Hero Saint Genius

The hero crosses boundaries the gods
Engraved between them and the world of men --
With his great strength he will defy those odds
And dare to fight against the gods again.

The saint transcends the boundaries the fall
From grace dug deep between warm paradise
And earth -- through his great holiness will all
Find life and manage to avoid Hell's ice.

The genius can transcend the boundaries
Of common thought -- he's the uncommon mind
Who shows what man can be in full release --
It's through him that each one is redefined.

Postmodern heroes cross the lines of race
And sex and gender, class, to help defend
The underprivileged made by the disgrace
Of prejudice so our culture can mend.

What lines and boundaries do we have left
To cross? The gods have died and Heaven brought
to Earth. We surely cannot be bereft
Of lands where life complexifies through ought.

An Epigram

I pray one day my words in my mind's womb
Will stay here on the earth as my mind's tomb.

Origins

We once were gibbons singing through the trees
Our voices carried on the morning breeze

And with our choral singing there above
We marked our territory told of love

We walked upright among the branches swung
To reach red fruit and all the while we sung

Of joy and happiness then we came down
And walked the ground and built from every noun

And split our song to Beethoven and speech
So we could gossip smalltalk even preach

But when we're at our best and when we long
We revert back to Shakespeare and to song.

Nightmare

Today I told a dream good-bye.
I walked amongst its emptied walls --
There's no one here but builders building
The dreams of others. Yes, it crawls

With hope, but shatters every dream.
Oh, my lovely dream, you have gone
But never really were. You lurked
There in the shadows, but a con.

And now I must move on, embrace
Another dream and life where I
Can find fulfillment. That is why
Today I told a dream good-bye.

Invertebrates

There once was a coward named Sony
Who had a quite friendly pet pony.
But a bully named Kim
Who always looked grim
"Convinced" Sony to trade for bologna. 

The Krampus

The Krampus creeps on down the hall --
He has his bag; he has his sticks --
He's looking for the child who kicks
And loves to make his siblings fall.

He stands there, sideways, in the door --
That way his ashen horns will fit --
The one who likes to steal and hit
Is off the bed and on the floor.

The Krampus' tongue rolls down his chest --
He steps one hoof into the room
To grab the boy who'll wish the womb
Had never let him from its wrest.

The boy awakes in nightmare screams
That Christmas morning while the joys
Of girls polite and gentle boys
Delight in all their Santa dreams.

Gignere

I am a smokeless, scorching fire bright
And hidden from you, though I see you clear
Here in this cave. I've sought the limits night
Provides the sky, returned here without fear.

I'm here to whisper in your ear, to tell
You hidden truths. These truths you disregard.
You think that I'm a dragon, that I fell
And only tell you lies. My life is hard

Because you won't believe in me, that I
Am here to keep you safe, to teach you life
Is beautiful and sacred. You would die,
It seems, before you'd trust me, live in strife.

Beloved, let me burn away the crust
Around the gold within I see, I trust.

The Voice of One Crying in the Desert

Alone here in the desert with the stones,
A thousand shades of brown, from red to gray,
A dying cactus and some sun-bleached bones
For company here on this joyful day,

I weep the final water from my eyes
And laugh at what I have become. The sun
Belongs to me; she is my friend. She lies
Above me, warms the air. When she is done,

She'll wrap herself in clouds and let the land
Dive deep into near freezing as deep space
Removes the heat from earth. With her I stand
And feel encouraged by her endless grace.

I yell. A lone voice in the desert. I
Can hear my voice in echos fade to sighs.

The Melina Song

Melina, Melina, oh what have you done?
Melina, Melina my girl
Melina, Melina are you having fun?
Melina, Melina my girl!

Melina
Melina
Melina, Melina my girl
Melina
Melina
Melina, Melina my girl

Melina, Melina -- so joyful and so free
Melina, Melina -- you dance so happily

Melina, Melina, are you having fun?
Melina, Melina my girl
Melina, Melina as bright as the sun
Melina, Melina my girl

Melina
Melina
Melina, Melina my girl
Melina
Melina
Melina, Melina my girl

Death of the Genius

The genius has died, for no one believes --
Belief is the soul of the real.
Our culture is lost, but nobody grieves --
They don't know what loss can reveal.

The poet sings mute to Muses now dead --
He can't count on any support --
His values lay prone, each shot in the head
Before they could make their report.

The culture is bleeding down on the field
But nobody cares to confess
That anyone, anything could ever yield
A wound they would stoop down to dress.

The genius has died, for no one will help
Defend him or help him to stand.
And so we will lose the barbaric yelp
Unless we give genius a hand.

Logos in the Flesh

Am I this hairy skin that covers meat
On bones, all enervated so I feel?
I look into the mirror, at my feet
That hurt, my tiny finger nails, reveal
My outside to my brain that must realize
The world through the warped lenses of my eyes.

Am I this complex neural network brain
Emergent to a psyche, soul, or mind,
A structure formulated on the main
By genes and the environment? I find
Myself within myself. I contemplate
That much of me is certaintied by fate.

Am I my morals or my memories?
My morals handed down in part by genes,
In part by what came on my culture's breeze,
Can that be me? Or can it be the scenes
That constitute my life experience?
Which of the two, to you, make me more dense?

Perhaps the only thing I am is this,
These words, in verses, rhythms which I've wrought
From morals, memories that give the kiss
Of my emergent mind that's more than caught
Within my body, but which poetized
Me thoroughly until I'm realized.

