ORE ROTUNDO

Ore Rotundo:

Two Zero Zero Three
i.
running along crescent hills of clifton,
along brownsboro and frankforted roads where
children learn to dream of a
horizon -- beyond the Ohio River -- while i
entertain the journey motif which
lives, uncharted, within my heart...my
longings. i began
racing a long time
ago with a desire for scenery, the bluegrass
under moonlit evenings,
hoping hoping hoping for more hope the entire way.

ii.
juxtaposed to this river,
a wet snake, lies my southern nights in Louisville; here
men, women and child meet ideas, thoughts,
images, and truth (which also lies), in
every moment of every dream.
people, they walk everywhere, each
investing their own secret
care, and some of us sing the same song. Some
kick stones along foreign sidewalks,
exist only to feel pain, to
run, only to trip upon terrain.
i fear
loneliness, but am not alone in my
lucidity, stupidity, cupidity, and bliss.

iii.
laughter is a stranger walking
against my character flaw, and brings
delusions to my illusional
yearnings to set a written heart free,
beyond the baffled boundaries of
ugh, yuck, bleck, shit --
go take the trash out, will you?

how do you do it?
oh, bug girl,
u manage filters, files, and a
love for an artistic, poetic
existence, but so young..so young.
the pond becomes a playground, for
the winged one, sprites, who
exist only to put dreams in a frog’s eyes.

iv.
violent we are, we beasts,
icaruses with burned wings and
calloused, overworked hands so
tired...so exhausted from turning
over every page to see what
riddle is written next
in this epic poem (hidden within
an acrostic world).
to think we’ve ever solved anything is
ridiculous, because there are
only questions --
unbelievable puzzles to mock ourselves into
traps -- to tip toe through roses.

v.
nude teenagers skinny dip into
adolescent luminescence,
towards the tap dancing tango of
adulthood where nudity
looks like sagging losses -
illogical marshmallows of wrinkles and
endless decay.
know that, and remember it,
and sing with that operatic voice of yours.
rivers flow forever, but run dry.
let that love, that laughter, that life -- live --like it does, naked, forever.

vi.
little are words -- their power,
and how sour they taste when
quenched with doubt
u need to get over yourself, girl,
i said, you need to rip open that shell and
taste what’s good for you. don’t
argue with me. then
many days passed, and continued to move
on. This is how it goes (and you don’t know --
no, you do know, it’s gone when it’s gone).
road of barbed wire and irises. we move
on. This is how it goes (and you don’t know
everything -- even if you do know too much).

vii.
azure, the color of the
sky, a blue, bright -- not the blues.
horizons kiss its hue and makes me
love -- one deserves to love again, man.
everyone deserves to love and
you do, too -- it’s true, so
how have you been lately:
energized, enlightened, enthused? You see,
now is the exact moment for you to take
destiny by its reigns and live
exotically, erotically, hypnotically.
reality is how you make it -
show ‘em what ya’ Got.
onward, my dear friend, because
now, we need your color more than ever.

viii.
laughter isn’t constant,
is it? and it may be why I love my
zzzzz’s easing into silent comfort.
noone can make it out there alone,
i know, but you’ve got to
create the loner who
knows how they can

exist upon the
roads when they’re lonely.
stars can offer guidance, as can books
on the shelf, but
noone makes it without their own hand to hold

ix.
knowledge and rainbows, the
ornate sunshine waltzing upon the Ohio
river at this moment.
tonight, with its trouble and my
need to control the uncontrollable,
i love to read your words.
right now, at this moment, a person is
on their death bed and another is about to be
born into this miracle --
everyday that’s yours is a miracle,
really. But it’s a
tad bit easy to forget, unless, unless you’re
stepping side by side with someone along the beach.

x.
not everyone sees the stars,
how they scatter like music
in an arranged composition of the night.
not everyone sees the moon, that
giant orb who hovers its phases
under starlit darkness. Yet,
you do .. and dance with them, too,
existing to laugh in nocturnal light.
not everyone sees its smile.

xi.
ellipses, etc ... blah blah blah, and that
rendezvous with
infinite infinity ... all that jazz.... yadda yadda yadda.
neophytes and fledglings, the artist’s moon,

on the road to find out.
mr. Moonbeam dreams too much...
and thanks God that others do, too -- others
run along, lakesides, watching the sailboats
and the laughter of cunning children.

xii.
macLeish became curious of
existing, why why why why why
life needs hope, and hope is life.
i think about this a lot,
not all the time, but a lot, especially when
days blend into each other, backwards,
and I’m thirsty for a glass of water.

H2O.
aqua.
you’ve seen me parched,
existing out of breath and dry,
so, you brought me something to drink. -- and i thank you.

xiii.
lending that touch
is like unleashing the wings of a
zillion and one stars -- yet they’re unleashed, and

dying closer to the everyday they live -- a
rampage across the black chalkboard of night,
ubiquitous loneliness,
roaring in a universe of all these thoughts...
you, aglow, like so many.

xiv.
commercials bring us a two minute lie.
on and on they preach, making us
reach into them that there is salvation. We
need them to know what life is really like.

on and on and on they lie, changing the channel.
now, I think about this, behind my warmth in flannel.

tomorrow will go.
he knows this because he does--
each of us knows this

knowledge, wisdom and advertised truth,
on and on they’ll leach onto us unless we choose to
live for ourselves -- turn off the t.v., so we can simply
Be.

xv.
krispy Creme donuts ... for what?
a moment of thirty second satiation, for
love, flavor and cravings, given
into, unto, onto the moment it cries...
and who gets paid what for that bliss?

a temporary smile
takes the hard labor of how many
citizens, working calluses, upon their
hands for wages, rages, and the cages of the
living....so much is put into
every moment of a chicadee’s life.
you’ll be able to afford it all. The good stuff is free.

xvi.
jokes on me this time,
on a believe it or not Ripley morning where the
sun shines, but the forecast is gray.
have a nice

day.
am I willing to walk away?
variables in the equations
ibid., irises, ie;
delusional illusions
since the second my eyes
opened, at the brink of dawn.
now i must choose what to see, or not to believe.

xvii.
knew a little girl once
and the only curl i saw was in her heart
you’d think she was horrid(but she wasn’t)

people thought they knew her...
entertained the flippant facade,
not the reality of how she felt within.
childish are the young, yet
enlightened as they grow.

xviii
keeping balanced on an uneven beam, my
ears grow cold, numb, and
i can’t help not listening,
they can’t help not feeling the sound anymore and I
hate the silence, the ice.
down the beam, the sun
orange-warm and bright, glows, but I can’t
reach it -- things are uneven,
shaky, not smooth. I want the solar system,
especially to thaw my years, those fears of my
youth. One foot in front of the other, I travel.

xix.
color me a mountain,
on the horizon of a
river. Call it good morning,
tell it to me in japanese, Ohio,
land, my brown band of brotherhood,
accompany my blues --
neolution, Neolution
dying historically for a solution
to make the landscape come alive.

arrived, the boy with his pen,
realized a truth about all the music he
memorized through cultural
society, buzzed on the sobriety which
tells nothing but the truth...the whole truth.
risen, the phoenix is reborn,
on the ashes of another’s death...
nubian breath is taken,
giant, within the white clouds.

xx.
the trick is not only in our journals, but in the
ridiculous ways we can concoct our truth
and create the magic for better memories.
cacophonies are best, when exploded
in the sparkle of the human mind.

we find voice, only in play
and reflection. We see ourselves in
the mirror only after experience, but very few
know how to smile back at what they see.
i used to hide from the glass, ashamed of the
nights and days of childhood and what I was told.
songs, though, are better sung for me, and alone-now I sing.

xxi.
all my life, I’ve tried to be brief.
less a dictionary,
less a dissertation.
you know what i mean?

he, they say, goes
on and on and on, and
he, i say, knows how
mad it is. I want to be
a blink of an eye,
not the optometrist.

xxii.
grow, said the sun to a seed,
reach up towards me. My
energy is vitamin to your soul.
go on, now, grow.

please, said the seed,
i need more light, and I’m
thirsty. Water is
necessary, too. But I can’t
evolve with you burning me all the time.
you need to go behind the clouds.

xxiii.
reaching across the table, she grabbed salt
and pepper. She said my pasta
needed more flavor -- it was too bland.
did she think i was stupid?
all day she watched me cutting herbs,
lifting vegetables from the garden,
lining ingredients for days,

boiling the pasta made from flour and time.,
lowered in tomatoes, peppers, pesto sauce,
and served in a
new dish, upon an old song. Neither of us would
do the dishes.

xxiv.
man met woman in a galaxy of
stars, and suddenly was struck by seduction,

kaleidoscope of peacock behavior
existing to woo a little “wuv.”
i am not the first poet to wonder, to
see the drive which
haunts our
apple trucks.

chemistry is more of the element, and i
hate thinking there’s even more details
amongst the chaos.
no. Man met woman in a galaxy of
testosterone and
estrogen.

dionysius got involved and invited Venus
over and wola! a
raunchy rendezvous of blood,
sweat and tears.
erotic. sometimes, but mostly
you do the eye game to satiate the moment.

xxv.
people rush behind headlights
along salt-lined roads.
the radio is turned off, and you
reach at the seat belt.
i feel uncomfortable, too.
crowds of people moving,
innocently trapped by
angst, clocks and needs.

my grandmother
always took the time to
reach across her seat belt to hug us,
children, give us poems.
underneath the tapping of your foot, impatient,
my drive is to write poetry for you.

xxvi
crazy how crazy I’m becoming.
and they say,
it’s only the beginning and
that senility is even worse. Walt
laughed at me this summer
in his sharp, meteorologist way.
needs to see me lose my sh*t, he said.

reality, for me, is already
assanine...and he, he wants to
yank what little truth i have into geriatric dreams. Crazy.

xxvii
knowing that whiteheads exist
and need to be popped,
totally zonked by the bone man
having subterranean gloom, let me say i
love your letter, your poetic
evolution and for this
eternity, i hope you not only love the moon, but
need its pandemonium, too.

knowledge, wisdom,
and “an eye” have always been your
kind friend, lying on the back burner
in desire of the right match to be lit --

violet fire, with auburn tips
oven baked concepts
existing existentially, while
learning to laugh, love life, and live --
keeping one eye on the road and the other
eye on the river at your side ... this has and will always be your wordplay
rendezvous, and reading you is delicious.

xxviii
rowing in the canoe,
on Elkhorn Creek, weak from
being alive, and
entertaining twelve year olds, a
rainbow trout swam by,
trolling along, in simplicity.

down the river, a young man would
erratically lose control,
needing to save himself
needing to save the young boy
in the crash of sudden current, against a tree,
needing to spit water, a bag around his neck -
gasping in a complex moment, under water.

xxix
drowning, there are those days I need the
existence of artists to illustrate my dull pages and
rub oil paints into my words.
every now and again, paper is blank.
knowledge does no good.

why?
i don’t know about nothing, but know it’s
located dear to my heart, and I
can’t start another poem if they won’t provide
hues, and the colorful clues for being.
each blank page begins with a need for us to
reach for how the other artist lives.

xxx
jackelopes are good eatin for
aardvarks when ants are scarce and
monkee brains are off the market.
elephants taste like chicken,
sometimes, depends on the barbecue sauce.

my vocabulary is limited because
on my quest for truth, i decided not to
read the ones who covered up the banal with
roseo Infantum.
i like words..don’t get me wrong, they also make me
sick. such addictions are predictions for death.

xxxi
jason was a pooping boy
and pooping’s what he did...and
ma hated when he stopped by,
in days when we’d used to play, cuz
every time he’d visit us,

ca ca was his surest way.
over the toilet he would squat,
making faces and odd words, and
by the time Jason left our house,
sure enough, the smell of turds.

xxxii.
and on and on, another poem, a
shadow on the stage,
haunted by the hunger of words,
loving the sound
each pitter pats upon the paper, including
your name.

lame, another poem,
you, written across this line.
ompaloskepsis,
navigating my naval in meditative
serenity....Om.

xxxiii
on humid nights of
august,
i imagine

not here, but
going away,
unsociably unsophisticated,
yearning for the ocean - alone -
entangled by its distance -
needing another place than this.

xxxiv
jittery joke on us all,
each finding purpose for the game,
needing another roll of the dice,
i wish to buy another vowel, Pat...
final Jeopardy, how much
exists, really, for me to wage -- to
rage?

