The Meaning of Ellah

Ellah is the false land
Ellah is the false face

Ellah is the true land
Ellah is the true face

Ellah is contradiction
Ellah is cooperation

Ellah is what we see
Ellah is what we can't see

Ella abides, yes,
but Ellah hides as well

Metaphysics of the New Fade

In the Age of the
Artificial God Ellah,
all things are
chameleon.

It's the extent
to which you are
that determines
how you succeed.

Dylan became timeless
because he knew
what to change;
Bowie, Madonna,
these artists
changed everything
but their understanding
of music. They had
other interests,
and no true love,
made spectacles
not of their music
but of themselves.
They never went
to Newport.

John started changing
before he truly needed,
changed to fit
his audience
and maybe sometimes
his moods,
a reflection
of what he
needed to be,
until what he
became
was more
important
than the music,
so someone shot him.
All fashions must die
to live

in time.

What killed
the Protest Age
was the Protest Age.
People wonder why
Iraq is not another
Vietnam.
It's because Vietnam
was never Vietnam.
It was what it had
to be.
The Protest Age
screwed
the Protest Age.
Now we sit in wonder
at what we've done,
and don't know
what to make of it.

How about this?
In all things are
the beginnings
of all things.
When we started
fucking about
in the region of Ellah,
we started the whole
ball rolling,
and I'm talking
just last century.
Let the Greeks
worry about
the Greeks,
their Spartans
and their Athens.
We placed a displaced people
in someone else's home,
and stirred about
a cold war
that erupted
over oil.
Tell me what
America has done,
tell me what
Americans do,
tell me what the world is
when the world isn't
any different than it was
yesterday.

The New Fade abides,
it bides its time
like the chameleon,
attempting the colors
that will make everything
right.

Dylan used to makes songs,
now he makes music,
and now I couldn't tell
you what he sings.

I would like to find out.

Traveling the New Fade

Only one war
was fought over and won
for beauty's sake.

Every other has been
for the benefit of
the three great beliefs
of mankind,
and of them,
two remain,

love of country
and love of economics,

each religions
all their own.

Present concerns
seem to bestride
all three, yet
the warriors
will learn
soon enough
that they fight
not for faith
but for their
countries
and for their
economic state.

All three have bound
the course of history
to their backs.
There is no greater
argument against progress
than these, or the need
for it to fight against them.

For millennia,
people either walked,
or employed beasts
to relieve their burden,
when they weren't
echoing nature.
Some of the progress came
when there was
interest
or need
to move many,
but that was
before
three became two.

Now it's in the interests
of the many to move
in the smallest units
possible.

So much more
could be done
if the many
accepted
that the few
can work
for the many,
and the many
for the few,
and not just
one or
the other.

This can't happen
as long as we still believe.

Faith I believe in,
that's the one needful constant,
but faith misplaced
or mistaken
is the murder of civilization,
more slowly
and more quickly
than we realize
or think.

We are taught not to think.

The age I grew up in
was in one of the pockets
where this law did not apply.
People snuck in subversion,
and it was actually
the practice of the institutions.
By the next decade, it had
become our entertainment,
but in the culture,
it was once more taboo.

I hate that word,
taboo,

and the nature of
oblivion.

Oblivion
is the nature
of ignorance,
of the need for it
for things to survive
which shouldn't,
however pleasant,
however passive.

Oblivion is
the religion
of those who refuse
to see the world
as it is, and rather
as they wish it were,
so they could be right,
and not wrong,
as they don't like to be,
but are because
that's what oblivion do.

In the New Fade,
love of country
and economics
is the thing
the last remnants
of religion
fear most,
and brand
as the harbingers
of their doom.
I don't know how
it looks; I live in
America, which has only
ever known itself.
But I do know the New Fade
employs tools that lead
to destruction
to bring about change,
and that's all
that ever happens.
Talk about nature
being ravaged by man,
beyond repair?
Maybe it's ignorance speaking,
but I think nature survives.

Down Home

There may be a problem
when the best you have
at your sister's house
is a good time with
the pets.

I could be wrong.

In Spite

For my own sake
I spite thee.

For my future's sake
I spite thee.

I carry on
in spite.

Off Ice

Some things
don't go
as planned.

I don't
know what
else to
say about
off ice.

What's Better Than A Canyon

If there's no such thing
as a question, then we're
forced to ask and find
no answers,
and that's another
facet of the central riddle.

