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?