30 april

nothing to say
nothing to do
tennis anyone?
love is nothing

29 april

my pumpkin is no longer with us
with me
as of this morning
and now my dining table is empty
gone the cheerful color, the simple eyes
the end of april -- how?
longer than its companions, gutted and carved
saved to live on, oversee puzzles
and quiet breakfasts with comics
i hope it was the right choice
that it appreciated the time
goodbye in a dumpster is no way to go
but we all turn, we all give in the end

28 april

not emptying the dishwasher
is much harder to maintain
than the time to spend unpacking
moving pieces from here to
jaw locks and unlocks
shoulder knee elbow socket to them
out of joint and out of mind
out of print and tongue in cheek
we beat our own brains
making games we can lose
choose to open the window
see what's dragged in

27 april

because words matter
so much
too much
three much
and also the space between
because poetry
because negative can be positive
the air we breathe out
the other air waiting to be inhaled
the other times waiting to arrive
the times gone
all the other places each of us could have been
could be right now
and yet
drawn together
the few lines that makes words
that pull us in or let us go

26 april

in the meantime
there's Greenwich
and all that longitude
but evenly viewed from no angles
when tangled with the collapsing latitude
that's thrown a shoe and heaved ho
to row the boat ashore
because there's water everywhere
and lots of it's salty
so you can't make us drink
in new tricks thick as treats
on the OK buffet
corralling all their thoughts
until they're caught up and turned over
to the copper tops
or other brigades
and batteries parked in the dark
still countdown waiting waiting for a spark

25 april

like going through a waffle iron
but the results are not the same
i am a gold watch renegade water heater
i am a strawberry fool-me-twice alligator
there is no tick to tock in this sundown everafter
you speak no cherry pie to my lemonade
i hear the rattlebang of other roads swimming happenstance upstream to fine
let all the alabaster, the broken band-aids, and all the teabags cave in:
i am the diamond and i will out light bit when it spills free you cannot touch faith

24 april

but if i get there first
i will rehearse something better to say
staying out of bounds of unfounded truths
or misguided youths that can't help it
i'll sit on the other side of the playground
confound hopes with compound interest
i can't miss for all the clues
loose lips stick and i trip myself
on my own rewards
having scored only runs
but never making it home
overheating the plate
the gate
the pleasantries
to freeze out
all the excesses
and boil off
anything left

23 april

wish joy and light and all good things
vsoho naikrashchoho
but avoid piling on too much
though much is deserved the recipients are underserved by the lack of focus
holy pocus your righteous way to the full play as the thing
bring the big picture view to serve you well
encompassing the slope of your hopes and also their needs
a big world indeed
and the odds of this alignment means time spent by so many dealers
concealing the plans that could have been lost
but counting the teeth so carefully flossed
to build this shared smile to rival any sun
strong along by cue card clouds:
live happily and loud and know you have someone to come home to
who will hold you and learn you and earn your interest
in the investment that's best spent together
through weather unseasonable and situations unreasonable
if you go to the top of the mountain
or make your peace in a coffee shop
there's no stopping how far you can go through the options
or how fast you can hop in and out of places too crazy to recount to others
because who cares as long as you're holding hands
you can stand anything
and bring into clearer view the reasons why you know it's true
and worth holding on long past the final song

22 april

space to chase the empty away and to play daylong with wording songs and sorting wrongs in alphabetical dismissal

a blissful ignorance of anything rotten is not in good supply but to try to focus in on and zoom out to what shines through the night and brings light to right is a hopeful prescription that through my own admission is easier to write than to fill and the spillover is clovers with less than four leaves and a sky that may grieve the loss of each moth as a piece of itself in a delicate health balance too challenging to measure but most critical to treasure the classic type sense

not to mention but to adore and ignore all else for the shelf was built to put things away and the play is a thing but buffering continues and it’s good news we have the chances to make our own choices where to rejoice is a bit strong but the sun does come ere long and we can use the words we want unhaunted or daunted by someone else’s rules in a foolish scheme to control the whole kitten poodle or merry-go-square

start on and care not for we’ve got places to go and the show is afoot although also and an arm and a leg if you catch my drift tectonic or divide continental

the fundamental lessons of neverguessing and going forward flowing with ether or not in a divine sense but tensing up to verb which is to serve a score that’s not love and ask for forgiveness from above on a corporate ladder though the former reformers will shake their heads and search their beds after lights out to fish for trout in a stream of lies disguised by pillows and will o’ the wisps that sink lips and shapeshift ‘til the cows come home for dinner but it’s a leaner shade of pail they drink from and we can’t numb our eyes if we prize what we see and what remains to be seen

