All at once
It rushes forth
Ready or not
My muse
Does not wait
For anyone
Month: April 2020
one side die
A square ceiling
With a circular light
In the center
Looks like
The one side
Of a die
inside jokes
I see jokes
Sometimes
Without anyone
Saying anything
And laugh
To myself
—I must
Look crazy
present
All my life
Has led me here
To this point
For which
All my past
Has prepared me
—On and on
Over and over
This continues
For every
Present moment
sleepy studio
An open doorway
Into another room
Where daylight
Creeps beneath
The window drape
Does appear
Less dark
Than the lightless
Life here
On the sleepy side
Of the studio
Where the drapes
Are pulled tight
night time
Something clicks
In the night
Unnatural, interrupting
A sweet lullaby
Of silent sounds
A flash
From the bus claws
Catching on electric wires
Outside the window
I check the time
And realize
It is almost the hour
When the mechanical city
Will start its day
And this click and flash
Were the early signs
That I’ll have to wait
For another sun’s passing
For the peace and quiet
Of non-mechanical
Night time
poetry
Poetry is not a practice
Of making time
To sit down in a chair
And write
Rather, poetry,
As I have experienced it,
Is a practice
Of cultivating a life
Like a garden
Where poetry might visit
From time to time
Like flowers might grow
In moments of dream
Amidst a good night’s rest
Or moments of gratitude
Amidst seeing a new light
Or moments of love
Amidst listening to your muse
You cannot go away from life
To sit at your chair
And write of it
You must go to life
To take it as it comes
And write as best you can
In the midst of it
give and take
Do not be so greedy
As to try
And steal away
With what you have been given
As it goes
You must return
Because you can only carry
So much on your back
By your going
Do not burn the bridge
No matter how much you take
And think to yourself
I will never have to return
I have this much
But you will
Such is life
This give and take
That to participate
Most fully
One would be best off
Giving away
What they have taken
To return
And tell the giver
When asked
What you did
With all
That you were given
And say
I gave it away
And then the giver will smile
And give you that much more
soft skin
I trace
With my fingertips
Where her skin
Tells me soft stories
Soft, mostly
So I wonder
What coarse sand
Made this skin so soft
up at night
Up, I am up now
As surely as I said
I would sleep
Through the night
I am up now
Having failed
To fight off thoughts
That couldn’t wait
Until the morning
I stopped to ponder
Dangerously a dream
That, if left unconsidered,
Would have passed through
Perfectly in peace
To go on its way
In and out
Through each ear canal
Yet it was something
Shocking enough to stir
And once my woken mind
Got a hold
And seized it
Somewhere in the middle
Still in my mind
The gears start to turn
And the whole factory
Follows suit
Coming to life
In the middle of the night
untitled
I touch her skin softly
Like an instrument
That I hope will sing for me
In the silence of the night
her honey
All the art
Is in her
I believe
She is the artist,
Truly,
I am only
The collector
Like some would say
Of the bee keeper
That he has brought
Us honey,
But no;
It is the bees
Who brought the honey;
It is the keeper
Who stood by idly
Patient enough
To collect and deliver
What the bees brought forth
midnight mass
I learn as much
Laying up at night
Listening to
The radiator wheeze
And the fridge whrr
And baby’s soft breathing
As I ever have
Up and about
Out in the day
Listening to words
Spoken with some
Supposed meaning
That I’ve
Yet to grasp
moon making do
Each night
There is a scar of light
That holds its shape
Shot through the drape
And onto the ceiling
From the moon outside
Making do till morning
waiting for my muse
I must not be greedy
Having already
Gotten two good poems
But I cannot help
Wanting a third
So I lay up in bed
Looking at the dark ceiling
Waiting for the dream muse
Who delivered the first two
To return with the third
my masterpiece
A masterpiece
I once wrote
On a computer screen
That did not save
Or on a piece of paper
That blew away—
Such stories I would tell
Of how my brilliance
Managed to elude me
For so long
As a lifetime
Rather than face the fact
That I was never
Good enough
To write a masterpiece
remembering paul
For the first time
That I can ever recall
I met a man
Named Paul
That I could not recall
At the time
In a dream
Particular
Was this perchance
Precisely because
This Paul was a man
Who I was meeting
For the second time
When the first time
Was also
Only ever in a dream
So it makes sense to me
Now awake remembering
That in this second dream
Where I was in a golf shop
In rainy New York
Testing out clubs
With my friend John
And afterwards we walked home
In the rain
With our coats
Pulled around our necks
(I can remember
Now awake
With uncanny accuracy
That we seemed to be older
Than I am now
Here laying in bed
And also that a group of people
That we passed in the street
Were huddled under an awning
To stay out of the rain
Watching the news
On TV screens
And talking about trading stocks
(Such is my subconscious
Perception of New York
It seems)
So John and I
Make our way back to the apartment
And this is when I meet Paul
John and I
Are sitting at his kitchen table
Late at night
On a weekday
Eating pie
That he had left over
From a party
—I remember these details
Because John said to me,
In the dream,
“This is never something you would do,
Eating pie
On a weekday.”
