It turns and hits me with a mild surprise
To realize the source of all that pain
Is simply that my eyes are open wide
And not extinguished as they ought to be;
I thought that it should be something inside
Some deep and twisted hurt or memory,
Or else a wound that I could see bleed out,
A sore, a scrape, a scratch to bandage tight
An ache, an ague, an arthritic gout,
Or something else to keep me up all night
But no, the very fact of wakefulness
Has strength enough to cause this pain and stress.

As It Goes

Let the light
Shine down on
All in sight
During dawn
Let the sky
Fill with sun
As on high
Noon is won
Let it fade
Into dark
As the shade
Fills the park
All day we
Are happy.

Let

A week like this is rare
I doubt 'twill come again
Though not beyond compare,
If you compare it, then
I think that which is fated
To be compared herein
Would be so decimated
It could not ever win
And so I am content
To think this week unique
And likely heaven-sent,
And therefore not to seek
To equal it, until
It happens without will.

Why

Why not be happy? I am often so
In many ways I barely can describe.
When she is near I always feel a glow
Of which, when writing, I am but a scribe:
The way I watch her as she's turned away,
The gleam her eyes take as she smiles at me,
The combined joy she conjures in a day,
The thrill of seeing her excitedly
Bounce on her toes and grin her face all bright,
Or cock her head and peer with widened eyes
And half-filled smile at some joyful sight
She sees with an appearance of surprise.
All these I watch for, and adore in her
And all make my own joy begin to stir.

Warmer

I feel the sympathetic fallacy
Calling to me, since the weather's changed
And what once seemed determined it would be
A cold and chilly winter is estranged
From any thought of what has come before,
Transformed into a sudden semispring
Makes trees begin to bloom and, what is more,
Allows me to walk jacketless and sing
A rising trill of imitating notes
Set against the birds who have returned
Who warble proudly from their red-rimmed throats
Of what they have, from primal instinct, learned.
So as the spring returns, and my joy too,
I think the weather also must love you.

w00t

I did not think I could be happier
But now I realize that I was wrong
And though I'm sure sometime life will get crappier
Until it does, I'll let it glide along
Into the happy place where all is calm
And nothing rises to disturb the peace
Where though no Gilead there is still balm
And warmth, delight, and humor never cease.
I will continue in that pleasant vein
Joy reaching to the uttermost in me
Far from the humdrum world of doubt and pain
Somewhere inside for all eternity
So though of course I will not always fly
Some part of me will stay up in the sky.

Wimp

The day of snow need not be feared
Though obviously is not preferred
For every day is double-tiered
In ways that often seem absurd
Inside is one whole universe
Abstracted from the weather map
Where though the outside may grow worse
It does not, cannot ever sap
The inner world, assuming all
Is functioning as it should be
The car as well (save it should stall)
Is its own multiverse for me
And so although it snows, I find
It is not snowing so's I mind.

Healing

Even when I am not well
I feel a comfort in this place
The kind of thing you cannot tell
Until you meet it face to face
That no amount of thought ahead
Can make you see, much less create
The kind that never is quite dead
No matter what the outer state
So here I feel, consistently
A kind of sympathetic power
Enfolding and surrounding me
Whenever stormclouds start to lour.
I am happy here, at rest
Even when I'm not my best.

Relativity

The sun does not cease shining without you
Though I'll admit it's cloudy in Chicago
Nor does the world enforce your point of view
(And I rejoice you are no such virago).
But though the earth and sky may not exist
Solely to impose your will and mood;
Though greater things don't care if you insist
Or quail before you ere they dare intrude;
Though physics operates despite your care
And chemistry continues unabated;
Though stars still shine despite your harshest glare
Nor are by your indignance enervated,
I still maintain your happiness, for me,
Creates a special relativity.

Counts

Time dilates irregularly when
The mind, and most the heart, is keeping track.
It will compress, and then expand again
Being at once extenuate and slack
For since I saw you first seems but a day
And since you chose me but a minute more
Still well I know it was not yesterday,
Nor yet a week, a month, a year before;
And it seems decades since we two first met
A lifetime, I would swear, since first we kissed
Yet I'm aware I'm not that ancient yet
And there is no time I have skipped or missed
Somewhere between both feelings truth must be
But both at once are coinfused in me.

Anniversary

A year has passed, another year
And still I always feel this way;
Your face is still as very dear
As it has been since that first day,
And even far before we were
(As I am ever glad we are)
Together, I felt my heart stir
To see your face, though from afar.
So now, though far apart, I know
Your smiling face can make me feel
Like sunlight set against the snow
Or moonlight shining down on steel
All twinkly outside and in:
My love is as it's ever been.

Quantity

I talk too much
You know it's true
It's always such
A thing to do
So easily,
With such aplomb
That now, for me,
It just feels dumb
Because I say
My piece, no matter
What others may
Prefer to chatter
Always I
Make silence die.