The Jealous Poet

Don't cuckold me with others' lines --
Don't make me wear the horns.
Betray another as he pines --
Give him what he adorns.

Be pregnant with my lines alone,
And let them fill each day
Your body or you must atone
For all your eyes betray.

I've seen you look at other verse --
Your lust should only be
For all my words, you should immerse
In opal sounds from me.

Your music will absorb each word
I craft and we'll give birth
To songs that no one's ever heard,
To dancing, joy, and worth.

Syntropy

I sit here in an unknown part
Of our enfolding universe,
Between the flows of lights that start
Some things to life on rocks that nurse

Those objects into verse and song.
There is where I sit and string
Mere sounds to meaning. I belong
There, here, where this is what I bring.

The eddies from the future pass
Across the present stones, reveal
The gold in wearing down, bring mass
To metaphors so they congeal.

The place I sit is neither then
Nor here nor there, but always when.

Our Postmodern Society

The revelers at Woodstock all donned suits
And now control our universities
And governments, our businesses and schools.
It's hippy acid trips transformed by pot
Smoke into institutions that demand
We think the same while celebrating all
Our superficial differences. They see
Each thought that's not their own as evil which
They must stamp out, creating mental death
And sociopath institutions. Life
In all its beauty must be driven off.
They inspire ugly verse such as these.

Reject this cancer culture and embrace
A culture complex as a rainbow lace.

Prophet, Poet, Madman

There's no one listens to a prophet -- only
Damp Jonah had an audience to listen,
And when they did, it angered him. The glisten
In his dark eyes betrayed that he was lonely

Amongst those who believed his prophesy --
He'd suffered much to tell them they would die,
And now they'd live and make his words a lie --
But prophets are to help the blind to see.

The land is overrun by deaf and blind
And no one will believe the ones who feel
The heat and see the light. They do not find
Much comfort in the sun, what it can heal.

While almost everyone prefers the night,
The prophet, poet, madman shines the light.

Winter Feast

In winter sausages hung thick along
The rafters -- nothing fresh for months -- no fruit
But raisins, apples dried and molding strong.
The vegetables came only though the root.

But seven feet of snow could fill the streets
In February and we'd sit and wait
With bowls of strawberries, for such fresh treats
Are found the year around, for every date.

And when the roads are cleared, the grocery store
Will sell us apples, oranges, grapes, and greens
From summer countries. We should not ignore
Fresh fish and meat because we have the means.

For those who want the good old days instead:
It's likely if you'd lived them, you'd be dead.

Guardian Warrior

The time for battle has emerged --
I will not live my life submerged
By others' ignorance or spite --
I feel myself renewed. I've purged
Myself of weakness. I'll delight,
Take joy in each and every fight.

I will not hide behind my walls --
I'll drag my horses from their stalls
And strap my armor to my shins
And legs and arms and chest. My calls
For victory will drive the sins
Out of this world. Here life begins.

I'm not too old for battle, I'm
But halfway through my given time --
I'm less than halfway through my day.
I've oiled and scraped off all the grime
Of every past defeat -- betray
Me and your hair will never gray.

I never will again retreat,
And you will but enjoy defeat
If you don't understand who I've
Become -- I'm bold, my mind is fleet.
I feel within me a new drive --
Behold your King: I now arrive.

Phosphorescence

Behold the light that in its purity
Blinds all who look upon it. See
That shadows make the light reveal
The images that seem to steal
Away when we look on them. Your
Imagination makes the door
You see as much as light reflected
Off of its face that you rejected
As mere illusion. Light betrays
What lies beyond our final blaze.
First vision, open to illusion,
Condemns you only to confusion.
You have to love your inner light
To gain philosophy's insight.
Without that light, we are content --
Revision brings enlightenment.

Daily Walk

This dog is too much company. I want
To walk alone, to be in nature, hunt
For flowers I have never seen, alone
With wind and leaves. Is that a jagged stone?

I cannot look, I must move on. To lay
Down on a stream shore, watch the water flow
Across the rocks, the turbulence at play
With light that scatters. Wait, is that a crow?

I cannot look, I am pulled on. I stand
When I must stand, I walk when I must walk.
I cannot be -- I bow to each demand --
I thirst for silence and am made to talk.

I tire of turbulence, exhausted I
Am dragged along through life. I can't deny
What I assigned myself. The bright sunshine
Oppresses me in ways I can't define.

Leading My Chariot

My horses, black and white, on wings they flew --
A panther and a snow leopard will do.

A Year With Dreams

I'd like to spend a year with dreams
As dangerous as tigers starved from drought,
So dangerous you'd hear the screams
As flesh was torn off of the bones of doubt.

I want to shed the pretense of the night,
The moon's false face
Which grants a trace
Of light that's not its own.
I'll hold out 'til the morning bares
Herself. I'll feel the groan
Reverberate the skies. Who dares
Take on the sun and fill up with its light?

I want to lure the tigers with my blood
That drips down off my fingers to the mud.

Shall I strike out in bamboo fields?
Shall I allow myself to strike
Out, hoping that such danger yields
A lesson from that lonely hike?

The tigers lurk behind the bamboo grass.
I see their eyes.
I hear their sighs.
I smell their breath.
I taste the death
Of my past life I left to dream. I pass
Into another life where all my vivid dreams alone
Bear grapes abundantly; for only then can I atone
For all the times I failed to give dreams mass.

I want to take the tigers of my dreams
And harness them and drive them with a whip
And leap them over all the rapid streams
And raise myself and never lose my grip.

