Signifying nothing

I write seeds into germination I write blowhards into consternation I write the crush of modern flight I write the drink that does bite I write the music that swells I write the glove that compels I write the city I love I write memory dreamed of I write words into trees I write snow up to your knees I write the life of a man I write wandering with a plan I write my sister's strife I write a slow cumbria of life I write dawn's mandate I write violence and hate I write watching confusion I write gooselike delusion I write drowning in fright I write darkness into light I write how sense transcends I write how much depends I write familial reality I write she who made me I write five and twenty I write love lost aplenty I write the universe outright I write a small boy's blight I write phrases and fluff I write stuff

Costly turnover there Don't tell me you want to win, show me Willing to get his jersey dirty Straight and true at the free throw line I see what you did there That rattles home Fought tooth and nail all series long If they are fortunate enough to succeed If you want to move on, you're going to have to be better Rejected! This is how you say 'put me in coach' Its a difference-maker There was a lot of contact all over the place They're coming alive here in the second half Strong side cover, weak side cover: it doesn't matter There goes that man We have to have discussion I just don't think they are that good Matching up against an iconic player Forget about it coach, I was healthy and read and you didn't play me But he steped up And its on to the second round The kind of respect you expect from this hard fought Series

When my mother made me go to church They called sitting still "being reverent." "Be reverent!" snapped the lady with big Hair big glasses and big pattern on her shiny Dress "Be reverent, children!" she said again, Adding children to the command as if We didn't know we were children and She was the adult who was allowed to Glare "Be reverent!" and the children around Me folded their arms across their chest Wiggling their hips in their all too tiny Seats. But I didn't, since I didn't know Reverence "What do we do when we show reverence, Children?" big lady asked glaring at me "We fold our arms and sit still!" children Yelled their response, all turning to look at Me Now that the eyes of God or Jesus or Just the entire Primary class were glaring at me, I folded my arms and bowed my Head, not realizing that is what you do to Pray

On this day in four thousand, nine hundred and seventy seven The universe was, according to astronomer Johannes Kepler, Created. Kepler, considered one of the founders of modern Science, is well-known for his theories of planetary motion Which he built intricate models for: nesting planet after planet In wood-framed paper orbital shells, only to have the whole Thing collapse in front of him when the observational data Did not correlate with the math. It was then that he willingly Abandoned the model of perfect spherical orbits, nested one Within another, and realized the imperfect orbital ellipse Where celestial bodies no longer moved in perfection, but Wobbled their imperfect courses through the black ether It is, perhaps, to the consternation of modern scientists That he never gave up his theory of when the universe was Created, but does whether it is five thousand or thirteen Billion really make that much of a difference on sunny April Morning?

She'd driven that road more than a hundred times But each time she drove it, there were always subtle Differences in how the light played over the bastion Cliffs, banded white then black then rust red then Mottled tan.  The cliffs stood in a line--one--two-- Three, like soldiers on parade, the canyons between Their buttes, the slight divide between the soliders' Hands She'd driven that road more than a hundred times But each time she noticed something different In the blur of sage and yucca and peyote that Her car rushed by in a hissing roar. In early  Spring the cactus would bloom, followed by  The yellow sage, and then finally late in summer The rubber rabbit bush would boldly thrust their Yellow fronds into the hot afternoon air, swaying Gently She'd driven that road more than a hundred times But each time she felt the same, empty longing Of always coming and then going, of visiting And then leaving, of loving, and fearing, ...

What an odd number, twenty-five Is it one word like fifteen Or is it conjoined with a Hyphen?  Does it have nothing but Blank space? Is twenty-five some sort of Double baker's dozen, or do you Have to double every single donut-- Every cookie--and that would hand you Twenty-six? Twenty-five is one more hour Than a day. It is the time when Witches creep out of the dark Corners to conjure fiends from Hellfire A shave and a haircut used To cost twenty-five cents or Two bits.  You could not buy A shave for Just a single bit, However And of course, twenty-five is held Sacred by greedy children who Lay awake all night, waiting for The time when parents let them Arise Twenty-five is when you First really feel old. It is the age When you are should be done: Baked and frosted and put on Display Cast your spells in twenty-five words And you will summon the spirit of a Sweet confection glazed and worthy Of both childhood and adulthood Fantasy

