Please Disregard the Last Poem

It is no longer real to any point.
It is a past sentiment I cannot believe.
Painlessly separated from the present.
The past is an archive and the
future is a dream - good or bad -
Either whatever, it isn't now.
I don't feel, I felt.
By the time my nerves finish firing
I am behind myself
by hundreds of synapses.
Even my conscious sense is
a camera whose shutter can only
catch a flash once its trip is over.
Every memory is instantly a fond story
Lore and Legend
told around fires, whittlings, and
Half-vivisected automobiles.
I was, in the past, a member
at life's every adventure
but now I only remember.
The end of the road is where everyone gathers
Changed.
There isn't anything useful in the last poem—
It's all old news.
Perhaps if you watch me write the next one,
and perhaps you shouldn't—
It's dangerous to know too much.
We already experience our own futures;
you might not want to see me observe mine
- your choice -
I won't offer to stop you.
At any rate, please disregard
the Last Poem.

The Wall Was Painted

When I woke up this morning,
     I noticed someone
          had painted the wall—
Green like moss, but not mossy
     like moss.
Flat, creamy instead
     like a well-baked potato
Oh! and some sour cream.
Listed black I wondered who painted
          the green wall.
It wasn't "the green wall" before
     but now they had painted it
          It became the green wall
Creamy green like well-baked
     moss with sour cream
          And a bug—
     A little mosquito who
     while I slept had
     flown into the
Still wet wall and stayed.
I wonder if it wanted to be there,
Perhaps thinking it was a
               creamy mossed potato,
          with sour cream —and a bug.
Well, now a bug, anyway:
          The green bug wall.
It was not a green bug, before
It was not a green wall, before
Someone must have painted it while I slept
     —and dreamed of forests and streams
Those! They had all been green!
In the thick of the forest or jungle,
Where the water clings
     to the top of the damp
Even the shadows are green.
But my dream had not ended
     in the forest
I ran to the bluffs—
     chalk lime with rusty bloody streaks.
And awoke with my baked moss painted green.
     My green wall
          And green bug.

You Remain

Each of you remain
Around my wandering spirit I pitched a tent.
Your compassion softened the frozen ground;
Your enthusiasm lengthened the day;
Your sincerity illuminated our faces
    as we sat and shared stories
Around a campfire of otherwise insignificant moments.

Placed here
You question to encourage my conviction;
You challenge to unsettle my complacency;
You disrupt with unintentional grace
    as planned order collapses
Into spontaneous fits of inanity.

Each of you remain
Briefly we are each seen and shared.
You are impactful by your persistence;
You are relevant by your uniqueness;
You successfully created a world
    celebrating us as we are and anxious
For what we must becoming.

Leaving here
You are reflected in simple traditions;
You are demonstrated in the lives you changed;
You remain - each one - a tent peg
    staked still in the earth we shared,
Shared in story with those still to come.

I remain
A settling spirit, more
Beautiful because of what you believed us all to be;
A temporary home made more permanent,
    by each peg driven, a story,
Around a campfire of otherwise insignificant moments.

Where I Am From

Family of brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, godparents, family friends;
Teachers, salesmen, engineers, deckhands, rangers, firefighters, actors, entertainers, ad mogels.
No two great grandparents were from the same country,
Patched together, a family founded on ideals.

I lived a life full of
Lessons learned the easy way,
Having enough,
Playing with my parents,
A series of catastrophic realizations that I was responsible for what happened to me,
And that no one was as special as they thought.

Love, hate, attitude, history,
These were the choices that you remake every morning;
Hugs, compliments, unqualified success,
These were infrequent and overwhelmingly sincere.

Memories attach to
What car was being worked on out front,
Which sport was in season,
Who had just acquired another strange pet,
Whether Grandma and Grandpa had died yet.

Stories about mythological heroes
Sharing the names of my relatives conflict
Every holiday as family lore contorts.
Reason and structure contain the entropy
Of feeble human memory, not to be
Trusted. A quasi-random replacement is
Sets of explanations justified by poor
Ad hoc pattern recognition, invented
“Old rules, I just made up,” and theories challenged
By indefatigable obsession to
Find meaning in one hundred and twenty one.