And before I could respond
And tell John
How vehemently I agreed,
But this
Was a special occasion
—I prepared to tell him this,
I was thinking it,
I can remember.
And right then,
Paul came up
To the table
With another friend
Seemingly
From another room
Somewhere else in the apartment.
He and his friend were dressed
Like they were going out
For the night.
He came up
And slapped me on the shoulder
And said,
“Ho, Cole, how have you been?”
Which is when,
I looked across the table at John
And then back up at Paul
In confusion
As I thought to myself
That I had never met
This Paul before
And so wondered
Why he was now greeting me
With such seeming remembrance.
As they both perceived my confusion
And in the space of silence that lingered thereafter
Where Paul seemed to be expecting a greeting in return,
John stepped in and said,
“Cole, it’s Paul!”
I did not know the meaning,
At first,
Of John repeating
With more intonation
Paul’s name
As if that would be the cue
For me to remember
But I still
Could not recall.
Seeing my inability to remember
They all started to laugh
Even Paul’s friend
Who seemed to have no relation
To the situation,
As if they all together
Were in on some inside joke
That I was left out of.
When they had all laughed
And slapped each other’s shoulders
And wiped tears out of their eyes
John caught his breath
For one final try, and asked me again,
“Cole, do you really not remember?”
Remember what?
I thought to myself.
I felt like a man
Left outside in the rain
Looking in through a window
Into a warm and well-lit party
That I was not part of.
But this Paul was a cool cat
And he brushed it off like it was nothing,
My not remembering him.
He stepped around the table
To grab something from the cabinet
To eat on his way
To where he was going out,
This I can best recall
From the dream
From which I have woken
And am now writing.
It was then
That the mental event
In my own mind occurred
Which makes this a dream
Worth remembering,
And therefore writing—
For as Paul
Was walking down and out
Of the long hallway
In the apartment
With his friend,
It was then
That I suddenly remembered!
Paul!
Of course I knew Paul!
The last time I was in New York …
It was all coming back to me.
On another occasion,
I had visited John
And we were all going out.
We were in the living room
Of his apartment
And Paul was there too,
And as a matter of fact,
So was his friend!
We were drinking,
I was remembering
Within this dream
What seems to be
A memory,
Which at the time
In the dream
Seemed to me
To be completely organic
Just as anyone
Would all of a sudden
Recall a memory
That they had
For an instant, forgotten.
And so I said again, “Paul!”
But this time aloud,
And got up from the table
To chase him down the hall.
He turned on his heel
Hearing his name
And I ran down
The not so long length
Of the long hall
To give him a hug.
I could feel the extra mass
Added to his thin frame
By the winter coat
He had put on
To go outside.
He hugged me back
And then pushed me away
And laughed like before.
In the interchange,
Paul tried to hand me
A cigarette
That he had seemingly
Lit up
While he was still in the apartment
Walking out the door.
I tried to grab it
But missed
In the pinch between
Our fingers
And it fell on the floor,
Still smoking
Inside the apartment.
But this Paul was so cool
He didn’t seem to notice
Or care.
He would have just as soon
Gotten the pack
Out of his coat pocket
To light up another
Before bending down
To pick up the dropped one.
“There you go,”
He said.
“Now you’re remembering.
Not your fault,
I’m not offended.
We did feed you
Quite a few drinks that night.”
And this I could now recall,
If only in blurry pieces
How we had all drank together
That night in New York,
For my first visit
(This now,
Being the second).
Us four,
Including Paul’s friend,
Who I now assumed to be
John’s third roommate,
Had all had
Quite a good time.
“Well, I’ll see you next time,”
Paul said,
Now seeming
To be in a bit of a hurry
To get out the door
To wherever he was going out.
