I Met You

“I met you,” the stranger said.
I knew he hadn’t, but why?
Still there he stood, silence bred.
“I met you,” the stranger said.
Furtive moment, eyes ahead,
outstretched hands with what words nigh?
“I met you,” the stranger said.
Mathieu from Quebec, no lie.

Disavowal: To Whom it May Concern

In the adventures of who
on the back streets of now
lies an other you know
a reverse sacred cow.

Strange looking thing,
too twisted to tell
whose reflections it hides
in that mirror from hell.
                           
God knows why it chose here
to get under my skin.
Now some other saint
can take this shrill in.

I never signed on
to bear this great weight.
Dislodge the anchor.
Let's set this ship straight.

With a kingdom to build,
my best years ahead,
can’t give up my dreams,
to love you instead.

Legitimation Crisis

Perhaps the abject other
deserves to be feared
and loathed.

After all,
if it weren't so damn strange,
we would have embraced it
as one of our own.

To Whom it May Concern

In the adventures of who
on the back streets of now,
lies an other you know,
a reverse sacred cow.

Strange looking thing,
too twisted to tell
what dangers it hides
in that mirror from hell.

The Same as an Other

When who others an other,
who remains the same?

An-other Minimalist

When who others whom,
who benefits.

Othering

What makes the other "other"?
Is it the definite article?

Binaries in the Mine

Binaries in the mine
fly through toxic air
for dwellers unaware.

Or not.

Talk-Over

You can’t hide the greasy irony
dripping too quickly upside
that warmed up talk-over

trashing the possibility
of someone speaking
something you don’t
already know.

Minimalist

Absence makes the art grow fodder.

Threshold

Nancy writes herself
into existence
as her body
goes away.

Story beckons
through the threshold
of death borne again.

Nothing I Write

Nothing I write
appears to be
something.

I wonder if,
so transformed,
memory reaches
for a time

when the nothing
that matters
speaks.

Dragonfly Muse Blues

The good knight returns
while dragonfly a-muses
herself in absence.

Fellow Traveler

I have watched you
romp
with flaming fury
for long enough to ponder
how the knight leaves
the chessboard well
and gently turns
to the dragonfly
at dawn.

(... and in that gilded backlight,
new life begins.)

Through Still Life Shadows

There’s nothing here
so I move on
to something else
outside my grasp

where nothing matters
through closed expectations
and sedimentations
already there.

Strange body I live
mediating reflections
of still life shadows
in the open field of perception.

Nothing Matters

I have not,
or so I thought,
as it slipped through my fingers
onto the field.

Nothing to Write Home About

I have nothing to write,
not here, not now
as something slips my mind,
trading souvenirs of time
for fruitful things forgotten.

Graduating Textures

You were a child once
playing with your hands
in the classroom,
tormenting teachers
who thought you should
be focused
on more serious subjects.

You were a teenager not long ago
seeking some wild place
and identity to call your own
while you bent words and rules
and turned your sail
toward bursting colors
of curious exploration.

Now a young man
with graduating textures,
you work your vision
of art and life
through the craft that calls
beyond this dazzling threshold
to the self you will become.

Advanced Workshop

Move in closer.
Take it to the next level.
Eliminate background noise.
Follow your passion.
You’re almost there.
There are no rules.

Inertia

Immaculate Conception

It is tempting to think of the camera
as objectivity in a box
exposing real things to light

with no body in particular
behind the lens
prodding, guiding, clicking
turning, moving, framing

miraculously conceived images
without echo
of some active body within
a very particular somewhere.

Chronic Pane

You can see the world itself
from the window of my sole --

      as long as you are me

      at this moment in time

      and don't change.

Oedipus Wrecks and other Ex

you all know
that very old story
of the little fish
that got a way
with words
at home
where the son
don’t shine
out of daddy’s
assets
and mommy
lets the children
play house
in the dark
all day,
don’t you?

Take Your Cabal and Go Home

In / Verse

I don’t know how you come here
thwarting the norm
next to the hive
avoiding the swarm.

