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.

I thrust a word not wanted in your ear.

The tiger roared; the raven dryly cawed.

I raised my voice up high for you to hear.

The murder flew; the tiger paced and pawed.

There’s nothing, when you live inside a cage

that you have might to break from any night

that lessens your regret or can assuage

your frail and conscious choice to wait for light

and do it all again: a night, a morn,

a lifetime cast aside, a bedding mark,

some scratches on the bars that aren’t worn,

a mating cry unanswered in the dark.

At first I cried for love, but now for song.

You thought the point was sex, but you were wrong.

Perhaps, the photo’s angle wasn’t right.

A filter cannot make the subject soft.

The focus drifts. I rush and lose the light.

That’s not a pose that strikes a poised one, oft’.

One-offed, and now the poser won’t return.

The gravity precludes a second chance.

The negatives developed and were burned.

The vision is as fleeting as the glance.

Profane prophetic moments under glass

as if seen through a stranger’s windowpane

remind me of the wafers in the Mass

but wrapped in acetate and cellophane.

Each orange is the only of its kind;

extract the bitter seeds and chew the rind.

I greet you as a dreamer unaware

of any better way for you to catch

this drift that floats its boat to overshare.

The poem and the mouth that roars it match.

To greet a stranger, first express your love.

Recall the reason why, but dally, yet.

Express your love again–be clear thereof!

Remember why; decide if you’ll forget.

Humanity, my eyes reflect your face.

How do you do? I think my name is “Dan.”

Where are you from? You wanna live in space?

(It’s kinda far, but maybe if we ran…)

Each greeting is a poem to be sung.

I know not who you are, but I am young.

To pull the fire of sun down like a bomb,

into the west, is not a spell I know.

From dusk to dusk, from ash to frond of palm,

I call upon the lightning bugs to glow.

The gods of man, too young to know their end,

have written a commandment on the flesh:

“Consume; produce.” What does the mark portend?

I eat my tale and thus fulfill the geis.

Salacious Thirst, no ocean can allay,

Great Hunger, swallow all and thus be free.

Fat gassy beasts, in drunkenness we lay

waste on the earth and urine in the sea.

I am his brother, breathing his last breath.

She is our Mother, praying for Her death.