Not all naans are equal
So know your naans before
Your nonchalance returns you
Embarrassed to the store
Humble Poet
Asking a poet to be humble
Is an act supremely stupid
In my humblish opinion
For what tops in arrogance
The idea that you let brain
Sculpt the wretched pulp into words
By the heat of spent synapses
There is no humble poet
Just pretenders: shy performers
Ever wishing someone will
Play out their craft for them
Basking in the applause of their genius
But if contrived verse with phrases
Like “the heat of spent synapses”
Keeps you from the snares of the forsaken
Then you
Must do
Your thing
Just be worth saving
Anger Like a Cloud
Anger like a cloud, dark and gray
Descends upon a bright and clear day
Let it blow over
K for Knowledge
Now knowledge begins with a kay
I wonder if that is to say:
“Be silent to know what you may”
I
All the things I think I get
All the plans I think I laid
All the folks I think I met
All the hands I think I played
Everything feels like a dream
All suspended in the air
I don’t hear it when I scream
I don’t see it when I stare
Then the I-ness of existence
Hits me right between the eyes
It’s the craziest inversion
Of the sum of all my lies
All alone with all my I’s
The 26th of Feb at a Panera Bread
“Go stand behind the guy with the grey hair.”
“That’s gross. Did she actually say that?”
Set my buzzer on the chair right next to me
Among the crumbs where a crumbled someone sat
I meander out of the loyal meter
Of the country-western number playing back.
Egg and cheese on an Asiago bagel
Verse contrived like my Sunday morning snack.
And this light roast blend
Is sure to send
My senses into spiral
With no sobering end.
Fake smiles
Keep them together
Moods change
Like the Chicago weather.
Got to go.
Thanking
Thank in words
Thank in deeds
Preferably fulfilling needs
Alarm Clock
That you wake up when it matters
Before the alarm goes off
Makes time a matter of mind
If what matters, matters enough
Song of You
I wrote this in honor of a friend of a friend who has entered the last stages of a 10-year long battle with Benson’s syndrome, a visual variant of Alzheimer’s Disease. This is dedicated to all those enduring the many forms of dementia out there. Peace and love.
It doesn’t matter what it is
It doesn’t matter why it’s there
What it’s for or where it goes
Or how it got upon that chair
All that matters is your heart
Playing softly in your chest
Celebrating all you’ve got
You’re so different from the rest
Sweet and sinless is your breath
Drawing circles in my hands
Home is past the stream of death
Where the sun is in the sands
Let the moments come and go
Each a lifetime on it’s own
They don’t matter now, you know
All that matters has been known
Smell the flowers, grab the sky
Hear the laughter, even cry
God is greater than it all
You will get to ask Him why
As will I
Hope Like a Drop
Hope like a drop
Of dew clinging fast
Resolved to outlast
Deceptions of vapor
Well into and past
Just words upon paper