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.

Things and stuff

Each of us has broken things,
accidentally.

In a shoebox ignored but kept,
rattled from apartment A to E,
fine cracks form, widen, form anew.

Things already relegated by uselessness,
or unique and rare usefulness
we only realize with need,

we find in pieces,

a practical puzzle I guess,
says the optimist;

but practice and time says the realist;

how puzzling says the pessimist,
possible though.
Possible though.

Another Michelle

michelle searches she does the literature
she keywordiness is human algorithm
so that she, et. al could give evidence
of the obvious scientifically you know,
from up here we see the ultimately, the hard decisions
you know, what is good ibid she thinks
is that so hard really guess so god i feel scared all over

guess icecream still is good and sun
she thinks pluck a piece of it
the grass and for hours you go you
know yourself what for that time
it is
& stubborn adversaries say no
but so you do anyway,
michelle,
keeps you you no thanks heavens

Jersey number 7

Jersey number 7 was worn by a man of many rebounds,

Whose palms slapped the ball with finality: THIS IS MINE.

Whose size thirteens repeatedly greeted the court like so: HELLO.

Whose elbows jabbed bellies deep before he launched,

Whose fists pumped him down the miles of court, or through the walls at home,

Whose fists plunged him through the doors at home,

Whose home had plunged from his favor, and whose palms

Slapped the girl with finality: THIS IS MINE.  HELLO.

Her face was a clear backboard with a bloody palm print on it.

Her face was a pick-up game, un-refereed, one-on-one

with a professional.

I'm telling you her face was orange leather lined with black scars

bouncing back as hard as it was pushed to the floor: again and again,

until he was the squeak of Windex and old blood collecting on mesh and

she was a losing streak on the hardwood floor: still, again.

But finally: still.

Decaffeinated soldiers

The local barista, off collaboratively mourning the death of some concept,
left only a dark café of lonely chairs to disappoint
the impromptu parade of tired morning souls.

Not a granule of Arabica or French Roast
touched a drop of hot water.

No flavor infusion occurred
to produce the hot motivation that normally drives the regulars

to the ergonomically fitted chair in the skyscraper,
to the hospital with its foundation
of white bread, adrenaline, blood and balloons,
to the university and the factory, to the pointy white church.

They scattered across the city like misshapen marbles,
bumping and clacking against the caffeinated,
making them burn their hands.

A moment of personal experience in code: A beginning attempt to define variables

Var Situation (string) = “details of the current situation; this variable contains yet-to-be-codified sub-variables (e.g., SituationType)”

Var ChosenCourse (string) = “my chosen course of action”

Var InitialPerceivedRelevanceWeight (number) = “an intuitive p-value assigned by me to describe the relationship between PastExperience and CurrentSituation using ConceptualMath”

Var CurrentDecision (string) = “the details of the current decision as presented to me; this includes details elicited by the via information gathering from all external sources”

Var PastExperience (string) = “A past experience or unit of learned information called to mind when I am faced with CurrentSituation”

Varset ConceptualMath (operation) = “a set unknown equations based upon unknown rules containing unexpressed and/or confounding variables that I use to adjust variables based upon other variables, with or without my conscious awareness”

Var AdjustedPerceivedRelevanceWeight (number) = “InitialPerceivedRelevanceWeight adjusted for ConfidenceInMyPerception using ConceptualMath”

                                Var ConfidenceInMyPerception (number) = “a value between -1 and 1 assigned by me to describe my confidence in my own perception based upon ConfidenceInOthers, Mood, Restfulness, Health and other variables to be defined"

Eventually, I gain traction

I want to write about the difference
between furniture in a store
and in a house, furniture that is found,
that is built, that is intimately understood,
that is newly acquired, that has withstood

rainstorms on a deck, or in the cold.

I beat myself silly with context.
I parse the premises of appropriate conduct
down to a second of situation
and stand thinking of what to do next
as aproned you buzzes past with a bowl

for smoking, having baked three pies
already, and pontificated somewhere
about things of a social nature -
which ignites such bull-headed passion in you,
which ignites such passion in me,
which ignites you.

This is how I pay attention.