Hell no!
Not when the ramp is 20 feet from the entrance
No rails on stairways
6 inch curbs to negotiate
Nonhandicapped hogging the handicap stall
when other stalls have no grab bars or
commodes are too low for weak quads
Those living it feel it making some just
stay home!
of the ostrich who couldn’t walk
at the Reteti Reserve in Northern Kenya
until the Samburu keepers
added their paces to his.
Long’uro the elephant
lost a portion of his trunk
when he fell in a cistern as a baby.
He learned to eat like a cow.
The orphan Lentile won’t
stay around long at Reteti.
Release comes soon
among these reticulated.
she is water, scale, mirror, curve
looking into looking
he is bellows, staff, road,
box on his back for keeping
dog is flame, nip at the heel of the
masterless man
the whole gambit is there
in the psalter’s margin
Never met Uncle Bill
Who died in WWII
Flying a B-26 Marauder
His crew tried and true
All the fine young men
Who passed in that war
They served the cause for freedom
Its tyranny we abhor
Let’s us stop by that party tent, the one being
arranged down by the shoreline, its wooden
spikes splitting the summer grass grown by
gardeners who live in tiny, borrowed houses
and do not expect recognition or praise after
repairing the already old clippers for
one more season of topiary clipping.
Can you hear the singing waves laughing as
the shells of crustaceans,
living fine lives yesterday, as
lobster, crab, and shrimp are tossed into
scrap bins and compost piles without worry?
We will say,’ excuse me, our dog is lost,’ and pretend
to understand the long-weekend appeal of
lounging in the waiting garden chairs, their woven
rest pressing into pale flesh exposed by our lifted slips.
With manicured daydreams freshly stained by marigold juice,
we can wave polite farewells to another season
of party-hopping hellos.
-In response to Garden Chairs (Barcelona, 1929), a photograph by Josef Albers, on display in the Guggenheim Museum’s digital collection.
you, the boy
that is you,
begin alone
in a blue hole
lacking awareness
of the inciting
incident to come,
which is a cosmic
creature revealing
your weakness
to yourself.
Idaho sun
rises burning
pink after
the soccer team,
your small town
brothers, hate
crime you.
at a pool party,
you throw
up your heart.
in hell, they tear
off your wings.
but the story
loves you, so
it gives you
love, mystical.
it completes you
and puts you
to bed
to dream the dream
of real life.
Well i outlived Ritchie Valens
on the day I turned eighteen
Then I outlived Buddy Holly
And then I outlived James Dean
Then I outlived Otis Redding
Then I outlived Kurt Cobain
Yeah I’m only getting older
And it’s driving me insane
Well I outlived River Phoenix
Then I outlived Tupac Shakur
And I’ve even outlived Biggie
But just you wait there’s more
Then I outlived Janis Joplin, Robert Johnson, Brian Jones
Yeah I’m only getting older
I can feel it in my bones
Well now I’ve outlived Jim Morrison and Amy Winehouse too
And I’ve outlived Jimi Hendrix
But i still don’t know what to do with my life
Will I outlive the Big Bopper?
If I will it’s coming soon
For I just turned twenty eight last month
And that’s when he met his doom
Well I outlived Ian Curtis, but will I outlive Keith Moon
There’s no way for me to know yet
But I really hope I do
Well I outlived Anton Yelchin, will I outlive John McCain?
For i don’t know what to do now and it’s driving me insane
Will I outlive Jayne Mansfield or Marilyn Monroe
There’s no way that i could tell you
But I hope that’s how it goes
And will I outlive John Lennon
And Roy Orbison too
Well I really hope it goes that way
And by then I have a clue about life
Well I’ve referenced all the men killed
On the day the music died
But will I ever outlive Don McClean
Well I think he’s still alive
And will I outlive Tom Petty
And George Harrison too
And the real Paul McCartney
And that fake imposter dude
Will I outlive all four Golden Girls
And Ozzy Osbourne too
I could outlive this whole planet
And still not know what to do with my life
Will i outlive all of ABBA, and all The Rolling Stones
Yeah I’m only getting older
And I feel it in my soul
Will I outlive Freddie Mercury
Like I outlived Lil Peep
And will I outlive the President
Well I hope cuz he’s a creep
Will I outlive all my siblings
Or will they all outlive me
There’s no way for me to know yet
So for now I’ll let it be
Well now I’ve outlived four cats and three dogs
And goats and chickens too
And I’ve outlived one grandparent
And I don’t know what to do without him
One day I’ll outlive my parents
Though we fight I’ll miss them too
But some folks outlive their children
And I think that’s pretty cruel
Seen it happen in my family
There was nothing they could do
<Will I outlive all the Bee Gees
And Taylor Hawkins too
And will I ever outlive Chris Cornell
And maybe Chester too
Will I outlive Morten Harket
Will I outlive Neil Peart
Will I outlive Frank Sinatra
All this music haunts my ears
Will I outlive all six Pythons
Will I outlive Charlie Kirk
And Ted Bundy, Charles Manson and Jeffrey Dahmer
Will I outlive all the Beach Boys
When I do it’s gonna hurt
Hope that I outlive Phil Spector
Thought I love his wall of sound
For that dudes a fucking murderer
And I’m glad he’s not around
Don’t know how to round this thing out
Other than to say, don’t know where my life is going
But it’ll come with joy and pain
But I hope I outlive Reagan, hope I outlive JFK
Hope I outlive Martin Luther King
And to an end I bring this thing
almost three years
on our favorite
planet
questions tumble
from her unbridled
ponytail
what happened
to your sock
daddy can we fix it
what happened
to your water bottle
did the airplane drop it
what happened
to that tree
can we make it
tree again
Potential energy
is stored energy.
Energy waiting
for the right conditions.
A boulder
at the top of a hill.
A spring
compressed.
The composed text
sitting in my drafts.
Waiting for me
to hit send.
The energy contained
within that bubble
could power
a midsized city.
Limerence is baffling.
Like a hydroelectric dam
built across
a seasonal creek.
Every delayed text
powers a refrigerator.
Every glance
generates enough electricity
to illuminate
Madison Square Garden.
I wake up
with the productivity
of a trading floor.
I have cleaned my apartment.
Written three poems.
Done two loads of laundry.
Researched Mediterranean airfare.
Started learning Greek.
None of this
has brought me
any closer
to the person.
The energy
cannot find
its intended outlet.
It spills
into neighboring systems.
This may explain at least
half of human achievement.
Liszt composes
“Liebestraum No. 3.”
Barrett Browning’s
Sonnets from the Portuguese.
Someone else
checks socials
forty-seven times
before lunch.
The trick of limerence
is that you think
you are building
something
with another person.
Really
you are learning
how much electricity
can be generated
from a single spark
within.
Eventually
the façade fades.
The dam opens.
The reservoir drains.
The river returns
to its ordinary course.
And yet
I remain enamoured.
Not with the person.
Not with my art,
my work,
my productivity.
With the potential
energy of a heart
I know
is pumping and bleeding
and living and dying.