I am believed to be dominant:
White, Male, Christian, Middle-Class, Able.
I am the remains of the constant reforging of
A heap of slag, reperfected over and over and over.
I am incorrigibly American.
I’m sorry; I just love my country – and I fear for it.

I have been taught
Language is a powerful tool that in the hands of too many is always a hammer.
Even in choosing what I will hate, I am describing myself.
The end does not always resemble the means.
It is my responsibility to cause my own relevance.
No one is as good as I think I am or thought I was.
“Dad, I’m adding a second major.”
“Please, God, tell me it is Business.”
Sometimes you just need the Doors.

That’s whence I’m.


inspired by Where I AM From ISBN 0-931654-47-5

Sonnet IX

It takes a village to manufacture
An idiot. He needs a foil of
normalcy to base his lunacy
on. Ostracized and pointed at so the
populous know - so they can be quite sure -
They are not he. There is not any love
for the lunatic. His problems, you see
are public, not on therapists' sofas.
My village, though, is short one idiot;
We've no idea who's crazy and who's not.
Rampant individuality rules.
There are standardized tests in all the schools,
But no one suffers not being the same.
I've been waiting for a title to claim.

I'm tending to my roses

I'm tending to my roses in the best way I know.
I water them daily - they grow in the sun.
I watch them and watch them; they never grow
Any taller.

The Hazards of Microwave Radiation

     hmm... what to do now?
I forgot what this was going to be,
but that happens a lot more
     frequently now that I've lost my mind.
Not completely - mind you -
Just mostly like that guy in "Princess Bride"
Although he was mostly dead and I'm only mostly
crazy like a fox.
I'm not sure what that means, but I like it -
I like it like a pig likes corn.
But I can't eat insanity - it's not thick enough
I could drink it or boil it and inhale it...
Oh! I could mix it with flour and
     Make gravy.
I told you I could eat it on mashed potatoes,
but I wouldn't ever put gravy on corn.
Well, maybe - I haven't had insane gravy
     that I recall.
I think I might like it -
     but I haven't had it that I recall.
I oughta make a cookbook
     of insane foods
- in 5 easy minutes!
And then I could make microwave meals
     of insanity.
Except for one problem -
     it wilts in the microwave.
And it doesn't keep too well when chilled.
Serve piping hot. Serves 6-8.
That's an average of 7 - and it's
an incomplete sentence.
Sentences begin with a capital and
     end with a period.
     usually.
Sometimes the punctuation changes and
Capitals sneak in with Proper Nouns.
I'd rather an improper noun -
at least they don't keep trying to
Start new sentences three times a page.
I hate them so much! too many
My name is a proper noun - a Proper Noun.
I've sent it back since.
Now, when it says, "last, first"
in all lowercase,
I copy it right there, "last, first."
Now e e cummings, there's a name!
Except it doesn't end a sentence well.
And the punctuation is important, too.
It helps break stuff up - y'know what I mean?
ITSBETTERTHANTHEROMANSWRITINGLIKETHIS
at least I think it is.
ISHOULDWRITEMYCOOKBOOKLIKETHISTOO,
drive up demand.
And that about does it.
I've suddenly become
Amazingly aware that
My last ounce (fluid ounce) of sanity
Has just wilted
In the microwave.

So Obnoxious?

Don't bring this back on me!
I'm not the one who calls the bathroom
     a lavatory.
I'm not mixing chemicals trying to create a child
     with recklessly abandoned.
This is hardly the way to go about
     studying developmental instability
As it pertains to middle-aged decision-makers
     in white coats.
I was not there when everyone voted to surrender.

I take it back - it's not a bathroom;
     it's a potty!
You made me change that.
Stop treating me like a kid -
And I can wipe my own butt, thank you -
I stopped sleeping in a crib years ago.
I don't need to lose these fights
     just because you cook my meals.
I would be just fine,
     but you won't let me near the stove!

     So what if I'm six?
I can't learn what you won't teach me;
I can't take what I can't reach;
I can't explain what I don't understand,
But I can speak about everything
I will discuss every word in my vocabulary.
How old did you think you were
     when you were six?
- You're the same age now
just a little less innocent
a little less ignorant
and a little less - no,
I won't insult your compassion
You didn't know you were supposed to care
I never taught you that either;
I'm sorry.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I 'm going
     to get a popsicle
          and take a nap.
I'll see you at dinnertime.