Teapot

I love the ionizing smell of rain
The confirmation that my sense was right
The clouds weren't scattering sufficient light
And it was coming. Umbrellas are vain
Against Chicago tempests, and they strain
Under a puff of wind - at such a sight
As this, a stormcloud putting drops in flight,
Each gust strikes them as if against the grain
And hurls them outward. Revel in the wet,
Do not pretend to shield it from your skin
For rest assured it will, it will get in
And soak your insolence. So therefore set
Your fond attempts aside, and say with me
I love the rain in superfluity.

A Part

Absence does not imply a lack of care
Nor does an empty bed deny the fact
Of love that loves although it is not there
And shares its heart although it cannot act.
A love that is continual and wide
Enough to stretch across both time and space
Ignoring where it happens to abide
To pull another love to its embrace
Can still be felt although from far away
And tucks a distant form in bed at night;
Its thoughts should not be ever said to stray
Out towards its object, for they are, by right
Always out there, and only stray back in
To wish that it were closer than it's been.

Lightless

Dark days feed darker moods.
The emptiness of light
Physically intrudes
On the weary sight
Bludgeoning the eyes
Unrelentingly
Until they cannot rise
And hesitate to see
The good that glistens there
In every photon flying
Believing them all bare
Insentiate and dying
The heart is dull and cowed
While the head is bowed.

Higher

The moment of creation is a drug
A million little hits add up forever
Building a tolerance up, slug by slug,
Requiring then more and more endeavor
To get the same damn high you used to get.
A couplet breeds a limerick, which will
In turn breed sonnets, octave and sestet,
And villanelles, and further verse forms still
Until the mind is covered in a haze
Of decomposing poems all arranged
In order to extract the high, and raise
The sluggard mind from where it's self-estranged.
Cold turkey only starts the cycle over
The mind's a subtly persistent rover.

Scalar

'Twould be a lie to say I do
Not care about the world outside
And yet although that isn't true
The pull of it I cannot hide
For truly I care less than I
Care for the world these walls contain;
For this small world I live and die
Its sorrows are my wind and rain,
And all the world without, though there
(And yes, important in its way)
Is not the focus of my care
For by this wind I bend and sway.
Outside is but the stars and sun
Inside my world beneath to run.

Lacuna

I did not miss this Valentine's
But other purposes and needs
Exceeded (as the flood exceeds
The river's course, and breaks the lines
By which mankind harshly defines
The channel, pushing past the reeds
Into the plain, and richly feeds
The pastureland beyond) the signs
By which I usually proceed,
And so I found myself not writing
In this space, although that day
Often is a time to read
Something novel or exciting
In a poetical way.

Mixed

I like just sitting next to you

Watching what you do and thinking

That falling isn't what I do

For you - instead it's more like sinking

Slowly down forever. Falls

Finish when they hit the ground

Like an aircraft when it stalls

Or was hit and now is downed;

Sinking can go on forever

Through the medium surrounding

Touch bottom simply never

Never breaking, never grounding

And our love is viscous, so

I will sink and it will grow.

Nightly

Sometimes thinking is a chore
Something my brain won't let me stop
But putters on forevermore
Skimming the chaff out of the crop
Disposing of the barley-meal
Leaving me only husks and rinds
As I attempt to sleep, I feel
The pressure empty yet it finds
A way, despite its oddity
Its merely psuedosentience
To keep awake and punish me
By making everything grow dense
Constricting that which ought to dream
Into a single, wakeful stream.

Otra Vez

Again the road lies out before
My jaded eye so I can see
The way I travel evermore
Into a clear eternity
The pavement crackles with the weight
Of all my futures rolled in one
A destiny is heavy freight
And sparkles in the midday sun
But even as I see the road
And ponder as I gaze, I find
It takes from me the heavy load
And eases my unrestful mind
Making all I have to do
Seem simpler than it started to.

Compuserve

Every hour that I spend
Here before my screen, I am
Wasting what I know will end
And seeming not to give a damn.
Hours are a resource we
Possess an unknown number of
And each I spend removes from me
Another hour I could love
An hour I could have embraced
The one with whom I am enamoured
Or bravely turned and boldly faced
My destiny, and never stammered.
All this I could, but I do not
I'm jammed into this little slot.