Plenty of Time

assuming I may fall into incapacitation or drop dead any day now
is quite relaxing in a way although I still want to get things done
the environment needs to be maintained and the bills keep coming
I privilege love and friends over solitary work and I always have
there is plenty of time to be solitary and continue to self-express
isn't that what everyone is doing though not necessarily as art

Not Too Old

ninety-eight is not too old for chocolate cake
I celebrate it on my own with a banana split
hoping we all will feel much better very soon

Dive In

1
cool water on a hot day
dive in have confidence
dissolve in it tread water
correct the spelling later

2
meantime everything else
goes on needing to be done
deer love roses fence down
let them have their desire

A Feeling

why do I scratch
I want to feel something
as if the taste of fresh berries and cream
weren't a feeling
or vertigo
or the wonderful tomato sauce
I made to put on polenta
or Schumann
or Maggie Nelson
or the power mower bouncing over the lawn
I don't need to scratch too

Stay Cool

trying to stay cool
the fan comes on
in my laptop in
my lap remember
learning to scratch
it feels so good
you can't stop doing it

Future Past

who are our guardians
if not ourselves or each
other better able to see
if not know better who
each one chooses to be

this is what we needed
to say what we meant
excavate wisdom from
experience moving on
invent our future past

My Walk

these woods are ours we planted them
a dozen years ago 400 native saplings
a wide swath down along Silver Creek
protected them from deer and beavers
as best we could ran long hoses to them
the first dry summers enough survived
tall now a dense mix of varied species
wild undergrowth I mow a walking path
but can't just enjoy my walk too much
to be done a beaver cut down a poplar
blackberries taking over the stream bank
clematis climbing the trees and no one
to save it make it into a beautiful park
I would if I could the price of owning

Normal Functions

how we are novel
clusters in a void
like galaxies like
universes spinning
in a bumpy field

how have purpose
special pleasures
arising in a tempo
each its singular
epiphenomenon

how we do go on
normal functions
often self-repair
each one unique
freely swarm

welcome warmth
deplore decline
tend to pair up
help each other
study to exist

Unfinished

when I die don't worry
in case I didn't mean it
time is finite though it
feels infinite anything
might happen and will
you can embrace it all
and be more complete
death could come right
now any time is fine
leave life unfinished

An Emotion

how do I feel about X
impatient exasperated
heart-broken helpless
is that an emotion too

why feel anything when
it's obviously hopeless
too much already said
about what's happened

obviously I feel terrible
how did we let this occur
everything going to hell
nothing done to stop it

personally I am well and
happy to be living my life
loving loved and creative
my heart full of gratitude

Being Sick

recovered you can't remember being sick
or if you do it doesn't matter
misery ahead unknowable saves all fear

It's Time

full moon solstice sooner than ever
turns before we know it's time as if
summer started ending as it begins

Italian Men

a seemingly boundless store of feeling
awaits recognition in each individually
pretended nonexistence notwithstanding
I am the trumpet cock telephone alarm

is this Italy it is Florence in the morning
the streets freshly washed by beautiful
machines operated by Italian men who
don't see me catch another train and go

much later I know how I must have felt
between the coffee opera monuments of
a better age before ego got the best of us
strawberries in season and Schubert alive

Least Details

the details that matter are the date
the year is now with all its history
place under a thin realm of cloud
and which pilgrimage brings you

if you are seeking history it is lost
former tribes built no monuments
existed without reading or writing
at one with moments as they pass

how would I live without the word
a timeless illusion of permanence
meaning beyond one little lifetime
its least details will matter forever

continuity includes the forgetting
where you came from how you can
think yourself real worth knowing
why you keep doing what you do

Going Anywhere

summer again next week the glaciers gone water
a problem for the grass trees dying people thirsty

elsewhere in the world one hates to think about
going anywhere that used to be so interesting

creativity was inherently revolutionary but not
in this age of commercialization and celebrity

the wildest art as a perk of power and wealth
only titillates whatever its ideas and gestures

Reading Aloud

severe skin all-over prickling
coming and going inexplicably
meanwhile everything goes on
as usual need energy to keep up

and the car has its troubles too
and the world is coming apart
fools or worse grabbing power
for their own dubious purposes

