Look Twice

small town art auction look twice
you missed it the usual suspects
have a good time once year buy
something not possible to want

any pictures something else has
to happen walls waiting last joy
divides types who can't pretend
anything different is going down

O.K. we're all exceptional I know
the rap and anything is possible
but not likely to surprise awake
aesthetic rapture in the pigment

Old Men

Obama surrounded by old white men
I'm an old white man myself but I say
get rid of them they're the ones who
screwed things up make that change
you promised us why we voted you in

This Once

the story's not the life's
a million simultaneities
every instant becoming

therefore choose wisely
you only have this once
once and once again we

are writers all fictioning
rewriting reality in form
time enough to be right

Look Back

two times living memory flits
places real synthetic blurring

history ribaldry meanly told
confuses search for genuine

gold standard make me rich
the next time we look back

Say Yes

what you need is not what you think
you want you may be wrong about it
how does anyone decide what to do

well how much choice do you have it's
already decided by what you already
said you would do thinking you knew

you said something then have to do
what you said you would do and so it
goes better say before it gets too late

it's a leap in the dark you live with
consequences unimagined changes
circumstances partly not your fault

still you say yes I will follow through
as if this is who you are as if others
know more less what matters most

Slow Motion

I am a typical Libra but she is not
a typical Virgo just as well thank
heaven stars there rain and shine

everyday differences seem some
same sane better now something
to do but not too much is enough

another adage mixes metaphoric
letterboxes foxtails homewreckers
rock the slow motion fast return I

stop before I say what I may mean
it fits together if you can but see
but I was never clever in philosophy

Many Treasures

"If you're too serious about everything that's involved in directing, it could drive you mad." —Kenneth Lonergan (in the Times)

I have a piece of the Berlin Wall
I was there not long after it fell
and picked it up off the ground
it is one of my many treasures
a gold beetle a piece of Indian
beading that was buried in the
asphalt on Second Avenue my
mother's wedding rings others
I've lost my Old Faithful pocket
knife my hope of fame my youth
when my studio is warm I'll write

After Beauty

am I too barely recognizable I
hope not to myself I'm still me
apart from bulges I could take
care of except I like to eat well
it punctuates the day the week

most of life comes after beauty
what we most admire fades as
fast as we can keep not music
over as it happens we sustain
what we never quite achieved

seek perfection anyway it's all
in whatever turns you on real
personhood including surface
values love as deep as outer
space comes in like weather

Not Noticing

positive is possibly good if you
like rain raise your other hand

random movements relieve no
change must always be illusion

silence is not noticing the noise
of time being over as it begins

stealing stories retail retell not
possible to make up anything

Other Moves

and if he had it all to do over would he
make other moves or be the same if he
had gone to Hamilton say escaped New
York a decade earlier resisted various
temptations been smarter about money
and career would he be here now happy
to be whatever age he would be anyway