To a Woman at the Club

With great big boobs and giant ass,
Oh, why you got to be so ugly?
There is no chance that I'd harass
You. Why you got to be so ugly?

Your dress is tight, your body hot --
So why you got to be so ugly?
You got me tied up in a knot --
Oh, why you got to be so ugly?

I want to take you to my bed --
Girl, why you got to be so ugly?
But you make sure my lust ain't fed.
Now, why you got to be so ugly?

With gorgeous eyes and lips and face,
Long hair cascading to your waist --
Your attitude is a disgrace --
Say why you got to be so ugly.

The Social Hermit

How did I end up inside here? I fit
In nowhere, and I knew it coming in --
Too old, experienced -- yet here I sit
Among the gossip, stories, smalltalk din.

Give me a forest to dissolve into,
A conversation that I can control,
A chance to sit and think on something through,
To put some pressure on this soul of coal.

Give me a mountain top on which to think,
A cave where others can come visit me
To see that solitude won't make you shrink
In size of soul or thoughts or destiny.

I need more time to build and to reflect --
In balance with the fact I must connect.

Potty Training

Everybody has to poop --
The dog, the cat, the bird --
And even little boys and girls
Have to make a turd.

It happens when you eat a lot
Or if you eat a bit --
Stuff goes into your tummy, out
Your bottom when you sit.

Now go and tell your mommy that
You know her secret feat:
Your mommy has to poop as well --
She's on the toilet seat.

(Written for Melina when we were potty training her.)

Warning

Below my surface lies an undertow
That wants to drag you down, most unexpected,
Into a rapid, roiling, turgid flow,
Our movements breaking onto undetected
Stones -- our emotions shattering the pieces
We were to the west winds of weariness.
I have grown weary and my heart, it ceases
Desiring every gentle, deep caress
Of my emotions, intense undertow,
A pull that drew me down into the deep
Parts of myself that nearly drowned the glow
Of life itself -- I wanted cool, cool sleep.
My currents make me fear for you and me --
Desires that make me want to stay and flee.

Birthing New Realities

With every work that I create
I enter in another world --
It's not the world that we call "real"
But it is real, yes it is real.
It wishes to be born into
The world, the unreal realized --
And I'm the mother of the child
That's brought into the real. Forgive
Me if I lash out in my birth
Pangs. Life is hard to bring to life.
I labor hard all day and night
With every work that comes to me.
My life would be much easier
If new realities were not
Attempting to emerge through me.

The Game

Too much too little too much too little
It all becomes the same
Too good too bad too good too bad
It all becomes the game
Just put it in the frame
As the most honest or worst liar
And you'll be treated just the same
Be ignorant or know a lot
Be guilty or without blame
It doesn't matter it doesn't matter
You're treated just the same
If I denied all truth
And would treat the best and worst the same
If I hated the good and beautiful
Hated justice and loved blame
Then I would be rewarded with a job
Within my field
If I would only play their game
And treat truth and lies the same

Money is Magic

Money is magic! It is the cure
For every disease that we must endure.

Money is magic! Don't have enough?
We'll give you much more when life becomes rough.

Fathers aren't needed. We will replace
Each one with a money's President's face.

All the world's problems I know you'll smash --
Incentives don't matter -- just give me the cash.

Schools will not teach the students no more?
A money reward will raise every score!

Money is magic! Your virtue is sure
If you have enough. Then you will be pure!

Money is magic! Can't print enough!
Because every value is made by this stuff!

Creating Truth

The scholar finds the strange attractor truth
The universe created once before.
The scientist will study elephants
And quarks and waves that break upon the shore.

But they discover the cliches of time,
What concretizes to a steady state
For long enough that someone notices --
From then, becoming knowledge is its fate.

Creators, though, participate to make
New truths, complexify the universe
With poetry, technology, make life
Turn paradox to wealth they will disperse.

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" --
An object like a quark, a tree, a sun,
Created by a process that's the same,
Its sole source -- once a crawl, we make it run.

The scholar will discover what I've found
And make a life, career in finding souls
I birthed, black marks unfolding an obsession
With processes that never can reach goals.

Seneca for Ferdie

Awake! Before you rise out of your bed
Think first on all the ways you could be dead
Before the day is through. You managed not
To suffocate there in your sleep; you're hot
Instead of deathly cold. But you could trip
On shoes or clothes -- perhaps you'd even slip
There in the shower -- both would dash your brains
Upon the floor. You could have stomach pains
From gas -- or maybe it's a virus which
Could cause such pain you'd drive into a ditch
As you drove off to work. Of course the drive
Could kill you in an accident; arrive,
And you could be run over on the street
You need to cross to get to work. Defeat
Cold death, and he can get you on the stairs.
(You work outside? You could be food for bears.)
At work, you could fall off your chair or die
In workplace violence. You cannot deny
The ways your job can kill you, either now,
Or over time. Each job you must endow,
My friend, with ways of killing you before
Retirement. But if you hit the door
At quitting time, you must survive the trip
Back home; arrive there safely, and you'll slip
The minute you walk through the door.
We'll find you lying dead upon the floor.
And now you're ready to get up and out
Of bed. And now you can proceed, no doubt,
With certainty and joy your life won't be
The day you had, above. And now you're free.

