Monthly Archives: February 2010

By The Library

Two men were singing in a parking lot.
No one on the street seemed to notice.
Or we did but we were bothered,
On our way to where ever we were going.
Like the poet who read before the band played,
Or the redwing blackbird in back of the pizza place.
It’s not what you expect.
It’s like gathering up your day like an armload of groceries
And a can of corn falls and rolls under a counter.
You are tempted to leave it
But you know you can’t.

Message From The Universe

Tumor.
Bummer.

Wet Dog

I am a wet dog
Lying on my back.
Wriggling on the good new rug,
It’s my drying rack.

I almost died, cut me some slack.
My peeps took me to the vet,
God how they fussed over me,
But I’m back now in the pack.

Now I think I’ll sleep a bit,
Unless you want to play.
Hurry up with your answer,
I haven’t got all day.

Why I Take Good Care of My Macintosh

Because it broods under its hood like a perched falcon,

Because it jumps like a skittish horse and sometimes throws me,

Because it is poky when cold,

Because plastic is a sad, strong material that is charming to rodents,

Because it is flighty,

Because my mind flies into it through my fingers,

Because it leaps forward and backward, is an endless sniffer and searcher,

Because its keys click like hail on a boulder,

And it winks when it goes out,

And puts word-heaps in hoards for me, dozens of pockets of gold under boulders in streambeds, identical seedpods strong on a vine, or it stores bins of bolts;

And I lose them and find them,

Because whole worlds of writing can be boldly laid out and then highlighted and vanish in a flash at “delete,” so it teaches of impermanence and pain;

And because my computer and me are both brief in this world, both foolish, and we have earthly fates,

Because I have let it move in with me right inside the tent,

And it goes with me out every morning;

We fill up our baskets, get back home,

Feel rich, relax, I throw it a scrap and it hums.

–Gary Snyder

Cororate Offsite

Hotel schmooze, you snooze, you lose,

coffee shop tennebrae and hop

to work on long tables of papers,

endless talk of how to work harder, smarter,

leaner, meaner.

Workout sweat togs wander halls

meandering grey crimson-striped looks

in mirrored walls unending,

salmon strips on lettuce beds,

suits and ties and shoes conferring,

joking, lurking,

softly ringing cell phones pinging,

smiles and sighs unheard,

undreaming.