My age is working against me -
apart from yesteryear, when
life had more pieces to play with -
life had more clues, yet now,
on this playing field,
you aging fart, we don’t get another chance.

xxxv
juice was pored into a koolaid cup:
apple -
cranberry,
love for the
young writer who,
now, was thirsty.

C....i told u it was good.
orange juice, yum...isn’t
x’isting great?

xxxvi
mr., can I ask you a question?
everyday I
gain more wisdom, more perspective
and my eyes grow more weary. I
need advice.

what? he asked,
i wasn’t listening....I was
going over and over this
gosh darn poem, and i
simply can’t decide if I need a comma.

xxxvii
today, I
entered another
realm, where
reality is
equal to a
lamp post
lashed with electric lashings.

snapping,
my neck
is harnessed by
the kinks of bad sleep, and I’ve
had a terrible, crooked day.

xxxviii
entering the
limelight
isn’t always easy...it’s like a
zillion stars are shining in your eyes
and instead of vision, you go
blind.
entering the
the song of singers

helps, though, in moving on.
perhaps i’m wrong and
ridiculous.
i have been and will be again.
every time i place
simple sayings into
tight spaces, i
enter the lime light with you,
riding on the wings of your flight.

xxxix
nine minutes after three,
i pulled into the lot,
counted the plastic
on faces, in purses, in their
lives --
each, a flamingo, in more affluent lawns.

all I wanted was a book, to
rake in the published voice of a
buddy, back in college, who
unleashed his soul and was
caught as a son of heaven.
keep your head up, kid, I
laughed to myself, trying to
exist amongst East End tupperware.

xxxx
lead paint?
u used lead pain to
knock up that wall, dude?
everyone’s gonna get loopy, whoa..

vat? Vat? It’s not lead.
oh, my bad.
sorry.
search and destroy, guy....paint your life away.

xxxxi
just between you and me,
u got to be a bit of a con - man to
scribble out poems. You’ve got
to have word-tools and an
interest in S P A C E, a
need to mean a little more.

hell, anyone can write a poem.
all you need is wascally wabbits and wile
ye coyotes....then,
every now and again, beep beep,
some road runner leaps across the page.

xxxxii
jokes on you, they said,
on you, on you, on you and you.
so, they’re right.
humor.

me in an
overture of self actualization. when i
reached into my stomach, i pulled out
rancid meat, slightly digested,
in less than twenty four hours. ah...my
silly succotash and stupid sagacity.

xxxxiii
boy, those hugs...
you got to cherish those hugs as they
reach around your stomach, arm
over arm in a bear squeeze of
need.

love...this is what it looks like,
unlike the way most of us are.
kindness is a young man,
in his senior year,
not caught up with the world’s
sadness, but with hugs...just hugs.

two zero zero four
i.
everyday, i
rack my brain to ask if
i’ve been half the man i should be,
knowing that sacrifices were made for me
along roads of historical hardships which others endured.
bryan, i say, how
on top of your world are
you? And if i feel successful, i
dive, headfirst into sleep, rewarding myself for a life well lived.

ii.
before i learned to learn i
read books.
i read my family,
dissected them like
green frogs in biology labs.
eventually, though,
the scalpel became my mind and i
tore into my soul with too much imagination. now, a
bridge is necessary to get
you, me, humanity over siddhartha’s troubled waters.
every step i take forward, another drowns by the
racing, rancid river. i turn another page, and another
story is told, but still, but still, i stay blind like the fool i am.

iii.
krap. i’m running out of time -
evolving into history, a
visionary who can’t see:
i need goggles. i
need binoculars to
capture
another sighting of sasquatch.
i need laser surgery and i
need to believe they’re coming to take me away.

iv.
tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,
each day we idiots are wide awake in
narcolepsy. are we snoring? are we
entertaining fellow fools in
sonnets of shady songs? story?
how are we doing
as compared to yesterday? today,
curtis came and wrote a poem, an
unbelievable poem,
reaching beyond the dark -
tightly, she lasso’d my writer’s soul, and
i am yanked alive by her words,
secretly sold into her magic. such a witch, you know?

v.
just when i thought i had an
answer, they threw me a trickier question.
my mind was given their virus and i
emitted spam to whomever would listen. i know, i know,
shut up, already. my hard
drive is on, but i can’t shut it off. it’s
running all my programs at once, and like an
umbilical chord, i’m attached to the
ridiculousness of being small. so are
you, folks....so are we all.

vi.
the dad can
only do so much,
my father taught me. i endured
anger, his
rages of how stupid i was being, and he forced me to
question my world -- my stupid, selfish,
unbelievable drive for
self destruction.
everyday i think about this. his
very strict fists
and words aimed to ruin my life.
now, i
see, though. i see an ass for what an ass is. what an ass i was.

vii.
tiny we were
in westmoreland...
five year olds
folding our
arms in
newly learned respect.
you go to school to learn from ms. saladino.
for the first time, we were all
away from home, mom’s lunch -- the
young getting older every day. the garden open, never to be the same again.
viii.
ask my sister about me and she’ll say i
love the guy, but he’s a jerk. he
loves being a jerk
in his quest to make
everyone around him their best.
friendship is what we have now, she’d say,
in a sure, secure song, but when we were
neophytes, i hated his standards, his
lust of making everyone think too hard.
existing with bryan, she’d say, is like
yakking. it’s awful while it happens, but it rids you of any illness.

ix.
and we are driven. there
needs to be nothing else said. we
desire goodness, fairness and wrongs to be made
right.
each of us can learn this from us. in fact,
we need to study how hard we work before it’s
gone. memories. yesterdays. the
reality that time trickles downward .
and, perhaps, before any of
you know it, the drive will be over (like this poem).

x.
running. that’s what i seem to be doing all the time -
over grass trails, paved dreams and
by polluted, forgotten rivers,
eternally flowing,
racing, moving, being, living,
taking my breath away.
he sprints, too,
arrives to the finish line, quicker,
laughs louder and
stays on the path of his own drum and band, while
entertaining the thongs sung loud, like chickens, in his head.
love to run. run to
love. live. that’s what i seem to be doing all the time.

xi.
at the basketball game, i sat
under the scoreboard,
scratching thoughts into a
hollow journal while
ausha made another rebound.
how much is life like this court? i thought.
it can be a losing battle, game after game, where
learning the better pass, the better block, more finesse with a
lay up, bird like, swan-swish, really matters?
i wonder such things in my poetic
madness as
ausha shoots again ... i’ll
never know who’s supposed will win.

xii.
ask me once why i do anything
like i do and i’ll tell you
it’s all premeditated and for a reason.
serendipitously, i am always
on my toes of tiptoed tulips in
need of the better lesson, glistening on a pond.
how else is there to live? with all
of us as dust upon this marble, except to be aware.

xiii.
Please.
he simply asked/stated/said/wondered/
understood -- please, let me
open your soul. i
need to see what’s within.
go ahead, she said, but i’m watching.
He went ahead and began to write,
unleashing her worries/fears/dreams/hopes/
yesterdays. please, she said,
no more. that’s enough. and
he closed his journal and called it a day.

xiv.
knowledge is more than
all that crap we tell you because
the experiences of your
road, your journey, is the surest
intelligence of truth - it
narrows you into perspective
and whips you, whap, with wisdom, wiping the buttocks of lies.
how one succeeds,
over and beyond the
ludicrousness of school,
college and job - is how they carry their hearts
over and beyond the mundane routine of life.
my surest truth is youth,
bitten by the bug to work hard, will
evolve, immensely, beyond all expectations -- passion and drive, the key.

xv.
knowledge? what? screw
each of you ... and the horses you road
in on. don’t tell me how you
think. don’t measure me by your
hierarchy of intellectual blabbering.
be black, i say. be you.
love knowing that i
already know how to make the
cause for a new generation come alive.
knowledge? what? screw that. it’s a
joke where the punch line is on how
ordinary their common thinking is.
he can go further. i can go further,
needing nothing but
soul to succeed in the
orchestration of their so called intelligent life.
no. knowledge. that and that alone belongs to me.

xvi.
madness brought me
amongst the streets and skies of
creative chaos --- (and i’m supposed to be the
knowledgeable one: yet the more i know, the less i seem to
exist). So, how do i resist the every day for its
nectar and flavor, without getting overwhelmed and nauseous? i
need the challenge of ingredients, but drown
along the river of its flavor. just
joking. i try to laugh and
occasionally shed a million tears from the
humor of it all. the emotions are
necessary, after all, aren’t they? i’m
sick, though, right?. -- torn down the middle of the page:
occasionally tip toeing with zest, but
narcissistically needing to hide.

xvii.
knitted within my expectations,
i weave glimmers of gold --
my intentions are always stronger than my
need to teach a lesson. no, the world doesn’t
get easier, but
onward, we must hope.

xviii..
driving here, then there,
everywhere, i see the
violence of how we exist. yes,
i splatter bugs on my windshield, too, and it’s
never-ending (like that dream of a vietnamese flower).
life is roadkill, though,
and we’re guilty until proven innocent.
man, my truck needs a good washing these days, so thanks, anyone, for
bringing me the windex.

xix.
jokes on us -- especially
on the ones who misplace their
senses, their humor....i guess
he who laughs little, lives not, but
leaving is a difficult thing. see, i used to leave
all the time, walking beyond my egotistical
zoning, honing in only on me. yet,
all that comes around, goes around...siddhartha sees how the
river flows. it goes beyond all of
us. you will leave, too. religion calls and i finally know how
sam wise feels.

xx.
the other day, i saw
him, this kid i used to know,
and we said hello.
now i can’t sleep. he keeps
going over and over my thoughts.
last year, he was alive with magic. now, he
exists as a ghost --- blank to everything he meets.

xxi.
a penguin knows how to bite. they can be
nasty, feathered boogers,
going slip slap slup on the ice. they
eat herring, you know, and they
laugh at the seals for balancing balls
along their nose.
look. see that penguin. it bites.
ouch. it bit me and
my life will never be the same,
asinine ... i need a doctor quick.
xray my wound before i........croak (ribbit ribbit)

xxii.
nourished. the poet
goes after words like they’re
unusual vietnamese soup.
you’ve got to slurp it up
eating the spices and herbs until going
numb. you must taste every syllable,
licking your teeth and lips.
u must know life’s delicious.
u must know the flavors are infinite.

xxiii.
rain, if cold, becomes snow,
and blankets hibernal minds,
and covers a thinking soul.
my fingers tap across white keys,
yelling to the world, ‘i
need your poems...’
my soul craves
all the seasons, all the
love of how
one drop
now
exists -- changed for the better, perhaps, later.

xxiv.
leiz left me a popsicle in the fridge. she was
eating it earlier, when
i didn’t see her. it dripped down her cheek like a
zillion random thoughts in my brain.
man, i’m glad she told me it was hers, especially
after i pulled it from the fridge to
satiate my own exhausted appetite.
‘oh, bry, that was mine,’ she said. ‘i
licked it and put it back.’
oi vay --- these kids with their good intentions.

xxv.
poetry is a religion with words and where
heaven finds its a way upon earth.
i need to believe this,
loving language and how it can
lift a spirit by twisting them
in perplexed cocoons.
poetry spindles hope, i hope.
music comes from this
creation, and
people: you, me, we
have the spirit to play with
eternity,
epiphany, and
testimony that (when we remember the words)
everything is possible along the
rivers. the
secret, of course, is to sing. simply sing. to find our song.

