Thursday, October 15, 2020

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

Wednesday, October 14, 2020

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

Tuesday, October 13, 2020

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

Sunday, October 11, 2020

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

Saturday, October 10, 2020

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

Thursday, October 01, 2020

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