Poems

I suppose it had to happen
later or sooner
given a temperament of sentiment
lacquered with cynicism
such as mine

I’ve gone and fallen in love
with Marilyn Monroe,
joined yearning millions,
her viral pheromone relayed
posthumously via digitized celluloid

(a comment on her
transcendent power
or my susceptibility?
you may well ask—
ah, I cannot judge)

As a man, of course
(we’re metal drawn from an ancient forge,
tools in service to an iterative master);
but as an actor, too:
her skills sublime

even in the narrow band they let her broadcast.
Or perhaps that was
the breadth of her repertoire; no matter—
a tune divine enraptures
as sonata or symphony.

not far from
the evening moon's
bright belly,
a tiny pink cloud,
lit by sunset --
cherryblossom,
pink as petals
floating in a river
of darkening blue.
why does it matter?
I stare at it, all other thoughts
pushed aside, so I can
contemplate the beautiful,
memorize it, just
so I can write this later.
not for the poem's sake,
no, but for the sky's.

A table shows
what eyeball knows
and deeper watchers in the blood:

the days increase
and sunlight's lease
within our lives goes flood.

Two minutes more
and yet two more
now farther is the night

I stretch into
this new milieu
as daylight fills my grateful sight.

I have five minutes
Before the cat interrupts me
With cries of "let me in"
Which are so similar to his cries of
"let me out"
uttered just now.

This demanding animal
My constant companion
The devil who sits on my shoulder
The mirror which shows my true face

Like a benign tumor
He has become entwined around my lungs
my brain, my heart
He will remain there, doing no harm
Just stretching his sinewed arms around my organs
To catch his claws a centimeter farther
To own me a little more

speed past the minutes,
fingers, like tiny
racehorses. make haste.
make sense. make me into an
insta-poet, flipping that switch
that turns on the wordlight.
can horses flip switches?
no matter. they can switch
their tails, running fast across
those keys, spitting out
well-broken prose
that is so much like
a poem you would
swear, it really was one.