We’ve lodged inside an inn without an out.

The windowpanes and doors are painted on.

The porter smiles, although I tend to doubt

his role is truly taxed or put-upon.

I ask him, “May I leave?” He laughs and nods:

“The exit’s sealed for your security.

I can oblige and leave you to your odds;

you’re welcome to your immaturity.”

I thought we might bust out the fire door

and let the sirens say our long goodbyes.

The cries of mutts and brats would underscore

our hosts’ midnight arousal by surprise.

They made for us a bed and put a mint.

They set a checkout time and gave no hint.

This form, I know its angles and its curves;

I know its heft and how it bends the light;

I know the function ev’ry joining serves,

yet, to my hand, the catch is gripping tight.

My hand is tightly gripping to the catch.

I won’t open it up or let it go.

There’s nothing worth it in the chest to snatch.

A vacuum sucks; the things to fill it blow.

(Is meaning lost? Find “thee” a prostitute.

She knows the straighest fare and how it leans.)

The edges of its letters are acute

psychosis, meaning nothing that it means.

There is a catch, without a hinge or lid.

To break it was to find out what it hid.

I dive for oysters nightly, hard to reach.
I’ve had a taste, but they’ve no taste for me.
Their points of irritation line my beach,
so take this pearl, and hurl it in the sea.
All pearls, no oysters–every one a pearl–
their insides sandy, swollen, bitter meat.
I’ve jewels of every color for a girl,
but not a tender bit at all to eat.
Perhaps, I’ll string a rosary or two
and pray either direction for release
from Midas’ curse, before it claims you, too,
or trade the lot for two mussels apiece.
I guess I might begin an art exchange,
although, my gifts have virtue to derange.

When I was green and just a meter high,
you tended to my care with gentle hands.
From wanting juice, to not wanting to die,
I had concerns, and you had names of bands.
I do not think I can begin to thank
some Mother in our short forgotten past
who reared us all, confused enough to spank,
but kind enough to put our difference last.
(Thank mothers’ mothers’ mothers for your touch.)
All we’ve once touched becomes the Earth again,
and She, a little girl, whose fingers clutch
at Mommy, hides Her face and counts to ten.
The memory precedes the magic show.
I love. You taught me this, of all I know.

You told me once, my poems made me seem
more human than my fiction will admit.
Admit to me, to sleep perchance to dream
is noble in the mind as to submit.
Great stolid bull, unbending rooted rock,
indomitable king upon the board,
your words and mine alike are writ’ in chalk.
The hammer falls; the taunt conceals a sword.
God rolled your dice. That I could cast His down–
a money-changer tossed into the street–
I’d give my head, to break His pyrite crown
and mend your pieces shattered at my feet.
I’d give to you my head–its holes, its horns.
I’d wear your holy, bloody crown of thorns.

“Perhaps. Why not?” A word is all it took

to jostle into motion all that is

and what might be. “Who cares?” By hook or crook,

the first and final words are always his.

Perhaps, you’re sick of missives spelled “Submit.”

Perhaps, the charm is shattered like a glass

pressed to your lips, so cloying you could spit,

refused, abused, and cast into the grass.

I think the Bang that birthed us all just broke

under the stress of what you must endure.

It feels the punch and understands the joke,

but, why it should be funny, She’s unsure.

These microverse aggressions make no sense.

Mankind is bruised at womankind’s expense.

I’ve plumbed the bottles’ bottoms, marked them twain,

drowned in an inch of dregs lest die of thirst,

spun silken webs pulled from a matted skein,

tripped on my shade, and touched the Earth headfirst.

What for? Why do I leap to break my crown?

I do not know, for all I can be sure,

which way is right or wrong or up or down,

if you or I am sick, and what’s the cure.

The rains fall long and hard, and short and soft.

Our breath moves in slow motion like the tides.

I think about the times I hurt Her, oft’.

The shame abates; the price for guilt abides.

I loose my clenching brain, and all is lost.

No one but me will pay my ferry’s cost.

My garbage can observes a paradigm

filled through the night and emptied at the dawn,

lined up in some forgotten hall of time,

moved short and back, as if a timid pawn.

Too scared to move, so certain of the end,

aware someone with bombs thinks it’s a game.

I move my pawn; my spirits all descend.

I take it back; the Christ consumes my shame.

We all imbibe the poison, less than me.

The truth affords us anguish for its cost

while total absolution comes for free.

Acrid or sweet? Drink either, and be lost.

When God and scientists do not agree,

my Mass observes the source of gravity.

Here is the charge: a penny for the grog,

caricatures for two and zero sense,

a magnum in exchange for dialogue,

or rent the fare per diem—ninety pence.

But, friend, we’ve drank together for so long.

Dear friend, pretend I didn’t say a word.

I sang, but you cannot return the song,

and if you called the tune, I hadn’t heard.

Biergarten gnomes, with funny little hats,

will pour til poor, then prod for you to pay.

Just load the spring, and set the cheese for—rats!

I wouldn’t bite, but what are you to say?

I wrote myself a check and paid my fee:

Each word I speak in confidence is free.

Perhaps the gilded slipper doesn’t fit

that girdles tight her arches under step,

and, barefoot, Eros’ tower she’ll acquit

for me to follow cloven over step.

A stride by stride, a flight by taking wing,

a part so small has no determined path

as princess-wooing-poet for the king

to only be loved in love’s aftermath.

We’ve heard that tale before, but who is she?

Who is my heroine? How does she feel?

What made her turn her step away from me?

If she looked just as me, would I turn heel?

I know I cannot know her by her face,

but every man would fall upon her grace.