Life Itself

politics is not more serious than life
itself a world of many states of mind
and body like a river tirelessly seeking
death in the restless ocean of eternity

Each Moment

 what am I trying to say
that this is life
in all its preposterous complexity
simply getting along
that this is me
in the real world
each moment a poem

No Plan

 the tendency to symmetry
remains a mystery even
broken as it always is
not what you do but
who you are doing it
according to no plan
revealed nothing
known to be true

Staying Home

 the places I want to go are closed
the people I want to see are dead
what's the point of old New York
 
museums rich in art already seen
concerts of music I used to love
no more hankering for the new 
 
city me carries on in dreams
livelier than memory's reprise
staying home the now preferred

Loving Look

 alas his eyes are long unseen
their loving look complex
challenging my existence
wryly accepting wanting me
 
and in the dream I am writing
trying to please women who
have their own idea of now
more style than I can equal
 
I do my best always sincere
despite a fondness for irony
wake with unbearable feeling
loss and desire intermingled

Too Close

to Lora

I could have spoken
up but you chose not
to reveal more than
the public story so
I'll never know you
really don't want to

Beyond Words

 stop naming composing every moment
as words as if everything distinct and
present when referred to as if anyone
ever quite gets what I mean that's not it
that's the words running away with it
 
like another sense another mode of
being in the world words overriding
actual living noise bright light bodily
smells and innumerable sensations
 
turn it off if you can already enough
said to yourself if you can remember
their names anything will do someone
loves you will know what you mean

On the Fly

 can I sit and think usually
I am doing something else
and something bubbles up
and I start writing and see
where it goes thinking on
the fly not stopping to ask
if it's the right thing or what
I want to be doing getting
lost in imaginary construct
and these days I can barely 
see the keyboard so it isn't
as easy to rattle on I do it
anyway how am I to learn
to think without writing

On Doing Nothing

 I can't read or write all the
time my eyes give out
closing them fall into reverie
going over random wording
might be letters or smething
I'd like to say to someone
now that I have nothing to do
I need to practice doing nothing

Quite Mad

 they will buy your butter
if you churn it fresh cream
we never had before I
wanted cheese and pasta
 
enough is more than we
deserve but thank you
have another deviled egg
come again if I am here
 
after that something else
you think as if there were
a future knowing the past
is over and forgotten
 
so that's the way it goes
da-dum da-dum da-dum
driving you quite mad
if you think of it that way

As Is

if I am not to write anymore
what will I do with thoughts
they will continue to arise
sometimes seeming to progress
toward the firmer grasp I need
to validate myself and others
 
I want to know the world as is
but capable of improvement
so much wrong is worsening
through wrong understanding
while I just manage to go on
what I can do already done
 
still I wonder what will happen
will the young be wise enough
and diligent to save the world
there is nothing else we live
creating patterns that live on

let them be better without me

Risiblle History

 are you serious
do I have to be
I'd rather reveal
risible history
cheer us all up
we need it badly

Trapped

I'm so far left I don't know I've left the real world behind
I don't even know I'm left
I think I'm in the center
and this is it
but it isn't really like that
the center has fallen over the edge into the north sea
the pitiful remnant clinging to the old reality left behind
or swept into the trashpit of irrelevance
people with taste
and no price
are hopelessly outnumbered
everything is ruined and they go right on
we all do
trapped

Already Wise

can I sit and think
what about without
putting it in words
to be written out
 
am I come undone
nothing I can do
nowhere I can go
dependent on you
 
and you on me of
course already wise
to how it goes
even poetry dies

Smithereens

why must the family tree be
espaliered wouldn't it be better
growing wild reaching for light
in all directions finding form as it
goes along sprouting branching
interconnecting every which way
stiff Smiths become Smithereens

Only Existing

what does meaning mean
is there such a thing at all
or is there only existing
and that has to be enough
sophomoric doubts remain
like where is the real me
inside this superficial twit
have I lost myself forever

Flying Friend

 for Theo Ehrhardt
 
ten years ago he was depressed
now he's manic about music and
Ukraine singing with a choir and
flaunting the colors flying friend
 
youthful earnestness and optimism
seasoned by decades being bipolar
still helps any situation needing help
and doesn't every virtually all the time
 
I assumed he was like me and took
his cheer and helpfulness for good
character and it truly is despite his
varying mood he only wants to help