Now that I think about it, I've never written about you Directly. I've written about you indirectly; you in the Background of the words, out of focus and blurred Like an extra in a crowd scene. The cameraman never Pulls focus on your face, although your presence is Undeniable My film goes nowhere without you, even though you Were cut from the production almost twenty years ago But you are like some unfocused Shakepearean ghost Always showing up when you least need a ghost, But seemingly always at the right time to move the plot Along

Gazing across the ocean, my third great grandfather Accounted for his time on board the great ship Reckoning the life and land passing away from him in Days and nights, nights and days, storm and calm Never to see the cold land that so mistreated him Ever again. Leaving it all behind in a foggy haze of Remorse

So much depends upon Those damn white chickens Stupidly running around in the Rain

tge blind okd mn sits imder the buddimg willoe contemolatomg birds (typed with left hand, eyes closed)

I was always embarrassed that I Can not swim. I have always Been embarrassed that I cannot Swim. I will always be embarrassed That I cannot swim.  Even Now when I admit this on Paper here, with watery blue Ink, I am embarrassed that I cannot Swim It is not, of course, that I have not tried to swim. It is not, of course, that I was not forced to swim. It is not, of course, that I Will still keep trying to swim. I will continue to try Like I did while at pool's edge, Waiting to take my lap in Gym, diving in, feeling water Split under me, feeling Myself sinking, dropping, Falling out of the Air Drowning I did not hear Coach Jump in after me, but I know it is him when I feel his arm cricle Around my chest pulling Me up and then across the Pool to the edge where The water laps.  I grab Tight onto the trough Between the edge and The deep "Why didn't you say you Couldn't swim?" he asks Panting.  I, feeling chlorine Sting my eyes, l...

The bird brain works differently than Other animals, that is for certain I once watched a flock of geese fascinated By shiny tin foil carelessly thrown by The wayside. They pecked and poked, Poked and pecked, until nothing of it Remained I wanted to grab them by the neck and Ask why they would eat tinfoil; why It so transfixed their bird immagination To wish to obliterate its existence but The bird brain works differently than Ours, and if I did try to grab one by Its sinuous neck, it would hiss and slap Me hard with its beclawed wing, until It could break loose and then attack My ass with its sharp, betoothed Beak

Aristotle said "One cannot say  of something that it is  and that it is not  in the same respect  and at the same time." Or he said "It is impossible that  the same thing belong  and not belong  to the same thing  at the same time  and in the same respect." Or he said  "No one can believe  that the same thing  can (at the same time)  be and not be." Or he said  "The most certain  of all basic principles  is that contradictory propositions are not true simultaneously." Or he said Those birds just spring Out of the mud, their Vegetative soul Intact While these in and of Themselves are not Contradictory Against the speaking Of which you forbid & Forfend yourself, they Hold three truths, or Three falsehoods, de- Pendant on the hanging Of the fruit from the Tree just before it drops to the ground and you Will never see it float Up It cannot float up since It canno...

Missing the bus And asking for help When your are lost Are capital crimes For young black Boys Playing with a toy Gun in a park is A capital crime For young black  Boys Walking in your  Neighborhood at  Night is a capital Crime for young black Boys Flirting with a  White woman is A capital crime For young black Boys Brennan Walker (2004- ), fourteen Tamir Rice (2002-2014), twelve Trayvon Martin (1995-2012), seventeen Emmett Till (1941-1955), fourteen

The morning fog breaks Over crowns of budding trees. Silence hovers near Making your ears ring with stark Expectation of the dawn.

For five hundred million years they have Fluttered their slow dance in warm waters Circling each other in blind pirouettes Light catching their tendril appendages Unseen While the land lay sharp and barren in the Burning ultraviolet, they performed their Gentle cumbia, starting with the right And then going back, then left in place Coming together now repeat on the left And back For millions of years the dance spun on And on, never changing, never growing Always repeating on the left and back While the world grew on and the land Became lush and green and sweet flowers Spread across the black sand voids, rock Broken by fibrous roots, drawing life From stone And their dance carries on to the roiling Undulant rhythm of blue green waves One after another after another after the Next.

