Poem - i have a knife

i have a knife
i was cutting things with it
when i realized knives are ugly
like guns are ugly

anything built to divide
sunder or cleave cannot help
but be a monstrosity

no matter how you
dress it up

Poem - robert the great poet

robert the great poet
you're getting old and
i'm not ready for that
feeling a certain
indicisiveness in your mind
or a hesitation in your voice
due to age due to
infirmness we can't escape
i remember in the past
there was nothing half done
about you as you pounded out
verse in the summer fall winter
spring files everywhere with
correspondances papers exploding
in all directions heater blasting
in the livingroom with that
curious green shag ancient
carpeting and now
you are a faint voice on the
other end of the phone
getting fainter and fainter
as i think about it & i feel
like now i have betrayed you
because i write things like
this and you are such
the poet

Poem - oh well when i'm

she's a tough bitch
of a waitress and
she thinks she's better
than me so she
gets in close and invades
my personal space but
oh well when i'm
writing about her she
doesn't know what to
do because she's
never seen anyone do
that in a restaurant
before

The Last Time I Saw You

The last time I saw you, years ago, was on a bus. The second I got on, something told me this would be possibly the last time I would ever see you again. So I confessed my love for you, and my admiration.

I saw how my words made you very upset. And when you became agitated, I knew it was the last time I ever would see you, in this lifetime.

Lao Tzu Does Nothing With the Rain

i.

Lao Tzu is gracefully watching the raindrops fleck on the window, beyond the window is the side of the abandoned house. As he observes, I cannot help but watch as well, Lao Tzu does nothing, but for me every drip is magnified. Each raindrop becomes like a whole country, or a room of the Louvre, or of a kind of imperishable great love. I realize these drops of water could be anything and everything, all at once. I realize, also, that these drops can be nothing, or about nothing at all, totally unimportant. Then I am astounded -- look at how the raindrops fall, flecking the window!

We watch for a long time.

ii.

Lao Tzu having done nothing, is now done. He smiles at me, never saying a word. He goes out through the back of the kitchen.

Poem - it rains on the abandoned house

it rains on the abandoned house
masking the frequent beeps i hear
of dying smoke detectors because
the power in the home has been
shut off for at least a year

"the more it rains the more it rains
the more it keeps on raining" (these lines
taken from winnie the pooh and they
are true as true can be while
i hear the ducts softly clicking
as warm are comes into my room)


North Lombard Street
Oak Park
Oct 2008

Poem - i'm sure it made good time

here's a happy poem
designed to inspire

i saw a small cloud today all alone
in the blue blue sky

it was alone but not worried
taking it's time

headed NW towards chicago
i'm sure it made good time

Poem - stone is comforting for a stone

i give up i go to sleep
i turn to stone

you are smarter than me
wiser than me

giving up is giving up
dreaming is dreaming

stone is comforting
for a stone

Poem - the historic baseball team

the historic baseball team
lost the game

the man watching this
has a white handle-bar
mustache

he quits the bar
in great anger and disgust

off he goes almost
bumping into a young
pretty blonde

They Don't Need Me

I don't remember the first debate at all. I was high as a kite on pain medication, and some other pills I popped at the last minute. All prescribed, I might add. I've been saving them up. You'd never know I was high and out of my skull. Out of my mind, you know what, I did great. The second debate, I can vaguely remember, when some parts didn't go as well as I wanted them to. That is difficult for me, not being top form. This last debate, I'm going to get higher than I've ever gone before. My body will know what to do, after being so paradigmatic all these years, my mouth and face and body will get the job done. They don't need me. I'm sure of that.

What kind of mission was this, anyways?

Seconds to impact, going in too fast. The scope is hash, probably jammed. Then I'm in the trees. The left wing shears away in a shivering spectacular explosion of carbon and titanium fragments as the jet fuel blooms fiery red and yellow. I can feel the searing heat through my suit when the whole airframe twists.

I come to right before dawn, I see that I am wrapped in part of what remains of the jet. I numbly feel myself up and down, the left side of my face is roasted a bit, a nice 3 inch gash on my knee, but I think it still works. Somehow I get out of the burnt harness, and I extricate myself from the wreckage. I carefully look around. I'm in a meadow. I crashed into a slot-like canyon -- anywhere else around here, I can see I'd have flown into a rock wall. It was like threading a camel through the eye of a needle. What are the odds of that?

And as I'm congratulating myself on this, I see odd shapes all over the field, in the trees, everywhere. They are vaguely familiar, and totally out of place, and I feel subconscious horror. I don't know why. But in the growing light, I have to go and see what these things are. Walking up, I notice how one of my bombs has burst open, ejecting whatever it is all over the forest. Before I took off, I was told that this was a very dangerous cluster type "shock and awe" payload. But there are no bomblets anywhere. As far as I can see, there are stuffed toys. Specifically, stuffed gray bunnies. Hundreds and hundreds of stuffed, cute, toy bunnies.

They sent me to drop a payload of toys. They said it was bomblets, but the bombs were full of plush gray bunnies. Bunnies. Again, to repeat myself, bunnies. My face is starting to hurt like hell, and now I can barely bend my knee. What kind of mission was this, anyways?

Chung Tzu Discusses Roy Lic

Now I am with Chung Tzu, who comes by unannounced, but he is always welcome, and he knows it.

"What about Roy Lic?" I ask Chung Tzu.

"What about him?" says Chung Tzu.

"Roy Lic does not exist!" I say.

"He does, and he does not." says Chung Tzu. "But I know there became a possibility of Roy Lic either existing -- or not existing -- when certain people asked about if he existed, or not."

I pour Chung Tzu a drink.

"So, now, what do we do about this potentially existing, non existing Roy Lic?" I ask.

"If Roy is around, let him decide." says Chung Tzu, who downs the cocktail in one gulp.

Poem -- a. b. c. d.

a.

the bar is busy
i have my spot

words please don't
slow me down

i need you
like a train needs track

b.

a glittering party is
set up at the farsin
mansion as dusk
arrives

i walk by and see
an old man in a tuxedo
standing on the stairs
waiting for everybody to
show up

c.

they ask for the
beer list

& pick
a mediocre ale

d.

roy lic slept
here in this poem

but roy lic
does not exist

I Know What You Mean

He serves me and later he asks if everything is okay, so I say the food is great but about an hour ago 3 cute girls got on the train for a club in Chicago and I didn't follow them, and I'll never see them again. The bartender doesn't blink or miss a beat, he says, "I know what you mean, buddy. I know what you mean."