Our Place

two years at once as the planet spins
2015 being wiped away as 2016 dawns
in the dark cold hot wet dry windy calm

tomorrow's party assembles our friends
who are learning their lines while I cook
allowing events to happen how they will

good year bad year depending on health
weak or strong we still like being here
in our chosen place to belong together

Seen or Not

old me meets the public eye
so I see myself seen or not
young me surprises himself
existing quite intact within
present-day me in the mirror
not an old man but myself
looking reasonably together
timeless me still in quest of
who I was and am and why

Say Something

if we are here now be still
if you care to tell me of it
I listen thinking thoughts
I can never fully disclose

none of us knows enough
to venture a positive opinion
anything said is too simple
the actual situation chaos

generalists overwhelmed
still try to say something
revelationist summative
wisdom in our ignorance

To Exist

four Ahabs makes me dizzy
like the very thought of 3-D
springing at me electrically

one is enough to remember
one at a time satisfies more
simply by needing to exist

Good Enough

sincere may justify naive
to some extent we're all
blind to our own strategy
stumbling toward truth

good enough is not good
unless I'm in the groove
then I can do no wrong
revelation is inevitable

more often not though
too late to take it back
nothing really erased
one must know better

Mindless Scribbles

marking the earth we are like pigs rooting
everything made of pieces can be taken apart
stars molecules disassembled into points in
motion and context gravity spinning its web

lines overlie what was already there as if
mindless scribbles counted as analytic purpose
compulsion to impose an order of our own
were virtue feeling we have to do something

leaving it alone is not proactive enough our
energy overflowing in disconcerting swirls
or sputtering through imagined obligations
competing with everything and its own ideas

Fear Not

not seeing what you're saying
I'll have to look more closely

nor denying age trying young
I am practicing to be old well

health is normal systems fail
existence continues to the end

fear not the icy blast it warms
like the god of human smiles

No Apologies

we ourselves are privileged
protected spared welcomed
dark is not deeper than light
solitude not realer than love
good more present than evil
truth demands no apologies

Christmas Eve

not tv we produce a tree
carpeted with sparkling
comforts me as Messiah
rolls through once more

I am distantly fond of it
meant something once I
no longer resist anything
no problem now I'm old

someone believes church
full commitment an idea
group reinforcement help
when energy flags at last

Inner Need

one good review okays the effort
daring exposure desiring a result
without total self-embarrassment

if I tell a story will you follow me
or at least look at the illustrations
paintings are more easily taken in

obvious solutions proved elusive
effort unappreciated still satisfies
inner need expressed as enzymes

Key Strokes

if I can't see or hear you
how can we talk where
can we meet who are we

fragments of contact not
long enough key strokes
have to be more definite

groping for clear sense
if I knew what I meant
you'd be the first I'd tell

Gold Nuggets

I have been using free indirect style without knowing it! The narrator merges with the character or the character speaks through the narrator. My struggle (mein kampf) is with the narrator, who is myself if I am talking about my own life. I am making myself up as I go along. If I narrate as someone else, who am I really? Never that objective kind of writer, which would dissociate me from my own being, which I am writing to affirm, affirming you.

The motions don't matter, I go through them unresisting, with pleasure. When pleasure fails, I don't know what I will do.

I'd like my journals to be published and read, in a thoughtfully edited form. There are many gold nuggets in them waiting to be picked up and cashed in as wisdom. Flying embers of beauty. The unit is the sentence, each sentence a thought, each thought a building block. Planetary destiny has to be taken into consideration: hence irony, or insulation. Existence is eternal, whatever you think.

Manufactured Laughs

if not funny what is manufactured
laughs defying pain and suffering
now if not when you thought of it

get it on or it didn't happen to you
or anyone else ideas not acted on
might as well never have existed

these are the contradictions of art
defined by where I live whom see
in the process of any ordinary day

We Know

what is better
better than what
by whose rule
old books laws
rational thought
no we just know
right or wrong
dead wrong it
still feels right
what can we do
how can we know
how to be good

One Person

where are we not in our chairs
what are chairs without bodies

imaginary places we can meet
impossibly exist if we believe

where did we leave our bodies
when we were out of our minds

or is it better to remain intact
one person containing the all

Nothing Else

can't I like Oliver Sacks feel sharply
why is it all vague soft though there
thought emerging timidly half-formed

he was no less confused unsure of even
his intelligence one knows one's limits
then surprisingly at times goes beyond

out of my way ego forever comparing
judging doubting rarely measuring up
notice never enough to entirely satisfy

that only comes as love tender moments
erase distinction between self and being
here now with you nothing else counts

