Regular Poetry

The coffee was steaming when Doc took off his wig

we didn’t even know he was wearing.

We found a hat within a hat.
It went that way for many months.

That was for I thought I knew better.

Another hat emerges and someone kicks it.

It hurts, like reading a poem with an understanding,

an oar passing over the water, dripping in an orbit

only a few astronomers can comprehend.

It's Better Being Simply an Idea

A scuffle broke out
a shimmer 
of bullish cocktails
weighing with an eye
while weekly I prefer
to squint at spoons 
piled problems
and summon a mirror
of acquaintances
as a reservoir stalks
the disinterested 
wish with pennies
that can unlatch a spine
the rusty green waves 

cresting like treetops

in the wind 

Timothy Stand-By

Sitting cloudily
the impression of a character
both on land and at sea
fast on his feet,  between jobs
in a hotel of woodpeckers
promising, seriously promising
to open each one of the screens
but like everything known and unknown
to the heart
what one knew escaped
like feathers in a windstorm
and then a very fine rain fell
beading up on the beautiful landscape
of the car hood
then sunshine and after it
reduced the owner of a beautiful young smile
and even more, attractively
long legs with minor scratches
to bottom muck
While drinking up
a New York township
one gives up belief
and shouts,
"Cana-jo-harie!"
baffling strangers and policemen
two mountains
sprouting from a midnight blue
convertible
not sure why but only for
the joy of it
a tuna-fish sandwich
a fishing rod and flies
two lobs of light
becoming confidently determined
to try this again
tomorrow.

Light a Rocket

This is a really long story so just skim through the lengthy parts.

I was just invested in a long parenthetical kiss, the kind that gives

off a pleasant order and drags the invisible children over the molten

possibilities of life without asking to lessen one’s anonymity.

Like I said this is a lengthy story.  I noticed that my heart

was dropped kicked around the operating room floor.

It was in a paper bag wrapped Dickensonesque.

But I hate when people complain don’t you? 

Well there was Steffen, who I replaced.  He ran

off with an older woman.   And Marjorie who thought

she was a miracle and could only talk in radiating episodes.

This whole poem is backfiring.  Yesterday I drove

past a field of Christmas trees and felt like a reformed prince.

And when it started snowing, albeit lightly, I felt like a saint

for several seconds.  I stopped the car and turned off my wiper-blades.

I was crying a little because I knew that most of the saints

have been martyred, which is a bad thing, unless you’re in high school.

 Then all the kids gather around, pat you on the back,

and call you a hero.  I rolled down the window and a few flakes fell in.

I could not spend another long second here because my family would

send out a search party.  I had to get back

which wasn’t bad, but every now and then I make a mess

 of things and spend a lot of time making checkmarks.

Anyways, I had just parted lips with the stewardess, but it’s o.k

she’s my wife and has nice curves.  It was nice to be up in the air,

in a rocket with delicate curtains.  I charted where we were.

I smiled so calmly I was able to notice the man with the bomb

tucked underneath his seat.  He didn’t notice me or anything,

but I good at noticing things like that.  I think I’ll wink.

In Search of John Popsun

The Alps Go out from here. 

We dropped our baskets 

And went out hunting. 

There was incredulous 

Love making. 

We heard things from the hereafter. 

We commandeered safe passage 

Out through the rolling Atlantic. 

We heard of an attractive hand

At the firing range 

That drew in the pack of hyenas,

A few of us responded with a 

Map of the constellations 

Others began to desire 

Brilliant foliage 

And a few bills in their bill fold. 

We were waiting for it to get cold, 

For it to snow, to go out looking 

Through the snowy streets of New England, 

And found that 

This is not such a crazy place 

For a famous hat, 

In Hartford.

Snow Watching

God, I hate my shallowness
and my chemiluminesence
the planted maple and native oak
the snow burst that might out live us
The fabular and urbane
I hate my invasion of space
like a spell that comes apart
and flakes misplace
The stick and smiling streams
of lawns
that somehow, O recreation
is the destination of the laundry
dampens in the wash
and the paper
separating before evening
before the relaxed windows
where the leaves reveal their underneath
wind at a stand still.