Hearing this,
John leaned back in his chair
From the living room
To poke his head
Around the corner
Into the hallway and say,
“You’ll be seeing him,
A lot more now,
Paul.
Cole’s going to be
Our fourth roommate.”
This must have been
The occasion
For my being
In New York,
I thought,
As John said this
As if it was news to me.
And that
Is the last thing
I can remember
From the dream.
Now I wonder,
Awake, as I write this,
If the memory
Of meeting Paul
For the first time
Was another dream
That I have had
Some other sleeping night
Out of my actual
Waking life.
Or, if it was a memory
Completely fabricated
Within that dream itself,
The one I have just had
And am now awake from,
Writing about it.”
For the feeling
Of having forgotten something
And then soon after,
Remembering all of a sudden,
Like a word on the tip of your tongue,
Or the name of an author
Whose book has come up in conversation
—That feeling
Was so real to me
In the dream,
That surely
That memory must come
From something else
At least as real
As another separate dream,
And not something so fickle
As a memory
Within a dream
—For then,
From what other world
Would come that memory?
A memory which has never
Seen the light
Of a real waking day
Nor the muddled dark
Of dreams
That are themselves
So often forgotten
But somewhere deep
In my subconscious
Are a subset of memories
Which I may never recall
As I remember things
While awake,
But may only ever recall
Within a dream,
Or not at all.
black
A black crow
Perched
On a black power line
With black
Clouds behind
Bodes ill, I fear
As if the day
Were not already
Dark enough
hot soup
Eating hot soup
On a cold day
I have to blow
On each spoonful
To cool it down
Which gives me time
To look out the window
And think
Between bites
bananas
A bunch
Of bananas
Ripen
All at once
So I’m eating
Only one
Perfectly ripe
While the few
Eaten early
Too green
And the others
Eaten late
Too yellow
With brown spots
untitled
Grips me
Grabs me
Out of thin air
As I was
Going gladly
Now I’m
Forced to care
looking at her
She looks up at me
And frowns
At my expression
I must look silly
Staring
As she sits
At the coffee table
Sipping her tea
And I just stare
Like I would
At the gallery
Unaware
That the object
Of my affection
Is looking back at me
in time to die
At this rate
I measure
I’ll learn
To live
In time
To die
upside down
In a yoga pose
Upside down
I see the world
Anew
Out the window
Tree branches
Become bushes
Planted
In the sill
A shaggy rug
Ceiling
And a chandelier
That looks
Like a couch
So now I know
That in order
To travel
I needn’t even
Walk out the door
But instead
Can stretch out
In downward dog
And look under
My left shoulder
To see a new world
Upside down
Ishmael
Ishmael says the world is not created for man. This is the creation myth our culture tells us. So too, I am not made for myself. This is the creation myth that my ego tells me.
I may be created for uses other than my own. Thinking of this makes me realize how selfish I have been.
the game of tag
To chase and catch
But not devour
The game of tag
Is primal
Prepared for bodies
That had to hunt
In order to eat
—Now,
It’s just a game
back patio
Chimes whine
In the wind
Blowing softly
Singing
The pin wheel
Patters
Leaves of trees
Rustle
Birds chirp
Neighbors
On the other side
Of the fence
Can be heard
Through screen doors
A sunny day
Spent lounging
On the back patio
sunlight stripes
The shades sprinkle
Sunlight stripes
Through spaced out ribs
On the white wall
In the morning
grass track
Out on the lawn
I run in a track
Made by the mower
Between yellow lines
Four feet apart
Where the wheels
Killed the green grass
silent sheet
I put my ear
To the sheets
And listen
To the silent rustle
That says shh
All else
Is outside
Nonsense
And absurd
Far away
From here
age
Climbing stairs
In socks
My toes crack
And knees pop
Like a band
Playing a song
Called age
an old book
Sometimes you see the same book on a different shelf; the same book that you have on your own shelf back at home.
It’s been sitting there collecting dust, as its binding has become commonplace among the other books that you haven’t opened for a while. Their bindings become usual, like a painting is drawn across the face of your bookshelf, for long enough that it becomes like a barrier, dissuading you from taking any of the books off of the shelf, thus breaking the barrier.
