He announces that
he can stick a knife
in an eye
from across the room

and thus disturbs
the party’s universe
of care and laughter
three times:

first when all realize
he means it; second when
all realize he 
has, somehow, probably

practiced; third,
when all realize that
someone known to all,
someone allowed in this universe,

is the type of man
who not only thinks of knives,
throwing, and eyes in one sequence —
after all, they all do that —

but who has taken the pains
to ensure that the thought
is no longer secret, but, in fact,
potentially actionable.

too linear
this model of living one way
from birth to death

wish I could
loop the loop
laughing all the way around

it ain’t death I fear
but predictability
why end up where we all do?

why not say left turn, Clyde
and go straight on
till waking up yesterday morning

in another’s bed and bag of bones
starting over for a week
hell of a vacation

or best of all, stasis
no aging at all
pick a target and stay sharp

one day you go poof
one day you surprise everyone
by not dropping dead

listen
fuck immortality but fuck death too 
as automatic end result

if it’s gotta be life unto death
I’ll just take death now
thank you — at least it’s an unknown

I looked and saw that the wrong things were beloved
and stood up to say so, and to point and say:
love this instead.  

I stood up to point and say
this, here, is more worthy of your love,
and these other things should be burned.

Others stood about and shouted
and pointed, some at the things I loved,
some at that which I decried, and they proclaimed

that their choices were more worthy,
that my choices were aligned well with theirs,
or that my choices were those of the insane and evil.

Seeing us all pointing and shouting, all at different things,
all at things we liked or disliked, some of us using both hands
to praise and condemn at once, I became weary of it all

and dropped my arms and my choosing. Very well, I said,
I shall have none, shall love none, shall loathe none.
Good bye, I said, to all of this and to all my former fellows,

fare better or worse as you choose.  I turned from it
and moved, really, for the first time in a long time, 
to the blankest spot in the blankest part of the country

and looked at nothing and chose nothing to like or dislike.
I think I remember this, I said; this is the place
of making it up.  Of simply being there.

Of relearning how to look at things, how to see purely 
what is and is not for each.  The place to find knowledge
and never feel a need to found a school.

you know what they say

born in snakebite
die in hemlock
accident and healing
one and the same

they crack about cracks
say that’s how
the light gets in 

I was fractured early
thank Hell
a good flow
seeped in
a dark syrup
no light
no filler
when it crusted thick
I sealed

that badly broken
that closed up that early
I could have become one
of three things
artist
who makes it shine
criminal
who makes it pay
amateur actor
who makes it disappear

I was two of those
by nature already
so I said gimme more
I said
fraud
of thee I sling 
garbage in
and prophecy out
or vicey reversa 
I said as much as I could
never stopping to breathe 
still at it
still grinning

there is an analgesic effect
when one is wordslinging 
you can forget a lot
even when you’re writing it down

I can’t talk about the side effects right now
buy the book when it comes out 
this is just the short con
you want the big one for the full payoff
trust me on that

nod your head and I’ll
set the hook 
afterward you’ll call it art 
I will too
if you’re listening 

For certain at some point
you’ll believe in God or not,
and it will be in some way
a different belief than you held
earlier in life.  On that day

you’ll be rewarded: you’ll detect
a color in the base of the cup
of a simple yellow tulip,
a gray no one will ever have seen.
You’ll be blessed — and yet

at the same time you will lose your fondness
for Doberman Pinschers, start to see them as alien
and hideous, and turn your face to the wall
in sick disgust whenever you see one,
and you’ll be cursed.  

God, tulips, Dobies…nothing has changed
about any of these things.  Blessings, curses, ditto;
whatever you call it
when nothing has actually changed
but everything has?
That is what you call this. 

You’d best believe in it
if you haven’t already.  
Get right down in that gray
and squish around.
Pay no attention
to the barking since this, too,
shall pass.

If I had to taste you
I surely would
and would be glad

despite my fear
that you might taste
like an abandoned path

In memory of brilliant
anxious days
on tightrope and glass

I might approach you
with mouth hung open
as if I were wary cat or ready snake

for you remind me
of antique daggers, red silk scarves
Engraved exquisite revolvers

punching high tight holes
wherever they’re pointed
You remind me of how I’ve bled

and how I would
bleed now
if I were to taste you

and name your flavor
on my tongue
as rediscovered path

The heart is loved best when
it’s stylized on paper
and not when found in three
fleshy dimensions, especially
when
found outside
the body,

when
it has true bilateral 
symmetry
and a fold down the middle
from when a child made it,
when
there is pink construction paper
involved,
perhaps a bit of lace,
certainly crayon lettering,
certainly a messy cut or two
that does nothing to harm its charm,

when it communicates a message of love
by its total being with no other function —

yes,
a heart is best when it is
symbolic, non-functional,
and not at all realistic,
real, 
broken,
or failed.

O 
squat full
of masturbators!
I have entered
either an undiscovered
ward of hell or
a poetry reading.

O
evidence of
my mistaken path,
an entire life devoted to
the twinge given by
a good word!  Silence
is honestly more
potent — see how a silent body
in a noisy room collects
all the spark
to itself?  I’ve been
a damn poet so long,
I had forgotten 
what a useless thing that is
to be until,
upon entering this seediness,
everything became clear
and I lost
my appetite
for myself.

O,
the tawdry tragedy —
the open unnecessary question —
why not stop? 

As if
I could stop,
this close to closure.
As if
the light and the sad floor
could deter me.  
As if
the better words of my betters
could cow me from failure anymore.

So,
I say, move over, all;
I will squat again
and what will follow
will be what always follows.