I've gradually discovered,
much as others have,
that one of my favorite
pasttimes is identifying
meaningful figures
in history. I find
the more one does this,
the more significant
they'll be as well,
if they strive to
understand and not just see.
Sometimes this pursuit
can become excessive,
but it can't possibly hurt
(unless you count dying).

It's the point of
being oblivious that
perturbs me,
when there's really
no excuse.
I'm finding much
of my new surroundings
to match that.
But we do that with things
we don't know.

We'll see,
and in the meantime ask,
what's better than a canyon?

Interglacial

The term that implies
more than a few people
are a little iced over,
how wicked in their
duplicity, ignorance,
or sheer talent
for politics.
It's difficult to say
whether their interest
is to turn back the clock
or really start to tamper
with the weather.
I can tell them where to start!
But they probably wouldn't
like it, as it would take
more cold away.

These guys are the only ones
who don't like warm weather.
It's kind of funny.
Or maybe they just like to think
we should otherwise,
y'know, other than ruining things,
be able to keep on doing
exactly what we're doing.

Just give me a minute.
I'm still trying to figure out
all the flaws in their logic.

Meditation

The wise harm the world;
they spoil it with their dreams.

The Metaphysics of War

War is funny.

Every war is the direct result
of the war before it.

Chances are
if you don't
understand one,
you won't the other.

But I would hope
if you do one,
you do the other.

Except we've reached
a point where
we spent one war
laughing at another,
and the next
still mourning
the last,
while the granddaddy
remains idolized,
even though
it remains
the worst of all.

Maybe that's why.
We try and escape,
to pretend,
because we still
like doing that,
even as we mature,
a rock band in the 80s
being the last
to look fondly
on us,
just as we ended
a cold third war,
which in its silence
was the most deadly
of the last century,
undeclared
and fought everywhere,
after two "world wars."

Every war concerns the world,
but we can silence that, too.

George-22
is the real victim,
the joke,
the jester,
the last man in the room,
when everyone else
has fled.
He is the most alone
with the myths,
and if you could see him,
late at night,
you would see him cry.

The Metaphysics of Magic

Magic is what you get
when there's no other explanation.

Okay, wait:

Magic's what you get
when you don't want another
explanation.

Magic's the alternative,
magic is what you get
when you discover it
in your dreams.

Magic is a way
of seeing the world
that involves fantasy
and wishful thinking

and maybe broomsticks
and hot chicks
(on TV, at least).

Magic is a dirty word,
like comedy.
It can be black,
that magic
is completely different
from the normal kind.

Magic is the future,
is the past,
and is someone's
version of the present.

Magic is something you hide,
or you're burned at the stake,
sometimes just for fun,
if you feel like it.

Magic is belief
inverted,
a way of taking
religion and science
and mixing them together.

Magic is a warm gun.

Magic is a war
even the wise
don't understand.

Just say a wizard did it.

Love's Destruction

What to do with it?
Burn it,
stick it,
find another way.

There's got to be
another way to love.

Well, I say there isn't,
and so it must
be done away with.
No more love,
no more war,
no more hate,
no more peace,
no more greed,
no more
no more
no more.

That's what you get
when you don't have love.
You're really not bothered
with anything.
Loves makes the blood run,
love makes the world turn 'round.

Make love into a trauma,
make love the apocalypse,
as it has always been destined.

Throw away the curtains on love.
I don't need it anymore.

General Metaphysics

I believe that love
is the path of destruction.
I believe

that there are two kinds:
love with irony
and too much,
as someone said
in the film (The Film),
and that you can tell
by how rock and roll bands
have turned out since
their creation.

The Beatles started out
with irony
and quickly started
to love too much.
In ten years,
they were over,
and then splintered more,
down the crosshairs.
John and George
loved too much,
Ringo with irony.
It was with Paul
that the duel edges,
the whole contraption,
fell toward,
from the beginning,
and it is he
whose legacy
is most for debate.
Does he still sing now
because of irony
or because
he loves too much?
Answer such a question.
Who knows such things?

So it was in the 60s,
when music was most loved
in the culture,
but again, as with Paul,
no one knew quite which love
they possessed for it,
and it was this dilemma
that split the interest
for so long that by the present,
no album could contain it
any longer. Those who survive,
do they love too much
or with irony?

That's really the basic problem,
I believe, that too few people
know on which side they fall.
It is a basic communal
ambiguity.
Love too much?
Love with irony?
I believe that
many fall too much
and so they fall quickly,
as the theory goes,
either dying young
or losing interest,
like a child,
the TV Theory Syndrome.
Many also understand
what's so ironic
about the culture,
and they last, they persist,
they are the new conquerors,
and they wield a fiery vengeance
for a world that does not
understand them.
And the irony?
Those who love too much
are the same way.

