New Glasses

not seeing itself

but what you see

old issues dissolve

with new glasses

there's the world

let noise be music

off the radio silence

roars hums secrets

into open ears

Mood Swings

are mood swings permitted in this play
ground swells from a storm elsewhere
reach across life without losing power

even now childhood traumas matter if
you think they do who are you anyway
if not fully formed from the very first

I wish I could start fresh but never was
could only fail because the country had
betrayed Lew's confidence Dot's desire

I expect what I was expected to expect
even now love's white-out substitutes
for being what I never could become

Loose Change

the news doesn't have the answers
what you wonder is not revealed
in facts or lies a proper face put on
for the occasion melts later at home
when you're all alone with gravity

don't ask nature for excuses either
early night lasts longer every day
until the annual reversal the dead
reviving doesn't apply to animals
like you and me and those we love

the sun blazes away behind clouds
indifferent to its local dominance
is there life on other planets do you
care who knows your secrets can I
tell if what you say is wholly true

and further questions we'll discuss
the death of friends lost ecstasies
episodes of fading faith extend to
mornings like this dark and rainy
days counted out like loose change

Moving Air

hard to be serious and why

this instant this pattern life

itself so trivial among many

minuscule efforts at being

for God if you believe if not

what else excuses self-belief

focus on how the words fall

not how you feel or fail to

called-for confidence eludes

conviction in conversation

for example as in for instance

insisting your work is good

who cares if you don't say

I mean it who listens if you

do your best crystallizes

casually from moving air

New Energy

days of nothing but

keeping busy bored

is not true sanity

the urge to lie down

obeyed leads to new

energy feeling good

OK anyway music

cookies sunlight

in the afternoon

Elevated Reading

feeling sick and dying is nothing

special but for happening to me

after so much health and happiness

in love and elevated reading I myself

can write and managed to survive

degraded hope for improving long-

lost revolution in spite of everything

this you will remember spring fall

colors pure bright white sunlight

as though it mattered how I felt

to weather ever changing getting

worse for months and never better

than it used to be if only you could

remember how to count days' ways

Not Me

how little reality I let in

this is reality

not mention what is happening

somewhere else

is not another time

this is the one we have

eating us slowly up

whether we want to think about it

or say not me

not what I meant

this my register

forbidden to go further

inherited limits beautiful

as I want it to be

or even my own idea