xxvi.
daily, we go through the motions,
awakening only to depart from
nocturnal dreams once again.
he is somewhere between these phases. at
night, the knuckles bleed so he
gets another cigarette. it’s
useless to inhale and exhale all that the
young worry about.
enlightenment and truth aren’t as complicated as the
nights make them. sleep, friend, but don’t forget to wake up, too.

xxvii.
did you hear about the
one where the boy goes into a
nudie bar? neah, I didn’t
get to hear it either.
the wax in my ear built up,
on top of that, i’m
not a good listener, anyway....and
you?
no. i don’t know the one about the
girl, the gynecologist and a sushi bar.
u don’t either? then why are
you wasting my time.
existing is about laughing. god i
need to laugh.

xxviii.
pear?
apple wine? a
tablecloth of poetics.
i am in love with the idea of
entertaining words at the edge of a
naked forest, where the basket opens to
chardonay, and i can not say a word - the feast
entertains my palette instead.
pear. apple wine. table cloth of poetics lying
elliptical on an orb of green grass, growing
and knowing that it is within the simplicity,
complex realities arise. so, i take an
ornamental bite with my silverware, and
cut my chances with a
knife. i enjoy the picnic.

xxix
next to every sunset
is a dream for it to rise again.
now, it must rise again
and we must follow its lead.
pride. ethics. culture. drive. the
horizon is a listing of what’s to be done
and how a good life is lived. the sun, like you,
must fall, only to rise again.

xxx.
all our thoughts are a blink of an eye.
newborns only be reborn,
neophytes, vulnerable and
awkward.
rare, the right words to say
in callous contemplation of
going ahead as planned, but
going backwards, we trudge on.
such is life and so must it always be.

xxxi.
every time i drive home,
my mind wanders over the pages
i’ve written in black ink.
leaving, and driving back, i
yearn to return home.
such is growing up and leaving the
cave. the safety of shackles
oscillates against the freedom of
being alive with truth.
boy, i’m not sure if i like being
an adult. does anyone have any candy?

xxxii.
kryptonite. they need to market
enormous buckets of the stuff so
i can bring people down. no, not the
tiny people....they’re insignificant, but the ones with
hubris. i want the egotistical to fall...
to wallow in insecurities for
a while to see how it feels to be
living beneath their nostrils,
living underneath their feet.
erroneously, i am under a rock --
yes, superman flew away with my vision. and i’m stuck here.

xxxiii.
children are temporary and age will have them
older before another moon goes full and
rotund in its midnite illumination..
days are like this. they offer hope but
i long for them to return, slow down,
and bring me back to simpler times.
these children i teach, each sliding along their
horizons with optimistic steps and
omnipotent doubt.
my role on this moon is,
perhaps, to simply be
knowledgeable to how transient it all is and
i’m only a fly-by in the mirror of life, anyway.
new. old. and new again,
sun rises only to set us all aside.

xxxiv.
krazy.
i am krazy. a
ripley wrapped by his zaniness
and hysterics of living life where the jokes on me.
tell me a story and make me laugh. tell me the
one about the chicken and his thong, because i
need the sparkle in my
eye again.
you’ve got to steal glitter -- throw it at me. make me blind with hope.

xxxv.
last but not least, she’d like to
accept the title, ms. brown school,
under the guise that she’s not the
raver, smoker, lover, swearer and
eternal do everything girl.
naw, she is only who she is.
passing the ball, while
finishing the stand
and popping corn for
nerdy losers on saturday nights and
needing an ocean front talk, while
entertaining friends,
running laps to stay fit, and
sitting close to death on couches of b.s.
tired/exhausted/frosted and SADD.
i have eyes,
lauren, and i’ve seen how your tongue
licked the icy pole, and laugh at you, cuz you’re stuck, but happy.

xxxvi.
january is coming, and will go as fast as my
existence. resistance is pointless.
so, i’m choosing to sing the
songs...to find the hope
i know i need to move on.
call it faith, if you will,
and sing with me, if you want.
purpose is hard to explain,
really.
i know i have one and it is
emitted by my word choice,
stolen from poets before me and
twisted to make sense to me.
each of us, jessica, are such poems,
ready to be captured by your spirit and pen.

xxxvii.
the sun is a simile
each ray of its arms are like
rumors which make me laugh -
riddles which can be solved -
ice cream, fudged with chocolate -
children being silly -
and a smile....the sun is like a smile.
terrica smiles,
and she’s like the sun.
you can feel her harmless hugs from the
love she laughs with
or the kindness she carries, selflessly,
ray-like, with warmth.

xxxviii.
hues. the colors of you, me,
us in this american goulash
on a stove always heated,
needing monitors and timers to keep us
going, cooking, in the right direction, for the right
taste. more salt? pepper? garlic? are we
ready yet? cooked? baked? done?
alive as we once were? does the boat
need any more flavor? i’m ready to leave.

xxxix
clay, new york, taught me that
adolescents are stupid --
ridiculously caught up in the
awkward game of youth.
u, too, are caught in the game, but
coming out of it soon. the
cocoon always hatches (sooner or later) and
enlightenment will arise from the phoenix’s
life of ashes...dust to dust....and fire.
little did i know back then and
i regret how much i thought i did.
needless to say, i am human. damn it,
i am human and here i sit, cursed, seeking forgiveness.

xxxx.
teats? tarts?
oh, that...
my hand writing’s just bad.
vat, vat are you saying?
i’m saying that
creativity is the ooze of a
krispi creme donut and that
everything is a poem
ready to be written.
you, tom, are a poem, too.

xxxxi.
too bad youth is wasted on the young,
u don’t know, exactly, what’s about to happen
and how it’ll never be the same again.
now will not be tomorrow.
vietnam is yesterday
under the guise of today’s american lies, trying to set you free......

xxxxii.
last year, i
almost threw in the towel.
u know how it gets when
reality doesn’t meet expectations
and the disappointments somehow do.
well, i came back.
i decided to war once again:
learning with its struggle,
laughing from the accusations,
i teach another day
among the good, the bad and the ugly.
moonbeams, trying to taste their new wings in a
song only beginning to be heard.
oh, if only i could know them later on,
not now, where they’re stuck in the metamorphosis.

xxxxiii.
clouds are supposed to part, but
ours are here, forever, it seems.
reality -
your performance on stage, so young
always trying to remember,
needing meaning,
despite the sickness we are -
raving lunatics, I guess,
egotistically
walking in the shadows of our own conceit.
such is life...
tedious, mundane, repetitious
and akward.
ultimately, though, our
beings are still here:
living, loving, believing and awake...
eternally, with candle light in our hearts.

xxxxiv.
dancing, that’s
all we have, and music, memory,
nirvana starlit skies...
i hope we’re
earning this: daniel,
living, loving, learning,
joining
one another to strut and fret our
hour upon the stage until
none of us are heard no more.
star light, star bright, first star
out there tonight; it’ll
never be forgotten. never.

Two Zero Zero Five
i.
knowledge is life. wisdom. a
river which flows throughout us and
i am a walkway
sustaining yesterday with
the memory of today.
everyday’s a lesson, i have learned,
needing the structure i’ve become.
am i touching
down, planted in concrete
and able to withstand the
madness and serenity of passing traffic?
sure i am. i stand and i hold on. i hold on.

ii.
saw another movie with its insight cabled
tightly in a two hour twist of ego.
eventually, filmed, i was wrapped in my own
victimization of hubris between the commercials.
entertainment. angles. cinematic grammar
needing the same old stories told once ...
again. over and over.
nbc.cbs.abc.pbs.mtv. the
dynamics of hollywood empires not fallen nor
erased by innocence, nor
rearrangement of reality.
so, for a moment, i matter.
on the t.v. a tale is told, tonight, i dance in the sun, with the
new year yet to come -- recycled. i am a rerun.

iii.
he likes to read.
always has, until guilt sets in and he
needs to get outside -- live the life
necessary to be written onto page.
and, he likes to journal
how everything/nothing/this matters
all he craves, though, is a good story. how the
race of being human catches up, and
bobo’s burden of the ring
arrives even after gollum gets his way.
unbelievable. that’s how these poems
go. so, for a little while,
he/she/they/we grow.

iv.
by now, you know that somewhere, over the
rainbow, there only exists more doors to the
imagination.
they each are painted in
the spirit that moves you,
atlases to the moment the journey begins -
navigation-voyage-flight-movement.
you are the
artist with the brush,
randomly pinpointing the
brilliance, radiance, song and dance,
under the framework of sky,
creating the lines, space, a mood on a
kid’s face.
lovelaughterlivingleaving-
everyone must exit the door.

v.
all of us are made of earth:
man, woman, child
awkward forms of bone, muscle,
nerves, and mud, carcassed beings
deep within the
aggravation of its harnessed cravings.
birth begets rebirth begets being born again,
over and over
arriving as dirt, dust and
knowledge. there’s always an end.
rivers teach this: Ohio, good morning,
i am alive
going along with this rhythm, while i have it,
growing into what i’m to become,
sustaining this body until it must be returned.

vi.
in the tree, walnuts. never claimed to be otherwise, nor
admit they’re odd, peculiar, seedlings, pink elephants
not meant to fit in all family trees.
but through the leaves the sun is focused
on those of us pushing the boulders uphill,
living to fulfill dreams which
grow in the garden of a hip-hop, flip-flop life. the
evolution takes time, like the music in our heads,
racing - a squirrel who plays chicken on the highway of life, prevailing.

vii.
look. evil is subjective.
i mean, look at alice.
nerd. dork. a word that rhymes with witch.
ditch. electric chair. flip the
switch and
everyone goes happy.
yodel lai he hoooooooo.
crap. i forgot to add the fabric softener,
and it’s made for a womyn, strong enough for a man.
racist. sexist. bigot. crackerjack cheese puff. i
tally the anxiousness, the pace of these words
eagerly awaiting the reader to
run away with the punch line (which is usually me).

viii.
moo cow. p.u. cow. pow wow
aglow now,
singing in the field of penguins.
one. two. three. four.
nab your tentacles on the floor.
cot two cot two, giddyup giddyup, giddyup, get down.
oh, no, mr. bill, not another bamboozled
xenophobic, claustrophobic hypochondriac. quack quack quack.

ix.
this is my curse. i
reach to be my best, excel,
and while almost at the sun, my wings
viciously catch fire and i am
icarus once again. yeah, it
sucks to be me.
cause the next day, upon landing in aches and pains, i’ll
reach the sun once again, or
at least i think i will, but won’t.
flying is for the birds, but
the dream is for my humanity.

x.
look. it’s purely coincidental that
all of us are swirling in this batter of uneaten
cookie dough. eggs. flour. sugar,
even the vanilla extract and chocolate chips,
you know what i mean?
don’t know what i mean? okay.
all of us happen to be in this bowl, right?
with all these other ingredients. totally random.
so we taste good once cooked, together,
on some pie rack the “man” created for us. but
nope. it won’t work. they’ll forget to turn the oven on. we’ll always remain raw.

xi.
quazy how the need to go fast
usually ends up in a ticket,
or some crazy internet scandal
causing us to lose money. yet, i say
drive fast. make bets. attempt the
impossible and when you lose, play innocent.
now is the only moment that matters.
how would your grand kids feel if you didn’t have stories for them to learn?

xii.
blink of an eye, summer’s here
leaving another generation of imagination attempting the
aggravation of the real world intervention.
i hate to tell them that it stinks, but winona ryder did star in
reality bites. ‘though, once you get past the whining and the
depression and the angst and the drama,
obviously all that is left is happiness, awe and weally whacky
wonder about how one earth could have such
delicious everything underneath forgotten rocks and
living beneath soil only to
evolve into exactly what it’s supposed to be. it’s not just black and white.