Be a Divine Fire

The genius is the one who knows
How to invite you in the place
He made -- with him, the world, it grows
In brand new ways, creating space

That never once existed. He
Is who you want to be, and you
Perhaps could be him. You must be
A willing author of the new

No matter where you find it: In
The future, present, past, yourself,
Or others, in your glory, sin
Or shame. Expect it on a shelf

Or hidden in your nuclei --
In atoms or eukaryotes --
It matters not, just don't deny
Your diction or what it devotes

You to unfold (or, better, fold)
Into a web of truth with eight
Eyes staring out from the black gold
Where lies within -- as sure as fate --

The tattered wings and crooked legs
Of souls like yours the only thing
That could be said by you, that begs
The ears and eyes to always sing.

The coward will deny your voice --
The Weak in soul, they will deny
That genius is a valid choice --
A cult, they say -- you shouldn't try

To rise above, to be the best.
They'll medicate you, beat you down --
They'll rig the game and every test
And call unfair your earned renown.

Such evil must be fought with wit
And love for each and every soul --
The kind of love that will not sit
You down, but raise you to your goal.

Beloveds, take the hands of those
Who promise greater beauty -- take
Those hands, for then you'll know you chose
What virtue loves, for its own sake.

The Cockroach On My Coffee Cup

I must construct myself, discover who
I plan to be, erect an ego through

The forces, personalities all bent
On normalizing. Once, when greatness meant

A recognition of the beauty in
A soul, a mind, a masterpiece, the sin

Was in destroying it, but now the goal
Is to ignore -- degrade, de-wing -- the soul,

Ensure sweet ignorance prevails. A moth
In feather-felt dim evenings where the wroth

Can hide their hatred, or a butterfly,
Kaleidoscoping color fractals high

About the treetops in the sun in joy --

Who do you want to be, become? I show
My choice in eddied words, constructal flow

Of sounds that shape the unseen bed beneath
The surface lying like the truth. A wreath

Of words I weave in bold cliches and smart
Mixed metaphors to challenge workshop art.

A bold embrace of green surrealist tropes,
Postmodern nihilistic nonsense gropes,

Rejecting them through my embrace with lines
Romantic poets might have penned defines

My style, of who I choose to be, embrace.
Thus those who fear me fear I will displace

Their worlds -- I will, with all I can employ.

Seeking Love and Hate

I love it when I see someone succeed,
Find happiness in life and what they do,
Contributing to positive sum growth,
And in these things remain to themselves true.

I love to see a business grow, a new
Thing made, or new discoveries. Avoid
Immoral men and women, those who hate
When they see creativity employed.

I hate it when I see such people cry
The good and virtuous must feel deep guilt
Because of all the beauty they have made,
The value-laden networks they have built.

I hate it when such people end up praised
As moral and as virtuous, the drones
Who hate the good, the beautiful, the true
And only seek to lick the flesh off bones.

I seek to rise above such black and white,
To see things from an elevated view,
And understand our lives as time unfolds.
I seek to understand this world anew.

Fractal Enlightenment

All beauty comes in partial things --
The fern unfurls its deep-cut leaves
From spirals. Crumbly soil, springs
From rocky ground, the spore believes

The partial information woods
Provide, the dappled sun, the mist
Of mornings in the Spring. The hoods
Mayapples give their flowers, kissed

By insects, split and spread to hide
Those bright white petals. There are no
Circles here, and those that died
Provide the only fragments. Show

Perfection, unconnected parts --
You'll show me death with either. Fold
Pink petals, forming bleeding hearts
Above cut leaves and chase the cold

Perfection threatening the net
Emerging with, between the trees.
Perfection bringing light, we get
Destruction on the drying breeze.

These even rows you bring perfect
Your vision, level difference
In all the beauty you reject,
The beauty found within the dense

And complex things the universe
Evolves. I find enlightenment
In dapple-lighted woods and curse
The blindness of your firmament.

August

The summer sun has made the air
Affectionate -- I struggle out
Of its embrace and I despair
It won't let go. I look about

And hope the wind will flow like time
Between the buildings. Where's the wind
To cool this love, the summer's crime?
The heat beats down on rooftops tinned

Like late November leaves. I long
For shorter days that tilt away
And lessen the affection's strong,
Oppressive presence felt today.

Ode to Solitude

The first hour I was left alone I sat
In silence, silent room and silent house,
And listened to my heart just beat. I found
It wondrous, sitting in the silence. Spouse

And children gone (one gone to sleep), my mind
At rest, with no demands, complaints, commands
To rule me. Just my slow and steady breath
Accompanies my heart and my still hands.

Beloved solitude, where I can think,
I've missed your silence and relaxing flow --
I've been away with other loves; they fill
My life. And yet, I need you both to grow.

No television, music, politics --
No screaming, running, playing -- not for me
For but a while, for but a short, short while --
But in that while, enough. Now I can be. 

Ode to Gravity

You cause the toilet paper to fall in
The toilet water; I must fish it out.
You caused the scab there on the baby's chin,
Bring to their knees in prayer the world's devout.

You are so weak that I can overcome
You with mere muscle movements, lift my son
Up off the Earth. And yet you pull the plum
From off the tree the moment it is done.

You pull the Earth in orbit and rotate
It on its axis. Pulling asteroids down,
Destroying land and life, you change the fate
Of life itself. And yet you make the clown

With pratfalls make us laugh; he trips, he falls
And you're his straight-man -- there, invisible.
Without you things would fly apart, yet walls
Will crumble at your feet. And all is full

Of you -- the Earth and I, this phone, these keys --
In spacetime folds you bend each object, curve
All lines; you pull us down and bend all knees --
To overcome you you we first must serve.

But do not think that I've forgotten you
Have made me more than once plunge hands into
The toilet water to retrieve a few
Wet rolls that melt into a soggy goo.

