Saturday, August 2, 2025

PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE

Bad news for 
all that time 
and effort you'd been spending:

your heart's 
no longer warrantied 
by the lyric poem's defending.

Sure, for now, 
it still works 
to its purpose, but 

let's face it—it certainly 
is no state-
of-the-art thing. 

If your body were a car, 
for instance, it wouldn't be 
the engine; 

it'd be 
the rear defroster 
or the AM/FM radio. 

If your soul 
were a home, 
it wouldn't be the kitchen, 

or even an electric 
toaster oven; 
it'd be 

the old flip phone 
which you keep 
in a drawer,

just for those 
gray-sky kind
of sentimental days 

(it may be 
a brick, you say, 
but it still contains 

a few 
of your favorite 
dead cat's old photos). 



Friday, August 1, 2025

HUNGER

Hello, 
common thief—

back again, 
I see 

to steal 
a little 

more of my 
complacency.

Thursday, July 31, 2025

FUCK IT

It's dangerous, they say, 
to paint with 
too broad a brush, but 

you know what? Sometimes 
you're in a rush. 
Plus, the predicament 

you're in couldn't be 
more legitimate: the crew 
is on a break 

which is starting to look 
more like a 
permanent hiatus—

and this guilty 
conscience of a fence 
won't just 

paint itself—so, 
holding your breath 
against the stench 

of the whitewash, 
you bust-out 
the biggest, widest 

roller of the bunch
and make short, bliss-
fully thoughtless work 

of what otherwise might 
have taken months 
to confront.

After all, you think,
what harm could it do—
just this once? 


Wednesday, July 30, 2025

GILDING THE QUOTIDIAN

The water birds sailing 
in search of Byzantium 
are now touching down 
on this flash-flooded town

in search of oases—some 
retention pond of youth, 
some inside-out aquifer 
or impromptu estuary—

like 
Ponce de León,
like Noah’s enervated raven,
like thousands of Parsifals 
burnt out on the quest—

driven by thirst to steal 
rain from gutter puddles
in a soggy pantomime 
of Promethean fire 

or nectar 
from some presently
nigh-uncountable 
overstock remainder 
of Holy Grails. 

Tuesday, July 29, 2025

FINAL JEOPARDY

          (after Robert Creeley)

Walking here, 
standing there, 
killing time 
and yawning—

sitting around 
talking, thinking, 
tinkering 
with the longing 

for anything 
to start, stop, 
bind, or burst 
into flame; 

for anyone 
to come or go, 
to curse or keen-
ly call your name—

what is a life 
when you haul-
out its engine and 
take it apart? What is 

a car 
that won't start.

Monday, July 28, 2025

FREE DESIGN

In the deep end 
of dawn—before our words 

have begun their 
long commutes, 

when the warm washed 
light of the sun 

overcomes last night's 
unsoothed moon—

cicadas begin 
their empty drone, 

wind-stippled 
grasses moan, 

wild birds sing 
to no purpose at all. 

Here, nothing in the world
has a name—still

everything 
has a voice;

nothing has been 
given a choice—but 

everything 
is called. 

Sunday, July 27, 2025

EXTRA ORDINARY

Being so much
wiser than her husband, 

the female cardinal 
perching on the brown branch 

knows better than 
to make a statement.