xiii.
jelly on scones. blueberry pancakes. scrambled
eggs, bacon toast at a diner of old lady waitresses.
rhubarb pie. rice soup. poached salmon.
elephant ears at the fair, hot cinnamon rolls,
monkey bread, christmas cookies, potato salad,
yogurt on top of angel cake and strawberries.
french fries, tator tots. sushi and wasabi.
each bite, a new discovery of what the palate
rationalizes into flavor, taste, aesthetic and mood.
rarely, does the culinary artist within grow, but with
you...you have every right to smack your lips and return to the kitchen.

xiv.
my example is lunacy, i suppose --
always manic in a drive to accomplish
the impossible, on a mission to
hang the crescent moon on heaven’s nail so
everything, for a little while, anyway,
will be serene, calm, and i can exhale with
fuzzy wuzzy was a bear
over and over again
with a smile on my face at how
little it takes for me to believe in
everything you work for. i’ve got your back as you
reach the sky, too, to hang a better life on the milky way.

xv.
random. they accuse me of being an
idiot, insane on the insanity of the inaneness,
crazy as a loon at a pow wow,
after the cowboys have rode their horses.
randomrandomrandomrandom,
doing/saying/being whatever whim comes to my
overly anxious brain.
fudge. total fudge. i’m focused
on what really matters and that is everything.
x-actly my point. everything is confusing.

xvi.
knowing what i know now
entertains me, only because i can
laugh at how stupid i once was.
singing songs are like this.
earlier, i could sing “i’ve been working on the railroad”.
yesterday, i could sing my a,b, c’s.
growing up, i got a walkman
and tuned everyone out. I became a
recluse in black clothing, webbed in internal
realities, because songs helped me to survive.
eventually, i began to listen to different tunes, though.
the melodies of great symphonies before me
taught me wisdom and i began singing my own song, and continue to sing.

xvii.
maybe there are werewolves
and they go bowling for lawn gnomes,
running away when the robins start to sing.
i don’t know. i live with a dog who
sleeps and for entertainment, rolls over to
sleep some more. i wish she was
as entertaining as a bowling werewolf would be.
great. now i’m all sad that my canine
exists uselessly, only to flip-flop in dead possum,
not to howl at the moon nor roll gutter balls past
the jolly little dwarves at the end of the alley.
really, my world could be more interesting
yelling, “Juliette, don’t eat the Nisse.”

xviii.
superficial what?
and with std’s?
man, promiscuous little boogers
attend that school.
now, why doesn’t everyone go
there? i mean, if it’s the greatest, brightest, best, ever,
how is it we’re not all there.
are we the dumbest, dimmest and least?
hmmmm. i sort of like that.
all of us can exhale now, knowing how
little we are and unimportant. i guess we’ll have the last
laugh.

xix.
reaching for the moon one day, i heard someone
yelling it didn’t belong to me.
are you a nincompoop, the voice screamed,
no one, no one is to touch the sky!!!
how sad, i thought,
as i tucked my arms back to their side.
my intentions were good and i planned on
sending the moon back in its place.
life is too grande not to have a taste of
every opportunity which arises, so if they
yell at you, make sure you at least grab a star.

xx.
duh. um. hmmm.
aaaaaahhh...ugh. thud
now, that is a performance. it’s called
a man trying to articulate his passion while
hanging his memories on a hook. it’s a
vietnamese folk tale. i think it was
you who shared it with me, once.
hhmmmm. uggghhhhh, duh,
ahhhhhhhh, whack.
never mind. that was another story, when
no one was around to see my curtain call,
and when the velvet robes were pulled shut before I
had a chance to bow. God, I hate the theater. Such drama. la de da.

xxi.
doobie doobie doobie doo
aardvark, cow and ostrich poo,
voo do vat vith vu? woo woo
i dooooooooooooon’t believvvvve it,
dabid hobby -- it’s not even dursday.
hippetty hoppity tru’ dat,
and sing along with this poetic skat,
rapping at the mic, with mickey the rat,
voo do vat vith vu? woo woo
eccentric language stew, yep, that’s totally
you. (mecha lecka hi, mecka hiney ho -- yo)

xxii.
jugs. that’s what they do to
unruly guys at st. x.
see, they do the crime
they pay the time
imprisoned by jugs.
naughty naughy, tsk tsk.
horribly evil it is to stand as a t-shape
idiot with two jugs in each grip. They must
go crazy, in heavenly pain, aching in
god’s wrath that thee hath
sinned. ouch.

xxiii.
first it was betty crocker.
ran up with a recipe for
entertaining the heart -- she
didn’t know about L’il Debbie, did she?
how about Sara Lee
or Mrs. Butterworth?
does the CEO tell all the
girls about Silver’s or Lil Ace’s
eight secret ingredients on being a
stud? Lady’s man...Lady’s man!!

xxiv.
nobody knows
all there is to know in this
madness
however, when the wind blows
under our wings we must fly.
you were given gifts to use wisely.
now is the time to
hatch from your senior cocoon and live.

xxv.
my grandmother taught me to sing the songs
all around me. look at the trees, she said, the
rivers, the lakes, the sky, the clouds and
the kingdom of life.
i have tried to live as she did, and
need her memory in the back of my mind,
always knowing these eyes are watching god, too.
just like zora, i need a world of story. i need words
on paper to make sense of it all.
never forget the color purple
existing in your heart.
sing the song of poets and smile your smile forever.

xxvi.
little things matter most
in the end.
born into
body,
you must internalize the magic, the
karma,
never forgetting the blues
oscillating in the accomplishment of dialectics.
ubiquitous infinity
saves all of us in the
end. but this is only the beginning.
xxvii.
jokes on us,
each and every day because
riddles bring nothing but
ego to the punster.
madness, the hubris
yearning to pull a fast one even quicker.
life has the last laugh, though,
and soon, once again, the eyes leak,
never confident of tomorrow’s regrets
eventually settling within us all.

xxviii.
my instinct is to play drums while driving.
i’ve never had a lesson, no, but there’s something about song which
causes my hands to find the steering wheel in a pit-pat
holy experience. at times, my rhythm is
awkward, but so am i, and i have hard time with my
ears. what sounds good to me is purely
ludicrous, but i play anyway.
laugh, anyway.
i sing, too. sometimes with windows open, other times
closed. and when i play, i wonder
how others view me from their roads. i keep the
volume loud. why? why not. when i’m tapping
at the internal drum kit of my soul, as
ridiculous as it is, i’m making music. that’s all that matters.

xxix.
just yesterday i arrived,
early, in a toyota tercel i named joan popper, my
simple blue traveler which brought my world of books and
story to this land of splooievilled kenyucky.
i have no regrets, either, because somehow i learned to
earn this -- this moment, so quickly shared.
my travels have changed some
and gas prices have climbed, but still i find myself
going, moving, being, seeing, loving the road ahead.
each day i accelerate, sister,
each day the wear and tear of age brings me closer to what really matters.

xxx.
so, i’ve been thinking a lot about loyalty and trust.
every man, and woman, must do this eventually,
arguing, internally, about what is right and wrong. we
need the constancy of sincerity.
mahaffey has this. he has truth,
always appearing one way, but providing another,
holding on to his beliefs, morals
and convictions of what’s best in this world.
for some, they missed out on this pillar, this
friend who’d have your back during the greatest storm.
every now and then, you meet someone who’s a good guy.
yes, sean, you’re the good guy and i hope it delivers to you what it should.

xxxi.
last year, i was in a trinity of disbelief: doubt, discouragement
and leaving. the easiest answer was to leave the
madness when all around me the insanity prevailed.
i have wanted to leave more than once,
catching back up to the life i once lived,
having the bliss created from memory
and living in my wigmore hill past,
especially when another year
lashes goodbyes against the chalkboard.
my instinct is to dive back under the lily pads,
causing a mild tsunami
kicking only the cattails around. this is my
nature, and i want to hide,
intrinsically,
going underneath, instead of above.
however, it’s good to stay still because here
the greatest lessons are learned. i know this now.
xxxii.
a-b-c-
d, 1-2-3
all the spirit belongs to me.
i must shout and i must scream
remembering the purpose is to dream.
m & m’s, with skittles, too,
creating spirit is up to you.
perhaps a dance, perhaps a cheer,
how the individual matters,
each and
every year.
tippety-toppity, trippity, toe
embrace the self, put off the foe.
reach above and touch the moon,
sing the magic of your tune.

xxxiii.
my first dog was dusty. my sisters and
i used to swim with him at loch lebanon, until his
chasing of water skiers wore the padding from his paws.
he had a stroke, though - only could use his left leg.
early the next summer, my sister brought home tizzephina
louise. i suppose she’s the closest thing (he
laughs to himself) to this man’s best friend i’ve
ever had.
moons changed through phases and
onward i marched. tizzy saved my sister’s life and
no one can take that back.
that day, i suppose i woke up, once again,
galloping one step closer to the man i am today.
oh, and now i have good ol’ pinhead,
my third.
everyone likes to make fun of her --
really, she’s quite an odd dog,
yet, i love having her around. dog spelled backwards is god, after all.

xxxiv.
jelly. honey. something sweet
or full of sugar. that’s what pooh likes.
not tigger, nor eeyore (which
i tend to be), but good ol’ winnie,
catching some of the bee stings, cuz he’s
always willing to work for what he wants.
maybe that’s the secret
of what it’s all about. we
need to know what tickles our belly and
take all the chances necessary to
get there. not all are
on the way.
many don’t work
enough, don’t have that child within
reaching past the hives thrown their way.
you don’t pooh pooh, you win.

xxxv.
koi. you knew i’d begin that way,
having the first line bring orange brilliance
along the murky poem -- you knew i’d
need to use those three letters in simplicity, not merit,
glowing larger than the universe.
god, buddha, maude. the one -
i know you know the words i need to say
and i know you know i can only imply them.
nirvana is what we make this life and that’s why i decide to
give, to help, to search for the best in everything i know
until i die, . why. it’s just bry.
yearning to tackle the insecure
egomania a little, sigh, too much. it is time
now. go upstream holding the sun and moon upon your back. swim.

xxxvi.
my ancestors make me a mutt.
i come from ukranian eggs,
celtic stories, english pubs, while
holding german oompa oompa tales
everywhere i go. no, i’ve never
lived in vietnam, nor do i sing the
lullabies a generation of immigrants have
entertained in american dreams.
nor am i a pure bread. i’m more a
garbled basquiat painting of color and
unbelievable chaos.
yet, i’m human,
evolving from everything my progenitors
needed to survive, and like you, i’m alive for them.

xxxvii.
very first day, the woman warrior proved her worth.
all of us cracked a smile, seeing another
nguyen follow in rather large footsteps
navigated and hung before her.
your worth was known early on.
now, i nod my head, trusting in the
gigantic being you’ve become. you’ve
undergone this battle, this four-year fight, and
you’ve proven your craftsmanship with sword.
every one in town bows their head and will
never forget your vietnamese power.

xxxviii.
creativity is born with the passion of
loving and living in a blanket of words.
art is a part of writing. writers must
reach deep into their supplies, utilizing every
item available in a new way that lets the
soul
scream. i’ve
always seen the muses screaming inside of you.
part of the creation, though, comes from
awkward surroundings, challenging the
reality you think you know,
diving head first into your
opposites until they’re synonymous with who you currently are.
now, go out there and write. write and make fun of yourself the entire way.

xxxix.
redheads. it’s not so much they
are hot under the
collar as it is they
harness so much passion within
and don’t know how to use it all the time.
eventually, though, some of them
live long enough to tame the
phoenix.
and then, and then, ah man, the
rebirth, reformation and renaissance is delicious.
krispy kreme donuts, delicious. full of flavor, like black and white film.

