12-30-2008 Ben Franklin didn’t invent those so you could do girl push-ups while reading “The Secret”

Hit your nemeses. Hit your cages. Hit
illusions you can push against to lift
your smallerrelativemass high. Submit
your mind to measure every minor shift

of thought and flesh – each consequence that comes
from challenging the ruler-headed gods.
How can you warp a word to fit a sum
of endless terms? How can you know a nod

that can’t consent? Creations spawned like jars
of lightning from mans quaking thighs may pull
your vision tree to page. But how the stars
or mitochondria see you swells full

of acts for which there are unequal
and unopposite pleas, wheedles and demands.

12-28-2008 Where’s that pencil going next?

Come near the splashing, near the stream. Come near
the waking of my dreams. And let your wrists
fall flashing cool, into the rushing fears
that you’ll remain unkissed or I’ll resist.

Such slender stirs improve on eyes that sense
a bloated branch arise and claim they know
my passage well enough to bridge and fence
my swelling undertow. Let currents flow

as others carve their ditches there in haste
to irrigate their arid minds. The drips
they catch will dry before a mouth can taste
their lies. Come near and dip your fingertips

between the wav’ring emptiness, and hold
the shiver gently while each moment folds.