the spaces inside

a couple fingers can't plug holes
in a thousand dams

and even if they can:
fingertips get wrinkly
and
tributaries form
and
evaporation does not keep up

rock becomes dirt becomes mud
and as the holes expand
you’re left standing in the cleansing tide
pointing at what’s on the other side.

Pat(t)ernal

A brief exploration of jealous self-righteousness:

1. how some fat fingers point themselves at the skinny,
2. how some of us deny God or even family because we can't believe,
   not because we don't
   want
   to.

Here's you:

1. annoyance smells lazy like salami; belittles you and doesn't know it;
2. anger spits, accuses, uses gravity precisely, is always covered in motor grease.
3. confusion is just around the corner.
   brilliance is always just around one more corner.

And me:

1. Listen Daddio, patience is messy but guiltless; fear is just messy.
2. rage is clean and white; the sound of steel slicing; I never showed you rage.
3. Just leave it alone.

in a tension headache

and ever before and ever since all that changed was
the event occurred,
unnamed as it were, or is, rather,
or perhaps as of yet, could be, ok!

but it occurred, the event,
which altogether was comprised of many small events
many of which involved words
many of which involved you as
communicator, topic or listener --
and i shall perhaps step up and suggest
with all the pragmatism that sheer common sense lends me
that your involvement leaned a bit more
toward the former category--regardless:

contained, these small word events
together make up the event that occurred,
which i grant you has made no change to how trees grow,
the number of chips in the coffee table paint,
the lifespan of anyone's pet cherokeet.
the consequences are merely chemicals in my brain,
an electric spark here; there, an impulse.
it need not go farther, i know.

i will contain them,
but i must anonymize the event,
and it must eventually stop growing.

Michelle is not practical

Michelle she stands up tall, she says:
Dear, do make some pieces of your domesticity
appeal to my right brain, please.
‘Scuse me for neglecting my ‘sponsibilities.
Tell me a story about the kitchen light,
how - left on - it attracts hungry monsters,
ones big with muscles & overactive salivary glands
oh BOY you could say, hairy toothy beasts they are
who long to gobble up our freeze pops they do,
so please in the name of all that is sugary frozen
turn off the kitchen light and i will.

Listen, Seals and Croft

This summer breeze teases
me with sneezes and seemingly releases
fleas who feast behind my knees, so please
provide reprieve or jasmine seeds at least, for Pete’s.

I am not so kind

I have said men are cruelest when you’re young
and they don’t destroy you after messing up your mold
but kiln-fire you into a life patterned with either pathetic mimicry
or obsessive rejection of their awful fingerprints.

Yes ma’am, the puppy squealed when you kicked it
and now you will never forgive yourself for it
because you cannot forgive the cruelest man
who made you squeal, which is quite rational indeed.

And one supposes, like the man, you also left the dog alive
to wonder if it would be kicked again
and to feel confused when that impact was missing.

Not finished

Baby, I have accepted that good timing
was the miracle that brought us this strange religion.
The faith seemed less blind that night –
we saw no evidence against us –
and you thought I was a poet like your first love,
and I thought your sophistication was exquisite
paired with your unique brand of naïveté,
and our words were geneses and revelations
dancing meaningfully and perpetually around us.
That night the air was charged with a feeling of now
like standing in line for a river baptism.