xxxx.
returning home is the secret of it
all. when away from what
you knew was last week, the intricate
particulars become more familiar.
on the occasion i travel back,
going over the speed limit
gaining momentum with the miles,
every landmark begins to crystalize,
narrowing in on the importance of what once was.
bygones will be bygones, and flashbacks will
oscillate from neuron to neuron --
remember when we went to brown --
god, it seemed like just yesterday.

xxxxi.
sometimes, i can’t harness the
crazy energythoughtsmovementsideas going
on in my head, either. i
try to focus, but become blurry in ocean fog,
too quick for my own memory
rapid roads of good intentions are
our best traits -- brothers --
some people don’t get it. how in
every minute of motion we exhibit, we
retain a zillion thoughts/movements/actions never to be shared.

xxxxii
how many of us have learned the
art of giving....of wrapping the self
naturally for the benefit of others.
not many i suppose.
all of us are so selfish with
how important we think our time actually is.
slow down, i say. find the moments on the
clock to pause and commit those random acts of kindness,
helping others so that one day,
under the darkest skies of their existence, they too, can
selfishly give back to this world. we all
take so much for granted: sunrises, ladybugs,
early spring, snowfall, an interesting new friend.
really, it’s quite easy, but we make it more difficult.

xxxxiii.
learn. learn even when chalk isn’t on the board.
utilize this moment, now, to think, to appreciate that
knowledge transcends the ridiculousness of school and
each second of your day is the lesson you need to learn.
school, you see, is a gimmick. it’s a tool to babysit
children who are brats, who need teachers outside of
having the bricks of k - 12 game-play.
really, everything i needed to recognize to grow
existed from the hours on the sundial when
no one was offering me a test, a quiz or a paper to be
graded. perhaps the greatest lesson to learn is how
each person deserves respect, has soul. what we hate in others, i
recall, is something we truly despise about ourselves.

xxxxiv.
and yesterday, while pretending to be a hoosier, i had to
laugh. see, these froads came to my door and
explained that they were cousins to the Nisse, but they had
x-ray vision, which superman stole once upon a time.
so, i asked, you’re kin to lawn gnomes?
cousins, they repeated, we’re cousins....
how else is a monk suppose to get away with
uncommitted night screenings of buster keaton? they then
laughed. the froads laughed at my stupidity and the
zillion romantic notions i have for life -- a figment of their imagination.

xxxxv.
when we run, we live. the
intensity of the pavement.
lung inhalation, perspiration -- the
limitations of muscle and mind
scrapes everything into nothing,
leaving nothing, exhaling
into everything.
do it, the right thing, &
earn this chance you have
running along this trail.

xxxxvi.
quickly, he arrived, did his four years and left.
usually it doesn’t seem this fast, but this time, it’s as if jan
arnow called me up last night and said,
ripley, boy, i need you take this kid
that abe loves so much and see to it he
exists in harmony, in the peculiar sing-song of that
zany brown school. let him be.
so, he came. he danced some....stirred mild drama, then
made a splash of excitement as all our souls were pierced
in the florida sun and ocean salt-water.
then, with the snap of a finger, the blink of an eye,
he moved on and fulfilled the promise that existed within him.

xxxxvii.
cause sometimes,
on broadway, the light is
directly where it needs to be, and
you feel infinite.
sometimes, when we’re
with friends, the music
allows the wind to
naturally blow throughout our hair, and
suddenly, everything is serene. if
only this was everyday. if it only lasted one more day.
no. it can’t. the pace catches up to you and you must move on.

xxxxviii.
how many of us can say,
i understand change. i understand the
exhaustion a butterfly must go through
near the end of its metamorphosis.
the wings, unable to stretch, must cramp,
retained in their cocoon before the renaissance.
and then there are those who know
not only american chrysalis, but have tasted the vietnamese winds, as well.

xxxxix.
vietnam &
america,
nestled in fetal position, against the framework of
time.
rivers in both lands providing life
against the hardships of survival.
naturally, together, they flow, ya know?

xxxxx.
many nights
i lie awake thinking, breathing deep in my
lungs, letting my day unwind into
exhaustion, makes me want to holler, too, before letting go to
sleep.
time moves, swish, like a shot clock,
rushes forward with the sweat of a brow
and before you know it, your
voyage is ahead of the ships in the bay.
in the end, it is your
soul, your strength, needed to mentor others.

xxxxxi.
men like to tell stories.
i’ve told a few myself,
knowing that truth & lies interchange.
eventually, though, the
viciousness of tales catch up
and sooner or later we
need to reevaluate the
cause, effect, trust &
eventually, how much of a man we are. I trust in the man you will be.

xxxxxii
just yesterday, a child
entering her independence, playful, a
scout among the mockingbirds.
she stood in a canoe & thought about the
world: npr, history channel,
an augustine of saints, time. She
dove head first, wide awake,
erupting minimal splash, but causing a wave.

xxxxxiii.
leprechauns. gnomes. froads
and nisse. cod pieces &
unbelievable random thoughts
running through our obsessions
and compulsions, control & chaos with
words -- the brain turds of ohio
river b.s..
i must hold onto keepsakes,
give them meaning, containment,
have gates put up and bars, only
to, like you, simply secure my existence of today in magic notebooks.

xxxxxiv.
sea. that’s
all which stands in the way of
nations. mountains. the lines we
decide are boundaries,
restrictions of which culture
actually is which,
knowing the scarier truth,
now, more than ever, we are
obviously the same:
freunde und friend.
english to german,
life to life, a prayer to harmonize.

postscript:
tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow .. the
way to dusty death.
out....out...brief candle
the shadows have been behind me
however long i’ve taught.
one day, i was young,
unbelievably naive of how deep our
souls can go, and once
again i am an idiot, seeking in vain hope that
none of this is forgotten. i know,
deep down, that it will be.
all of us are poor players signifying
nothing, all our yesterdays light this fool the way to
dusty death.
for now, out. out brief candles.
i beg you soar. i say leave. go. carry this
vision to all that you do. carpe diem’.
exist like no one before you ever has. exist beautifully.

Two Zero Zero Six
(preface)
alive, right
now, at this moment,
i’ll find a way with words
nearing the clock of another
tick-tocking year. i’ll
read the forty stories
of individuality from within a semblance of
diversity - a scripted we, collective whole --
us.
cause it’s 2006, and
this memory sticks to a life,
in a brown swirl of existence,
over, above, beyond all that is alive, right
now.

i.
at asakusa temple, in japan,
under the pagoda and beyond the tourists,
seven hundred doves flew away with
the small steps i tried to take.
i don’t like to disturb the peace.
no, i prefer to let things
be.
and the sight of all those doves
stretching wings beyond anything i could do, made me
see the potential of one lifetime, and a promise to do what i could.

ii.
collegiate thoughts, the
intellectual meandering where
everyone tries to find an answer and a
right choice for the multiple answers of what we’ve
read, experienced
and understood.
bells ring in celebration --
each of us larger than the boundaries
left to us by ACTs, SATs, and admissions.
laughter transcends us all.

iii.
and so i had a dream where a
song hovered over international fear. i
heard music singing in my sleeplessness,
leaving an impact on my daydreams,
enlightening the terror that
years of history planted.
bryan, she taught you how the mind is
unbelievable and how
leaping through books
lends itself towards global understanding.
and the lesson came from
relatives occupied in the professional
deliciousness of writing another ending.

iv.
because life gives us lemons,
ellen degeneres has a
cloroxed mustache. humor is in the
cacophony of instrumentation
and the mad magic of a musical mind.
because life gives us dog crap
on our brand new sneakers,
living makes us watch our step.
this is a key ingredient for
existing -- the
need for a pooper scooper at times.

v.
people amaze me --
all of us running around
timidly lost, yet mystically
reflective.
i once was a student myself:
cns, my high school, that
kindergarten year in utica. then
binghamton, a
university that showed me the doors which could be
reached, and ever since, how i’ve preached the
need to keep opening them.
since you’ve found the doorknob, too,
i nod approval your way.
decide whether to walk through --
eventually, it will all make more sense than my teaching ever did.

vi.
kryptonite paralyzed superman,
and yoda had his bad days, too.
rudolph was embarrassed by a nose so bright,
and so it’s perfectly all right to be you.
cry the beloved country marked some to dry tears,
and elie wiesel introduced your junior year to fears.
shakespeare confused language-upon a petty plight,
the perks of being a wallflower says the quiet are all right.
lavender had to be pulled from a tree,
eleanor rigby says loneliness is me.
blanche dubois was overly dramatic,
existential harold found maude quite romantic
reality searches oceans for bing
rivers become siddhartha’s thing, because
yesterday was a memory, and today it’s history.

vii.
jog. run. sprint. walk.
on the road to find out, move,
simply pace yourself ahead of the
horizon, so your shadow
can be seen upon sunrise and sunset.
have your obsessions,
each deserves them,
rather it be george bush or the marines,
vannah white or snuffaluffagus.
eat well. digest. stretch every
nerve ending and synapse until you’re exhausted.
austin bass is a good enough lass to think about,
kneel before the moon before PTSD hyperventilates.

viii.
january, the letters written to the self are in
envelopes, where they will be
left until december finds its way again.
i wonder where you’ll be when the
songs of your senior year will
arrive.
cause it will come at last,
like prom, rights of passage
and your mid-thirties before you know it.
rituals. patterns. cycles. milestones.
karma.

ix.
gee, um, what, huh,
really? no,
are you kidding me?
hmmmmm.
actually, that’s what
my mom said.
crazy. whoa. dude.
oh my god,
not now, sometime later.
right now i want to veg
oh, and later,
yep, i’ll be in that tree - sloth reality.

x.
lately,
i’ve been worried about
living my life to its fullest --
you never know when the mind might go.
crazy, really, our regression.
oh, today, it’s my sixteenth birthday, and
only yesterday, i was in my twenties, with
my stories which are precious to me, these memories, where
each tale makes me who i am. not
sam, nor a lily of the valley, but a silly ham on my own louisville hill.

xi.
driving along I-65, i
exit towards new albany
and can go west on eastern parkway,
nearing my neighborhood, and my shelter.
the home is where my heart is,
even though i have several homes.
casually tapping my breaks,
understanding it slows my pace down, i
notice a woman on the side of the road. she
needs money, food and assistance.
i am not her
nor can i imagine the desperation of her life. i
go home, bag a few items of food, drive back and
hand it to her.
a child from wednesday,
made me think, and i donate with a wink he made a difference.

xii.
krud. i meant to do that,
really, it was on my agenda all along.
interesting. it didn’t get done? ugh.
so, the hill didn’t disappear.
the hill drew bigger. but
i had to climb. push that rock ahead.
disordered.
and a few lessons learned --
very good lessons in which
i proved to the world i am
strong. see my strength and admire.

xiii.
just the other day,
all i could do was look up.
my eyes searched the sky
arrogantly seeking a
life that wasn’t there yet.
disappointed? not really. my
eyes kept staring at the clouds. it may have been a
lonely longing, this fixation
at the blue space above, or it may have been
heaven i was trying to admire
and/or the idea there’s something
not quite us, beyond all of this..
then it happened. my
eyes didn’t deceive me.
you became the hawk i was looking for, and you soared.

xiv.
children.
livinglovinglaughingscreaming
obnoxious little children,
growingdreamingbecoming
adults. mature.
neophytes leaving the nest.
days.
i watch them pile up like autumn leaves
leaving the tree that gave them
life. children are my seasons.

xv.
the peculiar story,
how it is told,
opens a mind to wonder.
movies. films. nightly news.
advertisements.
style.
decency. integrity.
understanding complexity with dignity.
from the way i understand it, the
freaky story is told through
your dreams, but not all of us are dreamers as good as you are.