Real Enough

philosophy in action tells me
sometimes I get to be funny
earth medicine helps remember
everything will still be real or
real enough to make an impression
that's what matters isn't it true
the day is much like any other
serious only if you want it to be

A Simple Rule

 that's so drop dead right on
I can't believe I thought of it
and bothered to write it down
before it dissolved again into a
fog of unrealized potential I
don't really understand how it
works computational equivalence
suggests it's simpler than it looks
and that's the way it seems to me
a simple rule complicated result
the underlying principle is life

On the Rise

how far we are from what's going on

some people still have fun and think

the world exists the way it always did

we alone realize it's almost over well

we're old and it's almost over for us

younger people still have to go on living

we don't like crowds couldn't sit through

a Broadways show kleenex in our ears

against the amplification vulgarity on

the rise as always and we don't miss it

The Question

 not what religion I subscribe to
but what I actually believe is the
question I need to be asking it
isn't easy to think about sunk
in preconceptions and received
systems of thought so basic we
don't even notice assuming life
is what we grew up thinking is
what we assume must be real
because everybody says it is
you have to start all over and
that's impossible having come
this far the boys and girls have
got each other'snumbers in their
phones but usually don't answer if
you don't know where you're going
maybe you have already arrived

Natural Music

 if you are vegetarian
don’t even mention meat
let the animals live
like you and me breathe
deeply or fast as they
tumble frolic laugh and
dance to natural music
 
some are friends some
we cut up cook and eat
chewing delicious morsels
not thinking of the rest
 
if you are an omnivore
you can speak freely of
incorrect opinions tastes
you were hesitant to mention
when you were thinking
about being more pure doing
good for all sentient beings
out of sympathy for the eaten

The Thing Itself

for G.F.

protect the personal while digging deep
and skimming quickly in the real-to-me
fruitless pursuit of what makes it matter
the thing itself for its own strange sake
 
how can I say what I mean when I don't
know don't trust my own thinking circle
down to the empty knowing other people
feel otherwise serve their own obsessions
 
I don't need to know or care to love them
still I wish we could connect be friends and
feel the original sympathy and interest that
made us want to be together love all night

Let Be

 funny that we don't agree about anything really
put that aside glad to be let be without argument
who each is not subject to judgment or discussion
and why should it least of all by our own companion
I'd like a group but then I'd have to deal with egos
theirs and mine raising its head looking for trouble
put that aside I am no critic and not actually alone

Every Swing

the silent sweeping rhythm of the pendulum
demonstrates regularity of laws reconfirming
heartbeat breathing revolution of the spheres
 
knowing what it wants to do it gradually slows
some fraction of energy sapped on every swing
stills to demonstrate verticality till pushed again

Crucial Element

what would you not have done if you could
and how would you be different if you were
can anything be subtracted from the necessary
past are you bearing every single thing in mind
 
time goes both directions the present causing
at least requiring the past as much as vice versa
experienced as sequential though only one thing
this moment not a result but a passing phase
 
how can you regret what had to be mistakes
made to be left behind when freshly painful
reluctance to choose propelled by doubt itself
a crucial element in already complete unfolding

Experience

age is its own isolation
everyone I know is younger
most people my age are dead
speak as if it doesn't matter
or isn't real all the time

point of view matters
everything looks different
depending on where you stand
and the time of year and day
knowing it is the same

we are all of us here
attending to similar needs
with more or less experience
and skill still being selves
not yet finally known

what am I tryig to say
that I can't help being thus
age counts for nothing in the end
adding up as it goes along
forgetting everything

Favorite Bits

my mother liked the gizzard
I the heart everyone the liver
no one the neck good for broth

these are the ways of family at
chow perfecting our manners
learning to have what we like

no one suffered any deprivation
or other such limitation of desire
I go on wanting my favorite bits

Late Sunlight

only nothing is infinite
we are finite everything is
or wouldn't actually exist
what begins must end
that's the necessary deal

and still I feel this moment
peeling an orange is forever
suspended in late sunlight
short but infinite within
limits that count for nothing

Middle-Sized

when I cut the poem
I am not renouncing
the thought only the
attempt to express it
or it may be trivial
fond as I am of how
I offered it in words
most thoughts small
to fit our condition
middle-sized animals
we can imagine large