30 september

there is a piece of the pie not
yet baked although today i tasted
one of the ingredients and i know
it will be delicious

thank you to the future in the now
to the taste unfurling beyond

29 september

close your eyes as the jig comes up as the role goes out in the tide and swim in the rivers shivering under water while the otters bank their sticks and shake their tricks and whistle while they workload

28 september

*) the profound certainty that you are young and that the right path is there for the finding with a little effort and attention

*) the answers to questions no closer could answer as candidly even if through rosy angles

*) the awareness that there is more

*) the connection to beyond

*) best wishes and last minute reminders or requests

stars put it all together --

27 september

as if to say they couldn't cut
it when the point would better
be to cut it out -- doubt eats
up and gulps down fast like
trash on a plate, no mistake
about it -- the shout it echoes
is the sound that beckons
when angels fail to tread
and fear to pin on their heads
like breads in baskets when
the sun won't rise -- trying
again and stranded -- let
us once again unto the
garage of true minds park the car

26 september

not to waste the space but i chase the race and run away from the distance rather than covering it with such a stride that riding might hold no candle any longer for they are always shorter and the sons and also daughters sing songs of cinnamon and discover blooms of song in the desert of sleep --

25 september

the tea i drink is good for me
not good for you
because i am drinking it
and yet --
if certain studies are to be believed
and other equally certain studies
  are to be unabashedly rejected --
my improvement, as a result of this tea,
will impact me -- and you -- in ways
you cannot yet imagine

24 september

whenever the weather turns the wonder burns off and the sky breaks apart the heart -- the lonely hunters off their paces gathering races for the weary and weaving their way homeward like angels in the outfield outstretched like over-ambitious alarm clocks wanting to give more -- wanting to live more than we can -- we are the dreamers and also the cake -- the mistake is not the listening but the silence that is not sharing -- where in the constitution are you made up and what is the entry fee to believe?

23 september

no wonder the underbelly we're swelling with pride unhidden and the wilds won't be ridden too rapidly as the cock crows an eyeball sideways and it's a double-glazed preference with a hole in the middle -- riddles full of innuendos along with saying what you mean -- break it down and send it -- c/o american dream

22 september

cannot open my eyes to close my eyes
fire the torpedos and fire the crickets
breaker breaker one fix or two many
looking forward to not looking forward
this is the title of a book to be written
this is the only time left to be smitten

21 september

the proportion of putting in and taking out generally being understood as straightforward it is hard to see why anyone would fail to balance the scale -- to weigh the wait to achieve -- we leave our sense at the door when our senses ignore all else -- inflaming the health of reality with depravity of perception -- the lesson is there for the learning -- the higher ground open for churning

20 september

and if i tell you how i field of dreams and steamer ships and chips off the old blockhead of the class act your age old story book romance of the century gothic horror movie theater popcorn kernel sanders and belts with ties around the middle school your elders and fit your fiddles to be tied 'cause we're wide and away the state of being that's freezing the cold and holding over my dead body armored carbon footprinting press your luck, the latest craze in fishing for compliments where they are stocked pends -- a preponderance of tree frogs and tickled hogs all crying for their supper clubs while the dish is best served now

19 september

even walking away is a step in a direction
course correction needs no whiteout
leaves no blank doubt how to fill these gaps
collapsing the hurdles and shouldering the load
these are the rows that will never be hoed
tired of the tiers and weary beyond years
escape is what you make, we know
wild is the edge of someone else's garden

18 september

astonishing how kaleidoscopic perspective
looking through the glass I see it half
mad I am hatter and also Alice
falling smaller taller and also late
I see the end and also off with my head
I lift the dawn and I tread of lightly
the voyage the chronicle as the page turns
the author I jump too far ahead
for better or for verse
let me write my way out
easier than right my wrongs, turn the other page
somehow those lines I shiver out
knowing better, seen on a blotter - discarded
mixing fiction - dereliction of prose

17 september

the miracle of fiction is its very existence IN A WORLD where reality is so fantastic - in the sense of being early fantasy of the unbelievable sense - and occasionally even totally awesome - in the direction of inspiring thunderstruck awe, not just random awareness of coolness - and we ought to exercise the miracle when possible but too often it is misunderstood as lies - what is the line and why we cannot cross - the subject of some sociological expose, no doubt, but the pouting stance from one critic's chair where the author sits splits the difference with the sense of saying so? the mention of maybe NO as an answer to the trend of biographizing or monopolizing every story to selfish purposes and even verses to carry the weight of our own lives as if these lines can solve our broader selves - the fictional health we celebrate can hardly wait while we take out our own laundry and press it between the lines in the hopes of ironing out the irony before the pen comes up

16 september

flowers give color to the space and meaning to the scene but between there is wonder the green can't handle and a step that can't tide over - a stone that cannot roll too mossy - bossy feelings steal in and out of sense and mention so little of the logic - there's no accounting for numbers and the hunger to be better is a sweater that unravels when you walk away - i play the song too loudly and i'm proud enough to counteract the truth but useless enough to trend already toward ending

15 september

up a few lines there are words too absurd to depend on - we defend honor and pass strife with the butter knife but before we cut the rest of the breakfast there's a question to be answered and no natural disaster but abnormal re-sorting of balance where it doesn't need to be - we seed the scenes with dandelion rain and the way it falls calls attention to the blooms too soon to be blown - yellow or even green in meaning and, in matters unbecoming the humming of taps, while collapsing the folding chairs after some other or again assembly hall cattle call and the pieces all must rest but the metal sure does clang