xvi.
since we’re on the subject of luke skywalker,
u should probably know that the
star lit galaxy is a twinkle in your eye
and the force
never leaves your fingerprints.
even chewbaca, all hairy and all,
doesn’t escape such energy --
whhhhaaaaaaaaaaaa (that’s what he says)
amidst the Ewoks and Hans Solo.
right. that’s correct.
darth vader wears a mask
secretly dreaming to be breaducated by you.

xvii.
and it was spring. there were
monkeys. fireflies. fields of
bees aggravating the days of our hives.
elephant dung. a white alligator.
rhinos in the mood.
food, expensive, packed.
and biophiliacs racked for moonbeams and zoos.
yep. a decent enough excuse to go wild.

xviii.
anime. anyway. i am me
s e r e n d i p i t o u s l y
historically, we are
locusts finding our groove
escaping the shells that contain us.
isn’t it crazy how weird it all is?
gaining insight by becoming fiction,
having success by portraying the past?
for i danced once, a mild waltz
learning a simple step a
young lady trained to teach.
now, the acting’s over, time for a speech.
nevermind. i forgot what i was going to say.

xix.
pretty crazy, huh?
all the energy and work
that goes into a moment?
ridiculous amounts of the spastic:
itineraries, requests, and pleading our
cause, cuz we just want the best...
is there anything wrong with that?
are we fooling ourselves?
hectic. we see the hurdles
and we leap over them, turning around to
rally all those behind us to catch up. we could
ditch them, let them find their own way around...
eventually they’ll make it, we can hope,
soul-searching in the shadows of
those who tirelessly know how to leap.
yep, it’s crazy, huh?

xx.
tonight, i’ll be performing a piece i call
awkward. it’s a theatrical number where
bryan will attempt to control his wandering
i, and will lose weight without trying.
the cast will include danish reggae singers,
hauntingly looking like seagulls,
and it will be standing room only.
hold on. no drama.
only a four letter word called hope.
direction. you’ve got to have
gigantic words to speak, back up singers, lights --
everyone has different reasons for that...before the
smoke will clear. nudge nudge. there’ll be applause.

xxi.
being young, they say is wasted
enchantment, spent on young
neophytes
naive of what lies ahead.
i had a plan though, where
everything i was warned about would be
harvested in the palm of my hand.
oh, and i suppose i chuckle some,
realizing my luck, and that ants work towards
nirvana, while grasshoppers don’t winter as well.

xxii.
characters are what make a story matter.
all a writer needs is their own, unique angle.
right? so, i’ve got this precious child in
love with the world, okay, and she’s energetic...
you’ve got see her, and sometimes she tans,
just a little bit, to become bronze,
and she carries this zebra folder, while
caring deeply for all her friends, and she values
knowledge...not just textbooks, but the deeper stuff, and
sometimes she yodels in class and impersonates her family
or curls up on a couch and hides in a hoody...
now that is a character, and i couldn’t write her better myself.

xxiii.
and then the night came where i
left, turned a tassel and never
looked behind me.
i had that internal drive --
sadness wrapped in tightly held fists
organized and compact,
needing only my own two feet to move on.
knowledge and wisdom soon followed, and now an
eternity of experience has
nestled nicely in the luggage i carry.
next, tomorrow, i can’t predict, but i
expect it will blossom upward, my
yesterdays fertilizing the future.

xxiv.
soul. there is one inside me,
although who i answer to
ricochets between spiritual moments
and the frustration of mortal doubt.
heaven, they say, can be in this
life, at this moment, right now.
i trust in that religion,
temporarily losing sanity when
the expectations of perfect bliss
rampages against my inevitable flaws.
everyday, however, i try, i
learn from my mistakes,
letting the lives of others model a better way.

xxv.
been doodling again,
reaching into my book bag for
instruments: pens, pencils, markers for
diagnosing a blank page with art.
gee, that doesn’t look like me
even though i scribbled a strabismus
tip toeing towards those love handles.
that’s right. it looks like a buddha, grimace, an
elephant with hairy legs and bad teeth.
let’s sketch a background, an
orange couch, a banana tree,
green grass around my ankles and a big footed
sasquatch to fall in love with.
dang. did i just cuss? my bad.
oh, i drew an octopus in my ear....
now all it needs is a signature...self portrait, complete.

xxvi.
elvira had a rep, you see,
ran around on her family stealing
ice cream, dippen’ dots, from cracked-up
carnivals and frozen freezer aisles of walmart.
luck wasn’t with her, though, and
oh, the po po locked her up, but
man, she could read. her literacy was
awesome: plato, harlequin romances, Mad Libs.
xtremely intelligent, locked up wanting to play dodgeball.

xxvii.
and all eyes were watching god,
renting the body for the minute where
it had the chance to be alive. the
child looked upwards, too,
awkwardly awaiting the moment ahead.
lord, she said, i’ve been good to
you, honest, faithful, hard working,
on my best behavior. all i ask, she spoke
nervously, is for your understanding and your
strength. there was silence, but the child knew she could smile.

xxviii.
ava maria. i heard this for the first time when i was a
nerd in high school. the italians were everywhere in my
neighborhood, and on gray days, moms were known to
announce through windows, Avaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Mariiiaaaaaaaaaa.
now, when clouds pile upon clouds and the rain
eventually falls, i think about that music, how my
people of yesterday new something i was too
underaged to understand. it’s the sound
that song makes, when produced by musical magic, which reminds me
everything is everything for a reason.

xxix.
all of us are at war, really, battling, protecting a
nest of comfort we hide deep within our hearts.
new generations and old generations share
a history, being written, already told.
nine months later, another chapter begins the
imagination and dreams of another life.
creation is a miracle, and the struggle becomes the
kindred spirit of brotherhood. sisterhood.
each of us a part of a family
reaching beyond boundaries to the next level of the
soul. we fight. we flex our muscles. we attack.
oh, but the truth is, we seek our mothers. we
need the comfort of their arms and their love.

xxx.
bravado. paris hilton. the pose.
rambunctious scared apes we
are, flexing our inhibitions so
no one can see how human we “be.”
diversity is a word, but deep down,
on the platform of personal truth,
not a single being can escape.
people fascinate me.
and that’s why they need to be policed,
reeled back down to reality.
i was born, i’ll live, and i’ll die ... i already
see through the facade. that’s where my quality is.

xxxi..
reached into my pocket,
and pulled out a wad of twenties,
you got a size ten in this shoe. they’re on sale, with commission,
x2x100 divided by the inevitable when we all go broke. barefoot.

xxxii.
jumpin’ through a line to buy a tie,
over a few streets at the value of a city, another
store, the pregnant cashier asked me what was wrong.
everything i told her, but i’ll be okay.
please just let me go, i thought, don’t
hover over my mood.
she grabbed my hand. she said,
honey, it’ll be all right.
everything is going to be just fine,
really. i guess i needed that.
my course along the galaxy had me
arrogantly preoccupied with the
necessity of only me. i thanked her and walked away more free.

xxxiii.
just one more question,
only this, so if
shakespeare didn’t really write all his plays
how did he become a literary giant, the bard of
stratford upon avon, and the master of the globe?
they love him, i answer, like those who worship
elvis presley. we like to believe in the rebirth of the
phoenix, and that such mastery will exist in us. it’s called idolatry.
he wasn’t satisfied with my response.
elizabethans knew ol’ Will and
now some scholars claim the playwright was a fruit.
so they say.....so some care. I ask, does it really matter?

xxxiv.
jade, a shade of pain and then you die.
on my first trip overseas, I listened to
seal a lot. he had these
harvested facial scars and that song sang to me.
such violence, you’d think, the whole world’s coming to an end.
that was what the judybats recorded, where they
entertained me in my sentra driving in collegiate thought.
voice. guitar. song. soul.
every generation bears the seed of its own destruction.
now, that’s not music. it’s aristotle.
song repairs the heart, where philosophy tears it apart. poor kurt.

xxxv.
dang. they got an atari system. man
oh man, they must be
rich. colecovision?
i can’t believe it, donkey kong
and q-bert.
nintendo. super mario brother,
that’s getting over my head
and progress left me in the dust.
you are of the magical generation, where
letting fingers control a character’s fate
overreaches the books and stories i believe in.
really, i’m jealous. all the good toys were invented too late.

xxxvi.
hacking. in my day,
it’s what my grandfather did,
evacuating his lungs from camel smoke.
now, it’s a keyboard game and
the truth is, it’s better than ping pong.
ripleys, believe it or not,
a faster life is upon us.
next stlp meeting will be tuesday.

xxxvii.
my parents told me good things come to
all who wait. i was patient,
remembering their advice as the
years piled up.
very interesting words to tell a fat kid, but
i stacked away the
coins in piggy banks i’ve never seen.
krazy, but maybe they’re right, and
even if they’re not, i heard them.
retirement will come soon enough.
yes, i do this so that one day i can say i waited.

xxxviii.
phases of the moon,
elliptical revelations
that remind me
everything has its patterns. (but bryan, i
really, weally, wheeeeelllllyyyy need to pee).
very well, then. (you may pee).
oh, and if you run into international
evil doers, terrorists who speak the
language of durka durk durka.....remember you
know my sign of distress. when my
eyes bulge and i wag my arms above my head,
raise your hand again, and ask, bry, can i please go to the bathroom?

xxxix.
all i can think about when i
near amalfi drive, is
now what? where am
i coming from and where am i going? does
everyone wonder such things?
we, the transient beings.
east. west.
south. north
the compass pointing the way to where we should
meander. we see where we need to go,
over there, back here, perhaps along the
river. a ferryman might take us across, but not
every individual will understand how he rows.
life isn’t as easy as the lessons
a teacher may chalk on a board.
no. wisdom comes from outside these walls,
down the street a bit and to the left. no right. somewhere out there.

xxxx.
a showcase comes upon
my little world each and every year.
a project, which culminates
never quite as i expected.
days pass. pages are turned,
and there’s always another book on its way.
we, the readers, find
intelligence in such narration,
leaving no child behind at the
destruction of our own personal race.
eventually it adds up,
reaches deep down and provides me with more wonder.

post-face.
this is the curtain call, of sorts,
where we close the tapestry,
open it up and take a bow.
this is another part of a phase, which leaves a
haze on my exhaustion from another year.
ovation. standing. applause. this is
ubiquitous, everything and nothing at once.
see, for you it’s a once in a lifetime event
and together, you’ve endured --
not necessarily like others before you, but
different is good, and look where you
are. at this moment, right
now almost robed and tasseled to the
deliciousness of a ceremony celebrating you.
strange. in 1990
i was allowed to stand up, wave, and an
x was checked by my name. i didn’t matter.
graduation was a central, new york conveyor belt
of getting another year
over and sending us out to the lakes with
dreams we’d become someone.
boy, it goes fast.
yep, fourteen years later, i
entertain myself with a poem. and i wonder, who have i become?

