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

Denial

saturation of things I am not interested in

Russian election hacking back to school other

cultures plans for improving the theatre after the pandemic

this is now I am me here old full satisfied

All Set

I backed up my computer \

and charged my phone

nothing to worry about

All I Have

this is all I have this
life largely over to make
a picture of the world

read seeing ever less
widely staying home
hardly talk to anyone

NPR is just the radio
music can be anything
we can still have fun

Nothing Else

what the mind throws up feels real but isn't
a man floating in the sky a woman's voice
"You can" close to my ear can what I wonder
dreaming on the edge of sleep but not tired
sleeping standing up because nothing else
I can't see well enough to read all the time

Little Poem

I am not entirely happy with myself
sometimes I mess up
but I'm not going to make too much of it
just this little poem

Roll Call

I see what you mean my best hope
innocence recovered if not resumed
my résumé roomy enough for that

cryptic wisdom the last remains a
fragment shored into infinite time
can anything be infinite anymore

the temperature wobbles between
hints of coming cold and extreme
heat further agitation of electrons

mere dream questioning survival
barely fit for roll call which I am
sharing my name with millions