Natural Rhyme

fast color covers Portland sidewalks pink petal pools under greening sun I needed a drive a justifying errand a good cup of coffee and a haircut city bopping suits my natural rhyme even the wrong hamburger fits in without complaining I find my way unerring like a kite on a long string

Intimate Knowing

even if I have the hiccups and you laugh at me I love to hold you close press my head against your shoulder something about your ear special electron exchange even if I get up again I will come back to warm you sleep in the friendly field assured of inimate knowing

My Nap

reality is lying on the dirty concrete garage floor trying to demount the dull banged up blades of the jacked up riding mower and failing or is thinking I am up and talking and wondering why my head is down on the desk everything sideways horizontal vertical oh it's my pillow I'm on my side in my position hands warming each other tenderly oh it's my nap

Top Down

fold the top down on my little car and drive across the city my birthday originally just us sitting around a table turns Laurel and Hinrich arrive then rows of chairs like an audience naked youths rolling at length a stranger recruits ball-players night rain waters in my fertilizer couplets snapshots in an album

One Word

poets' thanks all my reward those who can do inspiring dedication so I although after wanting more decide on just one word at a time then you know me if you care or dare resolve the seasons' beauty grant my right or wrong to show what anyone might have become

Proper Tools

we all have personalities and have to put up with a lot or be alone solitude certainly has its place I need a chunk of it every day but it gets too boring you look down the road as evening falls hoping friend or stranger will appear but usually not and it's hard to get stuff done beyond the inner work a world of meaning proper tools many hands

Many Truths

many truths arise at once then which ones shall I tell not personal exactly but all truth is personal what else is there near or far god I'm wise in my twilight flowering feet up between sweeping mow cook meet schlep something good will come keep making moves

Little Enough

this is little enough to separate my dream from waking silenced phone I would stay there contend strange arrangements closely private nurse uniform making body transparent crystalline jellied shall we stay one day more before we go back home

Deep Water

yes is no more no than you and me except the wilderness of wondering pictures can't ask questions just the facts feeling their way forward into deep water words can't image what I know entirely transparent set the book aside when it begins to move

False Bait

poetry helps but why not me I only do it because I want to not to bother with the crafty art say anything and be done other voices doesn't answer how else might come better slower fewer saved for years each example matters more why go on then losing hair anticipating other obstacles rising to obvious false bait is nothing something else

Private Parts

saved for what must leave this heaven
arrive on schedule for the senior prom
a promised kiss of no regrets or grief
despite whatever else you think of me

glimpse between the beats of Brahms
another possible harmonious going to
meet in Amsterdam or Paris whoever
knew no limits or measured flexibility

then I took it all back rearranged our
tulips for a different occasion rather
floppy but I like that more than tight
petals shyly hiding their private parts

Natural Smoke

high time decrime benign marijuana its only harm the crime criminalizing it causes lives ruined by arrest incarceration not by a natural smoke ready access warped furtive cost ridiculously inflated private pleasure not public business on my side reason compassion facts on the other posturing cruel fear millions for prisons legals enforcers many thousands of useless jobs

The Way

another test survived is this the way to think about living avoid pressing lips together not half bad for an amateur Hinrich recorded my mistakes only the preservation rankles convey both romantic sorrow and pleasure in expressing it then the evening opens up balmy birdy at heart festive

Weary Bones

too beat after being on all day find limits suddenly good poets sunset high peepers converge with spring I cut the grass do my little thing help make it happen give what I have then it catches up my weary bones drunk man gives up cigar not to stunt his baby short by twenty cents for a six-pack bag boys add dimes that cheers me up I feel good fulfilled empty fullness sore feet drooping brain memory of laughter

Sullen Craft

two festivals at once I'll have my cake buttered if movies better than poems seem an art of another age when one had time to take apart to reassemble as if learning how to live more fully the piano has a broken leg and can't be moved and wasn't tuned make do the music just as beautiful cunningly sincere or sullen craft lead horse to water you can make her walk right in

Not Dead

I'm not dead I am sitting in my chair reading about twins drinking red and waiting for the artichoke to be done then I can do something else if I like the light goes I am even more alone not minding because it's temporary what not Lawson makes poetry of sewing lunch sun warm gradations of color on the cherries' afterbloom

Sustained Flotation

words like snuggle and warm for example any concept you care to mention something needing to be acted out the weather changing clothes flavors textures light falling on wood sustained flotation as the current swirls past monumental achievements whole new systems ideals of stone brief present long generations electric extensions augment impossible regret