Whatever your reasons
you thought were your own
you can take your cabal
now all the way home.

Regularly Scheduled Program Blues

Notch your regularly scheduled program
with recycled vice
in the word bender
wonder machine
where you spin
that everyday maché.

Any Other Way

I never knew any other way to be who I am
without your constant watchful eye
     clinging and clamoring for more
           of me than I could give
                to fill that special place
                that you must build
                     for those you devour.

Nothing to See Here Homily

Lamentation can give ear to deafening silence,
      and voice to the particularly gritty experience of pain,

      when

           openness to stressed embodiment
           through shared human solidarity

                forge a way for you and me,
                     intertwining together.

Or not.

K/Nowhere an Exile Returns for Not

Now deep in the abyss of uncertainty,

      I let go of the frenetic world that seduces

           from a healthy distance

      while dysappearing presence cripples

           the open embrace of embodied chaos.


There is no certain place to turn here,

      no objective lie that rises

           above the fray,

      no ebbing body ably hiding

           unforsaking absence.


Between here and now

      I feel the not that composes

          within ailing silence

           a new refrain of freedom:

                                    I am a critical body.

                                    Now here, I live on.

Collective Agreement: Workplace Rules

- Do process
- Just 'cuz

If Nothing Changes Nothing

- It’s time to change the little nothings.
- No one pretends to be home but the lights are on.
- Someone gains with nothing ventured.
- Something is going on.

Postmodern Multiple Choice

A. Right or wrong
B. True or false
C. None of the above
D. All of the above
E. Both C and D

If Nothing Changes

- The status quo queues.
- I think it’s all about me.
- Hegemony Cricket whistles a happy tune.
- Memory fails to pine.
- The buck stops here.

Nothing Changes if Nothing Changes

What’s up with the new GM libidinal economy today?

“Go deeper. Go harder. Go faster.
. . . You get in; you get out quickly”
(Fritz Henderson. GM Interim CEO).

Does anyone else think that this is the best plan to bolster a free-falling industry?

Inertia

Inertia is a relentless predator that clings and stalks as memory pines.

Rule #2

Watch carefully the demise of Rule #1. Then start over.

Theory of Communication

"Stay where you're to, til I comes where you’re at."

(from a traditional Newfoundland expression and folk song)

A Dandelion Ride: Jump in and Hang On

“Where do we get” (if meaning is not univocal)?

* The threshold of experience as lived

* The soup kitchen of the unconscious

* To a house that polyvalence built
     (a tricky mistress with overlapping suitors)

* Murky rapids across homeworlds of understanding

* An existential train station where “we” is not the chosen vehicle but a question of destination

* The way of the dandelion

* A choice of context

* Back to the fork in the road: What makes a thing what it is?

Nausea

Somehow you manage to worm your way into the recesses of my gut,

     t
      w
     i
      s
       t
     i
       n
          g,

                goading,

                      meddling

                           like a jackhammer in jello.

I don’t know why I play with you any more.

One for the Hopper

Words as empty vessels make turn styles for deceit.

Wry Bred and Water (A Love Song)

I learned to be wry to survive as a child bit player
     in my family theater
     while you were bred on the rock
          of North Atlantic grit.

When we found each other’s hand
     on the coastline of alterity,
I discovered that we wry and bred
     could sustain each other
          in our journey home together.

“Let My Conscience Be Your Guide.”

A 1990s Ode at the Birth of Hegemony Cricket

Don’t slowly turn and walk away.
Break the silence.
Face the fear.
Stop the terror.
Speak the truth.
Embrace alterity.
Counter hegemony.

Something Old, Someone New

Despite the best in modern scientific resources, Humpty Dumpty has fallen and can't get up. His egg-shell exterior lays scattered in pieces across the post-familiar terrain. Once monitoring the world from a privileged position on the wall above, his fractured self is now openly subjected to the scrutiny of others below. Some of his supporters invest their considerable authority in futile efforts to put him back together again. Others cheer privately or publicly at his demise and fall.

Humpty can never be his old Self again -- despite the best of intentions.

Rule #1

Rules are made to be broken.