Half Open

quick before the short month ends
before memory fades vision recedes
before the next new solution arises
behold the caravan of my experience
quick while the door is still half open

already tomorrow in New York still
yesterday somewhere else reminders
that I am merely here where I was
before I am not now everything else
goes on my absent presence unnoted

Passing Beauty

shiver of mortality on a gray
morning clouds consider tears

nostalgia for forgotten dreams
hiding their secrets forever

chaos entropy void threaten
retaliation for better times

should anything be as it is
passing beauty our epiphany

Now I

I thought Uncle Mark
going out on the porch to smoke
was a sign of the tyranny of marriage
now I do it myself
without being asked

Later Better

I had something to say
if I didn't say it forgot it
if I forgot it didn't count
or came back later better

Gray Awakening

dreams disappear
when I wake up
vivid thereness
suddenly gone
irrecoverable

where have I been
unremembering
still wounded
by loves revisited
pain of missing

these the times
that try my soul
these lessons lost
unresurrected
gray wakening

Better World

is art a retreat from
whatever there is or
was or vitally part of
the seething center

is art an excuse for
doing what I like
instead of working
for the general good

I need to know if
what I choose to do
is entirely selfish or
key to a better world

In the Play

some exit never to be seen again
die offstage between the scenes
in some colonial misadventure
gone wrong his time had come
his wife unfaithful bored ready
to move on to someone better

others reappear as themselves
or as someone else in another
century symbolically speaking
we are all so terribly intelligent
if we could remember who we
were to be in the play of reality

Playing God

casting is like naming the world
playing God brings being given
names everything follows after

Perfect Poise

fun may be funner
laughter after all
arises on demand
cue the punch line
wink take cymbal

love still lovelier
if you think it is
invest whole self
give more than all
returning interest

compounded wit
tickles twitches
without a word
missed misplaced
with perfect poise

Events Unfold

every which way softly colliding
yields unpredictable complexity
nothing is surprising expect the
worst will eventually happen not
here right now we can be open
about our lives within prudent
limits while significant events
unfold on another salient level
time and macroeconomics rule