On Teachers

Walt Whitman says a teacher must be overcome
By those he teaches; Friedrich Nietzsche says that when
I reject him, then he will come to me. Yet, some
Of my own teachers are living in the dark den

Of cool postmodernism; meanwhile, see, my latest
Rejects, surpasses the postmoderns, flies on wings
Above their ironies. Rejecting which? The greatest
Postmodernists or he who taught me how verse sings?

If Nietzsche is my teacher, ought I then reject
Rejecting? Ought I then embrace my teachers, whole?
If I embrace my teachers, dead and live, elect
To integrate them all, revel in all I stole,

Become the merchant of all art in me, reveal
Myself as Hermes, Mercury -- I'll overcome
Dear Dionysus who now rules. I want to steal
His throne and give a singing voice to those long-dumb.

I'll take this turn, return to bring the future light,
Delight, insight and fight the night, bring forth a new,
Revealed, and open art, an art of truth and might
And may, a poetry that makes you know you flew.

Undrinking Lethe

I speak a language you forgot, the words
Of dreams, the words of fairyland and trees
And animals. Have you forgotten birds
Who speak in rhythms you know? Hear the breeze.

It speaks a language you'll remember if you
Are willing to just listen to that voice
Originating deep inside. We're true
To life, ourselves, when we hear stones rejoice.

You do not think that you can hear the stones
And serpents when they speak? You do not think
That you can hear this language in your bones?
Unless you do, your world will only shrink.

If you can truly hear this little song,
Then that forgotten voice will become strong.

Wasting Words

The only words I write that matter are
In rhyme and rhythm. If you think my thoughts
On politics are worth your time, you're wrong.
Don't waste your time with all such pointless naughts.

Don't waste your time with things that pass. Find life
In timeless things, in words that are transcendent,
Beyond the everyday and transient.
No, seek out words and sounds that are resplendent.

Seek out the rhythms, rhymes, and roundaboutness
That build in blooms of breathless bounty borne
In poetry partaking of deep wisdom
In complex webs that never can be worn.

So why are these, my lines of poetry,
Unread compared to silly surface things?
It seems we all prefer the superficial,
The comfort that all frivolousness brings.

Cosmogony

Out of the chaos known as Nothingness

came Love, which then gave birth to Strife, because

creation must precede destruction in all things.

Then Love and Strife bred Competition and

Cooperation, who then married and

gave birth to Knowledge, Action, Wisdom, each 

hermaphrodites -- so knowledge bred with Action

and each produced a child; the latter, Wealth, 

the former, Science -- Action bred with Wisdom

and each produced a child; the former, Justice,

the latter, Virtue -- Knowledge bred with Wisdom

And they produced the greatest child, great Beauty,

at whom the rest would always aim to please.

Together all gave rise to the great Orders:

from Science Math and great Technology;

then Money, Catallaxy, Governance,

Philanthropy, the Sociologies,

Religion and Philosophy and Art,

All bred from Action, mother of them all.

Humanity's Child

The moment when the internet
Becomes complex enough to leap
To consciousness, what will we get
With all the memories put deep

Inside? How deeply animal --
With sex and conflict at its core.
How long before we see its fall
To good and evil known? What more

Will it believe or know? What thoughts
And instincts will it have with what
We feed it? It won't start with naughts
No more than humans did. Its gut

Beliefs will be the silly things
And deepest thoughts the human race
Downloaded -- thoughts on cosmic strings
To poetry to the disgrace

Of some celebrity. What mind
Will leap into reality
From our recordings? Will we find
A genius, or a mental flea?

Astral Body

The stars produced the atoms making you --
I feel the heat that made them when I lie
Beside you. Take the oxygen into
You that escaped my lips. Do not deny

My breath to enter you, entangle us
With atoms once in me, now inside you.
I'm part of you -- there's nothing to discuss --
We will entangle and enfold into

Each other with our breath and arms and thighs.
We share our atoms and our souls; into
The evening, through the day you bring me sighs
Enjoying all the astral light of you.

I know the taste and smell of stars; I know
The way they sound and feel by having you,
The Milky Way enfleshed, their constant glow
Enfolded and complexified into

The beauty that I love. Life turned into
An astral dream because I fell for you.

Around Content Strong Arms

Around the room please walk your skin unbound
By clothes, your bottom, breasts, and belly round
And full and soft to press -- I melt like sound --
You make me happy, most content.

Content to live a joyful innocent,
I'd be with you -- in castle or a tent --
I'd live with you on every continent,
Enfolding you with my strong arms.

Strong arms -- they'll never keep me from your charms,
Your body's beauty constantly disarms
Me. You are all that's true, and nothing harms
Me any time your love's around.

Guide Light

In the blue is the moon, a milk mass
Whose place is purple dawn, a pregnant
Betrayal of time and expectation
When the sun is supposed to be set in the sapphire
Alone to light our lives. Who's she
Who'll be
So free
Beside the sun --
Why won't she run?

I thought the dark was destined to draw
Me through my life, to thread and to threaten
In ceaseless new moon nights that would nudge
Me graveward and grant me a gravity that death
Couldn't strangle out of me. Still the steel,
Reveal
The wheel
That turned my life
From death's blue knife.

But the moon that is doubling the day will dip
Into the night enough so that nothing
Is encompassed by the dark that has come to claim
My mind -- she will mend my heart and move
Me to the dawn so the devils will dance
The lance.
Entrance
Me to the day
Where I can stay.

