Rich Carpets

dream light night inside the dark
music curtains drawn lamps lit
rich carpets remember footsteps
deep inside their Persian pattern

does it drive rabbits to suicide
or were they already that crazy
I don't know what they expected
to hear this isn't show business

Turning Blue

often the problem goes away
you just needed time to think
it is confusing if you let it be
but the berries are turning blue
the weeds are defeated at last
months roll over semitypically
old and young negotiate love
whatever happens will be fine
if luck holds and heaven smiles

Between Words

nothing stays the same longer
than it has to be told who you
wish to be in another situation

what it means is what it says
where it lives between words
with identical meanings if so

therefore decide for the time
being who you are becoming
without following any script

Taken Away

change is allowed in fact you'd better
what isn't given up will be taken away
the time comes because you liked it
doesn't mean you have to do it sgain

pleasures fade and so does fear of pain
you get used to it nothing new anymore
and no point going back where you were
every streetcorner clogged with memories

what you used to do you still can sort of
I'm still here more or less the same man
former boy but that was a long time ago
what is not forgotten no longer applies

Better Off

steadily warming inevitable growth
precedes decay disintegration meet
to converse particular time location
demands presence for a flourishing

let us reconsider ways we manage
waking incorporate dream stories
deplan our swims breathing deeply
easily exchange intense revelation

our exes better off without us now
select expedience can never forget
a different state unhelpful altitude
if you say so I will gratefully echo

Going to Town

why does it have to be so ugly
the working farmland beautiful
enter the fringes of our capital
suddenly both sides an unsightly
mess no coherent design or plan
brand new vulgar clashes against
old-fashioned funky falling apart
visual clutter of cars and business
block after block mile after mile
it's unbearably stupid our world

Perfect Fit

for Jean-Claude van Itallie

what not confident
after eighty years to
learn to be oneself
this has to do with
everything I can be
one world imagined
shaping itself to me
and fits me perfectly

No Illusion

vanity is entirely fantasy
if you wanted to go there
laugh at something funny
not at what makes me me

cliches of another episode
pathetic if you let them be
innocent as I ever was fear
no illusion you ever knew

Too Pretty

clouds too pretty to look at
rise to their sublimity look
well enough to take them in

you stop in your tracks but
only so long the light goes
rose into its own memory

Another Layer

shivery feeling suggests it's cold
but maybe it's just me "haptics"
gone awry as itching is not pain
shivers not wholly thermometric

another layer helps of clothing
I mean not of meaning nothing
means anything but we go on
wandering around wondering

I do anyway ever more aware
how much there is that I don't
even realize is there different
lives I can't imagine knowing

my own a tapestry of itches
parallel to thought and loving
work and play one endeavor
undeterred by mere sensation

An Anniversary

delirious with joy no more
frustrating student of piano
an anniversary two glasses
of wine with a $100 dinner
a classical American sunset
a full moon rising what else
could anyone possibly want

Pure Play

music all emotion but hardly particular
the way you might feel glad or jealous
all emotions in one suspended in time
feeling itself as long as a beat goes on

all form matches to something inside
craves order yearns for eternal return
affirms its breath and its beating heart
harmony images of atoms and galaxies

history is born again in each movement
ideas no words can explain slipping past
even as you half-discern their meanings
embodied in patterns made in pure play

What's Next

no point in complaining
but one wants to report
interesting what happens

and a certain alarm felt
never know what's next
and it won't all be good

still the present matters
as much as anything can
be active do as you will

That Idea

I invented a concept
but no one noticed
I didn't dance to it
went on as before
thought this is fine
what was that idea
I had it for a second

Caught Up

my father at 80
sat still musing
as if turned off
alarming to me
at half his age
now caught up
I have the same
brief moments
tingling aware
doing nothing
clearly happy
simply to exist

Soaked Sneakers

time going forward drags its past along
soaked sneakers heavier on the pedals
knowing you can't get here from nowhere

so where am I now to be speaking from
receding from readers on a fast caboose
500 miles of prairie and a mountain wall

this itch I scratch the same as yesterday's
all history converging into a single now
multiplied by billions the mind boggles

still you look in one direction at a time
according to which way you are facing
and can't always be turning clear around

Too Hard

what's more as if this isn't enough
grips my waking expectations as if
my take on what I do mere proposal
the real house book conversation to
follow later after I figure out what
I want hidden under layers of error
pretense self-serving preconception
I am too hard on myself indulgent
parodist of irony looking for truth

Certain Gaps

perverse diffidence accounts for certain gaps
opportunities offered and not seized because
I was distracted doubting the value of success
unsure of my ability to work at a higher level

instinctive modesty wars with my arrogance
classist assumptions of superiority unearned
playing the Yale card although I dropped out
that didn't seem to matter when I had the air

undone by my own not doing I pressed ahead
accepting this is who I am not who might be
if I wrote better if I had let myself be helped
if I'd released my ego singularity and said yes

An Opportunity

we do what we do
knowing it's
barely enough
the need infinite

if I were Chinese
would I be
sitting here as
the sun rises

nothing to do
an opportunity
for something
beyond a day

Sunday

hands
opera
garden
dreams

Effects Follow

remember to read more
than is written happens
even if you don't know

try to utter something
similar or not the least
like every prior thought

someone will read this
effects follow from less
without leaving a trace

No Wobble

let us change the way you run
first walk let your arms swing
the direction you are moving
straight ahead also your legs
straight from past to future
what was to what becomes
everything linear no wobble
does it feel better or worse

Crazy Thoughts

if cars could realize what's going on around them
they'd be terrified with human drivers behind the wheel
thinking their wild and crazy thoughts feeling numb
teach me to drive they'd say if they could speak to us
I will be mindful of the prime rule, which is never touch
soon we will have nothing to do instead of too much

Just Read

I'm feeling pretty low
what with my hands sore
rough dry cracking
my skin itching all over
and being so old
there's really no hope
so maybe not writing
is less depressing
I never want that
my dark side is over
maybe I'll just read
a Nick Hornby novel
or if that fails watch
another episode of
Horace and Pete

Naturally Warm

here and there a cat stares at something invisible
more intricate irises erupt in extravagant colors
the lawn growing fast soon needs mowing again
goldfish in the horse tanks don't stop mosquitoes
the horses and steers are feasting in the pastures
chickens lay more eggs as the days grow longer
everything is easier when we are naturally warm

The Merge

longing arises
give in
it's visceral
but what to
if only I liked heroin
just kidding
an all-over plunge-in
actually arriving somewhere
like sex
swimming comes close
the water embraces
every inch of skin
equalizing
depolarizing
in the dry I'm partway there
already imagining
the merge

Just Music

trying to do everything at once
just music devoid of meaning
like sunrise or cinnamon toast

trying to explain what I mean
find out in the process like day
or night completing its hours

trying to show I know better
not telling everything at once
to anyone happening to pass