Two Zero Zero Seven
i. another goodbye, another year
and he went to the front door,
nestled at his blinds to look
out towards his painted porch
to see who rang the bell.
he saw no one. his
existence was only a maple tree seed
ricocheting on concrete from the wind.
ghosts. he thought. buried
on the horizon of his past --
on the shorelines of forgotten lakes and
days where he once wandered in
boyish
youth and adolescence. he knew he had to
evolve - continue his revolution of Hegel’s theory.
and then came the question. why was
no one there, at the door, wanting a greeting, or an
orientation of hospitality? hello, can i help you?
the world was empty, and
he felt it in his
eyes -- which he shut --
racing inward to find the answer.
you’ll have these moments, moonbeams. they come
every once in a childish smile
and, for a little while, you’ll begin to wonder. who
rang the bell? isn’t there supposed to be somebody there?

ii.
america is not Africa. I’ve never
been continentally dark, but since I live in my head, I’ve
danced there a million times in Ibo, Dinka and Arabic ceremonies
of sand and infertile land before a heard of cows and ideas. I’ve
wanted to know what is the what.
all things fall apart,
my friend, in the beloved country, but i
understand they’re put back together by those of us who
need to laugh, to feel, to cry, and to chase midget shadows with islamic hope.
all it takes is the drive to run a city -- any city -- and the power of our mind.

iii.
buddha sits in manufactured glory
all around my house and
yes, he stands next to a Maple tree stump in the back yard
entertaining the nut-hungry squirrels and
needy, greedy doves.
siddhartha, cycles, the Om.
chinese workers make an American
hope, my icons, bought cheap at a discount mall. even so, the
rivers continue to flow, fluid, and
i continue to question -- is this the only
self i have? am i simply a samana learning to play Samsara?

iv.
back then, i didn’t clown around much.
all that high school social positioning gave me
indegestion, luigi. i was odd, but i didn’t
learn to laugh until i learned to juggle: to
eat the moment for the flavor it actually was.
yapping. tap dancing. writing poetry for no one.
man, i don’t know who taught me this. Me -- the
orangutan, an evolved ape with the
rare privilege to teach and to
gain, year after year, the reminders that
each career is based on mind games -- professionally
numbing. i should have chose plumbing (he types, thumbing his nose at the
rules).

v.
been improv-ing all my life
etching on sketches and skits, testing my
charismatic wits of imbecilic tomfoolerly and
karmic icecream.
my guess is that quarterbacks
aren’t too good at improvising the moment, either.
no. they’ve got their plays planned out, and they are
judged by espn 1 & 2. (Ah, Big Bootie) but for us, the
jokes are for a locker, the curtain call, and perfect for -- STOP -- a laugh.

vi.
be of quality, they say, a man who is
rare, and who dares to take the higher ground
around and around and around the
delusions of mediated foolishness.
expect the best, and do
not rest until you are a man -- until you can breathe.
blank expectations are where we have to find a way to connect the
line from point A to point B with few directives,
asking few questions until it is too late.
krazy. most of us don’t become men. we can’t
earn this until we internalize the advice older generations left behind with blood.

vii.
cartoons aren’t only for Nickelodeon.
animation is imagination, a
rite of passage and contemplative
thought brought to us in a flash, an
evolutionary story board
reminding us of how ridiculous we really are.
just yesterday, i watched tom and jerry
eating cupcakes before their
frantic chase ensued.
first, draw a nemesis, then scribble a
random duality between good and
evil with a whole lot of gray in between. Finally,,
you need a hero -- always let the good guy win, but let the bad guys get away.

viii.
cave.
another shackled fire pit. Another
random entrapment
that this is all there is -
habits. routine. ritual
and pattern where we fall victim to the
normal.

life is more than this --
or at least i pretend it is, -- and i seem to be in a
race to exit cave after cave after cave...
eventually, i guess, i’ll understand the journey, and
anxiously, i hope, the shadows will
learn to dance with me, protruding their lips with glorious attitude.

ix.
caricatures.
each of us authored as a
true self --
an ink stain on smeared canvas
who, sometimes, makes sense to poetized others.
all of us are mere abstracts, the pop art
yanked into materialistic definitions
of t-shirt, kicks and recycled imagery.
andy warhol was a freak, but he captured
kambell’s tomato soup can like an artistic sneak.
ever wonder who creates the print of our
entire existence? who
manages to whip up a soul, one brush stroke at a time?

x.
Church is a state of mind - the place of
learned reflection and where light
arcs its way through stained glass,
rituals, gospel and a drive for more
knowledge. Christ.
ask a mime and he’ll perform. the
jubilation is in the hope of the performance.

xi.
delirious. i find myself hilariously
anxious and subconsciously
vivacious in the monstrous
isthmus of human goodness.
scrummdiddleyumptious.
eros. pathos. ethos.
mythos. the greeks weren’t shapeless with their
imagination nor practiced as the
litmus-stained stasis of human condition allows us to believe.
y question the oomphalos*? *Oomphalos - belly button

xii.
destiny is a powerful word.
i think about it often:
x-amining its connotation/denotation
of the destination written in the stars, and
nearing a galaxy of your individualized fate.
part of me applauds, but hates, the moments i find myself
examing the hard work which brought me this far,
reaching the pinnacle of every summit, and
realizing the boulder must be pushed up again.
you’re destined to understand what i mean some day.

xiii.
dusty was my first dog. i
remember picking him
up at the farm, and because he was the
runt of the litter, my mother chose him. we were so
young, and i still smell his puppy breath. In
june and July, we’d spend weekends
on Loch Lebanon, and Dusty would
run after motor boats, while my sisters and i
dove, head first, perfecting our form.
and Dusty, Dusty would wear the pads off his feet, chasing
never-to-be-caught skiiers. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere.

xiv.
every year i move forward, i
arrive ten years behind. i
remembering the steps i took,
not knowing where they’d one day lead.
every movement is a slideshow of
yesterday and tomorrow.
so, i’ve accrued milestone
after milestone,
making memories
all the way. The
nearer i get to
the destination, the
harder it is to decipher where i’m
arriving or where i once was.

xv.
earth to Bryan. Come in, Bryan, - we
seem to have found ourselves between
a rock and a hard place.
rally up the forces, kid, and
energizes the bunnies,
you’ve got to move on, somehow. Somewhere.
captain Firefly, paging Mr. Moonbeam, are you
out there somewhere? We need you to propel
upstate, land your dreams to where they began,
return to the starting line only to
take off once again.
na-noo. na-noo
everything is evolving at exactly the right time.
yeah, you keep telling yourself this.

xvi.
fact is, words are good for crossword puzzles.
i say this bitterly, knowing my brain
teasers have been stories and poems criss-crossed in
zebra stripes across a newspaper no one reads.
games. dissertations. papers.
examinations. they’ve yet to create a
reliable standardized test for life which
assesses the relationship between work ethic,
learning, wisdom, accomplishment and love.
dumb, really, if you ask me.
ove, though, can be the
universal choice “C” - the
kryptonite for every super man. That is, of course, unless there’s an
e) all the above. If that’s an option, I always choose it. i believe in everything.

xvii.
great word. a female dog. a
rambunctious, degrading term used on
every woman capable of usurping power. one in which,
eventually, every XX knows as a
nickname. a back stab. a slogan.
my guess is you’re right.
each time its used it says more about the user who
goes for the easy bikini kill rather than the golden matriarch.
and for me? i prefer the history behind such a lexicon, admiring the
nuances intelligent wimin hold. they know more than me, anyway.

xviii.
hamilton, New York, is where my mother was born. She
arrived to 24 Milford Street, to An E. and Spence
ripley, an only child from a pre-WWII romance. She was
destined to be an actress,
enjoying her True Blue100s and the azure
star-glitter in her eyes.
that was before she met my father, and my grandparents
yanked her college money away and bought a camp.
all throughout my childhood, we drove to Hamilton
nearly every weekend, and would
go to The Nautilus for an ice cream cone or
entertained ourselves playing baseball in the park. such a
little piece of trivia -- like
all the stories they told me which made them who they were -- who i am.

xix.
he doesn’t mean to laugh as much as he does, but
everything cracks him up, chuckle, and buckle under-
neath his snorting hee-haw sense of humor.
did you just see what i just saw? He breaks up
even when he should focus,
realizing the
seriousness of every moment, the
omnipotence of ignorance and the
narcissicism of a giggle.
jokes on him, on us, he supposes, and he realizes the
existence of the whizgigging tear from a
smile counts just as much as the
saline drip-drop of pain.
i’d rather laugh at myself than
cry at myself,
and that’s the way i’ll be ‘till the fat lady sings (ba dum dum, ch’)

xx.
i had a dream near November. a
scary dream, where i opened my front
door and no one was there,
and when i turned around, my
house was being robbed. they
laughed. i turned to concrete.
since then, my monsters have been obvious.
people aren’t as good as i want them to be,
especially when i watch them from paralysis, and am
not able to exist. i
saw my family and they saw me.
eerie. they wanted to help, but as a fledgling who
ran away, they were too far away -- they were home.

xxi.
kuz on the night it was discovered that
all seagulls morph into
scandanavian blondes with beak-lips, and that
every great dane takes flight across icelandic fjords ---
you were there with aaron martinson, a mario before senior prom.
just three of us, wound up,
eating icecream, cracking jokes, and experiencing the
danish truth for a mere fraction of our life.

xxii.
king lear wants his daughters to love him -- he
needs their approval in his madness as the temptest storms
on a dark-lit stage. ah cordelia.
u have
such loyalty for the
everlasting performance.

royalty
and i play the fool part well,
coming before the court as the unnamed son and
hiding in a hovel of humor, while
entertaining tragedy to those i
love ---- ah, but this world is just a stage i’m merely going through.

xxiii.
lass fried auf erde sein und fang bitte mit mir (*let peace rule, and let it be within
an.
me -- with God, our father, we are
mit gott unserem vater, bruder sind wir alle*.
all brothers)
or something like that. i was young when we sang it,
note for note, in a german class at
the junior high i attended. the tune
just sticks in my head
and pops out at the most random time
no, i can’t sing and my german is rusty, but if
everyone is family, i’m sort of into letting peace rule the earth.

xxiv.
life. There are those we think insane, who hear the music and dance to the
overture in their head -- the crescendo of
bass, strings, brass, drums and applause which
bounce along hallways, art rooms, stories and youth like a bud lucky cartoon.
eternal music. How can we not spin to the
rhythm of Vesudeva’s river
in a quest for Om -- Um, and/or another
new beginning. And why don’t the others hear this music?

xxv.
learning is complicated.
oh, they’ve designed this school stuff, and preach how we
need thirteen years of compulsory education, how we
go because we have to - it’s part of the machinery --
very much like the 30 years of labor
invested to the mechanism of a
career, before
the social security checks kick in, and an
opportunity for retirement arrives.
ridiculous, really, this
interdependence between
a system and the self.

xxvi.
monday, i walked to school
across the 2nd street bridge leaving my Ford to
rest, unmotivated to move.
this happens when one loses his keys.
i have lost my keys more than i have found them, even if i
need them to open doors to my future. All roads are
situated ahead with
orange cones, speed limits and the
nerve-wracking radars policing the pace we live.
all of us are tested
as patients to our patience,
randomly chosen for practical jokes, and
oh, how we’ll laugh. scream. laugh. scream. as the
nincompoops on the ledge of stupidity.

xxvii.
mosh pit.
explain to me how any of this is not a most pit.
you wore the dress and combat boots, and
eventually dyed your hair sunset orange, so how was any of this not a
random stomp of adrenaline, testosterone and adolescence?
man, it’s better than
a square dance or the waltzing of debutante divas and their groomed
rico-suaves in a promenade of conformity. Only the few will
zulu stomp and romp as they fall from birth to death, outside symbolic skyscrap-
ers.

xxviii.
magic is hard to believe in, and
i’ve been reprimanded for having such hope, and for
creating a land of leprechauns, unicorns and gnomes in
a soup of brown utopia, even if
no one else wished to believe.
fools. Idiots they are,
reaching into their drawers for laws, handbooks
and routines to make them feel safe from the
nirvana they’ll never know.
cause they can’t grow, and
eventually, they’ll simply disappear, not knowing there was
serenity in the wand and the power of the pond they refused to see.

xxix.
my father’s a Nascar fan.
i prefer speeding on my own,
lapping along the track,
lagging behind the other cars.
i even enjoy going the wrong way
or racing the roads less traveled, where
no frog has been before.
sometimes, i take my time,
hovering the moment as if it is an
eternity, stopping to smell the tulips,
leaving footprints beside the roses.
because these roads are free, i’ve raced, and
yes, it has made all the difference.

xxx.
my sisters and i were thrilled when,
on christmas morning, 1981, we
received skateboards -- banana logs which barely could hold
two feet.
our pride came from sliding down the driveway without falling --
not just any one could accomplish that.
dad would even try, but he’d fall
and all of us would laugh to show him how it was done.
nerds. that’s what we were. dorks.
neophyte, kids
yearning to prove ourselves that we were capable of something.