If you form a basic
reconciliation,
if you were able to
determine
if it were even possible,
then you would
crack the egg,
solve the riddle
of humanity.

All major religions,
all major philosophies,
they understand only too much,
but never irony,
they have no place for it.
And if they do,
these dissenters are outcast.
Even athiests believe too much.
Maybe a comedian is the closest
to a bodhisatva we have,
jokes about nothing,
a great big b-movie.

Anyway,
who knows such things?

Walkie Turner and the Snow Country

I imagine it would easy to ignore me
yet here I am
and I'm not going anywhere
you wish I'd go,
and I am,
just along my way,
not measured by imprints
but in defiance.

Snow World

Come and I will show you
a world fit for a snowshoe

You can leave at the same time
and arrive to feel sublime

In the Snow World
everything's fine.

The Ghost in the Room

There's a ghost in the room with me.
Probably several.
I suppose I'd known it before
but up until just now
when I thought about it
I guess I didn't.

But the ghost is there.
Probably several.
And I'm okay with it.
Because ghosts aren't so bad.
They're like reminders.
Read this poem after I write it
and you're reading a ghost.
That's what happens.
You leave something behind
and you're still there.
Here and there.
A ghost.

Probably several.

Rule

What kind of word is rule?
What kind of word is it
when it's not pluralized,
not the subject
of guardianship,
merely left on its own?

I think it begins to sound
differently.

Not Rule of Law,
not Follow the Rules
not a mighty Ruler.

By itself.

What do you say about it then?
It becomes more abstract,
doesn't it, something you
have to think about,
and for all its
connotations.

What does it end up meaning?
How do you begin to see
where it starts?
And what does that do
for all its other meanings?

Rule is rule is The Rule,
a rule. Like any other word,
the more you concentrate on it,
the weirder, less familiar,
more foreign,
it looks.

Go ahead and give it a try.

An Overpass is not a Bridge?

People may not say it that way
but you may call me a walking stiff.

No, I am not stiff from walking.
Walking is an activity
probably most people fear.

They have for a very long time.
Horses, boats, trains, car, airplanes.

Many ways have been created
so that people will not have to walk.

Great distances are crossed
but are also necessitated
because people don't like to walk.

Even short distances.

And because people don't like to walk
regulations must be made, rules and charges
that limit the ability of one
who does not wish to walk.

Flunk and you walk.
Or be the mercy of others
even when it is cheerily given.

People don't like to walk
and they look at you funny
if (when) you do.

I think it's all kind of funny
another symptom of a system
that takes the most perverse stance

on everything.

The Public is the Public

the only problem with the public
is that it goes out in public

you can tell
because of the mess it makes
that the public
can't control itself
like a puppy

I was thinking
if the public
was out long enough
it could be trained

How You're Going to Ride

You don't need to tell me
where you're going
it's etched all across your face
like you wanted me to know already
you're going
and I'm going
and you're wondering why I went
and I'm wondering, too
but you look like you've been ready
to move on
like there was never anything
but space between us
which is going to become
a reality quickly enough
in more ways than one
with more definition
with feeling
with a distinct lack of hope
and it's not like I'm obsessing
but there's just no way to know
not like the stars in the sky
which misguide and dazzle
and pipe away the jazz
like it's not going to be known anymore
which is the fear that motivates
us all
and so when we move we fear
and we fear because we move
and when we do one
we do the other
when all we wanted was to escape
tap and dance and all that.

Natural Hi

The thing about the Springs
is that these people,
if they're not careful,
could decorate their
landscaping to the point
where they don't actually have
anymore rocks. Right now
they have mountains to look at.
I'm just sayin'
they might not have much left
if they keep it up.

At some point
"they"
will be
"us"
I swear,
but as the spirit goes
through the doorway
I'm just not there yet.
I'm there, but not there,
if you can make
sense from that,
and not just change...

Now You Will Know

Now you will know
what it was that upsetme

Now you will know
what has got in my way

Now you will know
how I emerged once again

Now you will know
and you will see all the points
and the peaks
and the snow on them

Because I am back
and now you know

It'll Shine

I read the book and then
watched two film versions
and danged if it didn't
quite ease continued
misgivings, but you know,
things aren't really that bad!

My Feet Are Somewhere Else

Having been here in the Springs
three weeks and counting,
it's comforting to know
I haven't left Burlington behind,
not really.