And here is this same book, the same one that you have on your shelf at home. But here it is—the same book, on a different shelf, so there is no barrier. You take it and open it and, oh, the knowledge that you once knew. You rediscover a chapter of your life that has been closed for some time, almost as clearly as if it were yesterday.
reading before bed
At night
I lay up
And read
Later than usual
Turning pages
At the pace
Of her breathing
In bed
Next to me
The city
Still sounding
In the night
Outside
in the park
I can still hear
The birds chirp
In the park
A baseball
In the grass
As the sun sets
On the skyline
Easier here
To worry less
About the woes
I ran from
keep on
I start to feel
That I should stop
That the train
Has too much steam
That the snowball
Rolling downhill
Has gained too much mass
Or that I should at least
Slow down some
—But I’ve realized
The only way to slow
Is to stop
And the only way to stop
Is to end
And if I choose to end
At this age
I fear I’ll never
Begin again;
So I keep on
Opera
Boy and girl go to the opera on a first date.
“Don’t you worry about bringing someone here on a first date?” She asked.
He was struck by the question. “Why should I worry?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the date turns out to be not so good and then, well, then you’re struck at an opera!”
She said the word opera in a way that disclosed her feelings about it.
“Ah, I see. Well for me, it’s the exact opposite. If the date turns out to be bad, then at least I can enjoy the opera.”
He smiled at her when he said this, hinting gently at the possibility that the date could go bad, but he rather liked Rachel already, even though they had only met for the first time in-person just fifteen minutes ago.
They were walking down the sidewalk wearing winter coats. Winters in Chicago were very cold. He wore a grey pea coat with the collar pulled up around his neck. He had his hands tucked into the pockets in both sides of the coat’s abdomen. She wore a fur coat and a scarf. She had on black leather gloves. Her left hand held her purse and the other held his arm.
“Have you ever had a bad date at the opera?”
She was still on the subject, it seemed. But this was a trick question, he knew. Not so much about the opera as it was about his recent dating history.
“I did once, yes. She actually forced us to leave right in the middle. She wanted to go for a drink. So we went across the street for a drink. And then I said I had to be off because I had an early morning the next day. She wanted to keep drinking but I insisted. I don’t like drinking much anyway.”
They kept walking in silence for a moment. He studied her pause. That bit was important. He had avoided anything distasteful about the dating and revealed a few key pieces of information about himself.
He carried on the conversation to avoid dwelling. “How long have you lived in Chicago?”
Like this, they walked and talked along Main Street. By the time they arrived at the opera house his shoulders were tucked up tight around his neck and her nose was bright red. They were glad to get indoors.
The opera house was brightly lit.
…
He marveled at the capabilities of a human voice.
Like any great feat, it made him wonder about the capabilities of man more generally. His mind started to drift, but he pulled his attention back to the music.
time
Whole hours pass
Unnoticed
When I pay attention
To anything other
Than time itself
bistro chair
This metal-backed
Bistro chair
Makes no good
For sitting
Any longer
Than’s required
For a cup of tea
giving birth
I read it lazy like
Looking past particulars
Paying poor attention
Preferring to play
Privy to pondrance
Of short-sighted solutions
For the human condition
Appeased temporarily
By sex and violence
Ceasing to be
And becoming
Giving birth to all
That we ourselves
Hoped to escape
like the hare
For what does one wait
While wanting wanes
Though one may be
Strong and swift
At the start
Rejoicing in the sprint
Stretching muscles
Straight away
Until the end
Seems to stretch
Farther
And farther away
As the wanting
Which at first
Burned bright
As a fire
In an engine’s heart
Turns to ash
And cools
untitled
Between drapes
And cracked window
Peeks a nose
For a breath
Of fresh
Outside air
After hours
Indoors
Cooped up
fields of time
Perhaps perilous
Would pause be
For a picker
In the field of time
With only
A moment’s harvest
And drought
For a hundred years
Thereafter
branches in the rain
Branches bend
Burdened by rain
Their leaves
Dancing in the wind
Dodging drops
Dripping down
From leaves
Already laden
On branches above
praying for poems
It is in between naps
With my hands clasped
In between my legs
Laying on my side
My own
Praying posture
To look out the window
And listen
To the rainy Saturday
Voices and horns
Wet wheels on road
And thudded footsteps
In the apartment above
Make music and art
That I seek to capture
Laying here praying
For another poem
hanging picture frame
A picture in frame
I notice how hangs
Lower with time
Not on the nail
Where the frame
Stays sturdy same
But the paper inside
Pasted
Or however fastened
Loosely