21 april

when I stopped running at last I found that no one was chasing me any longer if they had been at any point anyway and I was more alone and farther than before

and I saw that I had gotten nowhere very else anyway for all the benching and pressing and posturing of a sort but this is only upon reflection because earlier it seemed right to fight the light with heavy and to down the up with a cup full of wouldrather but I gather now and then that this is really it and nobody else is coming to change the sheets or wash the dishes

catch what this is sooner because later you’ll be running on alone

/the tendency to turn first to second person

transferring or transposing the supposing to self-reflective collections of misdirection:

I start and you end

it’s not me

it’s you

as we’ve all known all along

20 april

when the wakeup dream is to sleep again
an interval
a pause where powerful words reflect and reverberate but need never be spoken

the echo of noise that is not clear
the tangle that is not a short distance between two points
and really hardly gets to one at all

clear these

remember stormfall both unexpected and awaited
idioms rising and the playground emptied
wet giggles all the way home to towels and macaroni
or
left alone
a screened porch of a room where i run in place
pedal to nowhere
letting the wind whip through to chill the inside of this water
take the heat away

19 april

there was something i thought of earlier i should have written down because now i don't remember

but maybe i'll think of it soon or maybe something else instead

the present seems to be the only time that's paying off but really it's a big investment up front and it doesn't even stick around

something about mapping continents and oceans or verb tenses and idioms and this woman's husband comes to pick her up so politely as she waits in the other room and all i do is unlock the door because it's late but now they can have the present and i can know it's real

18 april

a blank is drawn and suddenly it is not
caught up in mirrors we forget to deliver the paper
or even the news and suddenly it's olds
too cold to care about and stale dry to boot
kick the can and not the bucket
to keep idioms and idiots in order
to sort or not to have as long as we all shall part
(a script that will break hearts and never fail to flag)
dragging our feet and meters out to greet
the new day's raises with crazes out to here
and courses that can't run clear through
without near truths to hit back with
to collapse tips into salary
when everyone's in line for the overtime hit parade
for that got-it-made shade we've been dreaming of
from the sun as space runs out of starts

17 april

astonishing how easy it is to fall into such small holes
to notice them from such a distance
walk directly toward them
take the perfect number of steps at the perfect speed
even stop to process I AM ABOUT TO FALL INTO THIS HOLE
to keep walking
to fall in
to gnash teeth
to tear hair
to rend garments
HOW DID I GET INTO THIS HOLE
drowning in millimeters
we know we know
possibility in improbability
create your own nightmare
fall into it

think IF ONLY I COULD HAVE AVOIDED THIS
think NEXT TIME WILL BE DIFFERENT
think I CANNOT ESCAPE FROM THIS HOLE I HAVE FALLEN INTO
BECAUSE OF ALL OF THE DIGGING I AM DOING TO GET TO THE BOTTOM OF IT

16 april

because in a few hours again
there will be quiet and comfortable clothes
and the relief of breathing out
but not leaning too fast
trying on the new for a better fit
it comes and goes
we plow the new with attitude
rude when we mean kindness
shallow when we wish deep
keep the pages turning
know that space is always there
echoing with quiet
nighttime seconds on the clock

15 april

letting go means holding closer to else
otherwise drifting clearly free of any return
and it seems too much to vote for at this time
but with your mind and the future times focused
in the abstract let's counteract the stages
and cage doubt in a downstream current
that turns no rainbow in any season
like salmon slam with no reason against odds
and even then sometimes come out ahead
which might be a lot to ask
but really who's asking?

14 april

because there is a hole over there
and if you walk in that direction
you will most likely fall in
although i could not tell you the odds
and i know it's even money
you'll go there anyway
so play it out and see what score you end up with
and if you finish in the hole
i promise not to say i told you so
but i will encourage you
to write a vague poem about it
in the second person
and think about what you've done

13 april

something to consider
in this mystery
is how and why the victim
ended up stabbed with
three different knifes
and the relative likelihood
of every single character named
to be the most likely of suspects
because after all it's usually
someone you know even if
it happens to be more than one
because really people will just kill you
if you let them get to you
but how to avoid the scene
is a whole different mystery entirely
and honestly ever since i noticed
the victim is still breathing
despite the three fatal wounds
and pronunciation of death
i have been wondering
more and more
about a few scene changes

12 april

present perfect progressive continuous
on and on off the charts and out of the books
when you should ask yourself
WHEN IS THIS HAPPENING
and even realize that this PRESENT IMPERFECT
has got to end at some point
even if it's just to the FUTURE CONTINUOUS
which by then will be the PAST PROGRESSIVE
and it leaves us all wondering
where that happy ending is anyway
and why so much is TENSE

11 april

to have cake
and also to eat it
do you notice
anyone else?