No, really.
Check out the sidewalk
in front of the Border Café.
Those are my feet.
I could never completely
leave you behind.

I just wish that you'd know.

Moving Day (Part 3: 4 Minutes Remaining)

stole a final moment
on a library machine

counting down the minutes
until I'm finally in the Springs

everything is packed
everything is loaded

time
so soon
for a flight
to the new-fangled
saloon

Moving Day (Part 2: An Anticipation)

It's when you
forget what you've remembered
that you know
you're moving on
and there's no longer
a way to pretend
otherwise.

I thought maybe I'd have
other things to say
about it
but no
that's basically it

Next time
will be a
next chapter
a new day and
a new way
but the same
poet the same
song the same
dull eyes
through which
this world has seemed
so full, where
we believe
and are affirmed

once again

A Dendrochronology

The truth of it is,
only until you kill it
do you know the tree's
history

You can argue this point
say you looked at one
that was already dead
or brought down
for other reasons

But the truth of it is,
you've performed an autopsy
which are things
that are only good
to diagnose a talking point

What did you find out
except that this tree had
experienced things
before it died?

Stick your head
out from under the pile of data
and have a look at
all the rest of the evidence
and then tell me
if you can still support
a claim that suggests we've ruined a planet
in a relative handful of years
when before that time
the patterns
of global catastrophe
still held

Then I want you to admit
that we have a greater problem
at hand
a far more familiar one
in that we support our own egos
far greater than we do a planet

This planet don't need us

And I think that's
what really concerns you
because assuming we're going
to ruin it
is got to be your biggest joke

Take a bow!

And then take your seat again
and realize
that if you don't stop
taking yourself so seriously
the world is not going to
goo-goo-ga-choo!
end

But
in the end
we've got to get that message home
so we slap on those caps anyway,
gollums with their quests
that prove amusing
because they're never
the last ones
in line

Moving Day (Part 1)

Catch as catch can
if you can can
catch what I'm sayin'

who woulda
said about the
world's best secret
that it never shoulda
been exposed?

All these words that float around
are caught and caged for fun
as if that's what they were always made for.
It doesn't always seem that way
but that's what they'll tell you
so it ends up feeling better
and the guilt can be chased away
like it was never there
and all your life's dreams
will float on by
ahead of you.

October is the month of...

aberrations
transformations
separations
constipations
declarations
jubilations

but of the variety
only October can produce

ping pong

down the long
zing zang
released the gang
ding dung
take what you brung

trapped in the middle
nowhere to go
climbing all day
still haven't moved
traveling for weeks
with days left to go

ping pong
down the long road
released by the gang
take what you brung
and follow me follow me follow me
until I find out where to be

because that still hasn't gotten clear
even with all the things that clicked recently

ping pong
ping pong

I'm doing things
making vows
that were never meant to be
changing faces
stealing time
and still I'm all over me
and without a single clue
farther from you
with words I never should have had
because that's what I've always said

ping pong
ping pong

and my, how it's been so sad

I think I'm starting to forget

about you...

It was as if a part of me had been stolen...

and I had agreed to let them take it,
that's what it felt like,
the last few days,
first when I left my job,
and then when I left my home,
and I hadn't been expecting it either time.
I don't think it makes sense,
but that's probably what it should be like.

Last Day For Some

It's weird
how today wasn't
my last day,
but that it was
for some people.

Ask me again tomorrow.
But, do it on Monday.

Wired (and then some)

I'll bet I could make
a living on the thoughts
that go through my head.

That's no boast,
and it has nothing to do
with my creative writing.

But then, the two go
hand-in-hand,
so will I, at some point.

The Last Four Days in Musical Mystery Tours

Saw the movie on Saturday,
the one they said was trite,
listened to the covers
the colleague said were bad

Saw the video today,
the one that made them big,
found out how they looked
when everyone was watching

Across the wanna be with you?

I figured out the four of them
after they'd become so huge,
realized there was so much to do,
and most of it was only going to tear them apart,
bring about the end of the best music in town

The name of the other band became
what was known all about,
the curse and the blessing
and some of the best music in town

And everyone forgot
forgot
forgot
forgot
about the best music in town

Read about the Rutles,
read about John Cleese,
read about the history,
read about the man who once claimed
he wasn't funny

Read about the Watchmen,
read about the 52,
read about the story,
and the characters taken out
and all but forgotten

The bands and the music and the culture
we can't leave behind, but can you imagine
the day we'll have to? When the music
and the culture will have to decide
they can take over? Then where will we be?