Or seeming so
As it slides
Lower in frame
Disobeying
Its hanger’s wish
To hang in the middle
Of its father frame
That hangs steadfast
cars in the rain
Car wheels
Whistle and spit
While wet in the rain
Sounds slush and puddle
Whrrrrrrr
From off in the distance
Past our open window
And off again
Whrrrrrr’ing
As if the r’s
Grew smaller size
Softer, more quiet
Until silent
Farther off
hopes of spring
Outside our window
Stretch branches
Bare for months
When we too
Under duress of winter
Couldn’t stand
To sustain much more
Than ourselves
Now blossoming
Bits of green granting
To my bed laying head
Hopes of spring
To get out again
And grow strong
cars in a storm
Outside
Under eyes
Of soft storm
Slick tires
Skate across
Wet road
Wafting wind
Carried
Car noise
Shooting by
Slip
Sliding along
am i me
I do not need to persist in my own ways any longer
If I am to do this thing that is outside of me
And lives according to its own principles—
Such is the way to become anything other than what you already are
And to become is the only way to be, in a time-sensitive world
So that trying to bring forward in time, any part of you from the past, would be a fool’s errand
But we must not forget, that you too, are a part of what there is
So to say, that this is itself and you are yourself, ceases to be true upon you entering into it
And some people enter in so big that they end up accounting for more than half of what was already there
So the real question turns out to be, how big do you really think you are?
Are you big enough to enter in and bend to your young will what was already there and old before you?
Or are you small so that your only hope is to learn as fast as you can what it’s about and assimilate as best you can, even if that means losing whatever you were before.
In some cases, it is perceiving yourself as such which makes you big or small.
So if you walk in with your chest puffed out, you might just make it that way.
Or if you walk in with your shoulders slumped, then it’s already done, and there you are small.
In most cases, it seems a newcomer is proud enough for his first few entries to walk in with his chest puffed out.
Until he is beaten down, and his shoulders slump.
There is no right or wrong way, viewing it all at once, from the outside, from no particular set of eyes.
It is all there, in one form or another, changing sometimes, but it is all still there.
Regardless of the point of view of one seeing from his own perspective, wanting to be the one with his chest puffed out.
But forgetting this mist necessarily mean that there are others with there shoulders slumped.
And if you can start to see that point of view from the outside, then maybe you start to realize that it doesn’t matter much either way.
Silver nail
A lone slim
Silver nail protrudes
From the white wall
Where a picture frame
Used to hang
The great whale man
The great whale man
Watching
With hook in hand
Waving
At waves gone by
Waiting
For the big one
To come in time
pass faster
It’s hard to write
so short-sighted
trying to survive
seeing only as far
as my next meal
or night’s sleep knowing
this too shall pass
as all that has before
but wanting it to pass faster
like the impatient child
I’ve always been
Radiator
The radiator wheezes
Like a weary asthmatic
Wanting for air
Drawing struggled breaths
From heated pipes
And seeming to be in pain;
I myself am thankful
At mid-morning
Having just drawn the drapes
To behold a cold outside
But inside
Feeling warm
From the radiator’s struggle
shadow
A shadow
In the corner
Of my eye
Seems a shape
So real
Until I turn
And watch
It disappear
untitled
If I pause
For a second
In a quiet place
I can hear
My heart beat
In my throat
Shadow ribs
Standing next to the light
That shows shadows
In my rib slants
Shirtless
Knees against the mattress
Staring
At myself in the mirror
With a sideways glance
Observing
Parts of my body
That I hadn’t noticed before
Trusting the decisions you made a while ago
It is often difficult to remember after much time has passed why you decided to do what you are now doing. Even if you had written it down in clear detail in a note, that note may have been lost. So it becomes important to trust the decision-making process of your past self.
As an investor, when the market is going through turmoil or your view has become contrarian, you must trust the decision of your past self in order to continue holding your position, as long as your thesis has not been fundamentally broken.
In choosing projects to work on, jobs to take, or relationships to enter into – it is the same. Because you cannot constantly be re-evaluating your “why.” Once you have made a decision you must be focused on the “what” and the “how” entirely, in order to succeed. In every moment you are so focused on the execution of the task, you are trusting that your decision to enter into said task was, and continues to be, a correct one.
Keep on keeping on
I like to be
Getting going
On my way
After all
There seems to be
Something still ahead
On the horizon
Over yonder
So long as I can
Just keep stepping
In that direction
I’ll be alright