Too Terrible

too terrible what happens how can I take it in 1.5 million killed in Belarus in World War II immigration hell tens of thousands in solitary confinement now how it goes on always too late

No Self

is this mere existence I can't imagine nothing like Samuel Johnson if that's the point great pleasure of imagining I don't know pain like he knew pain either but Beckett I can understand and sublimely subtle Schumann who pulls magic no self showing it is all self subsumed in art itself offering the actual experience only go there whatever distance you have to leap

Wide Open

reborn with morning spring your own reimagining anew young eternally wide open resurrection isn't it is going back reabsorbtion into god father recapitulating sperm did I miss something better synthetic authenticity mine own rediscovery of worlds

Whole Story

no out when I'm crazy insisting on some dumb as if I could always clear virtuoso of being myself how do they do it great ones power through so I can too just not as well this is the person too the well-known consequences of neurosis or whatever they call it now you pay rise above put up with imaginary opinions not telling the whole story

Harm's Way

farmers are my heroes everything depends on their hard work they deal with the shit both literal and figurative so I can do poetry and make-believe keep the land alive military the worst trained to kill we need a few brave defenders attacked must mobilize briefly instead a huge unquestionable establishment eats our wealth puts our young in harm's way makes matters worse by being in everybody's face world wide isn't natural mortality enough farmers remember what is real

Few Pass

spring chinook swimming up the Columbia just yesterday evaded the seine boats only to be caught on Steve's rod after sleeping aboard or not anchored in a row across a mile below Bonneville dam how few pass traditional pleasures appreciate in rarity among mislaid heirs of wanderlust lost the trail somewhere you will never know being too far down the chain of sensing which fish tastes best and exactly why

Real Life

could I believe in poetry instead I am only being nice though thinking less making progress toward dissolution for one thing potential for dissipation exhausted laughs aloud minding memory instead there must be something I can do or take for these shifty conditions besides Fassbinder films or "Bug" I rise above myself easily slip on something lighter not to be a bore pretend real life itself is going on

Miner's Lettuce

limping scratching squinting buzzing snuffling makes hardly any difference go less far slower otherwise still himself to himself and others fingers flying over the keys I wrote irrelevant meant irrevocable cutting fabric sewing skirt substituting "thing" for [noun] if hungry eat the winter lesson stews lentils split pea soup miner's lettuce in the spring new greenhouse will you let me help you it would mean a lot

When Mozart

110 million peasants pushed off their land each year the chemical of dog cat and human love is oxytocin one in five suffer from the new unnecessary poverty l'Aquila's great slanting piazza exquisite passagietta the facts of torture are worse than anyone imagined starving for art freezing ecstasy then it comes down refinement of feeling is far from trivial when Mozart

Being Good

sometimes I wish it was a little warmer but the water always feels good dive in amazed that I dare surface next to my flotation belt put it on do my routine thirty times thirty formerly clocked a minute how pleasantly warm it feels this is water supports me everywhere flat on my back extend my arms and rest in it chanting Buddhist mantras moving arms and legs slice through it feeling grounded pleasure being good

Maybe Twice

the moon shines in through the skylights clear cold night in the movie snow falls the river is frozen here it rushes past is it the same water or different water how often do the molecules meet if ever maybe twice in a million years if it was water yet or still is water says the moonlight shining in

Beyond Funny (poem for Ann)

it made us happy that they won the president black mayor a man with breasts and a movie theatre beyond funny anything is possible I voted for Dennis Kucinich with my bumper sticker Obama on my ballot surely count me too for Stu what a good town to be almost in your art affirms the hope of doing modest appreciative amused your practice makes not perfect but real seeing restores my belief in place

Talking Back

welcome artists poets at the library sincere intentions deserve respect given occasions to rise to they rise reveal what they really think about make objects they imagine making code cracked all emerge as human sharing small town long for spring together shyly boldly talking back

Full Plate

April fool just kidding I best lighten up better weather coming soon don't believe everything you read don't let them get you laugh at budgets do what you have to do the way it was when we were young some still are if they only knew well never mind my full plate balances tragically deprived each carry suffering not relieved by more bliss cost-free beauty raises social capital

No Future

how can I be serious this world promise betrayed no future wants archives conscious minds meeting continuity lost museums pillaged youth sacrificed literature academic sales weigh worth pop's on top dog-bit writers cringe cry havoc too late no future is what we are up against and will be forever more