xxxi.
nock Nock. Who’s there? Aardvark!
excuse me? Aardvark
who? Oh, Aardvark a
thousand miles for
one of your smiles!
nock, Nock! Who’s there?
errrr, it’s Alfie. Oh, yeah? Alfie who?
man, Alfie terrible when you leave, and
i’ll dedicate every
laugh, from now on, to the
yucca yucca yucca of the good-natured soul.

xxxii.
news is on again. some
girl stabbed her 15 year
old son in a fit of medea-induced madness.
this just in: tornados are currently
reminding someone, somewhere, that we’re
under the thumb of a greater goddess. why make our own
news? Why celebrate our slap-happy silliness, when nature’s
going to take care of us one day at a time anyway?

xxxiii.
news flash. The red carpet isn’t for the queen. no. NBC studios is
going to sober the rich and ridiculous for interviews so
u and i can watch them again and again and again on
you-too-are-a-boob-tube gossip gala extravaganza.
entertainment tonight needs its footage, and since anna
nicole smith imploded, they need a new madonna.
does it seem odd to you,
all this hyperreal Americana?
no. he says, i don’t watch much t.v..
how can i? i’ve got more important things to do.

xxxiv.
news update: one of these days i’m
gonna turn it off. i’ll wave a magic wand and
u will hold an empty glass of water.
you will giggle and fidget, and
everyone will watch you on the stage, wondering what will be
next.
hocus pocus, miraculous jokus.
u will blink once and a goldfish will appear.
everyone will be amazed by the magic, but it won’t be worthy of the tabloids.

xxxv.
on the walls of my history, mistakes
are chiseled with invisible ink. i
know what they say, but they’re not for
everyone to read.
sometimes i share them. And
just when i feel my wings can reach the
orange blur of life, the feathers catch fire, and i
spiral like floating ashes back to earth to
highlight the imperceptible poem.

xxxvi.
part of me wants to fold my corners,
as if i am a piece of origami,
sentenced to be twisted into the
shape others want me to be.
and i feel their
fingers bending my sense of
individuality, creasing my soul
under my heart and wrinkling
my mind until it is
exactly like theirs. It is
maddening, and
as paper, against scissors and fingernails, there’s a
desparate fear of fire and getting wet.
i want to fight back,
show them how deep a paper cut can go
or unravel with the words i
need to survive -- like a 1000 cranes of hope.

xxxvii.
pods of i’s --
eerie really, a wired generation of
children tuned out to immediate gratification,
keeping vanity higher than Mt. Olympus -- an
immediate culture of entitlement.
now. now. now. i don’t have the
patience to hear what you have to say
amidst the thumb-driven phenomenon of scrolling
up and down for personal satiation. Millenium
go-bots conditioned towards selfishness and
hubris. Of course, he laughs,
my t.v. is on CBS, and
alec baldwin is cussing his daughter for
the failure to return a phone call.
this is our tomorrow. I’m just as guilty.

xxxviii.
perfect. The pace of the race
eats away at the grace of my
routine.
each day, more needs to be done, and
i can’t find enough hours in the week to
rally the internal forces
against the to-do lists.
so, what do
i go and do?
exactly. i vacuum too hard against a shelf,
ramming a twenty pound barbell on my toe,
and, ya know, it’s made me even slower.

xxxix.
point is,
i haven’t figure any of it out yet. yeah, you got to
live a little, laugh a little, and
love a lot, but the purpose thing beats me.
orpheus could bring rocks and trees to movement, but
when he went for Eurydice, the underworld took the upper hand.
and perhaps, like him, I’ll land in Lesbos with
nothing left but my singing head, and the
damage caused by Ciconian Maenads,
ripping the magic to pieces, while
enchanting their missles
with poetics and pizzazz.

xxxx.
pygmalion.
interesting story, huh? how a sculptor
neglects the real for a statue he
created by his own
hands. Perhaps we love most what we’re able to
bring into being: a painting, a story, a child. then there’s
eliza doolittle, shaw’s
creation -- a gutter-snipe-
kockney from the streets who was
created into the very essence of a lady.
henry higgins
loved the magic of his mind.
ornamental fruition from the labor of
ego, and no matter where we go, such creation is our only hope.

xxxxi.
r we more than
ants scurrying to reach tomorrow, storing
yesterday in our hills?
are we victim to a system’s
apparatus which institutionalizes its
rituals and norms into
our being, and uses us for the
naive propogation of its own cause? i pause. yep.

xxxxii.
r we the lead of pencil
escaping into form, and
going from thought and
arrogant ideas into sketchy
nothingness or are we the
creative genius
hiding in a box of paint
lusting to be found
on canvas one day and
entering the universe, one doodle at a time? i pause again. yep.

xxxxiii.
sleep.
curl up into yourself
on any couch, any chair, any wall, any bed, and let
the sandman punch your lights out, and
the venom take over your body like a spider, man.
peace. be at rest, because
existence is more tranquil when
entertained from canadian dreams, eh?
just kidding. it’s time to wake up.

xxxxiv.
since i was a little boy, i
had my way within silence,
especially when crowds of
people hogged my
peripheal view of the world. i learned young to
entertain myself from the nuthouse, and
retreat in my head in order to
survive.
on such occasions, it’s as if i
needed the masses, but feared them just the same.
even when i’m the center of attention,
ridiculously chalking my boards with
ideas, i want to disappear...
creep underneath the cattails
and write the stories of those who inspire me to death.

xxxxv.
sunshine. It
has this way of finding itself through the most
intense window panes to light my indoor dust and
remind me, we’re a dirty species
caught in the sludge of
living and forgiving.
i can’t imagine life without such rays
finding their way under doors, around corners, in the
front yard illuminating the pavement i travel.
cause and effect. The
orb above makes the herb below, warms the
rain as it trickles down these blades of grass, and
eats away the soil to bring creation to the seed. stay
young. this is the joy which brings life to the world.

xxxxvi.
song.
i could be wrong, but whether we
evolved creationistically or we creationistically evolved,
god would want us to sing.
even if we couldn’t, he’d want us to embrace the color purple and
love for our freedom to be centered in our lungs and soul. Go to the
juke joint, he’d say, and step to the spirit of
ancestry, history, reformation, recreation, and revolution. We
need to join the choir of all cultures and
entertain the hostest with the mostest -- we are so lucky to be alive.
see, i may not know church, but i
sure know the meaning of the search,
and, lord knows, i’m caught singing almost everywhere i go.

xxxxvii.
so, you’re up at the chalkboard and you hear a
mean rip -- i’m talking gas from
intense baked beans and white castle. somewhere in
this room, you anticipate a kid just exploded, and you
hang your head low as you turn around to see who it was.
dorry ‘bout dat kids, says a braided Barney wearing an
orangemen jersey, and
making a cross eyed distorted face.
in a nutshell, this is teaching.
no child is left behind,
i find, when they all know how to laugh. i design the
quizzes and they
unleash the laughter.
eh hem. did someone just fart?

xxxxviii.
there’s a curse to being a poet,
u and i both know it, yet philosophically we grow it, and
randomly we flow it through our transcendental veins.
next day, it still rains, but the sun is much stronger,
egotistically, because we hunger for its
rays while meandering throughout this mortal maze.
man is born to ask why,
interrograte the truth, laugh, feel and
cry and through his questions, the poet models
how to fly,
and the flight will recycle, Michael, in the artist’s
eye. some are born to follow. others are born to
learn from the hollow cave, burning ideas for the shadows upon the wall.

xxxxix.
very clever there, gooch bandit.
all this time you convinced me, dumb
noob that i am, about stapling your elbow, the squishyfleshygushy part
called the weenis and telling your peers they suffer from weenis
envy.
bry, the teacher, loves his words --
ran down to biological Berry Line (yes,
i like to check my sources)
and that’s when I learned i was a
numbskull. dj dawgbite makes things up and i believed him.

xxxxx
when i first arrived,
a creek of Beargrass adopted me. i
learned my body was the ploy of water to
keep recycling itself around the globe and
existence is a watershed of h2o -- a
river heading towards the sea.
eventually, i learned,
my bones and flesh will become fish food -
i found solace in this, and
learned to giggle that no matter how much i try to
yank nature into my mortal control, it will yank me into its own.

xxxxxi
we can be ferret like, needing to horde objects -
i admit it; i tend to glue keepsakes in my scrapbook of
life.
days. weeks. months. years. and
eventually, i get back to the pages of some journal kept long ago to
remember the pace will always be out of my control. One day, i’ll
leave behind such books: piles of them which will
annoy the poor souls who clean up after me.
unbelievable, i think,
remembering the years i went through the diaries of
ane e. rip. my god, i am her grandson. my poor ancestors.

xxxxxii
what? he asks me,
i haven’t said a thing. I haven’t opened my
lips all year. You’re the teacher always
lollygagging and yapping, yadda yadda yadda.
i know i am, i tell him, but i can hear your mind
and it never sits still. it’s so loud.
moron, he thinks. idiotic english teacher. doesn’t he know
silence is golden?
can’t get the kid to
hush up. Comes in first period, causing a
racket of blah blah blah blah blah,
interupting the silent world with his chatter box.
shut up, i tell him, you talk way too much!

xxxxxiii.
well, we had terrible seats.
i hid my orange fanaticism and future on the third
level. i’m a superstitious man, but i
learned that when things don’t go my way,
i have the right to change my mind. the first half was
awesome and those red birds were
making ex’cuses all over their dumb, free hall. the
second half wasn’t as pleasant.
keef wanted to know how i could cheer both teams
enthusiastically. that clown was carrying on like a red and black mad man
engulfed in rows of orange and blue. yeah, that moment will
forever be tattoo’d in the way things once were -- the way things should always
be.

xxxxiv.
welcome to real life, we tell them,
you are graduating and about to enter the real world.
now begins the rest of the journey, and there’s
no way to explain what’s to come.
crazy, i say, because hasn’t this world already been real?
over the last four years, haven’t we all experienced
life as it is or are we supposed to believe it was all our imagination?
let me whisper a secret in your
ear: this year is as real as it gets --
every year is, but it is up to us to make it authentic and alive.
now, upon tassle turning, go out there, be-bop and jive.

xxxxxv.
yodel. I’ve never tried myself, but you should. Climb
onto a city bus and let your lungs go ---
hollar “Yodel -leh-hee-hoo”
as if it is an urban chant,
nestled in the heart of humanity, a
necessity to save the galaxy with an
eternal chirp-choir cacophony of
serenading sing-song.
krazy? then whistle.
enter that bus like a hiss-pipe diva,
releasing the toot-tootie trill of
existence.
not a warbler? Then leave the bus a poem.

xxxxxvi. curtain call:
god, it seems like it was
only yesterday i sprawled applications
on my parent’s floor, trying to make a
decision of where to go and what to
become next.
you are opening a door, i thought to myself, knowing that
everything was evolving at exactly the right
time. name. telephone number. declaration of major.
origin and date of birth. allergies. medical record.
data on your parents educational background.
and then, to the post office for a stamp of approval.
you are only at that moment once in a lifetime.
he understands such snapshots -- how they quickly become memories on
early sunday mornings over a cup of coffee, and he
laughs that time doesn’t sit still, nor does the
language, for what he wants to say:
o curas hominum! O quantum est in rebus inane* (*Ah, human cares! Ah futility in the world)
the silliness of our willingness to be human fools.
omnia iam fient quae posse negabam*- (*everything which I used to say say could not happen, will now happen.)
my cave drawings are being left
over the fire-lit shadows of a brown cave, and once again i’m
reaching for a pen, an adventure, and
reminding myself that everything happens for a reason.
optimus magister, bonus liber*, and as a teacher, i’m still (*The best teacher is a good book)
writing the pages of my own -- Ore rotundo* (with full voice).