I counted to a hundred, just to stop,
and then wrote one unnecessary word.
I sent a metered pun, to have it flop
upon a hundred ears that hadn’t heard,
that didn’t know the back end from the front,
who thought a sonnet had to come with rings,
and thought that Cyrano should bear the brunt
of words betrothed to forth-and-backward kings.
I’m sorry, but I’m running out of rhymes.
This never worked, and now it’s time to quit.
I gave the form my head a hundred times;
I have to either swallow, now, or spit.
You caught me on the day I dumped the sonnet.
To be or not, not one bee missed her bonnet.

The sun stays up late,
listening to the birds’ songs,
like a teen dressed black.

Isn’t it past your bedtime?
How old do I have to be?

Even the robins
chide the “old boy” to grow up.
Master your tongue, first.

I am unsure, like wading
headfirst in the Lethe’s head.

I have two tokens.
I don’t know if I earned them;
Charon doesn’t care.

Where is the ferry destined?
Can a friend take my silver?

Two cents for your eyes
are your first, most basic right,
but keep them open!

One cannot choose their own birth,
nor ask the unborn, “To be?”

The father of life
leaves us without light or heat.
Mother, where are you?

I do not hear your children,
just their toys speeding away.

Accelerating
too fast down a slow, dark road,
we’re easy to miss.

It’s true: the greater our speed,
the less our perfect clocks tick.

A young, naive heart
sees one too many sunsets
and ceases beating.

This is not how it all ends,
a false light in the tunnel.

The morning after,
you might rise, with wounds stitched shut,
whether you want to.

Avoid the topic,
dear God, whatever you do.
Your demons are cool.

It’s not self-serve death, served chilled,
but the hard warmth of whiskey.

Sit in a cool room,
and just try to speak softly.
Drink steels poets’ lips.

Take in a goddamned movie.
Sit still, and count your blessings.

One more cigarette,
too few reasons to quit it,
and three drags, I leave.

Number the stars in Heaven.
Hell houses more dead virgins.

It’s not that hard, man.
You tell a woman you love
tacos, and you screw.

What season is this, again?
Never let on. No, not once.

One hot night’s reprieve
from sweating “ev’ry” detail–
“Dude, you got no chill.”

I don’t know if it’s summer
or when gentle spring gave up.

The way the world ends
doesn’t matter to the man
beginning to end.

I compose my daughter’s dirge.
I am a verse to the sun.

Delay a poem,
and have no more vexation
til the bill comes due.

Like throwing a switch
into the sun–no “off,” now–
at least my beer’s cold.

The lights go out; I get “lit”
and grieve spring’s perfect shapes, pitch.

Bullfrogs cry, “Fuck me!”
innocent as teenagers.
I cling to her form.

This is original sin.
Ignorant, I transgress god.

The moon looks away.
My crime shines high in the stars.
There is no body.

Lightning flashes a photo.
I anticipate thunder.

Light without a voice
split the black night gone quiet
into seen and heard.

Silence speaks to either side.
I listen in the middle.

A tentative bull
demands love after winter.
May is not summer.

Not turning in the out within, without
a flying bird, and then a branch for peace,
there’s doubt of self, and then there’s doubt of doubt,
then Socrates’ fart trumpets under Greece.
I’m not the better man; neither was He.
He would not raise himself above your nose.
He’d feel his size, about the same as thee,
and spindle in his nepotistic hose.
Perhaps he wouldn’t drink, or smoke, or swear,
the oversight from here to Heaven’s gate—
not unaware—so painfully aware
“Big Daddy” would enslave his name to hate.
It is not for one’s name, nor one man’s sake,
a Buddhist burns, and lights us in his wake.

To my mother,

too rarely about,

always because of

So, here’s the catch, (to end before it starts):
The Sonneteer of Hamelin comes free,
like garbage in the wind, or titans’ hearts
chilled on the rocks, abiding what will be.
A man will love a girl, whether or not
a woman will pretend to love his gift,
and helter-skelter, iced or flaming hot,
he’ll take the float, then cut her line to drift.
This happens all the while, some mother’s fool,
who took to reading Freud, but never learned,
tugged on a rope, tugged back, so cranked the spool,
eyed up his “catch,” then cursed when he was spurned.
The worlds not mine to save, nor leave alone,
can sail the great abyss above alone.

I never dined and ditched, since I was “bright.”
I just smoked funny smelling cloves and “kale”
in public, with impunity spelled “white,”
“cis,” “hetero,” “well-heeled,” and–best part–“male.”
And I rejected privilege! It was wrong!
At seventeen, I bought my own damned car!
I parked it past the tracks, to hit the “gong.”
(It rhymes, I think. That apple don’t fall far.)
See, I knew I was marked to rule the class,
and I knew that tattoo was inked in blood.
Hand me my final! (Drunk, but bet I’ll pass.)
I dropped it, free, and, “After me, the flood.”
I am no longer three, or seventeen.
What grace I had was far beyond the mean.

The title speaks the volume, with a lilt,
and, somehow, that should salve your bleeding skull.
I’ll rake my muck, and dredge my ounce of silt,
and shit in public, so it isn’t dull.
The “Prez” will send his steamer by the post,
by horse and pony, male and hot to trot.
His ghost’s the most, the holy Lord of Hosts.
Some things are for us all, and others, not.
We don’t need photo evidence of guilt.
We don’t need acts of penance by the sword.
We do not care what time machine you’ve built
from false instructions from your seventh lord.
We do not need a poem from a man
who might, or could, or would, but never can.

I must appreciate someone who might,
by sight, or flight, or purely random chance,
receive, believe–who knows if they’ll requite–
a word of happenstance romance, at glance.
The word I hoped you’d ask for: “Here are we.”
It’s plain, despite the wreath upon the door.
One follows after one–buy two; pay three.
Ask for an epic. Then, I’ll hit the floor.
My gift might be impersonal, arose
from some reflexive instinct in the spine.
It is for you, and only Heaven knows
the words I write are never really mine.
I’ll call you “Zorp,” and you can call me, “Derth.”
It makes no sense, but here we are on Earth.