the one that might yet be

the timing was wrong, the geography was spotty
we aren't mates, we're complementary
together a wholeness rushing to fall apart
a cleaver clefting the meat dividing reuniting
how many times does the butterfly return to the salt
at the edge of the lake, or slurp bloodpuddles
from severed heads,after the revolution? till the bodies
rot out? this falling into being
is the error of living. if we learn our lessons
then we die. or so we must believe, stickin to our guns
like an eighth wonder,drawing plans, scheming schemes
nothing's ever what it seems.


how does one, let's call her "luv", escape
from a set point match? the hand dealt, bets
made, settling, scoring. resistence is future
futile as the nile. run like wendy thru grammarcy dusk
or rose a sharon in corn fields before dust.

luv dons a hang glider and leaps
into the canyon from the blue ridge parkway.
it's a long way down, but she's trying
to get to the other side of the valley
without touching ground. she has to think
about windshear and angles of incidence.
a twenty dollar bill floats to the surface
of the river below but she's not distracted.
she has to skate the drafts up hill but nothing's
more uphill round here than above
the tops of the mountains. li'l detached
balloony of a birdtrance.


i would have gone there with you but you missed the jump
i left without you, and now there's feathers of nylon everywhere
what's up with that? hit the bottom, a rock, tossing itself . i thought
we could dance but it doesn't work when we
both wanna lead. we mix a batch of metaphors, versimilitude
with bitters after six, hold the olive. plug the cards into the sensometer
and take our pleasure like a solitary teenage. o peter
look, there's a star out there and it's got your dreams.
it only takes four hundred light years for them to return.























()&&&

i ask my son what's up in the cafeteria.
he says "that's teen talk, you know why?"
"cuz you talk about stupide stuff? well
that too but you know why?"
"why". it's cuz you guys always said
~that's grown up talk~ so boo yah !
i pry about girls, he barely
answers. but there's
a girl. she might be interested
but girls cost money. we laugh.
brainy, cute and poor. life's not fair.
etc. woah, geometry is kinda awesome
man. so is the night, wing over nest
on the other side of the world
from this morning.











*(_)(*


last night the shredding of life ending
without you sung under my skin.
fast, the river. pebbly and winterdry.
i hear a flood's coming. i hear a fire's brewing.
i hear the ice is on its way i hear
the poor are soon to be even more while the rich
will change bodies among themselves
and some will hang and bloody samurai.


common sense solution to fighting terrorism:
why don't we just stop pissin people off?




phone. brb.














*((&




my son said "oh man, i wanna go to north carolina when you go".
i'm thinking november now i'm thinking the fall's coming later
where we live, if at all, seasons rearranging themselves faster than crops
can grow. good think we got biodomes, hydroponics, artificial nature
at our service since nature herself seems kinda teenish and mutable lately.
so the one who could return fills a need for travel.
so the one that might yet be fills a hope chest with gravel.
so the one who could not move finally finds her groove
so the one who might yet know grabs a bucket full of soothe.
ooze. juice, buckets. the pattern always breaks down. i see my son
a future physicist on the brink of discovery swallowed by cern's big black hole
i see your daughter, languid and soft spoken, becoming head of the junior
civic league i see your son, spinning discs into a tranced out audience
balanced on the edge of what is becoming, and my daughter
dancing with a paint can in her hand. i see so many futures
that could be cut short. the world's gonna end you say
we're all gonna die you say
and all i can do is pet frost's silvery coat, nod
n say i know baby, i know.