Across the wanna be with you
and all the funny jokes they played

With Nothing

but the thought of you

I am wandering
and wondering
and risking
and, as my mom has always done,
worrying

What Do You Really Think?

What do you really think?
What do you really think?

I've been thinking about it
since the day you went away

and haven't stopped thinking it since.

What do you really think?
What do you really think?

Have I been a coward all this time
never asking you what you think

because I've feared the answer?

What do you really think?
What do you really think?

I've thought that I've known
I've thought that I've known

and the thought has changed from this way to that.

What do you really think?
What do you really think?

Would it have been so crass to ask?
And when do you know it's been your last chance

before you find out it was too late?

What do you really think?
What do you really think?

I Don't Expect You To Read This

And even if you do,
to care, because
that has been my
experience,
to be
experienced,
and for people
not to care. That
is the true story
of my life.
It's fitting
that I am
a poet.

Move Ae

Get the move ae
Get the move ae

Move ae
Move ae

Do you get what I say?
Do you get it?

I want it to stay ae
I want it to stay ae

But I know that it won't
But I know that it won't

Even though I hope that it will
Even though I hope that it will

In some small way ae
In some small way

Move ae?
Move

Move, yo, move

Like a river
So go cry me one,

Break the crystal ball ae
And tell me what you see

Because I think that you know
I think that you know

And that's all I've ever needed
ae ae ae ae ae

Don't Fuck With This Poem

Don't [ ] with this poem
[ ] fuck with this poem
Don't fuck with this [ ]
Don't fuck [ ] this poem
Don't fuck with [ ] poem

Elapses

Every-
one
says
how
short
life
is
but
I
have
never
known
what
they
were
talk-
ing
about.
I
see
time
as
some-
thing
that
takes
its
time
(that's
the
phrase,
right?
for
a
reason?)
because
it
needs
its
time
and
you
need
the
time
so
that
when
it's
time
everything can happen when you've made it happen and then and only then can life seem fast, out of control and suddenly like everything's happening!

My Self-Destruction

would look like a sitcom
from some objective view

and sometimes my own. I have
a problem keeping things
straight, knowing who I'm
supposed to be angry with
how to react. I can't help it
I like people and I hate them
and love and hate and love and hate.

Does that make any sense? Like I
said, it plays like a sitcom
and not just because I'm
so darn hilarious
but because of the tragedy
of it all, the sheer
hijinks.

Hey, if I can
use the word
hijinks
you know my life
is really that bad.

Springs

Would you really expect
the answer to your most pertinent question
to have "Springs" in it?
Who would
believe you?

Farewell Tour

people I have known
stars that may have shown

a second poem of some alacrity (the les crappe mix)

knowledge you didn't think you had

I Write/Thought Fusion

Here was the thing...

In that world
I was a citizen

In that world,
I was known

as I had always known,
as I always knew,
I knew I knew

In that world,
I don't know now

because I was ejected,
things I knew were done
and still are,
but as you know,
and as you know
I didn't

That's what I know,
not just

In that world
I still know

but cannot see

I Think I Exist (Out of Time)

When it was time to
sign up for kindergarten,
they decided I wasn't ready
and so I waited a year.
I only remember cats,
nothing about what
that year was like,
and the cats were
there, in their test,
one year later.

At some point,
they decided I needed
glasses, and I only
remember bad vision
the first time those
glasses were broken.
They also decided
I needed speech
therapy. I got stickers.
But none of that is
important.

Or maybe it is. I
would recite every
memory I have of
how I've arrived here today,
but that's not the whole
point.

When I was young, before
I had reached third grade,
a girl kissed me on the back
of the neck. They used
to chase me. By fifth grade,
they made fun of my lips.
I had somehow gotten
stuck in my own time.
In middle school,
they told me to dress better.

When I moved to Burlington,
I ended up working at a movie theater,
where nearly everyone was
younger than me, including
the managers, most of them,
and the youngest and my favorite
was the last girl I wanted
to chase me. I'm told
she's not interested
right now,
and so I can only wait.

Waiting's the real thing.
The first girlfriend I had
pursued me, and I hadn't
really seen her coming,
and that's how it ended.
I will be moving,
and if I'm to be found,
she will need to pursue.
That's my whole life,
the chase.

I cannot be caught.

I'm out of step,
a tick of a tock out of time,
a tock of a tick,
I meet people I want as friends,
who have the same interests,
the same passions, but in the end,
I'm always alone. This poetry?
Tomorrow, I will write more,
tomorrow a thought fusion,
but today? Today is not
yesterday, and yesterday
is not today, but, as I began
then, I continue,
and alone.

