tangential fall
Squirrelly lines
that would have told a story
but got lost
somewhere along the way,
tangled
in someone else’s
loose ends.

villein
Comfortable inside a pleasant garden
bristling
at the wrongs done to me
yesterday.

I’ve set up
thick walls with a bossy surface
that repels the very notion
of hospitality;
get it –
stay away from me.

It’s my neighbors again
as the shadows begin to descend
up to old tricks,
windows open to the moonlight
leaving me
with glimpses of sparkling chandeliers,
ceilings painted in decadent colors;
I don’t know what they do in there
but I’ve had visions
of great balls,
unmentionable games,
love making –
in brilliant rooms
I’ll never see.

traffic obstruction
Bumped by pedestrians
honked at by cars
rammed by baby carriages
and delivery carts.

You curse at me,
I curse at you,
then we wave our hands
and move on.

nihil nimis
Dry in speech,
frugal,
pessimistic,
queer perhaps,
but disabused.

I hide my private life
like a miser;
I make my consumption
not conspicuous.

I govern outward display
by putting my austerity on the line,
simplicity,
economy of effect,
a sparse world prevails.

No, ma’am, I tell her,
you already gave me alms today
and I’ll beg
but only so much.

love stratified and strained ii
Is it the necessity
of a more precise definition
or
is it the possibility
of a more precise definition?

Thinkers bend
all their powers
to the task of expressing
a half-intuitive dichotomy.

Yet I knew you loved me from the beginning;
all the knots you tied yourself up in
were merely a means
of telling yourself
otherwise.

Perception starts
with imagination
but what you saw in me
was real
before you lost it
to the ghost.