In Extremis

Some day are really in extremis strange
In ways you never would have thought before;
Some times the world just likes to rearrange
All that you thought you knew, and sometimes more
(For if you didn't know it, would you know
If it were changed around you on the way?
I think I would - that's only hubris though,
And would be easy for proof to gainsay).
In certain cases, though, the day proves clear
And usual, and even quite routine:
It's days like those that cause me much more fear,
Concerned for what might lurk behind the scene.
What's normal is abnormal - what is odd
Is what I'm used to - give me that, by God!

Dayterrors

There are unspoken rules that, when they're broken
By happenstance or even by intent
You wish that they would somehow become spoken
So you could ask somebody what they meant.
Then there are others whose true meaning's known,
That are so deep you can't misunderstand;
Whose value is not lodged in you alone
But in the life you live, the world at hand
And everything you are. One of this kind,
At least I believed that it should be
Within the dark recesses of my mind
Is that my love should always be with me
While I was here. Alas, it is not so
Though I accept that work calls her to go.

Acclimation

It's strange what can be normal and routine.
Even what was once a miracle
Can, seen through time's distorted viewing screen,
Become unstrange. Only empirical
Evidence could show me this - but I
Who would have disbelieved two years ago
All this was possible - no longer sigh
With wonder at my love. Therefore I know
The mind can take as usual a sight
It would have goggled at before. And yet
I think it's for the best - to toss at night
In shock at changes I cannot forget
Would make the pleasure less - I acclimate
In order to enjoy the newfound state.

Early To

Days that start early and bright,
The sun singing high in the sky
Are rarely still wakeful at night
When moon too has said her goodbye.
I must therefore perforce ask why
The late-to-wake are always told
We waste the day as by and by
It turns to night and then grows cold.
Perhaps we should be very bold
And say "I like the night as well
When darkness does the land enfold:
This sunlight is a type of hell.
Nor do I wake less than you do;
The night time hours up count too."

Farewell Chicago

Even as I go my soul is here
Just as before I went it was with her;
I am ever divided, though it's clear
By where I'm going which part I prefer.
Yet even with that preference, I'm sure
I am still somewhat left where I depart;
The pleasure I feel leaving is not pure
Though staying would have reinforced the smart.
I'm glad to go, but in that glad a part
Is sorry to be leaving where I was;
Though joy to see her occupies my heart,
It's not the only sentiment that does.
But how much sadder would I be to stay?
Enough (by far) to send me on my way.

Adieu

There's much that I am sad to leave
And many places that I'll miss
Even more people I will grieve
To lack, but even more than this,
More than the ache of being far
From where I've made myself a den
Or those frustrations that all are
Results of traveling again,
There is delight in seeing her
For whom I leave all these, and in
The thought (which I by far prefer)
We'll now be closer than we've been.
In leaving here there may be pain;
To not go there's against the grain.

Green Dot

The little words inside that little box
Are so important to me...I can't say.
The cynic part of me forever mocks
The rest, which says that, come what may
It would prefer to see those words appear
Than win the lottery and cash it out;
That cynic doesn't want to hold things dear:
It wants to mutter, disapprove, and doubt.
But all the rest of me is glad to be
In love and hang upon her every text;
I give into that portion happily
And hope that there is always something next
To read, to cherish, and to feed upon;
Sometimes still reading when I see the dawn.

Concert

So many songs sing of such sadness I
Sometimes don't know how to react to them.
It's not that I'm confused: I sit and sigh
When I am low, nor would I now condemn
Others for what I've done. But even so
There's something strange in hearing evermore
Of love now lost and hearts filled up with woe
Then shattered, letting forth their anguished store,
And in my own heart feeling this is true
This happens, what they say is not absurd,
Yet at the same time knowing as I do
Despite the honesty in every word
It's not for me, and foreign to my person:
Our love ever improves. It does not worsen.

Metacomp

Comparison is necessary, yet
In some ways strange. What should it mean to say
The ocean is as wide, or blue, or wet
As I am deep in love? Though meaning may
Accrue in certain terms, and then be shared
By analog and parallel, still I
Still wonder at the process. If I dared
I'd even doubt it, and, despairing, sigh
Of how we cannot say just what we mean
Because we lack true tools. Yet I do not.
For though the branch on which those meanings lean
Is oddly bent, and I suspect 'twill rot,
Still they stand up despite my skeptic tongue
As if the branch were powerful and young.

Flashers

Here lights are protective coloration,
Hiding what's important from our sight.
I know it's very different late at night,
But now, before the day's prolonged cessation,
Our minds perform a uniform collation,
Equating all the lights as one, which quite
Erases their supposéd point. That might
Be troublesome, long-term, that derogation
Of individuality in signs,
For some of them are vital, some are not,
Some wish to be, and some are best forgot.
But for the moment each of their designs
Seems ununique, and all is one to me
Whatever their intelligence may be.