The love that you make is
equal to the love that you take?
Why don't you make more
why don't you take more
why don't you make more love?

People are gravitated to me,
I'm common ground,
but the ground?
It is cursed. I cannot
share in what I give.
I make but cannot take.
Do you think you have heard
all this before?
Well, please, direct me to that
person down the hole to the other
side, because I need to meet them,
I need to see and know and feel
and know that they understand.
I write a blog? That's in the
public, but isolated?
That blog is me.

That blog is me.

Tick tock tick tock, that's a progression
that doesn't repeat, but inverts itself,
tick
tock/
tick

(tick tock/tock tick)

as I've already written. I notice
the squirrels, I told my brother,
not as something cute and novel,
in this world we only see humans,
but as another mind, minding
itself. It does not need me,
does it watch me?
I don't watch nature,
I don't watch through
goggles, to know,
but to see.

I see.

I try and see.

That's a curse out of time,
the knowledge of existence
because I have seen it,
not because I believe or
I want to believe,
but because it is there
and I have bothered to see it,
the magician's slight of hand,
his trick,
his prestige,
the moment you make
the ordinary
the extraordinary.


Did you see it?

Romance

It's not knowing that
two more girls
think,
despite what I'd thought,
they don't want boyfriends right now,

it's that,
as much as I've wanted it otherwise,
it's almost a relief.
They're not tugging.


It puts some relief
on other concerns.

Y'know, I think.

Call It Ishmael Today

After Agha Shahid Ali, and his contents

I have loved
Arabic,
for you,
by exiles
of it all
in real time;
of fire
things;
shines
my word
from the start;
angels
of water
as ever
land;
not all, only a few return,
even the rain,
water
of snow,
air,
about me
in marble
bones;
in,
beyond English
of light
stars,
for time
God;
forever;
after you,
in Arabic,
tonight
existed.

What A Future Is

what a future is
may be found out
easily enough

but if you're looking
for a definition,
look elsewhere

Metaphysics of Zen

after "Zen" by Kenlee from Urbis.com

Zen is a wonderful thing.
Zen is the thing you achieve
through that philosophy
some mistake as a religion.
You can understand, because
they're identified as a group,
those who follow it,
like a religion.
They even have monks.
Zen is not about
religion, or belief,
or practice. I think
even they get it wrong.
They're caught up in its
Hindu origins.
Zen is a way of life,
not a way out of life,
Zen is a Value,
and a Quality,
because it's so
hard to define,
easy to mistake
for the butcher boy
lying in wait.
Zen is,
it just is.
Zen is,
because
Zen is
Zen is
Zen is.

Z-en is
like the blue oose,
like the students
who think it's
okay to ignore
someone else's
tragedy,
oh can't you see?
Zen is.

Metaphysics

Metaphysics are details
that are hard to define.
You don't actually have to be
or have been crazy
to see them, but
it probably helps.
Crazy is a subjective
term, which the
originator of the
phrase I've been using
explains better
than I could,
because I suffer
from a lack of
diagnosis above
all else. I think
that's the best way
to go. I alone
am telling myself
that there's got to
be something wrong,
and that's probably a
good thing.
It's funny, because
when I hear people
chatter about things
being wrong, I figure
they're usually wrong,
because they aren't
seeing things clearly.
I have bad vision,
but I see just fine.
I chafe when
people around me
call themselves
acknowledged geniuses,
based on IQ tests,
and feel a compulsive
need to batter them
to prove otherwise,
even though my tests
have more to do with
personality. The
Metaphysics of Personality
describe how one's
intelligence can be
determined by how
they react to others,
whether they understand.
If you understand,
that's the key.
If you understand.
Most people couldn't
care less to. Most people
couldn't care less about it.
I understand, and I'm
hobbled by a periodic
black cloud around me,
so that I cannot always
show it. But I think
the eyes have it. The eyes,
the Metaphysics of Eyes,
that may be the most pure
of them all.
You either get it
or you don't.

Metaphysics of Value

If the Metaphysics of Quality
are jacked up,
then the Metaphysics of Value
are even moreso.
They simply cannot
be shared, and it's
that very Quality
that leads them
to become universal.
Quality is elusive,
Value is everywhere,
Value in the things
we place it, Value, as
a result, in our very hands,
the mutual hands of Value.
It's hard to talk about it
and not get caught up in it.
Value is the thing we don't
see, and the thing we
see everywhere. Quality
is intangible, Value tangible.
It's the thing we hate to
have, the thing that traps us,
and the thing we can't live
without. You can define
Value, but not Quality.
But it's still a Metaphysical
study. Because people
refuse to believe.

