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.