O Captain

Great, he thought,
Now I have to reinvent myself
I thought I was your pin-up
I thought I was your poster-boy
With the winning smile and Adonis torso
… I want to be your Adonis torso
I want to be your face-man, but moreso
I want to be your sharper image
And now I have to reinvent myself
Now I have to hone my skills
In the “ability to be captain” department
Well, he supposed, with detached comportment
Good thing it’s an extended weekend
With adequate time for reinvention

(The Birth of a Dead Poet)

Flip Email

Don’t think about
The implications of that juxtaposition
It’s all in your head
It’s nothing at all
I called you treats ‘cause you’re so sweet
And tree ‘cause you’re so tall

Don’t think about
The comic mischief of my declaration
It’s non-ironic
And nothing at all
I called you inch ‘cause you’re inch-credible
I called your bluff
‘Cause bluffs get called

June 14

We do birthdays like
We do tomatoes
Every year
In our backyard

We do birthdays like
We do taxes
Every year
With trepidation

And somewhere between tomatoes and taxes
Between the trepidation
And the gas fired kilns
I suppose we do birthdays like
We do most things
By default

(28 feels a lot like 27)

The Manchurian

What he was supposed to do
What he was prepared to do
What he was trained to do
What he was expected to do
What he was instructed to do
What he was conditioned to do
What he was longing to do
What he was willed to do
What he was convinced to do
What he was determined to do
What he was scared to do
What he was waiting to do
What he was itching to do
What he was going to do
What he was fated to do
What he was engineered to do

(Door-to-Door to a Door Near You)

Your Valuables

In a rain barrel
In a hail storm
On the front porch
On the front lawn
In a teacup
In a coffee pot
On a trainwreck
On a moon shot
In a tin can
On an ice floe
In a locked box
On the Love Boat

(Between your front lawn and the moon shot, lives get lived)