Metaphysics of Quality

There is just one problem
with the Metaphysics of Quality,
and that they are a little bit
insubstantial. It's not that
they're subjective, only that,
if you don't see it, they
can't be understood.
The Metaphysics of Quality
are like a mental illness.
They're jacked up.

Bushwah

Tell me the old curse.
Tell me what it means,
but use it, use it
like they used to use it,
not as we use it now.
Tell me the old curse,
and pretend I haven't
heard it before.
Tell me the old curse
and pretend that
the world is not
used to it by now,
that it hasn't become
an unfortunate joke,
one with no basis
in reality.
Tell me the old curse.
Tell me it like a lover.
Tell me the old curse
as if no one's heard it
before.

The Days Are Just Packed...

I have a lot of
things I really
need to do,
but when it
comes to
doing them,
I think I
get maybe 15%
of them done.
Is that the
average?
Probably.
Mostly,
I think I'm
just riding
that sled
off the cliff,
bringing down
the whole world
around my
frozen ears,
and grinning
most of the way,
to myself
and to the
oblivious world...

The Terror of Knowing

I think I understand
the Terror of Knowing,
not as it had been
understood,
but as it hadn't.

We live in terror
of knowing
each other.

It sounds ridiculous
until you think about it.

I Write the Words That You Sing

I write the words that you sing,
I write the sins you're cashing,
I write the thoughts that rattle the cage,
I write the things that fill you with rage.

What Today Is?

I spent the day
angry about a
number of routine
things. I fretted, too,
over issues
concerning the
fact that I'll be
moving soon, and
still don't know where,
exactly, except
that it is with
a great amount of
trepidation. These
are trying times.
For the most part,
I wasn't even aware of
what today really was.
At 9, once again, I was
counting down the
minutes until
my lunch hour,
one hour away,
and when I came back,
all the things I wanted
to accomplish while
contending with a few
necessary obstacles,
such as two out of
my remaining four
being taken
for someone else.
In all these thoughts,
none of anyone else's
concerns, their
problems.
Everyone is someone
else's problem. In
every tiny world,
there is another
tiny world next door,
sometimes peering in,
sometimes knocking,
and if you're really
lucky, making a grand
intrusion. Did I say
lucky? I meant
something else, I'm
sure. One can't
be too sure of
what they mean
when they say
something, think
something, do
something. It's
the somethings that
get us through the day,
when we don't know
what else will,
and can't imagine
what, or have
forgotten important things.
That's what, I think,
we're thinking more
of, or maybe should.

Tomorrow

Do you know what tomorrow is?
I don't think we really know
what it is.

Dead Letter

I think a dead letter
is a dream someone had
that went unfulfilled,
not because of the obvious,
that it never ended up
arriving, never ended
up read, but because
behind it was an
intention that, in the
dead letter, will never be
read.

This guy I know,
this guy named Bill Shakespeare,
everyone seems to doubt
he could have come up
with those plays
inside his own head.
They imagine romantic
creators, dignified and
knowledge-filled,
but a man who
worked his way up?
Who left his own
story untold? It would
be the greatest
tragic comedy of them all,
of its time too far ahead.

Dead letter,
dead letter,
I see nothing but
dead letters.
Outrageous attempts
to be known,
to be heard.
But since when
did we listen to any other voice
but our own? I myself
am horrified every time
someone tries to
convince me what
my own sounds like.

I protest! I speak
truths anyone could know,
everyone has said,
and for that, I am
called, inside those private voices,
a terror. I am one who
they will not listen to,
oh, yes, when I can hear them,
but never when I can't.
They will say it happens,
but more and more,
I find it difficult to believe.
These are the times
I struggle in,

in the land of the dead.

(What Are You Gonna Do With the) Country

Hopped into my pickup truck,
spun the radio to the talky talk show,
and the man on the air was saying,
in his soft and spooky voice,
what are you gonna do with the country?

Another man said, another woman said,
well all the things that can be done
have already been imagined for the country,
the borders drawn the laws put on,
and every state ratified to make their own hell.

Now we're gonna haggle over what
we're gonna screw up in the next four,
because that's what they're playing in the bingo halls,
the game of what can they do
that, for better or worse, can be done in this country.

They're all lining up,
and it's still a year away,
and they've been doing it
for longer than the last president
took the seat of the country.

Newtopia

All you need is
give peace a chance

All you need is
give peace a chance

All you need is
give peace a chance

How can I go forward
you can drive my car!