My second great grandfather's ghost was said to haunt Our town's old elementary school. All the first graders knew About Old Archie. He was a tall, bleak figure who would Appear early in the morning while the children were still Sleepy from bed, and stand, ominously at the end of the Hall, by the stairs, where he would be just glimpsed out Of the corner of seven-year-old eyes.  It was only the First graders who ever saw him, but all the other graders Particularly the second graders always told first graders About him. Their tales of Old Archie were embellished with as much Gore as they could think of and how the tall and lanky Figure would capture children and, quite literally, scare Them to death.   Old Archie was angry and evil, you see A man tormented by children, it seems, a man who must Have done something vile in his life, something horribly Evil. You can imagine, then, when my sister started school That hearing her second great grandfather was a...

I've worked here for thirty years And so I'm going to find some Place on campus that I've never Been with my notepad in hand To write out what transpires in My brain if I find such a new Place As I set out from my office, I am Doubtful I will find it, that rare New thing in a place where I've Been for so many years so many Days so many hours, you get the Picture I speak to a colleague who is Obviously having a rough day-- I can see it in the way her eyes Are squinted, in how her mouth Shapes words before she says them I ask her if there might be some Place I've never seen or been or Experienced, and she lists off a Variety of spaces I have been and Seen and experienced.  "What About the former geocache?" She says, sweeping her hand Over her brow.  "It is by where The old Admin Building was." "Where?" I say, slightly excited For newness.  "Down in that Sunken patio by the Construciton Trades." ...

My sister was the first person to throw me out. Mom had died a couple of years before from Breast Cancer and my dad, well my dad was Never much use my grandma used to say And he left us to go back east for work when I just turned two. We never heard of him again. My mom tried to find him once, but the trail Went cold in Wyoming. We figured he might Have died. There was a lot of oil riggers in Rock Springs in the 70s and you know how Riggers are. She got one check from there And then nothing. Zip.  Nada. So yeah, Who knows. Mom had a lot of different jobs and a few Different boyfriends, but my home town is Pretty small and everybody knows everybody Else, you know what I mean, and it was hard For her to get by or get men or whatever you Know how it is, right?  But we got by ok but Not rich or nothing, but not so poor I was Starving.  It was just not easy because every Body looked down on us and they all thought Dad ran of and left my mom and of course...

Until you see the plum trees drooping pink You can not believe it would snow in April Or until you hear the crack of a branch breaking You will not believe it could snow in April But certainly, when the pink petals mix with white flakes You suddenly believe that it should snow in April The petals and the flakes settle over the fallen branch You believe you should not see such good snow in April So you stand before another tree, waiting and watching You wish the tree harm, but it withstood snow in April The tree is unharmed, but you suddenly find that You have a mean spirit that misunderstood snow in April

What they called a tree stood alone among the sage and rabbit bush Saddled between two cliff faces, like a  single, jagged tooth in a Derelict's smile. A pair of ravens went too and fro between the cliff Tops and the rounded, cloudy top of the cedar. Below, the local  Heard of cows would trample the sage and rabbit bush, blooming Amber yellow against the cork-white soil.  Where the cows have licked The peeling bark for its salt, a fetid ichor flows dark red, down the Trunk.   What they called a  Tree, scale leaves  Tipped with immature  Cones puffed green against The sky

I hold the pen in my hand like you would hold a knife A blank tablet lays on the seat of the chair I stand at I hear her across the kitchen, clanging a pot from the cupboard I stab at the tablet, and draw curlicues of what I think Are letters, but they are not letters and I am frustrated So I start to cry and throw the pen at the paper, it glances Off and skids across through the kitchen doorway to her Feet. "What's wrong?" she says, bending to pick up the pen  And I run to her, grabbing her legs, still wailing In my memory my dialogue with my mother is clear And concise, but I'm sure I was not as eloquent as  I think I was, but I ask her when I will be able to write. "When you go to school," she said patting caressing  My head.  Then the memory fades into blue winter Twilight.

A nice little hike up by Red Butte through Scrub oak only found here in the Wasatch You reach a place to rest the locals named The Living Room because they arranged The slabs of rock into couches, loungers, And chairs. You can sit in the Living Room The city splayed out below for your Entertainment. To the west where the lake still licks against The salty mud flats, a stream of planes Rise and fall, fall and rise in controlled Chaos.  Your eye, caught by a glinting flash Of reflected sun from a car on I-80 follows The road in to the center of town where Skyscrapers, toylike, like some miniature Village, cluster at the bottom of the hill From the black-copper-domed state capitol Building You look in vain to spot your own house, Squinting at the cluster of buildings that Should be where it is, but you are unsure and Uncertain if that really is your tiny dot of A house.  But it has to be somewhere there The big roads you can identify easily and It just ...