14 september

is now the time the new time is go now time to go new to turn the rhymes that cheer from off hooks to books looks and a fantasy to letter in

13 september

is is a reaction without much planing
she has the sense that steps should be taken
yet also the groceries are still on the shelf
even as the apple juice ciders
wider than a salamander
scenes of signs and the times we turn on
forgive us our huddled massive egos
we blow by with no tries and then
when the cotton balls get rotten
blueberry pancakes et al
asleep again in the syrup --

12 september

if you press into the clay long enough and hard enough you will leave a mark and if you wrap your fingers around it you can squeeze it or pull it apart into new shapes or two pieces but after some time it will be so solid so hard that you will be able to do nothing to squish it or squeeze it and all you can do is drop it to shatter the ground to silence the future

11 september

here is the raw material and believe me it is rough nothing refined or polished and all sloshed inbound like the ocean in tupperware only let's not say it like that let's stick to landbased imagery because here i am talking about ideas or i am thinking about and i am writing about and in so many cases both of these are better than talking about although it's good to take risks and also to listen so spread the material wide tossing in all the jewels and nuggets and it's true nobody means to toss in rocks we all mean well enough but to stuff it all in our own pockets is too heavy and so it's tossed in with all the rich material which grows and we hoe the fields into even lines to define our rhymes and heed our meter to better our verse but still the talk ticks and somewhere deep down the rock sticks in the echo of a root and there is no suitable answer but to pull it up and examine it to ask it how it feels and to heal all involved but to solve is another challenge and i will tell you the bill you pay to dissect a rock is hardly worth the paper weight but the state of affairs grows suchmuch that a hussfuss over the rocks distracts from the traction of the true roots and the real ideas growing greener still the cleaner is at work trying to solve the rock situation while the green of imagination is reaching out to sky to whynot instead of whybother and you'llnever and the ideas most compelling are rising and swelling under the slightest of attention the flicker of light to brighten the way to harvest - the largest of the crops to adopt its own cultivation - fascination with growth its own investment - best spent on roots, not rocks - though the mind locks and spends the energy on the wrong spree - find the mind then line the farm with green and plant enchantment -

10 september

grateful is how it might be
pronounced but yes there is a
swirl of more and let's replace
the order so as to do without --
so as to remove doubt that
this is truly appreciated -- i've
carbon dated this moment to
now and already recognize how
foolish it seems to try to
explain feelings beyond appreciation --
let the nation unite itself
and fill the shelf with reasons
to approach the new with a better
attitude -- drop the crop that springs
up anyway and plan a tune
we swoon to in dreams -- seem
better and be better and let the
fruit bear out

9 september

let's talk about something else
shelve the bananas and call me
time for dinner o'clock
if you know what i mean to say
why bother cats cradling flapjack
alarm clocks if we all just go off
you're the one that i want
and i haunt my every rectangle
stranglehold calendars
eagles full of landing
happening without horizon but
where are -- my eyes close

8 september

how may i be of service
the absurdist rendering is of a record
i'd half heard a mispronouced omelet
but let's not get ahead of ourselves
i've shelved the bacon bits and sliced the teryaki
if you only knew the trouble i've spleen
who not another lemonade heartache
why let the mirror tell it all
i want to learn how the horn blows red
mine is the echo that the nest won't crow
night makes matches
day breaks records
back again beginning, spinning --
set 'em up again to fall

7 september

the space between
again something i am looking for
and yet
cannot manage to prop open
something like a can opener maybe
oust one from the calendar we build
clinging as it brings its own events to bear
bearing down and on
let me say
knowing better is one piece
somewhere is to go would be another
hypothetical again
the trends to the darker
avoid the singsong center point
wonder after imaginary children
close dark into the eyes
then eyes into the night

6 september

i had the idea first
for a while it had me
  those were heady times
  pulled about
  no thought of sleep
  driven by driving into directions --
lost the idea
or it lost me
either way, we parted
distressing at worst, or despair
disappointing at best, or irrelevant?
remembering, even a little --
and suddenly
the idea of an idea
not the one before
a different else
taste of something else
i reach for it -- hands to air --
  holding letting go

5 september

space and how much we think we need
how much we create
building constellation ladders
starts burn our feet
hurrying through the sky
always the wish to believe
building new mythologues
change the names, dip the pen

4 september

there is no need for the kind
of quiet that tries to make
a point by being noticed

better to let quiet be the kind
that lets us rest between
kindnesses and think well of
each other and all the new
ideas that might be

what point was to be made
to make such strain worthwhile

ease instead
let us remember
words we meant to write
thoughts we'd plan to share

3 september

prioritize the size to surprise the tries to step forward - absurd to think we know how to go or where to show up - to stuff the abstract into compact concrete - to meet where we are waited for - to store without wasting and eat without tasting - how to know what's worth spending on or defending over - clovers with no leaves gather no mystery and the history of luck means the list runs deep -

2 september

the heartbreaking loneliness
of love
in birthday candles
tender look of a carousel horse
no one to hand me down to
space beyond nostalgia
despair for the joy unbearable
too soft the pillow
too full the table
weakness of undeserving
traditions too precious to accept

1 september

the reminder that weeks before
birthdays can often contain the dregs
sloshing around in unpleasant fashion
churning, maybe, or bumping around
there are better angles to see from
but the other windows are already closed
drawing curtains much too fast
remembering or wondering after last year
an escape of some kind, was it
or just adjusting eyes to the darker light
fading into the traffic
get used to anything, you can, who used to say