Green Pollo!

Are you hep to the jive, yo?
Do you strum the cat,
wik the ninjas?
We're not yellow pollo,
or white or black,
but green pollo.
Wederby this or that.

I refuse to believe that
pandas will die because
they're lazy.
If someone eventually
buys this poem,
it will not be worth
anymore than
it does right now,
which is whatever
it ends up meaning.
The Metaphysics of Value,
as they've been understood,
are misunderstood.
People are not
inherently lazy.
Yet there are people
who don't work because
they can't find work.
They can't find work because
our understanding of Value
is that nothing, not a single person
or thing,
is worth anything until
someone says it does. Everyone
wants to do something,
but they have to be told they can,
a thing bought if it can be afforded,
and not always because it's unwanted.
So many things go to waste.
That's not Value. That's Waste.
Green Pollo is all about Value,
about allowing ourselves to
see it, to understand it,
not as a static thing, a good or bad,
but as what it is, a Quality.
Green Pollo is the revolution,
is the fight, is the war they're fighting
against. Green Pollo is the
realization of Value
and the value of it.

Jive, yo, jive.

Radical Fanatical

I've frequently
a mind to restart
the business of revolution
all on my own. There're a
million things that need
changing, that could be
improved, and a great many
people who could stand
the same treatment, and
probably get that ball
rolling all by itself. I could
devote myself to a classroom,
and get everyone to
understand words again,
but I don't abide the presumption.
Good things happen because they're
meant to, not because someone
wishes they would. I think that's
been made clear enough, especially
since too many people have no
idea what good things are.

They fight for the right,
and end up left.

Talking Fish

Out of water
out of water!
I need some water damnit!
I'm the fish who
can't stand the water
the fish out of water.

Sorry, overused,
misused,
too used
to it. Truth is,
I'm just like anyone
else, and am proud
for the ways that
I'm not.

I Think I May Have a Problem (The Peo-ple Piece)

I think I may have
a problem. I don't like
stupid peo-ple
rude peo-ple
inconsiderate peo-ple
and any combination
of the above. I sometimes
hit a few of these notes
myself. I know I do.
But I think I learn
when I do. And I'm not
convinced that
everyone does. I once
said I was cursed with
self-awareness, and
never knew dignity,
well now I know these
to be true, above all else.
I convince myself,
I celebrate myself,
of all the faults in others.
To make myself better?
Amd what would happen
if everyone were
afflicted with my disease?
Would I finally learn
that it is terminal?
Or that, once and for all,
that all life is, and that's
what we're constantly running
away from, that
terrible knowledge? What do
we know, really? We know
that we die. We spend
our time opting to
postpone it. That's what
life is about, biding our time,
seeing how we can amuse ourselves.

Is this not pessimism? No,
it is not. It is realism, and the
reality is, everyone who
has never commented on this
has been among those who
say this life is too short.
Nonsense, I say, neither is life
too long nor too short. It is
exactly what it is and what it
always has been and always will
be, the being of it. The thoughts
we either voice, or think,
or simply block out, either because
we want to or have never
developed a means to create.
We are, indeed, pitifull creatures,
for the knowledge of what we are,
or for the wisdom few possess to
know. Tell me how it is gained.
I believe it is by accident,
and those who are the clumsiest,
we are the most miserable, because
accidents are exactly that. You can't
just make them happen.

All Day Long You'll Find a Penny

Finding fallen coins
is something, and has
been, of a hobby for me,
to carry on without
a lot of fuss and care
for how much, so much
as I carry on with it,
because it seems
someone has to, so
many fallen coins
are there to find, perhaps
as may these days as
I remember there
being when I started.
So many, and so little
to think about, just
a little care to take
care of the carelessness
of others, who don't think
these fallen coins mean
anything. In most senses,
they don't mean much more
to me, just a rambling collection
in a jar I asked to keep
from some stranger along
the way. I mostly care after
quarters, dimes amuse me,
and nickles, for perhaps for
the first time, don't annoy me.
It's the pennies, though, that
appear most frequently,
I find a penny and sometimes
pick it up, and maybe, as a
reward, all day long I'll
have good luck. Other times,
I walk right by, and then others
still, chuck it into some hole. Not
for luck, like some penny well,
just because. Recently I've developed
good aim.

O Will Journal

Times, o the times are
what they want to be,
their mysterious ways
and their endless maladies
and treatments along the way.
The times, o the times
are what they want to be,
and damned if I can
make them any other way.
I can try.