Still Here

the past deepens
filling all forms
richly resonant
now not just now

image's context
is time not space
stars on blackness
glitters and sings

deep past present
portrait of being
briefly aflame
then winks out

imagine it gone
has no effect all
still here bright
rain its avatar

In the Middle

which side of the wall am I on then
how can I not equally well the other
what I may know cannot be beyond

if my book has the same title is it
every word different without any
other meaning remaining possible

all we can say can be this muddle
in the middle wanting love terror
the wall itself falls our imagining

Future Past

a choice once made is inevitable
real time includes the future past
what will we think of the present
if other possibilities ever existed

the same way a poem takes form
in writing its own rules on water
winding downhill toward the sea
of meaning waiting to evaporate

Adding Up

fleeting wanders open files
the wonderful things people say
lost moments filling memory

whom I appreciated at the time
nothing to regret afterwards
they went on being themselves

and so did I accumulating
possible revelations adding up
to life as it is actually lived

Bad Karma

what hero rides to the rescue
of our hapless lost republic
rich yet predominantly poor
peuliarly confused passively
consuming much too much
we like convenience rely on
comfort not to be unhappy

bad karma builds up I am
afraid chickens come home
shocked silly dangerously
afraid reactive blaming us
ISIS is the same people who
destroyed the cities in the
Late Bronze Age Collapse

we are not there but here
still protected by oceans we
ought not to disregard trash
never helps revenge earns
interest greatly owed we're
overexposed never learning
be quiet keep out of the way

Always There

anything serious intrudes on my hideout
drama I mean always seems so contrived
I can't stand to go through it truth or not
everything is true but what is said about it
bullshit dominant honest news indistinct
manipulative propaganda factional bullies
even the best arguing only their own case
farmland insulates rushing creek washes
clean images show what was always there

Stay With Me

second nature is coming to bear
one hand less than twenty-one
no I mean specifically just that
emerging from the underbrush

stay with me here we go again

the first time no telling what
despite being jollied into life
"life" ringing out from within
as if nothing could be known

Separate Houses

free men do not build palaces of stone
prefer to live in small separate houses
wondering if others are all so isolated
if perfectly commanded faculties exist

some remembered how to be animals
can I imagine myself superior to any
excused from labor by my greater age
whether my now is justified in being

How To

how to get to midtown
walk or take the subway

how to get to Portland
drive or nothing

how to be strong
eat sleep exercise

how to stop thinking
try instead to start

how to handle loss
no way but face it

how to write a poem
one word after another

High Winds

how fast is normal separated by real estate
interests blown apart by radical weather
in that case save the pictures I mean art

the water is still outside roaring rushing
forever downhill everything else too high
decisions taken over by indulgent uncles

too late now the past calls from Romania
reliving theatre saves driving in the dark
searching for a fit response to high winds

More Noise

if we were to talk about it
what would we say would
it matter what we thought
or only make more noise

the latter I think whatever
I think can remain private
if you would be so kind if
we understand each other

I will find some use for it
perhaps in a novel or play
someone else is speaking
as if the ideas were theirs

If I Had

I did or I didn't
know if I had

I meant what
I meant to say

I heard about it
but wasn't here

this is enough
if you think so

Perfectly Clear

theoretically I'm interested
actually not I've done that
it's all perfectly clear to me

experience exhausts itself
repetition numbs necessity
loses force I'll just go home

At Bay

steady rain in the dark before dawn
the sound of silence is full of noises
my demons include criticalness lazy
sloth held at bay by constant tidying
impatience envy thwarted ambition
one can only laugh meanwhile body
thick but evanescent for another day

Winter Rains

is it time even now
the lights come on
automatically once
darkness descends
the cats walk about
despite winter rains
a chicken's feathers
protect it from cold
we more vulnerable
rely on gas electric
and all that follows

Maybe Yes

say no if you must if you mean it think
again maybe yes default to yes unless
you'd rather nothing happened not me
withholding what I didn't know I had
opportunities ungraspable at the time I
didn't know how to write a budget or
a business plan anything else follows
from intention imagined then realized