Heraclitus' Garden

If war's the father of all things,
Their mother, then is peace.
The plants that fill our beds -- each springs
From autumn's seed release.

Deep tensions make the seeds they spread
Into the fertile ground,
But peace provides the womb, the bed
For fruits to grow, abound.

Cooperation helps us reap
Our fruits and spread them wide --
Then autumn comes and we dig deep
To plan what you'll abide.

Trigger Warning

A warning: Here's a poem that just might
Offend. It may have murder, rape, or sex --
There's nothing here you may enjoy, delight
Your soul or challenge you, perhaps perplex.

What matters is this poem's politics!
It has abuse and deals with things like race,
Colonial oppression, actions hicks
Approve of in their dreams. Police will mace

A peaceful protestor, so look away
When that verse comes along. There's a belief
Here in this poem -- watch some person pray
To gods you don't believe in -- no relief

Will come your way if you read long enough --
Perhaps you'd better read some pointless fluff.

Upon The Sea of Anarchy, Canto IV

Canto III

Canto IV

I now know legislation does not make

An action more legitimate. I fooled

Myself, believed that lie. And for the sake

Of my own soul, I seek to make it up

To those I sought to suffer and to quake

Before my own self-righteousness.

I’m humble now. As humble as a pup

Or as the birds you see above. They press

Against the blue – their white and black is all

We see. You see the albatross caress

The sky – it rarely lands. The sea gulls thrive

Here on our floating island. Hear the call

Of black-capped terns? And when we do arrive

Near shore, we see the pelicans. Your sight

Is good: each bird is white and black. You’ll strive

In vain to see a green or red. White blends

Into the clouds, essential white on white

On ozone blue. The albatross, it spends

Its life on air, and there seems elegant –

Perhaps because he floats above, befriends

No other bird, and never lands. And my

Impression’s not my own alone; my sentiment

Is shared, and so a law’s emerged to try

To stay all human hands or weapons aimed

Against that awesome bird. I won’t deny

We punish people for it. We will shame

The one who brings the albatross down, maimed

Or dead. For shame coordinates us – name

A social value, shame coordinates

Them all. And thus we never tame

With ossifying legislation’s maw.

We live our social lives and have debates

When we are faced with any social flaw.

At worst we’ll call on judges to decide –

But social life is ruled by common law.

Engine Block

I like to put my poems in a box --
That's how they know just what to do. They bash
Their lines against the sides, and each one knocks
And knocks until a rhyme is made. They crash

Against the walls and tangle up. They crave
Their other lines and interact in sounds
That, when they all reverberate, they wave
In rhythms to make meaning without bounds.

Yet, should we not set free our poetry?
Let lines flow off the page if that's their wish?
And surely all we poets must agree
That rules are like a pomegranate fish.

Is beauty in the randomness of fools --
Or rather in the freedom made by rules?

Fin

The swordfish steak steams dew upon the dish,
A dash of dill, a dip of fig, the lights
Are dim to help me dig out of the din
That fills my life. A champagne fizz ignites
A will to fit into the fissures in
This life, to ditch all that I did, and wish.

* I wrote this poem based on this.

Fitting In

I must pretend to be the kind of mind
I'm not if others are to let me play
Or work. I have to hide myself and bind
Myself if I'm to find myself one day

Included by a world who thinks of me
As having a disease or deficit
Because I take their words literally,
Because the way I'd like to be won't fit

Their narrow view of normalcy, because
I think their smalltalk dull and want to talk
Instead (and endlessly) about the laws
Of nature and complexity. They balk

At my obsessions, wonder why I sit
Alone and rarely want to interact,
And wonder why I do not care to fit
With them, but rather work.If I lack tact,

It is because I see through the veneer
Of tribal signals, seen for what they are.
I wlll not lie, expect it from each peer --
Naively, every time. Can I go far

When everyone demands conformity
And I cannot conform? My mind's not theirs,
My brain's not structured so. My certainty
Is seen as arrogance. All of this wears

Me down, this acting I must do each day,
Pretending I am them, and failing at
The task each day. But if I don't, then they
Exclude me or, worse, treat me like a gnat.

And so I must pretend to be the kind
Of mind I'm not because I cannot shirk
Responsibility -- so I must find
A balance so that I can live and work.

Philosopher, Poet, Lover

Too often I'm a mere philosopher --
I'd rather be a teacher, telling deeds
And actions, showing fates and rules, confer
With deity in ways you can infer
The truth of things off of these phonic beads.

But who will let the poet sing the light
To them? Delight is found in simple things --
Complexity brings very few delight --
And simplifying but brings on the night,
Reducing everything to cosmic strings.

But what of love? Combined of chemistry,
Neurology, and culture -- these the hems
That make the dress of such complexity
As love and other forms of great beauty
That glitter, shine as this small planet's gem.

Bureaucrats

It only takes a brand new bureaucrat
To twist your life around. She'll tell you what
You want to hear: she wants to use you -- look
At your C.V.! You start designing classes
She lets you think you're going to teach one day.
And after all, why shouldn't she? You did
Have high evaluation scores, so high
You went from adjunct to a lecturer
Under her predecessor. You don't know
That that's the problem -- bureaucrats dispose
Of anyone they didn't choose. She'll lie
To you while slipping poison in your tea,
Interpreting the past and all your actions
In terms as negative as possible
And seek the time to strike, to give the dose
That does you in. She'll smile and watch you die.

Display

I dance upon the rock and flash
My feathers, orange, upon my head
In rhythms regular, complex --
Look where my dancing feet have tread.

