poem

 An Idea of Order

Some poems are very straight forward

I have an idea in mind and via a series

Of conjured thrusts I’m able to express it

Either clearly or necessarily abstruse

For example, the kind of poem

Where you almost get the sense 

I’m trying to tell you

I love you but when you read it again

The words aren’t there

Another kind of poem pries 

At the essence of love 

Pre-configuring the existence 

Of us. Do plants love 

When turned toward the sun?

Is it neurotransmitters alone?

Would it count if you could

Take it as a pill?

Would you really want to?

The deepest kind of poem 

Gets lost in its own darkness.

Down here defines "absence of light" 

Nothing you write will ever be seen 

And no one is allowed to speak.

In this place the love is so heavy

It sinks straight to the bottom. 

What rises to the surface 

Is what’s left of the poem

11/4/25

poem

 Ugly

No, the poem doesn't define me.

Don’t be silly. You don’t know me.  

Yes, everything in it is true

But only momentarily

Here’s a picture of me 

With braces and acne and a horrible mullet,

Insecurity oozing through the polaroid

Like hospice wing sweat

Look at me now

Still ugly

In the same way

Poems are beautiful

11/4/25

poem

 The Loser

Too often I’ve found myself on the short 

End of the stick. Wrong side of the 

Scoreline. Bone side of the meat.

All that losing makes you better!

Is what I told myself 

That’s how you get stronger.

I had no interest in easy wins 

So I kept picking opponents who

Got harder and harder.

Loss after loss after loss

I began to lose track of what I was even doing

I’d look out the window and see all these people celebrating—

Fireworks and horns honking and minivans on fire

Does it really feel that good?

It didn’t affect me at all

I was already looking for the next match.

Many misinterpreted this dispassionate equipoise

As the hallmark of the enlightened loser 

Who had somehow learned to transcend the dead

End of strictly outcomes-based valuations

And has found the pure realm of endless competition

In a game that no one was ever meant to win

And maybe there’s some truth there but more than that,

I found the biggest adrenaline rush came from

Giving everything I had just to keep it close,

To make them have to earn it.

For instance, put me in the middle of the ocean

And watch how long I can tread water—

I’ll show you the archetype of the noble

Martyr who eventually 

Sinks in the middle of nowhere

And is never seen again.

People respect you for that.

Walk away with your chin held high. 

Next time, they won’t underestimate you.

The problem with winning is it makes 

Losing seem especially bad.

You start to want to win all the time

And that only leads to corruption.

You start looking for rigged games,

Games you’ve learned how to manipulate—

Your arms scaly with aces

Slid up your sleeves,

Up all night reading the answers

On the back of all the trivia cards,

A pair of dice in your pocket

Weighted with your most closely guarded secret.

Every time you try to chuck it against the wall

Its number always seems to come up.

Nowadays those games are called 

Suburbia and Tenure and Made Partner

No one plays Meritocracy anymore, it’s gauche.

I’ve considered playing the one called

Professional Degree II: Economic Security

In these games, once you get in, you’re safe

You never lose

Win after win after win

Or at least that’s how it appears to those watching.

But the longer you play something shifts 

You start to figure things out

Learn to rely on old familiar patterns

Like paths in the woods behind

Your childhood home.

Every time you play, it’s always the same game 

Ending the same way— back at your house

With the wasp nests and tuna casserole 

Again for dinner, rabbits 

In the unruly hedges 

Mourning the dry September grass. 

It’s all so predictable 

Which is the moment when it stops

Being fun.

You begin to think of it as your Life

Which is why this all feels so

Deadening. 

If we were smart we’d make everything a game

But never keep score

There would be no way of knowing

If what was happening 

Would soon be ending 

Or was only just beginning.

What are the odds of that?

11/4/25

poem

 A.I Obits

Hands steady on the helm of the family vessel christened Massie, the recently deceased captain we knew as Gerald or Jerry or Dad or PoePa guided us all to the brink of his own demise. Whether working in the garden pulling flowers or tending to his official Post Office duties before retirement after 30 deliverable years he was always a smiling face in the mean face of storms and adversity. Sometimes when we look at the sky the sun is so bright it inflames your eyes. And sometimes it’s just tears that he is gone. Please note the hearing in probate court has been announced if you are interested in finding out who receives the collection of laminated Marvel comic books. See also the county website for times and directions to free parking. But his greatest legacy will be the chicken marsala recipe he forgot to write down but was watched enough times to remember.  

Although death is the final frontier, Conrad always enjoyed a good cruise, especially the all-inclusive ones that disembarked from Fort Lauderdale, state of Florida in 1988, pictures of which can still be seen on the mantle of the house in Lodi where his late wife still clings to the last branches of her tree of life. Those pictures are in a box now and if you want to see them in lieu of sending flowers please send a donation to Meandering Lanes Memory Care Unit where his widowed wife will soon be going. To this day she still enjoys a good practical joke. The crinkling at the corners of her rheumy eyes. She won't believe that he’s gone until he drops the punch line and laughter can also be a robust source of tears. 

Survived by wife (Jeanne) survived by (son) Steve. Survived by Manny (trusted handyman) Preceded in death by the vast majority of all living beings. Survived by pets (Corsair and Coriolanus) Survived by everything he’s left behind (polo shirts, poems, concert ticket stubs). Survived by what he should have taken with him (Sheila’s resentment, Bob’s jealousy, his Topps baseball card collection). Survived by his three most redeeming characteristics, as per the calling hours sign-in survey (he was silly when the situation seemed most dire and dead serious about making you laugh, to let you know he loved you he sent love letters written in the style of unsentient robots, he cried in any movie where a little boy missed his dad) Survived by the three people who will remember him last (grand niece Mira, second cousin in Michigan Carlton who helped him find his car while leaving in the dark, granddaughter baby who unfortunately has not been born yet but will tomorrow). Survived by (god) by (love) by (time) by ( ).

Anyone who ever knew a how come kind of woman like Marge will delaminate the skin of their reflections as they peel back the vague images of repression of fathers who used to never come home or weren’t welcome there anyway and see for real the absolute necessity of keeping your head down and staying out of trouble, being a good girl and finishing top three in every race. Marge never complained not even once when the first pangs of Braxton-Hicks sent her scuffling for the valium hidden in the bottle labeled “vitamins” in the deep recesses of the medicine cabinet behind the mirror where every morning she used to croon Joy Division about love will tear us apart and now bringing us all back together again to celebrate a vastly underrated life.  

Although her physical presence will no longer be permissible, Irene’s non-physicality will live on in the form of various hazy memories and flashes of recognition currently held by her living loved ones, until they too pass on from this earth. Then it’s over. Utterly. Words written in water, as Keats said, who was her favorite poet who ever carved his transience into stone. But truly that wasn’t the measure of her. Teacher, educator, pants-enhancer. Oral historian of the lives of various backyard birds. She was one of a kind, as all aspire to be. When it ends we hope someone has saved some pictures, not the one where she looks frumpy and disheveled in her apron in the kitchen after Thanksgiving. Even if it’s something as silly as every time you eat meatloaf it reminds you of her. Or lima beans. Or a glazed ham wrapped in cellophane in the fridge. These too can be savored.

11/4/2025