Poem Eight

the heft
of a late night
compares not
to the weight
of day.

Poem Seven

digging,
I approach two kinds of questions:
the internal
and the external.

the emotional considerations regarding
appropriate work ethic
and appropriate work habit,
matters of being motivated
(or not)
to dig
and matters of digging
as leisure,
only suitable for bourgeoisie
ladies who lunch
or only fitting
in addition to
or after
other paid employment.

the practical considerations
come and go,
interrupting
the internal monologue
at intervals
and mostly concern
important matters like
who's been pooping in the garden?
and
what does squirrel poop look like?
and
are you, Squirrel on the Electric Wire Above,
the asshole
burying acorns here?

The ceramic gnome
disregards all this
as he slowly
becomes buried
by the cast-aside
wild strawberry
I am clearing.  

Poem Six

The Extravagance of My Idleness

each day I want for nothingness
for stillness and solitude
for the sun through the windows
no noise
just the quiet ticking
of idle leisurely thought.

inevitably,
lists of tasks
build up,
clogging my mind
with the debris of guilt
eventually forcing movement
toward accomplishment
achieving becomes an imposition
of necessary grandiosity.

Yet the longing in my heart
remains
steadfastly ambivalent
regarding torpid dormancy
versus
spectacularly mundane successes.

Poem Five

Blackout

When the darkness started,
there was a half moon
and a million new stars
we lay in the yard
listening to crickets
and inventing constellations.
I pointed out a submarine
that floated toward
a ten-tentacled
squid monster
drinking tea to one side.
you described
a hillside of sheep
chasing the barbarian hoards
ready to eat them.
I couldn't see this, but
you swore that each
twinkling was a sheep and
those close to another
were capturing and devouring
a half-giant.

Poem Four

the sunlight
glows on floorboards
casts shadows
of chair legs
and I stare from
out my teacup
of coffee,
remembering
what it is
for that light
to burn you.
for that light
to be enough
to set fire to the skin
when summer comes
and the thermometer
hits 80, 90, 100 degrees
then that sunlight casting
shadows cross the dining room
scorches.
even the cats retreat.
I miss that heat
I long for it.
I am waiting
to be brought back
to the point of boiling.

Poem Three

Found poem. 

Poem Two

Untitled Criticism

I cannot recall

if the wildness of your curls

undermined or reinforced

the sanctimony

of your ranting.

Did they betray

your incessant self-assuredness?

How cool you kept yourself,

your emotions held neatly to your breast

never indulging your suffering

(until you did).

Was the idea to be invulnerable?

to be ever reasonable?

To use logic as a lifebuoy?

How does that work?

I need you to explain it to me

because all I’ve ever been is

a fury of emotion.