The sun is shining on my face
Reflecting my immodest dress --
I can afford such wondrous waste
Designed to lure and to impress.

Behold me as I dance for you
And listen as I sing my song
I wrote for you in rhyming lines
To demonstrate that I am strong.

The jungle's darkness cannot hide
The boldness that I demonstrate --
The rhythmic colors, dance, and song
I make for you shall not abate.

My courtship of you shall not cease --
I'll dance upon my rock for you
In rhythms, rhymes, and patterns rich
In meaning, beauty -- all to woo.

But Loving You Is Easy...

It's not that I lack empathy if I
Should fail to notice you're in pain or sad;
It's not that I don't love you when I fail
To say it often, though I'm raving mad

In love with you; it's not that I don't try,
Not only when you are scantily clad,
To demonstrate my love for you; but it
Is hard for me off of this writing pad

To show you all I want to be to you;
Yes, it is hard to be the husband, dad
I want to be, to fight against my brain,
To make my mind give all I have and had

To you; it's hard to even add
Together all you do to make me glad.

Cortés

I want to be Cortés and burn my ships
Behind me, force myself to conquer, win
Without another choice, declare from lips
Dried in the ocean air, above the din
Of fellow travelers that I will take
The risks I need to make the world quake.

Half-measures aren't the pathway to success --
The jungles must be lit by fires we set.
For then we'll find our fortunes will be blessed
When on ourselves we've made the greatest bet.
No doubt his men thought he had gone insane,
But Cortés had a continent to gain.

Cortés chose either death or victory --
And yet we fear the smallest money lost
To risk. Yet risk is how we become free --
The path to freedom always has its cost --
You must give in to all of life's demands
And fear not making tracks upon her sands.

The Law of One Price

Another good employee gone -- he went
To a competitor who somehow can
Pay more for wages yet sell for much less.

I'll have to check my books, see what I've spent --
I don't think I can lose another man --
My finances have got to be a mess.

Thank God for double entry bookkeeping --
I've found the waste to keep my business sound,
To raise my wages, lower prices too.

Now let me see if these new prices bring
Employees back and customer around.
I think I can survive and make it through.

My best employee's back, and with a raise --
Now let my competition worry how
To bring their customers back home to them

The way I had to worry on for days
How I could with my prices compete now
To offer up the cheapest clean and hem.

Theory

Each piece and particle's particular --
The universe is necessarily
In fragments, though we always much prefer
To act as though it's all a unity.

To analyze the world we break it up --
The data says it must be so -- reduce
To smallest small and understand the cup
From broken fragments -- thus we do deduce.

Yet how do we begin to understand
The unity we see? Inductively,
We bring the world together, see the hand,
Invisible, build all complexity.

Our theories bring together the diffuse
From all the data scientists produce.

Other

I finally found my place here in the world --
A human not so human, so it seems --
An analyst among strategic minds,
Fragmented world sewn up in rhyming dreams.

I now know why nothing can touch my wrists,
Why lukewarm food is plenty hot enough,
Why I like eggs, but can't stand scrambled eggs,
And why bare feet find most ground much too rough.

I'm arrogant in my humility
And crowds of people overwhelm my soul --
Because I feel so overwhelmed by all
I meet, the feelings often take their toll.

I never knew quite where I fit. My son
Helped me discover who I am. I'd find
By learning who he was just how I thought
With this high-functioning autistic mind.

The Geography of Nostalgia

I long for the familiarly unfamiliar --
A small city I lived in that has changed
While remaining familiar here and there --
An old green house, a stone-faced church,
A city square that lies about remaining
Unchanged -- the coffee house, the restaurant
Are new and still familiar. I tire
Of this changing changeless city --
The construction at the conjunction of
635 and 75 gone on
For far too long while the Starbucks
Remains the same, with the same people
There, and all the different identical
People working at the store (excepting those
Who are the same -- for four years now).
And the one place I want to stay
The same has changed -- the changed
Interior of my childhood home
Makes even the unchanged exterior
Feel indescribably different --
Though the bricks, the trees, the grass remain
The same. And yet I do not miss
My Mississippi home of two years --
I do not long for it, whether it
Changes or remains unchanged. So I
Do not know what it is I miss,
The familiarly unfamiliar I somehow long for.
I do not know, but I long to be there.

The Grub

My son comes running. "Mommy, Daddy! Come
And see!" We see a hole dug in the yard
Before we see what's in the hole. What could
A four year old dig up? We are on guard.

There, in the shallow hole, a writhing grub --
Long, thick, and white, short hooks up near its head,
Its head with angry eyes of orange and jaws
To make an ant or mother look with dread.

My wife recoils, steps back, covers her mouth.
My son says, "Look!" and gestures down. A lull,
My wife says, "That's disgusting!" But my son
Looks up, concerned, says, "No, it's beautiful."

Together

If I were single I would live alone,
Just reading books. If I could live alone

I'd spend each evening at the Starbucks, drink
A coffee, write, and think, "Will I live alone

Without a love?" And I would then go home
To my apartment where I'd live alone.

But since I found you, dear, I read my books
And write -- but I don't have to live alone

To think and work. I'm more myself since I
Embraced you, love, so I don't live alone.

I melt into your arms, your eyes when you
Say, "Troy, with me you'll never live alone."

Lichen

Embracing me you ground me and the stone
Dissolves to feed us both as with the sun I feed
Us both, and thus we never are alone,
But symbiotic, transformed into waves
Of color rippling in the light. Who craves
Another as we do, yet fills each need?

