"This and That Side of Some Puddle"

Lay back, witness the sky blur to blue bat
slenderthin tendrils of sun trickling from behind a
pool; dazzled temple wherein balance is
moot, plate full of film and the moon's rain,
strewn solar flares up without intent,
out without direction, a steady beat framed;
black-and-blue lean back,
recumbent, mirror-floored, water-fondled,
without purpose

Full lips and metal wings rise
in syncopated murmurings,
wings out, partisan-
pause-
breathe-
break-
water stretched, specter, ripples in cloth,
freeze-frame waves, white and almost-black:
mirror balled up, slinky pulsing and
achey shining. Concrete voices, tight pants, pinstripe
car collects miles, like Chinese lanterns,
which are conditioned to arch against the ceiling,
pole-dancing on fishing line.

Dancing permitted, keys chapped-
Devil smile investment, he's cross-fingering the deal,
fed on crashed fish, a flicked cigarette, button-worried.
Remarkable corniness with deplorable utterances
reflect a breed of premeditated stupidity.
Hear the hissing demons and failed letters, lacy threats and
unthreaded needles, rattling on beads. Boxes stalled by
Acts of God stutter on the beach, modesty gone,
gathering eyeblinks not sighted, blindsided into bed...

---
10.25.05
Revision
MWL

"Horsefeathers"

Whip the white horses,
move the morning aside;
Sisyphus knows my load,
never eases.

Ghost of a city
I love: will the tracing suffice?
I'll let it be enough, the pencil shade
figuring the sacred outline...

Disregard--to business!
Business will not reduce the
Burden, but it will blind me,
and perhaps I won't care.

A series of bleary days
settle into the covers--
covered ground--or a nest,
all lined in down.

---
Written: 8.23.05
Revised: 10.27.05
MWL

"Circadian Common-tary"

Ever notice living
through a day
when nothing happens?
The kind of day that blurs
well before it ends?
Indistinguishable from the day before,
destined to slip into the next,
softly giving up the ghost
making its way into another
inconsequential linear movement?

What makes you realize
that the blur has happened,
if nothing prompts the realization?
Nothing equals falling in love,
nothing equals losing your job,
nothing equals a new revelation,
an old friend, rediscovering a song,
a lunar eclipse, shiny shoes...

Does the sleepy complaisancy drop away
with inner voice complaining of
boredom and bedlam, demanding satiation,
shaking the walls of the cellular world,
mania meeting metaphysics and
realization ripping out the seams
of suburban serenity and courtesy?

Prompted by a moment of recollection
or a sudden waking from a walking sleep,
do you realize you will never remember
this day again, it will fade into
the far reaches of your memory,
easy to lose, easy to forget,
never to be lived again?

Cross it off the list of files
to back up, to record for some
kind of self-righteous posterity.
Let it evaporate like the
condensation on your coffee cup,
wash it down the drain
with the remains of breakfast,
oh exaulted remains of the day
you're forgetting as you live it.

By the time you're done reading this,
you will make a point of remembering,
but then this day wil have been
a day when something happened,
when you woke up before dissolving,
before this day began
incorporating itself into the
fabric of the tomorrow, taking
with it the concerns and scraps of paper,
the lists and chores and laconism,
that comprise this day.

---
Written: 06.15.05
Revised: 10.27.05
MWL

Coming to be real

Where else? Nothing wrong with a public forum. I needed someplace different, something new, and I thought this would be good. Reinvention? Maybe a little, maybe a lot. I don't know yet, won't know for a while.

At this point, I'm looking for a way to post poetry (yeah, yeah, I know, how self-indulgent). Perhaps, partially, as a means of tracing development, but also as an exercise in revision and efficiency.

Enjoy!