Good morning, unsettled awesome — 
my whole body just cracked like a knuckle
and I rose above the bed
to the cobwebbed dirty ceiling.

There has to be a big reason for this:  magic
wasn’t necessary to reveal the extent of my sloppiness
and casual approach to housecleaning.
Maybe the spiders want to thank me for their habitat?

Am hearing voices.  Am beginning to shiver. 
Am wondering who died and made me delusional
or divine, and will there be a sign to tell me
upon which interpretation to rely?

By the time you are old enough 
to know what to do,
there’s no one left to do it with.  

Take this last funeral
for an example: you were driving home alone from burying
a murdered friend,

someone who had just been in the wrong place
at the wrong time.  You stopped by the roadside
above a creek choked with deadfall,

and in spite of your suit
and good shoes and your blinding tears
you climbed down and cleared it

so it ran free and clear again.
You went back to the car,
scrambling through gravel, 

climbing over the guard rail carefully,
sitting there, chest aching, knees aching,
muddy and scratched and is that a tear

in the sleeve of the shirt?  There is
a tear.  You tell yourself
“right place, right time, wrong clothes.”

You laugh, you cry,
the friend you just buried
would have done the same

but there’s no one left in your life
to give a damn
about this well-set gem of a moment.

It’s time to go home, change, read the paper,
eat, change, clean the gun, do some writing,
change one last time, and get ready for bed.

Ay, roomful of columns of eyes
and mouths in Fibonacci
swirl, and then I spy

a half-chewed apple.
The apple is breathing,
or it was until just now.

The mouths were after the apple.
The apple was some being
that only looked like an apple.

I cannot speak of the eyes
in the nautilus cloud
above us all.  What they are,

what they saw before I came upon all this.
It had no interpretation before I saw it
with my own eyes.  So, call it murder

or bad dream or 
something I ate.  
No matter.  I blink.

Assume it’s all been a hoax.
Assume everything you know
was cooked up to control you
and stuff you with blindness.
Assume Dad and the teacher
and Mom and the boss
were all indifferent about spreading
well-funded lies as long as they
got their share of the funds.  
Assume this is the way it works.

Once you get this
there will be a sudden urge
to uncover the Real, 
so you will stick your hand
into the nearest pond,
pull out some
of the black rot at the bottom,
and wolf it down.

You’ll get sick enough to think you’re dying. 
You probably won’t die.  Instead
you’ll come back thin.  
You’ll come back grim. 
You’ll come back cynical
and pleased as a leech
with a fat vein to suck,
and you will fall in line, 

unless
you are one of the few who simply
can’t.

You’ll know if you are because
there will be a taste
forever in your mouth
called freedom.  
You will be
sick with it
as long as you live, 
and sometimes you will wish
you had died,

but now and then you’ll pass that pond
and note how pretty the sunrise is
across its water
and be glad you’re still alive.

wet sandals
mean of course wet feet

it’s been raining a while now and
stepping back into my house
after the morning walk
feels very briefly
like settling into a lie

to be able to be
on the earth
in this place
at this time
and be dry
almost as soon as I decide
that the novelty of wetness
has worn off
feels briefly wrong

but in the next second
gratitude takes over

I take off my sandals
I dry my feet
I pour a hot coffee and 
sit by my window
watching the rain
from a dry seat
of my choosing

that fellow over there
walking 
appears to be miserable

do not forget that
to have the choice
to be a spectator
to your local weather
is to be privileged

I announce my next task:
improvement of The Circle.

I shall strive to make The Circle better
so that after my redefinition,
all circles drawn prior to it
will look weak.

Upon hearing of this
a man approaches me
with a pill, two pills,
more pills.  “Here,
these will render your task
trivial.”  

They flatten me a while but then
with the realization that they also
are circles, I am illuminated
from within.

So the man approaches me
with a straitjacket.  “Here, put this on,
these arms will encircle you, be
calm and cease the Work.”  

It holds me for a while but then
with the realization that I 
embody the Circle, I shake
free and stand naked.

The man returns with a gun.
“I give up, as should you.
Here are rounds, barrel,
chamber, all of which hold
the Circle you seek.  
Take this, and go
with whatever God you choose.”

I stare at the gun and the bullets
for a while, turn away,
come back to them
again and again.  
It is insanity,
the man has said,
to attempt such a thing
as redefining the Circle
which has been so right
for so long.

But such perfection, such complacency
leaves me wanting.
To have to leave something alone
just because it is perfect as is,
because others have made it so,
is not my calling.

No matter.  There are sun
and moon and gun and pill
and my arms to answer to,
and a huge work to be done.  

I am no crafter,
I am an artist,
I think.  They’ll all
be rounder someday 
when I succeed.

Impossibly well-sculpted heads
shoved deep into
equally pretty asses!

Yogic twist in the morning light!

But, no matter!
They know all of what is needed
these days to get by!
There is no need to entertain
alternative views of reality!

It is very exciting!  Very complete!  
And above all,
there’s no way extraneous sound
may enter as their ears are 
so well plugged with themselves!

They are irresistible, the wave of the future,
the only opinions that matter,
don’t try to fight
what is so right right right!
In fact,
bend now to the same task —
either shove your own inadequate head in there
or take the position that it’s time
to kiss your ass goodbye!

While cutting the weeds I see
a small bit of fur flash
along the fence.

A new species to me, I think,
something unexplored,
unknown.

The great question:

shall I chase it
or let it be, hoping
for it to be revealed
another time?

I let it go,
remembering the cautionary tale
of Columbus, recalling
that Audubon
killed what he documented.

Thunderstorm at dawn?
Too long since I’ve seen one.
This world is either reverting
or transforming.  
I’m going to follow along.

Follow its curves as they lengthen.
Follow its face as it darkens.

I’m set to make music to accompany this
using nothing but my lips and my terror.
It’s a good set of lips
and a singular and useful terror,
the same one that led to 
sharpened stones and the like.
The same one that led to 
what brought the thunderstorm in
before full light.

I don’t even have to get out of bed to chase the change —
if I still had dreams, it would be in there too.
As I don’t, some rough sleep
and twilight thought
will do fine.  It never really
got light this morning, after all,
and who knows if the changes
will allow for such a trivial comfort —

I may as well begin to adapt.