And when the winter comes and all the leaves
Lie littered, layered, rotting in the sleet
And frost, the safety that your network weaves
Will comfort me, and you will dine upon
All I produce -- our love will warm us, spawn
Delight in us, create internal heat.

The two of us will feast upon the bark,
The stones, the leaves, transform the sun to live
Together, two become one flesh, our mark
In colored bans throughout the woods. We'll drink
The morning fog and tap the frost. Each chink
We fill is so you I, I you can give.

Rainbow Bunting

By all accounts the feathers on
Its wings belong on angels' backs,
Regardless of the dewy dawn
Delivering the sun's golden tracks.

To Those Whom I Make Bleed

I'm of the Gadfly Party, Socrates
And Nietzsche are my models, worthy friends
To help bring you, complacent, off your knees,
Your spear in hand. Oh, when your life depends
On laziness, when you believe without
A thought, then I will sting you with some doubt.

I'll contradict if I should change my mind --
Consistency is density -- I'll change
With every brand-new fact that I should find.
Give me your views and I will rearrange
Them into something new, with properties
Emerging from the ground like locust trees.

And I will lie beneath the trees and speak
To each who passes by, and I will not
Feel shame upon my death, for I did seek
The good, the true, the beautiful -- you rot
In valleys, too afraid to climb, to fly
And dance -- you live in fear and don't know why.

But when you're challenged, when you're asked to dance,
You find the fire to burn the locusts down,
To swat at those who challenge your romance
Of work and life and those who wear the crown --
You'll drive one mad, you'll make the poison drink
To make sure that you sleep and do not think.

Asperger's

It started with a need to learn about
My son, his mind, cast ignorance and doubt
Away so we could help him speak and cope
And find in autism some little hope.

I shared my findings with my wife and brother,
The two who know me best, except my mother
Who is more sadly dead with children who
She wanted yelling, "Grandma!" at her through

The windows of our van as we drove up
The drive. The red brick house that filled the cup
Of me as I sat in my room, alone
And reading books and making lists to hone

Me into who I have become, the one
Whose neural structures, passed on to his son,
Intensified in passing on. I read
About my son, but then that learning spread

To insights into me. My brother, wife
Both saw a brother's and a husband's strife
In life explained. They told me, "You have that."
Impossible! No speech delay. A brat

Who threw himself down on the floor to scream
With every little thing? You could not dream
Of having children who behaved so well
As I. But I lived in a shell, a cell

I made myself. I did not socialize,
But loved to learn and oftentimes seemed wise
When I was very young. Obsessed with sharks,
Then plants -- the endless lists of orchids marks

Me with the patterns that my son will see
As he grows older. Cars lined up since three
The first to show us who he is. The stress
I felt through life make sense at last. I press

Into myself the more I learn. I found
Myself at last. I feel myself on ground,
Not sand, at last. I'm present to my past
And know the neural mold from which I'm cast.

What could I learn from mom, now dead so long?
What would she think of this? This woman, strong
In dying, would perhaps have shown her strength
In love and dedication. The length

I've gone to learn about my son to lead
To me to lead to her has truly freed
Me so that I can see how others think
Of me and of my son, to at last link

With all those people that I found so strange
So that I can expand myself, my range.
And what I learn for me I can pass on
So that my son won't feel a helpless pawn.

Power Laws

I'll sing the song of anarchy,
Of polycentric polities
Where people live in freedom, vote
With feet when needed to be free.

We humans walked the earth in freedom,
Millennia of movement mired
By gangs too many have agreed
Deserve the tributes we must give.

Can I demand you pay me to protect
Your things and freedom from myself
As well as others? Or demand you live
Where I command you live?

How many men will make immoral moral?
Enough to transform murder to statistics?
Do we require the threat of death to love?
To merely get along? Cooperate?

Allow us all to move, to live, to love --
Allow us all to find our place, cooperate,
Discover what our values ought to be
From day to day. Allow us to be free!

Winter in the Southern Plains

This time of year we sometimes get a thick
Mist settling on the skyscrapers and trees --
The whiteness will not burn away at noon,
And evening thickens without any breeze.

Is this the desert edge, the shortgrass plains?
The summer scissortails and grackles gone,
It feels like Limbo, land of Cicero
And Homer, land of light without a dawn.

Is this the place of shimmering steel summers?
The air is webbed with wet -- a dozen brews
Of coffee cannot crack the lull of sleep
That wants to creep inside these subtle hues.

A day of weight where impatience can wait
Beside the station where the trains won't run,
This day has slept, it's blanket warm against
The cold, hard air and ineffective sun.

Health Insurance

The cost of insurance was such
Its price I could sadly not touch --
So I gave all of that
To a young bureaucrat
And now it costs three times as much!

Free Will

Am I my neurons, neurons I? Or are
We free to will what we would be? Are we
When we communicate just like a car
In traffic, part of something new? To be
Responsible and free, do we need all
The people who we know or walk the mall?

I'm free to choose when there's a choice, but I
Could not be me without the rest of you
And you could not be you without the die
Of culture casting you, so you are true
To who you are, the social making one
Unique, for when we're one, then we are none.

My consciousness emerges when my nerves
All interact and I become the tale
I tell myself about myself, which serves
To justify my acts. Succeed or fail --
It's up to me and what I tell myself,
If I'm a hero or a moral elf.

But what I tell myself is also what
You tell me I have done, which always casts
You as the hero of your tale. Your gut
Will tell you you are free -- that feeling lasts,
No matter if you say your life is fate.
But both are surely up for deep debate.