With

It is a pleasure when I think of you
To think of all the things I know you like
And which of them I think you'd want to do
Right then and there, as if you had to strike
While some eternal iron was still hot.
I like to think of you as by my side,
Having the same perspective I have got,
Knowing which ways or methods I have tried,
And thinking with me, acting with me, being
My semi-constant and beloved companion
A second Coronado with me, seeing
The novel sight of some newfound Grand Canyon,
But being you, and so providing me
A different way in which to act and see.

Mixed

The days seem slightly pointless in their train

One after one another, ticking on

Mostly arrhythmic, pinging in my brain

In long or short tones, until each is gone,

Each different, but mostly more the same,

Until the better days shortly arrive

For which, I must assure you, I am game:

The days when I feel most of all alive,

When all the colors fade out of the black

Into their normal, more eccentric hue;

When all at once I fail to feel the lack

Of my invigoration, and of you.

For now the hours are but dull refrains

Until your presence brings new, haunting strains.

Store

I live a life of semiconstant squalor;
Not dirty, no, never unclean like that,
No clothing heaped up with a rumpled collar,
No grime, no bugs. But everything that's flat
Bears a constant burden: mostly books,
But also games and papers, mementos,
Computer hardware, tools for busy cooks,
And boxes, piled up in rows and rows,
Always exceed all the space pertaining
To normal storage, even when I buy
More than what seems enough for what's remaining.
Even then I pile to the sky
And watch whomever enters back away
With wonder in their eyes mixed with dismay.

Long

Longing isn't all that healthy, but
It's healthier, at least from where I am
Than never longing. After all, it's what
I have to do if I'm to give a damn,
And pure detachment is a deadly thing,
Poisoning with objectivity
A world to which we must, as humans, bring
A measure of interiority.
If we pretend that we are not ourselves,
Placing the parts of us that feel on high
Unreachable, unanswerable shelves
Where they can wither, we are fit to die;
But if we long, we wear our human hearts
Exposed as much as our external parts.

Recourse

I miss you like the summer would miss sun;
The wind, the air; the finger miss the hand;
The river, miss the course through which 'twill run;
The dune its self-component heaps of sand;
I miss you like horizons and sunrise
Would miss each other if the world stopped turning,
Or like a Happy Meal would miss its fries
Or printers' presses would miss proper kerning.
I could not miss you more except if you
Were really gone, and not just out of sight;
Then all the world would change its shade of blue
To black exceeding the Cimmerian night.
As long as that is false, I mope away
But in a cobalt blue despite the day.

Drifting

I wish that I could just breathe normally
Just in and out, without the stab of pain;
That everything was as it used to be
Before I started on this dull, sick drain.
I wish my head were not a cotton ball,
My mouth a desert, arid as the wind,
My nose stuffed up, my energy so small
I lie in bed just like a bug that's pinned.
I wish that when I went outside it felt
Like spring again, and I could breathe clear air;
I wish the world around me would all melt
And seem as it should be, open and fair.
I wish all this, but winter has its woes
And they will last as long as winter snows.

Forecast

Why go outside?

Why move at all?

Ill shall betide

Those who don't stall

And dare the snow

Which falls in drifts

And makes us go

Through streets in shifts

First one way, then

The other goes

Until again

It to and fros.

So I stay in

Where snow can't win.

Misseses

I miss so many things but most of all
The pure assumption that you'll be around
The thought that you are somewhere near to call
And if I look, somewhere you will be found
It doesn't matter where, so it is near
Accessible to me, and not so far;
It doesn't even have to be right here
So long as I don't have to take a car
Or Megabus, or plane, to get to you -
So long as normal effort can suffice
Then I am happier, and you are too,
For being close together is so nice
That we are better people when it's so
I miss that, and I thought you ought to know.

031

Frankly, your eyes should not be like the sun
And coral is a rotten sort of red
Snow White's anemic, nature made us dun,
And hair is rather wiry on the head.
Roses, no matter whether red or white,
Or even damask, do not grow on cheeks,
Or if they do with pain, and not delight,
While perfumes cover where the morning reeks;
I listen to you often, so I know
Your voice is yours, and not some music's sound;
And since the view is good, I watch you go
And know your feet stay where they should: the ground.
I've thought this over carefully (that's rare)
And you should know you're still beyond compare.

Wheres

I do not wish that you were here
The day outside is far too bleak
Ugly, and extremely drear,
And so it has been this whole week
No, it would be too bad to seek
Your presence here, and make you feel
The pain I feel. But I might tweak
That wish to say, with more appeal,
I wish I were with you, to deal
With all you much experience:
Which, though I know it can still keel
Over, and show some evidence
Of its own suckiness, I'm quite
Certain beats this ill-shaped night.