I'll get over this then something
else will go wrong and so on
keeping a record for the gods
to read aloud in the long winter

Local Roads

the actual miners go down in the holes
work hard in grueling conditions unlike
you me or the flaggers on local roads
like waitpeople cooks not lifeguards

what it might be like to actually work
might satisfy more than nothing to do
to get you through the day something
constructive cooperative with others

Somewhere Else

we are Greek and Christian via Rome
but all that came later than the forest
our grunts and sea-calls echo bears
and gulls calling us to leave the land

driven away by jungle wet and desert
we traveled north into simpler trees
and onward still to windy highlands
where trees were stunted and sparse

now we worship them one by one
standing still in half-remembered
consciousness of being on our way
from somewhere to somewhere else

What Else

curiosity is a good enough reason
possibly the best follow your
curiosity find your bliss

pleasure is never trivial what else
identifies as your very own
technology can satisfy

a piano is technology nothing wrong
with ever-changing pathways
to the same pure end

Not Personal

"Our pleasure is individual-—but not personal."
—Roland Barthes, "The Pleasure of the Text"

the same with blueberries
or clouds (without edges)
they are for all who taste
as well as eat all who see

I can be myself without
necessarily affirming me
write "I" as if it were "he"
one existing as we all do

Not Me

this is not me
or rather it is
not the actual
body of course
sitting here and
writing this no
this me is what
materializes one
letter at a time
something else
is propagated
the literary me
true to itself

Even Rain

less eventually nothing if you don't start
you can be sure it might even rain then
you'll be sorry even if you aren't already

don't imagine I am giving up until I do
something more actively stupid than an
extra-long nap on a dark wet afternoon

Home Gardening

anxiety of abundance
stress of harvest home
gardening needed time
strength agility lacking
saved by younger friend
happy working $100 days
too many blueberries ripe
for me to pick and freeze
incomparable on granola
escaping chickens show
varied smarts brown one
comes home white one
doesn't get it when it's
dark enough I grab her
throw her in good night

What We Meant

more is always to be told
showing makes doing real
think it over after the fact
impossible while in the act

this is what happened to us
only because we say it did
otherwise invisibly melting
into time's imaginary flow

even then we'll soon forget
what mystified in the doing
grasping at the barest hints
twigs upon a rushing torrent

considering the obstacles
we do more than expected
registering protest at least
saying what we meant to do

My Dream

remember my dream later
I never do

is that enough a day full
of nothing

Immensely Varied

the same word or phrase can mean
all kinds of things as people are not
at all all the same circumstances also
immensely varied not like you or me

therefore how does one read or write
because words are not what they mean
but a system to solve this very problem
you have to be willing to be understood

this includes a distinct class of esthetes
as in nothing matters more than beauty
their joy distinctly felt but never shown
thus classical music and other language

how do you show it there are no words
and the ones there are you don't speak
sure everbody should speak standard
English but that's not going to happen

Some Places

how hot is hot not really
some places so hot you die
I wilt willingly do anything
that arises in the shade
weather is like health I
need some then I'm happy

Keep Trying

capitalism has to be progressive
otherwise I don't see the point
just constant scramble to keep up
individually and as a civilization
we have to keep trying to improve
we can if that's what we aim for
ultimately this system can't go on
all balloons either pop or shrivel
maturity suggests a time to stop
better we be seeking equilibrium
concentration better than growth
once you are as big as you can be

Too Much

normal living is almost enough
without writing or accomplishing
anything more these blog poems
retail most of the stories anyway

amid Karl Ove's confused twenties
we know how well it will turn out
he makes it into these good books
and is the writer he wanted to be

I already am what I am becoming
already wrote the books of my life
still living I am aware of being old
beyond the luxury of infinite time

in other words it's now or never
more than ever defined by being
each doing adds to the richness
already too much and too little

Growing Mint

perfect iced tea introduces June
weeding climax survived intact
as we'll ever be never younger

I was my grandmother's eldest
male a role I readily embraced
admired for easy achievements

eventually it reemerges in her
recipe you have to be growing
mint use best Assam black tea