My father's gloves were worn in with grease, Tan pig skin blackened with work on the farm Their certain smell of fresh cut alfalfa, acrid With sweat and oil and petroleum distillates There was a developing hole in the crotch of Leather between the thumb and the index finger From grabbing bales by the twine and flinging Them hard to the cows who waited impatiently At trough, bellowing and slapping their necks Against the broad haunches of their sisters to Gain the best stall, and maybe get a pat on the Head from my father's gloved hand, blackened By work After my father died, all those years ago, I put on His gloves. They had stiffened with time passed And the sweet smell of hay had long since faded But the leather was still black with his work The developing hole still worn in the webbing My hands were loose in the shell of his hands So much smaller, like a child's hands cupped in his Father's

When the music swelled out of his cheap laptop speakers, He felt the expected tug of memory of spy movies about The KGB and Mi6, of an age where political ambiguity Ran free While he counted himself a bit of a connoisseur of music-- He was almost a music major in college, after all-- He still could not break the habit of only thinking of music In terms of mood and evocation, of emotion emoting and Feeling He really should be thinking about music, reasoning with It, exploring the complexity of patterns, the mathematical Interactions--the calculus of chords--the trigonometry of  Tonal shape Yet all he could think of was a spy, leaning against a building Snow ticking across his face while he waited for night to  Fall

Keats wrote about wine and bubbles "winking at the rim" Screw that, I'm going to write about beer.  Beer. That's right Beer. No "beakers of the warm south" of the "blushful Hippocrene" Just light pale yellow piss water 3.2 beer that is mocked for Its aluminum-canned goodness, and jeered at as pedestrian for Simpletons No, no, I shall sing of shit beer--loudly and drink three more Without even winking at the rim, sharp silver cutting my lip I might even believe I hear a nightingale after six, and I'm sure That I know the answers to everything and that I am the best Poet And it is all the same, because like Keats, I'll be drunk then And no matter how much you fancy up being drunk with References to Bacchus and his pards or viewless wings of Poetry cluster'd around by Fays like some fucking bad Victorian tableaux, you are still drunk, and it is called "passing out" I'll fade then into the tender arms of ...

1. For a split second when you were checking in, You thought you had fooled the machine and It was going to let you upgrade to first class But no, when you clicked seat 1A the screen Darkened, and a red frame box popped up over The map of first class seats, so spacious in their Layout "This cabin experience is not available to you" For a moment you are sad that it didn't even Say "sorry," but then were happy that it didn't Mock your bank balance, or note how sore Your knees would be by the end of the flight "This cabin experience is not available to you" You click the box closed, and go back to Economy 2. The person in front of you is the kind of person Who makes the most of their lot in life and Leans back into you.  You are not the kind of Person that makes the most of your lot in Life, but you struggle to not push that little Silver disk which is currently gouging your Thigh But hey, you have a window seat, at least th...

"Remember that one year you planted out Too soon? Those tomatoes you spent three months Coddling just curled up black against the black Earth You should really know better than trying That again mister, such a shame to waste Springtime hope like that if you know what I Mean You don't?  Well don't go planting your toma- Toes when it is just April. You never know When we'll get snow around here. Frost hits us Hard" The neighbor leans on his shovel harder Emphasizing words with his hand cupped on The handle top. You hate him since he is Right And planting out now will lead to certain Doom, but, there is always a chance that wave Of warm hope on the Pacific will not Fail And you will be two weeks ahead of this Shovel-leaning buffoon who scoffs at your Temerity to push the bounds of last Frost " Write a poem about failure, or about a time you failed."

You furrow soil With your hands Building shallow Mounds to dent in The seeds When the earth warms They loosen and split Swallowing the rain Quietly in the loamy Darkness Even the hardest shell Will crack under the  Embryonic pressue Pushing to breach the  Surface There is love inside Waiting in the dark Until it is just warm Until it is just moist Enough The seedling explodes Dividing the good  Earth, reaching upward Outward, onward  To light Seed leaves, at first Tender, but then  Hardened like  Butterfly wings Splay out They are the seed Itself, transformed Made manifest and Green against the dark Rich soil Cotyledon, ancients Might have called them Cup-shaped hollow Cupped, anything hollow Filled up "Write a love poem about a seemingly ordinary or mundane task.