When I was a rabbit
of a child the shadows
of wide wingspreads above
caused cold shivers
that turned to wonder
once they passed.
When on the edge
not falling not flying
a thought of joy goes out
to those who went and
sad empathy for those
who have not yet.
Just beyond oxygen
is marriage full of fears
deliciously offering
gardens for exploring
when I step over
a shadowy edge.
For the last two generations
using both brain and gene
the new art of trifurcation
has kept pervIDs clean.
The professors of action
and doctors of cognition
were just government
and wise regulators.
When the time came to leave
I could not deny it was right
my essentials already packed
I made ten miles before light.
The air was not on my side
an ochre cloud followed me
threatening the yellow spit
the refugee’s pathology.
Tech had taken
its extreme tolls
leaving humans in
an excess of control.
I could not hear the drums
after a while on the trail
so I pushed in the same direction
suspecting police on my tail.
To avoid leaving tracks I
stuck to rocks and broken road
trying to scatter ministructed
and falsifacted data.
Familiar with the methods
of the homogensia I skirted
ridges, scurried in wadis
and applied eraticism.
The nodes of ViewMotivFab
technique are the obventiv,
the augmentiv and the synthlativ,
and hylooped they give
to the deviantia ways
of demodeling most traces
picked up and groogled in
the maintenance of sociostasis.
I was sweating by the time
darkness was threatening
to let loose the tiny
dexsquitos and autobats.
How far had I come
limping the route hopefully
leading me to some
outpost of the sensullati?
What was safe, indeed
what was safety?
Exposure can be deadly
but so can pure hiding.
I thought I saw a cave
halfway up the steepest
and rockiest alcove
of the box canyon.
Wondering what might
already occupy it
I went for it, impatient
to find some sleep.
Just as I climbed to
the edge of the black hole
I sought for my bed
the sun was exhausted.
Lying just out and just in
listening to the low wind
whistle I turned off my
prosthonics and explants.
Some moments sit
on a more gravid verge
than others and tempt
the urge to finality.
Letting go to the slight
inevitabilty and weighty
frost of suggestion
of change, I gave up
all hesitation. The eyes
seeing out and yes in
kissed history goodnight
saying, ‘Que sera sera.’
Don’t know when or where
I was lying but it appeared
my life had been spared
my breath repaired.
Not in a hospital
my bed was under
umbrella’d home of
both trees and stars.
I was subject and object,
disproportionally corporeal,
hearing voices
of what I’d always been.
When arrested efforts
to escape manipulation
can transform tyranny
into emancipation.
In a dreamed-of
future our needs will
rise out of our planting
prescient deeds.
How’re you gonna live without
cutting the rot from the root,
slicing ash from flesh?
How can wit construct
an edifice out of beams
knotted with cancerous
slippage and refusal?
To sharpen the mind’s knife
scrape its edge against
a flat, obdurate stone.
Today that rock may be
a rough and dense president.
Tomorrow’s might be a job,
might be a family crisis,
or an arduous quest to find
the reason underlying the cloud
that has descended and dulls
all of our fine blades into
spoons for our spoonfeeding.
A scalpel in the skilled hand
dividing bad blood from marrow,
the right tool for the right job,
a critical question to reveal
the foolishness of the fool.
These are the means of maintaining
a keen and discriminating
civilization.
One choice is to sit
in the sun rather than
in a room where light
is only incandescent.
Leaning leans one
way thickening then
who knows?
Tenement is apartment,
mansion is shack.
Will you turn left or right
when traffic is distracted?
Less to more
photons to calories –
what works.
The red is tipsy
as lips curve.
The green serves
the urge to liberties.
The yellow middle
shuffles the deck and says,
‘Pick a card,
any card.’
Will she or won’t she
honor the old agreements,
valuing double jeopardy
over disobedience?
One choice leads
where two pollenate,
won’t we?
Editing my own poem
for sound or for sight
will slant the meanings
originally delightful
into shadow’s grain
like fissures of brain
nurture seeds.
The red is tipsy
as lips curve.
The green serves
the urge to liberties.
The yellow middle
shuffles the deck and says,
‘Pick a card,
any card.’
I don’t have time
to be reading more books.
It’s too hard to get all those words
to fit into my outlook.
Sorry I missed the meeting.
I couldn’t get out of bed.
You’ll have to go ahead without me
in spite of what I said.
My room, my fate,
my view, my limitations.
Here’s how generous I am –
what’s mine becomes yours.
It’s too expensive
so I’m not going to do it.
Yes, I know it would make good sense
but for now screw it.
Yes, I am young but
I don’t have the heart
to do anyting about this damn
world falling apart.
My room, my fate,
my view, my limitations.
Here’s how generous I am –
what’s mine becomes yours.
[verse]
Factory came, factory left
useless walls, leaky roofs,
people waiting for false heyday
to return raining money or
just something to keep the kids here.
[chorus]
The kids went to the county fair,
to the state line, to the crosstown bar.
The kids visited the recruiting offce,
gonna make love and career choices
promising to come back from wherever they are.
[verse]
What’s wrong with the small town?
Some garages and shops, some schools and farms,
a couple of doctors, not too many lawyers.
A little somewhere in the middle of nowhere,
just enough to keep the kids at home.
It’s too quiet with a strange beat.
The bigbox killed what was Main Street.
People drive instead of walking but
they still know each other and each other’s kids
wondering when they’ll disappear.
[chorus]
The kids went to the county fair,
to the state line, to the crosstown bar.
The kids visited the recruiting offce,
gonna make love and career choices
promising to come back from wherever they are.
[coda]
At least we still have four seasons.
Damn the need for more reasons.
Feet on the ground but not too slow,
knowing that the kids are going.
Instead listens sharply and prickly.
Instead considers queasy worries,
stirring your richer regions into
tremulous stairways to a nether.
Furthermore develops not quickly
and will say, but short of surely.
Furthermore, never instant, can do
the beyond better without ending.
Adverbial are the denizens and slackers
of springtime. Adverbial is in warily
non-declaring boundaries but bending
lines winter drew in blank contrast.
Hungry I raise to my ready lips
instead and furthermore adverbially
accepting strangely streaming, steaming
surprises of eggs and peppers.