the shelf is packed with alarm
there's no limit to race to

the chase is to
the smallest
the shoetallest
the youngest
or the hungest
and if those show
all together then

it's anyone's weather to vain
rain on the plain
obscenely seen by narrowed eyes
disguised with discontent
as if we've meant a great deal
to some other stage but now
caged in a smaller moat
while the gloating floats higher
than deserved to an underserved
population of thought

i'm caught in a scramble
afraid to break the eggs
while the juice pulps along
the wrong fiction
watered down and drifting out to sea

10 april

today we practiced at a model clinic
each patient had a card with symptoms
the receptionist and nurse and doctor all had name tags pinned on
that read receptionist and nurse and doctor
plus cue cards with key questions
and most of the patients were seen in an orderly fashion
with the receptionist making tiny little small talk
and occasionally requesting insurance cards
while letting slide the fact that some patients
signed in with their birthdates rather than today's
but never mind have a seat
the nurse weighed them with no scale
and waved a hand over the tops of their heads
announcing NICE
as if each had managed to reach their personal ideal height
anyway time to see the doctor
who seemed to be listening
and mostly prescribed rest and soft foods
occasional tablets for the most serious of cases
on and on until all the patients were cured
and took their turns pronouncing OCCUPATION and EMERGENCY CONTACT
making sure that everyone got everything they needed

9 april

thinking i know better is a sure way to butter the batter up to swing and to fry and to let fly mistakes that take cakes and pull up steaks to surf the turf to some other lumpy shore and no cure for the foolish but a brook full of babble and a hardscrabble wonder how the blunders still pile over accidental miles because i can't do up close and the moat's too small to stall out in but too wide to hide in and i swim underwise to surprise the attack that was meant as a greeting but still self-defeating enough that it's a tough channel to tune into and a hallway too long to stride out of like a glove that keeps getting stuck so no struckface challenges ensue and there's just one left here eating a shoe

8 april

running upstream dreams
themes in underline
borderline fantasy
can't see the trees without forests
can't swim the seasons with no calendar
strain the seeds and trim the weeds
that's someone else's garden growing
furrowed browsing and leftover quests
seek and hide the flag -- drag and drop to capture
if there was a road i'd climb it
if there was a mountain i'd fly
sky light too heavy to bear
noise washed away out of sight
focus and the sense adds up to feel

7 april

someone needs to walk away
otherwise we'll still be
here
stuck
we can't leave together
or what would that mean
staying seems like stalling
but nowhere else to go
no steps forward back me up
you have no use for useful
sense of disappointment
at inevitable ending
knowing there are
no more pages
stages we can't scene

6 april

it's your jaw she said
i'm sure you've been told before
the alignment is off
and that's one of the reasons

i think i said
they were all just waiting
for you to tell me

which seems to me
to be a bit
off itself

but maybe it explains
not so much a different drummer but
something else
there must be
a reason why

all the stars align
new and assorted constellations
named on the spot or otherwise
no one calls them
a bit off
just charts a new course of study
listens to a different frequency
more often
lets the storms fade out

5 april

tune into the right channels
and keep some doors closed

exposed to the elements
anything can change
rearrange the tic tacks to
toe the line and predefine
the dotted spots to see
what's not outlined clearly enough
to bluff the viewers
see through your own lenses
and pretenses and then clear
the decks as we all fall
down

someone needs to speed
up the past so we get
more present

4 april

as if i could
just keep driving
although
what's stopping me?

watch clock calendar
blur disappointment
priorities:
we seize days and raise stakes
to camp elsewhere

care for score
or cash
or more?
what does
the addition
total?

i'll hold out hands
but only to the sky
there's no route
to where i'm going
no one else to follow

open wide ahead

hold the calls and all toed lines
define yourself instead alone
this new vocabulary is my own

3 april

generally
i've noticed
together
is what we might call
pleasant
if we were
short of
vocabulary
or metaphor
or timid of
saying more

    if you say it first
    let me know

but it takes
a step
and more
and still
it seems
a question

2 april

today the yoga teacher
all in white to match his hair and signify
MORE or DIFFERENT -- APART/ABOVE
announced he was thinking
of getting a twitter account

slipped into the breaths
between poses
as if we were to
what?
offer advice?

there was
some laughter
but it was not clear
if we were to respond
or if he was just
trying out some material

last week
he spent the first breathing moments
discussing his recent trip
   not bad
with emphasis on time in traffic
   not great

then the discussion stretched
to 95 or other possible routes
between northern virginia and southern florida

i'm the new one here
did i take the right road?

today he told me:
i'm just telling you
because you don't know

not the right road to take
   no

instantly sure i would not return

but then
maybe
i should just tell him
because
he doesn't know

1 april

as if a fistfight in my dreams
and i am knocked out
and dragged along
   but in the meantime
there are errands and
no comparing these jarring jams --
scramble no picnics and egg no pans:
we scan our meter for sweeter rhythm
times to swim in
with rhyme of a season
lines that build shapes --
escape from the page
turn key to the next